Daily Truth Mar. 30, 2022
It is best to do all things with all your heart.
I must admit, my family is quite fun to be around. There is an overriding sense of enjoyment we have for life, that people can feel when they are around us.
We are currently on spring break in South Carolina, a place none of us had surprisingly ever been. Although we are staying out at the beach on a nearby island, we ventured into Charleston last night for dinner and a guided tour to learn about the “dark side” of the holy city: prostitution, murder, political corruption and pirates with venereal disease…all the typical stuff you take your teenage daughter and her best friend to learn about on spring break. I also told them after the plantation tour earlier in the day, I would be giving them a quiz on some real American history. I am confident they’ve learned more on this trip than they have in history class, at their public schools, this entire year. But I digress.
We had dinner at a fabulous restaurant in the historic section of Charleston (the restaurant is Anson, if you ever have the chance to visit) where we dined in our typical, leisurely, 2.5 hour fashion. It doesn’t matter if we are at a five star restaurant or a walk-up counter, one of our favorite aspects of traveling is trying all of the local foods, indicative of the culture and area we are visiting. The South has some of our favorite dishes: fried green tomatoes, hush puppies, pimento grits, soft-shell crab, pecan pie…not the typical things we see on a menu in North Idaho. Food made from ingredients with a rich history, that tell the story of the people who have been here for centuries.
Per usual, we learned a little bit about our waiter’s story whose family has been in Charleston for 300 years and whose childhood home in downtown Charleston was purchased by his dad in the 1950’s for $50,000 and recently sold for $4.4 million. (Not a bad investment by the way) We started the meal off with a few favorite appetizers, moved onto She Crap Soup and a salad which has me vowing to learn how to make a proper green goddess dressing when I return home. I’m not a big salad fan so for me to be raving about a salad is really saying something. As the food expeditor brought our entrees, he said to us, “y’all are in a for a real treat” and the maitre d’ made a point of coming over to tell us he liked the way we eat…we clearly “know how to do dinner right.”
When we finally finished up our desserts, the maitre d’, who by this time was in shock at 4 northerns who don’t weigh 300 lbs. each, came back to our table to compliment us again on how well we dine. I explained to him that this is how we do life. Whatever we are doing, we are doing with pure excitement and enjoyment.
Whether it be dining, taking a walk on the beach, riding a subway in a less than desirable area of a metropolitan city, or driving the western coastline in an RV, which unbeknownst to us, requires emptying the “black water” each and every day, we are soaking it all up. We love life and all of the experiences it affords us.
We love the people we meet and the stories they share with us that leave a lasting impact or at the very least a funny story. Even the assholes we encounter from time to time leave us with something to remember them by.
As I grabbed my coffee and crawled back into bed to write this article this morning, I was excited to crack open the Bible I purchased at a plantation we visited on our explorations yesterday. I don’t actively read the Bible, although I am very familiar with its stories due to my Christian upbringing. This particular Bible contains The New Testament in Gullah, Sea Island Creole with marginal text of the King James Version. The woman who suggested it gave a presentation during our plantation visit that moved my heart.
She told the story of her people who were brought to Charleston from West Africa for no reason other than to work the land for the profit of others. She sang short pieces of slave songs and gave us insight into her language and culture. At the end of her presentation, she sang these words with a voice you could feel inside your soul. “It is your story. It is our story. It is HIS-tory,” as she raised her head and hands up towards the heavens.
She was embracing her story and the story of unfathomable suffering of her ancestors with praise for God.
Quoting the Bible is not something I do but I was compelled to look up a verse that came to me as this woman sang praise; a verse about doing all things for the glory of God. Once I located it on Google, I paged through my new “De Nyew Testament” I purchased at this woman’s prompting, to find the verse as she would have read it:
Colossians 3:23 Ebryting ya da do, mus do um wid all ya haat, jes liek ya da do um fa we Lawd Jedus…
Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord…
If this woman can tell the wretched story of her people’s past and radiate love with her whole heart, we can certainly carry out our roles in life with ours.
Do all you do in life with your whole heart.