Well, dear reader, today finds me standing on the shores of the mighty and beautiful Lake Huron. Ostensibly, I am here for a round of golf with friends, but truth be told, the golf is almost incidental. (And depending on how my swing goes today, it may be just as well that it remains incidental.) This land, this stretch of Ontario, has a beauty of its own that sneaks up on me—rather like a golf ball that hooks left when you were sure it was going straight.
This is not very far from where I grew up, in Tilbury East Township, where the land is so flat that the mere sight of a highway overpass can cause spontaneous mountain-climbing expeditions. As a boy, I scarcely noticed it. Flatness was simply the natural state of things, and one did not remark upon it any more than one remarks that the sun rises in the east. But now, at my age, I look at it differently. The wide, sweeping fields of grain are no longer just crops; they are golden seas, shimmering in the light. They remind me of my father’s work and of the countless meals that came from soil like this.
And then there is the lake — immense, powerful, mysterious. When I was young, it was “just the lake.” Today, standing on its shore, it strikes me with an awe I never felt before. The immensity of it feels like a parable of God Godsself: vast, unfathomable, life-giving, and not to be trifled with.
So I pause today — not just to line up a putt, but to give thanks. Thanks for having grown up on that farm, for the privilege of helping to grow the food that fed so many, for the blessing of being surrounded by three Great Lakes within a short drive. It is one of those moments when the ordinary becomes extraordinary, when what seemed commonplace reveals itself to be holy ground.
Perhaps that’s the real round I came to play today — not just golf, but a round of gratitude. For in the end, everything we have and everything we are begins and ends in the gracious love of God. Or, as the psalmist put it so well: “The earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it” (Psalm 24:1)