For our wedding anniversary, my husband and I decided to spend a few days at the ocean.  We live about two and a half hours from a small resort town called Ocean Shores.  We like to stay at the Polynesian, a three star condominium hotel facing the water.

Of course we took our poodles Huck and Woody with us.  They’ve been visiting the Polynesian with us for over thirteen years.  The manager knows them well and extends them special privileges because they have a history of being better behaved than most children.

The dogs were excited to arrive and visit the doggie area before inspecting our room.  The doggie area at the Polynesian includes a circular walk through the dunes and back to the hotel.  Oh the sniffing that can be done on the doggie walk!  This is the first lesson of the beach.  Even the mundane necessary is full of interesting things.

The Polynesian sits back from the ocean behind about a quarter mile of dunes.  The dunes are thickly inhabited with deer and birds.  They are a poodle dog’s idea of paradise. 

You know, a dog has a very different manner of walking through the dunes to the beach than a human does.  A human hunches their shoulders against the wind and starts off on a brisk hike toward the goal of the beach.  The dog stops to sniff the clumps of grass. They wade in a puddle of water and stand on top of a dune surveying the wonders of nature around them. 

This is the second lesson of the beach.  Enjoy the journey to get there.  Stop and look at what is around you.  I take my camera and try to see the dunes through the eyes of my dogs when they just stop and look in all directions.  

Eventually the dogs arrive on the beach emerging from between two dunes in a bundle of joy and energy.  Gone is the contemplative joy of watching and sniffing.  Both doggies burst into a run and dance in a large circle around us.  They raise their faces towards the wind as it blows their ears away from their face.  The beach is for running and leaping. 

A beach that has been swept by the sea, still contains a thousand things to investigate—a discarded shell, a feather, even sea foam.  Huck and Woody were particularly curious about a sand castle that was slowing dissolving in the wind.

Eventually, the dogs settled down to walk beside us in as companions on our journey down the beach.  Still, I could not help but be aware that they see more than I see.  They notice every detail.  They love every moment of the experience of the wind, the sand, and the sound of the ocean.  This is the third lesson of the beach.  See the details and appreciate them.

The poodles watch people and greet other dogs.  They don’t bother the dog who is gleefully chasing a ball or the serious service dog guiding his master along the shore above the line of the surf.  Still, there are other dogs who become instant friends and they burst into running in joyful circles with their new-found companion.  This is the fourth lesson of the beach to share your joy with those you meet.

At the end of three days, our brief vacation came to an end.  It’s always good to spend time with the man I married.  It’s good to get away from my household and garden chores.  However, the things that I take away from the experience are the lessons I learned from my dogs.  Who could be depressed or feel empty and alone if they could learn to see and to enjoy as my two poodles see and enjoy?

Since we are approaching Palm Sunday, Holy Week and Easter Sunday, I thought I’d offend most everybody I know by offering my understanding of the Bible.  I was raised in a mainstream church where the emphasis in Sunday School was on how to get along with other people.  As I later came to realize, this was a pretty good background for understanding the Bible.  As an adult, I took a two-year graduate level course in lay ministry—again a good perspective for understanding the Bible.

Currently, I am an active United Methodist.  Methodists are fortunate in one respect in that John Wesley, our founder, instructs us to ask the question, “Does this make sense or is it right?”  We get to throw out all sorts of silly doctrine by saying it is just that—nonsensical silly doctrine.

Today I want to talk about the Bible as a book of wisdom.  Some people like to use the Bible as a history book or a science book.  This approach doesn’t pass Wesley’s fourth test of rightness or sense.  It doesn’t work as a historical or scientific text because it conflicts with too much of what we know in those fields.  I’ve often suspected, in a half-jealous manner, that those who use the Bible as a history or science text get away with a lower quality of behavior than those who look at the book as the collective wisdom of humankind.

Within theological circles there exists a very legitimate faction that looks as the Bible as a story of wisdom.  Many of the books are blatantly wisdom literature especially the much loved books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

When the Bible is regarded as the collective wisdom of the Israelite, Persian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman peoples, it becomes a rich tapestry of stories about life and love.  We learn how to live in community.  We learn how to deal with adversity.  We learn about civil disobedience and when it is necessary.  One of the most beautiful stories is about Queen Esther and her act of civil disobedience that saved her people.

The Song of Songs is a beautiful chapter about passion between a man and a woman.  We have a whole chapter devoted to love and sex.  If the reader can, drag their thoughts away from the breasts, staff and loins in the chapter, I think it tells us a great deal about our relationship to each other, to our communities and to the calling of the wisdom.  In short, it tells us that humankind is all too likely to drag wisdom into the alley and beat the crap out of it.  Talk about a story for our political climate!

Justice and love are the constant themes in this amazing book.  We can read story after story about those who are imperfect rising to the occasion to save the day.  The lesson is that we don’t have to be perfect to act for justice.  Over and over again the common person, a prostitute, the second daughter, a young girl, the youngest son, a shepherd, or a tax collector is the person who turns the tide of history.  This is the collective wisdom of the centuries.  Common people are important.  We can make a difference, and we do make a great difference in the larger picture. 

Part of the wisdom story tells us that laws don’t work very well.  We have a better and a much higher calling to act in love toward all humans.  In pop-theology as in pop-psychology, the temptation is to establish a set of unrealistic petty goals and condemn those who don’t measure up.  This is a theme that is repeated over and over in the Bible.  The message of Easter is that those rules don’t work.  We are to be free from petty laws and adhere to the law of living in love with everybody.

Looking at the Bible as a book of wisdom sets us free to love one another, enjoy our communities and to explore the intricacies of our magnificent cosmos.