Castaway Cay
A Great Place to Rest from Soap Operas
April 2010
Genesis 18:4 NIV
"Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree."
Seems like the end of the school year is filled with too much teenage drama.
I live in a daily soap opera. As the leading villain, my job as school marm is to stress out happy-go-lucky hip-hopping students at "the high" who only have two weeks left of school. If I don't stop assigning work, or tests, or stories to read, the producers may soon write me out of the script.
My dad's mother was a soap opera fan back in the days when they aired live over the radio. She and her daughters, especially my Aunt Hazel, listened to them faithfully. Once television became the medium of choice for soap viewing, Granny watched them on her black and white set. One of her favorites was The Edge of Night.
Like many soaps, The Edge of Night was sponsored by Proctor and Gamble, whose hometown was Cincinnati, Ohio, where I grew up. As a tribute to P&G, the opening credits of The Edge of Night featured the Cincinnati skyline.
When I was young, Interstate 75 was constructed through the cut of the hill between Florence, Kentucky and Cincinnati. My dad wanted to show his mother the Cincinnati skyline, which she had been watching on television, so he took us all through a back route into Northern Kentucky, and somehow we ended up at the construction site at I-75.
I climbed a mammoth mound of dirt where the interstate was cut out of the hillside, turned north, and posed, Queen of the Hill, towering over my hometown as if I owned it. Cincinnati was a beauty against the evening sky. We had a perfect view of it.
Lights twinkled like stars on the skyscrapers. The lazy Ohio river cut a winding path through the hills. The Carew Tower stretched almost to heaven.
Granny seemed pleased to see the city in person, but I don't think she liked climbing over the dirt because we didn't stay as long as I would have liked.
It would be great to have a Queen of the Hill moment again in life, where I felt secure about all I surveyed. At school, the kids project this same bravado I once possessed, yet it's an illusion.
They will discover, like I did, that someone will eventually plow down their dirt mountain, pave over it, and, at best, the next time they get the same view, they'll be speeding along at 75 miles per hour and can't appreciate it any longer.
One day, when I'm with God, I'll rest. I won't be on speed dial or cruise control or feel like someone is riding my bumper in the middle lane of the highway when I'm driving 80 miles an hour and already going 10 miles over the speed limit.
I'll be on the right page of the script, and I'll be on the right hill looking at the right scene. I'll be where I belong.
Until then, I continue to turn the page. I assign the work. I give the tests. I read the stories. I aggravate hip-hopping seniors whose thoughts are on graduation and not on how many more days of school and tasks they have to complete before they walk across the stage.
Oh--and I still climb hills. I hope to be Queen of the Hill one more time before I rest for good.
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Lord, thank you for the drama of life. Help me maneuver my way through it with patience and skill.
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