Beaches, Sunburn and Humility

My wife has mentioned on a couple of occasions that our lives since we've moved has felt a little bit like an extended vacation, at which point I usually deadpan, "Well, a vacation where I need to go to work five days a week." I get her point, which is we've decided to throw ourselves into visiting and experiencing as much as the Houston area has to offer. Since we've arrived here, we've gone to the zoo, a few parks, a few museums, a seaside amusement town and most recently, Galveston Beach. We've also eaten out a lot during the weekends to explore the culinary breadth of all that Houston has to offer (I have to say that the food here is excellent and cheap), but also largely because roach and mice problems in our apartment makes cooking here unappealing and unappetizing.

Why have we thrown ourselves into full tourist mode? To Houston's credit, there's a bunch of things to do here and it really does live up to its reputation as being a great place for families. We're also in temporary housing (did I mention the roaches?) which doesn't necessarily encourage us to be homebodies. But the greatest driver, at least for me, is wanting to making the most of our time here, recognizing that I have no idea how long we'll be here. For example, I had assumed that our family would have stayed in the New York / New Jersey area forever after spending 34 cumulative years there. As a result, two touristy experiences of visiting the Statue of Liberty and the top of the Empire State Building went unchecked. Why? I figured those things weren't going anywhere and I'd have the rest of my life to check those out. Whoops.

So this past weekend, we went to Galveston Beach and had a great time. The beach was clean, facilities were decent, and good and inexpensive eating options were available. Our kids, probably thanks to swim lessons, showed much greater courage around water compared to last summer, with all of them being more comfortable in wading to deeper water and jumping waves they previously hadn't before. The weather was nice, with the sun comfortably heating the shore as it got cooled by a light breeze - which is why I stupidly eschewed the sunscreen and paid the price. By the time we were driving home, any part of my skin which was in contact with anything stung like the devil. And of course, I was as red as a lobster. So after I had unpacked the car and put the kids to bed, I took a drive to the 24-hour Walmart to find some substance to soothe my skin.

Now there are handful of things that you can ask for in a store which create some degree of embarrassment. Asking about birth control (or anything sexual in nature) and hemorrhoid ointment (or anything rectal or bowel related) certainly fall into this category, just because of the nature of the product. Asking for sunburn medication (or acne medicine or plus-sized clothes) is embarrassing because it immediately draws attention to yourself because the recipient of the question will immediately link your request to some sort of physical deficiency or attribute and say, "Oh yeah, you need that bad." For example, here was my exchange with the young lady in the pharmacy department:

Me: Excuse me, where could I find lotion or gel to treat sunburn?
Store Employee: (Pause) Oh my... wow.
Me: Yeah, I got a little burned at the beach today. Anyway...
Store Employee: That looks pretty painful.
Me: It hurts a little. Anyway, would that be in the seasonal section or skin care section?
Store Employee: (Look of combined intrigue and sympathy) They actually have these little tubes which you can use. I put it near my lips when I got sunburn, but wow, you have it all over. You probably need something bigger...
Me: Right. So where would you carry that?
Store Employee: (Still staring at my sun-scorched face) Oh. I actually don't work in this department. Maybe over there near the suntan lotion?

The big takeaway (besides the fact that Walmart in their fanaticism for low prices staffs far too few people in their stores) is that it's uncomfortable for people to draw attention to their weaknesses. People don't like acknowledging they've stupidly sat on a beach without sunscreen, and they don't like admitting that they have a weight problem, erectile dysfunction or poor complexion. It's related to something called the "look good" idol I heard about in a past sermon, where we like to be in control of people's perceptions of us, both physical and otherwise.

Most of our deficiencies, unlike being sunburned, are things that we can do a fairly effective job at hiding or finessing away. This is both something that relieves us but should also concern us. We don't go to store and ask the clerk for an "arrogance-reduction elixir" or "pornography-addiction therapy" or "anger-management cold-pack" or a "self-centeredness reversal pill". We don't need to air out our sin and interpersonal weaknesses to our friends let alone strangers because they're not as obvious as sunburn and weight gain.

Unfortunately, this leads to these things being unaddressed. And it's not because they're any less harmful to us, it's just that we can hide them, pretend they don't exist or delude ourselves into thinking that we can solve it for ourselves. I think that's where trusted authentic community comes in, a place where a person of faith can come forward with humility to a trusted friend and confess, "I have a problem which might not be obvious and I'd like your help and support to deal with it."

So while the obvious foibles in our lives like sunburn create awkward situations, it's the hidden problems in our lives which are the most dangerous.