Love Boat: Lessons

(Some waterfall on St. Lucia where people were going ga-ga and stripping down to their skivies for a dip. We didn't.)

By the end of the cruise I had learned so much. A few lessons . . .

On the first day of the cruise I visited the gym for a workout. Half of the passengers were there. There were lines three deep to sit on a weight bench or walk on a treadmill. I stayed and produced a top-notch workout despite the crowd. The second day I returned to the gym. I was the only person there. The only one out of three thousand people! Never saw another person in the gym all week! I also lost five pounds by the end of the cruise. Lesson: I am either a loser, or I deserve a big break on my health insurance premium. They should have renamed the ship's gym after me.

Throughout the cruise, I carried a book for reading. One day, up on deck by the pools, I walked around the entire deck, counting the number of readers. Only four people out of a thousand had a book. Becky and I were two. Lesson: Either we are both losers or people simple don't read books on cruises.

I also did some writing on board. If I had brought my laptop I could have actually written some great stuff as it happened. I only noted one other person on the entire cruise, land or sea, who was writing anything. Lesson: I'm a loser who writes what no one else wants to read.

Finally, I did have to say that I encountered God everywhere. In sunrises, in sunsets, in sea, and wind, and tide, in mountain, and conversation and everything in between. Beauty is everywhere. God is at work in everyone I met. Lesson: God even inspires a loser with a John Grisham book and a notepad who shells out ten bucks to see a crummy waterfall.