A Drinking Town with a Sailing Problem

Last year I went to visit a friend who lives near Annapolis, MD. I can't quite explain why, but I simply fell in love with the town at first sight.

It might have been the water. It could have been the sailboats and the laid-back lifestyle permeating  everything and everywhere I looked. Or, all the history oozing out of every corner, every street, every building.

Regardless of the reason, it was a delightful change from my regular life and the perfectly choreographed plastic beauty of Mouseville where we reside.

Since I was there without my family, I decided to do what any good mama tourist would do.  I bought T-shirts for all of us. The one I kept for me says,

ANNAPOLIS 

A DRINKING TOWN 

WITH A SAILING PROBLEM

This morning, I put it on and my observant daughter frowned when she read it.

Mom, something is wrong with your shirt! 

It is?!!

Yes, she replies emphatically. It says,

A Drinking Town with a Sailing Problem, 

when it should say,

A Sailing Town with a Drinking Problem.

You are too young to know this, I think to myself, taking my turn now to frown.  How in the world did my daughter learn to differentiate between what are socially acceptable and socially NOT acceptable sins?  I wonder. And being so quick to categorize behaviors in one category or the other.  Drinking - bad.  Sailing - good. The measuring rod of morality, clean and simple. 

Actually, I think that the T-shirt says exactly what is supposed to say. I respond slowly, For Annapolis is a town full of fun people who enjoy a drink or two with their friends, but, what they have a real problem is... is with sailing... It's the sailing that trips them up, not the drinking.  Isn't that ... curious?!!!

Her big eyes double up in size, trying to encompass the seismic shift in her black-and-white world view.

Looking into those eyes,  I suddenly realize why I like Annapolis so much. It's the town that wears it's sins - the obvious and the obscure - on its T-shirt! What you see is what you get.

Now, I find that incredibly refreshing. And, it seems to me, Jesus might too.