At our house, we fondly call the ocean "The O" and when given a week at the beach, we make a big point of telling it good morning and good night. Normally, I spend my good morning hours running along the shore as I revel at the quietness of humans and the loudness of the O as light rises from the deep. This year, though, with my daughters now 8, they wanted to wake in the still crisp hours and head to the wet sand with me. Running didn't seem effective with them in tow, and, quite frankly, 37 may just be the year when I decide to let myself go. So we grabbed some buckets and set out with a plan to build the grandest sand castle. With two bucketfuls and a collapse, the experience was too much a memory of the snowmen we failed at this winter (in the end we took to calling them snow blobs for no man ever slumped like ours). Finding our inadquacies a bit frustrating, we tossed our sandy buckets aside and comforted ourselves by collecting sea shells. Here, now, was a much more profitable task: to search the shoreline for shiny treasures. For this, we had an eye.
I watched as the girls piled shell after shell into their buckets. To me, a small shattered piece was hardly worth keeping. With a trove so deep and horizon width, I would have passed over many, searching for the choiciest meat. But Katie cannot advance step, for under her toes are strewn scraps that she must inspect. They will be kept for hardly any reason; their worth is in their existence and they find excuses for significance. A hole, a speckle, a bumpy ridge that would make a neat imprint. A pretty pink, a smooth side, a perfect swirl. When these attributes get used up their ideas grow more creative:
Mesmerized by the search, we plodded head down through the shallow waters, learning to hunt. Almost immediately I felt God whispering to me above, or was it under, the crashing waves. Quietly, He placed moments in front of me to examine. Just as my girls inspected their washed up treasures, I found God at every tide turn. The entire morning itself, designed to see what we could build, ended up being about finding what God could give. We discovered the best sea shell treasures weren't simply lying there on shore; they had to be dug up. And most often, the first awareness of their presence was a painful little poke under the foot. It wasn't our eyes that would find the grandest conch, but the recognition of pain under toes, and then there it was: a treasure worth digging. Sand under the fingernails and water to the waist, we dug up secrets that seemed to have been planted before Eden's quake.
Knocked over by my bag now heavy from collection, the waves mocked me. Stop striving and start enjoying, they seemed to say. I set my bum down on the wet sand to breathe, to listen deeper. At first I heard only waves and birds, but then my daughters voices drifted into focus. With God's ocean as a steady bass, treble giggles bobbed upon the splashes. Then in a lul, I heard Katie begin to ponder,"Are pink dolphins true?" and I knew that God's voice was working in them too. Lexie matched her sister's sudden serious tone and answered, "Iknow they are"- as if confirming the existence of the world creator Himself. Oh if my faith could be so resolute.
a little seat for a ladybug to sit on, a river stone that skipped all the way to the shore, and one that looks like an ironing board. It isn't hard for them, it isn't hard at all to find a reason to cherish every beach shell. At the sea, wonder is common. I resolve to scour my life's shore in search of blessings. I breathe in the salty air and enjoy the sand between my toes.
Heading back to start the day, I look over my shoulder to offer a thankful nod for the morning conversation and God tosses one last seashell at my feet. We add it to the bucket and my gaze transfers from horizon to the shoreline where people now walk with pails, intent on castle building. Some walk with head down, looking for seashells. I am but a speck of humanity.
When I let the tide ebb and wash again, burying my feet with the smooth, cool sand, I remembered grandma. The sea's heaviness reminded me that at her passing she began to ask questions about the shore. She, the Nebraskan native, lived her entire life landlocked, but in her final moments claimed to hear water pouring onto a beach. Where was she? She questioned. Had she been here before? And then a calm, final comment: I hear the ocean. Like one of the shells, the Ocean washed over her and silence covered with depths of peace.
The skyline before me is vast and plain with holy simplicity. There is only faith and peace where there was once fear and stress. From this brackish water I have drunk the tea of holiness. My thirst rests satiated.
I
