The thunder of great waters

I did a little musing as I sat on a railing watching the sea do its thing back in the middle of summer when there was time for sitting on railings and watching the sea.

The tide was in, and there was a strong breeze that gave the waves white tops and blew spray at me from time to time. The sun was in and out from behind fluffy clouds and there was nobody else about.

Dear God,

The sea is like you.

It is eternal. Always there, never stopping, never still. It never rests, never sleeps. Shifting, multi-faceted, unpredictable, wild and untameable. Breathtakingly beautiful in all its moods, whatever the weather. That beauty is a complex mixture of light and shade, a million colours; shimmering, sparkling.

It engages all the senses - the blue, the green, the sunlight and reflected sky, the sound of crashing, thundering - and the soft and reassuring sound of surf on shingle.

I sit with my eyes closed and feel cool spray on my face; I swam and was embraced by its silky coolness, lifted off my feet by the swell.

I taste salt on my lips and inhale the fragrance that you only find at the seaside: freshness, brine, the smell of open space and freedom. I find that I breathe more deeply at the seaside in moments like this, luxuriating in solitude; just me and the vastness of you.

There is another sense that the sea touches, for me; the thing inside me that longs for you; the thing that is more than imagination, that comes from the deepest part of me.

My soul reaches for you, because you seem more tangible to me at the seaside.

I watch the ocean and see my God.

The sea is relentless and powerful. You cannot keep it out, you cannot keep it in. It will go where it will. The sea demonstrated its power when the tidal surges engulfed our coast a few months ago; I have seen the destruction left behind. The strongest man-made structures - concrete, iron bars as thick as my wrist, bent and broken like matchsticks, and discarded with the next wave. Flooding, overcoming defences, washing away things that we cling to.

The fury of the sea in a storm; deafening and intimidating. Restless, ruthless, threatening...and yet. that same sea reflecting a cloudless blue sky, soothing and welcoming, splashing on sand and shells, gently caressing my daughters' feet as they play at its edges.

Glory and majesty - the sea reflects the sunrise and the sunset, the beginning and the end, and will still be there, churning, shifting, waiting for the next day. It was made on the second day and will be there on the last. What are we, in comparison?

"Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?"   Job 38:16

The sea shows us our smallness, our frailness. It allows us to interact with it in a small way; it gives up some of its treasures and allows us to form a relationship with it but it demands respect. It gives life and sustains life and can take it away in a moment. We try to harness it, to subdue it for our own ends, but it will only allow us so far. We hover at its edges, gazing awe-struck into its depths, and it is pleased to show us some of its wonders, but we are never in control.

It has hidden depths that we cannot imagine.

Underwater mountain ranges that we have never seen. We don't know how deep it is - it is unfathomable. We cannot draw maps or chart the seabed. We are too small, too weak; our most impressive technology falls short of something so primeval.

We see the surface, and the things it permits us to explore, but it leaves us in no doubt that we are quickly out of our depth. There are things impenetrable, places we can't go, experiences we'll never have, whole ecosystems that we know nothing about, creatures never seen, photographs that will never be taken.

A mystery. Pre-historic, vast, sheltering, nurturing, secretive.

We are so small. We make mistakes; whole aeroplanes are swallowed without a trace in the depths. We are reminded of our fragility, and it's power.

Endless contrasts. I held in my hand the tiniest of crabs from a rock pool, a starfish. The seas are home to countless microorganisms too small for us to see - and then huge and powerful creatures like whales and sharks, seals and fish too large to land in a fishing boat. The delicate and the vast. Floating, mystical jellyfish, shoals of translucent fish, and predators with row upon row of lethal teeth. Things that we eat, things that would eat us. All life is here, and death, too.

"There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number, living things both large and small." Psalm 104:25

Dangerous, yet healing. The sea helps to heal wounds, sterile and soothing. Life-giving, life threatening. Hidden currents, lurking dangers play alongside soft surf and exhilarating swell. It supports us, keeping our boats afloat and our bodies buoyant.  Full of joy and fun, beauty and possibility, yet we misjudge it at our peril.

"You rule over the surging sea; when its waves mount up, you still them." Psalm 89:9

Only Jesus had authority over the sea. There has only ever been one man who was unafraid, who spoke to the waves and they obeyed him.

I sit here and lift the camera to my eye and realise that the sea cannot be captured.

No wonder that throughout history we have been fascinated by it. We have tried to copy it, to halt it, to pin it down on canvas or film, to recreate it to take away for those of us who live inland, but we cannot, for no sooner have we frozen a moment in time, than that moment is gone and the sea is completely different.

It is only now. It was, it will be, but it is always the present. No two waves are alike. They each hit the seawall differently, throw different fountains of spray. There is no pattern, no predictability. It does its own thing, regardless of time, of me, of everyone.

There is so much to see. It whispers, shouts - booms an insistent invitation to tiptoe at the edges, come a little deeper, discover something new, dive in, explore, immerse yourself.  Be brave, get used to the coolness, the movement; enjoy the ride. Know who you are, and who the sea is; don't forget. Don't take it for granted, have respect, but come and enjoy.

Be washed clean. Be lifted off your feet.

Inspiration is here. Beauty is here. Refreshment, restoration, healing, strength are to be found here.

There is no barrier that you cannot break down,
There is no space you can't flood,
No door can keep you out,
No defences you can't breach.

"Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea - the Lord on high is mighty." Psalm 93:4

You are here.

Seeing the sea

It's very beautiful here, Lord.

I have a cup of coffee and a bourbon cream biscuit (alright, two) and I am sitting looking out at the sea. It's warm and still with high clouds and the sea is silver and the horizon blurs where the shimmering ocean meets the bright white of the clouds. It's very, very quiet. Wonderfully, beautifully, relaxingly, smilingly quiet.

The children are at the park with Daddy. 

That'll be why it's so peaceful. Absence of noise. I lay in bed last night and listened to the sea against the seawall on the beach down below our cottage but then the tide was high and right now it's on its way out so there's no splashing. The beach is sandy so there's no shhhhh sound of the shingle as the sea sucks it down the beach.  It's so calm out there that there are no white tipped waves on the sea - it undulates gently, swelling and subsiding. 

Last night we walked for a couple of miles along the cliff top in search of the sunset and I discovered several things.

• The cliff path is, in places, perilously close to the cliff edge.
• There are places along this coast that I remember from holidays of my childhood that are Not There Any More.
• There are buildings along the clifftop that soon Might Not Be There Any More if the coastal erosion continues at the same rate.

I felt a strange mixture of feelings when I worked out that the reason that the caravan site where we used to come decades ago didn't look quite right was that there were whole rows of caravans missing. Nostalgia, regret, awe. The whole place was much nearer the edge of the cliff.  The drive wasn't so long. The place where our family caravan had stood long ago was gone completely. 

Fallen into the sea. Crash, splash. Space.

The sea really is inexorable, isn't it?  Unstoppable. A constant, irresistible force. Day in, day out, year in, year out, wave after wave. Storm or calm, it is. There's no controlling it. Wild or still. Even on a peaceful day like today it is constantly in motion. The surge and swell speaks of power even if there are no crashing waves. It is always there. Intensely beautiful but with the potential to destroy.

Last night I read on the news that a four year old boy was swept into the sea at another seaside resort in our country.  He fell from a slipway into water only two metres deep and immediately his Mummy and Daddy jumped in to retrieve him, but he never surfaced. Powerful currents in that area must have swept him under and away in a matter of seconds.  His parents looked for him desperately but they were also  swept away from the causeway rapidly and needed rescuing. The little boy hasn't been seen since. The coastguard organised a thorough search for a night and a day but... 

My goodness. I sat and pondered how different that family's day was from ours.  We ate ice cream on the pier, we walked along the seafront, we bought souvenirs, we sat on the beach and swam in the sea. We came home, had tea and tucked the children safely up in bed. We had a glass of wine and we found out that somewhere around the coast another mummy and daddy were wild with grief for the little boy they lost. They went on holiday by the seaside and he died. They too packed their buckets and spades and tried to think of endless entertainment on the car journey to the beach and soon they'll be making their way back home again without their precious son.

Oh, God. 

What a nightmare. I can't begin to understand why. Why their boy and not my girl? Oh, please, Lord, it makes me go cold. Keep us safe. Hold that family in the palm of your hand, Lord. Soothe them, comfort them, numb them from the pain they must be in. Why didn't you help the little boy pop to the surface, God? Why did you allow him to be taken by the sea? Why couldn't it have been a near miss, where his Mummy caught his arm as he stumbled and then told him off for being too close to the edge?

It makes my heart hurt. 

I'm sure the sea where they were looked as innocuous as it did here as we watched a family run along the lower promenade path challenging the high tide to splash them as it crashed against the stone wall. The small boys hooted and shouted with glee and their parents watched them and smiled. Earlier on that day we sat on the smooth sand with our backs against the stone and so I knew the water was only about two metres deep. If it were a swimming pool that's nothing; you could see the bottom. Touch the bottom with fingertips out of water, but the sea is a different creature altogether. It lives. It never stops. It does its thing regardless. 

Danger is everywhere. How can you allow a child to be a child and not wrap them up in cotton wool and diminish the possibilities of their lives and yet at the same time limit the risk-taking? The sea deserves infinite respect, but it is also there for swimming and paddling and standing in the splash from the breaking waves. Did that family take an unnecessary risk? Did the people we saw on the promenade last night? Did we, when we let Lizzie swim out of her depth, Bryan always the seaward side of her? Had she disappeared under the sea we couldn't have seen where she was...

I don't know what it's all about, Father God. You don't love that little boy less than you love my daughters. You don't love that broken Mummy any less than you love me. It's hard not to walk in fear when you see how swiftly and easily a life can be smashed completely, and yet you ask us to trust. Trust without understanding. 

All I can do is hold it out to you with my eyes filled up with tears. I love the sea, and I love my girls. That Mummy loved her boy. 

I don't understand how I am so blessed with my seaside experience and yet elsewhere tragedy is so close. I can only be thankful. I am so grateful that my children splash and play in the sun and surf and they are enjoying the sea so much. They're not afraid, and yet we're trying to teach them respect for the ocean, with it's immense power and capacity for deception and destruction.

Getting on for two thousand years ago a few fishermen were in a boat on another sea, and a storm blew up. They were afraid. They were seasoned fishermen, so they knew the waters. They knew how to handle a boat and they were used to going out day after day whatever the weather to bring home the bacon. Fish. A little squall wouldn't have fazed them as it would me, but this was something different. It was a Storm. A big one. 

You are Lord of the Storm. You control the uncontrollable. You are greater than the mighty sea and stronger than the wildest gale. You not only calmed the storm but you walked on the water while it was foaming and crashing. The same sea that gives life and takes it away, the sea that is smooth and silvery today and yet elsewhere yesterday was brutal and unforgiving - it bows to you and no-one else. 

"'The men were amazed and asked, 'What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!'"

Matthew 8:27

I can't think of anything more powerful than the sea. Vast and impersonal and fathomless. Yesterday I saw the effects of the sea on the cliffs, on buildings and on my memories and emotions and I read about a family ripped apart by a random wave. I gazed out at the new landscape and the silvery, benign looking sea with a new respect.

And yet - a word from you and the storm was still. You are almighty and all-powerful. You are in control of the elements. You are in control, full-stop. Nothing is beyond you.

Lord God, thankyou for the sea and for the wonder and inspiration it gives and for the way it makes my soul sing to be near it. I feel close to you by the sea and I suppose that it's fitting that I can see it's power and relentlessness as well as its elegance and beauty.

You are Lord of all. And you're my friend. However much I hold onto you and snuggle up to you and joke with you and shout at you, it's worth remembering that you are the all-powerful Creator God.  The God who calms the storm and stills the ocean with a word. So this vast majestic expanse of silver in front of me that brings fun and anticipation and laughter and happiness and yet can erode and destroy and bring fear and horror and grief - it's subject to you.  It's strong; but you are stronger.

You are great. You are God. I am in awe. 

'Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and all that move in them.'
Psalm 69:34

Amen.