Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the prairies. They are unbelievably majestic in their own right, but the ocean has a hold on me in a way that the prairies never will. I find myself longing to see it, to dangle my feet in it, to hear the roar of the crashing waves.
The ocean became a spiritual place for me when I was in Australia. My good friend Jen and I decided to take a boat tour out to see the reef (cuz who goes all the way to Australia and misses that!?). What some people may not know is that the reef is about, depending where you were docked, a good hour out into open water...there is NOTHING around, save for a few other boats with tourists. You can either go scuba diving or you can snorkel, and we choose to snorkel. I can't think of anything that could top the thrill of diving into open ocean, the possibility of nearby sharks (and that wasn't an assumption, they told us there were sharks), not being able to see the bottom, and swimming for my life just to get on top of the reef. It was crazy. My friend took in a huge gulp of salt water and spent the rest of the time sick on the boat, so that left me to fend for myself. I paid a lot of money to get out there and for all I knew it might be my last chance to see the reef, I didn't want to waste it. So on our second dive I went in by myself, scooted over to the reef and began taking in the sea turtles, the coral and all the little fish. What truly hit me out there in the open water was the vastness of it all, the beauty of it all, the depth of it all and the wildness of it all. We can never measure the ocean (we are still discovering new pockets and new species) and we can never tame the ocean. It is big and fierce. And what I couldn't get out of my mind was how much bigger and how much deeper is God and his love for us.
When I was in Mexico with Rhys and Amelia I tried to spend as much time as possible by the ocean. Rhys hated it and Ammie was too young to take her in, but I stole away and had little moments by it and all of the same feelings about God came flooding back. Maybe that's why I'm longing for the ocean, I've had a few special encounters with God and adventure by it and maybe I'm feeling like I need some more. That's probably it, now that I've written all of this down (again, writing helps me process), but I do love the ocean. I hope and pray that I will have many more opportunities to look out onto the magnificent blue waters and contemplate it's wildness and beauty.
On a separate note, James has never seen the ocean.
(photo taken by a friend, sarah jenkins.)
3 comments:
The Gully Wumper- now that is a name I have not thought about for a very long time. What a good time we had! Oh I miss those days of being with my kids when they were little---Mom
I love the ocean too. After sailing on it for a week in the Caribbean, and getting to swim, and snorkel in it, I was hooked. I actually got to see whales in person, although, not up close. That was the only time I've been to the ocean, so I've haven't been as lucky as you, Bria.
In a way, a very strange way, the ocean and the prairies are kind of similiar. They're both vast and open. The prairies don't have the depths of the ocean, but the ocean and the prairies can both capture you, in different ways of course.
i love water. but mainly i have the utmost respect for it. it never ceases to amaze me how one of the very necessities of life, one of the things that can bring us the most fun (swimming, diving, sailing, etc.) can also cause some of the most devastating destruction and can cause death in a blink of an eye. i find it to be a great mystery. and i love thinking about it. how currents can pull you under the surface and take your breath away...for good, or waves can crush entire towns and cities. yet we need water to survive. it's crazy. it's all crazy.
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