Moths spiraling to a flame have nothing on people being drawn to the ocean. I suspect if I could finally grasp what pulls us to the sound of the surf collapsing against the shore, waves curling and white capping on themselves, I would have yet another of those intriguing little puzzle pieces that I hunt like buried treasure. What it does to us mentally, emotionally, spiritually, chemically...to stare out into that vast infinity of water, straining to see beyond the horizon, as if something we lost - or something we gnawingly anticipate - will suddenly appear along that picture perfect straight-edge. And solve a mystery.
On my walk this morning, I saw a young lady in a state of complete mesmerization. I'm certain she was without and within thought simultaneously. There was no ocean and there was nothing but ocean. There was deafening surf and sheer silence. The sense of physical paralysis while hurtling through our solar system at a thousand miles an hour. Absolutely everything in the midst of irretrievable emptiness.
I know nothing about this solitary human being. I could virtually write one hundred and one stories about her...change her age, her marital status, children or childless, a marine biologist with a slight lisp or a newlywed who just awoke to discover she had married a stranger. She is every-woman and she is one woman. She is body and she is soul.
And for several seconds...a minute or two...she is one with all. The only thing that separates her from the sand between her toes, the salt water licking at her feet, the wind buffeting her face and stirring her hair, the distant clouds slipping down to taste the ocean...the only thing that separates her from the inhalation and exhalation of God's breath...is the density of the atoms in her body. How tightly packed they are. How well held together. Change that one simple thing and she becomes the sand and the sea and as subject to being blown about as a stray gull feather.
And that oneness, that kinship, leads me to believe that perhaps what we seek where the sky meets the sea...or that mystical square footage just beyond the range of our eyes... is actually what we seek within ourselves. What we anticipate outwardly, we simultaneously ruminate inwardly. The rhythm of the waves is the rhythm of our body...the blood coursing through the one hundred thousand miles of arteries, veins, and capillaries. Thoughts skipping about our brains like shifting winds. Each breath its own wave curling over itself and receding to make room for the next. After all, there are more atoms in the human body that the combination of grains of sand on the planet and stars in the universe. Doesn't that count for something?
Sea. Meet me. We are not so much different. We can hang.
When we find that unique peace in those moments of magnetic connectedness, as I suspect this random lady did...when we get our souls into the eternal rhythm of God's breath, when we define that space just beyond the horizon and, for at least a few seconds, meet the mystery face to face...isn't that the ultimate healing? Whether ocean side or in a quiet forest or beneath a brightly stitched night sky, when we lose ourselves, do we find ourselves? Could that be the coveted goal of our outward search and our internal quest? Could that be peace, love, and joy all rolled up into one? The Truth...capital T? I suspect so.
I hope that random soul found some of that this morning. Especially Truth. I am in her debt now for she blessed me with fresh thought, renewed awakening, and a nice little glimpse of heaven.
I pray she got a good solid look for herself.
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