“Blessed be the name of God from age to age, for wisdom and power are God’s.
Daniel 2:20-22
God changes times and seasons, deposes kings and sets up kings;
God gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.
God reveals deep and hidden things; God knows what is in the darkness,
and light dwells with the Holy One”
Dear friends,
My summer vacation on the Cape always gives me time to sit on the beach watching the waves and the sand at the water’s edge. Each year when we return to the family cottage, I’m interested to see how the landscape has changed. Winter winds and summer rainstorms have shifted the sand dunes. There are more rocks and shells, and often the shape of the shoreline has changed. More than anything else I experience when being by the ocean, it’s a sense of movement and change.
Of this experience James Carroll wrote, “Wave after wave slides up the sandy slope toward your chair, each wave its own masterpiece of shape and dynamism. The incoming water sparks perceptions of the fluid perfection of the cresting action. Some distant current or wing or tide pushed through the sea for hundreds of miles—thousands?—only to break upon the sand at your feet. The wave as such ceases to exist, but its energy thrives, withdrawing into its own reversal. Now the gathered momentum will push back to some opposite shore, where another wave will crest and break, and another ruminator will mark the magnificent insignificance of all things passing.”
My time at the edge of the ocean always has a restorative, calming effect. So often my daily focus is on tasks, problems, making progress—things I think I can control. But sitting on the beach with my toes in the sand with the ever-moving water before me, I realize that there is so much I can’t control and that life is an ever-changing journey.
This year has a “shape and dynamism” all of its own—the on-going global pandemic, another devastating earthquake in Haiti, chaotic evacuations of Afghanistan, and challenges closer to home that touch us and our loved ones. We don’t know what the coming year will hold for us. We do know that it will involve movement and change. It always does.
We also know that we’re not alone in this ever-moving world. We have each other—we share the journey. What a calming and comforting blessing in the face of constant movement and change. I’m grateful to be returning from summer vacation to Edwards Church where I know I will find calm, comfort and companionship as we seek to be Christ’s presence in the midst of this sea of change.
Peace,
Karen Nell