Whenever m
y wife and I go camping it is very unusual if we don’t end up near water. We love camping near rivers, lakes and, especially,the ocean. Some of our most memorable camping experiences have been next to water of some sort. In a blog I did over a year ago – Our Top Ten Camping spots, the majority of them were next to water. Even in the arid country of the Grand Canyon the Colorado river still surged through the ravine.
Water has moods. Water is almost human in the way it moves from c
almness to fury and back again. A raging angry river, a placid sea or an agitated lake all remind us of traits in ourselves. There are other aspects. Some watery places are secluded and intimate, others are large and expansive and still others are mischievous or treacherous. Recently walking along the beach I noted that the most dangerous part of the ocean wasn’t the foaming surf but the dark rip of water that could have taken an unsuspecting swimmer hundreds of terrifying metres out into the ocean.
But of all the watery places it is the sea that always gives me glimpses of the Creator. It is untameable and vast. The sea reminds me of my own smallness and vulnerability. And yet, when I am in ship or boat it holds me and takes me great distances. It brought me to Australia as a child, I paddle at its edges and I can ride its waves. Yet it is always the sea. It continues to have a mind of its own and nothing I do will change it.
Travels from Ur 