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 
The sea “has a mind of it’s own”? Is this green theology or poetry? Sure, it sounds better than ‘the sea conforms to rules which we don’t fully understand’ so maybe we should consider this to be a work in progress?
No Kees I haven’t strayed into Patheism. Remember metaphors and symbols from your Year 9 English class? 🙂
No – if they were ever taught. I know we didn’t get taught any grammar – it was thought this would restrain our ability to express ourselves. The only thing I remember is having to read Dickens and that this was tedious in the extreme.
Nor did we have fun with homonyms – that came long after school was left behind, and again when my kids were old enough to play with them too.
Dickens, tedious! Oh Kees,how sad.
I thought you’d say that. I was a voracious reader until I started ploughing through Tale of two Cities. Then I saw every word as another penny in Dickens’ bank account. It was years before I read again. I think the joy of reading eventually came back through S Milligan and le Carré, then Sietze Buning & CS Lewis.
Very well said. Our expectations and prayers would be very different if we understood this truth.
Thank you Richard.
There’s something very primal about being drawn to water. It’s so fulfilling.