The Earth is the Lord’s,
And the fullness thereof;
The world, and they that dwell therein.
For he hath founded it upon the seas,
And established it upon the floods.
Psalm 24:1&2
A Psalm of David.
The sirens’ call of the ocean began when I was a toddler seeing the Pacific for the first time. I’ve been told I wanted to be put down into the rocky sand and feel its texture. The lure of waves concussing the shore and the melody of sand, surf, and birdsong still has me sauntering around the Pacific’s basalt cliff edges or the pebble strewn beaches in England.
As the gulls’ cry and the sea lions’ deep-throated bark draws me, I marvel at the complexity of creation. Did God laugh when the first fish swam? How fun it must have been to watch the oceans teem with color, life, and sound.
As I stand in the wind, my focus changes when waters lick the beach with white lace and the cleansing crash of waves. Knowing His kindness, I come to Him with my broken dreams and pain, inviting Him to cleanse me from my selfishness and begin the healing of memories that have wounded my soul.
The first time I heard God whisper was by the sea. I was at a youth retreat at Neskowin Beach. My back resting on the trunk of a wind-blown hemlock, my family Bible in my hand, I sat watching the waves. It was a gray day and I glanced at the Scripture I had been given and the sounds of the waves crashing on the shore ceased. Instead, I heard the words I was reading. Their urgency stopped me flat. I would love to say I remember the Scripture. But I do not. I long for it to be the one that stirs my heart, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,” Psalm 121. But I don’t recall what it was. I only know that I cried, confessed in baby steps that Jesus was the Son of God and was overwhelmed with peace. I was twelve. I did not submit to God’s Lordship. That came eleven years later, but I never questioned again that Jesus was God’s Son. The gulls cried out above the surf and a light rain began, but I was sheltered and remained alone on the shelf of sand above the log-strewn beach until lunch was called.
“Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless ‘til they rest in thee.” Augustine, Confessions.
Seas whisper to walk along their shore. For me a day at the beach is a time of meditation on His Word, reflection, and confession of sin. Stunned by His majesty on display, I find solace in Him. For only in Him do we find rest (Psalm 62:1). Have you a place where your soul is restored?
“I walked far down the beach, soothed by the rhythm of the waves…”
Anne Morrow Lindberg, Gift from the Sea
Every time the sea retreats it leaves gifts. The detritus from ocean waves litters the shore. I’ve collections of sea glass, bits of coral, golden shells, and sea green balls from Japan that once ornamented fishing nets. Tumbling together on my coffee table are Ligurian Sea shells, rocks from a spit of land edging the Greek Island of Hydra, a bit of stone from the Indian Ocean, and a red pottery shard from the sunken city of Cenchreae in the Mediterranean. Memories, displayed on a white cake stand.
Pimply shells, smooth pearlized shells, pink, yellow, and blush shells fit in my hand. My finger runs down the spines of a conch, just to feel the texture and echo John Masefield’s hearts cry, in Sea Fever:
I must go down to the seas again,
To the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship,
And a star to steer her by.
Finding a tall ship to carry me into an adventure isn’t what I long for. Revealing God’s creative hand is my desire. His truth is the gift I want to toss into the current of words. Perhaps the tide will wash someone’s soul with His love and they will sail home.
“Have bags will travel” should be Jeanette-Marie Mirich’s life’s theme. She moved twenty-two times before settling in her first home. An Oregonian by birth who graduated with a B.S. degree in education from Portland State University, Jeanette has swum in the Ligurian Sea and collected shells and sea glass along the Indian Ocean, Pacific, Atlantic, Caribbean Oceans, Straits of Malacca, Gulf of Mexico and the Andaman Sea. Her peripatetic lifestyle is courtesy of the U.S. Air Force and her husband’s medical training.
I shouldn’t have made the promise when Harry was dying, but…
You know how it is. You want to please when the person you’ve always loved is hooked up to plastic tubing looking peaky.
Delilah Morgan, a woman of honor, is unable to ignore her promise to her husband, Harry, which leads to trouble, with a capital T. The beautiful, unassuming Delilah plans to mourn in private after Harry passed, but he had other ideas—specifically, leaving his wife in good hands and protected from the elite of their small Kentucky town. However, he neglects to include his wife in his plans.
Harry has selected local judge, Lyle Henderson, the heart-throb of most of the women in town, to court his widow. The judge acquiesces to Harry’s wishes until Henderson’s life spins into a maelstrom after the discovery of bodies in his long absent wife’s car. The police and FBI begin to suspect him of murdering his wife and her apparent lover.
Determined to clear the judge of murder, Delilah resolves to hunt down the true story in an adventure that nearly costs them their lives.
