An Ocean Sabbath

We went for a Sunday walk along a beach that was entirely new and therefore quite exciting to me. It curved round the northernmost shore of the island was guarded by (wonder of wonders) a weathered wall of red sandstone cliffs that jutted out into the water and cast their shadow over the sand. I have always wanted to walk the shore with the depths of the oceanon one side and the heights of cliffs on the other, it satisfies something in my soul that longs for mystery. I was giddy as a little girl as we clambered barefoot over the mossy rocks and splashed in the rising tide. A storm had risen as we walked, stirring up the dark waters and tossing them madly over the rocks. But when the water slipped away with each wave, there was a marvellous glimmer of saphire and pearls from the many shells caught between the red stones.

To my delight, we found a damp, echoing little cave with satin smooth walls and strange nooks that looked as if they once held treasure. We scrambled in and perched ourselves as far back as we could so that we gazed out on the tossing of sea and sky through the dark circle frame of the cave. Anna whipped out her sketchbook and bit of pencil and I sat back to consider what name we ought to give our little hideaway. For as any girl raised on the Anne books knows, every discovered nook is a treasure to be named and kept and set down on the map of imagination.

But as I considered this, as I sat in the roaring quiet of the ocean, I found my thoughts drawn deeper down; found myself pondering the childlike delight that was so present to me in the discovery of my cave and in every hour of these autumn days of adventure and leisure. A sense of wonder, of wild-eyed, childlike awe has been strongly present with me on this trip, and it calls me back to my highly imaginative little girlhood. The world seems so full of beauty, and the beauty has meaning. It is, ofcourse, delightful to me, but it is also deeply stirring, for I have a sense of the world somehow deepening around me, taking on a mystery and meaning that, in the bustle of adult life I thought I had lost.

When I was a little girl, I knew the world to be a fair and perilous place. The world of fairy tales and the world of Anne was real to me. I knew that every forest and field hid beauty awaiting my discover. Every book confronted me with the chance to live my life as part of an epic story. God had scattered loveliness round the earth just for me to find and each day was a treasure hunt that brought me closer to His heart. The rising up of the sun was more than another mere day, it was another miracle of light, another day in which I could live and laugh and draw closer to the heart of God that beat so presently in my colorful world. My actions and my thoughts mattered, because e3verything I did was part of the grand tale in which I lived. Life was an adventure, a song, a perilous quest, and every minute was full of worth.

But somewhere along the way, I lost my child eyes and was drawn further and further in to the bustling reality of modern, adult life. There is little mystery to be had in email and cell phones and constant musts, little beauty in the ugly news reports and harried rush of my culture. I began to lose the sense of worth in the world, found less time to think and more time to hurry. Less time to revel in beauty, less value for quiet because there was so much to be done. As I went, I had a sense of resignation that, oh well, this is what it means to enter into the real world of adulthood. It seemed that this is what life required of responsible people in my time.

But the thoughts and beauties, the innocent wonder of these past days rise up around me in a mighty challenge to that sort of thinking. I feel my heart begin to struggle toward life, find myself deeply hungry to feel the wonder of my childhood agai. But the hunger is born of a growing conviction that the kingdom of God is the kingdom of childlike wonder. When I lost a sense of the preciousness of my days it wasn't just a child's freedom I lost; it was the recognition of God, present and potent in every instant of my life. And that regretful resignation I felt wasn't a natural consequence of moving on, it was the numbing of my soul. Satan would desperately like my heart to grow cold. But it is not what God desires.

In my little cave on the beach, I had a sudden dawning understanding of what my heart was missing. These days have wakened me and now, I have come to a new conclusion. Now, I am convinced that I walk amidst mysteries and ever-present wonders. The gold and fire glory of autumn, an evening of candelight, the laugh of my beloved friend, the disvoery of a cave on the edges of a roaring ocean, these are treasures, priceless whispers of God's reality and of a world just beyond my imagination. They are to be sought, beloved and I am to fight with every bit of grit I posess to keep my child eyes open to their wonder.

I thought I had come to this island of my heart to take a short respite form the bustle of modern life. But I begin to think that I have come instead to get a new soul, to grow young again. Not stronger so that I can be busier, but quieter, so that I may love more deeply, see more clearly, and live in the wonder of God that brings His kingdom to bear in my heart. It feels awfully good.