If you’re new around here, these polaroids are a place where I journal through small windows. They’re more personal than my longer form essays and (usually) more regular. They might be a little confusing if you live in the Northern Hemisphere with opposite seasons. But, out of all the places you could be, thanks for being right here.
The breeze conducts the ocean like a million orchestras. My skin submerges to its beat.
The sand stretches beyond my eye-line. The Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, The Bay of Biscay then the English Channel; I know the way home from here. Then again, home ripples like a mirage above me.
The song of an ancient king hums inside my thoughts, “Your thoughts, O God, are precious and uncountable, like grains of sand.” We cannot sift them through our fingertips. We cannot see them with our eyes. Maybe we are not supposed to try.
Today, the forests are on fire and the headlines hold bullet holes. I try not to count all the reasons to be afraid and angry, but instead scatter them against the infinite depths of Goodness, Love, Kindness, Mercy. Beneath me, the sprawling ocean floor is clicking and scratching and bustling in these soft tunes.
Less than twenty percent of the seafloor has been mapped by modern technology. We have only seen a fraction of the visible. My gaze cannot stretch to the depths. Is it supposed to? Am I content to live with mystery?
Much-Afraid (in the allegorical tale, Hind’s Feet on High Places) asks her companion about the hidden mysteries of earth,
“Sometimes I have wondered about the wildflowers,” she says to the Shepherd. “It seems strange that they should grow in places like this where the goats and cattle walk all over them. They have so much beauty and sweetness to give, and hardly anyone sees them.” The look the Shepherd turned on her was very beautiful. “Nothing that My Father and I have made is ever wasted,” He said quietly, “and the wildflowers have a wonderful lesson to teach. Many people live a quiet, ordinary life…Some of My servants have won great respect from other people…but always their greatest victories are like the wildflowers, those which no one knows about….”
Again, am I content to live with mystery? One of my morning readings last week was titled ‘an invitation to irrelevance’ and I caught my breath a little when I read the title because no one wants to be irrelevant, really. I don’t want to. But the Christ that I follow in the scriptures that I read, reversed human standards of importance and visibility. Hidden acts of service are blessed, He said. People invisible to society are welcomed into the Kingdom of God. Humanity looks at the visible body, God looks at the invisible heart.
I hear my pulse more clearly underwater.
A shoal of silvery, blue fish swim close, almost touchable, and expect them to dart timidly away from me. I am surprised that neither I, nor they, flinch. Our bones are held buoyant by the oxygen visiting our lungs; each breath keeps us close to the sun.
I feel a little lighter – a single breath more weightless – at the fact that we have not displaced each other. No one saw but us.
And while the orchestra played, we were unafraid.
As always, I love hearing from you. Feel free to leave feedback, comments or reflections.
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