at the edge

There is something about being at the water's edge...

...that makes one turn treasure hunter. 

Maybe it's the lore of pirate's chests x-marked buried or the lure of ships laden and wrecked. Certainly there is the draw of vast mystery and possibility.



Standing at the edge, feeling so small, the soul expands to bursting with undefined longing and expectation.

So, we look for treasure to capture this feeling. 

We look with eyes squinting toward the horizon or with sharp focus at the shells at our toes. 

We look with our hands shaping impossible monuments scaled down to possible. 

We look with lens in pixels and light.

Even in the looking, we know that it is passing. 

 It goes with the tide, with the turning of a season, even with the next wave.

But still we gather the little shells to slip in with our luggage - these hard and smooth bits of emptiness that used to hold breath.



Standing at the edge of another season, beginning anew the work that belongs to it, I can't resist the urge to line up some treasures of that which was real and that which is past, to feel thanks and to remember.


Treasures from a week at the edge:

days that stretched into evening with salt air breathing fresh

his father seeking to situate and to serve

his mother ministering quiet to grandchildren

children free and wild on the sand and in the water

cousins together

hearing her ask, "What's your vision?" as she approached to help build

small contributions 

 Could the ocean be moved one drop at a time?

thinking that one must be careful about being too absorbed in one's work; 

there's always the danger of becoming a fixture.

"we built it with our own hands!", forgetting the buckets and the daddy who laid the foundation

Searching for shells all perfect. 

And when a sister being a friend brought one tiny perfect shell as a gift, 

musing with thanks that Father doesn't measure like me, 

He who places treasure in the broken.

The last evening, a walk on the beach with him - and seeing the sandpipers that I'd been missing.

Then there are the treasures that are for pondering, lined up on the shelves of my heart where they cover a few cracks with love and grace, pointing to the goodness of Him who is and was and is to come.  The One who creates our longing and alone can satisfy it.  The One who commands the wind and the waves, whose mystery and certainty beckon at the edge of every possibility.