thoughts on the beach

Sunday at Surfside Beach, we got up and checked the 3 inch thick telephone book for churches. After a couple of calls to get directions & times, we settled on King of Glory Lutheran Church. Unfortunately, David & I failed to communicate the fact that King of Glory was in North Myrtle Beach – so to make a long story short, we ended up instead at St. Phillips Lutheran at 11 am instead of King of Glory Lutheran at 10 am.

The cool connection element was – our boys recognized one of their acquaintances from Camp Luther, WV. We connected with the family after church, only to learn that they were from St. Paul’s Lutheran in Huntington, WV. Of course, we all enjoyed that! St. Phillips' new pastor said he had just come from another St. Luke Lutheran Church – so we appreciated that small connection to our St. Luke Lutheran in Beckley. Yes, the proverbial “it’s a small world” spiced up our morning.

We spent the rest of the day on the beach. I enjoyed my walk – until my feet began to blister.
As my oldest son Nathaniel put it – there were a kabillion people there. Miles & miles of wall to wall people. Row after row after row after row of blue, yellow, orange, & green umbrellas. For all the comfort we find in the concrete, cars & commercialization of our lives, we are drawn not to the synthetic but to the organic of creation. The perfectly formed conch shell that Michael found elicited an awe & joyfulness unlike anything he could have bought at the store. The simple pleasures of running into the waves, riding the surf, dragging your chair to sit in the edge of the sea itself, digging your toes into the sand, and watching the sea gulls bring a sense of delight & wonder beyond definition.

The beach is such an equalizer of people. The waves don’t answer to anyone but God. The sun beats down on the rich & the poor, the old & the young, the Christian & the Muslim, the sick & the well, the black & the red & the white. The wind blows sand into the faces of the beautiful & the popular as quickly as the unattractive & the socially isolated. Whether you’ve slept in a penthouse, a condo or a camper, you may equally savor the sun & the sand of the shore.

There is a timelessness & carefreeness that occurs at the ocean. Children, young people & adults alike build sandcastles & holes & sculptures & moats knowing that in several hours, all their work at play will be washed to sea. The professional businesswoman uninhibitedly piles wet sand on her legs, as she sits in a puddle of water. The businessman in his flowered swimsuit knocked down by an unexpectedly large wave can’t be differentiated from the sanitation worker throwing a beachball to his toddler. Beachtowels are haphazardly placed with no zoning laws to segregate in any way whatsoever. And for all intents & purposes, nobody cares. We are here to play, to imagine, to pray, to relax & to bask in the gift of God’s creation. I wonder if this is anything close to the wonder of heaven.