This morning was perfect. No wind meant a nearly waveless ocean at low tide. Exploring the tide pools, I could hear the crabs scurrying around on the rocks. But the best sounds were the cries of the children: "Daddy, look! Another hermit crab!" Or "wow, a sea star!" The joy of children is contagious.
We had beach church yesterday afternoon, on a beautiful sunny day, and there was wind and waves (but still warmth!). A group of young people from Indiana, here for the week for the Blue Theology camp (bluetheology.com) run by PG Christian Church, were most of the attendees and we talked about freedom. Walking around, we noticed the freedom of the water to fill every space, just like God's love fills us. We noticed the freedom of the wind, and of the birds and sea creatures. We remembered that we are free to laugh, to sing, to find joy.
We read from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Creation and the Fall: "To say that in humankind God creates God’s own image on earth means that humankind is like the Creator in that it is free. To be sure, it is free only through God’s creation, through the word of God; it is free for the worship of the Creator. For in the language of the Bible freedom is not something that people have for themselves but something they have for others. No one is free ‘in herself’ or ‘in himself’–free as it were in a vacuum... freedom is a relation between two persons.Being free means ‘being-free-for-the-other’, because I am bound to the other. Only by being in relation with the other am I free."
I understand this freedom when I am in nature - that I am free to be a creature, to be interconnected with everything else in creation. And to be in creation with other people is to experience that connection even more strongly, in a way that helps me remember it when I am sitting at a desk or even praying in church. It seems to me that in our insistence to "make something of ourselves" or "accomplish something" we too often forget the power of connection.
When we know ourselves to be connected to everything and everyone, held together by divine love, we are truly home. Whatever is going on around us, our souls can be at peace. And this morning I was lucky enough to have hours to just be. To know. And to be grateful. My heartrate and breathing were slow, matching the gentleness of the waves. I was truly free. I wish for you that sense of freedom. Because that kind of freedom - the freedom of absolute connection - that will change the world.
(sound on for bird song, and for the song of my heart)