Glory and Mystery of the Deep

I return, yet again, to my habitual tendency of making absolute statements and subjective rankings of the divine tapestry of God's complex creation. Among all of creation, the glory of the ocean is unquestionably beyond compare. I am aware that this is just an opinion, but I firmly doubt that it is mine alone. The majesty of the ocean in all its grandeur, whether viewed from a beach or from a water vessel, is truly incredible. However, the ocean, in its utter vastness, is more than just what it appears to be from above. There is also a profound splendor and a deep mystery that exists beneath the waves, and a radiant splendor in the waves themselves.

Anyone who has watched the sun grace the horizon over the ocean would have certainly declared that the resplendence they were witnessing was without parallel. One may someday forget this conclusion or shift their perspective as their life unfolds, but the allure of the seemingly infinite water bridging to the sky on the horizon, illuminated by the first peek of sunlight for the day, is unmatched by any other beauty to those who remember it even faintly.

One may argue that the greatest player in this scene is actually the sun, and such an argument might hold merit, but I will defer this thought until another time with a somewhat feeble argument: The sun and its rising and setting is a cyclical lens of creation through which all the rest of creation is viewed. It cannot be inherently beautiful or ugly on its own. Its beauty is intricately dependent upon the environment that stands between the beholder and the thing that illuminates it.

I have heard it said, though I do not know it to be true, that humanity has only explored five percent of the world’s oceans. This means that ninety-five percent of the oceans remains unexplored. That is a rather startling statistic to consider. What grand mysteries lie hidden in the depths of this endless, concealed world? More often than not, the thought of this unknown world elicits primarily fear for me. Ancient stories and new discoveries of monstrous giants consume my mind. I would encourage others to explore these depths, but I know that except with complete and utter submission of my will to the divine, I would prefer to die than set upon such an expedition.

I would say that though this indeed produces fright in me, it also constitutes an element of the ocean’s awe-inspiring glory. Glory and mystery are so closely intertwined and interrelated. I am not saying they are the same. I am not saying that for something to be glorious it must be mysterious, or for something to be mysterious it must be glorious. However, it seems that if something is glorious and also mysterious, the mystery only enhances the glory.

In the ocean’s waves, we once again see an element of nature that is both glorious and mysterious. The sight of a crashing wave, when examined closely, is truly mesmerizing. The way the water and foam ascend into the air, defying our common experience of gravity, is peculiarly captivating. Waves are gorgeous and powerful. They are, I am told, not produced by wind or a vacuum, but by the gravitational embrace of the moon. What an intriguing effect the earth’s astrological sister has upon our nature. I do not know when it became common knowledge that the pull of the moon created waves, but I can imagine that before it was common knowledge, the cause of waves was discussed in great depth by ancient seafarers and beachgoers late at night when the day’s work was done and there was nothing else to discuss.

Perhaps, because of its immense size and vastness, it is impossible to claim the ocean as a single element of God's creation. It would be like saying that the desert or the rainforest were the greatest beauty. These are ecosystems; can they also be elements? I do not know. I do not think it matters, but the interesting thing about the ocean is that from the beach it seems like an element, but if you were to descend into its depths with a submarine, the fact that it is an ecosystem would only then become apparent. This is yet another facet of the ocean's glory. Its vastness hidden beneath the surface is not just empty; it is a whole different world. Almost three-quarters of Earth’s surface is covered by water. The quarter of the earth that is not covered by water is where humanity resides. The rest of the earth is, for the most part, a mystery, and that mystery is an entire ecosystem, much of it unexplored. If that thought does not ignite within you, kind reader, once again a feeling of wonder and perhaps fear, then you are not pondering the thought deeply enough.

I began this article thinking that I would write primarily romantically and artfully about the ocean. I have not quite achieved this. Instead, I resorted to my habit of making an unorganized logical appeal to my readers. Still, I think I have accomplished something worthwhile. I do not doubt that a more poetic approach would have been more enjoyable, but for today, I think it is best to leave the poetry to the experts:

The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,
And round the pebbly beaches far and wide
I heard the first wave of the rising tide
Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;

A voice out of the silence of the deep,
A sound mysteriously multiplied
As of a cataract from the mountain's side,
Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.

So comes to us at times, from the unknown
And inaccessible solitudes of being,
The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;

And inspirations, that we deem our own,
Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing
Of things beyond our reason or control.
(Longfellow, The Sound Of The Sea)

More from A Pilgrim's Platen

To See The Sun No More

Image
I recently traveled to Houlton, Maine, to participate in a seemingly national cultural event: the viewing of the total annular eclipse. It was not a journey that I had really planned out beforehand. The decision to go at all was in question up until the hour before I left. I made the trek up to the northern half of the state that I have learned to call home with a close friend of mine who had also awoken that morning, unsure of his participation in the journey. As we drove up with plenty of time to spare we could not help but notice the immense amount of traffic on a hundred-mile section of the interstate which rarely sees more than three cars at a time. It was clear to us that people wanted to see this eclipse. As rather lukewarm astronomers, we were unprepared for the mass of people we would encounter when we reached our viewing destination.
Read more

Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have Mercy on Me, a Sinner

Image
About two years ago I was sitting in my grandmother's living room, and we were discussing the books that we were reading. I do not remember what books we were discussing, but I remember her interrupting our discussion of a certain book to ask me if I had ever read The Way of a Pilgrim , I said that I had not, and she proceeded to tell me that it was her favorite book. She pointed it out to me on the shelf and told me that I should have it. I asked her if she was sure she wanted to give it away because it was her favorite book. She said to me that she had read it ten times already, and she figured that she would not need to read it again in her lifetime. Fast forward to last month, and I am presenting this book to my newly formed book club. We read it together in a month and spent a few hours discussing the book over wine, cheese, and crackers. My brief thoughts on the book are as follows.
Read more

A Time for New Creation

Image
Morning exists for prayer, Daytime Exists for production, Evening exists for thought. This is a line that I laid out on my typewriter a month or so ago with little awareness of what I was writing. The framing of the sentence seems like it could be a profound one, however, when you actually read it and take two seconds to think about it, it is clear that it is far from profound. In fact, it may be utter nonsense. With that being stated, I will now try to defend the statement as true, at least in my personal experience. Morning is for prayer. I pray the best in the mornings. There is something uniquely peaceful and fruitful about offering your day to God before the day has begun. There is something about spending time reflecting on His word and listening for His voice in the morning that is different than any other time of day. It may simply be that it is the first thing and, therefore, it feels the most important. Or perhaps it is the other way around: it is the most important thing, so...
Read more