The ocean is the first thing I see every morning when I come downstairs to make my morning coffee.  Some days, it is sleepy-eyed under the covers of the clouds, or restless and wild with the wind.

But today, it is radiant with the sun and full of all the beauty of the sky.  The clouds themselves have been lured into the waves, and held there, contented prisoners of the blue.

It is hard to stay inside on the days when the ocean looks so lovely, and is so loved.  Something in me is compelled to stand on the shores and delight in the union of sun and sky and sea.

So we put the school books away and pack a bucket and a trowel and a bit of lunch, just in case.

We bare our toes to spring sunshine

and embrace the possibility of sandy footprints

and saltwater kisses.

We find the particular joy of wave-tumbled rocks,

fresh from the deep,

and the sharp welcome from barnacle domains,

crusted high.

We are embraced by the sea, which understands the briny adventure that is boyhood,

and the singular beauty of little girls, who in all their moods, are ever more captivating with each turn of the waves.

There is something sacred here, and we drink it in,

here where sun and sky and sea meet

in a kind of holy trinity,

and each member is made more magnificent

by of the magnificence of the others,

until I do not know which I like best,

the sun,

the sky,

or the sea.

Breathless is the beauty that makes us more beautiful, this ocean,

full of a loveliness that makes us more lovely.

You cannot be ugly at the sea.

It is full of the poetry of Creation,

and all around I see the hand of the Creator,

who presses His fingerprints into the shells on the shore,

and burns His glory onto the waves of the sea.

It is as if Heaven has come down,

a rush of eternity into the depths of the sea,

and all of its glory has been broken open

by the thorns that pressed in

in their attempt to hold it back.

But those sharp shards of hate and sin and death,

pressed too hard.

They pricked Heaven and burst it open

until the sacred rained down

all over thirsty earth,

which waited, parched and trembling,

for such a salvation.

We find it here–heaven–right here where sun and sky and sea come together,

in a kind of holy trinity.

We gather up the bits of it,

like manna,

and let it feed and fill and drench us,

until we are altogether changed.

*100 Days of Motherhood, 36