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It’s been a crazy, busy summer filled with things decidedly un-summery–summer school, football and band camp, and other scheduled events which made an escape to the beach this year impossible. But I have my memories of last summer to get me through. This is one such post from last year at this time.

It’s Thursday, late afternoon. I’m walking down the beach looking for shells and watching the waves roll in. Tomorrow will be the last full day here at the beach. I’m not ready to go home. I’m never ready to go home when I’m at the beach.

It’s been a fairly lazy week. Oh, we’ve been to Waterville and The Track, eaten at The Original Oyster House and Lulu’s. I imagine we’ll go to Flora-Bama for some fried oysters and shrimp before we leave because my friend Amy Sorrells said I needed to go, and y’all know I always do as I’m told if it suits me.

But truth be told, it would be enough for me just to walk on the beach every day. To dig in the sand and wade in the water. The crab catching, castle building, dolphin and stingray sightings are like extra gifts–unexpected and much appreciated.

I’ve often wondered if living at the beach would take away its hold on me. If knowing I wouldn’t have to leave would make me less inclined to appreciate it. I’ve said before I feel closest to God where the earth meets the vastness of the ocean. Here there is so much of Him and so much less of me. And while I know this is the case wherever I am, knowing it and knowing it aren’t necessarily one and the same.

I am never enough and God is always enough.

But here at the beach, there is peace in knowing that with Him, I am more than enough.

Now, if I could just find a way to bring that knowing home with me.

Not only did a week at the beach provide some much needed down time, it also lent itself to some writerly reflections I’ve shared with you here. (Sorry/you’re welcome.) And while there is great beauty and majesty where the waves kiss the shoreline, there is also the ugly underbelly of life near the ocean. I speak, of course, of the seaside gift shop:

A world of capitalistic greed where sunstroke victims can easily be persuaded to part with their vacation dollars. Who among us has not at least been tempted to purchase a souvenir as proof that we were, in fact, at the beach? And nothing says “I’ve been to the Gulf of Mexico” like a coconut painted to look like a pirate’s head.

Arrrrghhh!!!

Really, I don’t object to the coconut head. I don’t believe an oversized nut really cares what happens to it after it falls from a tree. But what of sea creatures? Many of us look forward to Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. We marvel at these ferocious, single minded killing machines of nature. We fear them with awe and respect.

Which is why we feel compelled to stuff them in a pickle jar full of formaldehyde and set them on a shelf: to honor their ferocity:

Majestic, no?

Of course, if having a dead shark on your shelf proves too frightening, you could always opt for an alligator head paper weight:

Personally, I’d like to see them turn some of these into staplers. Form AND function.

The little pufferfish is a poor swimmer. In the ocean, its only defense against predators is to quickly fill itself up with water making it an undesirable meal with its sharp, pointy surface.

Alas, in death there are no such defenses against a hot glue gun, googly eyes and a little straw hat.

Not all pufferfish suffer the indignities of the little straw hat, some retain their former appearance

(Save for the googly eyes, of course)

There is no dignity in death, at least if you’re a gift shop sea creature. But what of dignity in life? The hermit crab, both sea and land dwelling, is virtually defenseless, and must seek shelter from its enemies via the abandoned shells of snails or other such creatures.

I suppose beggars can’t be choosers.

Have we learned nothing from the Spongebob Squarepants movie?

Perhaps not.

It’s good to be human.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go dress my dog up like a chicken…

A little red boat sat alone at the shore.

Each morning I looked for her captain to no avail.

On the third day, I decided it was meant to be set afloat by a captain yet to be determined.

And that captain was me.

Just a short trip around the bay I tell myself. No one will even know I’m gone.

That was before the storms rolled in…

The winds and the waves tossed the little boat for what seemed like hours.

When the storm passed and the seas calmed I found myself on the shores of Key West, where I shared a Cheeseburger in Paradise with Jimmy Buffett.

He asked me to stay for the band’s next set, but the day was waining and I knew I had to get the boat back.

So back in the little red boat I climbed and back to Gulf Shores I paddled. There were sharks and pirates and other perils on my trip back, but I survived and I prevailed.

My adventure took a grand total of 30 minutes

And my feet never left the sand.

Sometimes grand adventures are just a daydream away.

Home now, but not.

Not really.

Part of me wants to close my eyes, fall asleep and wake up to the sound of the ocean. It’s always good to be home after being away, even if part of my heart still lingers at the beach. I know I’m not alone in my love of the ocean. Maybe that’s why so many people search for shells on the beach. We want to bring part of it back home with us.

The number of shells I found this trip pales in comparison to what we found back on November. There were much fewer beach combers in late fall than in late summer. The type of shells I found were different, too. Most of the shells from our first trip are either white or close to white, much bigger, too.

I don’t remember seeing many dark shells on our last trip. This time, the only ones that were unbroken were almost always black.

Then again, many times what I thought was a black shell turned out to be a clump of oil soaked sand. They’ve done a good job cleaning up the beaches after the BP spill, but there is still oil washing ashore in the Gulf of Mexico. You only need to dig down a few inches until the white sand turns to gray in some places.

And I wonder about that.

I wonder how many of my fellow shell seekers (of which there were many) began to assume ALL of the black spots on the shore were not shells but oil soaked clumps of sand.

I wonder if we’ve become so accustomed to disappointment that we assume any potentially good thing probably isn’t so good after all; that if it’s still there when we find it, it’s probably not worth having.

And I wonder how many treasures we miss because we stop believing they’re still out there to be found.

The last shell found on the last day at the beach.

It’s Thursday, late afternoon. I’m walking down the beach looking for shells and watching the waves roll in. Tomorrow will be the last full day here at the beach. I’m not ready to go home. I’m never ready to go home when I’m at the beach.

It’s been a fairly lazy week. Oh, we’ve been to Waterville and The Track, eaten at The Original Oyster House and Lulu’s. I imagine we’ll go to Flora-Bama for some fried oysters and shrimp before we leave because my friend Amy Sorrells said I needed to go, and y’all know I always do as I’m told if it suits me.

But truth be told, it would be enough for me just to walk on the beach every day. To dig in the sand and wade in the water. The crab catching, castle building, dolphin and stingray sightings are like extra gifts–unexpected and much appreciated.

I’ve often wondered if living at the beach would take away its hold on me. If knowing I wouldn’t have to leave would make me less inclined to appreciate it. I’ve said before I feel closest to God where the earth meets the vastness of the ocean. Here there is so much of Him and so much less of me. And while I know this is the case wherever I am, knowing it and knowing it aren’t necessarily one and the same.

I am never enough and God is always enough.

But here at the beach, there is peace in knowing that with Him, I am more than enough.

Now, if I could just find a way to bring that knowing home with me.

As some of you may have surmised (or not), I’m on vacation this week. When my sister invited my family to Gulf Shores, Alabama over the Thanksgiving holidays, I fell in love with this place and told my family we would be coming back in the summertime.

So here we are at the beach. I love the beach, and to my pride and delight, my 10 year old daughter loves it, too. There are two things that have occupied our time these past two days at the shoreline: sand castle building and crab catching.

I’ve never seen so many blue crab at the beach. After several unsuccessful attempts to catch one in a bucket, I made a five dollar investment in a crab net. It’s worked like a charm. I’ve caught several so far. And no, we didn’t have a crab boil. It was strictly catch and release.

Why would I spend all day catching crab only to turn them loose?

Because I can.

And because it’s fun.

Especially when they get angry and snap their little crab claws at me. Ha!

And because we don’t let them go immediately…

My daughter and I have combined the art of sand castle building and crab catching to create a luxury retreat for our temporary captives. Something we like to call:

Crabitopia!

Crabitopia: Coming soon to a katdishionary post near you!

(This was originally posted in March, 2010 after I spent a day at the beach just an hour away from home. This week I’m spending a week at another beach 9 hours away from home. I’m settling in and hoping to find some stories to share with you soon.)

It’s been too long since I met with you last. At that place where the world fades away and I feel closest to you.

Today was that day. As the morning began to slip away, I waited. But my original plans were put off and then changed.

Still, a promise is a promise. To myself, but more importantly, to my little girl. So what started out as a party of four became a party of two. Well, three…but you know what I mean.

Getting there proved a bit more stressful and time consuming than anticipated, but eventually the crowded streets of downtown Houston…

Gave way to the crowded streets of Galveston.

Until at long last, I stood at that place where I feel closest to you.

Funny how crowds seem to distract me everywhere else but here. Here I can always find solitude as the waves drown out everything else.

You show me that holding things in will only last so long. That my walls may appear strong, but you are stronger.

You wash away my walls and remind me that you are my fortress.

So once again I run to you, like I’ve done so many times before when I’ve gotten too far from you.

And you give me back my joy.

Thanks for meeting me here.

Again.

It’s been too long since I met with you last. At that place where the world fades away and I feel closest to you.

Today was that day. As the morning began to slip away, I waited. But my original plans were put off and then changed.

Still, a promise is a promise. To myself, but more importantly, to my little girl. So what started out as a party of four became a party of two. Well, three…but you know what I mean.

Getting there proved a bit more stressful and time consuming than anticipated, but eventually the crowded streets of downtown Houston…

Gave way to the crowded streets of Galveston.

Until at long last, I stood at that place where I feel closest to you.

Funny how crowds seem to distract me everywhere else but here. Here I can always find solitude as the waves drown out everything else.

You show me that holding things in will only last so long. That my walls may appear strong, but you are stronger.

You wash away my walls and remind me that you are my fortress.

So once again I run to you, like I’ve done so many times before when I’ve gotten too far from you.

And you give me back my joy.

Thanks for meeting me here.

Again.

Ah, Sharkbait! He joined the Fellowship of the Traveling Smartypants because of a challenge from me, and I’m so glad that he did. He is a deep thinker for such a small fish, and he’s a lawyer that would be perfectly happy to be at the bottom of the ocean.


Here’s a bit of his bio:
What am I? How does one answer that question? I write, but am I a writer? I study, but am I a student? I teach, but am I a teacher? I am a lay minister, public speaking trainer, cell group leader, and much more. And in my spare time I am a lawyer to fund all my other activities. But above all, I want to be Faithful In Serving HIM. So all I reveal about myself is that I want to be a FISH.

I love the water. I mean really love it. From a young age I was always in the water and swimming around. I suppose it made choosing a fish as an avatar a bit inevitable. Which is rather ironic, because I am really not a very good swimmer. Not that I’m in imminent danger of going under for the third time in my bath tub you understand, but I have a deal with the sea. I don’t swim out into it alone, and it doesn’t try to drown me.

But I digress.

I really love water, and especially the sea. I love going to the beach, and growing up I had lots of toys for building sandcastles and such like. But my favourite was the simple plastic bucket; because once you had made your sand castle you had to collect the water from the sea to fill the moat. You did have a moat on your sandcastle didn’t you? Of course you did. So I used to collect buckets of water from the sea, and play with them.

You can tell a lot about the sea from just that one bucket. You can see that the water is wet, and tastes salty. You know what it smells like, and if you put your hand in, you know it burns any open cuts. If you took the water home and looked under a microscope, you would be able to see some of the organisms that live in the sea, and even analyse the water for chemical content.

You can tell a lot about the sea from that single bucket of water.

But it won’t tell you how unbelievable HUGE the sea is, or how deep. The mind-numbing depths or the amazing and scary animals that exist there. The strength of a single wave, or the distance a single current can carry a leaf.

In short, the bucket can show you what the sea is like, but it will be only a glimpse of the full potential. But boy does it make you want to go out there and swim in that ocean.

For us, God is like that infinite ocean. Wild, and unknowable. Yet we have Jesus, sort of like a bucket of God. A tiny glimpse of who God is, and what he is capable of, but never the whole story, just as much as we can comprehend. We see God in what we know of Jesus, but we also realise from him, just how little we actually know.

But Jesus was also just a plastic bucket, filled with God. He was fully God, but he was also fully human. What made him unique was not the plastic bucket, but the water it contained. In our effort to understand what it meant for him to be fully God, we need to learn how we can be fully human. How we can take on the nature of Christ, who was able to be the perfect plastic bucket, not because his plastic was better than ours, but because of how he was filled with the perfect water. We need to be Jesus in the world, showing people God within us. We need to be the perfect plastic bucket that Jesus was teaching us to be, not so that we can be filled, but by being filled.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go visit the sea again, and look for a re-fill. See you on the distant shore.

For more from Sharkbait, visit him at Shark Bait’s Reef