Ocean Connection
“O Spirit of God, blow across my little life and let me drink in your great life.”
-Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline
A small hexagon glass jar with a black lid sits on the modern silver window frame in my Manhattan apartment. It contains 76 small and smooth pebbles, ranging from a quarter to half inch in size. They are of various textures, colours, shapes, weights… each tiny pebble presents rich and unique characteristics. These are the small pebbles I picked up from a beach in Australia. There are so many majestic beaches there, and the characteristics of each beach are distinct. The ocean colours, sea caves, sea arches, and sea stacks, the waves, the tides, and the feel of the sand you walk on… and, yes, so are the sea shells and pebbles I picked across many beaches I have been to there.
But, I particularly cherish this collection of small pebbles, so small and exquisite that they appeared special to me. Imagine you are a tiny pebble, nesting in a dimple on the expansive beach of very fine sand, basking in the sun. In stillness, you feel the gentle ocean breeze blow across you, you hear the sound of ocean currents forging in distance, the waves reaching the shore, making lapping, splashing, swooshing and whispering sounds as they rush and retreat. The refreshing ocean water soaks and washes you… Emerging from foamy ocean water, you glisten in sunlight… with such pristine beauty that a human being, who is looking for special pebbles, bends over to examine you up close. That human being was me. One by one, I chose and collected 76 tiny pebbles from the same beach.
I had been to many beaches around the world. No matter how famous they were, each only represented an experience of a visit as a tourist. But, this time, I spent time alone at beach after beach. I kept on wanting to go back to those vast magnificent yet quiet beaches with few people during our summer (their winter). I needed those quiet moments there — they had calming and healing effects on me.
Perhaps that was because my time on the Australian beaches coincided with major losses in my life. In the spring of 2018, shortly before my first visit to Australia, my mentor in both academia and life in America, and a grandfather figure to my daughter, had passed away. A recipient of four Fulbright Professorships (Germany, France, China and India), he understood my passion for cross-cultural communication. He appreciated my courage to dream big. You all know how different life can be when you lose someone who gets you, has confidence in you — someone who is your go-to person.
Then, shortly after my daughter and I arrived in Australia, we received the shocking news that my second elder brother unexpectedly died of cancer… It was on the beach, before the ocean’s vastness, in solitude, I found solace and peace.
During that 2018 trip, in the midst of these losses, we found great comfort in spending time with our extended family in Melbourne: two dear family members, my aunt, not biological, but my father’s best friend’s wife, and her second son, who cherished me as a “little” sister, always. By the time I returned to Australia for a second trip in 2022, both had passed away. This time, we were greeted by their joyful smiles and loving eyes in their photos, instead of in person. Instead of a big reunion dinner, a homemade feast, lively conversation and hearty laughter, in quietness I was shown the notebooks in which my aunt copied Bible verses daily till the very end of her life in her late 90s. We stayed with my cousin’s widow till late at night, sharing those precious years we grew together like siblings.
My aunt who passed away in Melbourne was the last living parent figure to me.
My father had died of kidney failure in his 40s when I was only two. My mother never remarried. She raised five of us, while working more than full time. A highly respected professional in the performing arts, she was well-known for her expertise and devotion to her students. While the calm and deep ocean could be a metaphor for my mom’s love, that of my dad’s, I was told, was passionate like strong ocean waves. It was his passion and compassion that won him many friends. His best friends and their wives instantly took over his parental role along with our mother, throughout their lives. That is why I call them uncles and aunts, and their children brothers and sisters.
On our way from Sydney to Melbourne, my daughter and I visited The Twelve Apostles, a spectacular collection of limestone rock formations, known as sea stacks, located off the shore of Port Campbell National Park by the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia.
It was an overcast, drizzly, chilly and windy day. There were actually only seven stacks remaining (originally nine, never twelve). Despite the fact that this is not a historical site but rather a popular tourist destination, my visit here turned out to be the single coastal experience that was not only majestic but also transformative for me.
Also, at that point, uncertainty hit everyone’s life around the world during the Covid pandemic. My heart was heavy with the reality of loss.
“What’s the point of life?” “How could one live a fulfilling life amongst uncertainties?” “What’s truly reliable to grab on to when things happen beyond your control?”
The stormy, dark atmosphere just felt right. Everything was strong: the wind, the rumbly sound of currents forging, the strength of the waves hitting and grinding the cliffs, and the crazy height and volume of the splashes following… the waves that made their way to the beach, and the force with which they sucked the sand away from under my feet…
All seemed to be driven by some really strong — or rather powerful — force, that could be felt but not seen.
I paused to observe, to breathe, to think… I noticed an opening in the overcast sky, and light beaming through the parting clouds hanging over the unlimited ocean. I thought about God. I imagined the lives of the Twelve Apostles following Jesus. I imagined their voices telling stories about Jesus among the sounds of ocean waves.
All the movements and sounds and smells around me only set off the absolute peacefulness and stillness in a strange way. I felt God’s presence. It was a spiritual encounter — God’s divine power working behind the scene, and within me.
I felt energized. At the turbulent Twelve Apostle beach, and by the 160 feet tall sea stack, I communed with God! My connection with the ocean became spiritual ever since. I never left a single beach without finding a peaceful spot to pray. God knew my need for spiritual growth over the years of losses in my personal life.
Upon return from Melbourne, God led me to the Church of the Incarnation, my home church since June 2022, and many years to come. It is here that the seeds of faith planted in me by Father Newcomb of St. James the Less (Scarsdale, NY) — the budding successes he nurtured, the new ministry skills I gained at the St. Andrew’s Church (Wellesley, MA), and my renewed energy — found rich soil to continue to grow roots.
Serendipitously, I happen to be experiencing the ongoing process of incarnation at the Church of the Incarnation! I have had invaluable opportunities to know God through Jesus Christ not only by participating in worships and studies, but also through lively services using my SHAPE. S.H.A.P.E. is the acronym Pastor Rick Warren used in his book, The Purpose Driven Life, to stand for: Spiritual Gifts, Heart (Passion), Abilities, Personality and Experience.
The journey of understanding God and discovering the wholeness God created in each of us is a continual process. Spirituality thrives through active engagement in spiritual disciplines. For example, I learned through a combination of study and personal experience that meditation can lead to change as a result of personal encounters with the living God. Spiritual meditation is the act of deeply engaging with God: listening to His word, reflecting on His works, rehearsing His deeds, and ruminating on His law (Foster, Celebration of Discipline). Prayer, in essence, is to discern God’s voice and commit to obeying His words.
My special collection of tiny pebbles in the small glass jar connects me to those peaceful times of solitude by the ocean, which serves as a premise for my present daily meditation and prayer. I simply close my eyes and imagine myself as a tiny pristine pebble, nesting in a dimple on the expansive beach of silky sand, along with others, soaking in ocean water, glistening in sunlight… infinitesimally small in the vast cosmic expanse, we are nonetheless each a masterpiece of God’s design.
In the glorious presence of God, the Creator of the universe, I pray, “O Spirit of God, blow across my little life and let me drink in your great life.” A gentle breeze, sometime a gust of wind, blow across me…
Thank you, God, for the majestic power and abundant richness of the natural world.
Thank you, God, for the gift of imagination.
Anne