Up the Sunbeam

-- I can feel my own spine lengthen and stretch in empathic connection with the waves as they rise, and rise, tension building almost to breaking, until they finally arch their backs in defiant determination just before they commit to the forward, crashing, headlong fall into the waiting shoreline. Whatever sand and rocks await them, the water will both surrender and subdue. What is left of the mighty wave when the rocks are done with it? What is sand, but stone pounded fine by crashing waves? On the same day these giant waves were joyously galloping to shore, risking surrender to subdue, Drummer Boy set out for some beach combing. No matter that his age names him adult, when there is fun to be had on a wide open beach, he is a child at play, imagining all manner of adventures. I think this particular day he was caught somewhere between shipwrecked Robinson Crusoe and an episode of Man vs. Wild where he and Bear Grylls would be in full survival mode, needing to find shelter to st...

-- It's my birthday today. Two years ago, I wrote a birthday contemplation about peeling away the old to reveal the growth underneath.  I looked to the manzanita tree to visualize the process of becoming . Time went by. Ten months ago I wrote about how I was Thinking About Thinking , and praying for God to continuously untangle me from the sometimes unintentional, but destructive thinking that was determining my actions.  Time went by. At the beginning of 2011 I wrote reluctantly about my struggle with my weight and my desire to see God's strength victorious in the place of my greatest weakness and failure.  I discovered my need for a new perspective and a good attitude toward a life-long problem.  Time went by. A little over four months ago I wrote about a bizarre encounter  that held up a mirror to my heart. That mirror shockingly revealed the truth, I was my own mean girl! From the moment I realized I was actually mistreating  an Image-bea...

-- Inhale . . . Exhale . . . Breath of earth . . . With the fall of eventide the ocean sighs a soft slow breath and the fog overwhelms the shore in giant-scale waves like the ones that crash on the beach. Air weighs heavy, time suspends, vision diminishes and things of size and substance disappear as everything is swallowed in the swirl of minute drops of water flowing like the ocean from whence they came. Fog has been a frequent visitor this winter, more so than any other I remember.  One night as I drove, fog lights brightening the cloud around me, the fog was so thick, I literally could not tell where I was.  All the usual landmarks and street signs, intersections and buildings were completely shrouded from sight.  At times I couldn't even tell where the curb was to follow the contour of the street. Even though I was never more than 3 miles from home, on a route that practically has my own personal groove in it from repeated trips, I could not navigate...