Faith to Move Seashells

Yesterday I was returning from St. Augustine, having delivered a birdhouse to a customer. I decided to take A1A along the coast and was delighting in glimpses of the waves between the houses. I found a pull-off and sat on the beach for about 30 minutes.

Sitting on the beach is just about the nearest thing to heaven on this earth. I especially love it when a storm is rolling in, or when the sun is setting. Sometimes I go to the beach when it’s dark and I can only see distant lights reflected off the water, and I simply listen to the ebb and flow of the breakers. In those moments, eternity is as real a concept to me as constrained time.

As I look out over the water, reaching visually to see the furthermost horizon, I understand both how small I am and how vast I am. In that moment in time, I know I am part of the waves, and the water, and the sand and its many hidden creatures. I know it to the depths of my being. I was created, after all, from exactly the same stuff.

I wonder, “Am I the only one who considers the sand?” The sand I am sitting on came from somewhere else. It hasn’t always been here. It was either brought in by the waves or man, when restoring a beachline after a storm. Regardless, the sand I sat on as a child is not the sand I am sitting on now.

I wonder, “How far have these shells traveled to rest here?” The shells I walked on as a child have since been crushed into tiny bits and are now part of the sand far beneath my current place of rest. The ones around me now are the smallest shells imaginable. I select ten and place them on my leg to inspect. They are the tiniest things, the smallest only as big as a BB, yet fully intact. They are the evacuated homes of coquina clams and lie about by the thousands. Did nature sacrifice them in its big bubbling wave dance, or are they still motoring around somewhere wondering where their cozy little home went?

I wonder then, “Am I the same body?” I immediately know I am not. In fact, there is not one single cell in my current body that was there when I was born. Not one. In fact, I have actually become anywhere from 5.8 to 8.29 completely different physical bodies since I landed on this earth. There are some notable exceptions to this rule. The lenses of my eyes will never regenerate. Neither will, for the most part, my brain cells, nor my teeth. So, I realize that everything in this moment is new, except for my brain which is perceiving it. The waves are new. The sand and shells are new. The sun is new. And I am new. And in the next moment, I will be different yet again.

I wonder, “Am I the person I am supposed to be?” Like the sand, the waves, even the sun and atmosphere, I am not the same. Even my non-regenerative brain has morphed and transformed over the years. It has become what I trained it to become. It is the one part of my physical me that I had some control over. Have I formed it into the fully-functioning, fully-loving, fully-creating tool it was designed to be? That is the eternal question, really. Unlike my body which, for the most part, continues its destructive behavior regardless of what I do, my brain or intellect, call it whatever you like, is malleable and trainable to some degree.

And then, inevitably, I wonder as I sit upon this sand, observing the rushing of the water, the flashing of the sun, and the stretching of the horizon, “Who am I, really?” Who is this “person” whose body changes every seven to ten years, whose brain warps into whatever input I feed it, whose hands touch and help and create? Who am “I”?

“I” am what I am. “I” am a part of the Whole and was created from the Whole by the hands of the One who is All. “I” am the holy spirit who is part of the Holy Spirit who inhabits this ever-changing body, this temple. I am the one who is observing the person who is getting distressed because the body cells showing up these days are not as pretty as the ones before. I am the one who is following in the footsteps of my Creator when I love and create. When my physical hands touch another, it is I who is enveloping my touch with love. When my physical hands build a new home for one of Earth’s creatures, it is I who both creates and instills love into that physical piece of artwork.

In some ways, I find that it takes all the pressure off. My day after day of “Get it right” quickly becomes an eternity of guidance from my Creator and all the perfection that brings. I find that I have a limitless supply of insight, resources and ideas when I step back from my limited person and live in the spirit of the “I”. The Bible says that faith is not the thing seen, but the evidence of the thing not yet seen. It also says that if we have just a mustard-seed sized helping of it, we can move mountains. I’ll tell you right now, I’m embracing that, although all I really want to do is sit on this beach and move shells.

I’m happy to leave the mountains to you.