I ran up the Back River along side the channel that separates Tybee from Little Tybee and as I turn to the main beach, it made me stop dead in my tracks. It is a wonderfully gorgeous morning with a breeze that has the seas kicked up a couple of notches since yesterday. My run had been a good one and the tunes that my I-Pod was sending to my ears were all perfect.
Then I stopped.
The lone Shrimp boat was still there. Nets cast, dipping from side to side as it trolled with a Captain that I am even more certain is desperate for a catch.
I couldn’t believe it.
The only other thing on the ocean was a lone paddle boarder whose silhouette could easily be mistaken for Jesus with a cane walking on the water, alone with his thoughts.
It made me think about all of the desperation that I’ve seen in my life. Thousands of people have cried in my office as they told me their stories and begged me for something. I am tender hearted so more often than not they got whatever it was they were asking for, though not always in the way that they thought.
It made me think about my own desperate moments often in the middle of the night. At 5:43 this morning I was staring at the ceiling choking down a sense of angst that had woken me. The bedside clock projects the numbers on the ceiling in the dark and I noticed that if I looked between the numbers and not at the numbers themselves, between the 5 and the 4 was the image of the Celtic cross.
Mary Ann Beil and Mitch Wesley immediately popped into my head and the angst went away. Friends have a way of doing that even if they’re not necessarily present.
In Celtic Christianity, faith takes root in the dark places where roots grow or in sealed tombs where crucified Saviors rise up. The darkness is just as important as the light. Without the darkness there is no light.
I’ve had a lot of dark in my life lately even as I stood in the brilliant sunshine of a day at the beach. I could use a different kind of light. An inner shinning where my heart lies in pieces. And try as I might to put it back together by myself I need help. Like jigsaw puzzles are put together faster if friends are working on it, I understand that no one gets through the dark by themselves.
As these things flashed through my mind, I resumed my run keeping an eye on the Shrimp boat. At one point, the silhouette of Jesus with his cane on the water stood in front of the boat and it made me stop again.
“What in the hell?” I said out loud.
Salt water leapt from the ocean into my eyes. I laughed out loud at both the image and the meaning that I took from it.
God bless that Captain! Throughout yesterday, last night and now today he or she has kept at it. Persistence and faith may be paying off. Jesus himself has showed up! God is moving shrimp from the dark coolness of the bottom where they rest on hot days towards the lightness of the surface.
I blew a kiss to the Captain and towards Jesus and started running again with feet that were lighter than before.
