The Curve of the Earth

From my idyllic perch this morning, I faced the morning sun atop a 10-story building on the beach. I think of the trips of my youth...midnight forays in tiny vehicles and in pitched tents done over short weekends rather than air-conditioned condominiums for a blissful week. Today's sun started cooking my exposed skin immediately, the ocean breeze hot and insistent. The scripture I read was speaking of God's creation: "For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands..." from Isaiah 55.  I sang the song that goes along with it, a couple of grandchildren joining in. As we looked at the beautiful horizon and the water lapping the shore, we noticed marks in the sand that were not there yesterday. Three sea turtles had laid their eggs in the night, summoned by the siren call of their birthplace. Their babies will bake in the warm sand for 60 days, hatch out and beat a hasty retreat to the ocean, desperately trying to avoid hapless seagulls and stray dogs. If they make it, they'll eventually come back to the site of their birthplace to start the process over. How do they know?  Over the course of an hour, three different people came near the nests, obviously reporting the events to someone important. There are numerous cordoned-off areas all along where we are staying, placed carefully from caring humans attempting to help them. I think of our own beginnings, where we struggle out of our mother's wombs and instinctively seek the warm comfort of her skin and milk.  Our lives can be a bit of flopping about too, avoiding roadblocks (or not) and attempting to find our way to our own sea of contentment. The icky, sticky struggle, though we often avoid it, is the very thing which can strengthen and enable us to do what we need to do. 

The scriptures speak in the book of Romans, how God's existence can be plainly seen, simply from the amazing creation that we see before us (though there's nothing simple about it). The circle of life keeps going around, fraught with impossibilities, but delicately balanced to keep sustenance moving forward. As I get to experience the miracles of nature and beautiful grandchildren around me this week, I am again in awe of the gifts that we have been given. Everything on the earth is shot through with flaws, stemming from original sin and the fall of man. But Eden has a Redeemer.