Greediness

I come to the beach at sunset, eager for joy and beauty, greedy to capture it in photos, but the camera's battery is depleted.

The western sky is a thousand shades of pastel colors: blue, mauve, pink, peach, yellow. I want to carry photos home in my pocket, proudly paste them into my blog--but tonight I have taken an involuntary vow of poverty.

Does God rejoice in the changing beauty as much as I do? I wonder. Does God too want to hold onto particularly beautiful scenes, however transient? Or is every thing and every moment equally beautiful to the Creator?

I'm trying to accept my camera-less state when someone walking toward me stops and holds out a camera. "Would you mind taking my picture?"

"No, I'd be happy to," I laugh.

"Someone back there said no," she continued. "I guess she was afraid of me."

"Yeah, it's pretty scary here on this beach," I joked, taking several shots at various angles, silhouetted against the sunset sky and then with the fading light on her face.

She walked on, and so did I.

Beach People

It's a warm Sunday, and the beach is full of people, even at sunset: children making sand castles or splashing in the waves, adults swimming or just gazing westward.

Santa Catalina Island stretches across the horizon to the south.

On the cement walkway by the parking lot, people on bicycles, low dune-buggy tricycles, roller blades sail past. Couples walk arm in arm, and homeless people sit on benches sizing up passersby.

On the sand near the waves, joggers pass each other wordlessly, not breaking the other's silent meditation.

We are agreed: "To bless whatever there is, and for no other reason but simply because it is, that is what we are made for as human beings." --David Steindl-Rast

What Does Venus Do?

It's a glorious evening, three days past the new moon. When it gets darker, the moon stands in the west like a small smile with a dimple to its left, Venus.

As I stand there taking photos, a fresh-faced, bearded young man with scraggly hair and a backpack comes up to me and asks with excitement, "What's happening? Do you know what that is up there?"

"It's Venus," I say. "Venus and the moon next to each other. Beautiful, isn't it!"

"Yeah," he says, gazing up. "Yeah. What does Venus do?"

"I don't know. I have no idea," I say.

In my class on women and religion, I require my students to know the various Greek goddesses and their interests: Artemis, Aphrodite (aka Venus), Hera, Demeter.

But I think he means something else, like the astrological properties of this planet. I'm stumped.

"Yeah, I just thought you might know," he says, gesturing toward my big camera, on loan from John because he's in New York with my mini one.

"Well, actually, Venus is the second planet from the sun, closer than we are, and it's up there circling the sun, like that," I say, drawing a big circle with my arm around the vanished sun.

"And the moon is circling us, and they happen to look like they're next to each other tonight."

"Cool," he says.

"The moon was down there, below Venus last night, and tomorrow it will be further up in the sky, about that far from Venus," I continue.

"Okay, thanks," he says, walking away, leaving me still asking myself his question:

What does Venus do?

Ash Wednesday

Much to reflect on tonight, walking in the dark on the quiet beach.

The slender moon, two days old, hangs beneath Venus.

"Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return."

I look it up in Hebrew: "Afar atah, v'el-afar teshuv."

My sister Emily says this dust has several possible meanings, from worthless dust to interstellar dust from which all was created.

We are stardust, as the women of Sacred Emerging would say.

Why do all the church services leave out the address of this verse, Genesis 3:19? I think we don't want to be reminded that these beautiful words come from God's words to the man after his first sin.

T.S. Eliot captured the sadness of this day best in his poem "Ash-Wednesday 1930":

Because I do not hope to turn again

Because I do not hope

Because I do not hope to turn...

[I] pray to God to have mercy upon us

And I pray that I may forget

These matters that with myself I too much discuss

Too much explain

Because I do not hope to turn again

Let these words answer

For what is done, not to be done again

May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Glory

A glorious evening for running on the beach.

Bless YHWH, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless God's holy name.

Bless YHWH, O my soul, and forget not all God's benefits, who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases. -- Psalm 103: 1-3

All this beauty spread across the sky, and then it's gone, replaced by darkness.

Where does the sunset go?

Earth and sky and sun make a kaleidoscope of changing colors and pictures, always changing, no matter how much we want each beautiful scene to stay.

Beachless Days

Today is the fifth day that I can't take time to walk on the beach.

It feels like not going to church.

The sky is overcast but without drama, like a curtain between me and God.

The events that called me from jogging were good--a Sacred Emerging time of singing with Carolyn McDade and thirty-five other women, a Women-Church worship service, and today the preparation I need to do to teach tomorrow.

May I remember, "From the rising of the sun to its setting, let the name of YHWH be praised" (Psalm 113:3).

Even without the pleasure of dancing before Her on the sand.

Terns Turn Up?

I've never seen these birds on this beach before, five of them standing casually among the seagulls at sunset. Are they terns?

Bright orange beaks and short black legs...

Where did you come from? Anyway, welcome!