18 Ocean View

     I was 18 when I first saw the ocean.  I grew up in Missoula and a river runs through it, several actually, but being from a non-swimming family my experiences were limited to throwing rocks in the water and wading.  Although there were several lakes not too far away I have very few memories of being at a lake.  So when I found out the first social activity of the year at my college in Oregon was a beach party I was thrilled.  I wondered how I would react.  I am by nature a reserved person and I didn't know anyone there well enough to let down my guard with anyway, but as we got near enough to the coast for me to see glimpses through the bus windows I started crawling over my classmates for a closer look.  I was entranced.  When we got out of the bus and I could experience the ocean with my other four senses it was even more magnificent.
     I had never seen such massive motion, it was as if the familiar mountains surrounding my Montana home had somehow come to life. I had never heard the roar of the ocean before, and yet it sounded familiar.  The vastness of the sea stretching from the Oregon horizon to merge with her sister seas and cover the planet made me feel as small as the grains of sand on the beach.  I knew within it's depths were fish of all sizes and descriptions, strange creatures, some still undiscovered, and nearby--whales.  All this combined with the power of the wind until I began to distinguish in the roaring waves the call of a mother, the call to come home.  The ocean calls us home because it is the sound of the womb, the first sounds any of us hear. A womb with a view.  Burial at sea now seemed more fitting than lonely.
     For the Christian there are many strange homecomings.  Through Christ we come to God only to discover He is our Father and that somewhere inside we knew all along that He should be.  We find a church home and discover that it is full of brothers and sisters from newborn to elderly.  We travel to distant places and feel an instant kinship with strangers with whom we have nothing in common except the Spirit.  And finally, we go one by one to the foreign beauty of heaven only to discover it has always been our real home.
     I waded in the cold water that September in Oregon though few others did.  They had seen the sea before.  We have made many trips since then to the rocky Oregon coast.  I have seen the northern Atlantic and enjoyed the warmth of the Gulf coast and occasionally swayed to the rocking chair motion of boats.  In Hawaii I even saw whales.  The first time I saw the ocean I wondered how I would react; it is the same to this day--with wonder.