Playful Offer

Water lapped over my feet as I walked the ocean’s shore. Were waves simply complying with the natural order or had my rational mind rejected a playful offer from Spirit, to follow them into deeper waters and the unexplainable real?

At home, in the desert, Lizard scampered across my path with the same playful offer, but through Dreamtime. This time, I followed the leathery tease back through shadows of my beach experience, where Spirit had taken the form of Water and summoned me to come. Noisy distractions, weakened as I allowed eager waves to take me out to sea.

I rode one swell after another, slowly relinquishing control. Soon I would come back to my day-to-day, but for now, I enjoyed climactic rapture as fear and trust periodically collided, leaving me in a state of unnerving freedom.

Between two crests I settled in Water’s trough to rest. “Come,” the undercurrent whispered, suggesting that I could not remain on the surface and also deepen.

I had left the shore. Was that not enough? Perhaps enough depended on my desire.

Knowledge lured me, but the truer urge beckoned me to a closer connection with Sacred within, away from outer judgments and final answers.

I was still on the surface and in between breakers. Rocking waves gently lulled me back to memories of Jesus. Often, he took something ordinary, like water, and invited his disciples into mysterious wonder. Interested onlookers would ask Jesus questions and invariably, he would answer in Socratic style, with another question.

Jesus invited his followers to come back to their truest selves, by asking them to ponder nature. Consider the birds, or take a look at this fig tree. Now, his spirit was wooing me back to myself through creation, too. Again, a whisper, “Come.”

I dove down. Though the dark became darker, I sensed a sustaining light. There, in solitude, Presence was all around. It was riddle-like. In the dark, there was light and in solitude, Presence.

It all started when lapping waves and a scampering lizard asked me to join them on an adventure. What began as a playful offer quickly became an invitation to intimacy.

Sacred Ruminations*