Along with the sand, waves, oyster shells, and jellyfish at Galveston Beach, I learned early on about other sea-creatures, too. There was a black, sticky one that my parents called “Tar.” It would cling to your beach towels and bathing suits, even after they came out of the wash. Sometimes you'd find it on your heels and toes after swimming, and you’d have to scrub it with alcohol after your bath to get it off. There were also little worm-like creatures everywhere on the sand. They were called “Cigarette Butts,” and you weren’t allowed to pick them up. And far out to sea, there were tall, angular structures that looked like ships, except that they didn’t move. They had a flame of fire that hovered over them, flickering through the mist. Those were called “Oil Rigs.” My mother said that they were where the Tar Creatures came from.
In my late twenties, I discovered a different kind of beach experience. For several years, my mother would take my kids and me to Sanibel Island in Florida during our February winter break. While still on the Gulf of Mexico, Sanibel had clean, white sand and oil-free waters. There were piles of amazing seashells from far-away places, brought to shore by special ocean currents. There were dolphins playing near shore, and a glistening bay with manatees and egrets and mangrove trees. Leaving the cold snow and mid-winter sicknesses of Kentucky behind, I'd shed my hectic single-mom life to splash in the ocean with my children, like a jet-setter …. These annual island visits quickly became a special time for the whole family—a glowing memory in a series of often dreary years.
My memories of Sanibel were so wonderful that I decided that I wanted to share them with Don when we got married. So in 2019, we headed back to the island for our honeymoon. It didn't take me long to realize that something was wrong. After about five minutes on the beach, our throats began to burn. We coughed, and our eyes watered. At first, in these pre-Covid days, I thought that we had picked up colds on the plane. Then I heard others coughing, too. Strange! Walking on the beach, I noticed that instead of beautiful shells, there were dead, smelly fish, and too much seaweed. The motels looked a bit shabbier, and there were lots of "for sale" signs in front of the fancy homes. The dolphins were gone, too, as were the manatees, and the water in the bay looked a sickly shade of bluish green.
"It's the 'Red Tide,'" the locals told us, "with Blue Algae overgrowth in the bay. It comes from Lake Okeechobee," they explained, looking defeated. "It's toxic, and it is ruining the island, becoming a year-round problem." Lake Okeechobee, Florida's largest body of fresh-water, is filled with run-off from uncontrolled development and agriculture on its banks. The government has chosen to ignore the problem, which gets worse every year, for the sake of profit for the large companies near the lake. Run-off from the lake flows through channels into both the Atlantic and the Gulf, and with increasing ocean temperatures, has created a toxic ocean soup.
I was heart-broken. Every day, for as long as I could stand it, I sat on the beach coughing and moping, like Job in his ash heap. I had wanted to bring our grandchildren here, as my mother had done for us. I had wanted a romantic ocean honeymoon. Yet human greed and selfishness had ruined it all, once again. Even my childhood in Houston had not prepared me for this. Even before I experienced the fires in Colorado, I suddenly realized what life on our injured planet is going to look like from now on, and I was furious and depressed at the same time.
Poet Mary Oliver begins her poem, "Lead," with the line: "Here is a story/ to break your heart./ Are you willing?" She tells about a group of wintering loons that fly into her neighborhood only to die, gracefully, one by one, from some mysterious environmental poison. Appreciating life even in their tragic death, they cry out, “in the long, sweet savoring of … life/ which, if you have heard it, you know is a sacred thing.” After singing, the loon, “speckled/ and iridescent and with a plan/ to fly home/ to some hidden lake,/ was dead on the shore.” Oliver then concludes in her wise way, “I tell you this/ to break your heart,/ by which I mean only/ that it break open and never close again/ to the rest of the world.” [1]
A few days into our visit on Sanibel, a late-season tropical storm skirted the island. As the wind howled, and the waves crashed up high on the beach, I was drawn outside into the wild beauty of it. I walked along the shore for miles, the turbulence of my own heart churning along with the sea. It felt good to be battered by the wind, to feel the danger of the storm rattle and echo the gloom of my heart. It felt good to see beauty in the chaos, to savor its sweetness like the dying loon.
I wonder if that's how Job felt, too, when God spoke to him out of the mighty whirlwind, battering him with unanswerable questions about the exquisiteness of creation? Here in our verses from Job, the ocean is alive and livid with rage, tossing in a storm. It's like a newborn baby, kicking and screaming without reason. Yet, in the hands of God the midwife, the ornery sea is swaddled in clouds, held in secure bonds, and beloved.[2] God will hold us, too, in our chaos, in our anger, in our questioning.
In the tropical storm on Sanibel, as the ocean writhed, I felt like God was telling me, like God told Job, to shake off my gloom and to stand up and "gird up my loins" for battle. God was giving me a glimpse of the chaos to come, and the need for me to fight for creation—to fight my own laziness and desires, as well as the corporate greed that continues to lay waste what God is making. As we face the disastrous results of ecological turmoil, it is perhaps good for us to remember the power of God's creative Love ... as well as the power unleashed in us when we let our hearts be broken open to the world's pain. Our hearts must break not so that we may be crushed, but so that we may be filled with the Love that is around us. Are you willing?
No comments:
Post a Comment