Something about those wings like eagles

Nature is a funny thing. We tend to observe its beauty and attribute it to the Creator. We experience God more readily in the woods, the mountains, at the beach, watching the sunrise, or standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. We’ve all had that overwhelming sense of awe when confronted with the beauty and wonder of the natural world. What happens to that surety of God’s presence and power when nature is not passively beautiful?

When I was a child, I thought that God was the ocean. I suppose only a child growing up in a coastal area could come up with this, but I believed this for quite a long time. Everything I heard about God matched what I knew about the ocean. God is always present, so is the ocean. God sustains life, so does the ocean. God is both known and a mystery, as is the ocean. God’s power is limitless and uncontrollable, so, too, the ocean. God is both beautiful and terrifying, just like the ocean. My childish reasons made sense. As I grew older, I was reluctant to let go of my understanding of God as the ocean. This image of God as ocean remains a powerful metaphor for me, and the beach is still my primary sacred space. There is no place I’d rather be when a storm rolls in.

To watch a nor’easter or hurricane roll in off the ocean is to be reminded of humanity’s finitude. Waves leap up with a terrifying grace and swallow all the humanmade boundaries—breakwaters, beach walls, and parking lot demarcations—with an insatiable hunger. When water spouts dance on the horizon, creating swirling funnels of water and wind, it’s impossible to think that human beings are the most dominant force in creation. If any of those spouts make it to the shore, devastation and destruction will be the monument to its fleeting presence. And in this time of superstorms, none of us need to be reminded of a hurricane’s power to destroy all that human beings have created.