The Beach at Last

After five hours of diligently working on my final paper, I was weary. I still needed to practice, but I had to take a break. It was early evening, just the right time to see if I could manage a walk on the new beach path. Last summer we were restrained from going more than half way down the cliff by huge orange plastic fencing strung across the entire swath of hillside. We stood as close as we could and watched the giant caterpillars and bulldozers (I wonder why they use animal terminology?) pushing dirt and stone all over in odd patterns and indistinguishable shapes.


This year the fences are down, the sidewalks complete, the water beckoning. Twice I tried to descend the dozen wide loops to the bottom. Twice I didn't even make it half way down before I realized I was in trouble and had to turn back (my body has a mind of its own sometimes). But tonight my tummy was behaving and my head called for cool air. So I headed for the bluff to see how far I might be able to go.

How different everything seemed. Where once there had been decrepit wooden benches there are now smooth marble seats with inscriptions and dedications (not any more comfortable and perhaps a bit more chilly but they look a whole lot nicer). Where last year there was dirt and straw covering the decimated hillside, this year the ground is covered by wild-growing weeds of all varieties from gigantic purple clovers as tall as my waist to delicate daisies and black eyed susans and pigweed and thistles and burdock. The smell of green is as strong as I remember from my childhood when we played freeze tag and hide and seek out in the back forty where no one cared if the weeds reigned. I inhaled deeply. It was heady.

So I began my descent. From the top you cannot see the bottom. From the bottom you cannot see the top (two completely different things). The path is wide and looping with a full dozen crisscrosses (see http://www.cuw.edu/Alumni_Friends/Alumni/pdfs/photos/bluff.pdf for a few pictures). I smiled as I watched a red winged oriole swoop into a clump of thistle, deftly avoiding all the frothy white pockets of bug spit.

Basically you point your body in the right direction and move your feet - gravity takes care of the rest. Just as I reached the half way point, happily clopping along enjoying the weeds and dragonflies and birds and wonderful fragrances and the cool breeze caressing my cheeks, I saw two deer below! I stopped stock still and watched as they cavorted on the beach, chasing each other, nuzzling, darting after sea gulls - they were having a grad time of it, totally oblivious of my presence. No spots on their coats, but they were small and obviously young. I glanced up and down the beach and wondered where they might have come from. There was no tree protection for a good long ways in either direction.

Too quickly for me, they tired of their escapades and and seconds later they wandered off to the right out of sight. I exhaled and continued my walk down into the coolness of the beach front. What a disappointment to reach the bottom and find a huge wall of rock separating me from the water and signs posted that the area was a protected wetlands with no admittance. I guess the seagulls deserve their own amphitheater and they noisily roosted on the twenty rocks just a few yards offshore, hopscotching from rock to rock and crying to each other about one thing and another.

The path at the bottom of the bluff stretched as far as you could see in either direction. First I followed the deer tracks to the right. They had stopped a few times to drink from the drainage ditch water. The sidewalk went just a short way around the bend to the end of Concordia's property. Then I turned around and headed to the left, following the cliff around to the other end of Concordia's holdings. To my delight and amazement I found a pristine (translate natural) beach with access to the water! I knew it to be a beach only because there were signs posted about no lifeguards etc. I stepped down the tall stone steps to the sandy area where someone had obviously enjoyed a roaring bonfire not long ago and gingerly picked my way over the pebbles and driftwood to the water's edge and dipped my toes in. I expected it to be arctic cold, but it wasn't bad. Not bad at all. Not warm enough to invite me to swim, but OK.

I lingered long moments, listening to the waves lap quietly on shore, to the chatter of the sea gulls, the rustle of the wind against the tall grass behind me. Yes, you can breathe well here, slough off the tedium of hours of lecture and writing, bending your mind around the mysteries of the universe. Here you are simply awed by the universe, by the majesty of things larger than pencils and computers and lessons and rooms and buildings. You grasp the incredible power of the sheer size of the world wrapped up in a sandy beach with vistas to celestial grandeur.

Ah, but it grows dark and my lesson awaits. I tear myself away, plod back UP the dozen looping ramps, back to the reality of a Master's degree program and all its required pieces. Can I sing Copland's Simple Gifts? Yes. I understand God's world is much simpler than we make it out to be. How simple yet how amazing the infinite variety of God's created world.

I am at peace.