Wet Feet

I love the water. If I can touch it, feel it, submerse myself in it, I enter a realm of heaven. But even just the sound of it has the power to calm my soul, to infuse a sense of wonder into my earthbound form.

Sometimes when I find the water it is trickling or rushing, pouring over rocks and riverbeds, dripping, falling, traveling. It carries the divine in its droplets. I stand on the bank and watch a bit of heaven pass before my eyes. I am happiest when I get to ride along.

Other times the water finds me, falling from the sky. The droplets fall, sometimes gently, sometimes torrentially. They grace my head, soak my hair, gather and run down my face. In moments like this I tilt my head back, throw my arms wide and welcome the invasion of heaven. I feel one with the rain, and yet not quite. I find myself wishing that my skin held the ability to absorb the rain into my body, divinity into my being.

Today I have found the water and the water has found me. I sit on the shore of a vast ocean, an unsearchable immensity of God, and it is lapping at my ankles. The first few feet are shallow and clear. They uphold the ruse that maybe I could understand. But just beyond my feet the sandy footing drops away. The water is deep, dark and cool. I cannot comprehend it. Yet I want to dive long and deep and hard. The water calls to me. It comforts and soothes. When I can be near, my heart is at peace. When I dip into it, I am refreshed.



I have no explanation for why the water holds such a great influence over my heart except for the fact that I find God in the water. The water is not God. But it is like God. God invades the water. I drink water, I wash in water, and I stay alive. I play in the water and I find life. I listen to the water and I ponder its whispered mysteries.

The waves are lapping up on the shore. Today they are not crashing with force. They approach gently but consistently. They speak not of urgency but of gently offered intimacy. Another day may bring another message. God is speaking. I wish I knew what He was saying, the interpretation for the language of the waves. But somehow I also don’t mind not knowing. I don’t mind listening to what I cannot understand. I don’t mind being able to hear the rhythms, the musical inflections, the unique sounds that cannot be heard when I am focused on comprehension. Some days it is important to comprehend. But today is not one of these days. Today is a day for me to get up off the sand and go dip my toes in the ocean. It is a good day just to be, a good day just to let divinity wet my toes.