EVER OPEN TO THE CALL OF THE SEA: ever attentive to the depths in my heart I could feel the pull of a new adventure of being newly led, and I had a yearning to go to the coast, up north. With the wind in the east it would be wild and rough there, but the day was bright, with only thin-torn cloud being swept up in streams high above. I was certain we must go, and no thought of work laid out for me at home could hold me back; homeschooling set us free to be spontaneous in our learning activities.
Only an hour later we walked along the shore; sometimes stooping to pick up beautiful shells, sometimes just standing still staring out to sea. I wandered, alone; the children were happy with their own form of play, and I went slowly south along the beach until I reached the mouth of a stream pouring into the sea. I paused there, before wading across it, and pulled out one of the shells from my pocket. It was a cockle shell. But it was not empty. The living thing was inside; and it was shut in. I turned it over in my hands. I knew it could speak and I listened intently to hear, because I wanted to understand everything I came across.
But though I had an inquiring heart, and learned much there, I remained always a pupil; never a teacher. I had in me now a horror of ‘teaching’ anyone but myself. For I knew in myself I knew nothing; and that life is caught not taught. You cannot teach anybody anything a fraction as well as they can teach themselves by their own seeing. As for catching life nothing is so contagious as example. Which is all you can be, and the only way you do teach, as they see, you! I put the shell back in the sea, where it belonged, and crossed the stream, eating the shelled almonds that I carried in my other pocket.
Thoughts on the essence of faith had been mulling in me as I walked and stooped to pick up treasures. I was wondering what it really was, because I knew I had need of it, and that it was a rare treasure to be sought after. Asking that it might be better explained to me, so that I could more easily understand, and live freer, I inquired within. ‘What is the nature of faith? What does it look like? What did it feel like? Did it even have a taste, or a fragrance? And what was that like? What was the sound of it? Was there any picture of it? And where was its home
When something was in a picture form, I could grasp it, and see it, and understand it; all in an instant! But how, could you picture faith? Was it like the light? How could you demonstrate it, so as to show plainly what unfaith or unbelief was? How could you show, by a picture, the obvious difference between the two things so that there be, a demonstration of the truth?
Carrying on walking along the beach I came to the rocky promontory at the southern end of it. There I sat down on a flat boulder, some way back from the crashing waves and dipped my feet in the fall and rise of the surging swell of a little channel between the rocks. As I swished my feet in the water I pondered the questions of my heart. I sat there thinking for a longish time; oblivious to the noise of the wind and the waves, aware only of the sun warm on my back as I faced the south. That there was more by less I felt sure. That there was more life where there were less figures of it I just knew in my heart it was true!
Going through my thoughts and formulating them systematically, I began to discover a pattern of how people understand spiritual life. But at once I personalized it. Then I began at the beginning:
I want to know God. And I think the way to do this, is to learn about him. This is my way and I did not question it; until now. It is the way I do everything; just like before I wanted to know God this was the way I went about getting to know anything. The only way I know how to know something is to learn about it. And I suddenly realized – Oh, my way of knowing about something and someone is not faith! It is just knowledge gathering! And gaining knowledge I have more knowledge; not more faith!
Oh, like gaining cockles and almonds, I have more cockles and almonds; and I thought. Mm, nice to have, and to hold; but I can’t eat them, unless I lose something. Only losing the shells could I have the substance of them; and eat them. But, then, I have seemingly ‘nothing:’ I have no cockles or almonds. No shells, I have nothing that can be seen! I have nothing I can carry. Nothing outside; nothing, additional!
But, maybe that didn’t feel too good? Because I want ‘add-ons;’ I want things I can hold, things which I can feel are mine, but which are separate from who I am; things that will not change me; …safe things! I want knowledge I can own; knowledge I can bandy about; knowledge I can get by myself and not by faith, because that, feels like…nothing. But only losing the form of the knowledge of the truth can I have its insides. It is there I am pressed to faith; because it takes faith to lose some lovely thing, for something even lovelier. It is by faith that I know God.
I wondered. Then I thought. The less I depend upon gaining head knowledge the greater need I have of faith. Oh, so faith would grow if and when I had need of it, I realized. Because by depending upon what I could collect by myself, I was stopping myself from depending upon what I could not collect by myself that I might have it by faith from God; and the more I did, the less need I had of faith, and the less faith I had. I tasted this thought, I ran it through. Depending upon what I had, stopped me from depending upon what I didn’t have, so that I might have it by faith, to most truly have it. Oh!
I splashed my feet in the sea, and kicked up a spray in an inner bubble of joy. I had found a treasure. And the sea rose, and fell, and fell and rose, and I kicked my feet some more, and sent up another spray of diamonds into the air. A sailing yacht was on the horizon, sailing past the bay; its spinnaker flying. Idly I watched its progress, while I mused some more and sailed on…and into uncharted waters. But I am not at all used to ‘having,’ by just believing, with nothing else added. I usually liked to add something to faith; it felt better.
Then it occurred to me, that the number of shells I had in my right hand pocket had been growing as I walked. I had picked up more and more, before stopping here, to sit down. I fingered them. Suddenly I realized that that is just what I am like! I walk along the beach in my life collecting all the lovely shells of the truth, and I think I have life, but having not what is in them, I don’t!
Looking up suddenly, I turned around, and after a moment I saw something. I stared across to the tiny beach nestled between the rocks, at the top of the little channel beside which I sat. I noticed the shadows on the unmarked sand. Shadows had taught me recently; and still they were intriguing me; they spoke more eloquently of the truth than I could, and they always taught me some new or expanded inner thing. The shadow that I was looking at was a picture of the rock above it which was in the path of the sun; the shadow said it was there; it was the evidence of what was there; but it wasn’t actually, it.
Then I saw. Losing more of my shadow knowledge I have less ‘about’ something, and more of what it really is – LIFE! And having more of what that really is I have less of what it isn’t and the light increases in me. The less I have of the shadows of life the more I have of the substance of them. Oh. It is easy to get more shadows, but it takes faith to have less of them!
Deep in thought I looked down at my feet in the sparkling water, and kicked some more, as the sea surge swept out. Then I turned. A gull swooped by, for an instant pictured upon the sand. Yes, of course; my knowledge makes only a pathway of shadows before me, just as a sundial makes a shadow path of the sun, because where it is it gets in the way of the substance of the stream of the light, and it prevents it there; so all I have is only shadows of it. Wherever my stubborn-owned knowledge is the light isn’t and all I see are its lifeless shadows. Where my mind is full of knowledge that place in me becomes solid; and what is solid in me gets in the way of the light. So… so, having less of my solid knowledge would create fewer shadows for me, for less of me gets in the way to make them. But it takes faith to have less head knowledge. So faith was made to be the way for me that I might have in me the substance of the light, for there was no other way to live in it!
That I know ‘about’ something doesn’t mean that I ‘have’ it. Though I may have some intelligence of it, I don’t have it its very self. So, my own path of learning ‘about’ God was not the path of faith. I just have ‘about,’ not the real thing. And the more I had of about the less I had of it; and the less I had of it, the substance of it, the more I had of its shells: its dead things. …The shells I had in my pocket were dead things no matter how beautiful they were. And, oh! I had heaps of them! My pocket was bulging! I laughed.
Laughing I heard the oyster-catchers piping. I love their sound. These comical birds, with their overly long, bright orange beaks, are always in pairs…pairs! . . . and I knew I wasn’t alone.
Swishing my feet, disturbing the flow of the sea, I thought through it further; catching life before it flitted away. Then I saw that my way of knowing is all, from out of something having something; and not from out of ‘nothing’ having something, which is faith. The way of ‘OUT OF NOTHING’ having something, which was more real than shadows which really are nothing, is either as nonsense to me, or too hard. But, ‘God is a spirit,’ and functions in spirit, in spiritual ways; when I function in my ways, we don’t meet. We don’t meet each other functioning in two opposite ways. We don’t even come near. We get only further away thinking we can draw near, by our shadow!
The sea rose, as it swept in again, and I splashed and kicked; and saw in a flash. Can I give the light my shadow and then expect it to meet me in it? It can’t. It is not possible! The light cannot enter the shadow, or the shadow, enter the light. For where one is the other isn’t. They are opposite. The light is absolutely light. ‘God is light, and in him is no darkness at all!’ God is absolute! I laughed out loud. I jumped up in delight and left the rocks and ran along the beach. Oh. A paper cut-out, or the real thing? An image or the reality? Which will I have? A pathway of shadow forever in front of me; or a stream of light flowing right through me... which one did I want? Which one will I have, for they don’t mix! They can’t! Oh! If I could just see the nature of faith, I would see and understand the nature of ‘un-faith!’ And if I could see what that was I wouldn’t want it!
The wind picked up; and a thin veil of sea mist was blowing in from the waves as I ran and skipped along their scalloped edges. Oh, living by faith – by faith living – it looked and felt like I had nothing; but all the while I had it I had everything; and no baggage, nothing to carry. I travelled ‘light!’…the nature of faith! …here it all was! …and like the sea and the wind together its ‘sound.’ I heard it now. Now that I was listening to it. Real faith ‘sounds’ just as exhilarating! As full of life, and purpose! There was completeness and love where all was one when light ran through! Liberty and freedom in having the insides of the truth, not the shell… in having the light, not the shadow! …And faith’s, taste? The taste of it? That was all delicious; in being given everything! And everything by revelation that was as melting as wafers of butter, as certain sweet as milk and honey. And as for fragrance, it could frame the lily. And faith’s touch, and feel it was light as a feather! And its home? Why, I forever was! …forever in Everland: ever home!
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