God on the Beach

She sat on the beach alone. From a distance it looked as if she was in a Lotus position - beach towel, water bottle, acres of empty sand around her. It was a stunning Sunday morning and as I passed, she appeared to be meditating. It was just her, the ocean and her God there listening to the waves and sitting beneath the morning sun. A beautiful Sunday service I thought- all her own.

We have heard of course ‘where two or more are gathered’ but here she was spending her Sunday morning alone-practicing her own version of holy.

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Growing up we were a church going family but I’m not sure I would say we were a devout or religious family. The only mention of God was at Mass on Sunday mornings or when my grandmother would visit. My father did say that the place he felt closest to God was on his knees in the garden. That is the religion we grew up with- the ‘find God where you find God’ religion. There was no persuading us to believe in anything in particular- just get through Sunday School, First Communion and Confirmation and you’re good to go.

I guess it was the wind and the water, the sun and the sky that spoke ‘chapter and verse’ of some kind of Great Spirit of Life to us. It was God in God’s purest form. Along with a constant source of love and caring from our mom whose wordless lessons on honesty, generosity and kindness set the parameters of our behavior. Did we slip and fall at times? Of course-but she was always there to catch us.

It has always seemed to me that the world is filled with just too many miracles for it to all have happened by chance-who or what was behind that ‘Big Bang’? According to our scientific understanding, the world was created through a process called accretion, where dust and gas particles in the solar nebula gradually clumped together due to gravity, eventually forming a planet over millions of years; this process is believed to have happened around 4.5 billion years ago, with the initial event being the "Big Bang" explosion that started the universe itself. But where did the dust and gas particles come from? And how about gravity? Can anything come from absolutely nothing? If you hold a book in your hand-the book becomes a reality-but it didn’t just appear. It would not become a reality without an author, a publisher, a printer, a book binder.

Those who believe everything came from nothing may have to have a more expansive view of miracle than the faith-filled believer. Could the fragrant purple hyacinth emerging from a withered brown bulb not be miracle enough?

In a famous quote by author Kurt Vonnegut he said, "If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music."

There is some peace in believing in something-some place to go when the end is near-when you face loss – when you look up into the night sky.

It was Sunday Morning and she found her God on the beach.

My father planting his garden.