I’ve never been to an inland sea. The beach is the place that brings me life and energy. I could watch the waves and sunlight, the bigger breakers and the tiny, last, little roll upon the sand for hours. Stepping into the water is another thing.
I walk briskly to the water’s edge and stop, barely wetting my feet. My eyes scan the sand underneath and the waves ahead as I gingerly plod on. Danger is hidden there. Broken shells make me hop and dance quickly. The debris of a storm makes my heart skip as I think, “Jellyfish?” A strange swirl has me looking for a shark fin. The pull of the receding water makes me stand firm against the possibility of a riptide. Nevertheless, the peace of floating on the other side of the breaker beckons. Pushing through, jumping up to rise with the roll of the wave, or diving beneath it, moving forward is the only way to get there. I work my way to the other side where the feel of the salt water buoying my tired body and the warming caress of the sun’s rays become that rare joy I’ve needed and missed. Those few minutes of serenity can carry me through a year.
Standing on the edge of a seabed of change has none of that tranquility. Too often the calm other side of growth is obscured and unknown. The multitude of perils seems overwhelming. The longer I stand at this precipice between what was and what might be, the deeper my feet sink into the sand. I am reminded of the old spiritual praising the God who “took my feet from the miry clay…and placed them on the rock to stay.” Come, Lord, to save me, I pray.
Such a rescue is God’s nature. The formative liberating event of Israelite history is the exodus from enslavement to freedom. The Exodus account has been a cornerstone of hope for those escaping oppression, for those longing for the incarnation of a beloved community, on earth as in heaven.(a)
In my highly oversimplified devotional reading, praying for a tailored word from the Lord, I was surprised to recognize in the Israelites fellow sojourners who unchained themselves during a pandemic, among other plagues, and went in search of a better life. Hemmed in by Pharaoh’s approach behind them and the Red Sea in front of them, they needed a reason to move. They could only see the fact of dying in slavery, but at least there was a cemetery back in Egypt, or dying in the sea and being lost, no survivors or heirs.
Perhaps you know the feeling, too. Maybe it is the pressure to graduate from a job you love for the title you are “supposed” to desire. Or the hero label you’ve been given as a first responder that you want to leave behind for your sanity. Or the marriage, or the addiction, or the friendships, or any situation that binds you in chains and keeps you in cycles of resignation or despair. You can die there, and those around you will write glowing eulogies beside your grave. Or you can turn toward the sea of change.
God said, “Go forward.” To the astonishment of the Israelites, the seabed pathway was not muddy, nor was it like quicksand, sucking their feet down and holding them for certain death. No, the way was dry. It was solid beneath their step. But someone had to go first, had to take the first step, to find truth and lead the way.
Regardless of the many testimonies I have heard that what lies ahead is good and right and wonderful, I often scan the shore and the waves for what is wrong and evil and dangerous. I will always feel like I am the first in the line. I cannot see the light and peace on the other side of the chaotic unknown. I have to be my own “someone.” I have to take that first step to discovering the dry land that leads to a new life.
My Lenten first step resides, not in the knowledge of what is ahead but in the confidence that I am loved by God, just as Moses was, as the Israelites were, and as Harriet Tubman and the enslaved men and women in America were, and Elie Wiesel and the Jews of the Holocaust. Like each of them, I matter to my Creator. Not more than others; nor less than them.(b) God’s love is the liberating force that leads to life. Choosing between a place where there is a cemetery and a path where love leads is the choice.
It may not be a huge sea change, even if it feels monumental. The smallest course correction can lead to a destination far from the original port of call. I will step forward in faith because Love pulls me out of the miry clay of all my “egypts” and plants my liberated feet on solid ground.
What do you need to know in the depth of your being to help you take a step toward a new bliss?
(a)In this month of giving tribute to Black history in America, and at a time when racist and antisemitic hatred has regained a foothold in public life, I am carefully indulging in the vision the Exodus offers. I am keenly aware that my experience of this word speaking to me and calling me to new life is a personal journey with little comparison to the great escapes of liberated peoples. To even use these texts to speak of my hope that God is preparing a way forward for me to leave behind what I think holds me in bondage, with all its privilege and possibility feels embarrassingly trite, and very white and, if I’m honest with myself, whiny. That being said, I believe all Scripture is inspirational and useful for personal illumination and growth.
(b)Black Lives Matter. None of this devotional reflection is meant to distract from the critical inflection point in our history of making this statement and fulfilling the objectives of equity and justice. In the USA, Black lives have mattered less and this must change. It must be named. To say “I matter,” is a personal experience, not to be confused with the abusive “All Lives Matter” mantra of systemic racist provocation. “I matter,” is not meant to equal or challenge the necessity of lifting up the call to recreate this country as a nation wherein it is factually true that Black lives matter. Indeed, the BLM movement is one of the visions on the other side of the breakers where the beloved community will be found and all shall be free of the institutionalized racism that is our pharaoh.
Images: feet in water: Photo by Matt Hardy on Pexels.com; Path through the water: Photo by Marlon Martinez on Pexels.com; Crossroad: Photo by Beverly Friedlander Ostrowski
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