“You rule the swelling of the sea;
when its waves surge, You calm them.”
- Psalms 89:10
The paradox of the sea is its dynamism and its constancy. Every instant, the waters are shifting and moving, swelling, receding, rising and falling. Waves pull at one another, collide, mount into the air, and crash against the shore with noise and confusion, and sometimes even violence.
And yet, with all this disorder and commotion, the sea overall is so level that we can see the curve of the world, so constant that the sound lulls us into meditation. As stormy and intense as the ocean can be, if you look far enough into the distance, there is always a wholly straight and calm horizon line—an anchoring focal point that marks the balance between sea and sky, above and below.
What can I learn about my own inner reality from bearing witness to this truth about the sea? My thoughts can also feel chaotic and changeable, hiding strong currents, swells and tides. My fears and yearnings, love, anger and hope crash with violence and swell into stormy waves within.
But when I take a moment to step back and breathe, and look at the full picture of my life, I find a constant harmony emerging from all the motion. I can feel a Greater Power guiding us through every storm and every collision. Within me, I find the same peace I feel when I listen to the waves against the shore.
Peace - Shalom - does not arise from uniformity or stillness. Shalom is experienced when the variation and motion of reality come together in harmony. Likewise, a symphony comes from movement among different tones and from the tensions and interplay among different instruments’ voices together as one. With this series of photographs, I seek to tune our eyes, ears and hearts to the harmonious symphony of the sea.
"Above the voices of the mighty waters,
more majestic than the breakers of the sea
is the Almighty, majestic on high."
- Psalms 93:4