I recently visited my daughter in California for a brief vacation. During a wonderful week of fun activities, intertwined with rest and binge-watching TV shows on Hulu, we took a jaunt to Pointe Dume Beach in Malibu. It was too overcast and chilly to spend time sitting on the sand for any length of time, but you can’t go to Santa Monica without letting well-worn dancing feet touch the sand and a bit of the Pacific Ocean.
The gray sky and the gray water pretty much blended together except when the foam of a crashing wave outlined the anger of the sea. I walked out as far as I could in rolled up jeans, and I had to struggle to keep my balance as the undertow yanked at my legs and covered my feet with sand. After so many years of ballet training, I instinctively gripped my abs and knees, insisting on standing my ground as the water relentlessly tugged over and over again. Soon my feet were buried, but I was still standing, facing directly into the waves and watching the horizon.
How often do we insist on standing our ground when life’s undertows constantly yank at us? How often do we try to run away and turn our backs to the biggest waves? AND…how often do we purpose to keep our eyes on the horizon to see what’s ahead and changing, rather than looking down at our feet while they get buried deeper in the sand?
I always feel so inspired at the beach. The mysterious serenity of the distant water combined with the relentless fury of the waves coming in makes me feel small and powerless, yet aware that God’s presence will not really render me vulnerable. I can stop trying to GUESS the future, and start moving INTO the future. That inspires me to create without the limits that people like to impose on each other.
Every artist should get away from time to time, whether it’s to the beach or somewhere else far away from the familiar. When we’re in a strange land, we stop trying to manipulate what we can’t control, because we don’t know what to expect. We have to just deal with everything with fresh eyes and thoughts. When looking into the horizon of the ocean, it’s always traveling in while a new one is right behind it. Whatever was just on the horizon an hour ago is now approaching while being chased by the next wave. The horizon changes constantly, and so should our expectations of what’s coming next. Not to be confused with goals, expectations tend to be based on our environment, our circumstances, and what we can see. Expectations need to be adjustable; goals are not!
A walk on the beach is beautiful and calming, but always expect to see broken shells and maybe jellyfish that have been washed ashore. The sand is never completely soft and trouble free, but you can still keep your goal of seeing beauty and an ever-changing horizon. That’s how we create – choreography, music, poetry – nothing that God gives us is dependent on either a calm sea or a turbulent one. We create. No matter what, we create.
And we dance on.
Grace Notes 