This week was so beautiful that I took an extra long beach walk. I read in my Sea Glass Hunter’s Handbook about all the quips and quirks people have for hunting beach glass. It said each person has their own “way” to find these treasures. I wondered what my own particular “way” was, so I decided to go hunting.
Within the first few minutes of my walk, and remembering my past walks, I knew I was not an avid hunter of beach glass. As I ambled further down the shoreline, I noticed my feet. They moved slowly and carefully over the rocky shore. One foot in front of the other. A little wobbly on the slant toward the sea.
Walking along the waterline, every now and then I’d turn my eyes up the beach and notice the scraggly seaweed line crawling across the sand, marking the last high tide. The water was receding once again on this walk. In it’s wake, many things were deposited across that tide line. I found two extra unique snail shells. One white, bleached out skeleton of a sand dollar. That was a unique find on my beach. Every other time I’d found the beach littered with sand dollars, they were always still alive and dark brown. I didn’t expect to find any beach glass, but then again I didn’t expect to find a white sand dollar either, but surprisingly I found two pieces of glass that day. A large number for one day, considering I’ve only found about twenty pieces on this beach over the last two years.
These two pieces were a bit different than those I’ve found in the past. These two pieces were both not fully pock marked by the sea yet. They both had a few shiny edges left. According to the lexicon in my handbook it says:
Cooked, Not: sharp edges, shiny areas; need to be cast back into the ocean for further cooking
My white one even has deep ridges that could suggest what it once was a part of. Even though both of my pieces were “not cooked”, I kept them anyway because they were a vital part of the story my walk told about me today.
I learned I am not a hunter of beach glass, or of anything on the shore. I am a slow ambler, preferring to walk along and be surprised by each find. I am also “not cooked” and have some shiny parts and sharp edges. A line from a song that rings in my head says “It takes years for a rock to be made smooth” perfectly describes my journey this year.
In addition to being a vehicle for the spirit, I am now finding peace in “being like the beach”. Lying there like the sand, without expectation, letting the tide wash in and out over me each day, and finding God’s blessings littering my shoreline, such as these gifts from the sea did on my walk that day. The sand doesn’t beg. The sand doesn’t force. It simply awaits the tide cycle each day and humbly accepts what the sea brings forth. The sandy shoreline teaches me patience and faith to do the same.
These concepts were brought forth as the result of my readings earlier this week, but this is the week of putting values into action and my beach walk did just that.
And so, as another day goes by, I place my treasures in plain sight, and….I have written.
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