The Economy of the Sea

Life is constantly changing.

When I visualize that statement, life is a shoreline with the waves coming in and out in a constant cadence, the crash of change every few seconds. The waves bring with it life; seaweed, mussels, crabs and other sea life are always getting deposited on the shore. Children and adults alike scavenge this stuff, joyfully picking through the sand in search of treasure in the form of seashells that the ocean has brought empty for them to be found. In turn, the shoreline gives the ocean life. When the waves crash upon the beach, the motion mixes oxygen with the water which gets taken out to sea for the various life forms to breathe.

But the ocean also brings death. These waves can come too high, become too violent, and create fatality under the name of natural disaster. It is natural to have disaster; it is natural to have death.

We experienced that in our family this week. Though death is natural, it feels so wrong, like such a violation of life. Death, when it comes near, reaches its cold, bony fingers out and gives your shoulders a shake, forcing you to decide what is really important. Death shatters the norms you have created for yourself, and crumbles the ones that have been built up around you. Like the norm that grandma has nine children, like the norm that dad would stay out late having coffee with his brother, like the norm that Arlin would come home for Christmas and Easter. Those norms are no longer; they have passed into memory.

When I was sitting in the service yesterday (a few seats over from where I sat at Grandpa's funeral not too long ago) I didn't hear too much of what the preacher was saying. I was staring at the big pine box in front of me that contained my uncle, cold and lifeless. And then I thought of all the people around me, friends, family, and got an enormous sense of love.

Death, besides being death, can be an enormous blessing too. There are few circumstances that that many people gather in the same place, that family has the chance to come together and just be, to share a common feeling, to gain stronger bonds. Relationships are formed with time together, and when a growing family is continuing to spread over Western Canada, those chances for time together come very limited.

I'm by no means saying I'm thankful for the death that happened this week. I'm saying that funerals, without the death part, can be like impromptu family reunions; this is what I'm thankful for, the chance to again be with people I love.

Family is something that you can never take away. Those same people will always be the ones gathering with you at special occasions, eating beside you at Christmas and weddings, telling stories about you, sharing memories with you; those faces will be the same in your photo albums year after year after year, just a little older. And though you can freely give that up, nothing in life will be able to take that away.

Family is a joy of life, a blessing of God; family is like the foam on a latte. Without foam you essentially just have a glass of hot milk with a shot of espresso. But add foam and you have an experience; foam puts joy into the drink. Family is like the foam on a latte; drinking life is so much more satisfying when you have family around to share it with.

The sea brings life and the sea brings death. Tsunamis claim many lives, invoking fear in the ones who have scraped through.
When death takes someone you know, it leaves the rest of us to grapple with our feelings, to cope with loss, to cling to each other through the heartache.

But it also lets us see that we are not invincible, that God holds the hands of time, that he's the one that has our days marked, not us. Death tears back the veil of pretense and empty striving and lets us see what is really important, like being a family to the family we've been given.

Death took from us here on earth, sure, but it also gave to those in heaven, like the give and take economy of the sea. We lost an uncle, a brother, a friend by any other name, but not for forever; our family is simply being relocated, one by one, until we are all swept from the seashore and taken into the depths of the glory of God. And there we will be a family forever, a continuation of the blessing and joy we have learned and shared here on earth.