No Justice In Words
From my journal today:
I truly only half-heartedly wish that words or pictures or sounds or smells could truly describe a place. It would take the fun and joy out of actually traveling to and being at said place. How would I describe where I am right now?
I found a break in the railing that guides a walking path that curves and slopes around the island of Cheung Chau. Stepping through the brush and rock, butterflies dancing here and there, I came to a clearing. Breathtaking.
The clearing opens to boulders, faded Chinese text graffitied onto their sides. These boulders form a sheer and steep cliff, the ocean lapping against the boulders far below. An island is enveloped in a hazy glow up and to the right, followed by two more in the distance, the haze and mist threatening to swallow them as the day wanes. Another island juts out severely to the left, with boats and ships of various shapes and sizes sitting off shore, mulling about, sunning themselves on a rare, beautiful day. Tug boats, fishing boats, pontoon boats, speed boats, cargo ships, cruise liners… they all sit and float along, from every perspective and point of view.
Huge clouds billow in the distance, a moderate breeze cools a brutally hot day, the birds sing their songs in force while the waves roll and crash against the rocks. Wholly different sounds, unified into a beautiful melody, an anthem of tranquility that quiets my soul. The air smells of ocean and the breeze wafts scents of greenery and plant life, flowers in bloom; salty and sweet.
I could not ask for a better perch. A better perspective on the endless Pacific, which, if I go far enough in my mind, takes me in a nearly straight line all the way to California.
I’m thankful to God for this spot, this perch, this rock of contemplation, this perspective of the senses unifying and being awakened to beauty. And I’m incredibly thankful that I am here, in the flesh, to sit upon this stone, to write these words that will never do justice to the beauty of what I behold. To be so humbled at my smallness, but rejoice in God’s faithfulness, even to my smallness.
Because I truly have an incredible life. I sit on this rock and I see the endlessness of the world. And to know that I am distinctly loved by the Creator of all this that I see before me is almost to much to grasp, or to fully understand. It IS too much to grasp. But it is truth.
I hope to be reminded over and over of this truth through His creativity and beauty through His creation. I have longed for much in my life, some of it good and proper, a lot of it bad and despicable. But I will never stop longing for this. I pray that others would be reminded of and long for the same. To see His faithfulness, His goodness, His creativity and His beauty reflected in the world around them. In the people they meet, the places they go, the ideas they spark. That it would reflect off of every surface, in every sound, that it would enrapture our senses. Today as I sit on my perch overlooking the end of the earth and the beginning of a deep and wide sea, I am again reassured of His faithfulness and love.
And I hope that others find their rock at the edge of the earth as well. That they would peer over the edge, feel their smallness and then be overwhelmed by the love of the God who embraces us in our smallness and in our flaws, who loves each of us particularly, and I hope that the breeze that is carried to them from their rock at the edge of the earth clears their senses enough to realize that this is not all about us, but it is still for us, HE is still for us, and that is beauty beyond even the deepest and widest of seas.
