The Blue Marble

From space, Earth looks like a "blue marble" - 75% of it covered by water. The vast blue of the oceans laced by swirling white clouds showcasing the beauty and symmetry of God’s Creation.

Psalm 104 revels in Earth-maker's workmanship – sky, clouds and rain, rivers and wet-lands, wild-life and forests - and now (in my final post on this ancient hymn) the wide blue oceans.

The Hebrews were not a sea-going people, so biblical oceans usually roar wild and restless. But in this song, the ocean is spacious and hospitable,“teeming with creatures beyond number, living things, both large and small” – from tiny microbes and plankton to dolphins and manta rays, from corals and conchs to octopus and sperm whales. Yet despite the fullness of the sea, it is not crowded; there is plenty of room for ship traffic and for whales to cavort, calve, graze and migrate.

From the seas, as from the land, we reap a harvest far beyond what we have sown. Even under the sea, a bountiful harvest is continually being cultivated for hungry mouths. Kelp beds dance in tidal rhythms providing a nursery for plankton, algae and worms and countless invertebrate creatures, and a smorgasboard that invites diners with voracious appetites to their feast – snails, sea urchins and fish galore – even human ice-cream lovers who benefit from ‘algin’, a gooey compound extracted from kelp just for us!

Examine every habitat on the planet and you find a similarly dazzling intricacy of harboring and harvesting, helping and exploiting, eating and being eaten. Even the most inhospitable spots have become home to the strangest of creatures.

This summer fishing on the North Carolina coast, my wife Tiffany reeled-in a 36 inch bonnethead shark, 'the finest eating in the sea' according to the locals.

Taken all together the world is wonderfully balanced and inter-dependent – a most ingenious ecology. What an eminently practical Creator!

In the light of this celebration of the bounty of the seas and its Creator, it is vital that we turn our wonder into responsible action. We are fellow-creatures with the sea, but according to the Bible, uniquely charged with the task of "ruling over the fish of the sea and all that swim the paths of the sea." (Psalm 8).

Doing that with integrity means safe-guarding and stewarding fish-stocks, seal-herds and under-water minerals, not over-harvesting or extracting them recklessly. Who else will preserve the habitats of penguins and cormorants, polar bears and blue whales if we are not mindful of how we are treating them? We ought to demonstrate our appreciation for this beautiful bountiful blue gift by protecting its shore-lines and by acting not only as stewards, but as worshippers of a generous Creator who value what we've been given and who want to give something back.

God of Oceans,
Everything comes from you;
Everything happens through you;
Everything ends in you;
Always glory! Always praise!
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Adapted from Romans 11:36, The Message)