Unruly Child

Imagine a womb large enough to hold the oceans of the world until it was time for them 'to burst forth from the womb'!  That is the bizarre but graphic image God uses in The Book of Job in speaking of the birth of creation.

Then, expanding on the birth metaphor, God describes wrapping the new-born Sea-child as a mother swaddles an infant: 'I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness.' 

Imagine thick ocean fog - Who can see through it? Who can see beyond the horizon or penetrate the silence of all that lies in the deep darkness of the sea? What a rich metaphor for the mystery of the oceans, their vast distances, beyond our sight and knowledge!

The darkness of this ‘blanket’ is not an ominous gloom, but the generous swaddling-bands of an immensely powerful and caring mother! The extravagance of the metaphor exposes how preposterous it is for us to think we could master the seven seas ... or death ... or even our own thoughts and fears half the time.

In the next stanza, the personified Sea is no longer a passive infant but a defiant force in need of restraint. God asks Job if he was there ‘when I fixed limits for [the sea] and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt'?

Like an adolescent who needs boundaries to restrict his or her intemperate excesses, the sea needs to have limits imposed on it. Sure enough, the continental shelf fills the bill, followed by vast rims of sandy shoreline, mangrove swamps, reefs and rocky coastlines, and the cliffs of Dover, Gibraltar, Moher, Greenland, Oregon and Tierra del Fuego. They all provide fixed limits for the boundless energy of the sea.

This high-energy, impulsive and reckless youth called Ocean has her rash powers contained. She still serves up some mighty tantrums every season.

She shows off her vibrant boisterous energy at world-class surfing basins. Her tidal dynamics and powerful currents shape our weather and shore-lines and she makes breath-taking photography. But we can be thankful for the geographic restraints that prevent her from over-whelming the world.

There are limits to human understanding of the mysteries of life.  This text prompts me to ask myself, "if God is the great maternal life-giver, why am I always trying to be God's mid-wife, telling God what is best, trying to manage the outflow of God's creative and mysterious purposes in my life?"

Photo Credits:
Clouds over North Atlantic - Mary Carman, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Cliffs of Moher - Pauline Watson, Lethbridge
Surfing in Cornwall, England - BBC Surfing Photos