Love Like an Ocean

Love Like an Ocean


Today driving home, I stopped at Garapatta Beach, and saw these deep ocean surges, profound mighty power.  I saw love, deep waves of love. 

This fourth Sunday of Advent we pour out a bowl of water for love, and sing, “I’ve got love like an ocean.”

If you’ve been reading my weekly Advent ocean devotionals you have gotten wet, reading of hope (wells of grace), peace (the river of life) and joy (a fountain gushing up like a spring.)  We have followed Rev. Maren Tirabassi’s fabulous Advent liturgy, weekly pouring water, rather than lighting candles, and we’ve sung the old spiritual, “I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got joy like a fountain…”

Each Advent Sunday has been wet - the well of hope, the river of peace, the joyful fountain.

And this week, the last Sunday of Advent, with Christmas right around the corner, is the deepest, the widest and biggest – like an ocean.

“I’ve got love like an ocean.”  The ocean is deep, big, wide.  Love also, love actually, is deep, big and wide.

Consider what you love.  Me - God, my family, the ocean, redwoods – I love them deeply, down and down, my love dives into the dark and mystery.

On a cold winter night that was so deep.

You can’t love something or someone and stay at the surface.  Love is so deep we ride its currents, embrace its rushing waves.  And then dive deep, to the quiet and dark power of the depths of love.

Even in these modern scientific times, we still act and speak as if the earth were flat, and everything is above us.  We assume God is up there, that God has to come down to get to us.  God is our higher power.

But I try to pray to the depths, to see God down there, God is my deeper power.  And it’s not just the depth and mystery of the ocean, but of the universe, also deep as well as high.  Stars, galaxies, are down and deep, below us. 

In the beginning God hovered on the face of the deep.  (Gen 1:2)

Deep calls to deep. (Psalm 42:7)

Put out into the deep water, and let down your nets.  (Luke 5:4)

In the bleak, and deep, midwinter, new life is born.

Blessings of the deep season of love!

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Visit Bluetheology.com for info on youth service trips and adult pilgrimage groups on Monterey Bay, where we dive deep into our faith and into ocean stewardship and spirituality.  It’s a wet birth season – may it be a blessed one for you and yours.

Joy Like A Fountain

Joy Like a Fountain

Joy to the wet world!   Good news from watery wombs and juicy labor!  Let every heart make room!

I've got joy like a fountain.  The water God gives "gushes out" like an unending spring.

Every day I get an AdventWord in French.  Yesterday:

"Nous attendons avec joi - gai abandon, fou espoir."  (We await with joy - gay abandon, crazy hope!). That's my kind of joy.

This third Sunday of Advent is for JOY, and we continue with Rev. Maren Tirabassi's fabulous wet blue liturgy, pouring water rather than lighting candles.

"We remember from a story about Cana

That when Jesus asks us to pour water,

It means we are going to have a party.

"Emmanuel, God-with-us, when we leave this place may we be hydrated with hope, bathed in peace, and willing to splash the world with joy.  Amen."

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We at the Blue Theology Mission Station wish you JOY this week, wet and juicy, gushing and splashing.  Pics are from fabulous Armenia exhibit here in NYC, medieval Christian Gospel book cover of the Nativity and icon of the Annunciation.  So much joy!  BlueTheology.com

Met, and Wet, in Thee Tonight

Met, and Wet, in Thee Tonight

O little town of Monterey, how still your waters lie.

Above thy marine canyon steep and deep

The silent stars and sails go by.

Yet in thy dark waves shineth

The everlasting light.

The hopes and fears of all the years -

(And the hopes and fears of the world and the ocean and the fish and snails and sailors and babies and plankton and Mars and little churches and big nations and more children…)

Are met – and wet – in thee tonight.

It’s the Second Sunday of Advent, so we pour out a bowl of water for Peace, following, as last week, Rev. Maren Tirabassi’s fabulous liturgy using water rather than flame for this sacred season.

“We need peace in our lives and in our world.

“Every month we need healing,
but December can be the hardest time of year when we need rest from busyness
and gentle words for many sorrows.
Down by the Advent riverside
we follow the prints of Peace.
And there we meet the Prince of Peace.

“Last week we poured the water of Hope,
that quenches our doubts and fears.
This week is the Sunday of Peace,
and we celebrate still and peaceful water
and those who make it accessible in our days,
for the river of life is all of God’s children.
Emmanuel, God-with-us, when we leave this place help us to draw deeply on hope and drink our fill of God’s peace. Amen”

Water is still and water is still speaking, still birthing, still healing.  May water bring us peace.

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Monterey’s fabulous Lighted Boats Parade, a holiday treasure.  Water is still, peaceful, full of light.  Come visit us in Pacific Grove at the Blue Theology Mission Station and experience God’s Peace and Light.  Bluetheology.com.  I post these Wednesday devotions on ocean stewardship and spirituality here and at www.bluetheologytideings.blogspot.com