Easter Seals

Easter Seals

Easter morning.  Newborn harbor seal pups and their moms at Hopkins Beach on Monterey Bay. 

On this protected beach, off limits for nearly 100 years (I took this photo through a strong fence,) the seals know they are safe from human hunters of the past and excited tourists of today.  This is their home year round, and their birthing place each April.

They are Easter Seals!  For the moms, the dark days of groaning in travail are over.  For the pups this is a blessed birth-day when all things are made new.

Monterey Bay itself has been reborn as an Easter empty tomb in recent decades, as vast stretches of beach and ocean have been set aside as reserves and sanctuaries (a nice holy word) and a move toward ecosystem management has set an overflowing dinner table for more and more creatures. 

Our Blue Theology Mission Station welcomed 15 youth from two Oregon Disciples of Christ congregations this Holy Week.  They helped restore new plant life on the Asilomar dunes, cleaned up beaches, saw the mystery of whale and dolphin and these baby seals, and let the sea wash their feet in a Maundy Thursday beach worship in the dark.

“St. Francis invites us to see nature as a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness… Francis asked that part of the friary garden always be left untouched, so that wild flowers and herbs could grow there, and those who saw them could raise their minds to God, the Creator of such beauty.

“Rather than a problem to be solved, the world is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise.”  (Pope Francis, Laudate Si, 12)

“Consider the lilies of the field…Yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these.”  (Matthew 6)

“Set me as a seal upon your heart,
As a seal upon your arm;
For love is as strong as death,
…. Many waters cannot quench love,
Nor can the floods drown it.” (Song of Solomon 8)

Happy Eastertide from the Blue Theology Mission Station!

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(I post these devotions on ocean spirituality and stewardship every Wednesday here and at www.bluetheologytideings.blogspot.com. Info on group visits for youth and adults:  Bluetheology.com)