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.