I walked along the beach, some hour past midnight. The moon was low and red, the tide pulled high, the ocean vast. Where the water would end and the sky began was somewhere on the spectrum of imagination. Did I wander onto this place in company? No, I am certain I came here alone. My lonely footprints trailed behind the shifting sand. “Two footprints there beside my own, always within reach…”; the child’s prayer whispered at bedtimes everywhere came to mind. No, only one set of footprints chased my weary self. Though creations beauty mocked my brokenness, I did not feel his presence there. So, I went searching in the darkness.
Eventually, my feet came to meet the waters edge. It’s slow push and pull, rise and fall, the sand rushing from beneath my ten toes. I felt the salted plea to walk into the sea. The hidden urge to swim toward the non-existent horizon until I could go no more. Then, diving down on single breath, deeper, deeper, deeper still, until the weight of the water pulled me home. A sudden deep breath reminded me I was still standing there at the waters edge. The moon was stunning before me, the stars were bright above me, but upwards the beach was black and void. So, I went searching in the darkness.
My mind would wander here and there in violent sudden jerks of memories past and hopes future. My heart would swell in pain and mourn, each breath a seconds desperate relief. I talked a lot. To God and you. I suppose that is why I felt such company. My thoughts so deep I disappeared into the matching darkness ahead on the beach: a vapor. A dangerous place to be, to become my thoughts, my memories. Each step a falling leg of unconscious direction, I was just another empty shell upon that beach. Until the piercing pain of something sharp drew me from my stupor, I did finally stop. Uncertain of how I came this far, into darkness, along some quiet shore, I stood and stared.
I looked up into the void ahead and watched: a dark blot, a soft something, an orb of black. Growing closer, getting bigger, moving. Perhaps, some other person roamed this beach some hours past midnight, too. Closer still in eery quiet, bigger even with every moment. Then it stopped. I stepped closer, searching in the darkness. He stood there, a dark black stallion, tall in confident strength, his mares behind him shifting in the sand. A warning breath from flared nostrils as I stared. God was here. No footprints in the sand, but his fingerprints everywhere around me. I wanted to share it with you. This moment. This experience. But it belonged to me.
As suddenly as they came they raced towards me. My heart raced, too, but I was not afraid. I longed for death. Then, when almost in reach, they turned away and ran back up the shore. Once again transformed into their dark black orbs, growing smaller, darker still, until nothing. The darkness called me no longer. I looked up in that moment into the sky, hoping to see God or you. The stars were too many, bright and scattered, like spilled diamonds across a black felt cloth. They were beautiful and I was small. Insignificant to the stars, yet somehow still significant to the same Creator. I wondered if looking back the stars saw me shining in the same way I saw them. Are we stars to some cosmic eye? Shining bright, sharing light, burning hot, scattered about in service of the universe? So, I went searching in the darkness. Until light found me there.
