"Oceans don't like lakes or people."
Since I'm at the lake this weekend, I thought I'd take the opportunity to relate (document) another conversation with Lake Eufaula some time back.
As I have said, I have good conversations with the lake. Sometimes I think it because we both speak a language that a lot of other people don't relate to. Sometimes I just think I'm a well camouflaged lunatic in human being form. But for whatever reason, the lake and I connect. Once, right after a really fun trip to Hawaii, I was talking with the lake about the ocean.
Try as I might, I just couldn't establish any rapport with the ocean in Hawaii. It seemed arrogant and stand-offish, like I wasn't worth it's time to talk to. I sort of said to the ocean, "Fine. But if my worldview is right, and I am part of God's Plan to build a family, and the whole earth is the paradigm in which that Plan is coming to fruition, then you shouldn't be so arrogant. It seems like you would want to help with and promote that process, thereby fulfilling your own role in the Plan."
I enjoyed the ocean anyway, and did not pass up an opportunity to experience every beach, snorkel in it, ride boats and submarines, etc. If it won't be my friend, it can by my entertainment. I'm good with that. We just didn't talk much.
So I asked the lake what the deal was with the ocean. The lake explained it to me.
Before God separated the waters and made land, the whole world was ocean. This 'land' thing, and all of the crap that happens on land is at best an inconvenience and at worst an outright attack on the oceans' own identity. The ocean would rather not have land, and dreams of a time when a certain wave could circle the whole planet unimpeded by these pesky islands we call continents.
The ocean just doesn't get it. God could just as easily have raised His family and implemented His Plan in the context of the ocean. Land, other than pissing off the ocean, serves no real purpose. Therefore the ocean constantly bombards the land in an effort to remove it, and restore order to its world. The ocean certainly has no respect for land, humans who crawl on it or lakes for that matter.
And I thought of how many people are just like the ocean. Their own energy, their own plans, are all that matter in their worlds. Everything that restricts or interferes with their own image of what life should be is a negative thing, and the thought that anyone else would have a plan (or a Plan) that interferes with their own is repulsive. Maybe I'm even like that now and then.
The result, of course, is that the ocean and people who think this way by definition become unwilling servants to a destiny that is bigger than they are - no matter how big they are.
The next time I have the opportunity to talk to the ocean, I'm going to say "Thank-You" for its unwilling yet competent, beneficial and pleasant service to all of us (people and lakes) that are such an inconvenience.