There's something about beaches, there's something about walking by the sea. If you'll excuse the attempt to be poetic, walking by the side of the sea on a wide-open beach allows you to touch the eternal. It has been a wonderful summer, and I managed four long beach walks on fantastically sunny days over those glorious months. The best walk of all was on a brilliant late August day when I managed to paddle my way barefoot from Aberdovey to Towyn, feeling the soft sand and the warm water between my toes all the way. I would stop every few hundred yards just to take in the vista laid out before me. It was so clear and the sea so still that it felt as if you could see forever, and that you just needed to reach out your hand in order to touch boats bobbing gently many miles out at sea. There is a special quality of light that you only get near to the sea.
Prayer
I'm not a person to sit on beaches; I'm not really a person to sit anywhere, which makes me a bit odd as a vicar because part of the job is supposed to be about praying and communing with God. But I tend to do my praying on the move, whether riding my bicycle or just walking. Prayer isn't just about forming words or bombarding God with questions; it's about listening, about being open to possibilities.
And the possibilities are endless on an empty beach, and that's the other wonderful thing about the British seaside, you only have to walk a couple of hundred yards from the car park, and you're on your own. It's just you, the sky, the wide-open sand and the blue sea lapping against the shore. The sound of that lapping tide is to me one of the most relaxing sounds I know; and as I walk along I tend to find that I can get things into perspective. Against a limitless horizon the problems of my life tend to assume their true proportions, they are small and transitory whereas this beautiful God-given landscape goes on forever.
God's creation
As you stand by that huge expanse of water you can begin to regain the sense of scale of God's creation, and the insignificance of the lone human being disturbing that realm of nature and silence. If anybody asked me to prove that God exists, I would say; stand on a wide-open sandy beach, and just wait, or walk, and God will come to you, usually when you least expect it. You probably won't get a great revelation; God doesn't often work like that. God tends to come in the silence, as a comforting presence that somehow makes sense of a world that often seems meaningless.
I can understand why all those great Celtic Saints built monasteries and hermitages on the coast and islands of Northumberland. Just walk along those wonderful beaches and you too will understand. It brought them into a proximity to God that inspired them, and which continues to inspire us today, if only we listen and take the time. It's a golden memory of summer, but beaches can be just as dramatic in driving rain, with a force nine gale blowing. I just have to miss out the paddling!
As you stand by that huge expanse of water you can begin to regain the sense of scale of God's creation, and the insignificance of the lone human being disturbing that realm of nature and silence. If anybody asked me to prove that God exists, I would say; stand on a wide-open sandy beach, and just wait, or walk, and God will come to you, usually when you least expect it. You probably won't get a great revelation; God doesn't often work like that. God tends to come in the silence, as a comforting presence that somehow makes sense of a world that often seems meaningless.