Our View!

As winter began, my husband and I rented lodging on the far edge of the wild Olympic peninsula. No telephone, no television, no Internet. Out the window a few yards away, the boiling Pacific Ocean crashed onto the beach. We scanned the sculpted rocks and the writhing horizon that took away our breath with its beauty.

We stayed only a few days. To gain the full benefit, I think, one needs at least a week, preferably two or three. A couple of days passed before I accustomed myself to the rhythm of the place, before the thoughts began coming, the words forming.

I didn’t miss the telephone (not even our cells worked) or the television. The Internet was the most difficult to do without. No checking on the weather two or three times a day. No news from the outside, which, these days, is perhaps a blessing.

I think what I came away with (along with a measure of deeper peace) is the sense of God’s infinite diversity. Tides four times a day, but each different from the one before. Ceaseless waves, but each one, like a snowflake, different from any other.

This diversity operated within a dependable order. Without order, we could not check tide tables or know light and dark would succeed each other.

Within this comforting order, one is free to create infinitely and never exhaust the possibilities.