Seashores

My sister Kathy and I returned from Eugene to Seattle the long and beautiful way, driving along the Oregon coast from Florence to Astoria, stopping to visit the sea lion caves (full of large lounging sea lions), to climb up to the Heceta Head lighthouse, and to walk the beach. It's my second long day by the Pacific within the past month: the other was at the beach pictured at top, in El Zonte, El Salvador. Thanks to Patti Moore for the El Zonte photo, which shows the grass-thatched huts and palm trees of a tropical Pacific fantasy. Heceta Head lies close to 44 degrees of latitude; El Zonte at 13 degrees, 30 minutes and the same ocean pushes and pulls at the shore in each place, the same gray whales go swimming by.

Thanks be to God for oceans and ocean shores, for the intimate connections of salty blood and salty ocean, heartbeat and wavebeat, water and ground.