World Ocean Day & Spiritual Depths

O Lord, how manifold are your works!
    In wisdom you have made them all;
    the earth is full of your creatures.
 There is the sea, great and wide;
    creeping things innumerable are there,
    living things both small and great.
 There go the ships
    and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.

These all look to you
    to give them their food in due season;
 when you give to them, they gather it up;
    when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.

                                               Psalm 104: 24-28 NRSVue

 This is World Ocean(s) Day an international recognition which was actually a Canadian initiative back in 1992. The theme this year is Awaken New Depths. Since its inception our oceans, once considered unassailable and inexhaustible, have come under greater threat on a number of fronts. Within a couple of decades the weight of plastics in our oceans could outweigh the fish. These waters are warming, changing aquatic ecosystems in disturbing ways. Acoustic pollution is affecting many species, including whales. The ability of oceans to absorb atmospheric carbon is severely compromised, a threat to terrestrial creatures. And "this is on us" as humans, to use a current expression. 

While this day was proposed by Canadians we are not shining examples of leadership  and despite our biblical motto  A Mari usque ad Mare, which translates as “From Sea to Sea.(Psalm 78:2)

We love being alongside and on ocean waters, always with a sense of the holy, even when and perhaps especially as storms rage. For the first and likely only time in our lives we will spend time on islands in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in the same year. 

In a couple of weeks we will visit Haida Gwaii, the island archipelago off the northwest coast of British Columbia. The islands are sometimes described as the "Amazon of the North" for the biodiversity on land and in the waters surrounding them. The Indigenous sovereignty of the Haida people has become a model around the world. 

                                            Ruth and one of many icebergs, Change Islands NL 2017

And God willing, In August we will return to Change Islands, Newfoundland, adjacent to Fogo Island and where I began my ministry. This was where we first came to a deep appreciation for the sea. We have returned many times and maintained friendships over the years. We have experienced both the degradation and the abundance of the ocean close at hand. 

We don't have to visit our oceans in order to appreciated them and desire their protection. On this day I always think of the poetic power of the verses from Psalm 104 and words from one of the greatest hymns ever written. 

We can awaken new spiritual depths. Praise to the Creator of the deeps!

1 I feel the winds of God today;

today my sail I lift,

though heavy oft with drenching spray

and torn with many a rift;

if hope but light the water's crest,

and Christ my bark will use,

I'll seek the seas at his behest,

and brave another cruise.

                                 Voices United 625