Last winter, a friend of mine started planning a new book club and asked me to join. I hesitated. I was already committed to several others—my neighborhood book club which read the latest best-sellers and my after-school book club with students who devoured the library’s young adult section. Plus, I must admit, at times I longed to read something on my own. Yet I agreed, my interest piqued, since she chose an angle for this group which was missing in the others. A faith-filled one.
Gathered on a Saturday morning in her church’s community room, we sipped coffee and offered book suggestions, an eclectic group of women from various ages and stages. Some I knew; most I did not, but we united in a love of God, a devotion to faith (and books), and, if we were lucky, a community of newfound friends.
The following month, we began with excerpts, thankfully excerpts, of what my friend called the “tome” of St. Faustina’s diary and moved onto a shorter reflection on the life of Mary Magdalene, just in time for Lent. I missed the next discussion on a classic work of the Holy Spirit, and then we found ourselves at the onset of summer. To celebrate the season with a potluck by her pool, my friend chose Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, so reflective and inspirational, a book I had enjoyed over the years.
Into the suitcase I tossed my well-worn copy as we packed for vacation. While the rest of family braved the chilly ocean waters one afternoon, I sat on the beach, iced tea in one hand and, appropriately, Gift from the Sea in the other. Never before had I read it in this locale and never before at this point in my life. Hearing the sound of waves crashing in front me, I understood even better the author’s interpretation of the ebb and flow in the tide of our lives. Seeing my teenagers and their friends searching the shoreline for sea shells, I felt her comments about motherhood more deeply than I ever could as a young adult.
As I watched and listened, I also felt, as I did in the past, God’s presence which always seems so powerful near the sea. Despite the age we are or the stage we’re in, the psalms remind us: “More than the sounds of many waters, than the mighty breakers of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty.”
As I continued reading, I wondered if the others would react as I did. What would give them pause? How would they connect spiritually? The woman in her 20s who recently started a new job. The woman in her 70s who finds joy in her grandchildren. At next week’s potluck, I imagine sharing, with a community of friends I once hesitated in joining, the stories and perspectives that emerged from this book, so different from those I realized in the past though equally valuable in a myriad of ways.
Closing the pages and preparing to brave the chilly waters myself, I lifted a prayer of gratitude for books and friends, family and faith, God and the sea.
