A Kiss of the Divine

On our way back from the coast last week we took a little detour in Port Angeles to visit a wonderful marina full of old fishing boats. I had discovered the marina years ago, and had been looking forward to a return visit, since my last had been in 2002.

But alas, the town and the marina had gone upscale: the docks were no longer accessible to the public, but had locked gates; the gravel parking lot now had an asphalt surface; and the beautiful elderly trawlers had been replaced by shiny new pleasure yachts.

But it was a beautiful day with a deep clear blue sky, the boats were brightly colored, and there were parking places along the road beside the marina, so we stopped to photograph anyway -- only to discover that bright colors and blue sky were just not enough. "It's pretty, but it doesn't SAY anything," my friend exclaimed, and I had to agree. Our eyes were being fed, but not our souls.

Which makes me think of something I heard in a sermon yesterday. We had a guest preacher, and she happened to mention that she thought the soul was some empty place inside us that we spend our lives filling up with God.

Hmmm, I thought. That's not how it feels to me -- but of course everyone sees it differently. It seems to me that there's a bright unquenchable flame of God-ness already there, deep within me, and I spend my life trying to open myself to it so that the spirit flows unimpeded between the God-ness without and the God-ness within. I am not hollow -- if anything, I am too full of thoughts and plans and worries and memories, and it gets kind of stuffy in there if I don't keep clearing a path through...

It's a bit like the rule I had for my daughters when they were still living here: there always had to be a path from the door to the bed of their rooms, so I could safely come in to kiss them goodnight without tripping over or crushing something. My life, my brain, and my soul get pretty cluttered sometimes, but I need to keep a clear path so God can flow freely in and out, and glide in for a kiss from time to time.

This is one of the three images I saved from that somewhat aborted marina visit: it was the only old boat I could see from the road, and I loved the bright red smile of it. Perhaps today it serves as a reminder: we need to keep ourselves open for that kiss of God-ness, that moment of divine love that feeds us. You never know when it might appear!