Kelley Calvin Student's Choosing #3

The Beach

The beach will always be a spiritual place to me. Many family members have special connections to the water and that sacredness was just passed down on to me. I visited the beach recently and could not stop thinking about this vast ocean that God created.

Honestly, I hate getting religious. Religion is not something that should be forced down peoples throats and it is something that certainly should not be in politics. However, as I visited the beach I couldn't help myself but think of God. The ocean is sort of like God, in my opinion of the whole religion thing. God, this ultimate other that we cant exactly see however, we can feel it. The ocean too has this power that we cannot feel. Likewise, the ocean is great and vast and there are parts to it that are greatly unknown, like God. No wonder the Greeks and Romans had a god of the sea. 

This past time visiting the beach, I was with some family members. Being with them just made the entire situation more spiritual. As we walked down the beach, the common happenings occurred while my family is at the beach. It's sort of like God himself forms the perfect situation every time the Calvin's go to the beach.  Anyway, while one of the common situations was happening, I could not help but relate it to religion. It happened sort of like this: my mom is always so excited to be near the water, she loves it. In fact, she is so happy to be near the water, that when she is, no matter what time of year it is, she goes into the water. Most of the time she has no bathing suit with her, she just goes into the water how she is.She might claim that she'll only put her feet it, but she always ends up getting soaked. This situation reminded of religion and church. When we are children, some, at least I, was always so excited to go to church, I had many friends at church and for whatever reason I loved learning biblical stories. But, it never mattered how i came to church, the church, and god, would accept me and my fellow church goers how they were. It didn't matter if I came in a dress and the person next to me came in street clothing, god would still accept us, like the ocean would accept my mother even though she wasn't wearing appropriate clothing for where she was. Moreover, no matter what you were dressed like or how you came, you would end up soaked, almost with this new knowledge of god or whatever story they were telling that day, just like my mom would always leave the beach soaked no matter her original intentions.