Many years ago, my husband and I worked in the early morning building a sandcastle. The shoreline was pure white there on the island in the Florida Keys, and the sun was just peeking through the palm trees. The salty breeze felt cool. We used a trash can from our cabana, a few styrofoam cups, random shells, and rustic twigs to mold the 3-story structure. After more than an hour spent carving windows and digging the surrounding mote, we stood back and admired our work.We crowned the tallest spire with a pink hibiscus flower and I placed one in my hair.
It was one of those solemn, beautiful sort of moments, both of us realizing that we had created something magnificent out of tiny specs along a vast sea. It was our little patch of creation.
We felt like kids, and we were: just two youngsters on the shore of our early twenties.
But our creation didn’t last.
The next morning the castle was gone, except for a few small mounds that used to be towers.
During the darkness of night, the tide had swallowed our art.
I’ve thought of that sandcastle over and over in the past month or so. I wasn’t sure why, at first.
But I’ve come to understand that The Holy Spirit works in these sort of nudges: The stirring of memories at just the right time~ the recalling of stories and truths in a way that only we can understand. Sometimes God plays back memories like movies, a reminder of important things we may have forgotten along the way.
And this is what I have come to make of it, this sandcastle memory that persists:
I’m pretty sure God smiles when He looks down at each of us, doing our thing on our little piece of shoreline, carving into the earth with the gifts he gave us. We each take our buckets and twigs and whatever tools He’s handed us. Often we’re scared they aren’t enough to make a difference, but we create art anyway. We mold the tiny pieces in our lives into an offering.
We hold our gifts in our shaky hands, and we decorate our little patch of shoreline.
And I’m also confident of this: Our art, as beautiful and intricate as it may be, is always carved in sand.
Someday it will wash away and all that will be seen is the shape of our hearts.
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We have got to know that HIS words can never be washed away.
We have to know that there is ONE who has not written upon the sand.
He has carved our initials in the palm of His hand.
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Just as I typed the last sentence of this post, the newscaster announced that we had lost Robin Willliams.
The darkness had come and washed a gifted artist away.
His quick wit made my brothers and I laugh until tears ran down our cheeks watching “Mork and Mindy” in gradeschool.
Later, Robin took the written words of poets and delivered them in a way that only he could. They reflected and shaped our own stories.
He did more than read a script or tell a joke. He made us braver because he desperately needed the words he was sharing, too.
His legacy and the tragic depth of his depression make me even more grateful for the artists with whom we share this shoreline…those who help us to see the parts of life that we too easily miss. We’re a quirky bunch, the lot of us. But we get out our buckets, the ones with all the holes, and each of us creates.
With all my training in counseling, I stand speechless over and over in the wake of suicide. Because we all feel a little responsible. Our words feel too late, our compliments too thin, the spotlight we directed never glowed bright enough, and faith just couldn’t seem to permeate to the heart of it.
It’s never our fault. Depression and addiction are sneaky and silent and they whisper lies that no one else hears.
I only know this:
We’ve got to ask for help when darkness comes to us. We have got to notice the people on our shoreline.
Let’s make Robin’s legacy one of standing up tall, on a chair if you’re so inclined, and breathing in a good deep breath, taking in our perspective from there.
Because we’re really all a bunch of gangly school kids trying to remember our verse in the poem.
The above video is about Andres Aador, Earthscape Artist. I’ve been a bit obsessed with his gift and message lately.
“The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?” ~ Walt Whitman…and Dead Poet’s Society
