Here's Looking at You!

What does it mean when you are looking for pretty shells and their inhabitants are looking back.  On any beach I've been on it means the food supply exceeds demand and this little 'Fighting Conch' will live to wash up another day. Today we spent a couple of hours on the beach in front of our hotel, the Marriott Crystal Shores Vacation Club, Marco Island, Florida, just to meander among the wild life, both sapient (having wisdom or ability to act with appropriate judgement- WIKIPEDIA -as in some humans), and less than sapient (me, when turning a tight corner with the motor coach).

It is amazing the wealth of living entities two hours of walking may place before you on a beach.

And so many more not photographed! Sheepshead, pelicans, dolphins, crab, bait fish in the surf but NO DOGS ALLOWED ON THE BEACH.  I think we might have seen a cat sneak over the dunes.

 And then there is all the life you don't think is living.  The shells so worn they must be empty but... are they?  The vegetable life that looks totally gross till a gull grabs it in his beak and washes it clean in the surf and then down his gullet in a bright green rush. The gelatinous mass that appears to be a pound of silly putty that quivers when you touch it- an unmistakable jelly fish.  Life in huge abundance and variety on a single stretch of beach walked over slowly in a mere two hours.

We humans often miss the wonderful totality of life God gives us right under our noses every day.  Sometimes it takes a vacation to slow us down enough to take the time to see just what some of that total is.

When I was about 8 years old I spent a morning on my belly in the driveway of our duplex brick home in Harrisburg, Pa. watching troops of ants make their way from the tiny escape hatches they had dug at intervals in the cracks in the cement to food sources sometimes 20 yards away.  Out to the food supply they would follow each other, and back again, carefully making sure that they never lost a bit of the sustenance their young needed in the maternity wards below.

A whole morning I spent there, fascinated by what I saw. Now, if I am held up an extra 30 seconds at a red light by another driver unsure of which way to go, my right hand reaches for the horn button, and on the new Alpine, that is a roof mounted dual air horn that will cause a heart attack in a sleeping teenager. We... I, need to slow down.  Not just because its healthier for our own hearts, though it is, but because God has a wonderful world of creatures and creations just waiting to be seen while we are moving our hands toward the horn buttons of our lives.  "Get out of my way! I'm on the move here!"

I saw a dolphin several dozen yards off the beach this morning and I shouted to the mom and daughter shell searching near me, "There's a dolphin!"  "Oh, we missed it", mom said not even looking up. "We have our eyes glued to the life at our feet for the moment".  She missed a dolphin, and saw hundreds of other entities I missed... because I did not have the patience to slow down, and focus my eyes on the life at my very feet.  Where is the 8 year old boy when you need him again?

-Ken

PS: The coach is mechanically repaired and winterized for our journey north, and the Toad also has completed it's body and frame repair and gets it's new baseplate and hitch on Monday.  We drive to pick up first the coach, and then the car, on Tuesday and then over to I-95 and north to hopefully see some old friends along the way home.  Your prayers for us will always be appreciated.