Never the Water; Only a Wave
Rev. Dr. Mark Morrison-Reed
November 25, 2007

Set sail with me. Slip the mooring line and cast off from the dock to which you have secured your life. Leave behind your notions about whom and what you are, and what is real. Turn your bow toward the waves; face the sea and its unpredictability. Our lives are not as they seem. What we regard as permanent is not; what is permanent is obvious but we see it not.

I was adrift, and tossed about by emotional tempest surrounding my sister Carole’s illness and death. While I tried to avoid being swamped by the waves of grief that swept over me, some held on to hope by practicing denial, others were possessed by a rage as large as Captain Ahab’s. Amidst the storm I struggled to maintain my bearings so I might be of help. It was then that I discovered a poem by Elder Olson. I put a copy into my wallet and later when a friend, Suzanne, became terminally ill I mailed her a copy. Later still I read it to bed-bound Chris Lowry.

    "Nothing is lost; the universe is honest,
    Time, like the sea, gives all back in the end,
    But only in its own way, on its own conditions:
    Empires as grains of sand, forests as coal,
    Mountains as pebbles. Be still, be still, I say;
    You were never the water, only a wave;
    Not substance, but a form substance assumed." ^[1]

I found and still find comfort in this image, an image which encapsulates the truth about the nature of life. I could see her life and my own rising, as does a wave, cresting and then subsiding once again into the sea – "never the water, only a wave." One day I captured it in my own words and entitled it "Whitecaps":

     "In the beginning was
          the ripple that no one saw
               the roar that no one heard
                    the surge that no one felt.
     Now we ride
          those waves
               are those waves
     Sent forth
          by the sacred roar at center of Being.
     Ripples of that first moment
          waves riding
               eternity’s undercurrent
     Our lives
          whitecaps upon its surface
               rising
                    peaking
                         breaking.
     Manifestations
          of an ever swelling creation;
     We emerge
          awaken
               witness
                    and partake of a miracle.
     Life surging
          through us.
     We crest
          then quietly
               subside."

You see we were never the water, only the waves. "In India [water] is generally regarded as the preserver of life, circulating throughout the whole of nature, in the form of rain, sap, milk, and blood. Limitless and immortal, water is the beginning and the end of all things on earth." ^[2]

The image of waves is apt – waves upon the ocean. I can see us rolling along, one following the next. We rise above the ocean and into consciousness of ourselves and of life, it sometimes seems as if we are alone, set apart from one another, but we are not. Our essence is shared – “never the water, only a wave.” We are, all of us, embodiments of stardust and earth and ancestors, a hologram of Life itself.

There are moments when we experience the transcendent nature of life. I’m hiking along a trail between what Italians call Cinque Terre, five villages on the coast east of Genoa. A gentle, quiet roaring fills my ears and the sea sprays my nose. I reached out to steady myself. There is a rock beneath my hand. It feels cool, hard edged, and sharp. Lichen gives it a rough texture. We were the same, are the same, siblings at birth, my molecules and its once undifferentiated, as the multitude of Hindu gods are all only manifestation of the one Brahmin. I look up past a lemon tree to a cluster of tall reeds from last season; thin, bent, light brown and behind them a tree blossoming white; behind me a frothy sea full of crashing waves. And feeling how lucky I am to be alive, tears form and run down my face – waters of joy and gratitude.

Yet "[y]ou were never the water, only a wave; not substance, but a form substance assumed." Our lives are not the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega but simply a way life expresses itself. Yet, while in the cosmic scheme of things my life may be small, it is the gift I have been given and I want to know how to live and savor it and then crest and let go. How do I let the foaming surf, of what I had been, run up the beach before I recede into the ocean, and into unconsciousness, submerged once again in the Divine Mystery?

The pounding surge of the sea is as relentless as death, and death is our goal, as the goal of the wave is a distant shore. We need not rush but neither should we tarry, nor waste time shrinking from the inevitable, for we know the end to life will certainly come. Yet what I began to see in Elder Olsen’s poem was that my life does not end. The boundaries I had imagined are not there. They are an illusion. Yes, there is a beginning and end to my consciousness but not to life itself.

Annie Dillard writes in For the Time Being: "Our generations rise and break like foam on shores… People burst like foam… Are we ready to think of all humanity as a living tree, carrying on splendidly without us? We easily regard a beehive or an ant colony as a single organism … And we easily and correctly regard an aggregate of individuals, a sponge or coral or lichen or slime mould, as one creature – but us? When we people differ, and know our consciousness, and love? Even lovers… are strangers who will love and die alone. And we like it this way… we prefer to endure any agony of isolation rather than to merge and extinguish our selves in an abstract “humanity” whose fate we should hold dearer than our own. Who could say, I’m in agony because my child died, but that’s all right: [humanity] as a whole has abundant children?" ^[3]

Of course, we could not accept such loss with equanimity, but that does not change the truth. I’m in agony and life will go on. Loved ones will die and their love will be passed on and on to the last generation. I will die and the values I cherish will live on in the institutions into which I pour my energy. I am part of a process – a bio-cultural-genetic organism that transcends myself. Life is not static. Its ongoing existence requires incorporation and dissipation. I am a process, not a fixed self but an ongoing development. You and I are in flux – atoms and oxygen, moods and food and thoughts flowing in and out, in and out. And by the end all is dispersed—energy and love, deeds and dust—spread out from a center that only seems to be a center. For all is tentative, all in flux and our sense of permanence and solidity is an illusion. It only seems there is a focal point. All of me is not here. Much of myself I gave away in getting here. And what is here is always changing. The person who set off from Toronto three weeks ago is no longer, and it is not simply that in the give and take of getting here I have changed, although that is true. I am literally not the same person. Seventy five percent of our bodies are water and every month that water is completely replaced and over a seven-year period most of the cells that make up my body – the bones, muscle, cartilage and tissue - are replaced by new ones.

One day this process of regeneration will cease and me, myself and I as a center of consciousness will come to an end but much will live on. As Langston Hughes writes:

    "Dear lovely Death,
    That taketh all things under wing,
    Never to kill
    Only to change into some other thing,
    This suffering flesh,
    To make it either more or less,
    But not again the same.
    Dear lovely Death,
    Change is thy other name."

Change is the law that rules our lives. The energy of the universe is flowing through us, just like wave action is energy moving through the water.

This theme is echoed in the words of Olive Schreiner: "For the little soul that cries out aloud for continued personal existence for itself and its beloved, there is no help. For the soul which knows itself no more as a unit, but as a part of the Universal Unity of which the Beloved also is a part; which feels within itself the throb of the Universal Life; for that soul there is no death."

Life calls to us. Life surges through us. Life sweeps us up and carries us along. But we will not see its true nature until we deepen our spiritual lives. Unless we cultivate an expansive sense of self—not a big ego but rather a boundless soul—we’ll remain blind. We must give up our self-involved, well-defended personalities, if we are to notice that we are inextricably connected to all that is or ever shall be. We need not die enduring the agony of isolation when the warmth of another’s hand will tell us we are not alone, a peaceful mind can still ponder life with awe, and a compassionate heart will hold humanity’s fate as dearer than one’s own.

Ahoy! Our lives are not what they seem. What we regard as permanent is not; what is permanent is obvious but we see it not. It can only be seen when our hearts are open rather than guarded. For this sense of separation we feel is just that, a feeling – the reality is different. Our lives are forever “part of the Universal Unity” and so is Norman Mailer, and your own Mary Flanagan, Norm Peterson, Jane Brown and Mary Sacone; so are words of love and justice won; sunlight and budding blossoms, stardust and snowflakes.

Nothing is lost; the universe is honest,
Time, like the sea, gives all back in the end,
But only in its own way, on its own conditions:
Empires as grains of sand, forests as coal,
Mountains as pebbles. Be still, be still, I say;
You were never the water, only a wave;
Not substance, but a form substance assumed.