The World is More Than I Can Ever See

Rev. Peg Chemberlin

The Rev. Peg Chemberlin is the executive director of the Minnesota Council of Churches. She is the immediate past president of the National Council of Churches, an organization of 36 communions with 45 million constituents across the nation. Read more about Rev. Peg Chemberlin.

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The World is More Than I Can Ever See

Posted by: Rev. Peg Chemberlin under Society Updated: September 2, 2010 - 9:48 AM

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Sitting atop one of the thousands of rock outcroppings on Lake Superior’s northern shore line, we watch as the wave action has increased over the last 24 hours. It is a beautiful August day, the sky is a deep blue and the clouds are only occasional threads, but the wind is blowing across Lake Superior. We are far enough northeast, up the lakeshore, that we can’t see across the lake; and haven’t been able to for many miles back. We’re not far from the Canadian border. The lake commands the landscape here, broad sweep of twinkling blue as far as the eye can see in 180 degrees with only this climbing granite backdrop behind us.

As a large wave crests against the outcrop, the wave rises. At the wave’s foot the water drops so that we can see a whole new underwater scenario we couldn’t see a second ago. Huge table rocks of green, grey, red and brown are stacked on each other, then drop off, like steps, down into the mysterious depths. The wave topples and is gone.

For an imaginary moment I see the rock pattern repeated in its design beneath the whole of the wide expanse in front of me. A design which is never the same yet within a set range. This form repeated in an infinity variety of ways, in a landscape stretched out in front of me for miles in three directions. Miles and miles of rock formation and underwater cliffs, diving birds, and fish, in the ultimate freedom. Mysteries unknown. Is this what the Creator sees and knows everyday, every moment? Every day, a relationship with every unique formation and every living cell in that landscape?

And all I had seen was a broad, beautiful expanse of blue.