A Gift from the Sea

Last week we took our three grandchildren to the beach; something we try to do at least once in a year. The three children are each growing into their own lives.

We, as grandparents—whose childhoods were in another century—try to act as tender shepherds to them. We attempt to guide them lightly, to honor their needs for fun, and hugs, and individual growth, alongside sharing our own spiritual perspectives with them, on the world as we see it, as much as we’re able to.

My husband is more up for fun: throwing around a ball on the beach, sharing rides at Funland, and having his own unlimited capacity for ice cream.

I try to be fun as well, I guess, in my own ways. But meanwhile, I found a dear old friend, from many years ago. There at the one lone bookstore, amidst the dozens of tee shirt and candy shops at the beach, the familiar book caught my eye.

Have you ever read, Gift from the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh? It’s a treasure of a summer read, a journal written by a deep and thoughtful woman, for herself first of all.

Initially, she was surprised how it resonated with other women. And this, as the 50th Anniversary Edition, still speaks with wisdom so needed today.

She compares the different stages of a woman’s life to different shells she finds during her solitary walks on the beach. She writes of simplicity, and of the art of shedding: how little one can get along with…

[perfectpullquote align="full" cite="" link="" color="" class="" size=""]“I shall not need much. I shall ask into my shell only those friends with whom I can be completely honest. I find I am shedding hypocrisy in human relationships. What a rest that will be! The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask. I have shed my mask.”[/perfectpullquote]

She writes about living “in grace”, to her, meaning, “an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony”. Quoting Socrates when he said, “May the outward and inward man be at one.”

I will leave the rest to your exploration. Whether you find yourself this summer at the beach, the mountains, or, for now, surviving the city heat.

All the best,

Rukmini Walker