Ouachita Stories

I first saw the implacable ocean as a two-year-old. My parents promised that sun and salt air would cure the chronic ear infections I suffered in Louisville, Ky., where my father studied in seminary. They were right, and few years have elapsed without another pilgrimage to its Florida shores. I learned its ways and creatures and weather – and that it cares not one whit for me. It can cure my mind and body, but it lacks any interest in whether or not I drown, sunburn, step on sand spurs or encounter alligator, snake, shark, jellyfish or manta. It possesses loveliness deadly – or at least painful – to the unknowing or inattentive.

 

But just as it is written, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the heart of man, All that God has prepared for those who love Him.”

1 Corinthians 2:9

 

Paul references Isaiah 64:4’s assertion that no one has heard of or seen a god like YHWH, who acts on behalf of His adherents. In the light of Jesus’ teachings, Paul adds to Isaiah’s revelation that those actions are good beyond human imagining. YHWH resembles none of the ancient Near East’s gods who required human sacrifice nor the Greek and Roman pantheon’s capricious ones. He acts from love and offers more abundant life than humans can conceive. His loveliness is unimaginably life-affirming and life-giving.

We stand at the beginning of a new month, the year’s shortest. Like the ocean, time is implacable, moving inexorably onward, ignoring our desire that it delay. A quarter of the semester is gone, never to be reclaimed. But all is not lost. Before us stand second chances to learn the good things that God has in store for those of us who love Him. He delights in our learning in every discipline and even in our effort to learn. God is Truth, and He lovingly reveals Himself to us at every turn, reaching for us in love, not implacably blind to our existence.

 

By Dr. Ray Granade, Professor of History and Director of Library Services