The Mystery of the Deep

There is something about the sea that draws us in at an elemental, soul-deep, level. Artists, poets and dreamers have felt its call since time began and, in answer, they inexorably find their paths leading to the shore line, to the edge of the known – and sometimes beyond.

Standing on the sandy, rocky outer limits of the solid land, we are faced with a seemingly endless horizon, the roaring deep curving away from us as it follows the contours of the earth. The point where the sky touches down upon the sea, seemingly full of endless possibility and questions.

Since man first put flint-like tool to wood, he has sought to carve himself a way to the horizon; crafting coracles and canoes; pushing off from the known into the unknown. Unperturbed by the anticipated tentacle terror of the Kraken or the melodious death song of mermaids, they were compelled by a force beyond themselves to leave dry land to unlock the mystery of the seas.

By the 17th century most of the seas of the known world had been tamed by cartographers, categorized and labelled, mapped and measured. And in the 20th century, business people, aid workers and backpack-ladened adventurers get on and off aeroplanes like buses, looking down from the borders of the stratosphere upon the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the floating ice islands of the Artic and Antarctic.

But while man may have taken the first steps into space, we still know less about the mystery of the deep, than we do of the surface of the moon. The lace fringed waves that lap or crash upon our shores offer but a glimpse of the mystery beyond.

Standing upon the shore, caught up in the rhythmic sighing of the sea, it is as if I can hear creation breathing, in and out, inhaling and exhaling. Whipped to a frenzy by the wind, breath tumbles on breath, faster and wilder, flotsam blown to shore by the breeze, each successive wave falling like snow.

The rush of wave on rock, the depths breathing, drown out the cries of the sea birds and children. Alone, one cannot escape God; his majesty, the breathtaking glory and thunderous might of his creation dashes all doubts.

Here on the sea shore we gaze on eternity, humbled by the mighty force of the ocean, knowing that one day we too must set our sail for the horizon. But until then, we will be drawn, again and again, to the sheer mystery of the deep, that reminder that for all our arrogance, we are such frail creatures, at the mercy of a force beyond our comprehension. Perhaps it is this that drives us to the shore, an innate knowledge that beyond the horizon, beneath the surface of reality, lies a truth more strange and wonderful than we can imagine.

Kate Nicholas is author of the best-selling memoir Sea Changed – shortlisted for as CRT Christian Biography of the Year 2017 – which is available at Waterstones and Christian book stores throughout the UK and online at Eden.co.uk and Amazon worldwide.