In Praise of the May River Sandbar

Saltwater Gospel

Confession: I don’t actually remember my first visit to the May River sandbar by boat. I was in my twenties then and it might have been the beer. But I do remember all the moments spent on that tidal spit of sand since. The memories exist as a collage of feeling and sensing: Silky currents wrapping around my legs as I exit the boat’s ladder; my feet touching the soft sand of the river bottom; the summer sun radiating white light on my bare shoulders. There’s happy chatter and cheery music from distant boats. Dogs run. Kids play. Laughter carries like a kite. Sometimes, late on hot Saturdays, the sandbar can get a little rowdy, when both the sun and hedonism reach a crescendo. Other times, especially on an early morning low tide, it’s peacefully vacant. Save for the true locals, the shore birds, who rest in flock.

Oh, the sandbar stories. They are stuff to carry a generation. My son and his friends once walked to the marshy backside of the sandbar and “fell” into the pluff and came back looking like mud wrestlers. I have the pictures to haunt them later. Or, there’s the time, when the kids spied something strange poking up. Hey, what’s that? They pointed it out to a stranger who promptly dug out a prehistoric megalodon tooth half the size of her hand. To much the kids’ chagrin, she took it for herself.

I’ve stood many times, bobbing deep in the water with a beer can held out high like a torch to keep the salt water from lapping in. Sun-soaked hours stretch out before us. You can be out there for hours and lose track of time. But the tides don’t forget and soon enough, the water starts swiftly encroaching and everyone heads back to their boats. Anchors are pulled, and motors cranked to low rumbles. The sandbar disappears as the incoming tide seals it shut underneath the river.

I have another confession: I’m obsessed with the tidal cycle. There’s wisdom there and I like to keep track of what the tides are doing, even on the days when I’m tucked in at home. Every six hours, the currents shift due to unseen forces. How amazing. The change is a steady companion. The fullness of a high tide gives way to a low tide that empties out, only to welcome back the incoming water. There’s no ending, no beginnings, only the continuum of change.

The tides, to me, are like prayer. From a theologian, I recently learned of two different types of prayer: cataphatic and apophatic. “Cataphatic,” the theologian explained, “is a filling up of ideas, traditions, and content.”

I’m well-versed in this type of prayer—it’s one of my childhood, with Sundays spent in a historic Episcopal Church. There, I sat and studied the vaulted ceiling of the nave that was shaped like the bottom of the boat, believing that heaven was Somewhere Up There. As the priest and liturgy droned on, I would gaze at the richness of the stained-glass windows, looking for God in all the story and tradition around me.

Forgive me if I didn’t find God there as I seek to experience Him.

“Apophatic prayer,” the theologian told me, “is finding God is the emptying out. The releasing and letting go.”

An emptying out like the low tide in the river. A letting go that leads to wonder: a sandbar revealed in the shallows. Heaven here on Earth.

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When I go down and sink my feet in the water

And I soak up that sun and I watch it set

Yeah, I can feel the power of the saltwater gospel

I’m as close to God as I can get

~ Eli Young Band, Saltwater Gospel

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These days, my prayers are apophatic—surrendering and yielding to the moment before me. It’s here that life reminds me of what I truly love: water, sandbar, boat, family, fellowship. Laughter. Joy. God is love. God is in Living Your Life. Isn’t it interesting too, that the stop point of an outgoing tide is referred to as a dead low? Because being on the sandbar with my family, at dead low tide is my version of church, and where I feel most alive.

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Besides the photos of the kids looking like mud wrestlers, I don’t actually have any photos of the sandbar. This is good! I’m living in the moment instead of documenting.

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Sandbar packing list:

• Cooler filled with equal parts beer and water

• Boiled peanuts

• Mini sandwiches on Hawaiian Rolls

• Cokes for the kids

• Plenty of chips and snacks

• Towels

• Sunscreen

• Bluetooth speaker for tunes

• Optional:

• Two beach chairs

• Pool Noodles

• Kite

• Dog (bring bowl for fresh water)

• Book

• Football

• Cast Net

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