Cate feels restored walking on the beach. It is a renewing spiritual experience for her. It is not so relaxing for me, for I know from previous experience that sooner or later she will start collecting as much of the beach as possible to take with her. Once, in Florida, she had me trying to drag a recently deceased (I hoped) large stingray out of the water. You know, that thing that took out the Crocodile Hunter. What the dictionary describes as possessing one or more large sharp barbed dorsal spines near the base of the whip-like tail capable of inflicting severe wounds or death. She, standing on the beach, kept assuring me it was dead. I, in the water, kept reminding her that she was not a marine biologist!

All this aside, I do have my reflective moments on the beach. In those moments standing on the sand I become aware of how temporal everything is. On the beach, nothing seems to be permanent. The waves roll in and out. The gulls are always on the move. Oceans have no equivalents of landmarks. The ships are not long in view. Unlike solid ground, the sand gives way under each step, and the way it looks today is not the way it will look tomorrow.

Sand walking is not easy. You quickly become aware of leg muscles that normally go unnoticed. Sand walkers must pay attention and keep alert or themselves with wet pants from a rogue wave which has transgressed the unspoken agreement about how far it may advance. Our presence seems like the most permanent thing in this environment, but even our footsteps, the unspoken proclamation that we have passed by, are quickly washed or blown away.

The beach has a way of reminding me that despite all my efforts for certainty, stability, and permanence are built upon the foundation of an uncertain and ever changing world. It is said, “The only thing that is permanent is change.” There is an irony to my reflection. Despite the shifting sand and changing views, it is the sand walker who is the most fleeting and temporal; for when the walker turns and looks back the only thing missing is the walker. Many walkers have come and gone throughout the centuries and it is the ever shifting, changing beach that remains.

When we walk through life in this world, it is like we are walking on a beach. When we look back over life traveled, where will we look for signs that we passed by? Where can we see our footprints, those unspoken proclamations that we were here? It is hard to leave permanent marks in a changing world. I think there is a place we can look, for we walk not only on sand, ground and concrete. My guess is that we are first soul – walkers and in the end we will find our footsteps left upon the landscape of the souls with whom we have chosen to share ourselves.

Souls, like sand, are not easy to walk across. It requires attention, spiritual muscles not always used. Step too lightly, you leave no trace; step too hard and hurt and pain are left behind. Soul walkers must seek to walk in a fashion that leaves behind meaningful impressions.

God spoke to Joshua as he stood before the Promised Land and said, ‘Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon will become the promised land.’ When we look back on our lives what will we see? A soul’s landscape left unchanged or damaged or a few more steps gained for the Promised Land?

One day we will be gone. Our lives last about as long as it takes the world to wink. Perhaps, the most permanent thing about this life we live in this world is our soul walking footprints which cannot be blown or washed away.