Worried? Run your fingers through the dark, stank mud. I grew the plants that formed that mud with the sun’s rays and the cooling rains. I will be there when this summer’s grasses wither and fade into the bay waters. Can you add a day to the life of the grass? Can you deepen the layers of ancient earth? Ah, but touch the mud and feel the life of thousands of years…and be at peace.
Anxious? Rake the wet sand with your toes and feel the ocean water seep up under your feet. I remember the oysters and clams and crabs that lived in the depths before their shells rolled in the waves and became the grains on which you stand. I know the turn of the tides and the movement of the coastlines. Let your fears wash out with the waves and ground yourself in the sifting sands.
Tired? Watch the snowy egret standing patiently in the water. Consider how it rises with broad strokes of its wings and settles, gently, only a few yards away. When did you last take your time, look carefully, sit still, move calmly, like the egret? Its meal will be found, its roost will be taken, and when its time ends, the egret too will be part of the primordial mud that nurtures the grass and feeds the crab.
So find your solace in the Maker of Mud. Tell your worries to the Storyteller of Oceans. Sleep and work and live under the same Eye that keeps watch over the egret. Let today be enough for today. Let God be enough for all times.