Esther loved the sea. In her apartment were her father’s photographs of the sea. Rocks and clefts along the Atlantic coast, with names like Purgatory and Camel Rock, shaped her childhood consciousness. She once wrote: “How I pity those who have never had the opportunity to fall in love with the sea. Even at its most peaceful moments there is movement and rhythm and a tremendous tranquility that can put at ease even the most disturbed frame of mind. But when it is at its wildest, whipped by winds of hurricane force, with waves and spray flying high above the cliffs and rocks, then the sea is its most thrilling self.”
Esther’s sea and Esther's life mirrored one another: tumultuous and powerful one moment, serene and gentle the next. As she was an enthusiast of the sea, so was she an enthusiast for life - from family and gardening to the reconciliation of peoples distanced by conflict. To be alive for her meant to engage life passionately, and to embrace it immodestly, whatever her circumstance. Even when she battled the ravages of cancer she did not give in to negativism. She had an untethered optimism and an abiding faith in life's possibilities.
The sea is a wise teacher. Esther was its discerning student. She came to know intuitively what the sea was eager to teach: that the web of life is seamless and complete and that divine reality encompasses all in a loving embrace.
(Photo from Widescreen Wallpapers)
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Curious to know whom Esther was in your life? Maybe not knowing is what makes her compelling and haunting like the inky unknown sea.
ReplyDeleteEsther was a member of a congregation I served in Minneapolis. She was wise and salty, widely-read and free-thinking. Like many of her generation, she enjoyed most the fine art of conversation.
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