Whales of the deep

There’s no way I’d rather go blind, I say.

I’m sitting on a deck chair on a porch overlooking the St. Lawrence River on a glorious August afternoon. The kids play on the beach, semi-ignored, while we adults train binoculars across the brilliant, sunlit water.

Whales have been spotted, not too far from shore, and, though our eyes hurt from staring into the sunlight, we are obsessed.

This is the first time we have seen whales in four years of coming to this place – and we have looked! Last summer we made up a song about our quest: “Whales of the deep where are you?/ We’ll feed you krill, we’ll pay the bill/ Whales of the deep, where are you?”

Once we saw a dead beluga rocking in the surf along the shore, which told us they really were out there. I’ve prayed to see them. Throughout the year, I check a website that lists whale sightings in the area.

And now they are here.

This morning I rose early and set myself to learning another section of the Bible passage I am memorizing on this vacation: Hebrews 12. I chose the passage largely because of the phrase “the sin which so easily entangles us,” a reminder of my need to let God be in control.

God says that the way to get rid of these sins that weigh us down and hinder us from running the race is to “fix our eyes on Jesus.” How to actually do this seemed complicated and a bit uncertain this morning.

Suddenly, as I am watching the whales, this verse hits me squarely between the eyes and I know exactly what fixing my eyes on Jesus looks like. It is, of course, the whale-watching posture.

It means training my eyes on the horizon, looking for any evidence of God. It means, as we do with the whales, sitting with others, using language as precisely as we can so that others can see what we see – “There! Eleven o’clock! Do you see it?”

It means that some of us survey the whole sea while others train a steady gaze on the spot of the last sighting. It means we spread the word, make excited calls, invite other people over who sit with us, using our binoculars to see for themselves.

It means we eat supper outside, our orientation always toward the water, so we don’t miss the final arc of back and fin.

I can’t believe my delight at seeing these tiny black crescents, several kilometres out. Mostly we can see only their backs. But there is no mistaking the real thing. Everyone is thrilled and crowds gather.

This is exactly the effect Jesus had on people. They gathered on the hillsides and in the marketplace to hear Him talk, and no one even cared about their suppers. No one worried that they weren’t good enough. They were drawn to this man who showed an unmistakable glimpse of what God is like.

I love the idea that church can still be like this, like Philip running to tell Nathanael “We’ve found the one Moses wrote about in the Law,” the one we’ve been waiting for. When Nathanael is skeptical, like some of the people we phoned about the whales, Philip says, “Come and see!” Or the woman, shunned because of her many husbands, who runs to tell people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did.” And they follow and get the same sense of delight and wonder.

In the little church we attended on Sunday, we sang the hymn, “Immortal, Invisible,” which concludes with the line, “’Tis only the splendor of light hideth Thee.” The sunlight drenching the water makes me strain my eyes, but I also know that seeing the whales is worth the strain.

Sometimes God seems more elusive to us than an enormous whale of the deep, and none of us, even Moses, are permitted to see more than God’s back, but this experience gives me new eyes for seeing God. When I think about fixing my eyes on this One, hidden by glory and revealed in Jesus, I can honestly say that I cannot imagine a better way than this to go blind – or learn to truly see.

Susan Fish lives in Kitchener, Ont. She is the author of Seeker of Stars, a novella.