She sees seashells at the seashore

About a million years ago, when I was in college (the first time), I went to Fort Myers and Sanibel Island on Spring Break. I traveled with one of my housemates (yes, Julie, from that house with the macaroni on the kitchen ceiling). A dear friend just returned from Sanibel and shared this photo with me, which brought up the old memory.

We had had a really rough two trimesters - MSU was on trimesters then - and looked forward to a very atypical college student experience. My friend's grandparents were our hosts in Fort Myers for a couple of days before they left to go on a cruise. But it was rainy in those first days of our visit, so her grandfather taught me how to knit. I know! Comme c'est bizarre! He had had a stroke earlier in the year and knitting was one of his therapies. As I have had the habit of doing pretty much my whole life, I made great plans for this newfound hobby. I was going to make sweaters and socks and afghans and scarves. I bought some really pretty yarn. By the end of the trip I was really good at knitting, purling and unknitting and unpurling ... I found that yarn recently with the needles still in it.

Oh hey. Not my point.

Shells! I really love shells. I have little displays of them all over - in the bathroom, library, the counter around the funny little sink in my bedroom ... on the wood-burning stove in the basement, in the kitchen, in my office, even in the car. They're my little piece of the ocean in my Michigander world. When I'm at the beach, I can wander for hours picking up shells and inspecting each and every one. Marveling in the perfect symmetry of some or the perfect way others have weathered various types of damage. And I'm continually astounded at the infinite variety I find in these calcified protective coverings for sea creatures.

Interesting. It's not completely unlike the infinite variety of our individual faith experiences, is it?