I came to the sea this week and I swam in it and was remade.
It’s breathtaking, the sea: the scale and unspoken threat of it, the sheer blank, power of it. And this is no ordinary sea. This is the deep, grey North Sea of Northumberland. And these are no ordinary swimming places. These are the lonely, windswept sands, the bleak, seaweed-strewn beaches of the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.
Now there is a long tradition of sea-swimming here, where the great saints, Cuthbert and Aidan, embraced the cold, cold water just as they embraced the grass, the trees and all of the defiant little sandbank they called home.
So, I came prepared to emulate them and equipped to embrace the cold, cold water as they did. Which is to say, I brought my wetsuit.
Now there are, I know, those who think that a wetsuit betrays the purity of the sea-swimming experience. I respect that. But I wear it anyway because I love swimming in the sea, but I really don’t like pain.
So, I dress up, like a great neoprene seal and as soon as I am in the water, I am visited by the real thing: sleek, grey seals pop up to watch me, and suddenly I know that these empty beaches and blank waters are not actually empty at all but someone else’s home.
One of the poets whose collected works we call the Bible, wrote that “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it”.
In other words, it’s not ours, but we are made to share it.
This is why Cuthbert and Aidan knew Holy Island is holy, because although it is a place apart, it is not a place alone. It’s a place where we are part of something.
And that is holy. because holiness consists in completeness, and in restoration to completeness.
This summer, I reckon we all need restoration. But we will all be restored differently – in the sea or the hills, at a gig or in the pub; alone, with friends, with family.
I am restored in the sea, under the watching eye of the seals. And as I swim and am put back together, I hope that when I go home and to work next Monday, I won’t just feel myself again but be a part of something. I hope I’ll remember the seals watching me.
The image at the top is taken from the dunes at the back of Coves Haven, where I swim on the north coast of Holy Island. Days like this are less rare than you might think.