My eldest daughter did not expect to find a shark buried in the sand.
She was, after all, only looking for seashells 鈥� a pastime she鈥檇 quite nearly perfected after several days spent on the Florida coast. Shells come in all shapes and sizes, all sorts of colors, and buried at a variety of sandy depths; how was she to know that this shell was not at all what it seemed, that it was, rather, the husk of a dangerous creature, dead and decaying?
At any rate, the screams were hard to miss.
We came running, my wife and I, stumbling over dunes and clumps of seaweed in our haste to discern what the source of such panic could be.
鈥淎 shark!鈥� our daughter yelled. 鈥淚 thought it was a shell, but it鈥檚 a shark!鈥�
My sister-in-law was already there, comforting our eldest; our youngest was sitting wide-eyed to the side, shocked into rare silence by what they鈥檇 discovered.
And indeed, there sat the shark, too 鈥� or, what remained of it. We could just make it out now that its top fin had been so unintentionally disturbed. The shape of the creature was roughly defined beneath the sand, discernible now that we knew to look for it, but no more fish-shaped than what might come in a basket at a bar accompanied by chips.
For a fuller image, we鈥檇 have to dig.
鈥淪omeone must have buried it,鈥� my wife said. 鈥淚t got washed up here and died.鈥�
鈥淥r was dead and then washed up.鈥�
鈥淓ither way, someone tried to hide it so that鈥斺��
鈥淪o that this didn鈥檛 happen,鈥� I finished, gesturing to our definitively freaked-out children.
鈥凌颈驳丑迟.鈥�
鈥淲hat should we do with it?鈥�
Well, the answer was obvious: We had to unbury it. We had to see the thing in its fullness. We had to understand what sort of shark we were dealing with, how intact it still was. We had to know.
More importantly, we couldn鈥檛 just leave it there, destined to be stumbled upon by the next seashell hunting eight-year-old.
The shock of the moment had passed; we were all in agreement on what must be done. Our daughter stood next to the thing, smiled for a picture to prove she鈥檇 actually and accidentally unearthed a beast of the deep. And once we鈥檇 inspected the shark, we knew what had to happen next.
鈥淚 guess I鈥檒l throw it back into the ocean,鈥� I said.
鈥淵ou鈥檙e going to touch it?鈥�
鈥淲e can鈥檛 leave it here.鈥� And so, in it went, washed out to sea, laid to rest, if in a less-than-poetic way.
I return again and again to that initial revelation, to my daughter thinking she had found a shell only to unveil the hardened fin of a dead sea creature. A terrible thing to stumble upon, and yet, a thing that refused to be ignored. Once we knew it was there, we had to dig in; we had to know more.
We had to see fully what was buried beneath our feet.
I wonder if we stumbled upon any dead and decaying sharks during our Lenten pilgrimage. I wonder if, in praying, fasting and giving alms, we grabbed hold of some deeper truth about ourselves and our place in the world, a truth that was perhaps shocking and yet demands to be addressed.
I wonder if during this Easter season, in the light of the risen Christ, we might do the necessary inner archaeological work of our spiritual lives. Did we discover something that demands further excavation? Is there an insight that was laying right there at our feet all the while, that demands to be fully revealed, held up and inspected?
Once we know the shark sits at our feet, we cannot go on ignoring it.
And what鈥檚 more, we need not let it consume our lives. If our Lenten journey brought up something uncomfortable, fine. Good! Look at it clearly, bring it before God and then toss it in the ocean. Let us not become ensnared by the dead sharks of our spiritual lives. Let us cast ourselves into the vastness of God鈥檚 love.
After all, the beach contains more beautiful shells for us to find.
