Permanence

Photo courtesy of John Hibble, Director of the Aptos Chamber of Commerce and Aptos Museum

Some of my best childhood memories were seaside just a short drive from our family home. It felt like it was worlds away even though it was likely just a few dozen miles as the crow flies. We’d pile into the station wagon and begin the trek over the coastal foothill on the treacherous Highway 17 connecting what we now call Silicon Valley to Santa Cruz. I’d usually arrive feeling a bit carsick, but always excited about the waves and the sandy beach. It was typically cold which was a surprise because it was so close to home, and yet, again, a world away. We’d bundle up, grab hands full of bags and blankets and an ice chest and umbrellas, take off our shoes and walk through the sand on the slow journey to the perfect spot. Somehow my father always knew the perfect spot on the beach.

Seacliff Beach was always our target, and I can never forget the smells, the feel of the natural debris-laden sand between my toes and of course the odd feeling of sand somehow finding its way into my sandwich. A sandwich that somehow always tasted better (even with the sand) at the beach. Seacliff Beach had a strange feature. It had a fairly typical wooden pier with fishermen, seagulls, and of course otters and seals frolicking beneath. At the end of the pier was a curious sight – a cement ship.

I was always fascinated by the ship. In many ways it made no sense to me, but I initially didn’t question it because it was always there. It was a permanent fixture – a ship that didn’t go anywhere and would never go anywhere. We talked about the ship a lot when I was growing up, though. It was associated, not unlike the sandy sandwich or the trudge through the sand, with the most peaceful and joyful memories of my childhood.

Later in life I learned that the ship was an actual vessel called the S.S. Palo Alto, and it was an oil tanker during World War I. It was never used during the war as it was not completed before the war ended. Instead, it was sold to an amusement company and made a very short voyage from San Francisco to Seacliff Beach where it became an attraction for dancing, dining, and some illicit gambling. But by the time I was a child, it was simply a concrete boat at the end of a pier. A permanent boat.

If you had asked me as a child, I would have said that nothing could destroy that boat. It was permanent.

I wonder what things you think are permanent in life? Do you ever settle into the permanency of conditions? “It’ll always be this way.” Or the permanency of relationships? “We’ll never speak again, I’m afraid.” Or even the permanency of doubt or anguish or sorrow or the permanency of inadequacy or unfulfillment. 

I don’t think I realized how permanent I thought that boat was until recent storms began their assault upon it. Finally, the most recent storms of this winter had the final say and the boat is completely destroyed, and with it the pier. The final bits of the pier and ship will be removed later this week. In reflecting the past few days, I’ve come to see that permanency, and our conceptions of it, plays games with our expectations and our understandings of reality.

To my siblings and me sitting on Seacliff Beach, the S.S. Palo Alto was permanent. Until it wasn’t.

So much of the gospel is about God writing the next chapter when people thought there wasn’t any more to their story. Jesus brings hope to those who are hopeless. Jesus raises up the broken and tears down the oppressors. Jesus upset the norms and makes a way where there is no way. 

We protect these areas of our lives sometimes – the areas of permanence where we dare not let hope come in. We protect or shelter ourselves from others, but also from God. But the danger comes when we create a false image and church becomes a place where we put on masks to cover who we are – when we tuck our wounds behind fine clothes – when we leave our pain in the car – when we don’t acknowledge our scars from our past.

What a wonderful gift God has given us in the form of fellow sojourners. Before the risen Christ left the disciples for the last time, he told them that they would not be alone and that in their fellowship with one another, the Holy Spirit would be present. With confidence, we are called to bring our whole, authentic selves into the fellowship – and God will be present and God will do what we might have written off as impossible shattering the permanence of our conditions and bringing new life.

I’ll miss that cement ship. I know my siblings and my parents will as well. But I’m grateful for the reminder that comes with its end.