When it is a gray and cold December post-Christmas day, it is good to go snorkeling.
There has a storm brewing the past few days and the cold and gray weather it brought matched the feelings in our souls. For the first time in so many years, we are spending Christmas away from all our sons and their families. We were alone but not lonely. it was a quiet house but we were not really sad. It is what empty-nesters are.
So we are spending the 12 days of Christmas in a flurry of activities. And yesterday, we went on a day excursion to go snorkeling at the Bus Stop Dive Resort in San Luis Batangas. It was our first serious snorkeling. It was made possible by our nephew Chris and his girlfriend Dayne, who are inveterate divers and she, an expert underwater photographer.
When we arrived at the site, it was a beautiful beach scenery that greeted us. It was cold and gray matching the feelings in me. I could have spent the whole day just being there and that would still have stilled the brewing storm both in my soul and in the air. In fact, it did clear up a little bit later in the afternoon.
Nothing, but nothing, prepared me for what I would see under the water. Just a few meter away from the shore and a few feet just below the surface, there exploded before me was a whole new and different world – an underwater kingdom bursting in colors and bustling with life. It was peaceful and harmonious place, everything in place and nothing out of place. It was like a kaleidoscope with colors, shapes and composition changing constantly yet almost imperceptibly, with corral waving in the waters, fishes of all shapes and colors all within my grasp, some darting, others gracefully swimming, all seemingly moving to some heavenly music only they could hear. I would lift my head out of the water and I would be back to a cold and gray December. I would dive again and I was be transported to a magical kingdom.
We see so little of life. Often, we see only what we want to see. We simply have to look longer, deeper, wider to see how much richer and fuller life can be. I then realize how faith, hope and love actually allow me to see so much more of life. How faith allows me to see that grandeur and beauty of our existence, How hope allow me to imagine all the possibilities of life. And what I can imagine, I can achieve, my faith tells me. How love allows me to see the fullness and richness of life, in spite of the rocks and sharp corals that come with it.
Yes, when it is a cold and gray morning, it is good to go snorkeling.
PS. Underwater photo, courtesy of Dayne.