A meeting in Wilmington offered the chance for a sunny walk along Wrightsville Beach on Sunday evening. The tide was high and the wind was a lot cooler than expected, but it was still worth the effort.
The magical blending of colors in the ocean never ceases to fill me with wonder — bands of blue and green and everything in between create a palette that seems designed for unwinding mental knots and loosening tense muscles.
The beach has been prettier — it’s currently home to lots of heavy equipment and huge rusty pipes pumping sand to replenish the beach, fed by two large dredges in the channel just south of the island.
But one generally looks outward from the beach, so it was of little matter. While watching sailboarders and kiteboarders whizzing past in the stiff breeze, I was almost tempted to put kiteboarding on my as-yet-to-be-composed bucket list. Almost, but not quite.
Some of the more accomplished boarders used incoming waves as a launching pad for turning flips or simply catching air for several yards. They weren’t flying as high, however, as a wedding party that came to take pictures and threaten their clothes on the beach.
I’d heard that it’s trendy for brides to totally trash their expensive wedding gowns by jumping in the ocean. There were a few moments of suspense, but this bride stayed mostly dry. Her train may be the worse for wear from sand and surf, but one hopes she’s not planning to use it again, anyway.
Here’s a wish that the marriage will last far longer than the post-wedding high.
Professor of Old Testament at Campbell University Divinity School in Buies Creek, North Carolina, and the Contributing Editor and Curriculum Writer at Good Faith Media.
