At the tail end of a long damp day, after two museum visits and a drive around the park-loop in the rain, we ended up at the Thunder Hole. 4 o'clock. We parked across from Sand Beach and hiked along the cliff tops down toward the Hole. The air was full of something between mist and rain, with a constant tang of salt from the heavy surge at the foot of the cliffs. The sea was gray, humped up, wild with wind and wave, with no clear horizon. Air and water mixed far out, cloud and mist and wave, with here and there a shadow island.
Still, along the cliff top, on the long approach to the Hole, every crashing wave carried anticipation higher. I had been there before, 20 years ago, and knew what was, just possibly, with a sea like this, in store. "See," I said to the girls, "look at the faces of the people coming back. This just might be good!"
Of course, you could hear it, hurrying us forward, before you could see. We came to the stone stairway and the viewing platforms shelved out on the cliffs. Close, you could hear the "ooh"s and "aah"s of the crowd, like a choir of strings against the running bass of the sea and the crashing timpani of the Hole. They lined the stairs and overflowed the platforms, oblivious to the misty rain, intent, timing the swell, watching waves run in from the limits of vision, judging angles and force, trying to anticipate the next big one. And when the sea broke just right deep in the throat of the Hole it gushed up, geysered up, as high as the tallest of the sentinel stones, taller; a column of water beaten white, cast in bubble, froth, and foam; delicately laced at the edge even in this light; only to crash down again full of weight, solid substance after all, with power to take the breath and shake the very rocks beneath our feet.
"Ooh!" "Aah!" And then the laughs and giggles...the great bursting excitement rising up from behind the stomach and out the throat...the glistening wonder, the overflowing joy, the sheer delight in every eye. It was awful...awe full...right at the edge of overwhelming.
We jockeyed with the rest for the best view, though not like some, taking their lives in their hands, climbing out where no one, least of all the watching rangers, ever intended frail humans to go, closer, closer still, until the spray licked and would have, an inch further, swatted with full might and deadly main. Fools. A distraction we did not need, and, indeed, could very little heed. The Thunder Hole took our whole attention.
The girl's grins were unstoppable. They bounced. Taught as kite string between surges, every one a wonder since they couldn't see or judge the waves. "Here it comes," I would say, practically shout, above the running bass, "a big one. This should be good." And they would go up on tiptoe, tighter still, reaching with the wave, rising up with the clashing clap of water, over-topping, and slamming shuddering down to bounce up again. "Wheeeee."
Anna
gripped the rail just beneath her chin, her whole being focused,
forward, wrapped in wind and wave. In a lull she turned her face to
me, not moving her hands. "This is great!" she said.
"You like this?"
And her smile settled deep behind her eyes toward memory. This will be part of her forever.
We stood an hour or more, damp. My glasses misted over 50 times and I whipped them until there wasn't a dry bit of handkerchief left. Supper and dry clothes called and we went back, along the cliff top, to the car, and then, as a surprise, to the Fisherman's something in Southwest Harbor and a hot seafood meal.
Wonderful day. Wonderful place. The Thunder Hole.
Months later as I lay abed in a Sunday dawn I thought about that day. What was it we felt there? Oh, power and majesty come to easy to the tongue. Awe, the awful force, the stunning irresistible surge of the sea. God's power. God's might. Wonder that the master of us all, the maker of us all, displays himself in such wild, untamable, glory.
But then I looked again at the faces around me there on the brink of the Thunder Hole.
What joy. What excitement. What holy glee. There was nothing of fear in what we felt. It was fun! It was a loose hose on hot summer's day. It was splashing each other in the pool. It was stamping in puddles. It was sprinkler rainbows, and body surfing. It was, above and beyond all other feelings, play!
It was privilege. It was the feeling that God intended, in this welter of wind and water, in this particular arrangement of weathered rock, to entertain us...to entertain himself...and we were blessed to be party to his fun.
Whoosh! And God sent the waves, altered the wind a point, to make a bigger splash. Whoosh! Ah, that was was a good one! Let's do it again!
Who could not rejoice to serve, to share the life and love, of such a God!