Whoa-sanna!

Friday, August 6, 2010


Two days ago I was out on the high seas.

Micah and I had booked for a whale-watching venture and put out on a large - room for 30 people - craft from Monterey Bay, off the coast of Central California. Captain said we would be going 6-8 miles out across rolling waters.

We zipped and buttoned as land slowly faded from view. An overcast and blustery day.

We scanned the grey waters and grey cloud formations. Any sign of life?

The first clue that success might be ours was a spew - and a tall, narrow vertical puff of white spray many yards off the bow. It was a whale surfacing and clearing its throat :) - something that relates me closely to them.

At times there were spews going on in various places and then we began to see dark moving objects on the horizon, as blue whales (some of the largest God-made creatures) were surfacing.

Then humpbacks humping their backs (go figure)...in little clusters, I should say, big clusters. And at times they would seem to be at play.

The water would suddenly flatten and bubble, a sign that whales were "fishing" nearby.

Then the darting of dorsal fins...as porpoises hunted in groups...in the krill and shrimp beds far below the surface. And comorants, and sea birds...tiny like sparrows, with fishing-rod beaks.

And seals way out in the ocean and perfectly at home.

At one point we wheeled around at the first sounds of a great humpback whale breaching - flinging himself into the air to show us his unique white body tattos and then crashing down on the water.

Two hours in their world.

No.....it was actually two hours in HIS world.

"Praise the Lord from the earth,
you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding
...let them praise the name of the Lord,
for His name alone is exalted; his splendor is above the earth and the heavens." Psalm 148:7,13.

My ESV footnote (to Psalm 104:25-26): "This Psalm joins the creation account in portraying the various creatures as subject to the Lord, not opposing him. The admiration continues, as the song says that God formed Leviathan (the whale) to play in the seas (or, if the alternate rendering in the ESV footnote is followed, he formed it to be his partner in play.)"

Just had to invent a word for the ending...It is a combination of whale and hosanna.

Whoa-sanna!

David.