When the Seas Parted

I have nothing to compare it with except the beaches in General Santos City that have faux-white sand scattered along the shore—kick into the surface and you discover dark granules of earth conveniently hidden beneath. Or an undeveloped beach in Sarangani Province, which according to my parents, was beautiful and had a lot of promise. If you’re eight years old, anything with water in it is beautiful and promising.

So Boracay is good enough for me. Better even than what my initial expectations have been. I’ve been warned: Boracay water is dirty. Boracay night life is unbearably loud. Boracay is congested. It’s the last melon on the planet, and it’s where people congregate like a million little fruit flies.

The water looked clean to me, but then again my terribly myopic vision isn’t probably the most reliable judge of something like this. It’s in the middle of September, that time of the year when the weather is at its most fickle state and holiday breaks seem like a hundred years away, so people would rather stay in the city and wait for the summer.

So I enjoyed Boracay a lot. It’s my first time to go there, and first times are usually enjoyable. I wasn’t even one month at work, and I got treated to three days of rest and recreation. I met new friends, participated in meaningful conversations, and took lungfuls of fresh air.

But the highlight of the trip for me was waking up early in the morning and sitting on the shore as the sun slowly painted the world in hues of blues and greens and reds and oranges and yellows and all the colors in between. I would sit facing the sea, and wait until the sound of the waves turned from a cacophony of discordant tones into a pleasant, soothing music. And then I would open my Bible to a passage like this:

¹Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the LORD:

   “I will sing to the LORD,
for he is highly exalted.
Both horse and driver
he has hurled into the sea.

² “The LORD is my strength and my defense;
he has become my salvation.
He is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

⁸ By the blast of your nostrils
the waters piled up.
The surging waters stood up like a wall;
the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea.

¹⁰ But you blew with your breath,
and the sea covered them.
They sank like lead
in the mighty waters.

¹¹ Who among the gods
is like you, LORD?
Who is like you—
majestic in holiness,
awesome in glory,
working wonders?

[Passage taken from Exodus 15.]

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Thanks Katie R. for the photo.

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