This week I'm going to the beach.  There, I will reflect on life and other unfathomable things that people often reflect on.  I will sit and watch as the sea sloshes upon the shore and streams up the smooth sand until its strength is gone, and it is drawn back into the abyss from which it can never fully escape.

I will watch this endless cycle with childlike wonder as though I am viewing it for the first time.  Then the inevitable question will arise. 

Why does the restless sea mesmerize so many of us?

Could it be its timeless nature?  Its vastness?  The reassuring constancy of its crashing waves?

Maybe it is all of the above, but I believe it possesses another quality.  Mystery.

There is a hidden element to the ocean that spurs our imagination, calling us to reach for the unattainable and explore the infinite. 

We breathe in its briny vapor and it fills us with all the possibilities of life.  Though a grain of sand before it, we know we are more.

And nothing can take that away.