Selworthy Sands

It is the most spectacular of places; a mile of sand, visable from only a few places, exposed only at low tide and accessible only by a roped scramble [the rope has broken and been replaced and re-tied so many times that it's a miracle that it still holds anyone]. All of which I guess explains why Selworthy Sands is so often deserted. But for any who care enough to check out the tides and slide down the cliff and back up again, it is more than worth the effort.

I led a discussion on Sunday night which went from the greatest strenghts to the greatest weaknesses of the church; how we can be as Christ to our communities and the many times when we fail to do so. Mountains had been part of my remit for the discussion, but we didn't get there until the very end, when I felt that we desperately needed the clarity and grace than mountains can bring. Throughout the scriptures, from Ararat to Carmel, Sinai to the Mountain of the Transfiguration, we have seen and heard God on the mountains, in wind and fire and in the sound of sheer silence. So on Sunday night, from all of our seeking for the way to proclaim the gospel afresh in this generation, I brought us back to the mountains and we kept silence and listened.

Selworthy Sands is, to state the blindingly obvious, not a mountain. But it can offer the same clarity, the same peace, the same grace. It is a wonderful place to be still and pray, on Wednesday for a few short hours I was very glad to be there.

It is also a wonderful place to walk and swim. Although why the beach shelves so gently, when less than a mile west, on the other side of Hurlstone Point, it falls at 45 degrees on the Bosstington Beach shingle ridge is a mystery. What both Bossington and Selworthy do however share [and this should be stressed in any post] is a ferocious current. On Bossington it goes west, on Selworthy it goes east but in both cases you have to swim fast in the opposite direction in order to stay still and avoid the rocks. Be careful, but swimming there is still worth it, in spades.