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Viewpoint from Revd Canon Nick Garrard 31/05/2024
 Revd Canon Nick Garrard
Nick is Rector of the Rockland Benefice in the Bramerton Group (Bramerton, Rockland St Mary with Hellington, Surlingham, Claxton, Carleton St Peter and Kirby Bedon with Whitlingham) and Bishop’s Officer for Christian Spirituality through the Creative Arts
Last February my wife Helen and I went on a sea glass hunting trip to Seaham in County Durham. Sea glass is one of Helen’s passions, and looking at the crowds on Seaham Hall beach, there were many sea glass hunters around, walking slowly along the tideline or sitting on shingle, digging and raking for small glass nuggets to collect
Seaham is a world hotspot for sea glass due to its unique history. By the 1890s it was home to Europe’s largest bottle works, producing 20 million bottles per year. Waste glass was dumped in the sea every day, and returns to the shore a century later as sea glass to bless the local economy
 Sea glass is made by a combination of human and natural processes. Humans make glass that falls into the sea. It is tumbled for decades or centuries until it becomes small smooth fragments. Legally it’s classified as rubbish, so there’s no problem removing it from a beach
It’s also curiously addictive. Finding tiny pieces on a vast field of shingle takes patience, concentration, and a bit of luck. Apart from getting a stiff neck, it’s relaxing and can be experienced by all ages
Sea glass is a bit like our lives. It starts out shiny and smooth, as sheets or bottles, but is re-sized and shaped by the sea. Our sharp edges are smoothed out by experience. Our lives are in a continual state of being remade and becoming something else. Sea glass may not be valuable like gold or pearls but is sufficiently scarce to make the hunt enjoyable
Its simple pleasure makes me think about what things I value. Jesus calls people to re-evaluate what is precious in the light of his kingdom. As we hunted for sea glass, we found ourselves in a community of people sharing a quest, ideas and sometimes glass, like a kind of church on the beach. The hours we searched reminded me of God’s long search for us, like the good shepherd in Jesus’s parable of the lost sheep (Matthew 18.12-14). Our delight in finding sea glass may teach us something about God’s joy in finding his children. Psalm 139 expresses this in beautiful language:
O Lord, you have searched me out and you have known me.
How deep are your thoughts to me God and how great is the sum of them!
If I count them they are in more in number than the sand: and at the end I would still be with you
Psalm 139:1,17-18
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