This morning’s readings speak to the question of identity. Who are we, really? We tend to think of that in terms of where we were raised, what we do and other sorts of tags of what is called social location, as though we could be plotted on a map. But it’s more like an ever-shifting sea.

And identity isn’t just about us as individuals. All of those markers place us in groups and as such we take on those identities, too.  The history of those groups is our history. That can be anything from sharing joy in Lake Wales High School winning a state championship to cherishing our Declaration of Independence.

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I have an older brother and three younger sisters, which could be chaotic at times and that included meals. My mum came up with a rule to cope with us having differing food tastes and preferences. We were each allowed to choose one food that we did not have to eat. Anything else, we had to eat what was on our plate.

That put me into a quandary because there were three foods I could not stand: liver, beets and Brussels sprouts. That list has changed over the years. Thanks to different recipes and shifting taste buds, I now like Brussels sprouts and I’ve made my peace with beets. No one has ever tried to coax me into eating liver. But, being English, that’s why I call her mum, she never exposed me to okra. So now I’m down to two - that I know of.

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We were at Cocoa Beach last week, the same spot where we’ve gone for the last 20 years. It’s great to spend time on the beach, where the land meets the water. You smell the salt air, feel the sand and the breeze, and hear the sound of waves rolling into the shore as they have from the beginning.

I’ve been to that stretch of beach my whole life and that spot the last twenty years in a row. The wind has always come out of the east, a sea breeze, and there are usually enough waves to at least boogie-board or body surf.

That’s a lot of fun. But it can also be dangerous when the waves are big, or there are rip tides. You all get that. And it is a metaphor for life. The land is stable, orderly. The water is at once inviting, yet chaotic; extremely powerful and potentially dangerous. And there are other risks. There are always sharks, maybe jellyfish, maybe a crab pinches your toe.

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