As I walked down the pier in San Diego I related to this hand painted wooden sign:

 “Kinda Pissed At Not Being a Mermaid”. 

Now I’ve always loved the water, its peace, its immensity and the many lessons that can be learned by the ocean. Guess I’m a “Mermaid Wanna Be”.

 I never tied my legs together, but I do try to swim like one with my mermaid kick. (Similarly wrapping a towel around my head to try out being a nun…but that’s whole different story!)

Why am I so enamored with these beings? What is the endless allure of these creatures, half air and half ocean? Can they teach us anything?

I’ve read that mermaids are beings who show us how to love ourselves. This is because they love themselves without guilt, fear or hesitation. They revere desires, beauty and instinctuality.

To me, the mermaids embody a beauty and grace that symbolizes the acceptance of flow and balance embracing the highs, the lows and all the spaces in between with beauty and grace.  

I’ve often thought that maybe, just maybe our whole purpose of being on this earth is to learn to love ourselves as much as God does!

Wow, that’s a pretty tall order, when we get caught up in the eddy of self-incrimination, judgment and rebuke, oftentimes missing the marks that society sets for us.

Maybe, just maybe, the ocean is a sign to us of how much God loves us… how deeply, how vastly, how powerfully, how rhythmically and how constantly without judgement.

Maybe just maybe, the mermaid is a beautiful creature here to teach us how to get through the ebbs and flows of life.

We can learn how to navigate through the crushing tides of self-doubt with a deep awareness to understand our own selves, and to discover the goodness that lies within our events and circumstances.

So let’s put all of our earthly fears aside to be immersed in God’s oceanic love. Let’s swim like a mermaid!