By Charles Austin T
he Bible tells me I am a foolish man who builds upon the sand. I love to be on a beach, pref-
erably an ocean beach where the tide leaves large stretches of wet sand. I build upon that sand. I build sand castles. When people
theology of sandcastles
A 16 The Lutheran •
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see them, they ask whether I build things for a living. I don’t think I could build a doghouse. But I build sand castles. I have built on beaches all over the world. Building sand castles has taught me about God’s world—which proves that your spirit can be enlightened even in a humble pursuit. A child in a sandbox takes a pail, fills it, packs it, turns it over and lifts the pail to leave behind a tower of sand. I do more. I make the towers, and then carve windows and doors, build walls and use a putty knife to square the edges. I make pointed roofs, carve stairways and build bridges and flying buttresses. It’s fun, maybe even “art,” with a spiritual side. Art uses basic ele- ments of this world—sand, in this case—to create another kind of world or a world the way we would like it to be.
For me, a sand castle is theology on the beach, a “story” about the world and God.
There are four elements to sand castle theology. • It is God’s beach. This means that God alone is Creator and the one who preserves. A beach is a microcosm of
creation: life, death and eternity— grains of sand from millions of years ago, seaweed and dune grass, fish, land and birds—all in harmony, all connected. Remove the grass and the dunes disappear. Pollute the seas and the life there dies. God intends the beach to be rich, living and
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