A month ago, while attending a church conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a friend of mine and I visited Peggy's Cove, which is known as one of the most popular tourist attractions in Canada. Truly it was wonderful and beautiful scenery. Unlike other natural splendours, Peggy's Cove was a highlight because of the combination of natural beauty and man's addition. This ideal harmony of beauty has come from the mysterious combination of the rock-beach, the Atlantic Ocean and the human village. It seemed to show how the nature; ocean (water), rocky beach (land), sky, and people (village, fishery), could together make such picturesque harmony. People were easily able to access the ocean, the rock-beach, and the lighthouse so that they could participate in this awesome wonder and be a part of it.
Since coming to Canada, it was the first time that I could take a couple of hours to taste and smell the ocean, walk on the rock-beach, pause to taking a picture in front of the lighthouse and look up at the sky at the same time with an ineffable awesome feeling of joy and excitement. Not only is Peggy's Cove an beautiful attraction for tourists but she, Peggy, being the nickname for Margaret, is also known as the memorial place of the crash of Swissair Flight 111 in 1998 which took the precious lives of 229 men, women and children. One of their memorial monuments is located near Peggy's Cove. Thus tourists are able to taste and experience the beauty of natural scenery, the harmony of nature and people, and the joy and grief of human existence at the same time at that one location.
While walking on the rock-beach, which really consists of quite large and long rocks, I meditated about why had the Psalmists sung the songs of praise of God as the Rock? "The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold" (Psalm 18:2). It was no wonder why the psalmists had to sing the song of praise of God as a personal rock, fortress, shield, horn of salvation and stronghold when I stood on the incredibly huge rocks. In front of such gigantic rocks, unshakable, immovable and unchanging rocks, the waving ocean waters, strong stormy winds and scorching heats could not do much. If God could be described as an visible and tangible thing on the earth, it should be the rock, like the large and long rocks at Peggy's Cove.
There was a small church, St. John's Anglican Church, the only church in that village. Literally the church has been built on the rock, just as how Jesus said to build his own church, "I tell you, you are Peter (Petros, in Greek means Rock), and on this rock I will build my church, and gates of Hades (Hells) will not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18). We Christians believe that we all are called to be the church, so each of us is a rock to be the foundation of Christ's church. If each of us knows and believes that we are a rock, then we will find that we are stronger than what we think.
