From the Pacific:

A woman was swept out to sea by a large wave and drowned on a Northern California beach Sunday in the third such tragedy in the region this winter, authorities said. The 32-year-old woman was walking on a beach near Shelter Cove in Humboldt County with her boyfriend and dog when the wave pulled her out to sea, the Coast Guard said… “Winter is an especially dangerous time (on beaches in Northern California), and sneaker waves can catch beach goers by surprise, washing them into the sea,” the Coast Guard said in a statement. “People walking along the beach should not turn their back to the ocean.”

I was baptized in the Pacific Ocean at Bodega Bay, a little south of where this took place. It was May, and I remember the waves coming over me. The ocean there carries good memories for me, but not for this woman’s family. How awful. Oceans are dangerous as well as life giving.  There is a romantic view of nature that sees nature as a symbol of all that is beautiful and sublime in life, and there is a Darwinian view of nature that sees nature as a deadly arena in the struggle for existence.  I think you have to look at nature in both ways.