Rising and Falling Like Breath

I leave early today at about 6:45. We have the usual cloudy skies and the air is mild. I’m looking forward to getting in the water. We had my dad’s celebration of life yesterday. It’s interesting how these ceremonies provide closure. I don’t really understand it but my mind feels a little more settled today. A little. There is still some jumble and general wonkiness in my inner waters, but no longer victory at sea.

The beach looks kind of dark. It is early after all. I see the Sunday morning swim group gathering in the parking lot. Unfortunately I don’t have time to say hi. I walk down the stairs and onto the beach. It looks like there is some surf in the water but nothing significant. Not a whole lot of people around here but I’m not entirely alone.

I walk out into the water. It’s cool but not so cool this morning. I dive into an oncoming wave and I am soon very comfortable and I start to swim south. There is just a slight bit of bump on the water. There is a breeze in the air and for some reason it is hard to tell exactly from which direction it is blowing.

At my dads memorial yesterday, I talked about how my dad mapped out the world with solid lines. My dad seemed to have an easier time than I do finding his way in the world. His roads were well paved and mine look overgrown. I seem to happen upon these paths and it is questionable if it is in fact an actual path or just some opening in the brush that might lead to nowhere.

So many of the symbols on my dad’s map remain imprinted upon mine as if they somehow got thrown into the wash with one another and bled onto each other. Sometimes I just can’t tell the symbols from the ground underneath.

I have this thing that I do when I walk my dogs where I pray certain scriptures. I will repeat the passage again and again until I can feel my heart open. One passage is from Jude: “Keep yourselves in the love of God; look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.” I try not to “think” or intellectualize the words. Instead I try to fall into the passage viscerally and feel each word. However, this is not easy. I struggle to separate the idea of Jesus Christ, the many many ideas of Jesus Christ, with the true energy and presence of Jesus Christ. Is there in fact some dude Jesus Christ looking down on me? Did he die on a cross for my sins? What the heck did happen 2000 years ago that caused such a stink that people can’t seem to stop talking about it. Well yeah, it’s been 2000 years. I feel like all these ideas about who Jesus was and did are just ideas and are like lines on a map that we can’t seem to be able to separate from the ground beneath. Died for my sin? What does that even mean? I know there are many who would love to volunteer and tell me what it means and feel so certain and correct about what they are saying and feel an urgency that I believe the same. It’s just all lines on a map. Like a topo map where the lines depict the contours in the rise and fall of the terrain.

Well here I am in the water and I don’t see any lines. I see alot of water rising and falling like breath. When I recite that passage, I find myself drawn to words like “love,” “mercy,” and “eternal life.” Somehow the words “God” and “Jesus Christ” are the vessels of the love, mercy, and eternal life. On one level these are all just words. And what are words? They are lines. They are lines that we draw on paper and we all look at them and somehow they become transposed in our brains to create meaning that we cannot see. Is it important that I know the true shape of God and Jesus Christ? Do I need to have a working understanding of the trinity that I can evangelize to others? Or do I just need to close my eyes and open my heart and let myself feel the wind that blows quietly beneath these words? I don’t know who Jesus Christ is. I do know how love and mercy and eternal life feel. Or I think I do. They can be easy to forget. Anyways all I can really know when I do feel that love and mercy and eternal life, that’s Jesus Christ. I want to find what lies beneath that symbol of Jesus Christ that we have all worked to construct over the centuries and find the real Jesus Christ.

Ok I don’t know how I went from a swim to all this talk of scripture and Jesus Christ but I guess that pretty well wraps up what was floating around in my mind on today’s wonderful wonderful swim.