A Good Day

I think I was 21 years old. Morgan, Landon, and myself decided one afternoon to embark on a journey. I think we left San Luis around 9pm one night and arrived at Jalama to catch some shut eye before our clandestine entry into the legendary Bixby ranch. I distinctly remember the clasp of the flag clanging against the flagpole throughout the few sleepless hours... not that it mattered, an uncomfortable bed made on the asphalt, coupled with the anticipation of finding what our hopes were set on meant little by way of rest.

Around 3am we rolled up our sleeping bags, slung our packs around our backs and grabbed our boards. I brought my 6'4" single fin. Risky. If the waves were small I'd have been super bummed. Landon and Morgan brought their thrusters; wise choices, good all around boards. Never-the-less off we went under the stars. We followed the train tracks which run along the coast of both the Bixby and Hollister ranches. The anticipation reached a peak at this point as I became keenly aware that at any moment the notoriously fierce Bixby ranch hands could waylay us and we'd be faced with a legendary choice (either an encounter with the Sheriff or a broken board, or worse a cattle brand "BR" on the buttocks).



We continued for nearly 2 1/2 hours until the sun began to rise just as we began to reach Government Point. We quickly made our way for the bluffs to find cover. Somewhere in this process we were suprised by another 18 yr old kid name Landon Smith (the same as my friend Landon), who seemed to have crawled straight out of a hobbit hole with a surfboard. He showed us a more appropriate hiding/resting place. From about 6:30 until 7 we got a few moments of uneasy rest on a bed of iceplant.

Standing up and looking in front of us all we saw from the indicator of the point was... Nothing. It looked flat, no waves. But here we were, no where to go, no escaping until the cover of night. Might as well get wet I figured, but I did have the sinking feeling that we were going to get skunked, a monumental risk for nothing.

I suited up and paddled out with Landon, Morgan would join us a few minutes later. The current was pulling us around the point, and Landon was the first to catch a wave. He just disappeared, for at least 5 minutes. I was confused, what could possibly take so long.

Then it happened.

150 - 200 yards later I fell lazily off my board, legs burning. I had never experienced anything like that. And they just kept coming, wave after wave for 9 hours. We rode together 3-5 ft perfection almost completely alone. Turn after turn, cutback after cutback, the feeling of absolute joy began to pervade my body, deep, down into the marrow.

Near the end of the day a helicopter landed on the beach and two guys paddle out... A freaking helicopter! They scored when the waves began to reach their pinnacle of perfection 200 yards of hollow green beauty for the five of us to enjoy. They got to ride back home on a whirlybird, we had a 3 hour hike to look forward to, then a two hour drive.

When we reached the car I was completely exhausted, trying desperately to be a good friend and keep my eyes open and mouth moving for Morgan, who was driving. I simply couldn't. Thank you Morgan for staying awake so I could remember that day.

Landon, Morgan, myself, and perfect waves.

A good day.

Good Vibrations

In commemoration of summer - enjoy this clip from one of my favorite surf films September Sessions

Batter My Heart by John Donne

Batter my heart, three personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, should defend,
But is captived and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy:
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Voices in My Head

I wonder what the conversation would be like if Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, John of the Cross, Jonathan Edwards, Augustine, John Piper, Tim Keller, Bruce Waltke, and Eugene Petersen sat down to have a meal together?

That's what they're doing in my head, and they dine often.

It's not always pleasant, sometimes I feel awkward, lost, afraid of where the conversation might lead. I often feel the compulsion to protect and defend each one at different times, at other times I am angry that one of them could say such a thing - especially given all the other wonderful things they have said. At times there is an anxious clamour as each one speaks louder to be heard - or perhaps resists speaking while preferring an angry and protesting silence.

It's not easy to have this kind of company over... but for some reason I love the sounds, I love the voices, I am entranced often by the rhythm and melody, the crescendos and the diminuendos, its pure delight when I really give myself to the conversation. Each voice has its place, has its tonal quality, its depth, its time-tested timbre. A lot of the conversation sounds more like an orchestra warming up than a symphony.

But then something happens...

Kairos, God-time, invades the chaotic clamor awkwardly progressing through chronos. The voices begin to become one, the melody begins to emerge, a great and mighty theme echoes in the chambers of my mind. I begin to forget that there was ever dischord, I begin to listen not to the many but to the one... the One. It took all the textures of each of the voices to sound together for me to hear, but I do hear. Sometimes it is His voice speaking to me, sometimes it is my voice speaking to Him, and I discover that in those moments the company I keep were really at the banqueting table of Another. I joined them because I perceived they heard Him, but now I hear Him, and I hear myself. Their words, sounds, colors, textures mediated His presence for me and now He is present, or perhaps more accurately - I am present to Him.

One Step in a Journey from Fear to Love

I was praying today. Praying for me is always a strange adventure, I never know quite where it will take me - sometimes I intend to talk to God about one thing and invariably my heart leads me to talk to him about something quite different. I am discovering God is primarily interested in the truth (the existential sense, not the over-rationalized Enlightenment sense). I went to talk to God about one thing and discovered I needed to talk to him about a rather different issue. The moment I entered into conversation with God I found myself awash in anxiety. This was particularly disturbing given that I had spent a substantial amount of time recently trying to unearth this deadly growth in my soul. Why had all the anxiety come back? And even more frustrating is the nature of anxiety, it is emotional numbness, and thus an ignorance about what actually is wrong. I knew something was wrong, but what it was I couldn't say, and when I don't have words for my heart I feel so lost, desperately clammoring for a sense of self.

So I waited. I listened. I watched. Where will my anxiety take me?

It took me to the truth. The truth is I have immersed myself, yet again, in a functional self-salvation. The motivations of my heart erupted into actions, actions that betrayed my true new self. My self-salvation looked like this: I needed others to validate me, I needed others to tell me that I was ok (that my thoughts, beliefs, inner experiences, were real, true, good), I needed others to be pleased with me, I needed others to not be disappointed with me or upset with me, I couldn't handle others supposed judgments of me. I was using all kinds of various actions to fill these deep needs, actions such as writing, speaking, planning ministry, even who and how I looked at others. I was trying to be a good little boy and keep the world around happy with me, yet always afraid that it wasn't, always constructing a whole life around the fear that I'm not ok... a whole life around the fear that I'm not ok. My whole constructed life could have been strong, but my heart was weak - what good do strong walls do for a city with a cowardly ruler?

The walls protect me.

The walls isolate me.

Better to be a city with no walls and a strong ruler... in fact if the ruler is strong enough he doesn't even need walls because he has nothing to fear.

But I am afraid.

How does a coward find strength?

I found myself asking this question, feeling particularly exposed before my God. In my exposure I asked, "do you love me?" A word from God would restore my soul. Only one thing can break me from my fears. Only one thing can make me strong. If God loved me then I wouldn't have to get others to tell me I'm ok, I wouldn't need others to validate me, I wouldn't doggedly pursue others affections, approval, and attention. I would have all those things in God. But why, why should God love me? I could offer all the same things to him that I do to others: you know the usual achievements, accomplishments, humor, wit, kindness, all-around likeability - all those things I use to get others to love me. But those things feel small before God, and even before myself - its as if my soul says "I don't want to be loved for those things!" I want love, you know the intrinsic kind, where I'm loved deeply, at my center, loved for my distinct "Sam-ness."
But how can I know that God loves me, you know me, that deep, secret, hidden me that is wonderfully precious but also tragically lost.

So I asked the question again, "God, do you love me?"

I waited. I listened. I watched. And then this...

"But God demonstrates His own love for us in this - that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us."

That's beautiful, but not the whole story. It's not just a diffuse experience of love, its the kind of love that has been demonstrated. Other translations say "showed" as if God's saying, "Hey look, if you want to know, I mean really know, that I love you then I'll show you - look at my Son, he's my factual, demonstrable, historical, real proof that I love you and that nothing can separate you from me, not even the love of my Son." Bizzare but Beautiful.

Still I was a little puzzled, I mean how do I know that was for me. So I asked God.

I waited. I listened. I watched.

"In love he predestined us..."

This completed my experience. It was like God saying, "Sam, you believe Jesus is for you because you were meant to." It is my destiny to believe that this demonstration of the love of God was for me. It's for me because I believe it's for me, I believe it because I was meant to believe it by God, from eternity past. The ground of my belief in the love of God is God's eternal love of me. "We love because he first loved us."

Obama's Audacity (but not for Hope)

I cannot vote for Obama for the following reason - I love life. These articles have convinced me that Sen. Barack Obama's bid for presidency is an assault on life itself, and if he were to be elected, his time in office would be devastating to the great Americal value of the "inalienable right to life."

Article One is penned by a senior at Princeton who is a 2008 Rhodes Scholar

Article Two describes Obama's voting stance on late-term fetus' which survived the abortion only to be terminated or left for dead after surviving.

It seems to me the golden tongue of Sen. Obama is nothing other that the flickering one of the Serpent.

Piper on the Prosperity Gospel

I'm letting these words sink in.