surf

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Let me start with a disclaimer: this may not make any sense to you. I'm okay with that because I'm not looking for a most popular blog award. It may or may not make sense because I'm not sure I could have appreciated the experience before having it. Ok, enough of that.

Surfing is one of the holiest things I get to do these days. I'm not the only one who has revered the experience of surfing in such a way. I have for a long time experienced a closeness with God in nature, but this is somehow different. (I don't doubt there are other nature/exercise/creative/body/ritual practices that bring in the same experience, but I'm going to stick with surfing here.) 

Even as I write this, I'd kind-of rather be surfing. I think it has to do with the combination of those parenthetical spiritual practices* I listed above. A big part of it, I'm convinced, is that when I surf, I am not in control. I am participating in a wave that has never been, and never will be again. It is dynamic, unpredictable, and powerful. Like God. 

I've always been fascinating with surfing. I grew up near the coast, and my parents took me to Crystal Beach, Texas most summers of my childhood. There I carved up the waves body surfing, or boogie boarding. I remember watching surf movies, and thinking it was always beyond me. Now I surf. My experience is limited, but it's enough for me for now.

Metanoina is the Greek word in the New Testament we translate as repent. It means to change one's knowing, or to change one's mind. It is what John the Baptist and Jesus Christ call us to do. In order to live in the kingdom of God, we have to change the way we know. To be malleable in God's hands. Right now, the thing that is changing me most is surfing. It has changed my music and my interest in fitness (I could be a better surfer if I lost a few pounds!) It has changed what I like to read and watch, and it is obviously working on my soul. No form of prayer is God; they are all tools that help us connect with God. This one is working really well right now.  


*My awareness of those things as spiritual practices come from Pittman McGehee's book The Invisible Church, which includes those and several others.

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