Baffled and Broken

It’s still super nice here. It’s a cloudless and warm spring day today. I start off the morning with a run to the end of the Jetty road and back. As I am passing the Capo Beach parking lot and turning right toward the Doheny State Beach parking lot, I spot three dolphins swimming super close to shore. One sort of jumps and does not fully breach but you can see its entire front half. Very awesome.

I leave for the beach at about 9:30. I want to get back in time to take my foster son back to the beach in the early afternoon. He absolutely loves playing on the beach and today is going to be a perfect day for that.

When I get to the beach the water is super smooth. The wind is forecasted to be on the calm side all day long today.

It’s warm out and I just have a t-shirt and trunks on. I probably don’t even need to bring my pack down with me today but I somehow do not feel emotionally prepared for that quite yet. The water temp is still in the 50s and as I pass the little lifeguard hut at the bottom of the asphalt road, it posts 58. I would say more like 59. Yesterday it felt like there were spots that were 68 surrounded by 54 degree water. However I think that is an illusion of temperature transitions.

I set my stuff down and head out into the water. It is much clearer today. It really is super nice here.

I make my way south and it seems like the temperature swings are a bit more subdued today. It is interesting how they make the cold water much more acute. It’s like a cold shower where a good part of your body in out of the water and in the air. It’s easier to adapt to the water when you are fully immersed in a constant cold.

I have been thinking all morning of an episode of The Chosen that I watched last night. It’s a series that follows the life of Jesus Christ and his disciples over his adult life. It’s surprisingly very well done.

I remember thinking yesterday, “hmm, do I really want to watch this? Is it just evangelical propaganda?” I think this even though I thoroughly enjoy the show. I am often surprised at how emotional I get during certain scenes.

Last night I watched episode 5 of the latest season 3 which covers the story of the woman with a hemorrhage who is healed when she touches Jesus’s cloak. This is probably my favorite story from the gospels. I just find it so moving the way it plays out. The woman has been afflicted by this disability her whole life. She is basically ostracized by her culture as unclean. She touches Jesus’s cloak and is healed and then Jesus abruptly stops and asks who touched him. You are thinking uh oh. She is in trouble now. Jesus is gonna be pissed. That is certainly what she is thinking. But no. He tells her that her faith has made her well. “Go in peace and be freed from suffering.”

So I am watching this last night and I just sob and sob and sob. No one else was in the room so didn’t have to be self conscious about my reaction even though I still kind of was.

I just can’t precisely place why this makes me so emotional. I can’ explain why in simple words. There is just this feeling of utter love. It is a vortex of love that I feel caught up in. It is a love whose source comes from the center of all existence.

The fact is that Jesus baffles me. On one level I have total faith and his identity as God incarnate oddly makes sense to me and on another level it seems preposterous. In my heart I embrace his claims but when I hear my own confession of faith come out of my mouth it feels like someone else speaking.

At the moment when faith becomes words, it all breaks down and shatters and I wonder what is all of this? So I find it best to abandon words.

As I watch this moment of Jesus healing this woman on the screen I feel like Christianity as a religion and institution instantly liquify. The entire roof and columns that support it fall like breaking waves and I am left floating beneath an ocean of love and kindness that has no concern for ideas.

This ocean sustains and nourishes myself and everyone and everything. It always has. It has always been here.

I sit on the floor and stare up at the surface of the water that separates me from the oxygen above and I see the glimmering dance of a reflected sun.

That vortex of love meets my brokeness. I do not mean this in the sense of “oh look at me I am so broken.” I believe we are all broken. We all know what it feels like to have parts of ourselves break and to witness those who are close come to a breaking point.

I can’t explain this beyond the words that I write here which certainly do not appear to be any kind of coherent model of what I feel as I witness this gospel story.

My mind wants to reject it all as “invalid input.” My heart breaks and finds healing in this story.

I’m reading this and realize these words do not make a lot of sense. I have this feeling that is so big and huge and Iwant to break it all down into a cohesive narrative.

Well I just don’t think that is going to happen today.