I left the house at about 7:15 and it is overcast skies.

When I get to the Strand parking lot, the water looks smooth.

I get to the beach and it is low tide. So far this feels like a repeat of yesterday. The ocean surface is a little smoother and the tide is a little lower. Other than that, it looks like the same place…wait a minute…it is the same place!

I’m not expecting the clouds to clear during my swim today since I am earlier and not planning to swim as long. However, I won’t stop it if it chooses to do so.

It’s all a lovely lovely swim. The water is still warm. There are some cool spots but there are a couple of times when I enter a warm spot and it feels like I am entering a Jacuzzi.

At the southern end, I see this sort of bulbous object surface and I am thinking it is a Seal. I am hoping it is not of the aggressive sort. Then I see a snorkel. Oh ok, it’s a Human.

The waves right here seem steeper angled than normal and they are breaking a little further out. Maybe because of the lower tide and shallower water? I hope the Human is being cautious.

I head back north. I’m sort of prepping my mind for church which will be my next destination after this swim. I know it is going to cover Romans 5 where Paul talks about the two Adams (Jesus being the second). I know this could be a rough one for me. I’m not a big fan of the doctrine of original sin and this is one of those keynote doctrinal passages for that.

I’m thinking of all these doctrines and Christian symbols and it all feels kind of overwhelming. It makes me feel like I’m in some kind of cartoon and I know that I am not in a cartoon and the lines between sacred and mundane space get all crisscrossed. So I try to empty my mind of all of this and just center myself with the basic facts: I am here, I am in the water, I am swimming, I see the sky in front of me. All of this is enough.

It’s a great swim and I finish up, get dressed, grab coffee and go to church.

I’m sitting in church and trying to put myself in a place where all of this just washes over me and I don’t try to overthink it. I just want to open my heart to the words being said and not get stuck on the words themselves but the ephemeral presence of what they point to.

Right off the bat the pastor talks about the word “history” and explains that the story of Adam is exactly that. I so disagree with that. I think the story is a myth, an important and meaningful myth but not an eyewitness account of the dawn of humankind by any means. It feels like the pastor just broke the fourth wall and now I can no longer suspend my disbelief. Everything was fine when he was behind the podium and I was in my seat but I feel like he is standing in front and over me now. I am trying to remain outside of time and space and he is insisting on pulling me in. I try to recover.

At one point toward the end of the sermon he is quoting from some verse, Revelations I think but I am not sure. It’s one that refers to heaven and our names being written in the book of life. The pastor weeps as he reads this passage.

I am utterly fascinated by this display of emotion. I seem to feel nothing at all. In fact the passage just sounds weird to me. How is it that we both have such incredibly different reactions? What is being triggered in his mind to elicit this response? I know this man is not a wacko and I have a lot of respect for him so can’t just write it off and think he is crazy.

Oddly on the drive home I think more on that passage and find a connection with it. I feel more relaxed in the privacy of my car. I am able to set down the weight of words themselves and peer beneath them and at the hope they are trying to transmit to the listener. I can connect with hope and redemption. I can acknowledge the poetic beauty of the Jewish and ancient Greek inspired symbols. It’s when we insist the symbols are real, they begin to explode at the seems in my mind.

It all reminds me of that 1980 Christopher Reeve movie Somewhere in Time. He travels back to the 1920’s because he sort of hypnotizes himself into believing he is in the 1920’s. He gets all dressed up in 20’s attire and makes sure there is nothing on his person that might convince him otherwise. This works. The remaining 90% of the movie takes place in the 20’s and he falls in love with this woman and it is all just so very great until a 1980 penny falls out of his pocket and he immediately reappears in modern times.

Ok. Now that I describe that movie, maybe it’s not an apples to apples comparison to how I approach scripture, but I’m keeping it here because I loved that movie and think about it quite a lot actually. I guess what I am trying to say is whan I look at scripture and try to let it take me to some other place that is very much here but not here and one insists that no, it really is “here here” then it all suddenly appears to not to be here in the slightest.

Well it’s nearly noon as I pass the Strand again and the sun still has not showed itself. However it looks like it won’t be long now.