Holy Glowing Pyrosome

Left the house today at 9:45 for the beach. The skies are partly cloudy with big big puffy clouds in all directions.

On the way I notice the ocean surface is pretty bumpy at Doheny. When I get to the Strand parking lot, it’s about the same.

It’s a crisp Fall morning here still in the 50’s but today I’m not too preoccupied with my pending cold water excursion. I’m itching to get in the water regardless of temperature. I missed my Sunday swim due to heavy fog all morning and early afternoon. No fog today. Even though there is a lot of cloud cover, today these clouds add to the splendor. It’s not jut a pallid blanket of off white but plumes of hanging vapor. It’s as if someone decided to detonate the entire horizon and then froze time in the middle of the explosion.

I get to the water and it is cool here. There is a light breeze blowing.

I head out to the water and it does feel pretty cool. The surf is about as I left it on Saturday - very small.

I dive in to start the swim and it is indeed cold. It feels a little cooler today. Today is the first swim of the season where my 4th an 5th digits lose dexterity in the second half of the swim. However it feels super good to be here.

Have I mentioned that it is cold?

Once I get well past the surf and just a bit south, the water seems to warm. There are a few spots in the southern half of the swim where I notice this near warmth.

Just as I enter this pocket, I see a floating clump of Sea Grass just levitating still a few feet below the surface.

The water here is pretty darn clear.

As I make my way further south, the visibility decreases. I see a couple finger like shapes floating a few feet below me. Then I see a larger one right next to me. The thing looks bizarre. It is this tube like structure. I don’t know if it is plant or animal. It is glowing. I assume it is some kind of Jelly. Every now and then I will feel something sting me on a swim even though I don’t actually see anything. Could this be it? Better not touch it but I hover near by and get a really good look. It does not seem interested in attacking me.

Later I search online to discover it is a Pyrosome. It is not a Jelly and will not sting. They are bioluminescent and are colonial and made up of multiple individuals, called zooids, each a few millimeters long. They can potentially include thousands of zooids and be up to 60 feet long. I’m glad this one isn’t but now that I know more about them, I know it would be fine if it was huge.

I keep swimming after I get my fill of the Pyrosome. No, I didn’t eat it.

I just love the light and clouds on this swim.

I’m thinking of an interview of this biblical scholar I was listening to this morning about how early Christianity separated from Judaism in the first couple centuries. He was raised in a secular Jewish home and was interested in becoming a writer. He eventually read the bible, which included a new testament, mainly because he noticed many authors seemed to have a high level of familiarity with the bible. So he was interested in it solely as a literary work. As he read it he became intrigued and eventually became a Christian.

He didn’t talk much about that but I thought it was interesting because I had a similar experience a few years ago. I decided to read the bible again after not reading it for 30 years. I felt no commitment or compulsion to “believe” it or not. I was just interested in reading it with an open mind and curious what I would think of what was being said in the text. To my surprise, I found it extremely compelling and wanted to explore how I could interact with what was spoken which would eventually lead me to where I am today.

Also, this speaker, Joel Marcus, a professor at Duke University is definitely what one would call a “liberal” scholar. Often when I hear evangelicals talk about liberals I feel like they think of them all as strict intellectuals with no spiritual or devotional drive at all. I always find it extremely refreshing to hear scholars be open about there spiritual thirst for the divine and how they quench that thirst alongside academic rigor that may have lead them to some beliefs that are suspect to right leaning circles.

However, what struck me the most from this interview was how there are so many different voices in the new testament and how those voices do not necessarily blend well with one another. For example, the Pauline emphasis on grace vs. the themes of good works in the letter of James. This was not necessarily a new idea for me but it just got me thinking more about it. We want and expect the bible to offer us a nice tidy package of consistent and coherent truth. However the more I think of that, the more I am convinced that if such a truth actually existed it would be cartoonish. I think the truth is messy. We look to the bible to provide answers, but perhaps it is better equipped to help us to live the questions. There will always be questions. Does the universe extend itself in unlimited measure to provide grace for our wrong doings and short comings? Or does it yearn to extract justice and demand constant and excellent moral behavior?

Can there possibly be a binary answer to these questions? I don’t know. I don’t think so. So this thought of seeking how to best live out the question sticks with me this morning. Does that mean there is no answer? I don’t think so. There are probably lots of answers. I’m not always sure what they are but I trust they are there.

As I swim further and further north, the water gets clearer and clearer until I must say it is super clear. The rocks and kelp come alive with green, purple, and orange. As I am nearing the end of the swim, I see a modest school of dark fish swarming the ocean floor as though they have found something appetizing to snack on. I dive down to get a better look. Then as I resurface I practically run into a school of silver, shiny Corbina.

Sure its cold today but I can hardly focus on the cold with all this great and beautiful nature all around.