I’ve taken the last few days off of swimming to avoid the peak of our huge South swell. Waves have been double-overhead at a couple spots here and pretty large just about at every beach. It’s winding down today and at a pretty sane size. It’s been pretty great weather all week this week and today is no exception. I leave my home at about 10:45 and it is sunny and warm. On the way to the beach I can see that Doheny has toned way down from where it was Tuesday. I think Tuesday was the biggest surf I had seen since moving back into this area 2 1/2 years ago. All along Capo Beach and Doheny State Beach there were large waves breaking several hundred feet outside one after another after another.

Today it’s pretty much back to a normal. Still some good waves for the surfers but not scary for us mortals. I get to the Strand parking lot and the walk down the stairs is super pleasant. It feels good to be here. The lifeguard station posts a 67 degree water temperature which feels about right. There were definitely some cool spots but all very comfortable. I can tell the week’s surf had taken some sand from the shore - lots of small to medium sized rocks as I started to make my way out and then I descended a small ledge into waist deep water.

I begin my swim South. The water visibility is extremely cloudy today. My guess is it is a result of the larger surf this week. But it feels great. It all feels great: the water, the sun, the view of the shore.

As has been my mental theme the last several swims, I am focusing on my breath. I want to connect with this moment and who I am right now. I want to let my effort to be something else fall away. I want to experience the essence of who I am without any kind of projected persona. I understand that to a certain extent this is impossible because it is what humans do but I want to keep the intent pure nonetheless. What am I feeling as I pass through this water? What is the nature of the silent witness to the horizon in the distance? I hear the Sea Lions barking.

I’m remembering last night. I went to a “small group” meeting affiliated with the church I have been going to recently. This church stuff is all new to me…and old too. It’s like an echo of experiences from 30 years ago but the returning sound is much different than the original. Like my experience I aim to have with my self, I want to have with God as well. I want to have an authentic experience with the divine. I say divine out of convenience but I think what we consider divine is all intermingled with what we are right here and now and always and forever. At this meeting, I was asked to pray. Super weird. 30 years ago praying in public was totally natural and I’d figure there was something wrong if it felt otherwise. Last night it felt like I was being asked to take off my pants - taking something extremely personal and putting it on public display. As words come out I wonder where the words come from. Please oh please don’t let them be some Christian cliche. Don’t say the words blood or anointing or some other word that I would never ever ever use.

As the prayer ends I feel like I am sitting beside myself in some outer body experience or like I am in a movie and the sound and video stray out of sync. The experience of this prayer puts me into what feels like an odd subject-object relationship with God. We are all in this room here but God is there. On the one hand I don’t have a problem with perceiving my self and God in subject-object terms. I just don’t think that construct is the whole truth. Just like light is both a particle and a wave and that makes no sense because they are two truths exclusively opposed to one another, there is the thought of myself and the thought of God and these thoughts collapse into different means of perceptions based on my angle of observation. While God or Godness? is something I relate to as one to another it is also something I feel passing through me. I see it in this water. It is shimmering in the light that reflects off the kelp. I definitely do not see it as a dude ruling a three tiered universe of heaven, earth and hell.

Maybe what is so weird or off-putting about that experience last night is that I felt like I was among a group who were largely of the “only particle and not a wave” school of thought. I didn’t pass out a survey but I’m fairly confident of this. I think I have to get over this and not let it bother me. I am thinking back to 30 years ago and feeling like I am participating in some sort of tribal group-think that considers itself “redeemed” (oh yeah…definitely do NOT say the word redeemed in this prayer) and those outside the group “lost.” I never want to think like that again. I totally believe there are lost people. On some days, I’m pretty lost. The lost exist on both sides of this fence I’m pretty sure. However, if I snub my nose at any group that I feel deviates from my own beliefs, first my nose is gonna do a lot of snubbing which can’t be comfortable, and second I have just created my own special tribe of one.

I like this group. I’m not going to think the same and I actually think that is a good thing. It creates a healthy tension where I can observe things and thought patterns in myself and learn a means of healthy navigation with these friendly neighbors. I want to be able to interact with them and all of our differences and not think myself “special” or them “wrong.” I find a sincerity, tenderness and healing in how they love and worship Jesus. Boy that sounds so weird but it’s true.

But I digress…

The swim is great. At last summer has returned on this late July day. I eventually reach the shore and am falling over myself trying to step over these rocks. A little embarrassing but I’m trying to look like it is all part of an advanced rock walking technique that I have been practicing for years.