Some Walkers Didn’t Make It
Beautiful, crisp Fall morning. Left at about 8:30.
I decided to skip the run this morning. I need to give my achilles a break and I just feel like maybe I’ll do other things besides just exercise this morning.
I get to the beach and it is just about high tide and the surf is up. It’s actually been fairly up most of the week but it’s even more up today. So the beach walkers are making a run for the stair ramp to avoid the waves that are speeding up toward and well past the rocks at the end of the sand. Some walkers don’t quite make it.
The surf is big but not like it was a month ago and it seems much smaller at the spot where I take off from.
I wait out the incoming set of waves and then head out into the water.
It’s about the same cold as it has been for the past week. I feel good for the first 40 minutes. Shortly after I start I stop to get a picture of some seaweed and I feel warm. It is an odd warmth. I know the water is cold. I feel the water is cold, but I feel warm.
I’m just a little nervous about the swim back to shore with the high surf. However, I know it is always fine and today’s surf really is not too crazy. I just try to relax. When the cold begins to spike, I just relax my body into the cold.
I feel good after last night’s report post. I feel like something finally released and got put to bed. Even though I cognitively acknowledge the brittleness of most conservative Christian beliefs, I still wrestle with the doubts. Allowing myself to follow the thought experiment of a no resurrection reality and articulate how that does not impact how I fundamentally internalize Jesus helps me to let go of the tension those doubts trigger.
It makes me realize how these beliefs have a dual nature. They are on the one hand helpful in inviting us to a reality that sits behind what we see and directly experience, but when we try to mold the belief into a concrete construction in the realm of what we see and feel and fight to enforce the structural integrity of these beliefs and deny the doubts or see them as some pathogen then they can be unhelpful. In fact, at least speaking for myself, I think its that dark side that makes many run from the entire belief structure - and rightly so.
In the end the beliefs have to support experience. The beliefs are a tool for opening the heart. If the beliefs stand in the way of feeling what we feel, then the belief needs to go.
I’m not thinking of all this too much as I swim. The cold is dominating my focus. In a good way.
About half way through the swim, I begin to hear this high pitch tone in my head. This is a common occurrence in cold swims. As the cold seeps deeper in the latter part of the swim, it is more challenging but very manageable.
I finish up the swim and the surf is a non event. I towel off and am transfixed by the blue sky and surf.
As I make my way down the beach to the ramp, the sun shimmers on the water to the south where sets of waves roll in and crash into large plumes of white water.
As I climb up the stairs, I think of the warmth this environment makes me feel in my heart. I contemplate how this is the place where belief brings us. This heart sensation. The sensation of being touched by something we cannot see or understand and allow it to transform how we see what is in front of us.
