The Sea of What Ifs

Another fairly early swim under overcast skies today. I left at about 7:30 to sneak in the swim in between meetings.

As I pass Doheny I get my usual preview of the water situation and it looks good. The water is smooth and just overall inviting.

There are a fair number of cars in the parking lot this morning. I’m wondering if they are jr. guard related, which starts back up today after their week off last week. I wonder: do they know that the Green Monster has perished?

The aggressive Sea Lion warning sign is still up and its date of last incident is still 6/28. How long they will leave the sign up?

I get to the beach and it looks as though everything is as it was when I left it yesterday. It’s still beautiful.

Surf may be a touch smaller. I walk out and just as I am about to start swimming, I stub my toe on a rock, which is my cue to walk no longer and switch to amphibious mode.

The water feels about the same as yesterday in just about every aspect. Maybe a little smoother but just as wobbly. There are three swells in the water today. Still pretty warm but perhaps a third of a degree cooler - maybe 0.35 or 0.37 - hard to say exactly.

After yesterday’s post on the whole biblical literalism thing and even more Mr. Rogers viewing last night - I re-watched the second half of the Netflix documentary and then rented the Tom Hanks “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” film - my mind is reeling on topics of faith.

Now this is by no means a new idea to me but something I have been thinking of more and more lately: faith and spirituality are not built around a core of historical events. Even though all (or most of the ones I know of) religions do coalesce around a set of historical, or what are believed to be historical, events, I think those events provide a framework or model upon which we hang feelings and intuitions that run deeper than any narrative we can construct. At least that is what I think.

So here I am swimming in the ocean. I’m staring into what looks like a blue abyss and I’m searching for those feelings and intuitions. I know they are down there. Just how long do I need to keep swimming until I find them? I have a hard stop at 9:00 so lets get to it.

With every stroke I reach into the water and into the void below and I release Jesus into the depths. I let go of the super hero action figure Jesus that I spy behind the sermons in church. I’m thinking of a few Sundays ago where the paster asked the congregation to give Jesus a round of applause for doing what he did on the cross. That just about put me over the edge. I remember thinking of that image of him on the cross and all of us cheering like we are giving him the “savior of the year” award. Thanks for taking that one for the team Jesus! Here here to the one who is greater than I. I’m sitting in my seat and looking at the clock wondering when I can leave.

I don’t want that Jesus. It sits in the corner of my closet. Its shoulders, elbows, knees and hips are positioned in some action pose like he is getting ready to enter into some lost soul’s heart at a moments notice - always ready for the next sinner’s prayer within earshot. I’m trying to get his attention and I don’t think he is listening. His eyes stare into the distance behind me without blinking.

This plastic and stiff Jesus falls to the bottom of the ocean overcome by the weight of my doubts. So now I wonder is God mad at me? If I don’t believe that Jesus died for our sins as a blood sacrifice to atone for the original sin of Adam or if I don’t believe that he rose three days later after making a quick stop in hell to conquer death or if I don’t believe he is sitting on a throne at the right hand of the Father looking down on us all through some kind of porthole - or maybe it is like that small pool in The Lord of the Rings that Lady Galadriel had that showed her the future - if I drop my beliefs in these things have I incurred God’s ultimate wrath and forfeited my personalized listing in the book of life?

What am I left with as this Jesus sits on the ocean floor? I sense the sand and silt clearing and giving way to what I really do believe. It’s another Jesus that stands between me and the entire fullness of creation seen and unseen. It’s a Jesus that not only sits upon but in fact is the very ground of all being. It’s a Jesus that responds when I stare into his center. This Jesus is soft and pliable and gives way when I touch him.

Look, I don’t know with absolute certainty that this Jesus incarnated fully into a human being and died and rose again. I actually think he could have physically resurrected, but I’m not going to be entering into the local apologetics club and wait my turn at the debating floor to champion the historical facts. What I don’t believe is that THAT belief is some secret password that gets me into heaven or wins me favor with the divine. What kind of divinity would that be? What kind of God would demand someone to acknowledge supernatural details of an event that happened 2000 years ago in order to gain his grace? That doesn’t sound like grace to me and I just don’t have time to be worrying whether or not I have all the facts right.

This may seem odd and certainly seems odd to me but when I release this kind of faith - this insistence that this thing happened at such and such a time and in such and such a way and had this exact ramification - when I let go of the need to hang on to that, the whole story of the resurrection becomes much more believable. It’s believable not because of the circumstances of any evidence. It’s believable because my heart is made soft and my mind can relax and there is nothing to resist.

I don’t know what Jesus looked like or how old he was or the exact words that came out of his mouth. I don’t know what passages of the gospel were a result of the creative license of the authors or tales that grew over the course of time as an oral tradition before being written down. I’ll never know, but it just can’t matter as much as some think it must. I do believe in a grace that sees beyond these historical details and straight into our hearts and sees the wholeness of what feels broken. This Jesus that is emerging just off shore from where I am and I see as I stare toward the horizon, I believe and know that he has the power to rescue us from suffering and lead us on a walk over the surface of the water.

The swim comes to an end and I walk back along the shore towards the stairs. I know this Jesus walks beside me. I can’t see him (or her?) but I know he is beside and all around me and the best I can do is picture him in my mind. Ok. I guess the historical Jesus will do. I’m not going to lie to myself or others or Jesus and say he is the spitting image of the gospels. I’m not even going to try to pretend I know what happened 2000 years ago half way across the world. However I will choose to believe in the story of Jesus. I choose to partake in the stories and sacraments of my tradition. It’s the best I have got and it is good. I will go to church and sing to this face of Jesus in my head. I will pray and hold conversations with the picture of him sitting beyond where I can see. I will treat these images as hollowed and sacred and real.

I think this is the “belief” that the New Testament is getting at. It’s not the shape and color and texture of the facts but the belief in the unknowable and numinous person behind the story. It’s also more than a “mind hack” or some kind of “law of attraction” thing where if we try really really hard to believe then it will come to life. It’s just not something any philosophy or set of words can fully capture. I have to believe it is as simple as a leaning or a posturing of our hearts toward the mystery of Jesus that saves.

If I seek certainty, I become crushed by its weight and then lost in a sea of what ifs.