Truth

Another overcast day today (surprise, surprise). I leave for the beach at 6:15 and start with a 7 mile run through the Dana Point harbor.

I’m back to my car by 7:40 and I change into swim trunks and head down the stairs.

It’s a bit drizzly out and I see drops of water sticking to the ground. I have surrendered to the clouds. Who needs the sun? Besides I can still see the large inflatable sun in the water from the Cosmic Creek Surf Festival this weekend.

I left my pack in the car. I’m plenty warm and because I’ll be rinsing off up here before heading to church, I’d prefer to just towel off once.

The tide at the beach is pretty low. According to Surfline, it is 1.3 when I leave my car. There is some surf breaking but nothing to write home about. Note that I am writing about it FROM my home.

I think I see a Seal just north of where I enter the water. I’m not certain since I am not wearing my glasses.

The water feels really nice. I attribute much of the reason to my recent run up Cove Road. That will get the old blood pumping.

The water seems just a little clearer today and a lot more calm and smooth than it has been in a while.

I’m trying to focus on what is happening right here right now. I see the houses on the shore glide by. I feel the coolness of the water on my skin. I feel my hands pierce the water and my feet slap against its surface. These are things I can be sure about. Last night I woke in the middle of the night and started obsessing about certain individuals in my life who have difficulty seeing things as they are - whatever that is. They react to their surroundings and the events that unfold around them and attach a completely alternate narrative to this stimuli. They are imprisoned by a life of fear but they are in no real actual danger. They are unable to carry out a normal life because they actually believe these stories that they weave around around their life.

On a smaller scale I see certain stories I have developed to help me make sense of my own life. Some of these I think are helpful and some I am just not sure and probably most I’m not even aware that they are stories at all but they totally are. I wonder if I can identify more of the stories I create. If I can, can I edit them or even toss them out altogether?

Over the past few weeks I have watched a couple documentaries on church scandals about individuals who managed to create some horrible stories that were bought into by masses of people. The authors of these stories take words right out of the bible to give them authority and spin a tale that becomes a sort of shame factory. I’m pretty sure these religious leaders believed the stories themselves and thought they were doing good in the world.

I’m particularly sensitive to these stories that come from church and the bible. I have personally been victim to these stories in a previous life of mine and am hyper conscious of not getting sucked in again. When I read the bible or meditate on Jesus, I feel like there is a river of truth that flows just below the text. The words were written by humans that lived in a mindset we can never ever envision the way they did. But the words were wrought from the same materials we are familiar with. I want to dive into that river of truth. I think it is more of a truth of the heart than the intellect.

Anyways here I am in the water wondering where the lines of truth exist that separate story from reality. Like water, these lines are not an impermeable or rigid material. I don’t even think they are lines at all or more like the lines are dotted and not solid and I think there is a lot of space between the dots.

It really is a beautiful morning.

I am swimming north and I see a boat drive by not far from me at all. I see kayakers paddling past. These figures are like color injected on to a black and white film strip.

I near my northern turnaround point close to Salt Creek and see the planets floating in the distance that I swam around yesterday. I don’t have the time to swim out to them today.

I finish up my swim, do my Sunday morning public outdoor shower ritual and change into normal clothes.

I get to church and sit next to someone who seems to be having his own difficulties with stories. He tells me about all the times he has been to jail for crimes he did not commit. He mentions that although Dennis Rodman was subpoenaed, he did not show up to his trial. I like this guy though and he has a lot of enthusiasm for the service. I can really sense his ache for the same truth I am looking for here.

The preacher is giving an introduction to the book of Romans. It’s a good sermon. I like the speaker and the epistle. He mentions at some point how Romans presents the gospel “Truth” as “objective truth” which “the world” would have you believe does not exist. On the one hand I surrender to this rhetoric. I get where he and likely most of mainstream Christianity are coming from here. However part of me feels agitated by this remark. When Jesus says “I am the way, the truth and the life,” I just don’t see that truth as either subjective or objective. I connect with that statement on an entirely different plane completely. I see a truth filled with the energy of all time and space. A truth that wants to saturate every pore and molecule of my body.

I just think when we hold up the bible and point to it as “objective truth,” we are opening up some doors that the authors maybe never intended to be opened. And every person who makes this claim seems to have a different set of opinions on what that truth looks like.

Well look at the time! It’s time to go grocery shopping. I’m pretty sure I can find lots of objective truth at Trader Joes! If not, I at least hope to score some stickers and a lollipop.