Leap of Faith

I was out at Bolinas early one monday morning, way out in front of the lagoon as the tide was the lowest I had seen it.  The waves were fairly small, but the surfers that were there: two guys in their late 60s and a couple others, were riding them forever, all the way to the beach on long left breaks.

I was catching them, but I was having trouble riding the left break — I’d just ride them straight, a much shorter journey.  I complained to one of the surfers about my inability to ride the line with my back to the wave, and he said, ‘Ya, it takes a leap of faith’.

There are a couple ways to ride the line as a beginner: you can either point your board at an angle, paddle and try to catch the wave at that angle, or you can catch the wave perpendicular to it and do a bottom turn.  The former is much easier, but not all waves are amenable to catching it like that, and the latter really does take a leap of faith, at least for a beginner like me, because I am concentrating on all the variables of catching the wave, standing up and turning in time to still be on the wave before it breaks. So much so, that I can’t really look at the wave much until after I turn.  And then riding with your back mostly to the wave is just harder, less visual queues, and less natural flexibility in that direction.

I have been thinking about the role of faith in my life, mostly because this whole idea of using my imagination to give life meaning seems to challenge the notion of faith, after all I am making up up or choosing stories.  Does it really make a difference whether we pretend something or truly believe it?

I think it depends on what we do: whether or not we can take a ‘leap’ and act on it.  Sometimes that leap is the effort of choosing a better story for ourselves.  Sometimes its doing things the ‘right’ way instead of the easy way.  Sometimes its choosing to follow hope instead of despair or apathy.

Its the choices and actions that matter. 

 I could simply stick to what works when catching that left breaking wave and ride it straight out, and I can have some fun doing that, but my rides won’t be as sweet, and I won’t progress as a surfer.  I am going to have to sacrifice a bunch of rides just trying to make that leap.  But its worth it.  When it works, there is nothing like it.  It is so exhilerating to take a risk on a blind step to find that not only did you not fall, but you’re flying.

Whatever

Whatever.

Lately, when I hear that word used, it sounds so insincere.  It had been a while since I had used it with that drawn out inflection, whAAAtEver, with the intent of driving home indifference and disdain.  But it had come up in conversation, and I was reminded of the fun that you can have with that attitude.  Except that the conversations that I noticed it used in were incongruous with the attitude – it was used deliberately to try and convey indifference to something that the person actually really did care about.  My six year old, with a budding appreciation for attitude, was enjoying its use that way.  Fun.  Indifference and detachment as a defense got me thinking about my own recent insights about my attachments, a topic that I have been stewing on for a few weeks.

I had never been too attached to things, and if anything, probably didn’t pay enough attention to my things as I should – so I started with that.  What would I do without my car?  Though named finally, it was replacable,  but replcement would be difficult and painful and I would have to give up some activities.  Hmm, I guess I had some attachments to those activities.  I need to go surfing? That doesn’t sound right.  I felt the need to surf go away.  My happiness was not connected to surfing, though I enjoyed it a lot.

I upped the stakes a little higher: what about my health?  If I wasn’t able to go outside and play, or felt sick, does that mean I couldn’t be happy? I wouldn’t want to give up happiness because I didn’t have my health.  That’s when I would need it the most! I felt a little lighter. 

I thought about my friends, new and old.  I had a strange attachment to my friends.  I have usually kept a few close ones, they would rotate in and out over time.  I didn’t feel like I had a lot of attachments to my friends, but that didn’t quite feel true.  When I was younger, I remember thinking I should travel and maybe live in another city for a while, or go see the world.  I remember worrying about giving up my friends.  The thing was, I ended up letting them recede into the background anyway.  I think at that time, I was attached to the belief that I needed those friends.  I guess I just had fear.

I thought about the friends I had now.  I knew they could easily go.  I felt a kind of clingy desperation slide away as my need for my friends dissolved.  I began to see that losing the attachments was not the same as losing the thing itself.  Rather than collecting and clinging to my need for friends, I could choose to be in the moment with them.  My relationships could be an act of will, a choice.  Loosening my attachments to my friends was not losing the friends, it was letting go of a neediness that wasn’t based on truth but fear.

Could I let go of my attachments to my kids?  That was a harder question.  My kids could be taken from me, or die…I could lose them. Could I recover from that? I knew I could, it happened all the time and in terrible ways to others who continued to live their lives, but it was still a hard question.  It helped a little to remember the realization that if my relationships weren’t based on needy attachment, then they would be maintained by a continuous choice.  That felt like a stronger, truer, more authentic way to experience relationships.  Its harder to take something for granted if you are continuously choosing it.  Its so easy to walk through life sleepily following a scripted role rather than deliberately staying present and aware.  My children weren’t requirements for my happiness, they don’t make me who I am.  I love them dearly, but they are not here to fulfill my needs.

Questioning my attachments was about changing a perspective, an attitude.  It wasn’t about taking on a false attitude of disdain or indifference: ‘whatever’, it was about seeing more of the truth.  Many of the things I had attachments to were not really under my control at all, and I could lose any of them at anytime.  If I lost those things, I would be ok — I may be disappointed, sad, or worse, but I would be ok, I would still be me. 

D brought up something she had heard recently, I can’t remember her exact wording but the gist was that there is freedom in stability.  That having roots gives us the strength to stretch for more.  At first it seemed to conflict with what I was learning about freedom found in losing attachments.  How do you get more attached than having roots?  Constructing a life that supports and comforts you and gives you enjoyment and strength and stability isn’t something to avoid for fear of developing attachments.  There is value in surrounding ourselves with people that we want to be around and things we enjoy and opportunities for the future —  we just need to remember that those things are not what make us who we are.  We should choose the things and people in our lives because it is best for us to do so, not because of the fear of what we would be or do without them.

Fear.

Whatever?

On the Side of the Road

I found God!  I had seen him a couple/few times before in the last few weeks, but it wasn’t until today that I realized who he was.

Sometimes a monday, sometimes a tuesday, there he was was in his white haired bearded goodness, standing along the side of the curving road welcoming us on our weekly journey over the hills to our coastal oasys with a smile and a wave.  The first time I saw him, he stuck out in my mind as a kind of thin Santa Claus, he had that jolly, happy look, but the thin thing was all wrong.  The next time, a week later on a different day, to see him again was a bit shocking.  He looked good though, this time with a colorful patchwork quilt vest and possibly matching hat, maybe even happier than the first time.

I love that he is there waving to us as we begin to descend into our regular soul talk sojourn.  I have been seriously trying to think of a gift I could bring him next time so I could stop and hand him something to make him smile, maybe shake his hand, say something, nod and drive away.  But now that I know he is God, I am a little reluctant to even take the same route again for fear that he won’t be there. I guess I can get over that, its enough to know that he stayed until I recognized him.

Though I’ve been loathe to admit it to myself, I’ve been looking for God for a long time.  I think the reluctance was there because I had seen and heard so many wrong versions of God, and I really wanted a God that was just right and without something just right, I’d rather believe that there wasn’t a God at all. 

 

I’ve recognized the power of belief and choice for a long time, but for awhile, I have been half-hearted and almost dead in my ownership of my spiritual beliefs.  Somehow I could say that a vision of the universe that could conspire with me was the more interesting view to take, more fulfilling, more rewarding, more responsible, more empowering, but I couldn’t take it all the way.  It was still someone elses idea that I was trying on back from 20 years go.  I would drag the notion out here and there, but I wasn’t living it and making it my own.

 

 

I’ve been looking to resolve this issue lately.  There have been a few key ideas that have helped push me back into the right direction.  The first one was a reminder that the universe is a loving place.  How do I know this?  I don’t!!  But I do believe in choice and the power of belief and it is way better to live in a universe that is loving and kind, whether I am here for cosmic entertainment or to learn something, or I am just a blur of molecular reactions carrying me through a moment of time.  

 

The second idea I got a good dose of this week, was the reminder to use the best story possible to give meaning and purpose and to motivate my vision of the future.  It’d be crazy to choose anything else!  Somehow I forgot that this was my own spiritual path and that I could choose to believe anything I damn well want!

 

And thats the key that has settled some spiritual angst for me and made me intellectually comfortable in my own spiritual skin again. 

 

Imagination.

 

There isn’t a right or wrong spiritual path, and there isn’t a static one-size-fits-all view thats going to do it.  Its a dynamic journey, with many  possible interpretations, and many different levels and flavors to everything that happens.  Todays best story may be replaced by a better one later, its the search for the best story we can think of that will leave us both fulfilled and hungry for more.

 

So maybe that kooky looking guy God will be there on the side of the road next week, smiling and waving me along my journey, and maybe he won’t.  If hes there, I hope I think of the right thing to give him, but if I don’t have something, I hope I at least feel brave enough to stop and get out of the car and shake his hand and say thanks.