::Carving Waves::

Today my face is red from a wind/sun-burn. My calves are sore, as well as other body bits of mine. But it truly is a great feeling and it is caused from being on the mountain yesterday, on my board. Yesterday I got to go snowboarding, I never played in the snow in South Africa, so Saturday was my first time back in over a year.

Took me one run to get myself comfortable again. But that second run was so sweet to taste. The second half of the run, you drop down a steep incline, carving down the bank I mainly stayed on a straight path, picking up my speed, gliding effortlessly in my turquoise snow-pants and purple beanie. With the Ponderosa Pines on both sides and the sun shining directly on the revealed skin under my goggles, I had fun carving hard up and down the steep banks on the outer edges due to our lack of snow. You come right, it curves left into the bend and turns back dumping you out right, so you make an S formation. Coming out of the bend, with reggae in my ears, I was on my heels, riding the back side of my board cutting straight left. move my feet –barely – the board goes parallel to the snow, move my feet – barely – all my weight on the balls of my feet, the board cuts deep on the toe edge, able to curve smoothly, sharply – with my whole body leaning into the land, I’m able to swipe a hand against the hard, cold snow before popping back up – gliding the edge that falls 15 feet into powder and ponderosas, and back to heel edge, back to carving this ice, that Flagstaff people call snow.

The thought that came to my mind while I was doing one of my runs was, “I wish I could feel this on a surf board.” It’s almost as if my snowboarding got better as I went away from it for a year, while my surfing is still at a stand-still, such a mediocre level of wave-catching. I would love to carve the waters, the way I carve the snow. So I spent my time on the chair lift thinking of the science behind boarding these two different elements – coming only to the conclusion that a board on a wave gives you a type of feeling that snow never will (the closest you could get would be riding an avalanche).

The flat I lived in, in J-bay was below a family – Roy the father of that family and my boss for CSA always blessed me with rad talks, whether about life, ministry, visions, or relationships – but honestly majority of our conversations were during Fuel TV and they were about surfing. I remember Roy describing to me the way he sees the waves, describing to me the addiction it creates because you are a moving energy riding a moving energy. And that’s why carving on snow will never give me the sensation of carving a wave – the snow stays, even powder doesn't create the energy like the amplitude of the sea.

So obviously – I related this to us…

There’s a lot of definitions for a wave – a lot of science behind it: To move freely, back and forth, up and down, a swell moving along a surface dependent on tension, a surge, a rush, a rise in activity or intensity, a succession of mass movement.

So a wave – a lot like emotions. Moves up and down, back and forth, changing form due to the environment around it. I’ve struggled with emotions my whole life, the acceptance of them, finding maturity in them, finding Godliness in them. But after 23 years, I’ve come the acceptance of them and am able to see emotions as something beautiful – as an incredible movement within a person’s soul, giving one the opportunity to express him or herself a little; the ability to bring a little more of you on the inside, outside.

Emotions, that warmth of feeling burning inside to respond to something; passion, compassion, joy, sorrow, misery, anger, love. You are a wave of emotions (although you need to look at the undulating you allow in your wave – are you even a wave? Or have you shut your emotions off to the world and God?)

One definition of a wave is: motion defined as the movement of a distortion of a material, where the individual parts or elements only move back-and-forth, up-and-down, or in a cyclical pattern. It appears as if something is actually moving along the material, but in reality it is just the distortion moving, where one part influences the next.

Are you that type of wave? You look like a wave of great amplitude from the outside, but in reality all you are doing is moving matter – whether that’s people, visions of just other emotions – your not actually doing anything. All your doing is moving ‘things’ in an aimless motion. For example, ocean waves ceaselessly arrive at the shore without piling up infinite amounts of water. The wave arrives, but the water doesn't. Is that you?

Because I must be honest with you friend, as honest as I am with myself, you cannot be that type of wave. We are not called to be waves that move material in a meaningless motion. We are called to be true waves. A wave is the progressive disturbance propagated from point to point without progress from the points themselves; the moving of energy not the moving of matter.

That means we are called to be moved, only because we are being moved by an energy outside of ourselves (the Holy Spirit) and we are not called to be a wave of emotions stirring the sand up within the sea – but we are called to move and sway as an energy of emotions in tune with our Father’s emotions so that he is the force sweeping the bottom of the sea, and kissing the shore.

So, as I sat on that chair lift, 40 feet above the ground, snowboard dangling, the Phoenix valley to my back and the Grand Canyon to the west. I had to ask myself – what type of wave are you? What energy is controlling your emotions, your movements, your actions – is it you? Or is it the Holy Spirit? … Look at the shoreline, because the residue you leave behind is your answer.