sea.surf.

Currently Ugly Casanova is playing lightly through my ears. I can hear the waves stir and crash just down the road, feel a light breeze on my sandy feet and smell my coffee as it grows cold.

Aside from the dirt whipping around my skin and the sun beating in contrary to the chilly wind, I wake up every day here in Jeffreys Bay. I wake up in this season. A season is a division of the year marked by change, a result of the yearly revolution of the earth around the sun. So here I sit in a new division of my life marked by the change in the soil that now sticks to me, and a change in the wind that blows over me. This is a result, a result from change, from a revolution, from innovation. Just as my life has been adjusting the last couple months to this new season so has Jbay's waves.

The new season for proper swell is just around the corner. This week we had the biggest waves we've had all year. You can sit on the beach with the clouds roaming over head and look out over the sea waters as you look upon a handful of surfers, understanding why sharks mistake them, surfers do look like black seals bobbing at bay in their wet suits. But the waves here are different. It's not like most coasts you sit on and hear the crash of the waves, or the push of the currents. You sit on this beach and it sounds like you are inside of a giant rainstick when these waters sway, as the water rushes to you and pulls itself quickly back to the body, It's harmonious.

I stood on the beach my feet open to the cold waters that rushed quickly over them. I stood there with my hair whipping around my head and my right arm over my 6'8" red and yellow surfboard; leash tied to my ankle and wet suit fully zipped ready for a dip. I stood there watching my three mates paddle out into the line up to catch waves, as I stood there knowing full well there is no way I can go to the back of the set, there is no way I can surf waves that big. Not yet anyway. The dilemma: Do I paddle out? Do I try to hold tight to my pride, try to prove myself (to myself)? Do I act on instinct, like I normally naturally do, by just charging it? OR do I admit and accept my skill level, stay in close, stay where its safe, stay where I can handle it? ... For the first time in my life, I swam in the safe zone. I paddled where I knew what the beach did underneath me, I stayed off the waves that were taunting me to come dance with them.

I saw more jelly fish, bigger, moving fast than I have in my entire life. I would start to paddle out farther, thankful for a smaller set and then before there was anything I could do; here came another unattainable large swell. Pulling myself, relentlessly, out of the waters I found myself sitting on the shore, board by my side, waves still taunting. My hands were blue. My nose burning from the salt. My pride hurt from my lack of skill. My shoulder sore from a prior car accident and thighs burning from a prior morning bike ride. My heart throbbing from the tragedy in Japan, from the pain I see in the street boy's eyes, from the agony some of my relationships back in the States face. My heart pounding from the urgency to spread healing and love, from the need for surf ministry and the lack of funds. My heart pulsing from getting rolled under that last wave.

Maybe this season of life is like my surfing. It needs dedication and devotion, it won't be easy and if I expect anything to come from it, I've got to work hard; I must have ingenuity and gumption.

Although I wonder if ingenuity and gumption are two things I can put on me in preparation, like a wetsuit, like sunblock. Or if they are out there hiding in the waves and I have to go find them.... then again maybe they wear a different mask. Maybe they are the dedication a surfer has to get up for his dawn surf. Maybe they are the muscles you build from yoga and push ups.

Wherever these two things lay: Ingenuity and Gumption. I need to obtain them, immediately.