Life is a Beach

As a child who grew up next to the ocean I have always loved and adored the complexity of the seashore. The never ending action and interaction between the birds, the crashing waves, the shifting sands, the blowing of the wind and finally the variations in light between night, with the changing of the constellations from season to season, to daytime, with the changing tapestry of the sky due to the interplay of the clouds and the sun. The seashore is a continuous display of the broadest view of “life” in its most basic form: birth, living and death, but displayed in a lovely visual and aural poetry.

As every New Year comes I am reminded of my past beach days of running along the water’s edge, avoiding the cold early January waves as they desperately tried to reach out to me and as I teased them with my advances and retreats. Most people made New Year resolutions when I was teenager. However, they were usually in vain as keeping a New Year’s resolution usually seemed to last until early Spring for even the most convicted of believer’s in the ritual, my experiences of seeing packed fitness clubs in January only to be grossly thinned by April giving personal validity to that belief.

The seashore also reminds me of the Bible. God created the universe and then set about to populate it with us. The Bible, in my very simple mind, is about regeneration, about being born, living and then dying, only to have the process repeat itself over and over. Jesus Himself, in His own words said in John 3:3, “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born again.”

The idea or thought of how you could be born again seemed odd when I was younger. But as I read the Bible in its entirety I saw the wisdom and wonder of its form in the theme of constant death and rebirth: God made the world, populated it, and then had to eradicate most of the people and creatures due to the growing sinfulness of its people. With the washing and cleaning action of the water the world was made clean again, reborn if you will, and man once again grew in numbers. But, once again the sinful nature of people grew to overwhelming numbers. So, God gave us His Son, Jesus in order to show us His perfection, see His miracles, hear His wisdom and show us how we all should walk the walk. Then we saw as the people killed Jesus; but in that death all of us are able to be reborn anew for everlasting life….birth, life, death, rebirth. The theme, again to me, is pervasive in the Bible and at the seashore; only once in heaven is the thread cut and then there is a wonderful, everlasting life with our Father.

I left the shore after college and went into the military. The military boot camps that we have seen in so many films, “An Officer and a Gentleman” for one, is a proving ground of sorts. It’s designed to test your mettle, separate the wheat from the chaff, and make strong the weakling; it’s a teaching discipline of mind, body and soul and during your stay there the instructors break you down just to rebuild you in the way they think you need to be to survive. I will fully admit I was a wimp upon entering the military and it really toughened me up. The instructors, the other cadets, the elements and the experience itself when taken in the whole, caused me to become stronger in every way, but in it, the process was one of being born, living and then dying only to be reborn.

But even after my boot camp experiences, the process of being born, into a new fighter unit and then getting my ego beat down by tough as nails ex-Vietnam veteran fighter pilots who dearly believed in the code of “dying like a man” and other machismo, added to my armor. But they had to break me down in order for me to become reborn. And though I tried, and failed, many times to beat these heroes at their own games, one day I would and then I moved on to teach others in the same form and manner, trying to make them better defenders of our skies and better men in general…birth, life, death, rebirth.

As a pilot my father said it is incumbent upon you to always be willing to learn and grow in your craft, whatever it may be. As a man who flew for 56 years and over 35,000 hours, he said he was still learning his craft and searching for that perfect flight until his last, in his last aircraft a B-727, and at the age of 75. That’s a lot of years of being born, living, dying and being born again in order to perfect your ability.

What reading the Bible, being in the military, living with such a Great Santini as my father, being a pilot, a father, a husband and a friend have taught me is that life is a training ground. It is not a place to amass fortunes, or to get the most stuff, or have the best or cleanest house or the most perfect kids, or spouse (though the aforementioned may happen out of God’s will and or circumstance). It is a training environment, God’s boot camp for us. Can you imagine Joseph’s anguish in his up and down life? (GEN 30:24) or Job’s?

At 50 years old I view each New Year as a rebirth in my enthusiasm for life and this boot camp in which I am immersed. Death is inevitable but so is living to the fullest between my birth and death and trying to fulfill God’s will; trying my best at being a better human; failing at times, succeeding at times, going three steps forward with two back, and then trying again, at whatever it is God’s will has me doing; being born, living, dying and repeating. It may seem tedious, but I firmly believe that this is the purpose of our lives. Growing, reorganizing, and then growing some more, that is my never ending quest and commitment to God every day, but I renew that vow every year in heartfelt prayer in early January.

Far off of the shore of which I spoke earlier is a life saving river. In my metaphorically and eclectically weird mind I view it as the river of life. The Gulf Stream starts in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, turns northbound after leaving the Straits of Florida, and brings a variety of life with it as it passes the North American Eastern Seaboard and turns easterly to enrich Western Europe’s shores. As a kid I used to jump off boats or beaches into this river. The waters surround you and will carry you away if you let them, just like everyday life carries us away. If you struggle to swim you will sink and drown, and even if you are the greatest of swimmers you will eventually tire and drown. It is only when you stop struggling, put your legs out straight, your arms at your side and look to the heavens, to the face of God, and relax, will the water support you and allow you to rest. The salt in the water is what helps to lift you and allows you to float. Jesus is the salt in our everyday lives. Struggle in life and you will die and sink to the bottom, but if you relax and put your trust in Him and give up yourself to His will, the pain of your struggles will disappear and you will begin to float above the everyday weariness of your life.

If you have not done so, recommit yourself to God and to the everyday life he gave you and to being the best you can be, the best that He wants you to be. While here on Earth and when overwhelmed with life, stop swimming, relax, let God support you, gain strength, and then get swimming again, knowing that the Lord is always all around you, ready, willing, and more than able to support your weight.