It’s a basic fear of the future, looking through the lens of my ego, which still desperately wants to be somebody, to accomplish something. At times, I can detach myself from it, but other times it fills the room like mind-altering smoke. Like a creative way a killer might abduct you. I look for answers. I talk to God, but I mostly just confess, “I’m sorry for always making it about what I want.” I feel slightly guilty because I know better, I’ve woken up, and I know God is in me and in everything and the current of love streams all around me at all times. But my ego never surrenders.
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I had known for nine months that my sister was having a baby around Christmas time, but as the holidays approached, and the due date zeroed in on Christmas Eve, it began to bother me. It would be the first baby in our immediate family and I would become an uncle, but I didn’t really see the big deal. Part of me was excited but another part of me was annoyed at the inconvenience. How badly is this going to affect my Christmas? I came down from my high cave of spiritual self-righteousness and found myself the Grinch. The jet lag didn’t help.
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Every morning I sit on my lanai and I look at the trees across the street and I contemplate. I drink coffee and just sit and observe my thoughts. I gaze upon God within me and within nature; I accept that I am fully accepted. Meditation is a big part of the reason I came here and I can feel these slow mornings changing me.
In the beginning I thought a lot about these islands. What makes this place so mystical? It seems to be life concentrated, like plucking an orange from the tree and tasting fruit for the first time. Hawaii is not a place you go to, it’s a place that goes through you. Suddenly, you find yourself immersed in something thicker than you’re used to.
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What if God wanted us to ask him for exactly what we wanted, knowing that he put those passions and desires in us in the first place, so that he can make it happen and we can learn to trust Him as a GOOD God who is FOR us in every way, and not against us in the slightest. He forgives our every sin and embraces our weaknesses, he suffers with us and feels our humanness, he dies with us, so that he can raise us from the dead, in a thousand little ways throughout our lifetime. God’s will is that we would experience the most vibrant and abundant life possible. That’s what eternal life is.
And that’s what brought me to Hawaii.
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We went under and I was immersed into a new world. The world underwater. The pressure changed. The sound was muted except for the soft roar of the wave rushing past us. The outside world was lightyears away. Under the waves I found peace as I learned from him, “the safest place is the bottom.”
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As we drove through the pineapple and coffee fields of Kamehameha highway, I wondered about the origin of this remarkable piece of land. The Island of Oahu. Something special must have happened here long ago. Some sort of cosmic explosion of passion. There was a volcano buried deep beneath unseen waters, hardly existing until one day it bursted with orange molten fire from the core of the earth and bloomed with radiance in every life form and color, betraying part of God’s character as a mad artist. If there’s one word to describe these islands, it’s passion.
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I yelled at God because I was scared about not having a guarantee when it comes to following my dreams. How long will it take? How long must I pitter-patter as a peddling, suffering salesman? When can I walk into the coffee shop as a man of dignity, accomplished and proud? I was frustrated because the path wasn’t explained to me, step by step, like the navigation app on my phone. And in response to crying out like an impatient toddler on a road trip , God reminded me of my dreams, and once again, asked me to trust him.
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The ocean below laps upon the shore and redraws in a continuous pattern, mimicking our breath, the coarse draw of air in our lungs and water lapping over the sand. Yet in some places the ocean smashes against the cliffs, as if in a traumatic rage. Rivers roar, whisper and gently speak as they carve the paths created for them, while rocks dance over each other breaking off in an infinite process that produces sand.
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I felt my dad’s rough face with my little hands. I crawled on him, stood on him and marveled at him. The light was bright and slanted through the windows as it does in the winter and as it does in our dreams. I loved him without understanding.
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