Cannon Beach and Summer's Near Death Experience...

Greetings,

I am writing tonight's Sermon with a grateful heart. I am grateful that I have just spent five days in Cannon Beach, OR. I am also grateful that my wife is still alive.

Since the first time I saw it in the summer of 1994, the Pacific Ocean has been like a dear friend to me. I dream of spending my golden years in a beach town ticking away hour after hour flying kites and watching waves. Every time I travel to see my old friend, I am instantly comforted by the first smell of the oceanside air. When I feel the wind and the salty moisture on my face, I can't help but smile. This trip was no exception.

Our first evening on the beach brought us a beautiful sunset behind Haystack Rock and a view of a humpback whale in the distance making his way to Alaska for the summer - better late than never, I guess. After that, we went back to the campsite, sat by the fire for a while, and went to bed completely content.

The next morning, we woke fairly early (as we often do while camping), and went to a surf shop down the road. We rented some wetsuits and body boards and set out for Ecola State Park, a few minutes up the road, ready to ride the waves. I had never been body surfing before, and I have to tell you, there's just nothing like it. I think that the only thing that would top it would be full on surfing - which, after body surfing, I am actually thinking about trying the next time I visit the ocean. The feeling of floating on top of a wave is absolutely spellbinding, and I think that it would be even better if I were standing on a surfboard.

So for about an hour, we were having the time of our lives. Then things took a turn. Summer had swam out a little bit farther to see if she could catch some of the bigger breakers and before I knew it she was about 20 yards away from me. I yelled to her to swim back in, and she started paddling. A couple of minutes later, I knew she was caught in a rip current. She is a very good swimmer, and was paddling very hard, but she kept getting farther and farther away. I yelled to her to start swimming parallel to the shoreline, which she did, but even that was no use. The current was sweeping her in the opposite direction at a very steady pace.

The beach that we were on was crescent shaped and was nestled in between two outcrops of high cliffs with some big rocks dotting the seascape on either side. Summer was being swept toward the rocks on the north side. I was terrified. I stood there, absolutely helpless, calling out to her to just keep paddling. I began calling for help, but there were no lifeguards on this beach, and the closest people to me were about 30 yards away at the water's edge. I ran back to the shoreline and asked a woman to please call for help, then I raced back out to where I was so that I could keep an eye on my struggling wife.

As she was pulled out farther and farther, the breaking waves began to hide her from my sight. Finally, I was able to see that she had made it to a large, long, but low-lying rock formation about a hundred yards offshore. She tried to climb on top of the rocks about three times, and each time I watched with terror as a wave would come by and knock her back into the water. The last time she was knocked off, I lost sight of her for what seemed like an eternity. I actually thought that I had lost her. My mind began playing over and over the nightmare scenarios of her hitting her head on the rock and unconsciously drowning in the chilly water just beyond my reach. I kept looking back at the beach for the help that I had summoned, and it seemed like each time I turned my back on the surf, I was punished by another tall wave crashing over the top of my head.

I looked back toward the rock, hoping for just a glimpse of her arms paddling, when I noticed that she had made it to a different side of the rock formation and had made it half way up. I yelled toward her to keep going, trembling with relief to see her still alive. A moment later, she was standing on the rock waving her arms at me. I jumped up and down and waived back at her, yelling that help was on the way.

A moment later, I saw her climbing back down toward the water. "What the hell are you doing?!?!" I thought. I yelled at the top of my lungs for her to stay where she was, but she kept climbing back into the water. My heart sank at the thought of her flailing against that current again. For a few moments, I lost sight of her, and then, when she resurfaced, I saw what I had been missing a moment before. A surfer had swam out to the rock to help her, and was now leading her back toward the center of the crescent, where he and his friends had been surfing the whole time. I was relieved again, but I still wished she had stayed on the rock, knowing how tired she must have been by that point.

I don't know exactly how long she was in the water struggling against an unforgiving current, but it seemed like a lifetime. I kept looking back at the beach for help to arrive, and finally I saw the woman that I'd commissioned waiving at me with one hand while her other hand held a cell phone to her ear. I checked on Summer's progress once more before running ashore to meet the woman. She was on the phone with 911 and needed me to describe Summer and her position to the operator. I took the phone and gave them all the information I could. The operator reassured me that a helicopter was on its way, along with paramedics and lifeguards. She stayed on the line with me until I saw the lifeguards running across the beach with their own surfboard in tow. By that time, Summer and her surfer savior had met up with a couple of sea-kayakers who were lending their paddling power to the rescue effort. They had all reached the point where the biggest breakers were, and were struggling to stay afloat. The lifeguard charged into the water and swam out to meet them. A couple of minutes later, Summer and the lifeguard were standing instead of swimming, and walking toward me - waves crashing on their waists instead of their heads.

I rushed out to meet them and threw my arms around my wife, noticing the purple color of her face that meant that hypothermia was knocking on the door. Even so, she was fully conscious, coherent, and didn't need any medical attention, so we took a moment and gave the EMTs and lifeguards our information for their incident reports. We thanked all of the people who helped us, and we made our way back to the campsite.

I cannot even begin to describe the relief that I felt when I was first able to touch her. An experience like that really helps you to appreciate life, and I believe that because we had that experience on our first full day in Cannon Beach, the rest of our trip turned out to be one of the best times we've had since being together.

I love my wife with all that I am, and the prospect of losing her scares me to death - which brings me to the denouement of this post. I have done a lot of soul searching these last few years with regard to religion and spirituality, and sine I denounced my relationship with formal Christianity, I've often felt a strong urge to throw out all spirituality cart blanche and adopt a completely atheistic worldview. I realize now though, with more certainty than ever, that to do so would be to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. The truth, as I see it, is that for all our scientific achievement, we still don't know what set the Universe in motion. There are forces at work which we still struggle to comprehend and explain, and we are still but grains of sand in a massive desert of planets, solar systems, and galaxies.

When I was a teenager, I made a personal connection with a spiritual force that I felt. Over the years, I tried to define and quantify that spiritual force as God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, Karma, Positive Energy, and many other things. Then, when the force I felt didn't fit into any of those boxes, I toyed with the idea of denying its existence. I don't think I'll be toying with that idea anymore. Some things exist whether we believe in them or not, and belief, I've discovered, is not dependent on a box or a label. I will never be able to explain the God in whom I believe, and I think I am finally Ok with that.

It's funny... Sometimes I write lines in a song, and their full gravity doesn't hit me until much later. I think I am finally ready to live the line from my song Evolved that says "I don't claim to know the truth, but I can tell you about the lies." I guess my point is, the fact that I do a lot of railing against dogma, fundamentalism, and all of the things I don't believe anymore doesn't mean that I've lost all my faith. And I am very grateful to the God in whom I believe that my wife is safe and sound tonight.

I am the Reverend Humpy and I have approved this message.