Waves.

Henri Nouwen said, "Self-doubt is such a rampant disease (in many schools, but also other places) that affirmation is more important than ever.  It can simply mean the expression of excitement and surprise or a word of thanks.  It can mean recommendations of good books or refgerral to people with special talents.  It often means just bringing the right persons together or setting apart time and place where more thinking can be done.  But it always includes the inner conviction that a precious gift merits attention and continuing care.

There are just as many ways to be a Christian as there are Christians, and it seems the more important the impostion of any doctrine or precoded idea is to offer (the students) the place where they can reveal their great human potentials to love, to give, and to create, and where they can find the affirmation that gives them the courage to continue their search without fear.

Only when we have come in touch with our own life experiences and have learned to listen to our inner cravings for liberation and new life can we realize that Jesus did not just speak, but that he reached out to us in our most personal needs.  The Gospel doesn't just contain ideas worth remembering.  It is a message resopnding to our individual human condition.  The Church is not an institution forcing us to follow its rules.  It is a community of people inviting us to still our hunger and thirst at its tables.  Doctrines are not alien formulations which we must adhere to but the documentation of the most profound human experiences which, transcending time and place, are handed over from generation to generation as a light in our darkness."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nS_aR8XX_U&NR=1&feature=fvwp

Self-doubt is a crippling disease.  When I can across this random YouTube video tonight, I wondered what was going through that surfer's mind.  I was blown away.  I am baffled by human potential; that wave was huge. 

We have seasons in our lives where the waves just seem so big.  I have found myself hesitating and hesitating to just dive into them, but I am slowly gaining courage.  Slowly.  Because to love, to give, and to create, and to find the courage to continue our search without fear is something that, I think, honors God.  Surfing large waves is what we were made to do.  And, you know, I'm so thankful for the people in my life who are willing to "ride out on a jet ski" to see me off into the waves, and to wait with me while I figure out which one I'm going to take.