a powerful force

Throughout the past few weeks, I have been spending a lot of time at the beaches of Southern California. One day last week I had the rare opportunity to visit four different beaches in one day: Santa Monica, Long Beach, Ocean Beach, and Windansea La Jolla. On this beautiful American holiday Memorial Day, I spent time at one of my favorite beaches in the US, Mission Beach. After having lunch with a good friend on the boardwalk, I walked along the shore and jumped and swam in the waves to my heart's content. Today was one of the most clear and gorgeous days in a while, perfect for celebrating my personal freedom that many people in our country take for granted!

While I was in the water today I reflected on a thought that came to my mind last week, about what a powerful force the ocean is. I have written other blogs to this effect in the past, but every time I am in or on the ocean, I am reminded of its vastness in addition to its forceful yet tranquil energy. Covering 2/3 of the earth's surface with the ability to heal and/or kill, the ocean is not a force to be reckoned with or taken for granted. And where does this force obtain such jurisdiction? From none other than the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, the God of Israel. He created the earth for our pleasure, but His hand on the tides and the weather, as well as the stars and the universe, lends to his universal authority over ALL creation.

As a Scorpio, I am water - perhaps this is why I connect with the ocean so much. The ebb and flow of the tides symbolizes my own personality, the strength and beauty to be appreciated rather than neglected, with a balance of force pulling in or crashing down on whoever or whatever I am faced with along the currents of life. As God is the giver and sustainer of all life, he is also the only real source of Truth and the perfect peace which passes all understanding (transcending what we can even fathom to be reality). Without Him in our lives, we will be tossed to and fro by the currents - just trying to hold on to anything that floats by, grasping for air, and possibly even crushed by the waves. In this world its sink or swim, but without the powerful force of God on our side, the forces of this world will suck you into the undertow.

gas station politics

Today I filled my day and my spirit with good healthy energy at the Healing Arts Festival in Balboa Park. Listening to music from the B-Side Players to Pato Banton and the Mystic Roots, watching a capoeira performance and experiencing a variety of other inspiring cultural sights and sounds made my eclectic soul ecstatic. After the event I filled my gas tank, stomaching the effects on my wallet with the significantly noticeable price increase. As the pump was running, a video of Barack Obama giving a speech was being played on the small digital payment interface screen. I had no choice other than to listen to the scraping sound of his mindless banter while I cleaned the dirt off my back window with a squeegee.

Within the context of Obama's sweeping call for change, he insisted that we must not have "another four years of Bush policies" and claimed that we were fighting a "war that should have never been started". In addition to suggesting that both Bush and John McCain were not up to par in their military tactics and governmental strategies, he laid out his ignorant display as a thinly chopped spread of foot-in-mouth. My initial reaction was "who is he trying to show up" as his attempts to pull the wool over innocent people's eyes during his address to the unfortunately positioned captive audience at the already unfortunate gas station. After this surface-level assessment I applied his sponged-out theories to a higher overall understanding of international relations. I thought to myself, this is the same guy who thinks he can talk peace with Iran through diplomatic negotiations. After attending a Muslim School in Indonesia as a child, one would expect him to have attained a clearer realization of Shiite Islamic theology and the perils therein for our Western nation.

Because Obama has indeed traveled and lived outside of the United States, he should have gained a broader, more complete view of the world than he publicly disseminates to the general observer. Is it possible that there is more going on beneath the surface than he lets on? That his presidency (if elected) would bring about a more radical change than suggested in the likes of his rhetoric? Could the masking of his Muslim faith, swept under the rug for a more public "Christian" image (though recently denouncing beliefs and statements of Christian leaders) later give rise to cooperation with oppressive Islamic nations such as Iran? Such cooperation would clearly elicit a form of change greater than the Liberal Left can even fathom, perhaps lending to the beginning of the end of Western Society as we know it.

After living in the Middle East myself, I understand the enemies America is faced with, but I am confident that the naysayers and the majority of emerging political figureheads in our (currently) free country have only begun to understand the implications of such - merely on the gas station level. I'm afraid there is a little bit more going on behind the scenes with the "war that should have never been started" besides the gas prices, as the squeegee scrapes away at our national integrity.