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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday November 20, 2000 Volume II Number 47 |
FOCUS - Surf's Up
As you stand on that Southern California beach and watch those surfers in a prone position laying face down, flat, donning a jet black wet suit this time of year, paddling furiously, accelerating forward, just ahead of a wave building in momentum and size, taking shape, and then in a quick motion jumping up to their feet, balancing on a fiberglass and Styrofoam waxed board, then crouching down, knees bent, leaning forward, arms and hands extended, breaking right then left, walking the board, rushing ahead of the breaking wave, leaving a curved stream of white foam in their wake, you might be thinking, “I can do that.”
The good ones make it look easy.
It isn’t.
Scott, a good friend of mine, a couple years younger than I, has been surfing since he was a kid. And these days, he still likes to get out there with his son Andrew, who likes to get out there with my son, Kevin. And as he talked about the joys of salty spray, and the invigoration of cold water warming up in the wetsuit, and doing the father-son thing out there where the dolphins and sea lions play, seagulls soaring and squawking overhead, and catching the perfect wave of the day, I said wistfully, “Ya know Scott, I think I’d like to give it a try.”
“Forget it,” Scott said matter-of-factly.
It stopped me cold.
“Nothin’ personal, Ken,” he went on. “But trust me on this one. Once a guy passes forty, it’s all over. He’ll never get it. Ever.”
“Hey, twist the knife, buddy,” I said. “Ouch.”
“No kiddin, Ken.” He didn’t seem to notice how insensitive this whole line of reasoning was. “I’ve seen guys out there with zero body fat, fit enough to run a marathon, guys with exceptional co-ordination, athletic prowess, balance, lightening fast hand-eye skills, guys who can snow ski, water ski and snow-board… guys who learn fast…”
I was getting even more depressed. He went on anyway.
“But if they wait until they are forty… even thirty five… before they try surfin’, well, forget it. It’s a total exercise in frustration. I haven’t seen one guy get up. Not one.”
He went on to tell me how often he’s tried to teach his friends to surf. And from experience he has learned that in spite of the old familiar proverb, in some things at least, it is absolutely impossible to teach an old dog a new trick.
So, I suppose at least for this one, I’ll have to be content to stand on the waters edge, lean into the wind, focus the binoculars and watch. A graying observer. Dreaming about what might have been.
* * * * * * *
Rick has asked a couple of times. He never puts it this way: “Would you like to go flying?” Instead he says, “Hey, ya wanna aviate?”
On this crisp fall Friday morning Rick wears a leather flight jacket. And after breakfast, he makes the modest proposal that we knock off early and head over to the airstrip.
“Where would you like to have lunch, Avalon or Big Bear?”
I thought about the stuff I had waiting on my desk to be done before the weekend started, made a quick calculation, and realized that this new goal was in reach. Avalon is the quaint little harbor village thirty miles off the point at Palos Verdes, nestled around an inlet on the southern tip of Catalina Island. The airport is perched on Catalina’s highest point, midway between Avalon and Twin Harbors. At the tiny terminal, they serve buffalo burgers for lunch.
As appealing as a Catalina run across the blue waters of the Pacific sounds, Rick gives me the choice. So I say, “Let’s do Big Bear.”
“Big Bear it is,” Rick answers with a smile and a nod.
I race through a morning’s work at the office, finish up my calls on the cell phone in route at freeway speed, climb the grade at Old Castle road up past the golf course and then through the thoroughbred horse ranches and the oak groves, around the hairpin turns to the top of the hill, down a long drive to a quaint shed that looks big enough for an airplane and the sign above the large open door says “Blackington Airpark – established 1964.” Inside is a half completed Cessna two seater, with a freshly painted four cylinder engine mounted in plain view, no cowling, no propeller and as I look it over, Rick says, “Yep, one of these days, I’m gunna finish that little project.”
I laugh and look up at the sky and say, “Rick, what a day for flyin’!”
“Visibility unlimited.”
Blackington is a little residential community in our neighborhood built around a paved airstrip. Behind an electronic gate, there are about eight homes, most all of them relatively new, and elegant, situated around the runway each with standard garages, and then… well, hangars. Owners buzz Blackington, make a wide turn over the treetops, then line up to the runway and land their private aircraft on the pavement, then taxi up the driveway, hit the remote hangar door opener and pull right in. Instead of ground control, the pilot grabs the radio to call in and reports, “Honey, I’m home.”
What a life.
So I look around at the houses and the hangars and the single engine airplanes parked here and there in the neighborhood, and then to Rick’s plane sitting just outside the Blackington Airpark shed. It’s a brand new Cessna 182, Millennia Edition, gleaming white with silver trim and gray leather interior. “Nice bird, Rick,” I say with enthusiasm. “Let’s aviate.”
Rick finishes off the pre-flight, we jump in, fasten the seat belts and pull the doors shut. Rick hands me a head set with a voice activated microphone and then shouts out his open window, “Clear!” And then he fires up his two hundred sixty horsepower Continental with a three-blade variable pitch prop. A puff of smoke blows out the exhaust, and all cylinders catch, the sheet metal on the wings shake from the start, all the dials on the instrument panel come to life, and Rick hits the throttle. Just enough to get us rolling out to the runway.
It’s a down hill roll on takeoff. As if this powerful bird needs any help.
We
accelerate past the houses and trees as Rick opens her up to full
throttle. Our engine hums as I
look over at Rick in the left seat, maybe his favorite place in all the world,
he’s smilin’. He pulls back on
the wheel and the nose rises. He’s
got just a touch of flap going as we lift off clearing the highway and then the
power lines and now we get a view of our part of the world as I rarely see it.
Properties I’ve passed a hundred times from the highway now spread out, and I get a sense of the sheer size. The ranches. The pastureland. The groves – citrus and avocado. The flower growers and the vineyards. The reservoirs I didn’t know were there. And the back roads, unpaved, winding through the meadows and up around the backside of the hill. And the white split rail fences, following the elevations and marking property lines. Then over the new high school and the new project up on McNally and there it is, our place. I point and Rick tips the wings.
I look ahead. The San Bernardino Mountains are dead ahead. I point to the panel and ask, “Hey Rick, what radios are these?”
“I’ve got ‘em all,” he says, “but these are my favorites.” He points to two of the five stacked up in front of me. “This one’s the GPS. And this one’s the Autopilot.”
I’ve heard about GPS... something to do with Global Positioning and sophisticated, powerful signals from somewhere in space.
He hits a button on the GPS radio, and in bright red letters it reads BIG BEAR. “I programmed in our flight plan,” Rick explains. “With the triangulation of satellite signals, the GPS knows precisely where we are and where we are going. It’s linked to the autopilot, and it’ll take us there… all by itself.” He symbolically lets go of the wheel, hands in the air, and I can see that some unseen force is steering the airplane.
I shake my head, “Wow.”
* * * * * *
Rick Warren is pastor of one of the largest churches in America. (This Rick is not the pilot of the Cessna.) In his book, The Purpose Driven Church, he talks about surfing.
He says, “Good surfers make it look easy.” But surfing is a skill. A demanding skill. But once a surfer figures it out, he’s hooked. He’ll come back again and again.
But surfers don’t make the waves, Pastor Rick says. None of them are misguided enough to think they can. God makes the waves. Surfers look for them. Talk about them. Travel distances to find them. Surfers ride the waves. But they don’t make them. God does.
Warren points out that too many churches work furiously to develop programs that will make waves. The problem is this: only God can make waves.
And he does. It’s the nature of his creation for waves to be rolling and breaking everywhere… all the time.
Effective churches don’t attempt to do what only God can do. Instead of making waves, like a good surfer, they look for the waves that God has already made. And then, they learn how to ride them.
The best churches are the ones who have learned to find God’s work in the world, and go with it.
* * * * * * *
Sometimes, in Southern California, sometimes, you can see forever. Friday was one of those days.
Our ascent was gradual. We climbed over the first snowy ridge and looked up the first canyon to Forest Falls. And then over the second ridge up to the high meadows of the San Gornonio Wilderness, following Highway 38 over Angelus Oaks, over the sleepy little mountain village of Pinezanita then over Sugarloaf Pass and into Big Bear Valley. The high country lake shone bright blue as we cleared the ridge and buzzed the tall pines, passing over the ski slopes of Snow Summit. Tiny skiers whizzed down hills, hitting the jumps and launching themselves airborne. Like us. Then the runway came into view. Rick made a slow turn to downwind, and then around to final. On the ground, on the tarmac near the tower, a medic’s chopper unloaded an occupied stretcher, transferring a patient to waiting ambulance with lights flashing as Captain Rick touched down on a wide runway over six thousand feet elevation and taxied over to the airport café.
We lunched in the warmth of the pilot’s restaurant sheltered from the high altitude cold outside, and celebrated Fridays and clear skies and family and friendship.
Sometimes, its good to have a last minute change in the day planner… and do something spontaneous.
* * * * * * *
If my friend Scott is right, I’ll never know the exhilaration of catching a wave and cutting back and forth across the face dancing on a waxed surfboard in the California sun.
But on this Monday morning, here’s something to think about: the waves just keep on rollin’ in. With or without us.
It’s the nature of planet earth to be in perpetual motion. The waves of opportunity come along with the regularity of the ocean tides. We don’t create them any more than a surfer can in his own strength and ingenuity create well-formed breakers. The question is not, will there be opportunity? The question is rather, what will we do with the opportunities that roll in today?
Are we positioning ourselves to catch the waves? Are we learning the skills required to capitalize on them? Ride ‘em all the way in?
Don’t let yourself be sidetracked by anything as mundane and extraneous as a hung up election. You’ve got waves to catch.
Get yourself ready. Before it’s too late.
Today, this Monday morning, you are a leader. Open your eyes. Be prepared to paddle. And jump to your feet. And ride it in.
Surf’s up!
Happy Thanksgiving from LeaderFOCUS!
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2000
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
LeaderFOCUS is a service of Good Stewardship Associates
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