🌊How 'Bout Them Joggers?🏄

Yet another true surfing story, drawn from my years of adventure and meditation.

"The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again." - Erma Bombeck

I have a really hard time understanding joggers, don’t you?

You know, those people that run and, more often than not, claim it is some kind of fun?

Can You Figure Out Those Joggers?
Photo courtesy of Clem Onojeghuo and http://unsplash.com

Okay, maybe you do some jogging from time to time.

I guess that's none of my business. But, here’s the thing I just can’t wrap my mind around:

Often, while I’m gently bobbing a ways out from shore, relaxed, waiting for the next good set wave, I look toward the beach and see some poor soul, jogging by.

He might be running up the road, or on the sidewalk. Sometimes he may be on the beach. He could be running north or maybe he's headed south.

There he goes,

pounding along the pavement or the sand, sweating and dripping and stinking. Most of the time, he has the most excruciating expression of pain and agony on his face that you would ever want to see. His joints are taking a beating. Let’s face it, a jogger can be the very picture of misery.

What's Up With Those Joggers?
Photo courtesy of Maarten van den Heuvel and http://unsplash.com

Meanwhile, here I sit, cool and comfortable. At intervals, I am fully engaged in the unmitigated joy of soaring on the crest of a unique, dynamically changing wave. This is perfectly alternated with the short bursts of intensely healthy exercise necessary to paddle back out past the strike zone. Could anything be better?

Here's what I just can't fathom;

These poor joggers are so close to the water! There they go, straining and plodding along, glorious waves in plain sight. It's like those infinitely separated parallel lines in geometry class, or Zeno's paradox, or the two lovers who come forever closer but never meet. For Pete's sake, these blighted souls are a mere stone’s throw from the certainty of the sheer joy, the pure satisfaction, the utter bliss of riding a wave!

At times, I want to shake them!

The Sheer Joy of Surfing
Photo courtesy of Trevor Cleveland and http://unsplash.com

I want to just grab them by the shoulders, look them in the eye, and shout,

"Are you totally blind?"

How can they possibly come so close and yet completely miss what I revel in day by day? This is surely one of the great mysteries of the universe! And from where I sit, it is a very sad thing indeed.

The great mysteries of the universe...
Photo courtesy of Greg Rakozy and http://unsplash.com

By the same token,

I often wonder how anyone can live in a fabulous universe, beautifully hand-crafted by Jesus Christ, and blindly slog along day by day, completely missing the joy of life in God’s presence.