Skateboarding

Ditch and I went skateboarding one night, jumping down stairs and popping ollies over curbs and such. Ditch is really good. I am okay sometimes. I think I do well for a 29 year old who has been skateboarding with any real dedication for less than a year. Whenever I'm having fun on my skateboard, I praise Jesus, because I consider it a gift from Him. I have felt like giving up more than once, until praying to the God who renews our strength (Isaiah 40:31), who even told me I would skateboard about a year and a half before I could afford a good board. Ditch and I found a really good spot at a big church, which was really productive until we noticed the "no skateboards" sign. I was hesitant to leave, but I didn't want to offend anyone, and I definitely didn't want to be a bad example to Ditch, who has yet to receive Jesus. He seemed to be waiting on my decision; it was entirely my call. I ollied down the steps on my way out.
More recently, Josh and I were at a little church where we'd just finished playing bass and guitar, respectively, for their multi-night revival. It was the final night and I'd been casing the parking lot for two nights; there was a low wall with a maybe two feet drop-off on the other side, and I wanted to ollie it. First we hit the kitchen and scored some strawberry cake. It was late and most everyone had left. Josh had already told me he used to be able to ollie down about 12 steps at a time when he was the age that normal people skateboard, so I knew whatever happened wouldn't be too impressive, but I was already committed. I'd landed something similar though smaller before in a parking lot where we'd randomly pulled the van over because smoke was coming out of the dash. This night I barely launched, much less landed. So it goes.

If I'm on my skateboard, coasting toward a curb with intentions to ollie up on top of it, I can watch the curb and begin to think about timing it, and then notice how fast I'm going, I get worried and mess up every time. But if I let the curb fade into the peripheral, and focus on the skateboard under my feet, and think about performing tried and true technique, I surprise myself by putting it right on top of the curb where it should be. I had trouble with math because I could never bring myself to trust the formulas. It wasn't enough that they demonstrably functioned to generate correct answers. Because I couldn't understand why they worked, I couldn't bring myself to commit to them. I've since learned that it is okay to trust the mathematical geniuses who've understood more than I ever will and have graciously left their methods behind for us to follow. Though I once regarded formal education as an inhibitor to creativity, I now see that learning and applying techniques, whether they be epistemological or martial arts, is conducive to freedom and spontaneity. Ensuring that we commit ourselves to the correct techniques, then, is critical. So I begin with reason to discern the technique which has taken its masters the highest, and following reason is a decision to place my faith in this technique. Faith is not careening toward the curb wildly hoping I can ollie it. Faith is concentrating on what I've been taught and shown, knowing what I must do and doing it.

We had waterfront property for a little while. We rented a small storage unit for a month, and just across the chain link security fence was a pond. Retrieving the few pieces of furniture we had stored, I savored the quiet view one last time before closing the account. It appears that we will not be moving as quickly as we, in our finite reasoning, had determined we should. The storage unit compound is on a gentle slope with smooth pavement and lots of little drop-offs built in, and I looked up and down with my skateboard in hand after loading up the Explorer. I really wanted to skate the place on my final departure, but the security cameras intimidated me. Had I thought better about it, I'd have realized that surely no one is employed to stare at a huge storage unit complex on screen. That would be intensely boring, and probably useless. Still, I didn't want any trouble before I got my deposit back. I suppose that was a violation of Resolution number three: fear less. I slipped my board back into the back of the Explorer, beside my great-grandfather's delapidated red vinyl chair, and left quietly.