Article June 2, 2014 Issue

Surfing with Spirit

Rick Gaspard

To those unfamiliar with surfing, it may come as a surprise to learn that much of your time is spent sitting on your board in the water waiting—waiting for the next set of waves to come in. There are those days when the waves seem to roll in continuously one after another, and those sessions are never to be forgotten. But during one of those waiting periods, I found myself wanting to use the time more wisely. And it occurred to me that I could spend that time in prayer.

I have always found that prayer begins with turning to God and listening for His voice, for spontaneous and uplifting direction and inspiration. As I began to reach out to God, sitting on my surfboard in the ocean, I found myself being grateful for Christ Jesus, Mary Baker Eddy, and the prophets, whose lessons and inspirations are available to us today. I wanted to understand their lessons better, to become more familiar with the spiritual discipline they so clearly expressed.

Of course, I had none of my Christian Science literature with me, and so I had to rely on memory to recall passages from the Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s writings that I could ponder. I started with the Lord’s Prayer with its spiritual sense from the Christian Science textbook (see Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 16–17). I could recall and ponder the Ten Commandments (see Exodus 20:3–17) and the Beatitudes from the Bible (see Matthew 5:1–12).