The Perfect Wave

Isaiah 43: 1-2

Ken Whitt                       February 4, 2007

(Transcribed from tape by Kathy Russell and edited for publication by Ken Whitt)

What do you know about the perfect wave? When you hear that phrase? “The perfect wave,” what does it bring to mind?

Yes, Curtis, that’s right. That is the “perfect wave” that they teach to a teenage girl who is elected as festival queen. She’s going to be riding for two hours in a parade and she’s going to be exhausted, so she learns to wave “like this,” and then they almost invisibly shift the wave when they get tired to the other hand. And they smile and they just keep on smiling and waving for a couple hours, no problem, because they’ve got the perfect wave.

There’s an exciting movie—I liked it---called the “The Perfect Storm” and within the perfect storm you see the perfect wave and its as tall as a skyscraper and it sweeps and destroys anything in its path. Its based on an actual event of a perfect storm in 1991 in the Atlantic Ocean.

And then there’s the perfect wave that these surfers were seeking in another movie and they went all over the globe and they went to Hawaii, and they went to California, and they sought the perfect wave everywhere. If they could just find the perfect wave, their lives would be perfect. Finally they make it to the south shore of Australia, if I recall, and near the great barrier reef they find the perfect wave, and their lives from that point on were “perfect.”

And then there’s my own perfect wave; the wave I saw and needed to photograph. It was astounding. It was huge. It was powerful. And I needed to take a picture of it because it was so perfect and so powerful, and so I stood beside the Niagara River just below Niagara Falls, in an area called the whirlpool, an area of watery chaos. You can take a tram ride across the whirlpool from Canada, you can look down into chaos and see the perfect wave. But here I am along side the river and I, and I see this wave, and I have to take the picture of it, but the wave doesn’t stay in one place. It changes, and only occasionally does it throw water up into the air, so I’m there with my digital camera and I am focused on this wave. I have almost every fiber of my being, every ounce of my energy focused on the whirlpool. And the wave rises and I take a picture, but its not quite perfect and it rises again and I keep taking pictures of the perfect wave. And so you can remember this story and its message a copy of the photo I call “The Perfect Wave,” is at the top of p. 1 of this sermon and I will hang a larger copy in the fellowship area of the church.

So there I am, standing beside a raging river taking pictures of the wave, and something happes, and I’m going to tell you about that in a couple of minutes, but before I do, I have three things I want to share, first the scripture lesson, then a story, and then a question.

The scripture lesson will be from Isaiah 43, just the first two verses.

Presence and Passage and Protection Promised

      But now thus says the LORD,
      God who created you, O Jacob,
      God who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
      I have called you by name, you are mine.
² When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
      and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
      and the flame shall not consume you.

Isaiah speaks the Word of God, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you, and when you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” Notice the promises of God, the promisesof God is not: “no flames, no flood, no storm.” The promise of God is presence, passage and protection. There will be, you know it already, there will be storms, and there will be fire, but the promise of God is presence and passage and protection in the storm and through the fire.

Okay, now the story. Its about, 9:00 in the morning, a pleasant early spring morning in Littleton, Massachusetts in 1987, and the phone rings, and it’s the dispatcher of the Littleton Police Department, and she tells me to come to the station immediately and meet with Sgt. Paul Hollingsworth, a member of my church. So, I drive immediately to the station and Paul tells me that a young man in our church, David, that David was buried in a construction accident up the road, just a few minutes.

David’s body is now lying on a slab of steel underneath the police station And we go down to look at David. He’s covered with dirt, and thus begins an event of ministry, a storm and raging fire, unlike any that I have ever experienced before or since, a truly nearly consuming fire for David’s family, for his wife, Laurie, for their little son, Andrew, for friends, family, church members, a raging storm, a consuming fire. Somehow I was protected and even inspired in doing my work of bringing comfort and hope to people I loved as they passed through the fire. We all passed through and we all found our way to a new day and life continued, and we focused, like I was focused on that perfect wave, taking the perfect picture. We focused on the living and we focused on the rest of our lives, and we went on about whatever business God gave us to attend to. And then one morning, I woke up out of a sound sleep having had a nightmare, and it was frightening, and I was filled with fear, and I was filled with grief.

I began to attend to this painful energy pouring out of me, and it took me a day or so of feeling this mighty grief to realize that much of my pain, when David died, has stayed locked inside my heart.

So, six months later, there it is again, unsought, unknown, surprising fears, grief, anger, suffering, arising from the inside out into my life again. And that’s the question I want to ask. Have you ever had that experience? Where you passed through a mighty grief and thought you had left it behind, and then suddenly it rises up like a mighty storm, like a consuming fire, and there you are again, caught in the suffering. And one of the things you think when you get caught in that suffering again is that you must have done something wrong. If you had dealt with it the first time, it wouldn’t have come back the second time or the third time.

But that’s simply not true. Grief has a life of its own and it will come back when it needs to come back if it decides to return, and you didn’t do anything wrong. Its just the way life is.

Life contains storms, and they impact our lives in unpredictable ways and they return in whatever season they choose to return, and that’s the way it is. There is no promise that there will be no storms. No promise that there will be no fire. But there is promise of passage through the storm and through the fire.

Okay, back to the perfect wave. I was standing beside the Niagara River for a fairly unusual reason. Back in Bucyrus, Ohio, I had been dealing with quite a bit of stress, but I thought I was OK. I was not as OK as I thought. I was doing the best I knew how to do including keeping up a conversation with supportive friends. .

And one day I was taking with a friend, and she said to me, “Ken, I need to tell you something. Micah’s about to go off to college. You’re going to have an empty nest. Its time to deal with your anger and your pain relating to the divorce.” My divorce had happened 10 years earlier. Even the counselor I saw was confident I had dealt well with my pain and moved on. Not so. The moment I heard my friend’s advisory I knew it was not so. Rather than defending myself from her input, I knew immediately that it was true. I knew she was right because spontaneously grief and anger erupted inside me like waking up out of a nightmare, and I was filled with anger and I was filled with pain, and I was aware of all of the hurt that I had left unattended so that I could take care of my kids for the past 10 years because they were my focus and the church was my focus, and that’s what I paid attention to.

But now it was time, and the storm began to roar again, and demanded my attention so severely that I knew I had to get out of town to somewhere safe. I called my cousin, Shari, who lives near Niagara Falls; who is a very nurturing person, who loves me as a brother. She’s been through a lot in her life, and I asked if I could come stay for a while, at her home, and, of course, she said “yes.”

I drove six hours to her home and stayed five days and every day we found time to talk. It was a very nurturing and to week and to share the pain. It was a protective place to be for awhile as I began to come to terms to the fact that a storm that I thought was in the past, was really in the present. The second day I was there, her husband, Neil and I decided to take a hike into the Niagara River gorge.

Wee hiked down into the gorge on a trail that was built by the Works Project Administration in the great depression. And, unless you live near Niagara Falls, you don’t even know this trail is there. Its not in any of the tourist books.

Tourists don’t go to Niagara Falls and hike down to the gorge and stand beside the whirlpool because they don’t know that you can and because it is too dangerous. But we do that and we’re standing beside the whirlpool and I’m taking pictures all over.

I’m standing there focused and I’m taking my perfect picture of the perfect wave when all of a sudden out the tiniest corner of my mind, I notice that there is some water that has just sprayed up on my foot,. But I’m focused. I’m just barely paying attention to anything happening around me. I’m focused on the photograph. I just said do myself, “A little water is no problem.” But a minute or so later I’m still focused, I’m still taking these pictures and I notice that the water is now sweeping over my feet, the river has changed course, and now my feet are soaked.

I decided, but this was just out of a corner of my mind, I decided it was probably a good idea to step back, so I lifted my foot and when I lifted my foot I went flying up in the air, because of the now extremely wet slippery rock, and came crashing down on my spine, and was almost literally knocked unconscious. I slid into the Niagara River.

A man down the way said he saw it happen, and he was sure he was going to have to do something crazy to try to fish me out of the river, out of the waves, out of the rapids. A photo of the exact spot is printed below.

I’m hardly conscious, but I’m able to crawl my way up onto the rocks and just lie there in the shallow water right on the rocks. But I can’t talk. I mean, I’m so much in pain, and I’m so close to unconsciousness, and Neil is saying, “Ken are you okay, Ken are you okay?”. And I can’t even talk, and finally about five minutes later I’m able to get some words out, “Neil, I’m okay, I’m going to live. I’m okay”. Fifteen or so minutes later the pain is easing a little, and I’m able to stand up and he gives me his coat, because I’m totally soaked in this October cold, and I could barely stand, but I’m standing there, and we’re trying to decide what we’re going to do. I can’t walk out of the gorge, I’m sure I can’t, but some time passes and I begin to take some steps and maybe I can climb over those rocks and get out the gorge, and that’s what eventually happens.

Given an hour or so for the pain to ease and the trembling to ease, I get it together and I’m able to walk out. I am so glad that I don’t have to call for a helicopter, and as I’m walking out, I’m beginning a conversation with God.

What in the world was that all about? What happened? I’ve been alive on this earth 57 years and I’ve never had anything like that kind of drama happen in my life. It nearly killed me. Why did it happen now when I am feeling all this anger and grief? And this is the answer that I got immediately that filled my head. I heard God’s word.

When you’re focused in your life on whatever it is you’re focused on, your children, your job, danger can begin to lap at your feet at any moment and you do not see it. And that’s just the way it is. And maybe you can learn to protect yourself from the dangers, maybe there are things you can teach yourself that will be helpful. But none-the-less, the time will come, if you live long enough, when you’re focused again, and the danger begins to lap at your feet, and you won’t notice it until its too late, and you will go flying up in the air, and you will come crashing down and it may almost kill you. You may slide into the Niagara River or some other river, but you won’t get swept away by the flood. You crawl out of the river, and you eventually stand, and you walk away from the river. And all this happens because though there is no promise of no storm, and no promise of no fire; there is a promise of the protection and the passage and the presence of God. That’s the promise we all get. We all get the promise of presence, protection and passage through every storm of our lives.

So we don’t need to be so afraid. We certainly don’t need to feel all alone when the storm comes, and it will and when it comes again, and it will. The storm did not choose you personally. You are not being singled out and you aren’t some kind of exception, and life isn’t treating you unfairly, and you did not do something wrong.

Its just the way life is. Life has storms. There is no promise of “no storm, no fire, no flood.” There’s only the promise of presence, passage and protection when the fire is burning and the storm is raging.

So I will hang on the wall my picture of the perfect wave. I love this picture. I took it myself. I focused on it. It caused a nearly fatal accident, which makes me like it even more. And I printed it myself, and I love the artistic work of that.

But mostly what I like is the message from God that I received as I was, in a crippled fashion, staggering my way through a difficult time in my life and staggering my way up the trail out of the Niagara River gorge. What I especially love is that God is with me in the flood, and in the fire, and I didn’t do anything wrong to cause the fire or the flood; it’s not my fault, and it will immerge again in its own time, and that’s not my fault either. Its just the way it is. And because that is the way it is, I will always need God and God will always be there.

So be it.

Amen.