ONE SUMMER EVENING at Pacific Beach as I paddled back into the surf to catch another wave, I noticed a fellow surfer riding toward me in a classic soul-arch stance: upright, back arched, chest out, hips forward, like a matador when a bull makes a pass. The surfer's technique was unlabored and elegant, like nothing I'd ever seen before. After another glance, I realized he was one of surfing's legends, Skip Frye, a wave-riding master in his mid-sixties whose skills and innovation in shaping surfboards have influenced several generations of the sport. With his long hair, sun-seasoned face, and quiet demeanor, he might go unnoticed on a beach boardwalk. But in the San Diego surf, among a crowded lineup of wave seekers, he stood out as the maestro.
Skip calmly stroked into the wave, stood up, and instinctively slid down an elegantly drawn line in the water. His surfboard positioning—slotting the board's rail in the sweet spot of the wave, just ahead of the curl—reminded me of a pelican as it glides down the wave's face, catching the updraft as the wave folds toward the beach. With impeccable timing the pelican will position itself inches from the water, trapping the wave's wind current by keeping its wings spread, enabling it to accelerate down the line of the wave in a graceful glide. For both the surfer and the pelican, the efficiency of the glide is dependent on their poise and balance along the ocean's surging surface.
As I continued to watch Skip, it seemed to me I was observing the timelessness of Soul—a demonstration of divine strength, grace, and vitality that defied the stereotypes of age. No one, I thought, has to surrender freedom and joy with the advancing of solar years. We don't have to accept for ourselves, or for others, a state of resignation to slowing down and sinking with age—or a state of apathy toward learning and experiencing new things. We have the God-given dominion to reject thoughts that suggest our abilities can diminish, that our expression of divine Life can somehow fade with time. Mary Baker Eddy got it right when she wrote, "Each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty, and holiness" (Science and Health, p. 246), and "Men and women of riper years and larger lessons ought to ripen into health and immortality, instead of lapsing into darkness or gloom" (p. 248).
