Beaches and Wind Blows

In my home-town, province of Jogjakarta, there are many favorite beaches: Parangtritis, Parang Kusuma, Samas, Baron, Kukup, Krakal, Kobaran, Wedi Ombo, etc. All are along the southern coast of the Java Island, straight to the Indian Ocean. Some of them are still virgin or less of human touch. When I am in Jogja I always try to spare my times to go to one of the beaches. I like going to such of places to get refreshed after a hard-working-week, or just to have a relaxation and to search for inspirations.

Now I live in Jakarta a metropolitan city and capital of Indonesia. It is about 650 kilometers away from Jogja. Though it has the famous Ancol Beach, during 4 years living in the big city, I just visited the place once. However it was treating enough to my missing of the beaches in my hometown.

Inspiring beaches

For me, beaches are always romantic as well as poetic. We can find enjoyable moments of breaking waves against corals, beautiful scenery of colorful sailing boats in the midst of the sea, swimming various little fishes, a spread out area of white sands, and waving coconut trees. How many songs, poetries, stories, paintings and pictures are inspired by the place? How many blessings could we get in the beach? Harmony, peace, serenity, faith, life, love and hope, longings and dreams are themes amongst many. From there we even can see a real analogy of horizon of our live. We can find a line which separates and unite at the same time two different worlds: world of sea and world of dry land. What if I say that a beach is a spot of interconnections between human and the ultimate orientation of all creatures? In the beaches there are always opportunities to discover mysteries of our lives in a kind of intimacy with The Creator, The Origin and The Orientation.

Beach, it’s windy!

Well, recently I am impressed by a simple fact: beach is always windy! When I realize it more deeply, it is not mere a simple fact, it is really a great-great one. Eliminate the wind (if you can) from the beach if you want a strange place! If it could be, there are no waves, no sailing boats, and no waving palm-leaves. I guarantee the beach will be so hot and boring. You even will be so exhausted on your surfing board by rowing with your hand all the time! No wind means there are no sea-water flows and no cycles of replacement. The water on your seashore will stay motionless. Furthermore, all wastes from the land will stuck in front of you to produce vile smell in time. What a dead place! Wind blow is the spirit behind the beach which makes it so vivid and wipes all the terrible imaginations above!

Wind, what are you?

Scientifically, when there are two air areas with different pressures there is a gap between them. The tension of the gap will drive an air-flow from the higher pressure to the lower one until they reach one same pressure degree. 1 mb (milibar) pressure (even less) is capable enough to make a motion, a flow of air. That is called “wind”. The bigger difference between two areas is, the stronger the power of the wind will be, and so the faster the wind will flow. Of course, it causes impacts that depend on how strong the power is. Hurricane is a terrible example to mention. It can strongly damage everything. But a breeze is a kind of wind that we are familiar with as it blows softly and can make us sleepy. We even create such of wind by turning on a fan when our room is getting hot.

Let’s go deeper from this natural fact of winds!

I wonder of equilibrium of the universe. By nature this universe provides a wonderful self-management system to maintain its existence. Something is “on” in this universe, which keeps everything in it alive, unless there are just dead matters in this planet earth. Wind blow is just a phenomenon of the existence of the “thing” in one kind of its actions.

Scientists will mention “energy” to name the thing. The scientific notion of energy comes from the Greek “energos”, means "active, working". Scientifically it is “a scalar physical quantity that is a property of objects and systems which is conserved by nature. Energy is often defined as the ability to do work” (Wikipedia).

At this point, when I tried to understand the words “active”, “working”, and “ability to do work”, I was drawn into an ancient understanding upon the original movement, nothing else than the causa prima which made the first movement (action) in the universe. In the new-age literatures (e.g.: The Secret by Rhonda Byrne) the concept of energy is a way to understand the existence of God, even though “God” is just a notion to mention the ultimate reality.

Keep the winds of heaven blowing!

For the Christians it is not hard to associate wind blows with God’s Spirit. On the Pentecost Day it was told that Jesus Christ blows upon the heads of his apostles as a sign of his giving The Holy Spirit to them. He gave them the holy power to continue his mission. Long time before Christ, the great prophet Elijah had a spiritual vision of Yahweh who appeared to him in the breeze. Even in the book of Genesis, God blew the dusty-made man with his spirit to make him live.

The biblical tradition has provided a spiritual understanding of a wind blow or a “blowing action”. Literally the second means an action of making an air-flow out of the mouth. In the light of the tradition it has special meanings which contain missions to carry out, actions to complete. What else but to actualize our humanity which contains the Spirit of God himself blown upon us from the time being? What else but to spread the God's love to every creatures all over the world?

Everyone has a special richness, a unique goodness or talents, and superiorities towards others. It is like a milibar degree in terms of air pressure. Agree or not, gaps do really exist among our milieus. Why don’t you make a flow of blessings by sharing yours to others? If so you represent the Pentecostal Spirit! Don’t let the atmosphere become hot and the air smell vile! Keep the winds of heaven blowing upon us all!

Every kind of winds has its impacts to the circumstances. What kind of impacts will you choose to make? What kind of winds of yours? What about your speeches, your words and the way you speak? Your moving actions are also your wind blows! Your pro-activities in the community are your flowing spirit given to them. And what a beautiful day to come if yours is a fragrant breeze, not a hurricane! ***