Happy Easter

First of all Happy Easter everyone. Easter here is a little different since the Muslims don’t really believe in the resurrection of Jesus. Its interesting they do believe in Jesus, but only as a great prophet not as the son of God. Essentially they believe most everything in the Old Testament as do the Jews. They do believe that a man was killed on the cross only it wasn’t Jesus. There are differing schools of thought here, most believe that a substitute was placed on the cross instead of Jesus. So the person who did die, was not really Jesus. Instead, according to their viewpoint, Jesus was most likely whisked away either to safety or to heaven. Here’s the interesting part. Even though most Muslims don’t believe in Jesus as the son of God, they do believe that he is coming back or the second coming. So all three religions, Judaism, Islam and Christianity believe that Christ is coming. For Christians and Muslims they believe Christ’s return to the be the second coming. Most Jews deny that Jesus was here the first time, thus His second coming in their mind will be the first coming. The Jews were expecting a military leader to establish a Jewish Kingdom on earth rather than a heavenly Kingdom.

The weather is starting to heat up a bit here, but I still think its beautiful. It has been in the 80’s so I figured it was as good of a time as any to break out the kayak. It had been in storage for the past five months during the fall-winter season. While the water didn’t get too cold, it was cold enough to get uncomfortable. Now the water is about 78-80 degrees or I imagine what the Atlantic feels like in the heat of summer. The bay that I usually enter in has been slowly reclaimed, that is another word for land fill. They are filling in this really nice bay so the Congressional Capitol can be built on the water. So the inlet for this huge bay has been reduced to a small channel about 7-9 feet wide. I must have went at low tide because the channel was really dumping the water into the main tributary awfully fast. It was fun riding down as I felt like I was on the rapids. I was really out of Kayak shape. The wind and the waves kept battering me. I got exhausted pretty fast. On the way back I realized my journey would be much more difficult than when I came down. There was a different in water levels by about 6 inches so I had to paddle upstream really fast. I had plenty of momentum but as soon as I hit the stream it was so strong I toppled over. I had only toppled over once previously. So I popped back up but the current was really strong. I had to lean into it so I wouldn’t be shot down the tube. Now all these landfills are filled with rocks, most of them can be considered jagged. So I quickly found myself in a semi-treacherous situation. I was trying to tug my kayak along while I traversed the rocks. The problem is that most of the rocks were covered by algae so they were quite slippery. I fell a couple of times and almost lost my kayak. That would have been an absolute pain to swim in after it. But I eventually made it past the worst of the tiny rapids. I got back in my kayak and paddled like crazy. I didn’t want to get sucked back in again. I made it, but it was a tough go. I took my Kayak out again this afternoon. The Christians in the office were given half a day off because of Easter. I thought that was awesome. So I found a new place to dock my boat. It was still rocky, but the slope was gradual and I found it to be a bit easier. As I came back I noticed an Indian guy fishing on the shore. Seeing Indians fishing is quite a common occurrence. I was having a rough time out of the water and he helped me get my balance. I asked him how the fish were biting and he responded ‘today…not so good.’ This guy, bless his heart, was fishing with a skinny piece of wood with some string/twine attached to the end with a hook. I don’t think he had any bait. Some of these laborers are so poor, this makeshift fishing pole is all he could afford. This guy was probably fishing for his dinner. Maybe he could catch something small, cook it, and add a little flavor to his rice. It just humbled me to realize how good I really have it.