Praisellujah!

We were going to take couple of days to get into Daytona Beach but we had such a favourable winds that we got here in just one day of beautiful sailing - my kind of day!

Next three days we were visiting the town and going to the beach. The town was all right - nothing breathtaking but pleasant enough and it had a library with free magazines. We were anchoring by the place called Seabreze, which was a good location, close to the library and short walk to the main beach. On the crowded city beach we found ourselves among college kids enjoying weekend off. There were beautiful girls sunbathing, mingling and giggling and all-American boys playing serious touchdown. It was the herd of some thirty or so young-thugs pulverizing the beach in one than the other direction, making lots of noise and commotion in front of the ladies who pretend not to pay attention. They were very composed young ladies you might say, that is until the tide has come and one of the waves went over their blankets, magazines and all their accessories, covering everything and everyone in the mixture of sand and water. For a while every girl came to life again. Ohmygoshing and squealing was heard all around. Running and shaking lasted few minutes, until, like a pack of seagulls, they settled down on a higher ground to become composed ladies again. I must have read very amusing article in the magazine at the time, because I had this stupid grin on my face for awhile. How could I not, according to Newsweek Howard Dean was going to run for president.

On Sunday we decided to seek out a church. We haven’t been in one yet during this trip and we wanted to see where it would take us. Churches come in all different shapes and sizes as you know. Traditional Roman Catholic and Anglican, Presbyterian and solemn Lutheran, preaching Baptists, clapping Charismatic, shouting Pentecostal and endless variations, spin-offs, off-shoots, splits, spits and flavors. We decided to gamble and walk into any service we come across and just bare the consequences. In the morning we got ashore and started walking towards the town. We passed several mission churches where services were not to be held for another hour or so. We also walked into a massive Catholic church but service there was already over. We continued our walk. In a moment longer we were the only white guys around. At nearby community college we saw some church minibus picking up students - all black, of course, so we jumped in anticipating some fiery black gospel preaching service. We drove for miles and miles before we entered a compound which could be described as "professional church”. Few hundred, mostly white folk, were dressed for success and such was the church. Everything was planned, high energy and high performance. It was more a production than a service; everything was engineered and executed professionally. Projectors were beaming animated logo that looked like cable channel news, but of course it was church’s logo instead. Professional cameramen, lighting and music director were all part of the show with the pastor’s polished stage presence. No beat was missed and delivery was flawless. In style it was as close to the charismatic church as we could hope for, but somehow in this "be the best church" attitude something was amiss. If you hear Johannes or I singing “He’ll make a way” it would be the song from one of the more elaborate number performed by the choir. We were torturing each other with this song for days to come. So much for OUR spiritual maturity!

NEXT   |  POST A MESSAGE