The Order of Point Break

There is a small but vital cadre of us. We are carriers and evangelicals all at once. To those who are susceptible to infection, our spirit spreads, viruslike in its holiness. We are unstoppable, but we will never conquer the earth. We have no use for power nor control. We do not need Jerusalem. We have our Mount Zion. We have found our salvation. We bask eternally and already in the Beatific Vision.

We are of the Order. The Order of Point Break.

Some deride us. They scoff and sniff and sneer at the power of the sacrament, the salving and salvation of the Eucharist. This is nothing. Their hate is a mere trifle when set against revelation. Real revelation.

Point Break.

Some do not understand. They are wrong, but their wrongness gives our righteousness its awesome strength.

When Gary Busey preaches, "I've fired my piece over 19 times in the line of duty," they ask, as we do... Ok... so did you fire your piece 20 times? We bask in the mystery. They think they have won. They think they have dismantled our religion. They carp and cavil and presume that because the truth of the scripture cannot be captured in epigrams, that there is no truth. They abandon themselves to the sulfur of skepticism.

We know that it is true because it is mysterious.

We ask, How can you dismantle something you've never truly touched?

We do not hate the unreconstructed. We reach out to embrace them, though they shower us with bitter spittle and contempt. (Oh, Lord, they know not what they do!) We do not persecute imdb.com user Latheman-9 for his failure to understand when he writes, "Unfortunately, the acting load is carried (or not) by three hams and a twinkie: Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves, Gary Busey, and Lori Petty. It's notable that the performance of the usually comically bad Swayze actually looks good in this film when compared to the others. The screenplay of W. Peter Iliff is horrendous. I notice that several commenters thought the film to be at least in part a satire, but I didn't get that impression. I think the script is just so awful it becomes unintentionally laughable. I must confess that I am at a loss to understand the rave reviews many have given this film, but it would be a very boring world if everyone had the same taste. Rating: 5/10."

Satire? No, my friend. It is the truth. It is the Word made Flesh and captured on Film. Those on the outside cannot criticize us. Their darts do not stick. Their knives do not stab. Their blows, their wild hateful haymakers hit on only air. They aim at our flesh and glance off our cloaks. They cannot hurt us; they cannot find a way in. Our armor is made of light. The light that burns in all that is true and good.

Point Break.

Latheman-9, unfortunate soul, you are right about one thing: You are at a loss. You are at a loss to understand. Without your evil, our good would not sate us.

They think it is impossible to jump out of a perfectly good airplane and fall freely at terminal velocity for over four minutes. They think they have caught our gospel in a lie when they say, If you were in freefall for four minutes, you would fall something like 50,000 feet. And that's BEFORE you opened your parachute. And Patrick Swayze says they jump from 4,000 feet. They say, It is impossible.

We say, Of course it is impossible, but answer us this -- if it's impossible, how did it happen?

They hate us, not for what we are, but for what they are. Absent. They lack presence. They are never really here. They are never really real. They wail, lost ghosts, doomed to wander without purpose or redemption. Doomed, damned, already in hell and craving their suffering. Gluttonously begging for more suffering.

We do not advise our disciples and brothers to shower the uninitiated with hate-hoots, roses, and rat heads. We pity them. We look upon them with a great and tender sadness. We feel a powerful gratitude. If they were not savage, we would not be special. We would not be elect. Our salvation would be common. Or election would be democratic. But there is only one Lawmaker, one Lawgiver. We thank them for their sacrifice, the Lost, though they know not what they do. They think themselves to be martyrs, but though they act for the religion -- the give it its most profound weight -- they cannot be saved.

They say, During the scene where they're supposed to be surfing at night, it's obvious that the director just put a cheap blue gel on the camera lens, because the sun is obviously reflecting off the waves, and at one point, there's even lensflare when the sun is actually IN THE FRAME. They say, surely this was filmed during the day.

We smile almost imperceptible smiles, and we answer, Was it? It maddens them, who do not understand. They do not understand that Katherine Bigelow was not speaking for herself. She was speaking for the spirit, all that which is eternal and holy and True. She did not make the movie. She snatched it out of the ether.

Those in the wrong choke on the waters of baptism. They shout at us, they shout us down, they raise their voices to the skies and they dismiss us. But their cries do not reach the heavens. The heavens are inside of us. We need not scream. We need but a whisper, but o! what a joyful noise! A thousand choirs, a hundred thousand hymns, a battalion of monks and a garrison of seraphs can't equal the roar of that subtle, silvery crash.

Can you hear it, my children, my brothers, my sisters and acolytes and apostles and masters? It whispers, it is whispering, with the breath of the tide rolling over into walls... Point... Break... We hear it, we hear it oh Lord!

They, the heathens, hear nothing but hissssssss... hissssssss... so they make that sound, hissssssss... hissssssss... mistaking it for holiness. They cannot translate the tongue. They misapprehend the true name of God.

Point... Break...

They do not hear the troughs and valleys of the wave as it peaks and crashes. They stand with wet feet and curse the ocean, the ocean that coolly crashes again and again. Blind as Lear, they think they have won. Shattered of kingdom and led by a fool, their triumph is hollow and short. They curse the ocean, they hate the ocean, they ebb against the ocean of life, even as it builds and builds into five foot tubular walls. What could fill you with more sorrow? Yet, what could make you feel more gratitude? You are elect! Make them comfortable with your charity. But do not expect to see them on the other side. When the great wave crashes down ending this life like an apocalyptic Ocean Spray ad, know that they will be staring blankly from the shore, wind and sand whipping their faces, holding their hats and their coats and yelling, "We'll get him when he comes back in!"

They cannot understand this one simple truth, this one simple rule, this one law that undergirds and overlays everything, all of creation, all that is visible and invisible.

You're not coming back.

Point Break is awesome.