Thursday, February 02, 2006

Meditation #2: The rival shore

Krista suggested I take a Day With The Lord today, and as she said it I realized it had been a while... ironic since I preach its goodness to my stinters, my staff, my everybody. So, deeply thankful that she had suggested it, I set off this morning to find God.

Toward the end of my time I was walking along the Washington side of the Columbia River, able to clearly see the far side, although it was a long way off. I suddenly realized that God was across the river, at the other side and that although I felt close to him, although I had good time in the word and praying I still felt a huge dividing chasm of water between us.

It started raining. Big, drenching raindrops, not our usual mist. I felt helpless, really, to be so far away from him, and pictured him reaching his enormous arms over the water and lifting me up and over and into him. Then I noticed some Canadian geese enjoying the river and the rain, and I thought how amazing that he made them to be like that, to scarcely notice the difference between raining and not raining.

Then one of them leapt into the sky and flew, just as a man on a kayak came around the corner. Then I noticed the bridge ahead of me. And I realized that I could get to the other side, that I could enter God's presence if I wanted to do so. There were many ways to get to him. I watched the goose fly and said to myself, "If it flies all the way across the river, then all of this must be true."

I realized that God might be on the other side of the river, but he made me with wings. And so what if I wasn't quite sure how to use them yet? There was always the kayak, always the bridge in the distance, always airplanes for that matter. I think the distance between us has too often been because I'm standing on the far shore, staring, instead of swimming, flying, kayaking, walking, praying.

The goose flew to the other side, now just a dot with two flapping lines for wings. He kept flying, up over the rival shore and into the rain-drenched mist. I stood and watched and let the rain rest on me. I felt good and clean and cold and revived and I didn't notice the rain anymore at all.

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