Life is a river (through a steep walled canyon). It is change. It moves and flows and grows and feeds and destroys and creates. It is a river that shares selflessly. When it destroys it is not evil, when it creates it is not more kind. It never runs dry until it runs dry. When it is dry it is still a river to the extent that it ever really was.
We are on that river. We have no hope of climbing out of the canyon it cuts; our only way forward is down the river. We can build a boat or just float. We can invite others onto our raft or ask to join others. We can possibly swim upstream for a short while. We can battle to evict others from their boats. We can join our boat with those of others for a flotilla. But time keeps flowing forward as the river moves to the sea.
We lose sight at times that our raft itself is not life, it is our perception of life. It is how we interact with life. The river offers rapids and eddies and speeds up and slows down. It does not advertise where these features are, we have to experience them for ourselves. We can plan for them; take steps to buttress our rafts. We can easily develop the false belief that our raft with its many improvements, its waterproofing and oar-locks, while not life itself is a bullet-proof cocoon that protects us from many of the dangers of life.
But around the bend could be class five rapids. Or it could be a wide slow calm babbling section going through the most lush valley creeping up the walls we will ever encounter. Some want the rapids, others fear them. The river forces changes to our rafts. It is not being evil or benign. It is just being a river. Don’t get mad at a river for being river-like. The river needs water. It is water, but more than that. The river would not be a river without the water. The river would still be a river without us or our floating coping mechanisms. It would neither be more or less of a river if there were no rafts or a hundred-billion rafts washed up on the shore.
My river is your river, and it is not. Today’s river is tomorrow’s other than the fact that it can never be. I tend to much prefer the quieter slower stretches but know that my potential to grow does not lie there. Why do I resist growth while bemoaning that I am stagnating?
I have been tossed from my raft many times. It takes on water every day. Left unattended that vital water would sink my raft. I have always been able to get back into my kayak, though sometimes this requires the help of others. I bail out my kayak regularly. Somedays I forget or even choose not to. Raft, kayak, potato, potat-o.
The more I fight the river the more unhappy I become. The more I share my provisions the more I receive from others. The sea is ever approaching. Today I am closer to the sea than I have ever been. We cannot know when we will reach the sea, but we will someday. How wonderful or scary (or both) that day will be. I wonder what or who else I might encounter in that vast sea?
