Day Five -- Lucky 13

Saturday, January 5, 2013 • Winthrop, WA (Bluff Street House) • 10:10 AM

I check the weather forecast––the 10 day outlook––and see predictions of chance of snow, some sun, some cold, maybe rain in Wenatchee, but no big storms through next weekend (when I return to California). Meant to be? There is snow everywhere. Deep snow. Lots of snow. Picture postcard, winter-wonderland, awesomely fluffy, blue-white-gold-silver snow. Yet, for my entire two-week trip to Washington, to care for Mother, no arctic storms or polar marine depressions dumping wet whiteness, paralyzing ground movement, trapping me in or out of here.

Meant to be? There it is again. That indomitable faith in an underlying current, a something that runs beneath our rational life, a river flowing in the right direction, carrying us from destiny to destiny. When we let go and ride the river, we travel the path of least resistance, avoiding obstacles and entanglements. When we try to direct and control, to alter our course, we can miss the main channel, sometimes with grave consequences. 

There is something else about this. Maybe the things that appear to our human eyes as “bad,” from a higher (or deeper) perspective, are a natural part of the river. A turn, a dam, a narrow passage, a fall? Our intended course, our movement, without which, we’d sit stagnant and lifeless.

Fanciful? Ridiculous? Yes, it might be. But, nevertheless, I would like to live as if all things work together for good. Maybe all things want to work together for good, but we humans are the muck in the machine, the gum in the works? If so, then I need to commit to running freely, a part of the flow, not a fallen log, blocking the way for someone (anyone) else. One of God’s life-rafts in this dimension? Do I have a New Year’s resolution here?