lenten journal: god is a river

I’m tired.

This has been a busy week at work and I’ve been working hard to finish the ten gallons of soup for Empty Bowls tomorrow night, which meant I spent every spare moment of the last couple of days chopping and dicing until my hands are rough and cracked. Though dinner went well tonight, I spent the whole evening  feeling a step behind and out of sync.

I’ve now been sitting in front of a blank page for the last hour and a half, trying to figure out what I had to say on a night like this. I got tired of staring and went looking for what others had to say, which led me to this video clip posted, on Cecilia’s blog, of folksinger Peter Mayer singing his song (new to me), “God is a River.” I’ve included the lyrics to read as you listen.

One of the ways I was taught to unpack dreams is to look at what happened in the dream from the perspective of each person or thing in the dream. As a youth minister, I found it was a great approach to looking at different Bible passages – especially the parables. What did it feel like to be the prodigal son, the father, the eldest son, the servants, the pigs? What I like best about the approach to either subject is it calls me to look at the interconnectedness of the metaphors, and the consequences of interpretation.

Mayer’s image isn’t new. He's leaning into those who have sung before him:

What he does with the image that knocks me out is put us in relationship with the metaphor. His is not abstract poetry; we are called into the action with an amazing line:

God is a river, swimmer

He names God, and then he names us. The metaphor would mean something different were we fishing, or farming, or building bridges, or (as Loggins and Messina used to sing) watching the river run. But in this story, we are in the water -- not taking from or adding to or going around or sitting it out; we are in the river, swimming.

I’m grateful for such an image to feed my dreams tonight.

Peace,
Milton