[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Waters

We baptized tall Ray and his small son Wesley (both redheads) this 
morning. I stood with all the others as our priest Mike called the 
Holy Spirit into the water -- for that's how I always imagine it, the 
Spirit pouring into all that intermolecular space -- and remembered 
walking nigh the river on my way to church. After several good 
snowfalls and as many thaws, the river is in full spate, roaring 
greeny-white, opaque with foam, beneath the footbridge that I take to 
walk downtown. You can almost feel the pressure on the bridge's 
structure from the sheer weight of water.

The water comes from up in the Canadian Shield, ancient rock, bleakly 
beautiful; it roars through the pretty Victorian town in which I live 
and joins the St. Lawrence, which brings masses of water out from the 
Great Lakes. The waters combined flow past the Thousand Islands, 
sculpting the resistant stone. I've seen the other end of this 
greater river, past the point where it turns tidal, heading out into 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the open Atlantic.

I thought, as I often do, of the mass and majesty of water, of its 
life-giving, life-sustaining power -- but also of the peacefulness of 
our small river in mid-August under a deep blue sky, the heron 
standing on a rock below the footbridge, the family of swans gliding 
peaceably by the road bridge further down. I thought of the ducks and 
geese bobbing in the St. Lawrence, spring through fall.

I thought of other rivers: I spent three years by the Mississippi 
when I was little, and I still have an abiding affection for the 
Deerfield and Connecticut rivers in Massachusetts and for the Rideau 
and the Ottawa and even pawky little South Branch, the creek I lived 
next to for all those years. I have a particular soft spot of the 
Madawaska, carving its way past the thin places of Combermere, 
northwest of Ottawa.

I thought of a different river, not one I could actually put my foot 
into, not one that carves and tumbles this world's stones. I know 
it's real nonetheless, because the things you see with your spirit's 
eye have a reality deeper and more solid that the mist-reality we 
move through in these days of ours. I've seen this river in my 
spirit's eye, and it is as calm and peaceful as our town's river in 
August, and on its banks are people who are more real than the 
flesh-and-blood people who stood with me in church.

There are the perfected: those whom God's grace has brought into the 
complete fullness of their being -- who are every bit exactly what 
God intended them to be in the first place. Every error fixed, every 
wound seamlessly healed, every wrong set completely to rights, every 
good gift brought to fruition, every promise fulfilled, every joy 
perfected. They are in love with each other, with themselves, and 
with the landscape they abide in. They are in love with the Light, 
which is gentle and glorious beyond imagining. I see them talking and 
laughing, except all the talk and laughter are song and every 
movement is dance.

I know that to get to *this* river, there's another river I will have 
to cross. I know, from watching, that each of us eventually comes 
over the ridge that separates the land of the living from the land of 
the dying, and there is no going back. We spend time there, and it 
can be difficult time. The river we have to cross looks so dark and 
cold and *final*, and trust as we may, we're not sure we aren't going 
to drown.

I'm walking by this dark river now with a sister in faith, who is 
facing the crossing sooner rather than later. I'm trying to be as 
present to her as possible; I try to stick close for the times when 
anxiety unnerves her. Her spirit knows that it wants to go home to 
God, but her body has its own agenda, and it's resisting the idea. We 
talk about this a lot, and she finds it helpful.

She finds it helpful too that in this small church, where Ray and 
Wesley have just received their baptismal candles, prayers are rising 
for her. Prayers are rising for her right around the world, from 
people thousands and thousands of miles away. A little awkwardly, 
she's starting to feel them and to receive their comfort and concern. 
That's helping too.

I can't help her cross this river. Eventually she's going to have to 
let go of my hand and step into it -- peacefully and in trust, I do 
hope and pray. I trust and believe that however dark and cold the 
river looks to the still-living, to the dying it is warm and 
perfectly peaceful. ]

The one thing I can give her to hang onto is that vision I have, the 
one seen with my spirit's eye.

Shall we gather at the river....