Into the deep

The Nooksack River, once nearly overflowing its banks and carrying uprooted logs like sticks in its Spring current, has settled down. Our retriever Zuni, a desert transplant, initially approached this river with much trepidation. She started out by just dipping her toes into the water and then she went paw deep and now she will go all the way up until the water touches her belly. Along the way, she learned to “fetch” as we threw small sticks into the water near her.

In these summer days, all the sticks and debris deposited in high water have been turned into fetch toys and ended up downstream somewhere.  Because the river bank is empty, we bought a bright, floating fetch toy to encourage her splashing in the shallows.  But today at a new spot in the river, I accidentally threw the fetch toy too far . She ran out to the edge of her comfort zone, began to take the next step, and then realized it was a drop off.

What to do?

We watched as she contemplated her next step. Should she simply watch her bright orange fetch toy slowly float down the river or rescue it from an uncertain future?  She inched forward. She inched back.  She wiggled. She stretched her neck out. And then suddenly she made the decision to just dive on in.  We marveled as she grabbed the fetch toy, confidently paddled through the deeper water

toward shore,  and dropped it at our feet.  I expected her to be hesitant, but she danced back out into the water craving a repeat experience.  As I watched her dive into the unknown again, I realized she  had learned a valuable lesson:

What she wanted was far more valuable than her fear. It was worth the risk.

And it got me thinking. Isn’t that what we do as human beings as well? I don’t know about you, but for most of my life, I have been wandering around in the shallows of my life - pulling back whenever my feet would leave the comfort of that secure shore. I can’t tell you how many metaphorical fetch toys I have let pass down the river and stood paralyzed by my own fear of trying to extend my boundaries.

Zuni was able to leave the safety of the shore and take a risk only because the desires of her heart were stronger than her fear. And that begs the question for me, and possibly for you as well, what is the true desire for which I would be willing to risk everything?

Honestly, a crowd of  loud voices drowns out the call of the river within me. Some linger from childhood.  Some try to steal the remembrance of my heart’s call.  And some, planted as tiny seeds along the way, have now grown to a tangle of branches through which it is hard to even find a pathway to the shore.

But I did know the way once. When I was young.

I could feel the call in my bones with a force so powerful I thought it would consume me. The tiniest moments of beauty would cause me to weep inconsolably, and I ached to crawl into the very landscape and be cradled by it. A symphony would play, and I would get swallowed up in the sound, my raw skin caressed and soothed by the notes.

Over the years, those voices had convinced me that being in the current is meant for braver souls.  But perhaps it is time to trap those voices in a jar like angry bees, and let them buzz incomprehensibly around me as I move forward anyway.

Perhaps it is it is time to leave the safety of the shallows and surrender to the call of the current that carries the desires of my heart.

And perhaps it is time to embrace the words of Flannery O’Connor that the artist prays by creating , and simply spend what is left of my days in ceaseless prayer.

Then, and only then, will I never be content to remain on shore again.