Water can be cruel. It surrounds everything and can take on the form of any container. Bruce Lee said something once eloquent about water, but after swimming through the Scioto (at least I think it was the Scioto!) river last week the only quote about water would best be reserved for an obscenity.
The idea to canoe was not mine by far. As part of the Junior High work camp, the kayaking and canoe portion of the day was a scheduled reprieve from the work day we had been doing. The first thought in my journal that morning was how worrisome I was. I joke about how "my people" aren't akin to being around water (despite the irony of the numerous wetback jokes and crossing the border quips I grew up with). Coupled with my size, I'm about as graceful as a hippo in a bath of jello. The life jacket looked like an orange scarf around my neck (the strap went just below my right man boob) and the kayaks looked like they were made for pigmies.
Dalton (this summer has also been great because I've spent most of it with my "second son") and I settled on a canoe and it wasn't 10 minutes into it that we flipped. Our boat coasted away from the both of us and I found myself floating in the middle of the river looking for a sandbar.
I ended up on the right side of the bank across from Dalton and I tried to swim back upstream to him. Bad idea. I just continued to float down river. Eventually I went back to the right and waited for any sight of the boat. One of the junior high kids seemed to have stopped it, but the sight of him laying on top of the canoe while it continued to float wasn't a great omen. Josh, one of our senior leaders, jumped out of his kayak all Aqua-man style and went after our wayward boat.
I first floated down stream holding onto the kayak. At one point, I found myself alone. The fear of embarrassment subsided some, so I decided to try the kayak in hopes of reaching the party. Somebody probably has my attempt to board the kayak on some redneck funniest home videos. My legs were hanging out of the boat like slabs of ham as I sunk into the seat. The first move I made with the oar I flipped again. Of all the luck, I'd be the one casualty: Obese man drowns in 1/2 feet of water!
Seeing no one on either side of me, I dragged the kayak back to the sandbar, dumped the water out and threw off my life jacket. I saw the corn field just above the shore line, and somewhere beyond there was the road we came in on. I started to walk towards the field. The thought in my mind was to give up right there and then and meet everyone back at the rendezvous point. I'd give everyone a laugh about what happened, blow off the stress and embarrassment like I typically do, just to save face.
The shore line extended onward, so before hiking up to the field I figured I'd keep walking the bank until I'd get to the boat. Once I got to the next bend, I still saw no boat. But I did hear voices. Distant, but a call nonetheless. I had a decision to make. Float onward with the kayak to find the boat (I kept thinking, could I float for 3 hours downriver to the end?), walk into the mystery of the corn, or just sit there and await help.
This summer had not been one of quitting. This was the summer of Living and Revealing the Kingdom (LARK), dammit! I didn't give up in Oklahoma, when the heat and unforgiving wheat field tempted me otherwise. When the emotions were more blinding than sweat, when that ache punctured my ribs as I walked up that road where the elementary school once stood. There was my daughter in boot camp hundred of miles away in South Carolina, battling her own fatigue and mind games. But she prevailed too. So, what was so unnerving about that muddy, murky river?
I thought about Miss Jaunita, whose house we were serving this past week with the junior high kids. Had she given up? Miss Jaunita, widowed and home bound. The only company she had most of the day was her pet poodle Diva, her home nurse and the Avon lady. She crutched around the house on one leg while the home she grew up in slowly crumbled around her.
So armed with paint, lumber and plenty of juvenile energy, we took upon the task of rebuilding her wobbly wheelchair ramp. We repainted her room and ripped up the carpet to reveal the original wood floors. Moss and fungus had begin growing on the deck in that it created a slippery, hazardous layer for Miss Jaunita to ever enjoy her back yard scenery.
So we scraped (our power washer was more of a sprinkler head) the green away and repainted it a vibrant red. There were moments during the week when we found ourselves on our hands and knees peeling away layers. Same thing with the carpet. Ripping it up left small chunks of padding that had stubbornly attached itself to the original wood.
Scraping away the barnacles from ones life was where I found myself again. Despite knowing that God had washed away my sins, the reflection in the mirror reveals old scars, bruises and imperfections. But it's my eyes that see it, continues to see it despite the devotions, the bible studies or the prayers. It's the sin that sticks. Like quitting. Pride should have kept me away from the sandbar, but the spineless part of me has always been stronger.
Eventually I was reunited with the boat. We took an extra passenger and the remaining trip was one made surrounded by parents and friends. We flipped a few more times too, at one point Dalton and I were sailing the boat backwards, but we made the tour. We were witnesses to another day of God's immense beauty, the hills that extended upwards in rocky slants, the bugs that skated across the surface, and even the menacing curvature of the water as it rippled and splashed.
At the very end, on out last turn, we saw the group ashore. I don't know how long they had been waiting on us. A clap began from somewhere, and there we were, greeted by a group of friends. Had I given up, I'd have missed the ceremony. I'd have missed the group of crazy Christians welcoming us home. We must have looked the same to Miss Jaunita on our last day, trying to squeeze ourselves in the frame of a camera lens. The cool thin about God's kingdom is that there is room for us all. We're being clapped home even when we don't realize it.
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