the lake
05/25/2009

Childhood, Adulthood, and Everything in Between

3

kayakers1

I’m sitting on the dock at the lake. My nine year old daughter, Riley, and my 6 year old son, Seth, are kayaking in front of me in the high grass where the earth and water meet each other. They splash each other and their cousin, Emmet, who paddles next to them. Its an idyllic moment.

In the meantime, at the end of the dock, there are another dozen kids readying to go on an adventure in a boat. They banter back and forth as they wait for another cousin to run down from the house and get on board.

On the south side of the dock, there are 6 kids dipping in the cool lake while the warm sun shines on them. They play king of the mountain on a tube and see who can push the others off. They splash incessantly and let out yelps of joy each time one of them falls in. They are innocent and uninhibited.

Time stands still.

The boat engine breaks the sound of the waves lapping against the dock. The teenage kids pull away from the dock slowly. They turn the boat with skill and disappear around the bend. With no adults to hold them back their adventure is underway.

Five minutes later the kayakers are in the water swimming off the end of the dock. They do cannonballs and belly flops laughing at the sheer joy of jumping into the water. Their friends are here with them and they could swim and play for hours without a care in the world. Every once in a while a shivering kid runs by on his way to or from the shore.

Time stands still.

The adults meander down to the dock and back. Sitting for a while and talking. Reading and soaking in rays of sun. Drinking tea or coke or sipping a glass of wine or beer. They stop for a light lunch of sandwiches and chips. Then return to the the dock or sit on a boat or relax in chairs by the shore.

We share smalltalk with our neighbors and enjoy the peaceful setting together. We are just being.

Earth, sun, water, clouds. People. All together for this moment. It’s just a moment.

Time stands still.

I flash back to first time my oldest child, Caleb, ever swam in this lake. It seems strangely like a lifetime ago and yet also like a blink of an eye. I remember my own first days swimming in the lake and exploring it’s depths. Wading in shallow water looking for fish or casting a rod toward a promising hole.

That does seem like a lifetime ago.

Time doesn’t stand still. It marches on and we march on with it. Maybe Elise and I will be sitting on this dock in 10 years watching our grandchildren tiptoe into the water.

But for now we just enjoy this moment without expectation. We have no hurry and no worry. We just let the moment be.

I finish writing and slip into the water myself. I swim well out into the lake. When I turn around. From the lake looking back I see all of the faces and bodies. Some have shaped my life, some lives I shape. Children, adults, and everything in between.

09/01/2008

On the water…

0

I have had a great time this summer spending time with the Lord in the mornings on the lake. The routine has been getting up around 6:30-7:00am getting on the water quickly, Arrowhead for coffee and a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich, and then off to a spot to read, pray and memorize. I have spent most of that time memorizing Colossians 3, listening for God and trying to relearn how to to pray in the spirit and develop a prayer language.

The memory work is relatively easy and just comes from consistent effort. Learning a prayer language has been much more challenging. I spent most of the summer asking God for the gift, and the last few weeks speaking sounds. I don’t know what they are, mean, or even if they are real. After having talked to Keith and Paul and others about it I just decided to keep on speaking and see what happens. I honestly don’t feel particularly like the Spirit is speaking through me, or that something is happening other than normal sounds that don’t make sense to me. I definitely haven’t felt the release feeling that I have felt in other places where I have been broken and yielded myself, or in dreams or at times when I felt like I was going to speak in a tongue.

This has been a good opportunity to simply trust. I don’t know what is happening, I just know that I want to be fully yielded to God, I believe this gift is available to all, and it takes our initiative to cultivate. I’d like the feeling to go along with it because that makes things easy, but where is the faith in that. Faith in Jesus is enough, I’m going to continue to speak in faith.

I am going home quite full from this time with the Lord. He also gave me a word while I was out through a Bebo song called Walk Down This Mountain. It is about Peter and his experience at the transfiguration where he was wanting to create houses for Jesus and Elijah and Moses. He wanted to stay on the mountaintop. I find this to be true all the time in my life. I want my mornings on the lake to last forever. I want to stay in places where I have heard God speak, felt his presence, or been in sweet communion with someone in His presence.

However, as great as those times are and as filling in the spirit as they can be, the daily battles and plays of life are played out in real time, in the work world with employees and clients, in families with parents and children and siblings, in churches and other organizations, and with my neighbor every day. Staying on the mountain wasn’t an option for Christ, Peter, James & John, and it isn’t an option for me today. I need to remember this frequently. As Henri Nouwen said, “nothing conflicts with the love of Christ like service to Christ”. If I’m not careful I will make mountaintops my life and my life irrelevant to my faith.

Time to walk down the mountain.

GSR