We floated down the Missouri River yesterday on inner-tubes.  Using our hands as paddles we navigated the slow, steady currents and tried to keep our bodies out of the chilly water and baking in the clear sun.  The strong breeze pushed us downriver fast. 

Everything in Montana, Idaho, and Washington state is aflame in green for us.  Evergreen trees, grasslands, bumper crops–we are in awe of such color carpeting mountains and skirting the water’s edge.  Train cars lie dormant nearby envying the river’s progress.

I want to take a bite of the scenery as if it were a fresh vegetable sprouting up after a long drought.

Our friends live in East Helena.  They have a porch that gets good sunlight in the morning; rocking chairs, and hanging plants with pink flowers.  I drink fresh brewed coffee, rock back and forth, and wonder what it might be like to speak Tibetan while drilling myself mentally on Chinese words I should remember.  None of this makes sense to me; the world is incongruent at times.  In geometric terms, obtuse. 

I think of a Tibetan friend, a disillusioned monk, and rehearse conversations I would like to have with him way out in the future–on that undiscovered continent of fluency I’d love to someday set foot on.  We all have a little Christopher Columbus in us, don’t we?  Dreaming those impossible dreams of new worlds and boatloads of gold.

The kids bounce in the backyard–half-pint pioneers of the trampoline.  My thoughts bounce around, too.  There was that falcon’s nest on the telephone pole outside of Lewiston.  A wrong turn lead us there and I know those birds of prey will remain perched in my memory for weeks to come.  There were big fish bouncing around in Lake Hauser and Moses Lake–visually appealing, but good for “nothing but fertilizer” I was told by a friendly fisherman.  A startled doe that darted back into the trees when we slowed our Ford to watch her.  The feeling of walking on water like Jesus–sort of–some like to call it wakeboarding, but for me it felt like a small miracle.  Sparrows darting batlike, consuming their weight in gnats and mosquitoes, below the pier in the blueberry dusk…

Is God in this?  Does he find us on the river, in the random memory, cached away in rural China sipping yak butter tea?  I don’t know.  Facebook hasn’t helped with my searches for Him.  I’ve heard a lot of sad stories the last few weeks.  Stories that make me bleed inside.  Stories that feel like the world might really be crumbling.  Stories that plead with us to shut the book.  I’m glad that these tragic tales aren’t the only ones written or read.  I’m glad my daughter writes spontaneous worship songs.  (It’s true; it’s glorious.)  I’m glad that my wife and I still like holding hands.  I’m glad there are rivers that can still be floated.

I’m glad to float…

* – I wrote this post while listening to Jon Foreman’s “The House of God Forever”.  I recommend reading it to the same song if possible…