Deep Water

     Floating down a river where the water deep and dark moves lazily, or so it seems, we catch our breath and take our focus off paddling. The canoe drifts downstream at its own pace - matching the speed of the water. If our gaze rests on the river alone it appears as if we aren’t moving at all, but our movement becomes apparent when we look up and watch as we glide past the trees hanging over the shoreline, past the gulls gathered on a peninsula of sand, past the wildflowers clinging to the bank.  My eye catches small subtle whirlpools breaking the smooth surface of the water, the only indication of the rocks hiding beneath us.  We slip over them easily, but I wonder if in another summer when the rain hasn’t fed the mountains if those rocks could reach up and grab the underside of our canoe.   
     Like being on the river, our life is in constant motion. Time moves us forward and the conditions are always changing.  How deep our protective waters are determines how easily we will glide through rocky times. Our deep sense of commitment, honor, integrity, peace, faith, and love, those are our waters. There will always be rocks in the water. It is how we flow over and around them that determines how we get down the river.