Peace Like a River
This has not been an easy year. In many ways, it’s been one of the very worst. For us, 2023 has been a year in which survival has all too often felt like the only attainable goal.
And we survived a lot. In these recent weeks we are grieving the sudden loss of Katie’s cousin Kenny, whose friendship meant a lot to both of us. We’re still in shock. Before that, on the health front alone, there were scary hospitalizations of two parents, human and veterinary ER visits, a surgery and painful recovery, a serious ankle sprain, and two miserable (if belated) cases of COVID-19. At one point, seemingly every appliance and pipe in our house conspired to undo us. A good friend moved away. During a work trip to Mexico, an errant (and, it turns out, uninsured) driver plowed into our parked car, annihilating the rear suspension and rendering us without our only vehicle for—let me do the math here—86 days and counting. And casting a long, dark shadow over everything else was the agonizing yet necessary and right decision to leave the church which for ten years we had (happily, mostly) called home.
So yes, that’s a lot to survive. But in a year that was marked by so much disorientation and sadness and pain of every imaginable kind, we were also recipients of some very good gifts. Thanks be to God.
This year we experienced new and deepened relationships among people we recognize as fellow sojourners, who mysteriously and meaningfully have reminded us who we really are. We have received some of the best—most natural, most breathtaking—hospitality and pastoral care you can imagine, and have maybe even been able to offer some of the same to others in turn.
We went beach camping. We rode horses through wildflowers. We extended warm bienvenidas and bienvenidos to asylum seekers. We met Jesus, again and again, in the breaking of the bread—and in the brokenness of the world he loves. We did meaningful work, paid and otherwise. We took long walks and short hikes. We took deep breaths. We lived into our shared rule of life. We ate menudo (Google it if you dare). We renewed our membership at the art museum. We got new bookshelves. We took my parents to Mexico, to meet a few of the people we love. Katie continued to thrive at a seminary that feels to us, most days, almost too good to be true. I finally got to hold a Guatemalan passport in my hands, which means more than I can say.
And in September, at long last—we’ve been wanting to do this for many, many years—we paid a visit to Laity Lodge, an ecumenical retreat center in Texas Hill Country. This is one of the places where we experienced that rich hospitality, where each conversation was better than the one before, where we ate good meals, and listened to great music, and had our imaginations stirred by wise guides.
For this first visit (there will be more, the Lord being our helper), we were thrilled to discover we’d be staying in a guest house called Black Bluff, in a cantilevered room over the Frio River, some fifty feet below. In the mornings—and just about every afternoon—I’d stand on the balcony and I’d take pictures. Each time I stopped to look at it, the river had taken on a whole new personality: different degrees of opacity, different reflections, different shades of green. (You can see what I mean in the photos to come.)
On one of the end tables in our room, there was a small black card. On the card, in crisp white text, was a blessing. A good, sturdy, generous blessing—a blessing with breathing room. Once we had returned home, where all the beautiful and terrible stuff of everyday life awaited us, I was grateful to have grabbed a picture of that card with that blessing. Its blessing is for me and for you. It’s a blessing to be passed along:
Deep peace of the running river to you
Deep peace of the flowing air to you
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you
Deep peace of the shining stars to you
Deep peace of the Son of Peace to you.
Be well, friends. Be at peace.
