River

Joni Mitchell wrote a sad but beautiful song in 1970 called “River.” In it she described a feeling that I would guess most of us have had at some point in our lives. It is that sensation you get when you are in a spot in your life which you don’t like, at all, and you want to drift away on the movement of a river somewhere, anywhere, as long as it’s not where you are right now. In Joni’s considerably brilliant imagination, it is a frozen river that she would like to just skate away on. When I used to play that song on my (get this) “record player” back in the 70’s, I was transported down that river with her. Or at the very least, it gave me the opportunity to romanticize whatever issue it was that I was wanting to run away from, and there were a lot of those. Rivers are amazing bodies of water. They aren’t static like a lake nor are they salty and rip roaring like the powerful, untamed ocean. Rivers move and speak as they swoosh by the shoreline, beckoning us to come along for the journey. At a Bible study we did with residents at the Millbury Congregate Housing this week, one of the people said something quite wonderful. She said, once you touch the water in a river, you will never touch that same water again. River waters are of the moment and gone, of the moment and gone. She felt it was an apt metaphor for living a life that is in the present moment, not expecting things to be the same or to repeat itself. I liked that. It’s a good way to think of our Churches too and their history. One year, not even one Sunday can ever be repeated, it is all new like the passage of the river or of time. For that we can rejoice or grieve. It’s a choice, that’s all. Choose.