The Many Forms of Water
:::
I am in Seattle, Washington this week, staying on Phinney Ridge just north of downtown.  I am here with party from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.  We are guests of Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church.  We have come to study a method of faith formation they call simply, The Way.  It is not so much a class, as a time and place to ask the hard questions that life forces us to ask.  Questions like: "What is my purpose?"  "How does one live an abundant life?"  "Does God exist, and if so, what does that mean?"  "What does love look like and why do I need it?"  The Way is a time and place to build relationships with people, face-to-face in a world of screens, droids and talking customer service machines.  The purpose of the Way is not to teach dogma, but to explore the infinite possibilities of grace.  It is not so much a program in which one learns Christian beliefs, as it is a process of formation.  The Way is a good process for helping one figure out what one believes, what one is passionate about, ultimately helping people become followers of Jesus Christ.
     At the center of the Way is baptism.  The Way is not a concrete road, not the solid yellow line that tells us what lane we must travel.  Just water--water that obscures the path, free-flowing water that carves its own routes.
     Before coming to Seattle, I was told to prepare for water.  I was told that there wouldn't be much snow or ice, but that the winter is rainy and wet...and not as cold as the Mid-Western winters to which I am accustomed.  I didn't bring a heavy winter coat, I brought a rain slicker.
     I have been here for five days and haven't seen much rain.
     But it has snowed just about every day...just about all day long for some four days.
     It has been beautiful and dangerous.
     Steep hills are treacherous with just a little snow or ice.  I heard from someone that Seattle only has two dozen snow ploughs.  She was not sure whether those two dozen ploughs belonged to the city or to the whole of King County.  Either way, that's not enough equipment to handle the amount of snow that has fallen on the streets and sidewalks of Phinney Ridge.  For the last two days, my gracious hosts and dear friends, Jeremy and Gina, have allowed me to drive their car.  I learned to drive in the snow.  I love driving in the snow.  I am good at it.  We have, thankfully, travelled safely.
     Tonight, after being cooped up indoors for longer-than-usual stretches of day, we decided to take a walk, the three of us.  We set out at 9:30pm after a long day of work and class.  On an hour hike, we saw one or two of the 24 ploughs.  The streets are anything but clear, and I think the population has simply given up on the sidewalks.
     Ours was a walk through the city, but it didn't feel that way.
     For a time, I hung behind my hosts and walked in silence.
     I heard the sound that I long to hear every winter: the crunch of snow beneath my feet.
     I came to Seattle to explore the deep waters of baptism.
     I was warned to prepare for water.
     And here I was, walking on it...crystallized water.
     In the city's brief moments of silence, my ears lapped up the sound of the thousands of tiny crystals crushed under my soaked shoes.  In the sound, I was transported into memories of distant times and places: trudging home from grade school in fluffy snow; the pensive strolls I would take in winter when I was in high school and college; silent walks with a beloved on crisp nights over freshly fallen snow as water continued to come down slowly and gently from on high.  There is a quiet to winter when snow is present.  It is as if the tiny crystals absorb the noise of life.  It is as if water, in that form, can somehow absorb even time so that it doesn't rush past quite so quick.
     How beautiful water is in all its forms.
   
     Even as I recollected myself in snow long since melted, I was grounded in the present.  The sidewalks were far from clear and yet a little traveled.  The paved ground I walked was uneven, rough.  The ground was slick with slush and ice.  I needed to be aware of my current footing, and wary of my next footfall.
     We came to an intersection, stopping at the light.  In Chicago, or even Rockford, we would have continued on, but people don't break jay-walking laws so flagrantly here.
     Standing on the corner, I was intent on the slush.  Between the barely discernible curb and the double tracks of vehicles that were doing their own ploughing, there was a wide expanse of gray matter.  It wasn't liquid and yet it wasn't really solid either.  The slush was certainly dirty...and messy--the kind of water that soaked your feet by caking over your shoes.  Moving on, we stepped through the slush and it was, indeed, like stepping in a puddle that clung to you and that you couldn't ever really shake off.
     I thought about how the changes and chances of life are expressed in the different forms of water.
     Life is beautiful.  Life is messy and dirty and ugly.  Life is uneven.  Life is delightfully noisy, like rushing water.  Life is sometimes profoundly silent, absorbing every distraction.  Life can be treacherous--dangerous like an un-shoveled walk.  We trudge through, stroll along, sometimes slide across, sometimes fall.  Sometimes our wheels just get stuck, or we find ourselves up to our thigh in a snow bank.  And as we walk, our shoes get wet.  It is unavoidable.  Life clings to your feet as you walk through it.  And today I wouldn't have had it any other way.  For how beautiful water is in all its forms.

     When snow is on the ground, whether in the Mid-West or in the Pacific Northwest, the way is covered--the path is hidden.  On our walk tonight, we couldn't really tell where the sidewalk was stretched out underneath the water.  It was there.  We could follow faint traces...the foot prints of those who had gone this or that particular way before.  A stretch that didn't appear to have been a sidewalk offered a clear path of hard packed snow.  Cars in the street couldn't see the two-dimensional lines that are supposed to guide drivers and keep every rider safe.  Travelers were making their own lanes.  In the treacherous snow, four lanes became two and two became one.   It was a little chaotic.  Yet it worked.
     And I thought to myself: "This is what water teaches us.  There are many paths, but only one way: forward, inexorably forward."
     The roads of faith are many, but they all go one way: toward God.
     Life and the journey of faith take us on various and sundry paths.
     But there is only one Way: through the Water.
How beautiful faith is in all its forms.
How beautiful life is...
...especially when we are together along the way.

rha