Go Like A River

 “Go like a river” is both the title and the recurring theme which runs through a magnificent novel I recently read. “Go like a river” was both puzzling and consoling for me. I was intrigued not only because I have been drawn to many quotes and metaphors of water and flow and grace but also because in the context of the story it spoke of acceptance, grace and freedom. To go like a river seemed to speak of an eternity which carries all of us, an eternity with which we might participate, but more importantly an eternity which we might become.

Today in the church we celebrate and remember the baptism of Christ in the river Jordan. It has always been one of my favorites. The words which accompany my memories are belonging, believing, beloving and becoming. All “be” words. So for me baptism (and water) present or connote images of being rather than doing. The act of baptizing is less important than the transformation of spirit and soul. 

And so in Go Like A River I found myself reverberating between the roadblocks and obstacles, the loss and grief, of the narrative and the redemption leading to being absorbed in one’s life, its joys and its sorrows as stones in the river, not dams.

To complete the metaphor, however, involves not so much admiration of the concept but surrender to a new way of “being”. My growing edge has been and continues to be letting go of “shoulds” and others’ expectations, not to mention performance standards; and in that thin space of surrender to what was is revealed a vast ocean of grace, a river of mercy and compassion.

Go like a river means for me to simply be. To be carried in the flow of life without struggling but with a courage to be.