Frozen. Happy Sunday!

“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus

This section of the Mousam River in Kennebunk Maine...the rapids below the dam on Route 1 and the end of the tide effect by Roger’s Pond Park...rarely freezes. The water is moving too fast, and is too churned up by the rapids. We have had almost 15 days of below zero night-time temperatures with highs for the day-light hours in the single digits, teens at most, and even the rapids can not resist that kind of cold. We did get one day in there when the temperatures reached the 20s and the skies opened and dropped a foot of fresh snow on us. In addition to the cold and snow we have had high winds most days, so the snow is drifted, and if you know drifted snow, you know that it is about as dense and solid as you can get snow without it being wet. It also provides a nice layer of insulation over the ice on the river, so I doubt the rapids are going to melt anytime soon...though we do have warmer weather, above freezeing, in the forecast for next week. I will be interested to see how long it takes the ice to go out on the river. 

Flowing water has always been associated with the spirit. It is, along with wind and breath, one of three primary images of the moving, living, spirit used in the bible...and I think most of us feel the connection, whether we know the bible or not. Rapids, waterfalls, deep pools, crashing surf, bubbling springs, even deep wells all speak to us of the source of life...the energy of creation at work in the world. The world can be a cold place...unfavorable and unforgiving of life and the spirit...and can, at least some of the time...freeze us over, so that the living water is hidden as it is all but hidden in the frozen rapids here. Still, the generous eye, the eye of the spirit in us, sees through...sees the living water in the worldly frozen lives around us. If we can’t break through the shell of ice and snow, at least we can celebrate the living water we see underneath, inside. We can offer hope. The cold will break. The days will warm. Spring will come. The rapids will flow free. And certainly we should never deny the beauty we see, even in the frozen rapids. Happy Sunday!