after i left the river trembled

You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.
Heraclitus

After this past weekend I had something all worked out to say to explain how i felt, then i realized i could not translate those thoughts into words.

I played volleyball for the first time in...four years? i forgot how much i love that game.

sarah and i canoed! and were just like these two happy campers, except...ya know, both girls...and we zig-zagged all over the river which made everyone laugh.

We expolred a cave before we ate lunch. It was really dark and very beautiful in a cave like way. As we were getting into our canoe...it slipped away from me and i fell into the water. I wanted a nice swim anyway....

Told not so spooky ghost stories and jokes around a campfire in several different languages. Made good connections all over the map.

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.
Norman Maclean

This is it.

Perhaps it was the sun setting on one half of the world to rise on the other side, this past weekend, so pregnant with possibilities, with outcomes.

I arrived at Kansas Baha'i School knowing I would hit the ground running. Literally. As soon as the car door opened I grabbed an armful of supplies and hurried to set up for the weekend event that would start in thirty minutes. Thad was by my side and we quickly* set up the banners that were to be used as decorations and tried to involve the two kids (one was 5 one was 2) in helping us. Once people arrived Thad and I led them in song and then in a pictionary game. Any one familiar with the phrase "friendly vying?" oh yeah.

While craziness was going on inside the room, I saw someone walk past the door and my head buzzed. It was someone who I had known for...wow...6, maybe more years. But in this past year they had ceased to be a child. They were becoming my peer. My eyes met Afs', we nodded our silent agreement-things would be different.

that night my room (sarah, anisa, afs, and sahba) sat up talking, at 12:30 we decided we should go to sleep, at 1:30 we were still up. Perfect since service was needed again. I needed to go to someone else's cabin to be there for their kids while the parents went to the hospital, asthma attack. scary.

I felt so visible, I felt people were overly aware of my person. I walked through the dining hall and got stopped. I got thanked for things anyone would have done. I got hugs, I got tears. It was hard.

I cannot express everything that happened. The little girl who merely needed me as a shield to eating dinner with her hero. Dancing at devotions one morning after a moving night-- Realizing the process was the reason it had happened, so that I would have family in michigan. Having my heart flood with pride for the junior youth. Seeing Zach. The warmth I felt seeing Thad being a mentor. Anisa modeling for the children. The words, the looks, the promises. Lost eye glasses....not sunglasses. Trying to live each moment so that when i was gone I could take memories out and look at them. With everything we attempted to do, is it a surprise we had a crazed drive home with four dehydrated youth?



Eternity has nothing to do with the hereafter... This is it... If you don't get it here, you won't get it anywhere. The experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life. Heaven is not the place to have the experience; here's the place to have the experience.
Joseph Campbell