Oh, the ironies. Here I am, thinking about streams to cross as the streams of ending and possibility, because they’re often both, right, and completely unaware at that point of the realities of streams of liquid chaos pouring in on Boulder. What fear and devastation in the lives of those who live there. Our prayers are with them.

But I was thinking of streams, if we can wrench ourselves away from that colossal event about the streams that form boundaries in our lives. They form actual boundaries for people, the people on one side of a river have often had rivalries with those on the other, They form emotional boundaries as crossing flowing water often changes our perspective. How many historical sayings do you know about the impacts of crossing a river or a body of water?

But not crossing a stream means accepting the boundaries life places on you.  It means giving up your curiosity. As much as you explore the stream on your side, there are always great possibilities on the other side. We’re meant to look beyond our shores. Peace cannot mean keeping out the other and keeping from the other. Peace, like Love, like so many other grand traits is bigger than boundaries.

And sometimes crossing a stream is not a choice. What is behind you is finished and there is only forward in life. What made me mull about this was the fact that yesterday my sister’s house sold. (in less than a week. zoom). Any lingering thoughts that life could remain in stasis for a bit are gone. No more singing that Girl Scout song that’s been on my lips for the past two weeks: “Mmmmmmmm I’d like to linger here, mmmmmmm a little longer here.”

But I like water, in fact, it’s to water I go to heal, will go to heal. And it’s water we cross for a new life, a bigger life, when we’re done playing in the shallows. However comfortable life is where we are, the grandeur of what lies beyond trumps that, even if the road is rocky. And the possibilities of Peace lure us forward with a song far more compelling than one that gently encourages us to linger…