Recently I took a small ‘holiday’ to the Krajina region of Bosnia (northwestern part), to visit friends near Sanski Most, in the village of Hrustovo. I went with my friend and colleague Amra and her daughter Uma with the intention of enjoying some cool water in the hottest weeks of the summer. Our Hrustvo friends, Vahidin and Timka, took us to enjoy the Sanica river, a tributary of one of Bosnia’s main rivers, the Sana. Bosnia-Herzegovina is a land of rivers, and of water more generally. You find water almost everywhere, coming out of the sides of mountains, bubbling up from springs, etc. And usually it is so clean you can drink it. In my mind it may be Bosnia’s most valuable resource and it seems to be both loved and taken for granted.
Water is a very significant part of my journey. It is both a reality and a symbol that is very powerful in my life. So it is not surprising that I have been internalizing a very powerful mental image that came from my experience with the Sanica.
*****
I was in my bathing suit in the Sanica river, crouching on a stone where the water spilled over the edge of a small waterfall into a big pool. Under my feet was thick, soft moss and my toes curled around the mossy stone, so I hovered over the waterfall’s cascade. Water was streaming on all sides of me, over my feet, through my legs. In this position, I cupped my hands by my feet, to catch some of the waterfall’s gushing, somehow to hold it as part of me. The water happily poured into my hands, but instead of remaining there, simply rolled over and past them, a continual overflow.
This captivating experience immediately reminded me of encountering God. He is constantly coming into us, pouring out his love through our whole beings, but that love and that encounter cannot be held. It continues on, flowing through us, as something we can experience but not catch. In fact, the reality of that encounter is only fresh and overwhelming because it is surging along with great force and vitality.
I expressed these sentiments to Amra, who was below me in the water. Later, she told me how, from her perspective looking up at me from the pool, she could see this massive flow of the whole river, rushing around me, and my small hands cupping some little bit of that water. For her, the picture was like God’s vast and relentless outpouring around us, which we cannot even see or feel, but it surrounds us, while we attempt to connect with it or hold it, to participate with it in our concrete lives.
Now, everytime i am overwhelmed by something of this world, this dunjaluk, i remember this image (both my perspective and hers) and know I can cup my hands to experience that overflowing merciful love, and yet I can only channel it, I cannot keep it for myself. It is an infinite flood.
little steps 