Kansas Crik
I learned to swim in a creek (pronounced “crik”) just down a ways from my grandparents’ farmhouse, past the tractors, over the railroad tracks, crossing a bit of farmland, through a gate, to surrounding trees. Now, over half century later, I can’t place just how far farmhouse-to-water was, but it was a short distance from work to play, a longer distance if there was work along the way. It wasn’t my dad or grandpa or some swim instructor who taught me, but my Grandma Hazel and Aunt Winnie. I would splash back and forth from one to the other, more bravely each time.
As I grew older I graduated to the municipal pool in Wichita. My sister Mary was on the swim team and we had a lot of fun those summer days. Though water wasn’t streaming by, it was a longer way to the bottom, and one of my most vivid memories is being trapped underwater, huge inner tube overhead, kids’ legs surrounding me, and not able to make it to air.
I did.
In high school, Lake Olathe held even deeper water, and was also a place for exploring deeper relationships. I remember the party (AKA, a “woodsie”) we had the day our draft numbers were chosen in 1970. Some of us were going to the Viet Nam war. Others weren’t. All based on the luck of the draw.
That was a profound moment in all our lives.
I reckon swimming close to shore in the Pacific or Atlantic is the closest to bottomless water I’ve encountered, except when drowning in fathomless tears of grief or joy, where I have swum from time to time.
Deepening. A little deeper and a little deeper, sometimes just touching one toe, sometimes a plunge, a deeper dive.
That’s it. That’s what makes all the difference. Profound living is an ever-deepening process, in any part of our lives. Relationships. Learning. Knowledge. Spirituality. Unlike the earth’s oceans, there is no bottom here. There is always another zone to sink into. Another league beneath where we float today. Another tear to dive into.
Perhaps it is time to dip a toe into unknown waters once again.
Perhaps it is time to go a just a little deeper in some part of our life.
Perhaps it is time to go splash around a new crik.
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