For the past few months, I’ve been framing my spiritual life — really, my spiritual health — with a specific image: I am floating down the river of God’s work in the world on a bright pink float that, for me, is the presence of God.
Why a river? Why a float? Why bright pink? All valid questions.
The river image comes from a long conversation with my anam cara — my soul friend — Kym. “Cathy, you’ve got to stop trying to push the river and just let it go where it’s going.”
Cathy Payne Anderson
Stop trying to push the river.
For a girl who grew up in Mississippi and North Carolina and who lives in North Georgia, the word “river” carries vivid images and profound meaning.
I know the Mighty Mississippi. I’ve seen how long and wide and powerful it is at every turn. I have spent countless sweltering summer days splashing in frigid mountain streams, mesmerized by cascading waterfalls, or simply floating down placid North Georgia rivers only to be surprised by white water waiting just around the bend.
I know rivers. And I know one thing with absolute certainty. Rivers are going to go where they go and do what they do. A scene from Out of Africa comes to mind: “This water lives in Mombasa.”
So, the thought that I was trying to “push the river” stopped me in my tracks. Kym meant I was trying to rush forward into a future where I am healed from the pain of last year. She worried I wouldn’t take the time and space I needed to work through what had to be worked through — deal with my past — before I could truly embrace the future God has for me.
“The remedy was to perch myself on the float that is the presence of God in my life.”
The remedy, then, was to perch myself on the float that is the presence of God in my life. I needed to spend time listening, praying, reading, paying attention to the moments that sparkle — a dragonfly swooping toward me in traffic, a line in a poem or lyric in a song that grabs my attention, a dream that wakes me up and reminds me to pray for a friend I haven’t seen in a while.
Why a float and not a boat? Because a float has no controls. It goes where the river takes it. My only task is to stay balanced and not fall off.
Sometimes the current is gentle, and staying between the shores is easy. Other times, the current is wild, and I end up crashing onto a shore of heartbreak, hitting my head on a low-hanging branch of confusion or getting stuck in the mud of anxiety. When that happens, the only thing to do is refocus on the float — push back out into the middle of the river of God’s work in the world and hop back up onto the bright pink float of God’s presence.
Anderson sisters
Why bright pink? I have no idea. That’s just how the image formed in my head. Now I have flamingo pink fingernails to remind me every moment — stay on the float. God is God, and I am not. Float. Trust. Breathe. Rest assured the safest place in the universe is in the presence of the God who created me, loves me and has a good plan for my life.
So, I’m floating. Some days are easier than others. The most turbulent white water I’ve encountered during this season came early in September — ironically in the same North Carolina mountains where I’ve spent so much time in actual rivers.
The plan was to spend four days at my cousins’ cabin in Brevard with my Chattanooga family, John and Roberta Echols. We were going to cook and play games and hike to waterfalls — rivers — and enjoy being together. COVID had other plans. They couldn’t come.
I had gone a day before them to set up. I already was there when we realized they couldn’t come. I was alone in a house that holds decades of family memories. The rooms are filled with the best kind of ghosts — memories of Mom and Dad, summer days when the girls were little, amazing meals cooked by Aunt Nell, walks to the lake with cousins, watching football with Uncle Jack, and on and on and on. One of my favorite photos of Mom and her sisters was taken on the back porch swing of this cabin.
“There I was, all alone and surrounded by memories of people who loved me most.”
There I was, all alone and surrounded by memories of people who loved me most in a place where my late husband, Bruce, and I had spent so many, many happy days and nights.
I decided to stay. I had a task I’d been avoiding. I spent the next three days collecting all the essays I had written from the day the first doctor said “cancer” to Bruce and me, all the way through the one titled “A million pieces all in one.” I knew when I wrote that one it was the epilogue to this collection I’d been writing. I needed them all to be in one place so I could begin to see what they might become — maybe a book about grieving without losing your mind or your faith or your joy. Who knows.
So, for hours and hours and hours, I time-traveled through the most painful season of my life. As I re-read the words, I re-lived the emotions — shock, anger, fear, hope, grief and ultimately gratitude. Gratitude for 32 years with that amazing man — the life we lived, the family we built, the faith I grew into through the joys and tears. Together, there are 147 single-spaced pages. It is a lot. And it is complete. I don’t mean I’m done grieving or living or learning. I just mean that particular season of writing is complete. And I am grateful.
I’m also hopeful about the future God is creating for me. There is a lot of joy ahead — our daughter Abby’s wedding, progress at work, good times with good friends, maybe even grandchildren and retirement at some point. And all the while, you can find me on my float, purposefully focused on the presence of God — whatever that means — each moment of each day of each year.
One day, I came home to find an unexpected package at my door. It was a gift from Kym — a package of four pool floats, one of which was hot pink — with this note: “Somehow, I can just see the pink float inflated in some corner of your house as a reminder. I don’t know what you do with the other three!!! I love you. Just a reminder to float.”
There it is, my spiritual life, floating on the hot pink float of God’s presence down the river of God’s work in this crazy world. If you’d like to join me, I’ve got three extra floats. Come on in; the water is amazing.
Cathy Anderson serves as a clinical chaplain in Kennesaw, Ga.
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The dragonfly: Always reminding me God loves us
Grief and resilience: A model for facing change