Crossing rivers

The other day I was reading in deut 31 the song that moses sang at the end of his life and looked across the river into a land that he could not enter. Several things all converged at one time. I can in some ways relate to moses. I too have stood across the river many times from a country I could not enter. I have looked over the rushing Nemunas at the guard tower across from Rusne. I have looked over the frigid waters of the Narva River, with two imposing castles staring at each other, the EU faced off against the Russian Federation, longing to wander the dirt, chicken-filled streets of Ivangorod. I have gazed across the Bug at Belarus, seen Iran on the slopes of a distant Mt. Ararat, and now I have looked across the shallow sandy Tumen river at the most off-limits country of them all. Staring across a river at another country is a surreal feeling. (pictures on flickr) Especially when the river makes such a difference. It is almost impossible to believe that one little sandy river, easily fordable, and with no apparent guard towers or resistance, separates the easy and privileged life I lead here, from the complete otherworldness of the country over there. Just thinking about what is going on across that river, in those villages that I could see (assuming that they are not fake villages planned for the benefit of onlookers- that might very well be the case), the hillsides with every tree felled down for firewood, the rice crops planted on improbable slopes by people desperate to grow more food, the ramshackleness of some very believable huts, and the tired farmers going out to pull in the late October rice…. It is a great reminder for what a difference a river can make, and how it is only by chance that I ended up in the world on this side of it, and that they ended up on the other side of it. I don't really know what to believe sometimes of the things I hear… but I do know that living with that nearby has changed the way I see the world and live. It is hard to complain about cafeteria food that you don't like when you can look up and see those mountains. It is hard to complain about a message that bores me, knowing how desperate some people in the world are to be able to have a meeting and get teaching.

Also moses was not able to cross Jordan because of his mistakes that he made. He, as far as we know from heb 11 and jude ascended to paradise, yet the consequences of his failings were not small, even though he led a life where many things did please the father. I am confident of where I am headed after death, but some times I wonder if there will be areas in my life where I always stay on this side of the river, and curious about the other side, because of the bad decisions that I have made/am making… Standing across a river from a forbidden country is a good thing for a X'n to do. And no- looking over the Detroit river at Windsor doesn't count. :)

Peace out.