God dwells within me. Inside me, water sways like a cradle rocking me, drawn like the tide to the moon, I carry my water & it carries me. Let me float into the heavens, let me unfold, be reborn immersed in the Jordan. There He will comfort me—a sky, air, light—an awakening. Beloved coming like a mercy to the ear, like this river to my body. Comes holy. Comes healing. Drenched as I am in my love for Him born anew by grace. I am a sliver of flesh re-entering the womb of light. I am Your beloved welcoming this weightlessness. I want to be buried in it; feel the gust of air, palms up reaching for the firmament while the river spills its guts in deep music; I wade out, return with a yearning I cannot name, casting off my sin like it’s an old coat. I am a star, a yellow seed turned tree, that fountain in the sun; I am beloved. He knows me. There is a great force moving through us, between us, connecting us as we walk into the river mud, the bright sky behind us a sheet of gray light. The mist of morning still clings to the water, & a long slender shape appears, gliding in the distance, & as the shape comes closer, the air clears, wings stretched in flight, gliding low out of the torn heavens, the sun transforms the river. I sink into the muck along the wet banks. Home. See the dove descend, gentle as love, vibrant with the breath of the Spirit moving over the water, its breast beating & pulsing with grace, full of joy. Here the voice of Heaven declaring goodness in His beloved. Hear the Word speaking the goodness, a blessing. Attend to the wing, the descension, the voice, the follow by grace to a joyful future. I enter the wilderness but do not begin without blessing, do not leave without traveling the path He had carved out before me, do not go without letting the word beloved echo in my journey. Though He cannot promise this blessing will free me from fear, from hunger or thirst, from the scorch of the sun, fall of night, He will be there in rest & in comfort, in the strength behind & in front of me leaning Himself toward my ear, whispering my name—beloved, the gates of Heaven thrown wide open to me, the Holy Spirit given to me—who I was erased in the flash of baptism, stillness calling me inward— I am eternally reborn.
A note from the author:
In short, “The River, Twice” is a parallelism/merging of an exploration of my own baptism in the Spirit in comparison to that of Christ. In Baptism, we are all Beloved. This piece explores the dualism of that blessing and recognition and our unification with Christ, that in that unification we may walk in his steps, hence a convergence.