Ripple Effect

There is a mountain in my hometown. The hike is difficult but the view from the top is stunning. Last night, in keeping with recent blog themes, I dreamed that I was climbing to the top. Except, instead of doing it the traditional way and using my fully functional legs, I was in a sitting position, balancing with my arms, using my core to hold my legs in a fashion perpendicular to my torso. My legs were suspended several inches above the ground and my arms labored under my full weight. I crept up the mountain inch by inch as I moved each hand back. I didn't climb face forward, in such a way that I could see the twists and turns of the trail. Instead I moved ahead with my back to what was coming, seeing only what had been before.

When the hike was completed, no one applauded my strange victory. In fact, it would seem that everyone pitied me. After all, why would someone with working legs and feet make hiking so much more difficult?

My dreams make no sense.

Usually.

But this one is about how to move forward. Effectively.

I don't have an answer to that question yet.

Troy and Garrett and Matthew and I, we are okay. Our daily life hasn't changed. We love each other more now, perhaps, than ever before. But we find ourselves caught in the ripple effect.

The repercussions of an event or situation experienced far beyond its immediate location. And so we pray for the point of impact, the place where the rock first dropped into the glassy water. We pray for the next ripple, and the next, and the next. We find ourselves swimming toward the center, wishing, with everything we have, that we could pull the rock from the bottom, hurl it back to shore and restore the water to it's original state. But we cannot.

We find ourselves metaphorically climbing a mountain, backward, using arms instead of legs, looking only at the past. Trying to turn our heads so they are at least pointing in the right direction, but struggling against our fatigued muscles to even take the next blind step.

We find ourselves dreaming.

For in the dreaming, we can write the story differently.