Getting Through

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

This morning I see the sun shining in through sporadic cloud cover. We have been flooded with rain over the last three days beginning Friday. I hear the Rio Grande is close to cresting near El Paso. A news story suggested we had nine inches of rain in the Sacramento mountains which includes Ruidoso and Cloudcroft. Our Refuge is in the mountains east of Cloudcroft.

We shared the weekend there with two other couples, close friends of ours. Who knew it would be such a weekend! Sheets of rain all day and night over two days left the dirt road a river. We spent the weekend reading and talking, cooking and eating. One set of friends had a camper, the other set, a tent. It turns out both camper and tent sprung leaks. The second night we spent together inside the refuge. I practiced much meditation, the non-apparent kid. Sitting in a recliner focusing on just being present. I read through Thich Nhat Hahn's wonderful little book on The Energy of Prayer, as well as several chapters from a book (Brave New Judaism) on the collision between science and scripture within Judaism. I also read through a few of Suzuki Roshi's teishos in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (I keep a hardcover copy of this at the Refuge). Other people read novels and whatever else they could find in the library. We had no radio, no television, and no computer Internet connection.

When it was time to leave we discovered the west exit was blocked by a river that eclipsed the road and followed it for some fifty or sixty feet nor could anticipate the flooding along the west exit, the same single lane dirt road that winds its way through the mountains down to the main road. We were prepared to spend additional days at the Refuge, but really were feeling a bit anxious about it all. A call to the Sheriff's office by us and a neighbor's ranch was responded to by a brave young man in a big Sheriff's truck. He informed the ranch people that the size of their vehicles (horse trailers and RVs) would prohibit their exit on the west exit. He thought we had a chance of getting out and he was willing to lead us out.

Our friend, pulling a camper, got seriously stuck on the muddy bottom of the refuge near the gate. We detached the camper and the Sheriff's Deputy was able to free him from the mud. We all then proceeded very gingerly out the west exit. There were moments when I really didn't think the little Honda Fit Judy and I were driving was going to make it. Some places the dirt road was a virtual river with six to eight inches of rushing water over fifty or sixty feet in length. Very scary stuff indeed.

We are now home safe and sound. I feel a great sense of relief. Yet I also feel very good about our group of friends, none of whom panicked, all of whom gathered together to meet the challenge.

Observant Jews are obligated to recite a prayer of thanks to God after surviving a harrowing circumstance like a flood. The prayer is as follows:

Transliteration: Baruch A-tah Ado-nai E-lo-hei-nu Me-lech Ha-olam Ha-go-mel Le-cha-ya-vim To-vot She-ge-ma-la-ni Tov.
Translation: Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, Who bestows kindness upon the culpable, for God has bestowed goodness to me.

Zen Buddhists, on the other hand, might have a somewhat different take. We might say there is never any danger, that danger is a mental construct built from fear and anticipatory thoughts. In circumstances such as driving through flooding waters on desolate mountain roads, we should just drive. In the end was it God who got us through? The cars? The circumstances? Our driving? The Sheriff? We should recognize and appreciate all of these. We are aware that everything is One. It is our faith in ourselves, God, and this interconnected universe that can get us through.

Be well.