Slouching Towards Amman

 

    Have you ever tried to dry scrub a pair of boots? 

    It's a terrible task, scraping a rag over the mud-caked rubber and cloth while the rag gets Sisiphusianly dirtied and your boots look the same. However, when you add a little bit of water, it's a piece of cake. Water is the ultimate binder and unbinder for all things alive. It can do everything from binding 74% of your body together (100% if we round up) to unbinding the mud off of your caving boots and sin out of your body. 

    When I was a kid, I spent a decent amount of time in churches. It was underneath the stained glass halls and the watchful eye of the Virgin Mary where we learned about a man from 2000 years ago named John. Unlike me, John was a holy man. On the other hand, like me, John was also a river rat. Except his river was called The Jordan, not the Delaware. Both sustained through their lifebloods a city called Philadelphia, whose residents lived, laughed, and died along its banks. 

    John was also a fisherman, except his quarry were things called souls, not bass or trout or catfish. He was once a fisherman after fish like me, except he gave up that lifestyle long ago. John was done with hopping around secret spots. He would announce his honey-hole on the Jordan like a Facebook Fisherman of yesterday and let the souls flock up the river to him like a school of springtime shad up my Delaware, where he would use water's magical properties to the fullest extent, binding and unbinding souls like the washing of mud off of my boots. 

    Sometimes, I wish I was one of them. I left the church when I was 15, wishing, hoping that I'm wrong. I've been seeing God a lot more lately, be it the God of Abraham or God of Rivers, although they're likely one and the same. Maybe it doesn't matter which one.