the sun and the river finally come through

yep, the sun finally broke in sun river and boy do i love it!! its really beautful here, i must admit. I don't think i would buy a house here, but staying here for free is great. we river rafted all day yesterday and, as my dear friend Holly has expressed, there is just something about the river. i miss it, strangely, even though its only the 2nd time i have rafted, i really really love it.

I am a different person here. We are a group of 9: 2 my parents, 4 my siblings, 2 significant others of my siblings and 1 me. its been so long since we all spent time together in one place and i feel caught in who i used to be (reminds me of recent struggles to live out my "new" identity in Him, which is ever evolving). I am more quiet, less to say and less to contribute i feel. I feel almost completely opposite of the person i am at home and work. so different. i don't know if anyone from that world would know this person. its hard and good, exploring this other part of me, but i am still adjusting to this new skin.

so rafting, rafting was just amazing. out in the middle of the oregon desert, hot and dusty, but this lush little river winding its way through the brown. we got up really early again and i was my usual bright and sunny morning self ;)... we drove out for about 1.5 hours into this desert, jacketed up and jumped onto the river. all this movement, i need more of it. i am so still at home, the only muscle getting a good workout is my brain (followed closely by my fingers typing all day :) ). I loved just floating there, listening to our animated guide telling antidotes and jokes, all of us sort of silently listening, but still so tired from the early morning. We hit a few rapids, very chill, the sun and the scenery making up for the easy waters. The best parts of the day were when we got to a few 4-6 foot drops in the river and had to all row into them and then huddle towards the middle so we wouldn't fall out, me screaming and giggling in fear and delight. River "surfing" was amazing, getting the raft caught in the current going over a huge rock and sort of just sitting in the little suction it creates... its almost like sinking the boat on purpose, water gushing all over everyone and at the very last minute you get pulled out, everyone so happy we nearly sunk the thing. i can't explain why, but this was just the most fun, but made the least sense... so it is at times.

increasingly, i got more comfortable with being there, less in the shell and more out to be with everyone, but not over them. we laughed a lot after we "surfed" the same spot about 5 times and me and my sister were nearly sucked into the river while simultaneously we were being run over by another raft who didn't see us surfing. we were pretty much the most raucous raft out there, which i like, since i am a wanna-be rebel a lot of times. We then came to a "human rapid" which was a place where we could safely get out of the boat and get sucked into the rapids ourselves. There were dozens of red and yellow "lemmings" in the water too, other groups who were on the river jumping into it all together. We joined them and again, i could not stop laughing and screaming, the 50 degree water a shock to my sun drenched skin. We did it three times, i loved it, i couldn't get enough of jumping into the rapid water, being sucked into the white rapids and then swimming as hard as i could to the shore. I want to go again right now, i loved it so much and it feels like a sort of addiction now.

This morning, we got massages,which sounds teribly posh considering the state of most of the world. My massage woman was nice and as much as I wanted to stay silent, we got to talking, mostly about her son and college, the economy, housing prices etc. It finally came out that I worked in a church and she seemed happy, but did not ask more about it. We talked about the state of the world, the poverty and how utterly devastating it was. She just kept saying that all we can do is just take care of ourselves and do what we can that it right in front of us. She said ultimately all that matters is that we take care of ourselves, because if we don't do that, then we would never be able to help others. She did say that she knew without a doubt that whoever we believe in (i assume she meant whatever God we believe in) that they had a plan, that everything had a plan and that sometimes we can't understand it and we hust have to keep hoing. I agreed with her on that, and I added that perhaps in taking care of ourselves, we sometimes needed to take care of others in order to feed our own soul, in order to grow. She sort of dismissed it and just said we will hurt a lot of people in life and we just need to remember our intentions in the first place. The key, she said a few times, is to be open-minded.

I find it fascinating how easily the life philosophy's of people get revealed, even in one hour massages. I am fascinated at how much you can know of someone's views so quickly. She seems to share the similar widely held, but vague beliefs that a lot of people share. a vague outline of some Christ's teaching, but caught in the fog somewhere. General, but not clear. So interesting.