O God, you are my God.
Earnestly I seek You,
my soul thirsts for You,
my body longs for You
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.
Psalm 63:1
A truly appreciated feature of this particular time at Hot Springs is how very well and strong and rested I've felt (almost) the whole time I've been here.
[Pause here to take a long swig from my water bottle.]
It can be a thing, the physicality of the whole deal. I mean, just the travel itself, walking literally kilometers in airports just to get to your gate, just so you can then sit for more hours than is recommended for one's general well-being and circulation. My wrist watch gizmo thinks it's funny, telling me that I've been sitting for too long. Ya think? All the while hurtling your body through all those time zones.
[Pause for another drink of water.]
Then when you get here there's he different food, and the potential for picking up little microscopic friends that want to help your gut clean house, so to speak. Insect bites can sometimes cause a bigger reaction than at home, not sure why. And well, there's being done in by the heat. Once I actually passed out, in a public setting no less, and required a trip to a clinic to check things out. And then there was the time when my appendix decided to rupture a mere three weeks before an intended visit (ahem...summer of 2024), and that was fun. In the 16 years I've been travelling here, one to three times per year, I've experienced the gamut more or less.
But over that time, appendix not withstanding, I've adapted and adjusted and pretty much know how to better keep myself well and strong and rested. Hint: It has a LOT to do with accepting the rhythms of a tropical environment and laying low in the afternoon heat. It seems to be working.
[Another swig.]
The quick bounce back from jet lag, jumping right in with my Thai appetite, and the clarity of mind and spirit I've enjoyed right out of the gate has made this particular visit memorable in the 'how's my body handling this?' department. By the way, this is something I ask more and more as I head towards my 70th birthday (2027).
I did have a quick 12 hour stint with dehydration the other day though. It was short-lived, but a potent reminder of how much I have to keep my fluid intake in mind. All the time. Every day.
[Oh yeah. Water.]
We were out in the sun for a bit. Not long at all. Just the walk from the overflow parking to where the graduation ceremony was taking place at the school where Chalon and Atom were marking their moments. Chalon has completed high school. Atom grade 9, which is the end of middle school here. I had water with me, but the morning had started out so nice and cool, and it didn't even seem that hot yet. Plus, I was taken with the goings on, the spaces all set up for photo shoots, and the different ways a graduate is celebrated here, with pop up booths all along the path to purchase flowers and bouquets of candy and lanyards attached to messages of congratulations. Students were handing out little thank you packets, tying strings around each others' wrists, and taking pictures. So many pictures.
I had my hat with me, which I needed, but it also made it awkward for hugging. You don't really give good hugs if you think your hat is going to tumble off the back of your head, I find. Never mind.
Maybe time to take another sip of water. Oh, more pictures. And let's go check out that one booth. And here are a group of friends who want to give something to Chalon. And it all takes its own time. That was the morning. Out for a quick lunch, then back home.
I noticed something was amiss when I woke up from my afternoon rest with difficulty. Really had to haul myself up and out of bed to prepare for the children to come by after school, which is part of the lovely rhythm of things on a normal day. And that brought me out into the warmer middle room of the guest house. And I knew then I just needed to drink more water. Lots more.
[Drinking again.]
Evening worship was....okay. The heat had cranked up by now, and I wasn't feeling quite myself. I had a rather energetic song (Your Everlasting Love) on tap for our time together, but I switched it out to Lion Hunt instead, because for that one I can stay in a chair, and anyways Goon had put in his request that very same morning, so.
Good news is that most of what I would call my recovery time happened overnight, so it didn't really interrupt the flow of my responsibilities here.
Bad news is that I had a rough night.
It all turned around by mid morning the next day. No harm, no foul. Back to my normal appetite and energies. And last night, we did do Your Everlasting Love (I keep waiting for it to lose its appeal, but we keep getting new children so....).
[Just remembering all the jumping and actions of the song really calls for a drink.]
But back to that bad night for a moment. Dehydration like that is far more than just feeling thirsty. It almost goes cellular. Feels desperate. Cognitively, I know what's going on and what to do about it. But my body is telling my nervous system that something is wrong, and the 'eeerrrggghhh' of that (wish I could record the sound effects here) is kind of intense. Almost impossible to relax into that space. And one glass of water doesn't fix it.
At the risk of ending this post on a rather obvious note, I can't help but make the comparison to times when I've let myself get spiritually dehydrated. Sneaks up on you. Can make you feel desperate. Problem is, it's harder, maybe not as easy to figure out what's wrong. Our autonomic nervous systems don't necessarily kick into place quite as automatically. And sometimes I can take a whole lot longer than 12 hours to make things right.
[Longer pause to finish off the bottle.]
And while I believe that, just by virtue of capacity, our humanity will always feel more than a bit desperate for God as the psalmist describes, its vital to make sure we don't let our spirits dry out.
And here I feel the temptation to launch into a description of all the nourishing, life-giving practices that have hydrated my soul over the years; the favourite ones, the ones that I don't prefer but are really good for me, the daily, frequent intake of all that God has to offer.
But maybe another time.
Tonight we're having a party to celebrate the end of the school year. The children's Sponsors all contributed, and we're going all out!
I'll just be sure to drink lots of water.