Lessons from the Mississippi River:

Last summer, my sister and I spent a couple days at a Shakespeare festival in Winona, MN while camping on the Mississippi River. One deceptively sunny morning, having several hours to kill before the play in the evening, we decided to take a canoe trip on the Mississippi, since our campground rented canoes for a reasonable price and it's something we both enjoy doing. It was supposed to be a really nice day, despite the high waters of the Mississippi caused by recent rainfall. We spent about half an hour trying to figure out how to get to the main channel of the Mississippi, then our attention was drawn elsewhere; there were dark clouds coming straight at us. We had hoped they were just rain clouds since it had been a while since we had seen a solid piece of land on which we could make port, but our hopes of this soon vanished as we heard a rumbling approaching from the cloud. We immediately began scanning the horizon for any sort of land on which we could escape the encroaching storm and, just as the clouds and rain were beginning to overtake us, we found a thin stretch of land, partially, but not entirely underwater. We pulled the canoe ashore and the thunderstorm began. I took out my cell phone, desperate to tell someone where we were, only to discover that it had died; some water had probably managed to leak into the bag. We were stranded, just to two of us, in a thunderstorm, on an island with an abundance of trees, any one of which could easily be struck by lightning at any moment. We passed the time, singing random songs, shrieking at the storm to cease, and, above all, praying that we'd survive. Even during the storm, it dawned on me, that the situation had an odd similarity to the Biblical account of Jesus sleeping through a storm on the boat. My sister and I were like the disciples, crying out for Him to save us because we thought we were going to die. Eventually the storm abated and we high-tailed it back to shore without incident, thanking God that He had finally commanded "Peace, be still!"

This year we got to experience another Bible story first-hand: The Good Samaritan. We went canoeing again, this time making sure to ask whether there were any storms in the forecast. This time we had a plan; we were going to go for about an hour and a half down the river, turn around, come back and make the 2 pm matinee of King Lear. The first part of that went well. We made it to the actual river this time, not just a tributary and heard the noon-bells chime from one of the local churches. We were all set to turn around, but then we spent about 15 minutes paddling before realizing that we were getting absolutely nowhere. Since the cell phone once again wasn't working, this time due to lack of reception, we decided to follow the river, since, like it or not, that seemed to be our only option and hope that there would be a branch off that would take us to camp. Well, we'd been going on this plan for about an hour and a half, with no sign of a path to lead us back to the camp. By this time we'd given up on getting back in time for the play and were just trying to figure out how to get back. That was when our first "Good Samaritan" came along, tied our canoe up to the back of his motorboat and towed us quite a ways until the waters were calmer. He let us go there, telling us to wave someone else down if it got too hard going upstream. We did well for quite a stretch there, but then the current got stronger again and once again we were taking 2 strokes back for every forward stroke. We finally resorted to coming close to the shore and trying to grab hold of branches to inch the canoe a little ways upstream. We tried to wave a couple boats down, but they just laughed at us. There got to be a cluster of 3 or 4 other boats there, talking among themselves & saying that we needed help because we were clearly not making any progress. It wasn't until two sympathetic gentlemen in a motorboat heading upstream came along that we actually got help. They came over to us and gave us a tow all the way back to our campsite. If this duo of "Good Samaritans" hadn't come along, I'm sure we would have still been sitting right were we were when they made their trip back downstream. It might not seem like a big deal to give someone a tow when they're indeed, but I'm convinced that actions like this, large  or small are exactly what Jesus meant when he instructed us to "Love your neighbor as yourself" and I'm very grateful to those who have been Good Samaritans to me.