There were hundreds of plump little tadpoles and hyperactive "wrigglers" in the little calm areas. I even saw a few frogs and one perpetually astonished looking little turtle. But nothing braved the little bubbly bits where the creek flowed over the rocks. Oh yeah - I didn't see any whales either. In fact I didn't even see a single fish. Mind you, you can see fish down where the creek joins the river. I can't seem to catch them - but I can see them.

As you go down the river where it widens out you get bigger fish. Of course you still don't get any whales. Oddly enough though you don't get any tadpoles and "wrigglers" either - they're strictly "creek and pool people". If you want whales of course you have to follow the river all the way down to the ocean - because only the ocean is big enough for whales to freely swim and survive. Now I didn't get to see any whales that day - but maybe I just might have caught a glimpse of something very large nonetheless. I began to see that relationships are very much like creeks, and rivers, and oceans. Starting small and shallow but growing deeper and stronger with every mile traveled. Beginning with a bubbling, swirling, troubled and fragile trickle that builds progressively into a strong, steady, endurable flow. How it begins all one way. Upstream always giving and downstream always taking, but how it eventually becomes tidal and flows in both directions. Each end alternatively giving and taking, finally reaching the ocean where "give and take" become meaningless in the ebb and flow of the deep.How less and less it is jostled and tossed about by the things around it and under it until it is the things around and under it that are tossed and jostled by the power it contains within itself. The way, in the early stages, it often has muddy and messy patches and when you hit white water it's all you can do to hang in and hold on and go with the flow. But how it must always be allowed to flow lest it stagnate and die.

Then I began to think of all the things that live in the stream. Things that depend on the relationship for survival, that cannot exist outside of it. Trust, faith, respect, companionship, compassion, understanding, tolerance, - love. And then I understood - there are no whales in the creek! The Lord wants us to have whale sized love - not tadpoles and "wrigglers" - but a big, deep love cannot exist in a shallow relationship. If you want the whale sized love that Jesus talks about you have to grow and deepen your relationships until they become as deep and wide as oceans. You cannot love and yet remain uninvolved, reserved, aloof, distant - shallow. Limit your relationships and you limit love, trust, compassion, tolerance, understanding, and all the other things that live only in them. Grow and deepen your relationships and these things will grow and deepen with them. Do not just splash across the shallows of each others lives but be prepared to move downstream together into the deeper waters. Not just paddling around in the quieter pools but moving down to where you can ride the rapids together and really immerse yourselves in each others lives. Until eventually though you be on the other side of the world you can still swim and surf and sail together in the ocean of your relationship - and never touch bottom.

From the confinement of my "Island Place" home why do I struggle to write and be heard? Why did I publish my anthology Life Lines? I want to help people build canals - big canals - all the way to the ocean, because - I want to go whale watching!

D.J. Ludlow

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