Rock Solid

I grew up going to a church camp nestled in Eastern Kentucky near the small foot hill town of Irvine. Camp Burnamwood, for many a week in the summers of my childhood and full-on sticky summers in my early adult hood, it was my home. It's a safe and welcoming place to all.

It's Presbyterian, I don't know if that qualifier is in any way shape or form relevant-- but to me it's important.

Anyways, the point of even mentioning Camp in the first place is because the Candian and I explored the beach at Kaikoura a wee bit on our first night, to stretch our legs after a particular long drive from Dunedin. The scenery here, like the rest of this country, is unreal.

The beach wasn't like anything I've ever seen before. Instead of smooth sand or even jagged, uneven rocks beneath my shoes, my soles slipped over smooth dark stones all along the coast.

We do a search for the best, most perfect, smoothest rock. It's here she tells me that she and her mother collect heart shape rocks for each other and that her mother might pee herself with excitement over the millions, billions and trillions of the heart shaped possibilities.

Continuing my search, I look down and see a hint of white snuggled in with all the dark. I pick it up and roll it around in the palm of my hand. It's perfect. It's mine.

It's here on our little jaunt I start telling her about Camp Burnamwood.

Now I'm not a particularly religious person-- at least I don't think I am. I'm open to a bigger picture. I believe in science. But the kind of spiritual worship I participated in the foothills of those Appalachian mountains back home have stuck with me. It's there that I become completely affected by something bigger than myself.

Holding my perfect white rock in my hand, I'm telling her how it reminds me of a certain week, at a certain age (neither of which I can remember) where we (the campers) were tasked with finding a little rock or stone from the creek bed and bring it for the last night of the week. The ramifications being: it could not be any larger than the palm of your hand.-- the whole idea being that, 'God is my rock.' That night after the rocks were collected, they were placed in a big pile, I picked up a new one and read the words, 'Here I am.'

I squeezed my little white rock and looked down at it and though to myself, 'Here I am.'

Here I am. Here I am. Here I am.

At those words, everything and anything that I have ever been affected by or felt-- ever-- the good, the beautiful, death, the ugly--all hits me at once and I start to cry.

All of a sudden this humongous intangible idea becomes tangible and it fits in the palm of my hand.

I cry because I'm here in New Zealand, because of graduation, because of a break up. I cry because I know my family is proud of me. I cry because I'm scared of what happens next. I cry because I know I'm right where I'm supposed to be. I cry because I'm exhausted. I cry because I'm homesick. I cry because I need to shower. I cry because I love my friends. I cry because everything... EVERYTHING is in the palm of my hand.

I cry because my little white rock screams at me,
"Here I am, you idiot! Here I am and there you are and everything is going to be okay. Just hold on to me. I'm here."

It's so simple, little white rock.