I love...

I have had an adventure, at once inner and outer. In two and a half weeks I have lived a lifetime, and yet now as I look back it seems like a flash of dreamtime - a momentary step into a world which is neither here nor now. It is all still too close for me to outline clearly, and all I can tell you right now is that I love this land and this life.

I love the spirit that impelled me to sacrifice a week of classes to fulfill a teaching goal in one of the most inaccessible recesses of Ecuador.

I love the silent, bearded soldier of the light, trained in the depths of the Amazon and recently returned to his native land, whom I accompanied.

I love the silver bird through the mist that winged us close to instant death at the side of a short, dirt airstrip.

I love the staunch people who struggle against imminent poverty and border conflict, the long wait for the flight that never came, and the disease that drained the strength from my body.

I love the heavy, make-shift packs we finally shouldered for the long trek out on foot, the native boots which bruised and tore my feet at every step.

I love the sudden views out into infinity and the variegated orchids by the wayside, which where you live would cost a fortune, but cost us only the looking.

I love the tropical fruits for the picking and eating - some with known names and some without, the pure springs inviting a pause.

I love the unexpected tropical rains that refreshed us, and the rainbow that gave us new hope when we had reached our limit.

I love the infrequent but plentiful country meals, the candle-light evenings of tired togetherness with fellow travelers, the bamboo-bed nights wrapped in saddle blankets, and the water-bucket baths out back.

I love the starlit early starts, the darkness of the chillest moments before dawn, the powerful, surefooted beasts that carried us over the final highest range, the mountain gusts that buffeted us, the stinging rain that froze us to the hard wooden pack saddles.

I love the ancient mule trail that was at times almost completely vertical and at others leveled off into knee-deep mud, or squeezed through deep, narrow, leg-bruising canyons cut by clear, rocky brooks, clung precariously to cliffs, crossed hanging bridges that swayed and buckled, or ducked under rain-drenched vegetation that soaked us to the bone.

I love the final bumbling old truck from the end of the potholed dirt road, whose slow pace seemed other-worldly after such a trip.

I love this land and this life, and I love these rare, fleeting moments of flight -- swifter than thought -- across countless worlds of light, tumbling back to earth, tearfully enraptured and breathlessly yearning to lose myself in Him.

May this love sustain our spirits.