I want to tell you about a moment that is changing how I see everything. It happened in Cold Spring Harbor on an October morning in 2023 after a storm. As I walked across the bridge that crosses over the spillway in the middle of our century old dam holding our lake back from the harbor I heard something unusual. As I looked, I immediately knew something was wrong. One wooden board from our wooden weir was missing—washed away in the night—and St. John's Pond had dropped ten inches of depth across its 14 acres.

This is a well-known reading to many of us. It’s one of those parables that Jesus tells that many of us immediately recognize and those of us who have spent any significant time in church  have all probably heard a dozen sermons on it.

And each time I've returned to Dublin Lake - sometimes angry, sometimes broken, always overpacked, always carrying more than I thought I could bear - something about this place has slowly, patiently, restored what felt irretrievably lost. Not dramatically, not all at once. More like... well, more like Naaman's seven trips into the muddy Jordan.

July. Day whatever of summer vacation. Vacation had just begun, but the boredom of an idle mind was everywhere present. The cereal bowls lay crusted in the sink, cartoon reruns droned from the living room, and my older brother Sam and I wandered the house like caged animals looking for something—anything—to do.