Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: River (08/31/06)
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TITLE: Currents of Eternity | Previous Challenge Entry
By Darryl Nicholson
09/05/06 -
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Then the water topped his waders, and he was gone.
Jimmy never saw his dad again.
Jimmy liked to fly fish too, but he had had to learn on his own, growing up without his dad to show him how. I worked with Jimmy and we fished together a few times.
One night just as the sun was dropping below Sugar Loaf Mountain, he sat gazing across the same stretch of water. He lit a cigarette and as the smoke curled around the brim of his old fishing hat he began to tell the story. When he had finished, we packed up our gear and went home. He never mentioned it again, and it changed the way I’ve looked at rivers ever since.
A river, millions of tons of liquid water flowing in response to the pull of gravity. One of earth’s most dangerous and irresistible forces yet it can look so inviting, peaceful, relaxing. We swim in it, canoe and kayak on it, fish it, picnic beside it or just watch it rolling silently past. We think it there for our enjoyment and expect it to yield refreshment, excitement or three-pound trout. We wade into it or venture upon it blissfully ignorant of its power but despite its complete indifference to our wellbeing, we usually emerge unscathed, but not always.
There are those who consider such forces of nature, like water, wind and geological upheaval, and sagely comment on the insignificance of man. No doubt they find a cold impersonal force, though it may reduce their existence to insignificance, preferable to a personal God who just might have an opinion on the way they are living their lives.
There are other rivers flowing upon the earth and the deadliest is the river of sin. It looks inviting , fun, exciting, and only ankle-deep. Those who enter never touch bottom and never emerge unscathed. Unlike the Mississippi and the Amazon, the river of sin has no banks to confine it. To those adrift in the river of sin, insignificance is a comfort. It makes guilt irrelevant.
Then there’s the river of time--silent, immutable, relentless. I’m not the first to make this analogy. I seem to remember a reference to it carrying us all away. I’m sure it is, and the further down the river we are the faster the current, but away to where? That’s the question, is it bearing us gently home or into the teeth of the cataract?
I read about a young man who slipped into the Colorado River while on a canyon tour. The water was cold and the current swift. His companions heard him laughing as he drifted around the bend. He didn’t take his predicament seriously, but he died just the same.
I know of another here in Connecticut who rolled his canoe in white water. He was clowning and smiling until he came up against a boulder and was pulled under and drowned.
When these natural tragedies happen it is usually a surprise to all involved but every day people can be seen floating to destruction, happily waving off help and scoffing at the warnings as the river carries them around the bend in life.
It’s heart-breaking, but I have learned that it’s not up to me to save them. I can only point to the one who can, the Living Water.
There is another river. It flows from the throne of God and it is called The River Of The Water Of Life. That’s the river I want to gaze upon, drink of, wade into. It is the most powerful of all rivers but it will not render you insignificant because the one who created it and you and all things declares you precious, so precious that he died so that you may come and drink and live forever. Now that’s a river.
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