Haunted

"I am haunted by waters."

So wrote Norman Maclean in his acclaimed and awesome book, A River Runs Through It which was made into a wonderful movie (if you like that kind of movie!)

Three weeks from now I will return to one of my personal primal waters, Pine Creek, known to the original populace as Tiadaghton. It is barely 60 miles long but in its history it has ground a plateau into a gorge and provided a path through a rough and unforgiving wilderness.

Over four years ago I wrote here:

One learns much from water. One learns that a cycle of life is going on around us. It is in the tides and waves. It is in the high water of spring and the low water of late August. It is in the quiet of a calm summer day and the relentless wind turning lakes into wave swept danger.

One learns how to flow to connect places. Water provided the first interstate highways; the routes through wilderness; traffic lanes for a growing economy. Water separated from, then led to, the New World and the seemingly endless lands of opportunity.

I'm going back to learn again from the water as I pedal instead of paddle its length. I will be celebrating my 60th birthday in my home town for the first time in at least 25 or 26 years. I will be flowing with the waters as they head south from Ansonia to the Susquehanna at Jersey Shore.

After a kayak trip to the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior in norther Wisconsin five three years ago, I wrote:

Water is special and exciting and fearsome. Canoeing, kayaking, sitting on the bank watching the river flow. These are sacred events, places where and when the holy can break through. One need only live through a major flood, hurricane, or overly windy day to know that this is not something to play with. It is a power greater than oneself and to come face to face with that power in water is awe-inspiring.

This time I will be pedaling a bike, listening, praying, watching, feeling. I will celebrate 60 years of remarkable life where it all began. I will remember those who helped make me who I am- for better or worse. I will give thanks for allowing me to reach this spot. I will look for signs of God in what is, as the Celts called it- a thin place where the separation between this world and the spiritual world is thin.

Again from four years ago:

One learns to be patient and persistent, prepared and practical; a dreamer and a realist. One learns that water truly is the stuff of life. It is no surprise that the basic sacrament is baptism. It is in water that we are most prepared to be reborn. It is through an act with water that we are reminded that while we may be of dust, our salvation is through water - being washed clean. There is a "hauntingness" and a mystical quality to water. It will never leave us. It may very well be the haunting of the Holy Spirit of God that first moved over the face of water and made what God proclaimed as "Good!"

Amen, so be it

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time.

On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

I am haunted by waters.
-- Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It