The Peak of Inspiration

I grew up on the plains, a dozen or so miles from a dry riverbed.  I don’t know when the river in this story stopped flowing.  But it had been long enough that a lot, if not most, of the trees that grew on the banks had stopped living.  Rivers provide life.  When the river stops, life stops.  And what was once an oasis of shade became a wasteland of sand and bare limbs.

I can’t recall with any certainty what year this happened.  I’m sure at least a few of my readers could.  Must have been about ‘94, give or take a year.  A hundred or so miles upstream of our community was a large reservoir.  Due to poor snowfall in the mountains and some quarrels over water rights and who got how much water and when, the reservoir hadn’t been releasing enough water to reach to our county. 

Something changed.  Again, I’m not sure what.  But the authorities deemed it necessary to release water from the aforementioned reservoir.  This news was received with some excitement in our community.  This was a big deal.  A river with real water.  Neato. 

And it actually happened.  We received daily updates.  The water was to this bridge, than that town.  The level rose and the current increased.  And we all wanted a part of it.

In that day, and even on rare occasions these days, tractor tire inner tubes were the tool of choice for any activity where the rider wants to be completely out of control and has little to no regard for life.  So when plans were made to float the river, no thought was given to procuring a steerable vessel.  We had inner tubes. What more could one need?

From here on, I’m relying on flashbacks for some of these details, and those can’t always be trusted.  Forgive me for any misinformation or omissions.  Anyway, a few dads banded together and decided to take some boys on a float.  I can’t tell you the total number of our party, maybe 12.  I seem to recall 6 inner tubes being pushed off from the bank.

12 innocent people.  6 tubes.  1 raging river.  0 paddles.  What could possibly go wrong?

Everything carried on fine for the first bit.  The current carried us nicely and kept us more or less in the middle.  We were making up for lost time.

And then we rounded a bend, and found ourselves facing an obstacle.  The river had collected a pile of dead trees, twisted and jammed them together, and blocked our path forward.  I don’t recall being afraid at the time, but I have lost sleep on numerous occasions since then thinking about what could have gone wrong.  I know my dad did as well. 

One by one the tubes ran up against those old dead trees.  The current was flowing under and through them with a force that we had no answer for.  As soon as the tubes hit the dam, the current would start to suck them in and down.  It was about that time when we discovered our trusty tubes were not indestructible.  They would catch on a broken limb, the river would twist them around, the branch would tear a hole in the soft rubber, and instantly they would begin to deflate. 

We had one choice, one way to survive.  We scrambled onto the log jam, carefully feeling our way over so as not to drop into a void between logs and be pinned below the water.  We hoisted the tubes that had survived to the other side, leaving behind the limp and useless ones to their own fate.  We consolidated, adding a person to this tube, another to that one, and continued on.   There was more that one jam.  I recall at least three on that trip.  And I think we lost at least half of the tubes.  We all survived.  That fact alone convinces me that angels are real. 

My mind recalls the feeling of that flood.  The power of the flow beneath me.  My inability to control my course.  The helplessness of being carried along and drawn into a vortex of danger and death.  I remember the urgency and necessity of taking action, of climbing onto those dams, not necessarily by choice.  We didn’t have a choice.  There was one way forward.  One path to survival.  But there was a path.  And I also remember the relief of finding ourselves safe on the other side. 

I don’t know what separates our mind and our heart.  Maybe nothing.  I know that my heart feels many of the same things my mind did back in ’94. 

There are times when I find myself carried along by circumstance and the forces around us.  Acts of man or God, I cannot tell which.  I float along, first by choice, and then by necessity.  And about the time I really understand that I am no longer in control, I find a dam.  Something blocking forward motion.  Death by drowning becomes an ever present reality. 

You can call it a miracle.  Call it Angels of Mercy.  Call it survival instinct.  I don’t know if I can tell you what it is.  I do know what it is not.  It is not careful planning.  It isn’t experience.  It isn’t good strategy.  But somehow, a path forward shows itself.  A way to get past the destruction swirling below us.  And if we take that offering of help, if we step forward, and up, we can make it through. 

Grace.  Maybe we should call it grace. 

There is a mystery here.  It’s one I haven’t unraveled yet.  Maybe never will.  It’s a simple fact, but it likes to bend my heart around trying to understand it.  It is this, that the very thing that caused us fear, the thing that stood in our way and tested our courage, saved our lives.  That obstacle, when we used it, became the way forward.  The way to cross, the way to safety. 

And I think, in that way, we can be thankful for the flood.  For the opportunity to be shown our limits.  For the chance to take the hand proffered to us. To step forward and up. 

Where we can enjoy life.  And everything The River has for us.