Rivers start somewhere and they end somewhere. But it’s no small matter to remember that it’s still water at its core. Lots of changes can happen along that journey from its headwaters to its mouth where hungry oceans and seas make meals of it. Tributaries join in along the way adding new colors and character. Things tumble into it, obstructions divert it, creatures and plants drink it, rain adds even more back to it. It goes slowly through wide plains and it courses though chutes and it tumbles headlong over falls. But it’s still water. It still started somewhere. It’s still going somewhere. And go it will…both nature and law walk hand in hand.
It has been told that rivers are the first and rightful highways of the woodlands and the plains. Life from the earliest moments has and will continue to move up and down these fluid byways. Yet, in all that the water itself moves only along downstream from its beginning to its end. My grandfather and I were once together on a favorite river…he reached down and cupped a handful of water then slowly poured it back. He looked at me with steady eyes and asked me when that water would reach the ocean…I stood silent and pondered the monumental mathematical problem he had presented. After a good number of moments of silence, he drew me close and said quietly… "It will arrive right on time”. I have never forgotten that moment and the principles of that lesson have been woven into the fabric of my life.
Some say that rivers follow paths of least resistance and while this might resonate with generations of scientists…I must respectfully restate the matter. It seems much more plausible that rivers follow paths of perfect resistance. They find the right way to get where they are headed and sometimes the resistance is anything but least.
Perhaps we would do well to look to the rivers as mentors and models for our lives. Our lives have a beginning and they have an end. They started somewhere and they are going somewhere…like a river and that handful of water my Grandfather poured out…and go it will. Sometimes there will be resistance along the way, sometimes an easy course, sometimes turbulent and chaotic. Things will fall in. Things will sink along the way. But in the end, just like the water that always remains water at its core…we too are who we are at our core. Changed by the course of a journey traveled but still us. We too are traveling paths of perfect resistance and we too will get where we are going…right on time.
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