This is My Father's World

I thought, with rising exaltation, this is it, this is it; praise the lord; praise the land. Experiencing the present purely is being emptied and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall.

Annie Dillard

The power went out today. And the internet with it. I can’t buy the parking pass I need for next semester. Or check for the hundredth time if I got accepted into the leadership program. Or search “top ten blog post topics.” The clocks have stopped. And I am alone with my notebook.

I wish I did this every morning. It’s still a bit cool, the wind lifting strands of hair from my face. Birds whistle in the trees above me. I hear the leaves rustling against each other and I can imagine earth being God’s garment.

Even the gentle rumble of cars passing join the chorus. I can breathe beneath these maples. The sky is clear except for clouds like hand stitched lace--escaping from each other, expanding then racing away.

A chipmunk peers warily around the edge of a green flower pot, unaware of the red squirrel slowly sneaking toward him. They nearly collide, jumping into the air, racing around my feet in a red streak.

This is what I need, but never feel justified in doing. Because I always have something better to do. Or maybe it’s not better, maybe all that is not as necessary as I think. And maybe I would understand if I stopped for once.

***

If infinity has a sound, it is this endless roar of waves echoing each other in an endless crescendo. They’ve been doing this for thousands of years. And once in awhile I show up to run into the water, translucent foam mirroring the world as it shatters against my face. But even this will end.

I swim out to the marker at the edge of the swimming zone. Water burns down my throat, my eyes are rimmed with glittering droplets. I choke, spitting water with my coughs. Arms and legs cling desperately to the plastic pipe. There aren’t many things I am truly afraid of and apparently, this is one of them. “I could drown. I could seriously drown.” I push off toward shore, water eddying in miniature galaxies around me.

There is an innocent joy out here, alone with the waves.

***

Fifteen minutes before the gates are locked, but the parking lot is full. We take off our shoes and run up the sand dune. I catch my breath at the sunset rippling in gentle waves. We race down the dune and into the water. Fireworks sparkle against the sky. A wild bonfire stretches its arms against the shadows. We stand in the lake, lights slowly flicking off. I close my eyes, and we sing, English and Spanish dancing up into the clouds.

I stare at the lake, reality lost in the darkness that ripples against my legs. Above, the sky is blue, colors smeared into one another, orange rising into indigo. One side of the lake is dark, a stage half lit. A rainbow of clouds stream toward the east, red turning to purple turns to blue, trailing into dusk. I almost lose my balance in the hypnotizing waves that lap like liquid agates around my ankles. It seems as if I am standing above the broiling clouds of a storm. I look down, and somehow I am sending ripples back into the waves.

Maybe I can still see ridges of the Artist’s fingerprints in the rippling currents. The hem of God’s robe. A whisper of Him passing by.