Column, 6/13/96

An explanation. I used to run a newspaper, and I wrote a weekly column called "Where I walk, where I stand." I always signed off with "I think I'll take a little walk."

What follows is one of those columns, published June 13, 1996.

And you know who you are, and this one's for you.

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I've been fond of the river ever since I was big enough to play in it without my folks completely passing out.

Some of my very happiest memories are of times spent camping on a sandbar with a good friend or a small group of guys, but what I liked best about those times wasn't the camaraderie, it was the time spent on the water, feeling the power of the current against the stern of my canoe or side-slipping upstream into a little brush pile to see if my line held a catfish.

Fishing the river has been, for me, mostly just an excuse to be there. I know some guys who go fishing for the fun of fishing, always buying and trying the newest stuff. One very good friend definitely went fishing for the fish, disappointed if he didn't come home with some satisfactory freezer-filler. Me, I always liked to go fishing for the going.

These days, sometimes I'll spend a little quiet time under a bridge somewhere, letting my mind go around the bend with the current, but mostly I have let myself get too busy for much more than that.
But when the river goes down I watch, remembering how deceptively shallow much of it is. When it comes up, I want to know about it. And when it really gets frisky like it did last week, running like boiling hot chocolate, all loaded up with logs from who-knows-where, I could easily spend much too much time just watching it go by.

No doubt it often carries a fatal overload of fertilizers, pesticides and what-not. But muddy and poisonous as it is, it always reminds me that there is going to be another river, clear as crystal, flowing out of the side of the throne of God and right down Main Street through the Holy City. Lots of beautiful trees there, too, with fruit like we can only dream about now.

I don't know how we are really going to occupy ourselves in Glory Land. I have come to believe there is going to be a lot of singing, which I like, and apparently there will be some kind of trading going on, because the gates will always be open and there will be kings coming in, bringing all the glory of their nations.

Sometimes I think it will all be kind of like a summer afternoon, eternal hazy gold sunlight just filtering through everything. But then I remember how much I love an October morning on the sandbar, tall golden cottonwoods on the far bank catching the early hints of a crystal day in the sunrise, cold enough that a sweatshirt feels plenty good while I wait next to the fire for the water to boil in the coffee pot.

And I think it's going to be like that, because that's pretty much the best that I know.

But hey, it could be even better! After all, it belongs to Almighty God, who can make it just the way He wants it. And however He wants it is going to be plenty good for me.

If you make it there (you can be sure... are you?), and you're looking for me, and I'm not up at the temple singing, start on down to the river and check the sandbars. If there's nothing there but canoe tracks, well, sit down and enjoy the cool breeze and the view... I'll be coming back around the bend in the next hundred years or so... no time at all in the Kingdom!

I think I'll take a little walk... kd