“Just one more rapid. One more bend...will we ever get there? Is there a destination? Is there a bliss? Is there a place of rest, of peace, of a last breath that is not fraught with danger and struggle”?
Kootenai Falls (Notes from a required day of rest in a Spiritual Formation class)
My day of rest found me free of my normal constraints, sipping on coffee, finishing a novel, and eventually sitting at Kootenai Falls, Montana for about four hours. What began as simple intrigue, became a vision unsought for, but strangely appropriate for this Sabbath day.
Below are my thoughts as I typed them into my phone that day.
I see 5,6...no maybe 7, osprey at the giant falls-fishing for their lives.
“Amazing the fish can navigate something so strong, or rapids and falls so deep and tall”, I thought. But the fish do. They keep on coming. Their struggle is epic, their call is sure.
“Climb that ladder”, nature calls.
“Climb that ladder”, death calls.
It seems that the fish engaged in the ladder climb up the river rapids set themselves up to be picked off. The Osprey are waiting, knowing that the fish will come. They always do.
“Just one more rapid. One more bend...will we ever get there? Is there a destination? Is there a bliss? Is there a place of rest, of peace, of a last breath that is not fraught with danger and struggle”?
The river strengthens the fish to do the miraculous...
The same river creates the wind that helps the osprey hover in wait…
The river has set the stage for me to watch this drama unfold and ponder my own journey.
“Am I struggling upriver, convincing myself it is for my own strengthening?
Or is it all necessary? Inevitable?
Am I unnecessarily exposing myself to be picked off by the osprey?
Why am I thinking about this now? Why today?
Maybe why is not the question...” “Wow! What a catch!”
The fish flailing in the relentless grasp of the claws of the osprey...like he has a chance. I look to my left and a fisherman has taken up residence on the rock I am sitting on while writing this...his rod bends sharply to another fish who was just trying to live. As if we aren't already screwed...
Oops, here comes the osprey... back for more.
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