Peace Like A River

I checked the clock - it read 1:30am. The kids were all sleeping in their own beds - just cause to give God a big shout-out. Meredith was wrapped up like a taco in clean sheets and a comforter with a 40 degree wind tickling the curtains in the bedroom. And I was propped up on a pillow, participating in anticipatory grief. You know, that sadness that comes when you know something is coming and you don't really want it to come.

A few months ago, a good-hearted man placed a copy of Leif Enger's "Peace Like A River" in my hand and said, "Take. Read." Well, it was a little more elaborately handed off, but that was the essence of the exchange. I struck up a conversation with a lady at a writer's conference about three years ago now who had Enger's book in her hands; she couldn't say enough about it. I've seen it since then in book stores, used and new. There was always a draw, but always a, "No. Not yet." Hard to describe those things, unless you live with an awareness of an Infinitely, Tender Hand which holds our lives. In the fullness of my time, the book found its way to my hands. I began reading it and was instantly wooed by the aching beauty of the language and the landscape. And I finished it last night.

There are all kinds of writing out there these days, from the technical and tedious to the syrupy and banal. And then there are those stories that surface in these days of fear that reorient us to that which is noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. And when they are finished, at least for the first time, there is a tangible grief that overtakes you, or at least it does me. It's 1:40 am on a Saturday night and I'm propped up in bed with tears streaming down my cheeks, grieving at the beauty I'm participating in and also at the fact that there are only a few more pages until the story ends. Can't we just go a few more chapters, Enger? Please, tell me more about Rube and Swede and Davy and Jeremiah and...but a story has an ending and it must follow its course to the last sentence. And so I said, "Uncle," and kept reading the last few pages. I won't say more about the book other than, "Go. Buy. Haggle. Steal even. And read." If you steal, don't tell me about it.

But that experience has followed me like a lost puppy throughout my life; the experience of beauty, fleeting beauty. Noble things which don't last but a season, pure and lovely people who touch my life for a time and then go, admirable and excellent work that endures for a time and then passes, and praiseworthy breezes which tickle my curtains but eventually turn to snow and rain. Why would the apostle Paul tell us to dwell on those things when they are so fleeting? Well, I'm not Paul and I don't play him on t.v., but I feel down deep in my guts that when Paul wrote those words at 1:40am on a Saturday night in Palestine, that he had tears streaming down his cheeks. For he knew all too well of the quickly passing nature of the pure and lovely, the noble and excellent colors of autumn that quickly drop from the trees and float down the stream. It was that knowledge that kept him pressing ahead to the goal in front of him - the goal of lasting beauty, unfleeting nobility, and everlasting life. And so he said, "Think about such things. Dwell on them. Ponder them. For in them, you'll discover that which will keep you moving, keep you getting out of bed each morning, keep you doing the do and paying the bills and brushing your teeth and so on."

There will come a day..."Is it fair to say that country is more real than ours? That its stone is harder, its water more drenching - that the weather itself is alert and not just background? Can you endure a witness to its tactile presence? We attained a pass where the stream sang louder than ever, for it swelled with depth and energy the farther it rose. Dad reached it first; I saw him mount a shelf of spraysoaked stone and stand waiting for me, backlit, silverlined, as though the sky had a sun after all and it was just beyond this mountain. But it wasn't a sun. It was a city. Joining Dad on the rock, I saw it, at a farther distance than any yet conceived; still it threw light and warmth our sun could only covet. And unlike the sun, you could look straight into it - in fact, you wished to, you had to - and the longer you looked, the more you saw. Turrets! I exclaimed. I couldn't wait to get there, you see. Then Dad pointed to the plains below, at movement I took at first to be rivers - winding, flowing, light coming off them. They came from all directions, streaming toward the city, and dust rose in places along their banks. They're people, Dad said..." There will be peace, my friends...peace like river. Amen.