Thursday, December 17, 2009

Foggy Morning

I’ve only made it out on the lake once or twice a week lately. No trouble with low water. The overflow pipe sounds like a jet engine. Up one of the streams that flows into the lake, the water was leaping in small falls over rock and tree root, something I hadn’t seen before.


The lake was wrapped in pale gray mist when I went out, deeply silent. When I stopped paddling, only the quiet chuckle of water under the bow broke the silence. I needed to be out paddling and praying. I don’t pray well in my house, too many things calling for my attention. The days and evenings have been full, all good stuff, but tiring and easy to lose focus in the middle of it all.


I paddled to the east end of the lake, around the island that was a peninsula all summer. Not many birds out, one blue heron, a group of mallards. The trees were gray, the evergreens almost black in the mist. I love the bare bones of trees in winter, each kind has a shape of its own and then each tree varies that a bit. The oaks, especially, seem to be lifting hands in praise. The few leaves clinging to beeches were a pale copper color. Some of the willow oaks still held onto yellow leaves. I look at their uplifted branches and remember Isaiah 61, “They shall be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord for the praise of His glory”.


The high water had floated some litter in reach. I filled the space between my feet. Litter annoys me, so I leave the park cleaner on almost every trip. I leave feeling virtuous. In a world filled with massive, insolvable problems, litter in the park is something I can have a small impact on.