In the River

Life is hard to figure out.  I have often wondered why some die too soon.  Too young.  And I have also wondered why some live so long that they are left with little more than a shell of a physical body that longs for the coming of death.  And, then, there are such horrible things which are visited upon us with no rhyme, or reason, or warning.  Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, flooding, and tornadoes come leaving a wake of death and destruction.  Throw in some of the tragic injustices that happen to innocent people who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and there is little which can be said except the fact that life is hard. 

 

As my old friend, Jayber Crow,  departs once again with the closing of the final pages of the book bearing his name, Wendell Berry, his creator, leaves us with a lingering word, "But faith is not necessarily, or not soon, a resting place.  Faith puts you out on a wide river in a little boat, in the fog, in the dark."  Maybe it is only partially true to say that life is hard.  Maybe it is just mostly true that  it is impossible to see the end.  One of the things the accumulating years seem to teach is that we live and die in the midst of what cannot be seen or even understood.  While life may teach us that it is hard, it also teaches us that we must live in the midst of the un-seeable, or not really live at all.

 

Jayber speaks truth as he sets forth an understanding of faith which has grown in him through the passing of his life.  At first glance faith may seem to be one of those benign spiritual words which echoes like a sweet spiritual platitude, but, instead, faith is a hard, demanding, and difficult way of life.  We do float in the current of this wide river with very little to take us into the dark uncertainties which lie ahead around the un-seeable bend in the river.  And so we go, knowing that the God of the river is with us and trusting Him to bring us to the river's end.