One of the satisfying aspects of growing older is looking back at the line of your life and noticing how you have changed. I don’t mean only in physical appearances, though certainly they are the most apparent changes. Gray highlights, added pounds, lines that accentuate the movement of your face over the years. How has your spiritual life changed? Your politics? Your ability to handle your emotions? How has your thinking matured? Your wants and needs? How have the things you deem ‘important’ changed from when you were younger? My guess is, that like me, the path of your life has changed and moved and morphed.
On the high prairies of Buffalo River State Park, one can see a line of trees that runs alongside the winding Buffalo River. Before reaching the river from the prairie, there is a huge drop-off, then a wide flood plain where the trees have grown. Chris and I wondered if they named the river from the fact that buffalo ran or were chased through the prairie grasses off the cliff to their death.
We walked from the prairie down a path by a draw that opened up to the flood plain. Shrubs were changing to fall colors, and Wild Plums were ripening.
The cliff from prairie to flood plain is called a ‘cutbank,’ a steep bank where a river runs against the side of a hill, undercutting and eroding it. It produces a wide plain of underlying sediments. It also illustrates that over time, the path of the Buffalo River has changed—first cutting away from the north bank, then the south bank (or east and west depending on where the winding river is flowing.) We walked on the floodplain, looking up on the steep cutbank that has been populated by trees.
The River was high, swift, and muddy from the strong storms that had pushed through Minnesota and brought tornado warnings and those fabulous mammatus clouds to our doorstep two days before.
The mosquitoes we were hoping to foil on the prairie found us as we walked along the River through the trees. One particular dead tree was riddled with woodpecker holes—one even went all the way through it. We could see from one side to the other through something that normally would not allow such a thing.
Speaking of one side to the other, eventually we came to a bridge where we could cross the River to explore the uplands of prairie on the other side.
The muddy water flowed around a large rock in the middle of the River, depositing sediment in the wake of it. The resistance caused the build-up.
Up river, fallen trees dammed up the flow of the water, piling up debris as the River flowed on.
The prairie resumed on the other side of the River—grasses waving, flowers blooming, butterflies lighting, and seeds dispersing.
One could not distinguish one side of the prairie from the other—each has a myriad of grasses and colorful flowers. Both have cutbanks, trees, and mosquitoes. Both have butterflies, seeds, and seedlings. The Buffalo River runs through it. And the Buffalo River has moved and changed over time.
The long view of life changes and evolves. This place used to be a glacier, then a sea, then a prairie with glacier-deposited erratic boulders with a River that runs through it. Even the River has changed course in the relatively near past. We do the same. Civilizations change. Societies change, and each one of us changes in the course of our lives. So how have you changed? And more importantly, what happened to you that led to those changes? Our development from infant to elder includes changes to our physical selves imprinted in our DNA, the expression of which is influenced by our environment. Our personalities and experiences influence our thinking, our emotional responses, and our actions. The River of Life runs through us. What rocks of resistance are impeding the flow? What kind of debris is getting in the way? I think for most of us we want to be better than we once were. That desire is the cornerstone of failure and forgiveness. It is the challenge of our physical, social, political, emotional selves. What allows us to see from one side to the other? What allows us to walk to the other side? What reminds us that we are grasses and colorful flowers with seeds and seedlings that all live together in this world? Love, and I mean that with a capital L, is the river and the bridge. Let it flow through you and allow you to walk to the other side.
