The River Why?

Early yesterday morning, it was so very calm and beautiful outside I decided to take the kayak out on the water.  I love being on the water when in the calm of the early morning when the water as smooth as glass; when it is quiet enough to hear the wings flapping of the water birds and the tiny splashes of the tiny fish jumping; when it is so quiet and calm you can even hear the swirls made by the larger fish as they flee the approaching boat. I was very eager to be on the water, to experience the calm, quiet of floating on tidal waters of the Colleton River but circumstance being what they were,  I wouldn’t be able to take the kayak out for a few hours.

When it was time to go, around 8:30, I notice things were not as calm as they were a few hours earlier. I didn’t think much of it, just a little breeze, no big deal. With kayak secured to the car, I drove down to public landing, its  nice drive through the trees, it always takes a little longer that I expect. When the river finally came into view, I was taken aback by what I saw.  That little breeze I noticed at home was a bit more evident here on the open water and the water was quite choppy. The image I held in my head from earlier was shattered.  I even considered turning around to go home, I was very disappointed.

I sat in my car for a long time looking at that river, finally deciding it would be good experience to go out on the choppy water, by far the choppiest water I had every kayaked. I was filled with doubt and worry as I prepared the kayak and myself for the water, seriously wondering if I could even successfully paddle into the wind. “Why am I doing this?” I thought as I climbed into the boat.  As it turned out, paddling into the wind was much easier than I imagined. In fact, I actually enjoyed the choppy water; how the bow rose and fell with a splash, producing a cooling salt water spray that I had not experienced before on a kayak.

But still, even though I had proved to myself that I could paddle this water and that it was fun, but still, some doubt lingered. “Why am I doing this?”  My arms were starting to ache, rowing into the wind means if I stopped rowing, I would be going backwards. “Why am I here?”  There’s a spider on my leg, must’ve hitched with me inside the kayak.  “Why?  Why? Why?”

Then, it happened. It was then the dolphins appeared, just ahead ahead of me, not 15 yards away.  Two, no three of them, at least. The sight of them took me out of my head, all my questions and doubts were instantly erased. They didn’t linger long, but the sight of the dolphins served to remind why I was there, why I bought the kayak to begin with. From that moment on, for the extent of the two plus hour paddle, the questions and doubts did not return.

The “River Why” flowing through my head disappeared, leaving in its wake only the beauty and wonder of the actual river I was floating on. It is my guess, and I’m confident it’s a pretty good guess, but I guess that most people have that “River Why” flowing through their head at least some of the time. And maybe some of us have it flowing through our heads so often that we can hardly imagine another way.

Have you ever experienced that River Why? Why am I here?  Why am I doing this?  Why is life so difficult? Why is there a kayak on the dais?   Why? Why? Why? The River Why is a long, windy river and has been flowing through the human mind since the first human. The search for meaning and purpose of events, the search for meaning and purpose to life itself, the search for for the ultimate Why, the why of existence. Looking back through time, we find stories of creator gods and goddesses to explain the existence of the universe, the existence of life. We find stories of heroes and villains, tricksters and fools, all attempting to explain some element of the human condition. But in the end, all the stories and myths do little to actually dam up the river of questions in our heads, but each story, each explanation of the meaning and purpose of life, of existence itself, every story, every myth actually serves to increase the flow, leaving us too often with even more questions, more problems to consider.

If the world was created by an all knowing, all powerful, all loving man in the sky, why does evil exist? Why would a loving, caring Father god require the torture and death of his only son to forgive the sins of humanity? Just as it human nature to seek meaning and purpose, it is also human nature to create meaning and purpose when nothing readily presents itself. The desire in us to answer the river of questions in our heads is so strong, we will glom onto the first explanation that suits us, we will attach ourselves to the first story,  the first defensible theory that seems to quell the thirst for the meaning and purpose we desire.

All of which would be great, and would end the pursuit of greater truth and meaning, if only the river of life would cease to flow. Because life continues, because conditions change continually, stories and theories based on past events soon become outdated.  Unless we are living in that very large and muddy river of de-Nile, we find the old questions returning, we begin to doubt the stories and theories that seemed so complete before.

The River Why continues to flow, our thirst for answers returns.

Rivers hardly ever run in a straight line.
Rivers are willing to take ten thousand meanders
and enjoy every one
and grow from every one.
When they leave a meander,
they are always more
than when they entered it.
When rivers meet an obstacle,
they do not try to run over it.
They merely go around
but they always get to the other side.
Rivers accept things as they are,
conform to the shape they find the world in,
yet nothing changes things more than rivers.
Rivers move even mountains into the sea.
Rivers hardly ever are in a hurry
yet is there anything more likely
to reach the point it sets out for
than a river?

A poem by James Dillet Freeman, 

As I was paddling up the Colleton River, as I was sinking deeper and deeper into the River Why? flowing through my head, almost oblivious to natural beauty all around me, some angels from beneath the sea appeared to me, a pod of angels in need of air and searching for food appeared to me and saved me from drowning in that River of questions.  The dolphins saved me from myself, from my own thoughts and brought me back into the moment, they brought me back to the wind and cool water in my face, the sights and sounds of the river, the warmth of the sun on my back, and even the dull ache in my right shoulder.  The River Why was gone, the questions were gone.  Not answered, mind you.  Any attempt to answer such question just leads to more questions. Answers are so often worse than the questions that spawned them.

Now, the questions weren’t answered, even better, they were gone.  Not only the questions, but the doubts too.  

In his book, “The River Why?” David James Duncan tells the story of a young man in search of meaning and purpose.  In his search, this young man, Gus, lives for a while in a small cabin on a river in the Oregon woods.   At one point in the story, Gus climbs a mountain seeking the source of this river that is such a large part of his life.  He is very much disappointed when he reaches the headwaters of the river, as is so often the case.  But from the perspective of standing in the wet ground of a mountain meadow, Gus sees his River from a new perspective. Down in the lower reaches of the River, down by where he lives in his little cabin, the river bends and twists through the landscape, and its’ bending and twisting takes the shape of a question. The river is asking “Why?” or rather, the bending and twisting river takes the shape of the word “Why.” But for Gus, the river, the river he loves, the river that is as much a part of him as the blood flowing through his veins, is tormenting him with this damn question,  

Why?   Why?

Well, let me read you what Gus eventually realized as he watched from a Raven fly over his river.

If the rave keeps flying seaward it will soon be over the why. It will look 

down and see the same curves you saw . . . But now you know that the 

raven will see no word, no questions, no order - because there is no need

for word or question, because there is no disorder. The rave will the why 

as the river wrote it -- as a simple, bending statement: the rivery intricacy 

from source to sea, the life and lives the water supports and contains, the 

infinity of facets it welds into one, all of this is not asked, but stated.  Stated, 

as it is created, in a language so simple, so pure, so primordial, that it is not accessible to our inspection or understanding; not at the mind’s disposal, not 

at the tongue’s. All that can be said of it in English is that it is . . . Yet thanks 

to the rave you have glimpsed it.  You have seen the answer to the why was the word itself: the [river] was not questioning. It was sculpting and painting and humming seaward with all it touched and fed and carried and concealed, 

singing, ‘This--all of this--is why.’

This, all of this is WHY! Life itself is WHY! The very idea that there is something beyond this moment, something beyond the beauty and majesty of Life with all its wonders, even with all its problems, the very idea that there must be answers to all of our questions, is just an idea; a thought, a transient and incomplete thought. And because we come to believe our thoughts to be more than they are, because we believe the stories we invent to explain all that is, we create the conditions for so much unnecessary pain and suffering. 

“This, All of this, is why!” Life is a gift, it is a gift to be experienced, not explained, not understood, not avoided. Life is a gift to be experienced in its full measure,  in body, mind and spirit. And the only thing preventing us from doing just that, is our own thoughts, our own questions and doubts.

So be it! Amen!  Blessed be!