Tag: water

Creek’s Gleaming

(c) Katherine E. Brown

Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and the LORD will be his trust.
He will be as a tree transplanted upon water, and upon a stream he will stretch out his roots. He will not fear [see] when heat comes in; his leaf will be green. And in the year of drought, he will not be anxious, and he will not leave off making his fruit.

Jeremiah 17:7-8. See 17:5-10 NRSVUE

Light stays later these days but even so is fading when Paul and I set out for our walk. We go down to Sligo, needing the solace of water. We have the path nearly to ourselves this weekday evening. Walking. Some talking. More looking. The ground beside the path is soft; the grass is winter-bleached and strewn with last season’s leaves. Trees grow near the creek, some fallen across it. We stand a while on the bridge, watching the water slip between banks tangled with brush and vines.

I look at the water and listen to Jeremiah in my head. Jeremiah 17 pairs, and contrasts, the one who is cursed and the one who is blessed. The term used for each is the same, “champion” or “strong man.” They are not distinguished in innate vigor or prowess but in where they place their trust: whether in flesh or in the LORD. The one whose trust is the LORD will not cease making his fruit, Jeremiah says. Despite the drought, the heat, the salt of news in print or online or email inbox, there is fruit to be borne. Fruit specific to that one’s making, as there is fruit specific to mine.

This text has been to me as a drink of clear water when I have felt parched these last weeks. Lift it to my lips and tip the bowl of it. Sip its promise; let it fill my mouth, soothe the dry tissues. Swallow the words and feel the refreshment of them running down my throat. Then, revived by that first effect, drink of the text more deeply still. Plod my way through the Hebrew, word by word. Let the awkwardness of my translation catch my attention, focus my thought, in the same way that uneven ground makes me more aware of my step as I walk.

The one who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD, that one does not “fear” when heat comes in. That is what is written in the Hebrew: “he will not fear.” But in the margin is an ancient alternative: “he will not see.”** The NRSVUE reads the word as “fear”; the JPS reads it as “see” (JPS “sense”). Surely “fear” is the right translation, I think. It is the better choice for not denying the reality of drought, the risk of desiccation. It does not ignore the trouble but states the LORD is water regardless: roots stretch out; leaves green, fruit is made.

Then, thinking on, I see the symmetry in the alternate translation, the balance in its opposition: the one whose trust is flesh will not “see” when good comes” (17:6); the one whose trust is God will not “see” the heat (17:8).

Read the double-possibilities as deliberate wordplay: expressing the inversion of attitudes and outcomes as well as the relationship between vision and fear. Translating “see” reminds that the bases of trust — flesh vs. the LORD — oppose each other, reverse outcomes: as the one will not see good; so the other will not see heat. Yet translating “fear” keeps also in view that the difference in their vision is the right trust, including the right fear. Because the blessed one trusts in the LORD — has the LORD as trust — because that one does not fear the heat, he will see the good that comes in, he is able to see the good that comes in. Fear narrows vision, limits and misleads sight. Trust restores it. The scorching heat, desert drought, trouble looming over, these are real and terrible, but these are not entire. Good comes in its own and awesome glory. The one whose trust is the LORD will see it. And in the meanwhile makes the fruit that is peculiar to that one’s making.

Paul and I are walking by Sligo Creek. Sky fades to softness and even so, the creek gleams. Flowing water reflects the darkening tangle of trees and brush, yes, and also the faint pink cast of the setting sun, and the pale-water blue of the sky. Dusk draws in, and still the creek shows light, flows liquid silver, even amid the darkening.

Drink deep of the LORD, the living water. Stretch out roots to see the good, green your leaves, make the fruit that is yours to make.

**The two words are close in the Hebrew. The “Ketiv/Qere” notes reflect ancient reading tradition.

Recognizing Joy*

Boats anchored near St. Michael’s, 2017; photo by Katherine Brown

The bliss of boating is how quickly you are very far away and how connected you are to everything around.  We have shipped not only our lines but, for a time, our workaday world.  We are sailing across the Chesapeake in a 30-foot Cape Dory, chartered out of Annapolis, now sailing to St. Michaels.

It is a chilly day, drizzly and dim.  Paul has on his oilskins; the girls and I are in slickers.  Elizabeth is three, a gallant, gay sailor-girl in a bright orange life-vest, a too-big green slicker, a purple hat and bright blue rubber boots. Her braids curl with the damp.  She leans over to watch the waves and hums happily to herself.  ‘The water is like Play-Doh,’ she says. ‘It has fingerprints in it.’  Margaret is four-and-a-half months, a snug bundle tucked on the floor of the cockpit.  Her little face is framed with the hoods of two jackets; her hands are inside her sleeves. She waves her arms for a while and smiles at us, then slips off into sleep, in a small boat on a wide water.

We arrive in St. Michaels before dusk and anchor in Fogg Cove.  The maritime museum and its Hooper Strait Lighthouse are behind us.  The velvet green lawn of the Inn at Perry Cabin is before us.  We’ve been in St. Michaels before; we’ve looked at this water from those shores.  But now we are seeing the land from the Bay.  It’s an unfamiliar view of a familiar place, and we relish the unexpected charm of the known made strange before turning to chores — changing damp socks for dry ones, heating chili for supper.  We hear the chime of church bells and a clock striking and the honking of geese overhead.  The two girls are in the V-berth; Paul has cribbed it in so neither can fall out.  Elizabeth coos, ‘Go to sleep, Margaret.’ Soon we hear them snoring, and we look at each other and smile.  Paul checks the anchor light. ‘Katherine, come.’  In the dark, a swan is swimming by.

Annapolis to St. Michaels, St. Michaels to Rock Hall, Rock Hall back across the Bay.  A wonderful run:  the wind steady and strong, we on a beam reach.  The main is up, and the jib, and the only sounds are the creaking of the lines, the squeaking of the wheel, and the slap of the waves against the hull.  The sky is blue but cluttered with clouds.  We sail past the Baltimore Light.  We sail into the Magothy and past Gibson Island and past Dobbins Island.  The light is growing quiet by the time we put the engine on; pale, green beams shine through the clouds onto the shore.  We motor on in search of an anchorage, sliding around a curve and into a quiet secluded little cove.  A wooded shoreline, the trees touched with russet, just starting to turn.  A few houses, with docks and boats.  No one out but us.

Our last night aboard.  We have beef stew and the last of a cheap bottle of wine.  The light grows clearer and more golden.  Clouds lit in peaceful glory.  We take mugs of milky coffee back on deck and watch the fading of the light.  The water very still, reflecting the pink and blue of the sky.  The highest clouds are lit coral-pink by the sun, the lower clouds purple-grey.  We see a great blue heron, here a screech owl, listen to the fish splash and see the ripples they make, circles that catch the light.  Margaret dozes in Paul’s arms.  Elizabeth leans into my knee and sighs and says, ‘This is very nice.’

The morning is pearly:  cloudy at dawn, then clearing slightly for the sun, mist rising off glassy water.  Elizabeth climbs into the still damp cockpit.  ‘Elizabeth!’ we call. ‘Come back down — it’s still wet out there!’  ‘I’m looking at the world,’ she tells us matter-of-factly.  ‘It is very beautiful.  Did you know God made the world?’  Paul and I look at each other, then turn to see the world with Elizabeth.

We bundle the girls again into sweaters and life vests and hats.  Margaret is in a jolly mood.  Elizabeth is happy winding a short bit of line around a winch.  We leave a curve of tiny bubbles as we motor slowly out of the cove and into the broader river.  The world here is all pearl.  The light is a suffused, pale, creamy grey.  The water is gently rippled glass, carrying in it the shapes and colors of the clouds above.  Water and sky match, endless and shining.  And in this spell-world, our small boat is caught between gleaming oyster sea and cloudy oyster sky.  We are connected to familiar things in unfamiliar ways, and recognizing joy.

* Another old essay revisited; this an edited version of ‘Recognizing Joy’; originally in Chesapeake Bay Magazine, April 2000.