Undercurrents

I know I've used this picture on my blog before, but it just fit today because this is where I spent about an hour or so up on Green Mountain this afternoon, trying to enjoy what's probably the last of the sunny days for the rest of the week.

The water wasn't glassy like this, though. The wind was blowing and the water was rippling from the effects of the wind. I was trying to 'focus' and start a prayer journal that I've been wanting to do. I tend to write quite a bit in more diary type fashion - just writing about what's going on and what I'm thinking about. But today was more about writing out things I want to pray about. I did a little of that... then found myself looking around and writing about how amazing God's creation is... and then ended up writing something of a Psalm -- all stuff that's a little too personal to share on the world wide web. ;-) So I don't really know how well I was doing with my 'focus,' but then, for as scattered as I've felt lately, it was at least a start.

Anyways, as I was looking at the water rippling past me flowing to the right of me, I noticed several leaves floating on top of the water near each other. They caught my attention, because with the wind blowing the current pretty strongly to the right, I was intrigued by the fact that they weren't moving at all in that direction. Or at least not very fast. They were just seeming to stay 'anchored' in place.

Then a single leaf came floating by, much closer to the dock than the others, and it was being carried by the current and the wind as I would think it should be. But as it passed the end of the dock, it must have been caught by whatever other 'invisible' current was holding the other leaves in place, because it circled around and 'joined' the other leaves, coming to a standstill among them.

Clearly, a stronger, less visible force, was flowing just underneath these leaves and holding them in place. And it must have been flowing directly opposite to the force of the wind and what I could see as the direction that things should have been flowing on top of the water. Obviously it was all pretty fascinating to me... at least enough so that it prompted me to write about them. :-)

Anyways, I think what was happening in front of me is how it is with God... Sometimes we're tucked away into the steady undercurrant and safe from the wind and the waves trying to blow us away... and sometimes we're a stray leaf being blown quickly by and needing to be caught up again in the strength of the undertow. I could relate to that lone leaf today...

You know, all analogies break down somewhere, and as I watched my strong and steady group of leaves, a bunch of ducks decided to come swimming through them and it scattered them all about. Not quite sure what the lesson is in that, but it made me laugh. :-)