By the Rev. Jon Rieley-Goddard

Dear friends,

    Butte Street runs along the bluff on the south side of the Sacramento River in Redding, California, my hometown.

    The bluff, composed of glacial till – a jumble of rocks and red dirt 150 feet tall, left by glacial activity – rises sheer from the deep, swift, and cold water of the river. There is one access point along the main stretch of the bluff, a worn path at the end of a dead-end street. At least that was the case in 1960-something, the only time I ever tried to fish there. I was all of 11, 12 or 13.

    My dad had a leaky pair of real rubber hip waders that I had brought along with me on that day. I was emboldened by record low water in the river, which led me to think that I could bike down to the river, and wade out and fish on a riffle at the base of the bluff. Turns out I wasn’t thinking clearly, if at all.

    When I got to the bottom of the bluff and waded into the water, I learned several things in quick succession:

    – The water was cold but pleasant on my wader-clad legs.

    – The water was slowly finding pinholes and weeping into the boots.

    – The water was swift.

    – The fish weren’t biting.

    – And last, but certainly not least, the water was not going to let me return to the shore without a struggle.

    Wading out, against the current, I had been able to get 15 or 20 feet into the water; wading back, with the current pushing me, I realized that I was running out of riffle as I fought for my life.

    How could I be so dumb, I asked myself, signaling a return to reality and clear thinking. As I fought for footing and footage, the water drew closer and closer to the tops of the waders, at mid-thigh. A quick ride down the swift river at the base of the bluff promised to be my last.

    I redoubled my efforts to stay on the rocks of the riffle and to gain ground back to the bank. Finally I was in the slack water near the bank, and the danger was over. I sat down and sought to recapture my breath and strength for the vertical climb back to my bike at the top of the bluff.

    I made some resolutions:

    – No more waders.

    – No more putting myself at risk.

    – No more going out without assessing the cost of coming back.

***

    If I had slipped on the rocks on that riffle and had flown butt down and feet first down the cold, deep, swift, murderous stretch of river below, with the sheer cliff to my rigfht, I would have ended up -- probably dead -- in another set of riffles where on another occasion I had witnessed a similar, and at the same time different, drama.

   On this other occasion, also in 1960-something, I was fishing for salmon on the bank, shoulder to shoulder with four or five other anglers, mostly adults. When the salmon were running up the river to spawn, it was shoulder to shoulder on the banks of the Sacramento at the best spots for fishing. The riffles were an active spawning ground for the returning salmon.

    A black man in chest waders entered the river upstream from the rocky bank where we were casting our lures. Suddenly, he was in trouble, and up to his chest in the cold water. And as suddenly, two guy that I knew from high school as toughs and hoods were in the water and helping this man fight back to the bank.

    He was black; they were hoodlums. And they had helped him live.
Later I would see them pick fights with other kids, double-teaming them on the thinnest of pretexts, dangerous and seemingly indifferent to the life of others, and far downstream from that day on the river when they helped that man live.

***

    In years of adolescent fishing on the river, I caught a grand total of one fish, and hooked two steelhead that rocketed into the air and shook the hook loose before smacking down again. I guess that being on the water was more important to me than my catch, though the lure of big fish was part of what brought me back to the river time and time again. I can remember the way the cottonwood trees smelled, and the way the star thistles smelled in the cool of evening after a hot summer day, and the way the salmon – soretails, we called them – smelled as they rotted on the bank, ugly and putrid. Returning from salt water to fresh water, to spawn, killed them.

    Some of the salmon were large, as much as 30 pounds. We called them dog salmon. Others were chinooks, more like 15 pounds. And the steelhead, under 10 pounds, were fighters like no others.

    The water even had its smells, and my creel, too, reeking of old and dried salmon eggs.

***

    When I think back, I am amazed at the freedom that I had. From the age of 10 or 11, I could jump on my bike and go anywhere I could pedal to. I remember that my dad, no matter how harrowing my stories, would focus on teaching me things rather than lecturing me about safety. When I told him about my dangerous walk on the riffle at the base of the bluff, he taught me how you can get your waders off if you slip into swift and deep water. When I flipped my kayak because I had thrown an anchor over the side instead of off the bow, he taught me how to correctly deploy an anchor.

    I find myself wondering why he never reined me in, and I find myself wishing that he had worried more about me, and I find myself thankful that I had the freedom to do some wonderful things and to see some sights that are no more there to be seen.

***

    Wise people know that we can only experience God’s love if we have experienced human love. I know that my father’s love was shown in his even-tempered responses to my flailing about on the banks and riffles of my unfolding life. Wise people also know that God grants us free will, knowing that creatures sharply defined by rules, regulations, and an all-knowing, all-controlling sort of god would be more like robots than humans, and unable to love back. Without our free will, in some sense, God would be god.

    Sometimes I wish that God would pay more attention to me and give me some limits and restrictions; the rest of the time I simply exercise my free will, getting into some amazing and interesting places.

    I know that if I don’t like some of my choices, and God probably doesn’t like some of my choices, God still likes me, even if I don’t like myself, some of the time. I know, too, that God delights in me, and you, and us, and all the others, too, every last one, right down to the meanest, nastiest, most life-denying low-life hoodlum that you could imagine; in other words, you, me, and us, and all the rest. It doesn’t pay to dwell on this, but it cannot be denied that sin begins with the engagement of the will and that any one of us, given to right set of stimuli, can replicate any dark moment in the annals of human misery.
I would rather be defined by my story than by my potential, though, so I simply accept that nothing human is alien to me and move on, hoping for the best and fighting to stay on the rocks of the riffles rather than slipping into the dark and cold of waters too deep for me or you or anyone else.

***

    It is easy to assume that because God leaves us free, God leaves us alone. This is not true, however. God may be profoundly indifferent to our actions, at an important level, but this does not mean that God is also profoundly indifferent to us. The one who sends his own son to be crucified did not do so out of world-weariness or inattention or indifference.

    It follows from this that the one who made us, loves us. And it follows that prayer makes sense, as a way of staying in touch, of saying thanks, and of asking for help when we slip toward dark and cold waters too strong for us.
Anymore, my prayers are more like mantras such as loving God, loving God, loving God while my mind races on other levels with complaints, requests, demands, occasional thanks, and confessions. When I try to pray, I do something else that is more eloquent and less sincere. It is the difference between being a person and being an actor. As a person, I pray loving God, loving God, loving God; as an actor, I strut and fret.

    As I grow, and grow older, I am slowly learning how to just get out of my own way. I trusted God the moment I became aware of God. Trusting self and others has taken a lot longer.

***

    God is the current and the way ... the rocks, and the deep, cold places, too. God is the fear and the awe, and the ache of beauty. God is the creator, and in some way, too, the destroyer – of what is false and life-denying. God is the giver of life and new life. God is the God of the past, the present, and the future. God is the past, the present, and the future.

    If God takes away, you really didn’t need what you have lost. When God gives, you are rich beyond your knowing or wishing.

    The river flows over rocks and depths, and we live there. Perhaps that is why the wise say that when you are on the water, you are there. You have arrived.

    Blessings and peace!

    Pastor Jon