The River Runs Deep

It just occurred to me that the opposite of outlaws is in-laws.

How appropriate!

My in-laws are great people. Knowing what I know now, I would have asked my wife to marry me sooner just to spend more time with my in-laws (as it was, my wife and I were married before I had known her a year).

Outlaws take. They rape and rob and burgle and pillage.

My in-laws give and give. They help and nurture. They are sympathetic, empathetic, energetic and, when all else fails, symbiotic. Then, they give some more.

I bring that up today because I am sitting in the sun room of their lake house in Virginia. As I look out over the beautiful lake front garden I see that the wind is pushing the water into frothy westward waves (As Frank Herzog would say "from left to right across your television screens").

From where I sit, you can't see the ends of the lake and the opposing shore here makes this passage about wide as the Potomac River. The wave action gives the lake the appearance of current. Indeed, if you were not a resident, you'd swear that this is a river front, not a lake front.

What's the difference? The water in front of me has some permanence. It has depth and contour and stability. True, there is an occasional shoreline eddy and seasonal drift and exchange, but the lake is the lake.

A river is a channel through which an ever-changing torrent of water runs constantly. It can carry you away, or carry you under. Frequently it does both.

The allure of motion and change is as old as the serpent in the garden. We should take care to see that we are not jumping into an unknown current that will wisk us away from our safe harbor.

In 1982, I jumped in quickly.

Fortunately, I ended up in this beautiful lake.