Hidden Artifacts and Shifting Waters

I've just spent a pretty rough few weeks back and forth at the hospital with my youngest son, Kristofer. I will certainly have some thoughts about that, but I had already been formulating a post inspired by some happier time spent with him a couple of weeks ago. The good news is that he's back on his feet and doing well and it seems that those days are passed. So, I'm going to stick with the original plan, and see where it comes out on the other side.

Summertime in Alaska usually comes in like a lion and then goes out like a lion. What I mean is that one day it's winter and suddenly it's summer. Then on the other end of the months it will just as suddenly be stinking cold and wintery. Truth be told, this summer hasn't been much of one, but today the sun is shining and it at least looks summery outside. 

Along with that summer season comes perhaps the most anticipated event of the year, which is fishing season. There is literally no place on earth with quite the diverse and magnificent, while lightning brief, array of sport and food available fishing opportunities. From the tiny hooligan, also called the candle-fish because of its oily quality which is collected with fine nets along the shores of Turnagain Arm, to the mighty King Salmon whose returns over the past few years has been disturbringly bleak, you can find various species, sizes, flavors and textures to satisfy your swimming food cravings. With all of that bounty available all over the state, those of us who like to fish try to  make as much time in our schedules to try and slay some of them. And, even if we aren't planing to slay them, we'll even go out just to play with them and throw them back! I know... they probably wouldn't agree that it's "playing", but they also lack opposing thumbs, three pound (average) brains, and firearms. So...

It was in that spirit Kristofer, my twelve year old, and I hopped in the car a few weeks ago and headed thirty or so miles south along Turnagain Arm for what will almost certainly be our only fishing trip of the season. We struck out to Bird Creek, a very close stream just off the Seward Highway between Anchorage and Girdwood/Alyeska. The creek has an annual run of pink, chum, and silver salmon. This run is enhanced by fishery management stocking and usually yields a healthy number of fish. Being so close, it is a heavily pressured location with wall to wall fisher-people flipping for fish in the wildly varying water conditions.

I say wildly varying because where Bird Creek sits on the Arm, it is subject to quite dramatic tide influences. At ebb tide, the creek can be barely fifteen feet across at most places and averages a bit more than two feet deep. However, the Arm boasts some of the most severe tide swings on the planet, and when it rushes in to heights of thirty feet or more from lows that be as much as minus four plus feet, the relatively minor stream of Bird Creek becomes a thirty foot deep, seventy foot wide, still waters run deep kind of amazingly beautiful location. I mean, it's so deep and ocean-like, once it fills up, it isn't uncommon to find a seal hanging out in the creek who has chased the salmon up Turnagain Arm from Cook Inlet. Believe me, it's nothing short of surreal to be standing on the bank of a river, catching salmon, while you try not to snag a two-hundred pound seal who happens to be fishing in the same river.

With that backdrop in mind, Kristofer and I took to the highway in time to catch the end of the falling tide with the intent to fish into the swing back to rising tide. Commonly, if there is a slug of salmon hanging out in the channels and rivulets beyond the mouth at tide shift, the rising water will give them more aquatic real estate to travel in and they will often shoot up into the river in pursuit of their spawning grounds. In the brief window between low tide and roughly one quarter of high tide, there is a significant rise in water level and volume, but still enough constriction that you have a good chance of getting your lure in front of a fish as they crowd between the banks and into the holes.

There is certainly no guarantee there are fish, of course. Nature is fickle that way and the variables that influence how many will return from the ocean, which year of their life cycle they may return, and even how many fingerlings made it from the grounds to the ocean in previous years in order to have a chance to return, are so numerous that it seems a bit of hubris to think that we can actually estimate any of it. On this particular day, we saw a few people hook up with the less desired Pink Salmon and one person lured in a chrome bright silver salmon. We had no such luck, having had only one actual hookup and one minor bump. In between flogging the water we set our rods down on a rock outcropping and wandered the shoreline of the arm. This something can only happen at low tide, and even then only for a short time. The silty mud that makes up the bottom of the arm is supplied by the hundred or thousands of mountain glaciers in the majestic ranges that surround the arm on three sides. It's a powder fine sand that turns as hard as concrete when all of the water has receded from the area. When the tides return to their height that same sand is a mucky sticky foundation. The time in between the empty and the full is fraught with peril as the same sand becomes extremely gelatinous and will allow you to sink quickly but vacuum seal your legs into itself making it nearly impossible to get back out without assistance. People have died getting stuck in the mud and it's wise to not be too cavalier in your approach to it.

As the river water receded, we could see between us and the Alaska Railroad trestle that spans the divide, some large piles of stones long ago washed down from the mountains above us scattered in the flow. The lower the water table became the more exposed those outcropping became until one them stretched a good ten to fifteen feet above the water. As it dried in the spotty sunshine it turned a dull, silty gray that was a reminder that its time wasn't always spent above the surface.

So then. with all of that description, let me try and bring this around to the spiritual "insight" I discussed with my son while standing there in the middle of this dangerous beauty (not catching any fish, so plenty of time for thinking.):

Let the mud, in its varying states of composition, represent the sinful nature. It's that part of us that wrestles with our desire to be good and to be made good by His presence.

Let the water represent whatever we are trying to fill ourselves with. Ideally, it should the work of Christ in us, through us, with us. Before Christ, of course, it could be any number of things, actions, desires, even people. Being filled with the Spirit of God begins with His search for us. Our recognition of His love and loving Him back. It continues in our life with Him.

Let the rock formations represent the old things in our lives. Some things may be like the lines from an old Randy Stonehill tune,

      "I'm packing up my old clothes with my old and foolish ways
      They just don't seem to fit me anymore." 

      Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. 
                  The old has passed away;
                              behold, the new has come.

                                              2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)
 

Some of those things might be bad experiences, poor choices, heartbreak, disappointments  or even just times that have passed us by; some forgotten and some like monuments of remembrance

When we first met Christ it was probably at a time when whatever water was filling us at high tide had run its course and had ebbed away leaving us empty and dry. In that emptiness a wide array of other things or desires could have swept in and flooded our existence. But this time, we heard His voice and we said "come". 

   For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
        For one will scarcely die for a righteous person 
               though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die 
      but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, 
 Christ died for us.
                                                                Romans 5:6-8 (ESV)



And the presence of God flooded in and filled every gap and covered all the sin. It even washed over those old things and the surface of our lives were calm, smooth, and lovely. Like the tides, it's not an easy place to remain. Perhaps we aren't meant to be completely static in that place. Whatever the case, if you're like me, there are times when that water of His presence seems to ebb away, sometimes to throat parching levels that leave us gasping, stretching, retching for relief. I'm one of those who believes that thirst is necessary for satisfying drinks. Struggle is necessary for building endurance.
But I also believe that in those times when I am thirsty, when I am struggling, it's most likely my own doing or my moving away from the river. I also believe God is good enough to let me be thirsty when I need to be thirsty. As well as He is good enough to fill me when my thirst cries out.

As the presence of Christ fills us, it covers over all of that sinful and sticky foundation. True, at the ebb tide, those things felt secure and satisfying. Steady like a rock. But whether it be Christ or something else that rushes in to fill us, that ground below is tricky. ("He's a good lion. Not safe, but good"). Its properties are changing and sometimes menacing. Even so, I'd rather been in God's dangerous grasp than others I could choose. We let Him rush in and our feet leave that deceptive ground. We can float, drift, swim in the totality of His presence with us. We should be mindful that those rock monuments are still down there, stoically standing below the surface. That's not a bad or good thing, I think.
It just is. So be aware of them. They can hurt you, or you can use them to tell others about this whole business of being filled and floating, drifting, swimming. It isn't what lies beneath that needs define you. What fills you should do that. Be IN the filling, not anchored to the ground, or obsessed with what's left below. The ground is tricky, and the monuments are yesterdays bothers.

After we had wandered for a bit, and flailed for fish for a while; as we observed these changes and chatted about them and their beauty; as we discussed the imagery they held we began to turn our attention back to the matters at hand. When fishing the mouth of a tidewater creek or river, the timing of the tides is important. Fishing at high tide, as well as at low tide, is generally speaking not very profitable. More specifically speaking, when fishing for salmon in this environment, incoming or gathering tide is the best time to fish. IF the salmon are compliant they will ride the rush of current into the mouth of the river and begin a mad dash up to the headwaters and spawning ground. By necessity, this moves the fisherman up the banks as the water rises and surpasses the limits of the their hip or chest waders. In places where the incoming tide is sort of lackadaisical it isn't a big deal. But Turnagain Arm tides come in, literally, like a freight train. The water table can rise eight or more feet in seconds, depending on the amount of swing from low to high tide. Because of this, the silt bottom and shoreline doesn't gradually soak up moisture as the water gently rises. Underneath the surface of the mud, unseen, there are million and millions of gallons of water, under megatons of pressure racing into the tiny spaces between the grains of sand.
The effect of this crush of water molecules is that the air in those tiny spaces has to go somewhere as it vacates the space in the face of the tide. In what is one of the strangest, coolest thing we get to experience in this environment of, all of that air gets forced out through the ground. Along the edges of the river, between the gravel and below the surface; several feet up the bank is the seemingly solid ground, air begins to bubble of from far below! Little spouts of air pop through and begin burping and foaming. Here's a little video clip so you can see it, and believe it.

For those in the know, THIS IS A WARNING! Something is coming. And it is arriving with great speed and the incredible power of massive transformation. It doesn't matter if what's coming is good or bad, in this regard. It is filling the empty spaces nonetheless and you had better be prepared. Sink, swim or get out of the way.

       What do you want your empty spaces to be filled with?

                      They will get filled, and it will usually be in a rush, with abandon.

                                Little warning

                                        Sink, swim, or get out of the way?

You are about to give yourself up to something.

Empty space craves a residential force. 

Give up to the abiding presence of Christ