The Direction of Water One warm day in the early summer, a young boy came to visit his grandfather at his small cabin nestled among the trees just below the top of a large hill. The day was bright and pleasant, so they agreed to enjoy the outdoors and began a ramble down the hill, examining leaves and bugs and rocks and every kind of flower they encountered. Soon they came upon a stream, fed by a natural spring bubbling up into a clear pool. The boy looked with wonder and interest as the water rose up through the sand and spilled out of the pool and down the stream bed. He watched carefully for awhile, as if he expected the wonder to cease. Finally, he asked, "Grandpa, how long will the water keep flowing?" "This spring flows all year round," said the grandfather. "Through heat and cold, rain and drought, this spring is a faithful and dependable source of water." "Where does the water come from?" asked the lad. "A spring like this starts from high up there," the grandfather replied, pointing toward a mountain in the distance. "It begins with the rain and snow and the dew on the leaves of many plants, far up on the mountains. But that is only the beginning. These waters join together deep inside the earth, in the inner secret places, where they form a single, pure flow. The water must pass with great travail and great patience over long distances through sand and rock until finally, in the fullness of time, it rises forth from the earth here before us." The boy stood awestruck at this story until the grandfather broke the reverie by adding, "You know, my boy, there is a great truth here: the greater the struggle, the purer the spring." The grandfather contemplated his own wisdom until it was the boy's time to break the meditation. "Where does the water go, Grandpa?" he asked, looking down the stream. "I can't see it after it reaches that old log." "There's another great truth," said the grandfather. "The only way to find where a stream will lead is to follow it." So the boy and his grandfather followed the stream along its course down the hillside. They rambled at an easy pace, enjoying the song of the waters tumbling over the rocks in the stream bed and watching an occasional leaf or twig rush down the rapids of a particularly turbulent spot. They paused often to examine a curious vine or a rotting log or to touch the bark of a nearby tree or merely to look around them to see the forest at peace. Eventually they came to the base of the hill where the stream stretched out along the plain. After walking awhile, they saw a place where, within the space of a few yards, the stream disappeared into the ground. "The stream ends here," said the boy. The old man said nothing but continued to stroll with the boy down the now dry stream bed, their feet crunching on the gravel in a most satisfying way. After many steps, the old man turned to the boy and said, "Why don't you dig a hole right there." The boy looked surprised for a moment, but soon began to dig in the bed. When he had dug down a foot or so, water seeped into the hole. "There is water here!" the boy exclaimed, watching the level rise to a few inches. "It's the stream," the old man said. "It has continued from where we last saw it, only now the gravel is on top." "You mean the stream has been with us all along?" asked the boy. "That's right," said the old man, "and that's another truth you should remember: If you ever lose sight of a stream, and believe it has been lost, just look under the gravel and you will find it again." |-|-| Kath <mzmouser@earthlink.net> ~`* `*' `*' `* `*' `*' *' `*' *' `*' `* `*' *' `*' ~~~