For most people, no doubt the vast majority, World River Day, the fourth Sunday of every September, passed by as unnoticed as the headwaters of a quiet stream slipped by in a forest no one was frequenting anyway.
But what a metaphor for life.
Did my grandson want to watch from the dock as I rowed? No.
Did he want to sit in the stern of the boat while I rowed? No.
What then?
“I’ll take an oar and grandpa you take an oar and we’ll row together.”
And so it was I moved aside and he took his place with me and together we returned home, he pulling on his oar and me on mine.
World River Day, and the day my grandson and I rowed the boat together, are about beginnings.
Rivers are rightly called the world’s circulatory system. The river chooses its course but we have a responsibility to protect its purity.
Running through the arteries and veins of my grandson is a lifeblood that sustains purpose and direction, and it is his character and development and behavior that has so much to do with his purpose and direction that as his grandpa, and his mom and dad, and his teachers and coaches, we hope to affect, even as a confluence of rivers provides even greater power and wider influence.
How best to do that?
As he watches from the dock? No.
As he sits in the stern? No.
“I’ll take an oar and grandpa you take an oar and we’ll row together.”
Lovely.