The Creator was using my mountain as his anvil again. With every hammer blow, sheet lightning shot into the air over the valley, followed an instant later by the cracking roar of thunder. Flash, crack and flash again as He reworked the clouds like sheet metal.
I lay there, half asleep, listening to the rain hammering down on the roof, the only person in a world wrapped in spray and mist. Exactly what Vermont needs, I thought, and remembered the white rocks trail.
Mountain trails here seem to be either boggy or dusty, depending on terrain and the season. Certainly sections of my walk up Harmon Hill took me along planks nailed to timber floats in the mud. They can be humid too - the lower slopes of Bald Mountain were close and hot.
The heavy rains, though, had altered the course of the small river running down the mountainside. As I made my ascent, the trail bed became the river, coursing between stones washed bare by the torrent: crystal water, clean, clear and cold. This was not like the Thames, with its slow power and shifting tides; nor like the Roaring Branch with its youthful vigour and strength that scours the floodplain for a hundred feet either side of the course when in flood. This was small, strong, fresh - the sort of river that makes you want to throw yourself under the waterfalls coursing down either side of the trail and wash off the dust and the mud and the dirt until there's nothing but the cool of the river and the rock of the mountain.
After the juxtaposed pockets of stinking swamp and dusty rock fields of the summit, its cheerful noise was a welcome greeting, as little forest toads jumped and crawled from my footsteps. I rested for a minute by the bank, and thought again of the story of Chris McCandless, who in 1992 wandered into the Alaskan wilds in a Thoreau-esque search for solitude, never to return. On the one hand, I was on the Bennington side of the mountain, and had cell phone reception for much of the distance. On the other, I was the only person on the trail that day, miles from town and basking in the solitude. Perhaps I could understand a little of what he was seeking.
Just the mountain, the river and I; at times like that it feels like I have Creation all to myself. It feels wonderful.
We often do not get a first hand look at the raw power of God. Like any other attempt that we make to control any part of our life (hiding from Him, trying to control His creation), it takes only a moment for the Creator to remind us that He is in control, this life on Earth is temporary, and just how awesome it will be when we, by faith, are in His presence.
ReplyDeleteWonderful to see you again and spend an afternoon at the fair (complete with fried dough). Blessings to your family.