This is a passage from a book written by one of my favorite authors, John Eldredge.
It
was the final evening of our summer vacation. We had spent nine
wonderful days in the Tetons hiking and swimming, laughing and playing,
enjoying rare and wonderful time together as a family in a stunningly
beautiful place. During our explorations, we had discovered a quiet
pond in the woods, about a half hour's walk from camp, where wildlife
would often come in the evening. This night, we planned to arrive at
dusk and stay until night fell to see what nature might
reveal.
The sun was setting behind us as we arrived, and far off in the east
massive thunderheads were building above the Absarokas, cloud upon
cloud,
giant castles in the sky. The fading day was slowly turning them peach, then pink, then gray.
A pair of trumpeter swans were swimming across our little pond, looking
for all the world
like something from a fairy tale. My wife and I sat together with our
three boys on a spot of grass near the water's edge, our backs against a
fallen log. Across the pond lay a meadow, the stage for the evening's
drama. As light began to fade, a bull moose with a massive rack emerged
from the willows directly across the meadow from where we sat. He
spotted us and stopped; we held our breath. Silently, he disappeared
into the trees as
mysteriously as he had come. Before we could be
disappointed, a cow moose and her calf appeared from another part of the
meadow, wandering along grazing. We watched them as night continued to
fall.
A cool breeze
stirred the pines above
us. Crickets began their
twilight chorus. The cow lay in the tall
grass, but we could still see her calf. Sandhill cranes were calling
and answering one another around the marsh with
their haunting, primeval cries.
The boys huddled closer to us. A beaver swam by our feet, making a V
through the surface of the pond, faded with the light to a
gunmetal gray. Far off in the distance, lightening was beginning with those cloud fortresses,
flashes of glory. A small herd of elk came out to graze at the far end of the meadow, just as darkness was
setting in.
Finally, as if not to be left out, a lone coyote began to howl. It was
one of the most breathtaking nights I have ever experienced in the
wilderness,
a living work of art. (Desire, pg. 9, 10)
Throughout my life, I've been fortunate enough to enjoy moments
like this with family and friends. Surely, they are rare and, therefore, special. Everything in me wants to hold on to these times and to not let go. I even find myself revisiting such memories now and again, feeling wonderfully happy and then a little sad. Oh the mystery of the heart...
Is there something more to such experiences or is time just playing a bad joke on us?
We are never living, but hoping to live
Pascal
