waterfalls and romance

Somehow on the morning of Day 4, tho there are very few intersections (and very few roads) in Yellowstone National Park, I managed to get on the wrong road. (Those of you who know me personally and know how par for the course this is may stop snickering now.) I'd suspected that such was the case for awhile, as I was not seeing signs for things for which I expected to see signs... so I finally pulled over, and looked at the map. At that point, it would have taken me a really long time to get down to Lewis Lake for the quiet morning I'd planned to spend there. So I sat in my car and debated... looked at the map again, saw there were a few waterfalls ahead eventually, and decided that one of them would do. This turned out to be an excellent decision, as one of the best moments of the trip was right up that road.

This is Undine Falls. I'm not sure when I've been in a more perfect moment than the time I spent by the falls. The roar of the water, the cool mountain breeze, the birdsong, the sunshine - and a trail to hike. I took it, of course, and soon came to a "crossroads" of sorts... the trail continued on the other side of a fallen tree I could have climbed over; it also looped back to the overlook around a rock. I chose that rock as my meeting place with God, and took a seat. Spent a while just soaking it in. Read the story of Joash and Jehoiada (2 Chronicles 24). Thought about it. Prayed. Rested. Became - as Madeleine L'Engle would say - simply my ontological self. Picked up the book I'd started the night before: Walking With God, by John Eldredge. It was perfect timing.

As I was sitting on that rock, any number of people came past - most either walked around behind the rock or continued on over the tree and down the trail. But for whatever reason, two people, at one point, actually came and walked around in front of me. (The trail there was narrower, sloped, closer to the edge of the ravine and uneven footing, but I will grant you, the view was a little better.) They were an older couple - probably in their mid-late '60s - he was still fairly spry, but she was having a little difficulty managing this part of the trail. He stopped a few feet away from me to wait for her, watching the falls, then noticed she needed help. She handed him their camera, and then he reached out for her - and there was just something in the way their hands met, and the way he helped her up that last bit of the trail - I felt I had just witnessed an incredibly holy moment - and the coolest part of it was that I didn't feel like an intruder. This was something I was meant to see. They stood there for a minute, admiring the view, and then continued up the trail. And I... I simply sat there. And wept. Just for a minute. Because it was such a beautiful thing to have seen, in this beautiful, perfect moment.

And because there was something about that moment that touched a chord deep in my heart... the same chord that was struck weeks ago, as I was walking through a local park, and saw an old man pushing his wife through the park in her wheelchair... the same chord that was resonating when I wrote Sparks...

I went back to my book. Read some things on p. 36-37 that (totally out of context) spoke to my heart in that moment. And then the breeze kicked up a bit... and I just knew. God had heard that chord.

And, in fact, He's the One who played it...