Sunday, September 29, 2024

Holm is Where the Heart Is

 

Isaiah 43:2 - “When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown.”

In my last Calvary’s Thread post, ‘Adrift’, I wrote about drifting along the current of a river without tiller or oar and speculated that I might be able to lean over and hand paddle my along. Jim McClelland suggested in a comment that by hopping in I could “enjoy the truths of the discoveries along this particular journey.” Part of my reply to Jim was that I am more effective as a swimmer than a drifter, or something along those lines. As effective as I can be while propelling myself along the river of life, I need respite from the currents and chills of the water. I need rest and a place to do it. I believe I found such a place and I know of a handful of others. Holm.

Holm, as Webster describes it, is a small island or inshore island. It’s a British term and those folks seem to have cornered the market for alternate words for an island such as: ait as in ‘a little island’ or eyot a variation on ait. I prefer ‘holm’ to the alternatives, it feels warmer and more inviting to me.

When my sister Denise moved to Merlin, Oregon and shortly thereafter my parents, we took summer trips to visit them nearly every year and with few exceptions, rafted down the Rogue River. For twenty-five years we took these floats using inflatable kayaks, paddle rafts, and drift boats. We encountered small islands, or holms, along the way downstream. They provide sanctuary for birds to nest to be safer for their eggs and young. Canada Geese, Mergansers, Teals, Mallards, and other waterfowl use the island to pull up on and sun to restore body heat and to nest. Songbirds and waders (Green and Great Blue Herons, and various Egrets) wade off the holms to hunt for fish and frogs. The islets are not Edens as there is predation from the sky from eagles and hawks. Otters, playful as they are, eat pretty much what they can catch. Still, there is a measure of sanctuary and peace, the birds can breathe and relax a bit.

Bass Lake, the ancestral home of my mom, has a couple of islands – one toward the upper third of the lake where the Madera County Sheriffs operate from. The other island is down near the dam. Both islands are submerged when the lake is full with the only evidence as either the Sheriff’s tower or the vegetation sticking up above the water. Likewise, both islands are accessible by walking when the lake is at its lowest point. The island near the dam is bisected by a boom, in the old days of true log construction but nowadays made of rubber coated tubes filled with floatation materials. Nearly from the day we could walk we would see how far we could get before falling off the boom and into the lake. It became a rite of passage when we could swim along the boom out to the island or take our inflatable rafts to it. These were our Huck Finn moments.

My dad and I sometimes rowed out and fished around the island. I miss those times of quiet conversation as we tried to lure trout and bass to our hooks. Whenever I see the island, I remember those times and I am warmed by the memories of them. It is a holm to me.

A week ago, as I wrote this, I was at holm with Jim and Shirley McClelland, free of the river’s currents, rapids, and rocks. A place of peace and sanctuary. I feel at home at their place, always. I rode my motorcycle up to see them, hang out with Jim with his various errands, and take in a Giants’ game at Oracle Park. As arduous as my ride up was (I’ll need to write that story for Iron Side Up) I needed a place to catch my breath. The ride provided me space to think and pray about things and then push them away to pay attention to the road. With Jim and Shirley, it is as though no time has passed and we pick up where we left off. I love them for it.

Mike and Van Schermerhorn’s place is another holm, and island of respite. The last time I was with them I had rented a trailer to help Mike move a patio set to a friend of theirs in need. As with Jim, it seemed that no time had passed and we picked up where we last saw each other. Mike and Van bought lunch for me which we had shared with friends of theirs. They needn’t have, the warmth in sharing in their kindness was more than enough payment. I love them for it.

My sisters’ places and kids’ homes are places we stay that offer the same sort of comforts of love, joy, and peace – they are places to rehab my soul. Holms in the river, though with the grandkids the times are more otterlike than completely restful.

My prayer for you, my encouragement to you, is that you find your holms. And those that you already know, pay them a visit and heal a bit from the rush and keep a weather eye out for new holms.

In His grip,

jerry

Biblical river references:

Psalms 46:4 - "There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High."

Revelation 22:1-2 - "Then the angel showed the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb."

Genisis 2: 20 - “A river flowed from the land of Eden, watering the garden and then dividing into four branches.”

Monday, September 2, 2024

Adrift

 


Living waters have a current, an ebb and flow to them, sometimes unseen, as from a hidden wellspring, a source beyond the ken of human senses. Living waters are not distilled nor sterile. The currents bringing them to the ponds and headwaters contain nutrients, the outgoing currents take the waste of the living organisms downstream to be consumed by still other creatures or cast of in the effervescence of the streams.

The waters I seem to be on are not some stagnant pond, putrid with waste and polluted by mankind. And so, adrift as I am, I have at least this one thing left, that my oft used sign off, ‘in His grip’, is still true and that whatever landfall my drift takes me, I will have my feet on firm soil.

Adrift appears an apt turn for this stage of life I find myself. Meriam (we are on a first name basis now) talks about adrift as being without motive power and having no anchor or mooring, ties, guidance or security. I am uneasy with these things. I’m an old man, for God’s sake! Shouldn’t I have the power to direct my life, activities, and interests?

By what mechanism have I become adrift, without sail and subject to every current and vagrant wind? By my own devices? Have others cast me into this drift? Let me be honest with myself – I have no one to blame but myself. I pushed off into the stream without proper provisions.

I shouldn’t be rudderless, without oars or a motor these days. I’m a Christian. But I am in the water’s power and subject the vagaries of the stream with its rocky outcroppings, rapids, and glassy stretches. I am consumed with sadness, not as acute as Jesus’ sadness in the garden of Gethsemane, but at times it feels akin to that.

I have a distinct memory from my childhood when my mom and a friend of hers took my sisters, the friend’s son, Dennis Broberg, and me up to Switzer’s Creek in the Angeles National Forest. Dennis and I took our army men and equipment. You know, like those great characters from the Toy Story movies? We set up roads and fortifications. We collected twigs and fashioned rafts for water-born assaults. The prone machine gunners were particularly good for the rafts. We set them adrift in the creek in the hopes they could get behind enemy lines. Adrift and without rudders, they invariably ran afoul of some driftwood collected between the rocks. My own drift sometimes feels like the ill-fated infantryman’s.

Still, I am in His grip and when it comes to it and I am caught by the eddies that thwart my progress, I can risk it and reach over the side and hand-paddle my way out. Firmer ground awaits and who knows what stranded wayfarer I might bring into my raft and take to safety along the way.

To borrow a phrase from Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding, “I hope”.

In His grip,

Jerry White