I followed the winding path a ways from our campsite—Bible, journal, and pen in one hand, water bottle and headlamp in the other. I had traversed this same path about an hour ago to get water, which was now boiling in the comically large pot over the fire. The roots wove up and down through the dirt. When I was younger, I used to mistake them for snakes, jumping back in fright, but no longer. I swerved around the roots with ease and hopped down the “stairs,” larger rocks shoved into the steep embankment by some kind-hearted trail volunteer that opened onto the pond.
Pond wasn’t quite the right word for it. The word pond conjures the image of a small body of water, muddy, filled with frogs, and surrounded by tall grass. A breeding ground for mosquitoes and all other sorts of pests. No, pond wasn’t the right word.
I surveyed the seating options and staked my spot on a large rock which slanted gently into the water. It wouldn’t provide much rest for my aching back, but it was flat enough that I figured I could lay down and take a nap should I feel so inclined. I heard rustles around me as the others settled into their chosen spots and then, after a minute, it all went quiet. It was the kind of silence that one can only find out in the wild. Silence that isn’t quite silent, but it cuts deep to your core. Each whisper of the wind through the tops of the trees. Each slap of the water up against the rock at your feet. Each splash as a fish jumps into the air seems to roll over you, attempting to remind you that this is real, you are here. It could almost be a dream, but then a bird caws or a chipmunk rustles in the undergrowth.
You can’t find that kind of silence in the city, where it never feels like a dream. There is too much action, and there are too many people. Just as you begin to drift into that dreamlike state, a child screams or a fire engine wails and you are reminded, harshly and unpleasantly, of where you are. The silence isn’t the same.
I sat there on the rock for a moment before I began to move again, my body somehow too restless after hiking for 12 hours that day and summiting three mountains to be still. I took off my shoes, my trusty Chacos, first. Then I peeled off my socks and stretched out my aching legs. Only a few weeks into the summer and the z-shaped stripes of pale skin on my foot created by the straps of my sandals were already glaringly white compared to the dark tan around them. This was a result to be expected after many hours spent stretched out in a canoe, the sun beating down on them. Above the line of my socks, my legs were coated in mud, and I shuffled my way down the rock to the water’s edge. I dipped a hand in first to test the temperature. It was perfect—slightly chilled as a mountain pond should be, but the warm summer sun had raised the temperature just enough that I could splash the water over my body without feeling shivers down my spine.
I splashed the water up onto my face and rubbed, feeling layers of built-up grime peel away. Then I cupped my hands and poured water onto my legs and began to scrub at the patches of dirt which coated them. They slowly began to melt away, turning first to mud, and then with many more layers of water, and then finally disappearing. I lay back on the rock, letting the rays of late afternoon sun evaporate the drops of water off my legs. I crossed my arms behind my
head and closed my eyes. I could feel the sun soaking into my skin, its warmth seeping into the cavity behind my eyes. There was a slight orange glow that I could still see, even with my eyes closed.
A dragonfly buzzed over my head, and I abruptly sat up. I watched it make its way over the pond to settle on a lilypad, then lift off and fly back over to me. It hovered in the air for a moment and I held out my hand in invitation. It hesitated, then turned its tail and flew in the other direction, back over the pond. I looked up into the sky. The wisps of clouds were frozen in the air like the pieces of cotton ball that used to get stuck to my fingers when I was doing art projects in elementary school. There was always just a little bit too much glue on my fingers to pull them off. The trees were casting their dark shadows over the pond’s surface now and I opened my Bible for the first time.
I opened it to the passage I always turn to—in pain, in anger, in sadness, in joy. “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory which far outweighs them all.” There was rustling on the rock behind me. I knew if I turned around, I would see Daniel sitting there. But my thoughts that summer had already become too occupied with him, and there were more important things to think about. Like the setting sun, turning the bottom hemisphere of the sky a burnt sort of orange. It wasn’t really a beautiful sunset, not like the ones you see when you google the word “sunset.” It was a calmer, more gradual lowering of that glowing ball of fire from the sky behind the mountains in front of me. Or perhaps behind me. I couldn’t quite tell which direction I was facing and the light that was being cast from it filled the entire sky with an even glow.
The fish had begun to quiet down. I could still see them swimming below the surface of the water, chasing each other to and fro in flocks. On occasion, one of them would still jump out of the water, much less frequently than before. All of the birds had flown away now, retiring to their nests for the night, and were nearly silent, except for the single confused calls that would pierce through the air every couple of minutes. The ripples on the water had slowed, too. The water bugs laid themselves down to rest wherever water bugs do. I could almost believe I was alone on that rock, looking out over the water to the now dark shadow of the trees on the far shore. I could have let it scare me, the fear of the cold. I was shivering now, so I slowly replaced the layers I had shed before, one by one. The darkness and the thought of the bears which roamed through the forest could have frightened me too, but I knew I wasn’t alone.
On the rocks around me and slightly deeper into the forest were eight others I had come on this trip with. I could only imagine they’d spent the past few hours in much the same way as I, although I was sure I had snagged the best view. Our counselors were still up at the campsite, cooking a dinner which would hopefully be ready soon. My stomach was rumbling. And of course, there in the trees which lined the pond and in the clouds in the sky and the moon which now shone on us from above and further upward and onward, He was there.
I’d never really managed to find God out there before in the wilderness. Some part of me believed He was somewhere, far off in the sky, watching over me as I stumbled over rocks, pulled myself over boulders on the trail, and lay myself down to sleep under the stars. When I used to stare up at the constellations in the dark, craning until my neck hurt and I had finally managed, with much help, to find the North star, I wished deep in my heart that I could truly believe He was up there, looking back down at me. I imagined that to Him, I was one of many uncountable stars, each as new and beautiful as the last.
I’d heard the others at camp the summer before share their stories of how deeply they believed in Him, how He had saved them from kidnapping, from malignant tumors, from depression, and saved their parents from strokes. They were so firmly set in their faith, and I would cry myself to sleep wondering why I, despite all my parents had tried to instill in me my entire childhood, still couldn’t manage to believe. But sitting there beside that mountain pond as dusk turned to night, something finally clicked. How could I be alive in all this, after a day filled with stress and tears? We had almost run out of water on the trail after our second peak when one of the water spouts was broken. I had run up and down about half a mile of trail three times to fill people’s bottles from the small stream of water we had seen running down the side of a rock. Our plan to rest on top of the next mountain had been destroyed and I had barely made it into camp with my wits intact. But here I was and the sun had set just perfectly behind the mountains and I knew that this time by the water with nothing but me and the sky above me couldn’t have been an accident.
There is a peace that comes with this realization, that you are not, are never, alone. A sense of calm in the understanding that life is not random, that it is not up to us to figure out our purpose. There is a power that comes with the knowledge that we are not the deciders of our own destinies. A power that has allowed me to make hard decisions with peace in my heart, has gotten me through college applications and my Grandpa’s death. To know that He is always there, guiding our footsteps and our hearts. I finally began to understand this beside that pond, and I haven’t gone back.
I said before that one couldn’t quite call it a pond. For me, it seemed more of a gate, gilded and grand. I didn’t know what was on the other side, but as the sun sank behind the trees and goosebumps began to run up my legs from the cold and perhaps a bit of something else, I felt that I finally saw Him the way they did, just a little. I think He really was there by that pond, in the breeze and the animals, in the rocks and the water that I splashed up onto my legs, and in me.
Elizabeth Harris ‘28 is probably going to be a double History and Chemistry major. She is from Brooklyn and enjoys going on runs, calling her mom, writing in her journal, and taking dance classes at Williams. She is very grateful to Telos for providing a space to explore the intersection of learning and her Christian faith.