The Walking Stick Journal

Stepping Stones of Transformation

An Unfolding Manuscript

by

C.D. Baker

Chapter Four: The Creek

The east side of my small Pennsylvania farm is bordered by a patch of hardwoods that spread downslope to the banks of a clear-water creek. The creek cuts sharply against her curving banks and ripples smoothly over stony shallows. Her swimming holes are home to native trout and muskrat. Black minks scamper over muddy roots; deer step gingerly over jutting rocks. Chattering kingfishers sweep low and the occasional bald eagle crowns her from above.

She is my daily companion. She holds beauty and goodness and truth, and gives them each voice in the most mysterious of ways. She speaks to me often and I am beginning to learn through her.

***

October – December, 2018

I was anxious before going back to Ukraine, and I couldn’t shake the anxiety of the false diagnosis of (It) which followed me there. I was exhausted the whole time but given lots of loving care. All that love got my attention.   

Flying home I had an insight that love really is big enough to absorb the pain of the world. Another followed: pain is meant to be shared and NOT explained. I still don’t understand where those ideas came from.

***

“Why is understanding so important to you?” asks Dr. Bill.

I don’t answer. I don’t know.

Bill reaches for his coffee. “I’ve noticed that you intellectualize your experiences. Do you do that to control their effect?”

Do I? Rain starts spattering the window to my left. 

Bill pauses, then says, “”Knowledge offers you the illusion of control.”

He sits quietly while I wrestle with this.

“You felt unconditional love in Ukraine and I’m guessing that felt unfamiliar, even uncomfortable.”

I stay quiet.

He follows with, “Do you think a fear of losing love has you resisting it?” 

I’m not sure what to say.

Bill changes course. “I’ve also noticed that you have a great deal of empathy for others but very little for yourself. Why do you think that is?”

A seemingly unrelated memory demands attention. I tell him about shining my father’s shoes when I was 9 or 10, and how I apologized for them not being perfect.

Bill looks troubled, then offers some difficult observations about my childhood emotional context.

His observations seem overstated. I’ll have to think about this.

He looks at me carefully, then says, “Why did that particular memory come to you just now?”

“It just showed up.”

He shakes his head. “No. Your unconscious delivered that memory right on time. Awareness happens when you have the least control.”

***

The day before Thanksgiving.

I walked downhill toward the creek. I love this place. I remember as a kid imagining a small farm with a creek where I could write books. It doesn’t escape me that I have been given a wonderful gift.

As I came through the woods, I very carefully–even fearfully–asked God to reveal himself somehow; to give me some peace but in a gentle way for a change. I braced myself, expecting the worst.

That’s when I felt a tender nudge to detour from my normal path and follow an outlying bend in the creek. 

Surprised and a little suspicious, I yielded and followed the curve for about 100 feet. My feet then just stopped at a particular spot where shallow rapids collided with deep water. I blinked, abruptly smitten by a beautiful harmony of so many sounds in the gurgling water. I stood still, fixated. Deep tones underneath light splashes…a soprano hiss and rhythmic bass thumps… Magical. Hypnotic. Inexplicable….Worshipful. The music of the creek held me and it felt good to be held like that.

In that unfamiliar moment I realized that I was experiencing God. I sensed His securing authority and it was so gentle…I felt safe in His timelessness, anxiety-free; my mind was quiet. The whole of my Self surrendered–if only for a moment.

***

I’m pleased that Bill is excited by the story. 

“Nothing happened and yet EVERYTHING happened!” he says. He starts talking fast and I’m scribbling notes. “Another gift for you. This story is a validation of how much you are loved! Can you feel it?”

I put down my pen. The temptation to analyze is strong. “I don’t have good words for this. I was lost in it somehow. It was kind of other-worldly…but yet not.”

Bill is beaming. “No words, fantastic. Grace is the power of replenishment, not logic. Reality is more than mind, David. Enjoy these gifts. Stay awake, more are coming.”