Matthews Creek, which runs through the heart of Asbury Hills Camp and Retreat Center, is worth the trip into the South Carolina mountains. It is a pristine mountain stream, lively in places, beautiful everywhere. You can hear the voice of God, “like the sound of waters,” as it breaks over the rocks its current has smoothed for thousands of years.

Back in the day, when I used to help lead youth retreats from Epworth Children’s Home to Asbury Hills, the creek figured prominently in our stay as we played and pondered in and around it. Since many of the kids had never been to the mountains and had never seen anything like Matthews Creek I used to tease them and ask them to remind me to turn the creek off before we went to bed. I don’t remember anyone ever falling for that. In fact, I have no memory of anyone thinking that it was as funny as I did. It just intrigued me that the beautiful creek just flowed and flowed and flowed, whether I was staring at it in awe or not.

All this came back to me the other day as I hiked to Catawba Falls with a couple of my grands. These Falls are the beginnings of the Catawba River and as you make the mile or so trek from the trailhead to the base of the falls, you wade through the shallow beginnings of the river that takes on tributaries and becomes the basin, that becomes the river, that creates the lakes (Wylie and Norman) that I used to play and ponder on as a boy.

Every time I have visited the falls there have been other people there. There has always been an audience and without exception, all are stuck by the 150 foot majesty that literally fills each of the five senses. No one just looks up, goes ho hum, and turns around to begin the trip back to the trailhead. But, just like Matthews creek, Catawba Falls just falls and falls and falls, whether people are watching or not. Middle of the night? Trail closed? Snow covered and impossible to get to? Thunder storm? Still falling.

Nine months ago I was leading a somewhat public life. Once a week people would gather at the building where I worked and one of the expectations of the day was that I would have something to share with them about our relationship with God. That meant that most of the time when I did my reading and pondered my prayers I would stop and make a quick note when the Spirit spoke. I did this so I would have something I could tell “them” later that week. Reading and praying like that can get your reading and praying off track. You start reading and praying with a focus on having something to tell them.

Now when I ponder and think about God’s love surrounding us  like the sheriff’s posse that surrounds the bad guys so completely that there’s nothing to do but surrender, there’s no one to tell. It is pretty rare; in fact it is very rare, that anyone ever asks me what I think about some spiritual principle. All I do with most of my insights now days is to quietly pray, change my heart O God.

And realize that true life, the gift of life, flows on and on and on. And the true audience, the Living One, the pulling-for-you One, the Loving One, the surrounding One, is always there. It is a living relationship that flows forever and it is bound by the one who is ever present to me. Storms, blocked trails, midnight, still there.

Every creek, every waterfall, every lily, every sparrow, every retired preacher.