This is how the book “A River Runs Through It” closes:
“It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.
Now nearly all those I loved and did not understand when I was young are dead, but I still reach out to them.
Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn't. Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters."
As far back as my college days, I often traveled the entire length of the Blackfoot River from its highest reaches above Lincoln all the way down to where it merges with the Clark Fork River. I floated and fished the river often in recent years but this year something different has happened and that difference re-awakened a faded need to understand words, rocks and the waters between them.
Wade fishing a river brings with it intimacy, a knowing that is communicated by the push of the
current around your legs and feeling the ancient rocks sliding or remaining in place beneath your feet.
To wade fish a river is to become a part of it and with that comes with an invitation for the river to become part of you.
Coming to know the Blackfoot River has been like discovering a great unknown friendship with someone you have known all your life and savoring the surprise that comes with such knowledge. I have been captivated by the discovery of this unexpected relationship.
I first encountered the book “A River Runs Through It” a couple years after it was published in 1976 and I have re-read the book many times. I have also watched the movie version of the book multiple times. Each time I encounter the closing lines of the book or hear them spoken in the movie, I am inevitably pulled by an emotion that comes from so deep in my soul I can only sense its origin.
The first reading came in my early to mid twenties. I traveled the length of the Blackfoot many times
but never fished it that I can recall. Even so, to be haunted by waters was something as familiar to me as wanting to capture the best parts of men like my father and his father, my grandfather, and their river, the river of my childhood, the Big Hole. They had, by then, already had become part of my past and their river had become inscrutable to me. In those early days of adulthood, I could not shake loose of a past which bewitched and blinded me as I rushed recklessly into an uncertain future. I tried to shape myself into someone I imagined I was supposed to become rather than listening to the songs sung by silent voices which rose up out of the waters and echoed off the ancient walls of the canyons of my unfolding life. In truth, I listened but I did not hear them.
As I read the book when I was in my twenties, I mourned the loss my father and grandfather and the connection I had through them to a sacred river I could see and touch but not understand. I dreamt of sharing the waters than run deep through the course of my family history but was left only with rich but fading memories. I rushed from one direction to another searching for the path that would make sense of all that I had experienced before but I lacked the patience and humility to listen to the words whispered in the rush of current which I could not discern, at least not then but, even now, only in part.
Reading the book and viewing the movie again in my thirties and forties left me drifting in a vague state of sadness, mourning a way of life that was lost even as I lived it. With a vision of the future clouded by fog of unwept tears, I heard the words I had heard before and the failure to understand them tormented me. I could not force myself to seek the wisdom needed to bring clarity to an obscured view of the past, present and future. Disaster loomed up and the abyss of nothingness and loss lay just downstream, no longer around a veiling bend in the river. Suddenly, though, a new life was granted and with it a growing awareness of the importance of the need to let the words be what they were meant to be - the words are the words and they never change. It was I who had to change to understand them.
The 6th decade of life is coming up quickly and so I read the book again seduced by the promise that I would finally comprehend what has long eluded me.
but never fished it that I can recall. Even so, to be haunted by waters was something as familiar to me as wanting to capture the best parts of men like my father and his father, my grandfather, and their river, the river of my childhood, the Big Hole. They had, by then, already had become part of my past and their river had become inscrutable to me. In those early days of adulthood, I could not shake loose of a past which bewitched and blinded me as I rushed recklessly into an uncertain future. I tried to shape myself into someone I imagined I was supposed to become rather than listening to the songs sung by silent voices which rose up out of the waters and echoed off the ancient walls of the canyons of my unfolding life. In truth, I listened but I did not hear them.
As I read the book when I was in my twenties, I mourned the loss my father and grandfather and the connection I had through them to a sacred river I could see and touch but not understand. I dreamt of sharing the waters than run deep through the course of my family history but was left only with rich but fading memories. I rushed from one direction to another searching for the path that would make sense of all that I had experienced before but I lacked the patience and humility to listen to the words whispered in the rush of current which I could not discern, at least not then but, even now, only in part.
Reading the book and viewing the movie again in my thirties and forties left me drifting in a vague state of sadness, mourning a way of life that was lost even as I lived it. With a vision of the future clouded by fog of unwept tears, I heard the words I had heard before and the failure to understand them tormented me. I could not force myself to seek the wisdom needed to bring clarity to an obscured view of the past, present and future. Disaster loomed up and the abyss of nothingness and loss lay just downstream, no longer around a veiling bend in the river. Suddenly, though, a new life was granted and with it a growing awareness of the importance of the need to let the words be what they were meant to be - the words are the words and they never change. It was I who had to change to understand them.
The 6th decade of life is coming up quickly and so I read the book again seduced by the promise that I would finally comprehend what has long eluded me.
Let’s begin.
Then he (Rev. Maclean) asked (Norman), “After you have finished your true stories sometime, why don't you make up a story and the people to go with it? “Only then will you understand what happened and why.
Why did the story need to be made up to understand what happened and why? The truth brings with it intensity that overwhelms tragedy and makes it impossible to look at the sorrow directly. It just hurts too much to bear. The story of Paul in real live was much starker, grimmer and sadder than the fictionalized version. The true ending of the story was so shattering it eclipsed the rest of Paul’s life story and we would never see the beauty of the human who was behind the tormented self destructive man who was Paul.
The gift of fiction softens the harsh light of truth and it gives us refuge while we gain the strength to see the rest of a person’s essence without being snared and frozen by the ending. So it is with sad endings – fiction can cool the emotions driven by tragedy to the point where we can engage the loss.
As the calendar pages of life flip by, we gain and we lose people who mean much to us, some before their time and some when their time had come – as if we understand the essence of time as a measure of life. The ones who die we reach out to touch that we might yet fathom the person and their passing. Sometimes telling the stories of life animate lessons of a soul but we never see more than what is glimpsed in the half-light of the edge of a day. Such understanding is not granted us until we can whisper past the restraints of human fragility and live in the light of perfect love that not only reveals but comforts. Still, we reach out. To do so is what defines our humanity – we cannot rest until we rest in Him.
Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn't. Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.
Why fish in the cool of the evening? There is more reason than to just seek relief from the heat of a
hot summer day. Evening is the time of transition from the light of day to the darkness of night and the half light of evening is when the magic of comprehension happens. As the blinding sun softens we see into shadows where the mysteries of the continuum of life are revealed, and as the day darkens memories illuminate what has been lost from sight in the failing light.
I am no longer aware of the four-count rhythm that guides my casting. The rod has become part of
me and is an extension of my arm and finger as I point to spot where a fly should land in the hope that a fish will rise to take it. My heart keeps rhythm to a count which is paced by the flow sounds of the cascading life stream which has claimed me.
We do what has become natural for us while we let memories wash over us. We who fish and live in memories become one with the past and present and if a fish does rise, it is a reward for our belief that many things which are invisible are still as real as what might be visible.
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.
Understanding this is to recognize that all things are interconnected. Every person you encounter becomes connected to you and, through you, to all others. Every story is different but all stories end and the endings creates the space filled by oneness, the place where the river runs. We are born, we live, we die and after death we become one with time and eternity with He who created all of us.
The river, which runs through the one created when all things are merged, is the river of life. We stand by the shore or wade in deeply and think the river is always the same but it is always different. Every second new water presses against our leg and washes at the stones beneath our feet. The oneness comes from the interconnections of the many drops of water which rush by, ever pushing us to ride with the current down to where all rivers become one. We remain in the place we fish because it is not yet our time to merge into oneness.
The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops.
In Genesis we learn when God created the heavens and earth, the earth was covered with water and then on the second day he created a dome which became the land. It is there we find the rocks from the basement of time. In the next chapter we discover a river flowed over those rocks before we were created and the river nourished all life. Norman’s timeless raindrops are us. We are mortal beings but our souls are immortal and the immortality makes us timeless. The raindrops are countless and infinitely variable but inevitably all flow off the rocks of time into the river of eternity.
Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
Earlier in the book Norman and his father talk about the words. In their discussion we are reminded of the Prologue of the Book of John:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
We come to understand the true order of things. First there was the word and after the word came creation. The rocks from the basement of time were under the waters at the moment of creation. The words are from God and he is beneath the rocks, in the rocks and in the waters. Indeed, there is nowhere He is not. Some of the words are ours, they tell our stories, stories which not only make us unique, they join us into one. We become they but the words that are not ours belong to God. Now some of the words are mine.
I am haunted by waters.
I am still haunted by waters but longer saddened by them, uncertain of the meaning of the words I hear through the waters. They have become where I go to restore the rhythm of my life when life has fallen out of time. I am comforted by wading into rivers because it is there I hear the words rise up through the waters from beneath the rocks. Mostly, though, I just watch the current swirl and then cast a fly where I think a fish might rise.
In the half light of the canyon as my life drifts downstream to where all things become one, I haunt the waters as much as they haunt me. It is there I have found my balance. And my being.
Now nearly all those I loved and did not understand when I was young are dead, but I still reach out to them.
As the calendar pages of life flip by, we gain and we lose people who mean much to us, some before their time and some when their time had come – as if we understand the essence of time as a measure of life. The ones who die we reach out to touch that we might yet fathom the person and their passing. Sometimes telling the stories of life animate lessons of a soul but we never see more than what is glimpsed in the half-light of the edge of a day. Such understanding is not granted us until we can whisper past the restraints of human fragility and live in the light of perfect love that not only reveals but comforts. Still, we reach out. To do so is what defines our humanity – we cannot rest until we rest in Him.
Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn't. Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.
Why fish in the cool of the evening? There is more reason than to just seek relief from the heat of a
hot summer day. Evening is the time of transition from the light of day to the darkness of night and the half light of evening is when the magic of comprehension happens. As the blinding sun softens we see into shadows where the mysteries of the continuum of life are revealed, and as the day darkens memories illuminate what has been lost from sight in the failing light.
I am no longer aware of the four-count rhythm that guides my casting. The rod has become part of
me and is an extension of my arm and finger as I point to spot where a fly should land in the hope that a fish will rise to take it. My heart keeps rhythm to a count which is paced by the flow sounds of the cascading life stream which has claimed me.
We do what has become natural for us while we let memories wash over us. We who fish and live in memories become one with the past and present and if a fish does rise, it is a reward for our belief that many things which are invisible are still as real as what might be visible.
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.
Understanding this is to recognize that all things are interconnected. Every person you encounter becomes connected to you and, through you, to all others. Every story is different but all stories end and the endings creates the space filled by oneness, the place where the river runs. We are born, we live, we die and after death we become one with time and eternity with He who created all of us.
The river, which runs through the one created when all things are merged, is the river of life. We stand by the shore or wade in deeply and think the river is always the same but it is always different. Every second new water presses against our leg and washes at the stones beneath our feet. The oneness comes from the interconnections of the many drops of water which rush by, ever pushing us to ride with the current down to where all rivers become one. We remain in the place we fish because it is not yet our time to merge into oneness.
The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops.
In Genesis we learn when God created the heavens and earth, the earth was covered with water and then on the second day he created a dome which became the land. It is there we find the rocks from the basement of time. In the next chapter we discover a river flowed over those rocks before we were created and the river nourished all life. Norman’s timeless raindrops are us. We are mortal beings but our souls are immortal and the immortality makes us timeless. The raindrops are countless and infinitely variable but inevitably all flow off the rocks of time into the river of eternity.
Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
Earlier in the book Norman and his father talk about the words. In their discussion we are reminded of the Prologue of the Book of John:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
We come to understand the true order of things. First there was the word and after the word came creation. The rocks from the basement of time were under the waters at the moment of creation. The words are from God and he is beneath the rocks, in the rocks and in the waters. Indeed, there is nowhere He is not. Some of the words are ours, they tell our stories, stories which not only make us unique, they join us into one. We become they but the words that are not ours belong to God. Now some of the words are mine.
I am haunted by waters.
I am still haunted by waters but longer saddened by them, uncertain of the meaning of the words I hear through the waters. They have become where I go to restore the rhythm of my life when life has fallen out of time. I am comforted by wading into rivers because it is there I hear the words rise up through the waters from beneath the rocks. Mostly, though, I just watch the current swirl and then cast a fly where I think a fish might rise.
In the half light of the canyon as my life drifts downstream to where all things become one, I haunt the waters as much as they haunt me. It is there I have found my balance. And my being.
