Two Rivers

I had seen General Santos City from the air before, but one sees things differently from a fixed wing aircraft than from a helicopter. The choppers fly much lower, much more slowly, never above any but the lowest clouds. The landscape of southern Mindanao is always visible, much as it would be from any of the volcanic ridges that border the central plain of the island like a wrinkled bedspread tossed to the edge of the mattress.

In a chopper you feel like more of a piece with the ground and its people and their affairs. You can see people herding sheep and water buffalos, harvesting rice and bananas or coconuts. They are far away, but still human. One gets an idea of the scope of labor it cost them to carve layer upon layer of tiered rice paddy and wheat field out of the black volcanic hills, hacking through their armor of voracious jungle to the fertile soil beneath. At this distance it is possible to love them.

Taking off from Gen San in the dornier is a different experience. The take off angle is steep, and the pilots bank almost immediately away from the sea, heading north across the central plain. In less than a minute the city was spread out below me, looking like the little toy cities we used to build for my brother’s model train set. The plain stretched out miles to the east to the mountains, flat. As flat as any great plains I have seen flying out of Kansas or driving across Nebraska, flat but not as broad. The flatness was broken only by a number of wadis, winding their way indirectly but inexorably across the plain towards the ocean. One was large, wide, wild and overgrown by rich jungle plants. The other was narrower, filled with bushes, no more than a large ditch it seemed, though it must have been quite large to have been visible from that height. Just as we passed through the clouds, Father, you spoke to me and proposed this question, “If all rivers eventually arrive at the sea, does it matter which path they take to get there?”

I did not understand the question but I saw an image of two rivers. One was tumbling down mountain cliffs, pouring over waterfall, plunging, cascading, rioting and rushing to the sea. The other was wide, sluggish, muddy, slowly and tortuously making its way through flat plains, for hundreds of miles and perhaps decades of time, slowly making its way to the sea.

These two rivers are my life. Both paths return to you. One returns as directly as it is possible for me to return, ignoring all else, bypassing all distractions, leaving every other thing behind in the impatience of my desire to return to the sea and be united with you. The other moves more slowly, and seems lazy, even sluggish, and the water is clouded with mud and silt. It winds around wide looping turns, and struggles through obstacles, burdened by commerce, agriculture, and all the affairs of men, but it gives life. On its banks living things flourish.

You invited me to push the metaphor, to explore it and see where it would lead. I imagined myself as a river, originating far from the ocean as a spring of water, high up in the mountains. I imagine my path up until now, winding down a narrow valley through the mountain range, being joined by other streams, separating from them, growing stronger and richer with the water and silt I pick up. I have seen my share of waterfalls and rapids, when I plunged forward towards you as rapidly as I could go. I have seen my sluggish, torpid stretches where I lingered in this or that open place, but until now it has all been the same valley.

Now I come to a turning of the ways. I can go either to the right or to the left. On the one hand there is a plunge down the cliff into the unknown. That way will leave everything behind and will take me through ever steeper waterfalls, rapids, and cataracts, punctuated by still mountain lakes. There will be times when I am progressing in seeking you beyond my wildest dreams, and times when I am sitting cold and still and seemingly isolated, but at all times my goal will be to pursue you beyond all distractions and any other consideration.

The other way will lead me through flat grounds, by a winding, circuitous route. It will not seem like I am making progress most of the time. In fact, at times it will seem like I have turned back the way I came and am going further away from you. I will pick up the scraps and rubbish and detritus of other lives. I will be blocked by dams. I will be constricted by irrigation ditches, canals and other works of men, frustrating my desire to reach the sea. At times it will seem as if I am not moving at all, creeping infinitesimally across stinking rice paddies, leaving behind the silt, sewage and rich black soil that I have picked up miles and miles before. Much of my water, my very essence, will soak into the soil and be lost to me.

There is the danger I will even get distracted and never reach the sea at all. I could be diverted into a swamp or a pond and become a black, scummy, festering, stagnant waste.

But you will not let that happen. You will lay out my course so that I am always progressing towards you. When I turn back upon myself it will be to water some other section of this rich land you have placed me in. When I seem to be sitting stagnant it will be to allow more of your life to seep into the soil. When I see nothing in my wake but acres of stinking black mud, you will know the tender green things that will sprout up when I am gone. And in the end you will bring me to the sea. You will unite me to yourself.

Ryan Kraeger

Ryan Kraeger

Ryan Kraeger is a cradle Catholic homeschool graduate, who has served in the Army as a Combat Engineer and as a Special Forces Medical Sergeant. He now lives with his wife Kathleen and their two daughters near Tacoma, WA and is a Physician Assistant. He enjoys reading, thinking, and conversation, the making and eating of gourmet pizza, shooting and martial arts, and the occasional dark beer. His website is The Man Who Would Be Knight.

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