A Moment In Time

The world is changing and I just watch it change. It’s like floating down a river in a canoe. I watch the scenery go by, and sometimes there may be a small rapid that requires me to paddle strenuously, and then I go back to drifting with the current past high cliffs and low forest and under the occasional bridge, sometimes waving at someone on the shore, sometimes passing a small beach with people sitting in the sun. I look at them, they look at me, and a minute later they’re history. Sometimes I might take a photo of the scenery I’m drifting past, just to have a memento of my trip.

The history of nations and the history of humanity are not too different from that canoe trip. Sometimes in America there are turbulent times. Now is a moment in which many Americans are dealing with the consequences of their forebears’ actions. Some of those actions were evil in today’s context, but at that time they didn’t know it. Nineteenth century Southerners didn’t think of themselves as evil. The world was the way it was and they simply existed in it, like fish in water that cannot understand the concept that they are wet.

We can’t see the things we take for granted today that might be repulsive decades or centuries from now. As righteous as we may think we are, I can assure you we are not perfect and we are even now doing things that would embarrass us—or our descendants—in the future. Those who refuse to be embarrassed are simply stuck in time, like a canoe trapped in an eddy. They cannot make progress unless they can get out of the eddy, but most do not see the eddy or understand why they need to leave it. Only death can free them.

At some point I get out of the river, and another weekend, another month, another year, I put my canoe into the water once more. I remember where some of the rapids and eddies are located on the river, and I am able to avoid them. Every trip down the river teaches me something useful. Every trip down the river, in the spring, summer, and fall, in high water and low water, is different. Some trips reveal rocks I didn’t know were there until the water was low. The passing scenery on some trips is so different that the river looks like a different river. And on every trip, there is something to learn.