Buttermilk Falls -- April 4 2025 -- Ruth Mundy
With what deep murmurs through time’s silent stealth
Dear stream! dear bank! where often I
Have sat, and pleased my pensive eye ;Why, since each drop of thy quick store
Runs thither whence it flow’d before,
Should poor souls fear a shade or night,
Who came—sure—from a sea of light?
Or, since those drops are all sent back
So sure to Thee that none doth lack,
Why should frail flesh doubt any more
That what God takes He’ll not restore?
from Water-fall by 17th century mystical Welsh Anglican poet Henry Vaughan.
In Christian theology, "kairos" refers to God's appointed or opportune time, a specific moment or season for action, conversion, and transformation, distinct from the linear flow of time (chronos).
But let justice roll down like water
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Amos 5:24 NRSVue
Yesterday we paddled for the first time in 2025, along a stretch of the Salmon River north of Napanee. Getting out in a canoe or kayak is definitely a seasonal lift for us although the large number of trees along the banks downed by the ice storm was sobering. Nearly all of them, mostly maples, had buds on them which made the loss more poignant somehow.
On our trip home we made a stop at Buttermilk Falls because we knew that the significant precipitation of the past week would likely mean they were roaring, and they were. It's impossible to describe the sonic cocoon one enters into next to a waterfall or, even better, behind one. Everything else is pushed into the background and a kairos moment unfolds. We agreed that this was an "I-thou" experience, to borrow a term about relationship from theologian Martin Buber. Waterfalls can feel like living entities -- "thou" rather than "it" and we have been blessed with numerous experiences through the years, a couple of them unnerving.
When we lived in Northern Ontario we paddled the Sand River in Algoma, with the portage around Lady Evelyn Falls so close to the lip that the spray rises by the sign. Probably our best experiences of various falls were in Iceland where a new cascade was visible around every curve of the highway, all of them fed by glaciers. As Canadians we have visited Niagara Falls on a number of occasions and I once took a visiting Israeli guide named Carmy there -- he was astounded.
Two years ago we finally visited Ein Gedi in the Judean wilderness of Israel, the place where the fugitive David hid from the pursuing King Saul. Was this simply a remote hideout with a good source of water or was there some solace from the sight and sound? When Jesus went into the wilderness to prepare for his ministry was there a similar watercourse for sustenance?
I'm just happy that it occurred to us to make the detour yesterday on our return drive and as geezers we can do as we please!
Can we describe a relationship with a waterfall as spiritual or even religious? You've probably guessed my answer.
Ruth at Ein Gedi, April 2023