The Voice Of The River

I promised a friend that while on my solo road trip this summer, I would reread Herman Hesse's most influential and famous work, Siddartha.  

In the book, Siddartha leaves his family as a young man to pursue a contemplative life. He then becomes restless and discards it to pursue wealth, romance, and power. He then becomes sickened by his own lust and greed and walks away from everything once again. Siddartha finds himself near a river where he hears a unique sound. This sound signals the true beginning of his life—suffering, rejection, peace, and wisdom.  

The copy I have is around 35 years old, given to me by a co-worker who I had countless hours discussing faith and life with as I was then wholly walking away from Christianity.   

He inscribed, "I flatter myself to think that we are kindred spirits; may our paths cross often." 

Sadly, our paths have never crossed since then, but I have placed my copy of Siddartha on every bookshelf in every home office or church office I've ever occupied.  

I reread the book while I was on my trip, aware that I was reading about a spiritual journey while I was on my own spiritual journey.  

There is a passage toward the end of the book when Siddartha sits by a river, listening to it intently.  The river had spoken to him many times before, but suddenly he began to hear many voices.  

This quote landed on me, and I have considered it ever since: 

They all belonged to each other: the lament of those who yearn, the laughter of the wise, the cry of indignation and the groan of the dying.  They were all interwoven and interlocked, entwined in a thousand ways. And all the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world.  

After finishing the book, I went to a creek flowing just down the hill from my campsite, took off my shoes, and sat on a rock with my feet in the water.   

I did my best to listen for any voices that might be speaking to me in the rushing water, but I heard nothing except the sound of the creek and some screaming children playing downstream. 

My peace dissipated as I focused on the kids making noise.  

I felt myself growing annoyed, then angry.  I tried telling myself, "They're just kids having fun," but my desire had been to discover something about myself in the creek, and all I was discovering was that I was a grumpy old dude. 

However, the longer I sat there, the more I realized that the voices I was hearing "from the river" were full of joy and exuberance.  A slow smile grew as I imagined what was happening in the happy sounds and splashing in the distance. 

The river brought them joy, and they returned their happiness to the river.  I began to feel one with them.  I watched the water flowing around my legs and feet and had a vision that a part of me was joining with the kids downstream, splashing and laughing around them and with them. 

I don't know how long I sat there, but it was long enough for the shouts of joy to subside and quiet to return, except for the sound of running water and birds singing in the trees above. 

And these, too, had their own things to say to me, but I'll keep those conversations to myself now.  Suffice it to say, I found myself breathing more easily, the tightness in my shoulders relaxed, and I felt only gratitude. 

It's interesting how reading about other faith traditions has helped me grow in my faith and become less stringent in my beliefs.  

As I read the above passage from Siddartha, I couldn't help but recall the Apostle Paul's words about how God is the "ground of all our being" and that through Christ, "God was reconciling all the world to [Godself]."  He also boldly claimed that Christ is "in all, through all, and is all."  

For those of us who call ourselves Jesus-Followers, the one-ness of the Universe is something worth lifting up.  If we are willing to be still and listen, we can learn what this means for our lives and for the transformation of the world around us. 

May it be so, and may the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all, now and forever. Amen.