Let's Go Down to the Crawdad Hole

White flecks of foam raced towards her feet as she dipped one milk colored toe into the cool liquid. Her face lit up with pleasure at feeling the water wash away winter’s gloom. It was the first day of spring, a warm day, a perfect day to go imbibe sunlight and the creek’s icy therapy. Abandoned of shoes and dignity, she jumped into the water, wiggling her toes as her feet found the soft green moss lining the creek floor. Minnows swam alongside her. They nibbled at her toes, then hid under plentiful rocks as she moved down the bends, searching for crawfish to unearth. 

Above her head, she felt the sun kiss her shoulders and nose, leaving its calling card like red lipstick upon her arms. Her hair played tag with the gentle breeze, while the soft baby gurgles of the water caressed her ears with melodies yet unsung. Frogs sang bass, birds soprano, as geese added dissonance to harmonious chorus of praise. She, she quietly sat. Silent. Inhaling the simple pleasures of life like the firefighter newly emerged from a burning building. Breathing it in as oxygen for her soul, a prescription pharmacies forgot to restock on. 

Flash back twenty-four hours and you will find the same girl frantic with worry. Her phone has disappeared, her ipod is dead, and her life is completely and utterly ruined. She feels naked, tragically alone in the world, without a friend to talk to and facebook far out of her reach. Her fingers ache with the need to communicate to her friends, to let them know she still cares, still lives, still remains part of the community she has so carefully built up. She wonders how she will ever make it in this foreign land, far from home, without the modern necessities of the college life. 

Yet twenty-four hours later, one charged ipod laying idle on the shelf, one found phone sitting listless in her purse, she still breathes.

This is not my typical allegory you may remember from previous entries. It includes no  deep philosophy or intellectual achievements. It simply stems from a forced technology detox and a quiet trip to the creek to remind us that even the trees of the fields and the creatures of the land sing praises to the Lord with the voice He has given them. The bird’s song and the wind’s whisper all reflect the image of their Creator in the unique way He created them to sing. Maybe, its time we start getting back to our own voice, the voice God gave us, to praise the Lord instead of relying on the latest Jesus Culture album or biblegateway.com. Maybe by simply inhaling the beauty of His creation, whispering a prayer of thanksgiving as we bask in His universe, we can truly be still and know that He is God. Maybe then we would remember what it is to simply give thanks for being alive, instead of needing all of the latest consumer gambits to satisfy our old natures.



 “Be still, and know that I am God;
   I will be exalted among the nations,
   I will be exalted in the earth.”
Psalms 46:10

Maybe this is the sweetest praise offering of all.