This morning we drove away from the Pacific north coast of Oregon and into the coastal range of the Cascades. We were headed for an old logging camp converted into a rustic restaurant sitting on a river called Humbug Creek.
The restaurant is constructed of huge logs and decorated with fascinating relics from the longing industry. When we arrived we asked to be seated be between the roaring fire and a towering fresh-cut evergreen bedecked for Christmas as if they knew we were coming to celebrate the birth of two babies. One born long ago in a rustic place and the other just a few days ago on a day set aside in America for Thanksgiving.
On the climbing drive out we talked and listened to Christmas music and drank in the beauty along the way. I always keep my eyes open for mountains and valleys. I watch for water.
A creek or river running along the forest floor always arrests my attention and stirs my spirit. Sometimes the waterway follows the road, sometimes it crosses the road and runs off at an angle through the woods. Here you look down into a valley below on the silver water, and there you can see its color and form as it burbles along close at hand on the same level.
Trees, mostly conifers, rise along the banks. The mountains soar up on the horizon. It’s a spectacle even on a wet grey day. However you see it, clear mountain water running over rocks has a simple and magnetic beauty unmatched by any synthetic decoration we could invent, no matter how beautiful.
As they so accurately say, “Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.” Only God can make a mountain or cause the silver river to run down the mountain through the forest to the sea.
I don’t know when we will travel again to this place so for away from our home in the Mitten made by the Great Lakes, but I know we will cherish the memory of it. We will not forget the good food, the laughter, the leaping fire, the huge evergreen soaring up into the peak of the restaurant all bedecked for Christmas.We will rave to all our friends about the huge, hot cinnamon roll. We will long cherish the memory of the childish antics of the grandchildren and the warm happy security of having a tiny infant sleeping at hour feet. We will ache with longing to hear again the little lisping voices still working to achieve adult pronunciation of some words.
Yesterday news came of the sudden and unexpected passing of a young mother in our church, a woman still in her late forties with four children still at home. Today we are mindful of that as our visit comes to an end.
How long do we have to cherish those we love and how long do we have on earth to point others toward to One “…who formed all creatures with his word and then pronounced them good.”
Salty Cove | Gearhart, Oregon | December 1, 2023
