Off the grid and yet

We are out in the Smoky Mountains for a couple of days. Bill is fly fishing, and I am standing by the edge of the stream, surrounded by a blaze of autumn.  This is what a symphony must look like, the woods never silent, always moving, the colors, the smells, the layers of profound beauty, no matter the season.

Bill wades into the water. I am reading, listening and watching even more.  Sometimes I think it doesn't matter if he catches anything at all. Just standing in that rush of beauty is far beyond anything on the end of his line.  Fishing is just an excuse to dance in the wild. At the roadside, our old rusty suburban stands guard.

It is getting darker, the frogs louder, and the air deprived of the sun rays, brings a coolness out of nowhere.  The fish, not to be found, are out to dinner themselves, laughing at their waterfront tables, watching a man with voluminous waders looking for them. No fish today.  It's not about the fish anyway. Just an reason to be there and become fluent in a foreign language and somehow see a little deeper in the rush of what only appears as a mountain stream. One cannot depart unchanged by it.

None of us can, if we are only aware of what is around us.  Even here. Even in what only appears an ordinary day, the story of His faithfulness is written.