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Amidst The Still Waters, Spring Renews Us

Where Bemus Creek meets Chautauqua Lake. Photo by Sandy Robison

From the time I was a child, I loved spending time in and around creeks and streams in Chautauqua County.

I recall the water moving over the rocks, often flat shale with a melody that shut out the rest of the world for a while.

I heard it again today as I stood by the free flowing waters of Bemus Creek.

And as it washes towards the lake, down and down the Ellery hills, it grows wider and stronger. At some points, the sound of the water hums while at others it thunders over boulders.

I love all waters, I do, but lakes are large and brooding and rivers loud and foreboding. Creeks, little and large, creeks are where the magic lies.

I’m soothed by the waters just as the psalm says.

Raised a Presbyterian, I am a transcendentalist at heart. Nature teaches me about life and purpose.

I find enormous pleasure and comfort in all living things, not just animals, but trees, flowers, plants, water.

Just this week I was reminded of the power of waters when a friend from Bemus, Lee Traynor, posted a picture of Bemus Creek on Facebook. He had spent an hour there, by the creek, noting it reminded him of the stories of his life.

And another Bemus friend, Kathy Kelly Raynor, shared her memory of playing in Bemus Creek, catching crayfish, sliding on rocks with friends on joyous days that seemed endless. She grew up in Shore Acres, near the point where Bemus Creek — now wider and stronger — merges with Chautauqua Lake.

My sister Vicky remembers swimming in that same creek at the confluence with Brown’s Creek, near where it crosses Mahanna and dips past the Methodist Church, with her close friends Colleen Gustafson and Becky Shelters.

The water was always frigid, she said, even in the summer heat, but she and her friends loved it, and in the splashing and the laughter she recalls the joys of childhood that really never leave us.

Why is it waters so anoint us? Sear memories within us?

There’s evidence now that walking through woods, fields, and forests; hiking in the wilderness; strolling by creekside; gardening; just sitting in gardens is good for the mind and remedy for neurological illness.

Parkinson’s patients frozen in place often find release when in a garden where they can move and kneel more freely.

Dr. Oliver Sacks, key neurologist of the last century and author of “Awakenings” and other great books about the mind, said he spent his life in New York City, and if not for the great botanical gardens there, he would not have been able to stand city life.

The gardens sustained him. In the 1950s, the Beth Abraham Hospital where he worked was surrounded by fine gardens. His patients found great comfort amidst the gardens and in rooms and halls decorated with plants.

The 23rd psalm echoes its consolation: The still waters restoreth my soul. At Easter, I am a child again, kneeling in Sunday school chapel, hearing that Christ has risen.

This time of year is special for the believer and the non-believer. The world smells of lilies and peace.

The light streams in through colored glass windows. It’s Spring.

Like the earth, we are renewed. The music of new life is in the air after the icy silence of winter.

Some wondrous grace lays its hand on us. We see it in the jonquils blooming in our neighbor Henry’s garden, we hear it in the rush of creek water.

Last weekend, my sister and I revisited the streams of our youth on a day of ghosts and rain. We stood beside the waters of Bemus Creek, and our childhoods rumbled past, water over rocks its own song.

I glimpsed my dad’s face as he turned to grin at us in the sunshine.

He is reaching down to overturn a flat rock and show us a crayfish hiding beneath. It’s an instant caught in time, in some otherworldly light.

Like our friends, we returned in memory to our childhood wanderings amidst the creeks of our American youth, wanderings that – though we did not understand then–brought us close to heaven.

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