little pilgrimages

i have come to black bass "lake," a park all improved since i was last here nearly two years ago. despite all the new fences and signs, of improvement, the creek still falls over a rough ledge abut forty yards below the damn, and i sit to listen to its psalm, in an area marked "pedestrians prohibited." it's one of the worst examples of officialese i've yet encountered. the whole world cries out for more pedestrians, more people willing to walk in love as christ loved us, and here, in this place beautiful despite its damnation by our greed, greed erects its signs.

but that is the nature of the whole groaning creation, isn't it? so this seems like a very good place for a little pilgrimage.

i slowly make the circuit of the impoundment, stopping to say the psalms of ascent, wondering whether the good people of eureka springs could see what they have done to this gulch as "the scorn of the proud."

and i am blessed in many ways. one is particularly remarkable. two years ago, before the place became a city park, i spent the night, something now forbidden under the homeland security act. then i woke to watch four does dancing in the early mornings mists at the shallow end of the impoundment. this year, walking along the perepheral trail, i met the stag who is probably their father. he has the largest rack of antlers i've ever seen around here. we nod to one another, and each continues on his pilgrimage.