We figured three hours would be long enough to canoe from Myrtle Point to Coquille which was only nine miles by Highway 42. The plan was Aaron and his two boys plus my four boys would fill the bottom of big Coleman canoe and Aaron and I would paddle from each end of the canoe. We slid into the Coquille River at the boat ramp near the end of Spruce Street.
Friends and family were going to meet us at Sturdivant Park in Coquille where we would pull out the canoe and celebrate Peter’s birthday. As soon as we passed the place where the north fork of the Coquille comes into the river, we knew we had a problem. Here the dark water was still, and the fallen alder leaves floated up the river. Turns out that the Coquille River is one of the longest tidal rivers on the Oregon Coast and the tide, unfortunately, was coming in. Not only did we have no current, but we had to paddle just to keep from drifting upstream.
Soon a second problem emerged. Three hours was plenty of time to walk to Coquille on the road, but the river looped and meandered all over the Coquille Valley. Ancient myrtles and broadleaf maple trees hung over the river—the last remnant of the trees that once owned the valley. We glided past blue and green herons as osprey wheeled in the sky above us. Occasionally, a beaver would slide off a riverbank or slap the water with its tail. Everything was beautiful, but we were moving slowly.
Just a little past the Arago boat ramp, we realized that we were an hour late and probably had another hour of paddling to do. Fortunately, Aaron had grown up around Arago, so we pulled the canoe up a steep bank and Aaron went for help. The boys were exhausted from cramped quarters in the bottom of the canoe. They were ready for the adventure to be done. We were at least an hour and a half late for the party and gave our apologies to those who had waited. (These were those amazing days before mobile phones.)
I have often expected and even wanted life to be a road, but it is much more like a river. I went to college as religion major, changed to a English major. On a whim, I took a Graduate Record Examination and had my scores sent to graduate programs. After a graduate degree in English, my life looped through pastoring for three years, teaching third grade six years, returning to Oregon to teach at the community college for thirty years while preaching here and there. Now I have looped back to Kansas where I pastored forty years ago.
In evangelical circles, especially Baptist I suspect, people would be invited to Christ because “God loves you and has wonderful plan for your life.” It is certainly true that God has a wonderful plan for our lives, but sometimes we think that the plan includes the job we get, the person to marry, the place to live, and kids we have. But then we discover the GPS of the Holy Spirit isn’t telling us where to turn, that people have free-will, and that God may leave some choices to us. Suddenly, life is much more like a river than road, and we worry we missed God’s plan A are forever doomed to second best plan. You may even find the tide is coming in—and that you need to paddle hard just to stay afloat spiritually.
Our plan would have worked if we had taken a whole day, packed a lunch, and taken time to swim and stretch our legs. I have learned to take life as it comes, to wander with the river. If you allow enough time, even the tide changes and suddenly you are freely gliding on the current of the river rushing to the sea.
