Inspired by a waterfall

A waterfall is a stunning sight.  Above the fall, the river is beautiful, tranquil, passing through lands mysterious and attractive.  Below, beyond the fall, it is the same: peaceful, full of the promise that the life-giving water brings.

“Each human life has its waterfall moments.” The Augrabies waterfall in the Northern Cape.

But in the fall itself there is such power, such turmoil, an overwhelming force that carries everything before it; a force that blocks out everything around it, as if nothing exists but the fall. There is something utterly arresting about a waterfall.

I recently visited the Northern Cape and had the opportunity to visit the beautiful Augrabies waterfall. Few sights are as awesome or a sound as deafening as water thundering down the 56m waterfall when the Orange River is in full flood.

From the entrance to the falls to the actual viewing site, there is a distance to cover in rugged paths and walkways, and you arrive at the main waterfall quite exhausted. But confronted by the majestic sight of the falls, this exhaustion is soon forgotten.

Together with friends and family I watched men and women gaze in wonder and stand speechless before the majestic splendour of the falls. Confronted by such a sight, we are reminded of the great forces of life that surround us, the power and the glory of such forces, and our human weakness in comparison.

Each human life has its waterfall moments. We float along on the safe, calm river of our lives, and then, maybe without warning, or maybe having heard the distant thunder of the approaching fall, we round a bend and are suddenly thrown out of our tranquillity, wrenched from our comfort zone, helplessly swept over the bank into a terrifying maelstrom that takes all our resources simply to survive.

But how will we deal with our waterfall moments and the challenges that they bring? As an adventure that helped us access the deep strength and internal resources we already possess to overcome our challenges? Or as a horrible experience that disturbed our lives and changed it from the way we would have wanted to keep it?

The choice is ours — and it is a spiritual one.

Our waterfall moments come in many forms. Car accidents in our families that take away our loved ones, failed relationships or marriages ending in divorce that leaves us bitter towards each other, retrenchments and company closures that take away our means of support for our families, and many other tragedies in our lives.

But what can seem like a disaster, misery, horror, destruction and failure may turn out to be no less than the passage from one part of the river of life to another.

Instead of terrorising us, the “waterfalls” on our river of life can be moments of ecstasy, moments that remind us that we are in fact alive, with all the highs and lows, the confusions and uncertainties that life entails. And a few years later we ask ourselves: “Did I really survive this? How did I get through it?” Only then we see the grace and glory and splendour of God.

“God has crowned you with glory and splendour” (Psalm 8:5). Nowhere in life are that glory and splendour so obvious as in our waterfall moments, as life becomes disrupted, fractured, and we find ourselves in free fall.

(With acknowledgment to Fr Jim McManus’ book The Inside Job [2004]).