When we moved to a house on Issaquah Creek, a whole new

awareness opened for me. I discovered that a stream is a living

thing. At the height of summer our stream is a placid, bubbly

place where children race up the banks, leap into the water to

float downstream on inner tubes, only to jump out and repeat

the process. Towheaded boys with goggles poke the recesses of

the deeper pools looking for crawdads. Our stream is a friendly

place.

But I remember, all too well, a night last January when I

could get home only by crossing a mountain pass, fording a

flood, and at last coming to my house. The creek had become

a raging torrent, blocking every access but one to this valley. I

remember looking out in the blackness of the stormy night and

seeing that friendly little creek, which had breached a ten-foot

bank and had now become a threatening enemy.

Marcus Aurelius said, "Time is a sort of river of passing

events." You can t stop time, you can t reverse its direction,

and you can t turn it back. Sometimes it flows by relatively

friendly and peaceful. At other times it is a raging torrent that

sweeps us along out of control. The only thing you can hope to