I was in Colorado on business. (that seems to happen a lot in these stories) My friend Russ was with me on this trip as well, (I really should tell you all about this great friend and man sometime soon) which means there were more stops than normal. I had told him that if he saw something that he wanted to take pictures of to please let me know and I'd stop for a few minutes. It was mid to late April so as we drove down roads and through canyons there were plenty of photo ops to be had. There was still snow on the ground and it even snowed while we were driving through one of the many canyons we drove through. It was during one such stop that I had this lesson taught to me. We had pulled off the road so Russ could take a new set of photos. As he went around taking his pictures, I stood and looked at the river below us. I've mentioned before how much I love rivers. Yet as I looked at this particular river my thoughts didn't turn to their normal reminiscing.
I noticed that there seemed to be two different rivers converging into one. The water from one river was green clean and the water from the other was brown and muddy. The green water was calmer looked easy to stand in, while the brown water was a lot swifter and seemed like it would be easy to slip and fall. It was odd, but you could actually see a division between the two rivers even after they had joined together. However, it didn't take long until the green water was gone. When the clean and muddy waters combined the waters didn't become all clean. Quite the opposite happened. In the space of not many yards the new "combined" river was entirely muddy. There was no trace left of the beautiful green water, only the muddy waters. I remember wondering why the clean water didn't wash out the mud and make the whole river clean. The answer came to my mind, "Because it's just easier to let the the mud flow into it than it is to try and filter out the mud." I realized that they only real way that the green river could have stayed "unmuddied" is to stay separate.
In life, it's not always easy to "remain separate." I know in my life (and I'm sure in yours as well) there have been times that I figured I could get close to the muddy water without letting the mud make me dirty as well. Remember, there was a spot where both rivers flowed side by side. However, it also didn't take long until there was only one river. One muddy river. I've tried to remember that over the years. There have been time where I was more successful than others, but I have also had times where I decided that it would be better to not even risk the mud. See, I told you I loved rivers.
