My Grandfather Baker loved his cabin by the river. Situated close to the banks of the North Saluda River on the border between Greenville and Pickens counties, this cabin holds many precious memories for me of wonderful summer days.

My grandparents bought it long before I was born and used it as a place where all of the family would get together. Almost everyone in Marietta had a cabin on this stretch of the river. None of the cabins were very large and none of them had any of the standard comforts except electricity. As we rode to the cabin, we could name the names of all of our neighbors and see whether or not they were in residence at this get-away place that was actually only a few miles from town.

Our cabin was in the bend of the road, or rather where the road forked into one section that went to the fishing lake and the other section that went over a small wooden bridge to another group of cabins. The bridge provided the boundary for our adventures in the river. On occasion, people would stop on the bridge, and upon seeing us playing in the river, they would leave their cars and jump into the river below. Since the bridge was not very high and since the river at that point was filled with deep green waters, this never presented the hazard that might have been expected.

The cabin was painted barn red with bright yellow trim and shutters. It consisted of three rooms and a large screened porch that overlooked the river. The main room was the living room where furniture from a different era provided nostalgic comfort. A rock fireplace was framed by two windows that also overlooked the river. In the corner of the wooden floored room, a single French door allowed access to the screened porch. In the opposite corner was a curious cabinet that held an old radio and phonograph. On the left of this room was a small bedroom with a nice large iron poster bed. On the right of the living room was the large kitchen.

Curiously, the kitchen did not have a stove probably because a large rock barbeque fireplace was located right outside. The far kitchen walls were lined with open shelves where my grandmother had placed many different colors of Festiva china. The favorite feature of the kitchen was the red water pump that stood on a counter next to the sink. It always proved to be extremely stubborn in yielding its water, but after the better part of an hour spent in priming it with a bucket of water drawn from the river, it would finally start pumping clear cold mountain water for the kitchen.

I remember having many a wonderfully relaxing summer day spent at the cabin with my family. I thought that this place would always exist as a part of my life and that my family would always exist as a part of the place of Marietta, but how fleeting those moments turned out to be. But I can remember the sights, sounds and smells of the river cabin on those days so long ago. I remember floating on the river after a few hours of exhausting play with my brothers and cousins. I remember the sound of the quiet river as it went over shallow places of the coarse brown sand and the million shades of brown and gray pebbles that spotted the floor of that clear cold river.

I remember the sound of laughter and the sound of family relaxing together in a peaceful setting that seemed to point to the wholeness of life. Whenever I need to get away for a few minutes, I float down the river in my mind and feel the water and the sand and go back to those days and that time.

But those days also point to the future as well. A future that includes the past. A future that reminds me of the peace of the river and the joys of family time at the cabin. A future that points in the direction of things good and kind and simple.

Our Lord’s radiance in our lives points us always to the moments of our past as well as time that is yet to be. But in those days that have yet to be lived, we know that the peace of Christ awaits us.

Thank you, Lord, for every place of past, present and future where we meet the divine.

God Bless,
Dan