Let the rivers clap their hands, 
let the mountains sing together for joy; 
(Psalm 98:8, NIV)

While helping Randa sort out some of the accumulation in her work room upstairs, we uncovered a couple of small pieces of driftwood. One was a short piece of plank with an angled cut on one end and faint traces of blue paint. Maybe part of an old sign? The other was just a bent branch, about fifteen inches long and a couple of inches thick. Both were smoothed and faded in typical driftwood fashion. At the time, I had no idea where they’d come from but readily admitted that I was most likely responsible for their inexplicable presence in Randa’s work room.

I carried them out to the garage the next day. Something about handling them somehow triggered memory. I realized I’d picked them up during a mountain stream diversion a few years ago.

In early summer, I took an intentional detour off I-70 an hour or so west of Denver. After rounding a curve and seeing a parking area near the creek, I pulled off the road onto a gravel shoulder. As soon as I stepped out of the car, I could hear the murmuring of a mountain stream as it tumbled over the stones and around the boulders that formed its boundaries. The murmuring grew and changed as I got closer to the stream. After picking up a few souvenirs along the water’s edge, I decided to sit for a while on a large rock jutting into the water’s flow. 

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by the sight and sound of water.

That was true even for the small creeks in my home terrain of West Kentucky. It was true for the Falls of the Cumberland River in eastern Kentucky. It was true for the Appalachian mountain streams of east Tennessee and western North Carolina. Whether the slight tremors and trembles of tiny streams or the powerful pulsating rumbles of Niagara and the compelling cascades of Oregon’s Columbia River tributaries, I am entering my eighth decade now of mesmerized appreciation for the acoustic and visual phenomena of moving water.

How marvelous that the warrior poet translated those sounds into applause for the Maker! The murmuring of small streams and the roar of the surf against the rugged stones of California, Oregon, and Washington’s coastlines all become part of the earth’s ovation in celebration of God’s salvation! 

How wonderful will be that day when all of us join that applause!