I stop my run to gaze down at the St. Joseph’s River from the bridge above. Little blobs of foam float past flashing under the bridge below me. The wind rushes downstream, and the sun fades into the horizon. I think of all my troubles: relationships, grades, embarrassing moments. They all escape my mind and drift downstream with the river and the wind. I can feel God’s presence in the water and wind, rushing under me and around me, beckoning me downstream.
I envision the trees around me slowly sprouting buds and growing leaves, which gradually turn a brighter green to yellow to red to brown and finally falling off the tree into the river and flowing downstream. I imagine the cycle, again and again, happening faster and faster each time, until the tree falls into the river, and it too flows downstream. Are we a leaf in the tree or are we the tree itself, I wonder.
~ Oscar Pontiff
Notre Dame 2025