I’m pretty sure I can’t speak for you, but whenever I find myself near a body of water, something changes. I’m not just walking, or hiking (or driving); I’m observing…more acutely, more mysteriously in some way. The waterway adds context, and perhaps a few questions, about my surroundings. What’s underneath the surface of that water? What creatures are traveling in its current or waves? Could I swim across it in a pinch? Is it too cold, or turbulent, for safe travel?

Years ago I found myself partaking in a project, traveling to many parks – national, state and local – and each one of them was sacred. The project’s website is a bit outdated, but it still tells the story of a journey to find meaning in the land, the water, and the trails that bring them together. One verse I kept thinking about as I hiked the many trails, and told the story in many churches and to groups of people who would listen, was this: “The Lord is my shepherd. He leads me beside still waters…”

For Christian and Jewish people, this is a popular and very meaningful lyric from an ancient song (“Psalm” – number 23) that for millennia has made its way into holy readings, weddings, funerals and the like. Even to folks not religious, or not from the Judeo-Christian tradition, these can still be words of solace and venture: “He [brings] me to lie down in green pastures…restores my soul…and leads me in right paths…”

“Though I walk through the valley of death, I shall fear no evil.”

My fellow journeymen and women, what verse ushers you down a (re)new(ed) path, and to the water? Through the valley, perhaps…or to a place where new perspective breaks through the mundane? Sometime during that project’s “Travel Year” in 2010 I made my way to the “Valley of Death.” It’s in Southeast California, if you’re wondering: a long drive from any city you’ll find on a map, protected and shepherded by the everyday members of the U.S. Department of the Interior. And somewhere in the southern part of Death Valley National Park you will find yourself in Badwater Basin, 282 feet below sea level, in the lowest elevation in North America. It’s hot, unless you’re there when I was (the “winter” month of February, when highs approach a mild 70+ degrees F.) Not much grows in the valley of “darkness.” But when it does, it’s exquisite – and though the salty water of the Basin is all but lifeless, you get the feeling that it is there for a reason.

Later that same year, I found myself in Seward, Alaska, in Resurrection Bay, and the irony of that journey – from Death to Resurrection – wasn’t lost on this traveler. As my colleague and friend Adam and I stood on the bow of the tour vessel traversing the Bay, we witnessed the harshness of the Kenai Fjord terrain, the joy of dolphins and sea lions outmaneuvering us over and over, and the ever-changing glaciers still carving the Earth in the distance. (Who says Creation stopped billions of years ago, anyway?!?) Going from death to resurrection isn’t a market cornered by religious types alone, either; it’s all in a journey’s work for some, or a walk in the local park for another.

The next time you walk a path near a body of water, perhaps it would be good to have a lyric in your back pocket that connects you to life’s extremes and the perils of living on the edge of something beautiful and full of liquid goodness. True, you might want to keep your distance if its movement is stronger than you. But if it’s unpolluted, it’s anything but bad. My guess is it’s waiting for you to say hello.

So, just add water.