One of the enchanted places of my childhood was a pond which lay cradled in the woods near the house where I grew up in rural South Carolina. Mystery and wildness seemed to fill the place. Barkless trees rose like sentinels from the pond’s deep waters, and birds circled endlessly overhead. My older brothers warned that dangerous things lived in or near the pond. “Don’t get too close,” they would say. “The pond will get you!”

As I grew older, such warnings were tempered by my own experience. I came to know the pond as a natural caldron teeming with life and excitement. When spring arrived, one could catch countless tadpoles in glass jars and watch the unfolding miracle of creation. All summer dragonflies would start and stop their way across the pond while turtles glided lazily just beneath the water’s surface. It was a place of enchantment and enduring memory. 

I think of that swamp sometimes when I need a reminder that first impressions cannot always be trusted. It is too easy to make quick judgements and too easy to believe what others tell you. There will always be those that caution, “Don’t get too close; be careful; this or that will get you!” If we allow such voices to replace our own experience and common sense, we invest them with the power to make the world a fearful place.

I can’t say for sure, but one summer day as I looked at the pond’s imperfect beauty, I believe I heard a voice deep within me whispering, “It is good…it is good.” The declaration, whose holiness I would not question, has shaped my life from that long-ago day until now.