Yes, a river runs through Greenville. And we now have access to completed segments of the long-awaited Reedy River Falls Park. By September, the revitalized riverside park will be an enticing oasis in the midst of a vibrant downtown.

To be sure, the Reedy is not as majestic as the Mississippi or as picturesque as the Hudson, nor as pretentious as the Ashley and Cooper, which are said to converge at Charleston to form the Atlantic Ocean. And during dry spells the Reedy becomes a limping stream rather than a cascading river. But the unassuming Reedy has been Greenville's defining attribute since the Cherokees camped near the falls.

By the early 19th century, mills, foundries, factories and stores lined the riverbanks, and the Reedy thereafter became the city's primary catalyst of economic development. In the process of generating commerce and community, the river has provided streams of stories that have shaped Greenville's history.

Throughout the world and across human history, rivers have symbolized creation and rejuvenation, grandeur and daring, reverence and awe. Most ancient civilizations were centered near river basins. The Yellow River, the Ganges, the Indus, the Tigris, the Euphrates and the Nile nourished the rise of human society and served as the conduit for spiritual life.

Although the title of a best-selling novel (and film), the phrase a river runs through it is biblical in origin. It is part of the description of Eden in the Book of Genesis. Water, of course, is also a dominant religious symbol in Judaism and Christianity. The Bible is filled with references to water's spiritually cleansing powers, its divine gifts and its representation of God and eternal life.

In India, almost 100 million Hindu pilgrims annually converge on holy rivers such as the Ganges to immerse themselves in waters to wash away their failings and gain access to heaven. As fire consumes wood, the Hindu saying goes, so does Ganga consume sins.

What is it about rivers that make them such cradles of human civilization? Obviously we need water to drink and to power the engines of agriculture and commerce. Rivers form natural boundaries and provide means of transport. But rivers do much more for us than sustain life and fuel the economy. They flow through our imagination like veins through our body. They carve out channels of meaning that wind deeply into the landscape of culture.

Meandering rivers also serve as powerful metaphors for lifes journey. They churn up fundamental questions: wherefrom, whereto, what lies beneath the surface? In the Taoist faith, rivers and waterfalls connote continuous change. Everything evolves, nothing stands still. The flowing energies of rivers are dynamic and unpredictable; they tell  and inspire  powerful stories.

Herman Hesses famous novel Siddhartha (1946), for example, tells the story of a wandering Brahmin in quest of enlightenment. After sampling lifes pleasures and finding them empty of meaning, he eventually meets a wise ferryman named Vasudeva. Siddhartha floats on the river with Vasudeva and discovers in the constantly renewing waters the source of wisdom and self-illumination.

The river, Siddhartha reflects, ran and ran, incessantly it ran, and was nevertheless always there, was always and at all times the same and yet new in every moment! Vasudeva explains that the river taught me how to listen; you will learn that from the river too. The river knows everything; everything can be learned from it. Look, you have already learned from the river that it is good to aim low, to sink, to seek the bottom.

Likewise, the American poet and naturalist Henry David Thoreau believed that rivers manifested the dynamic nature of life itself, where change is permanent, and the opportunity to be born again, like a snake annually shedding its skin, is ever present. A mans life should be as fresh as the river, he once wrote. It should be the same channel but a new water every instant.

The renewal of the Reedy River Falls and the surrounding area promises to breathe fresh life into downtown Greenville  and to our selves. Life is movement, and movement involves change. The urgency of moving water reminds us that we too can be a river always flowing, always in the process of becoming, not fearing change but constantly being renewed by it.