Water, Water everywhere.

For a while, I think I will be focusing on water in our world, because, as you can imagine, water is more precious than gold in many parts of the world, and I think it is healthy to look at some of the situations people face.

We take water for granted in America, as I have griped about to an obnoxious degree. We don't even think twice about getting a drink from the tap,(or buying water bottles if we don't trust the tap), or washing dishes, or showering, or watering our lawns. However imagine living in a shanty town in a developing country.

Your water access would be something like this:

Grab a few jugs or buckets and find a spigot or well somewhere, some distance from your so-called house.

Have a minimum of clothes, because you can't afford more, and also because you must wash them by hand, either in a stream or a bucket from a small amount of water you collected at the previously noted spigot or well.

No flushing toilets.

Carry all sorts of parasites and abdominal troubles because the water is never quite what it should be in your part of town.

What's a lawn, anyway?


I watched a video last semester where a nomadic tribe in Africa only drinks one small glass of water each per day, because they want to make sure that their bodies are not dependent on more, since more isn't always available.

Enjoy your ready access to water, but remember to pray for those who's access is not so easy. And pray that they will know the Living Water as well.

Our backyard friend

This past year we put our adorable guinea pig speedy outside in his enclosure for some fresh air and grass. He liked it so much that he escaped the little fence and hid himself in our backyard.

As you can imagine, by his name, he is quite the fast little critter. All attempts to catch him and put him back in his cage failed (lucky for him.) We began leaving him food and he is now our permanent ferrel pet. When I'm outside hanging laundry to dry he comes near me and watches me, making the most adorable squeaking noises. He's probably hoping I have a carrot hidden amongst the wet clothes.

He eats quite well out there. Apricots seem to be a treat, as well as all of the strawberries that the snails took first dibs on, plus he gets all of our vegetable scraps from dinner preparation. What a happy critter! If only life could be so easy for all of us.

Finished one of my summer books

I just about swallowed "Searching For God Knows What" whole. Donald Miller challenged me to recognize my tendency to look for acceptance and shows how we all have a deep set need for acceptance. He compares our search for acceptance to those old 'life boat' projects I had to do in school, and to circus people looking for applause. Throughout the book I was encouraged in my growing understanding that it is relationship with Christ that is important and not any formula or action I do to be accepted. When we accept God's provision of salvation by His Son Jesus Christ we are accepted, even though there is nothing we can do to make ourselves acceptable. Once in a relationship with our great God it is a desire and pleasure to honor Him and bring glory to Him by our actions.

This is definitely a good book to read.

As for 'A Tale of Two Cities' I'm almost done, but I can't say I love it. It's good,definitely better than the Wishbone version on PBS, but I'll be glad to be done and move on to a new book.

Water

If giving a cup of water to a child in Jesus’ name is important, should we possibly consider what it means to use so much water needlessly in this world, that somewhere else in this world a child is trying to live day to day in a parched land with a throat as dry as death valley? I’m not posting this to convict anybody or judge anybody, its just that in an attempt to have a green lawn, or spring salads in August, I wonder, are we causing someone somewhere else to lack this necessary element?

Clean fresh water is a scarcity in many developing countries. We need water to grow crops, that much is true, are we being efficient about it? We don’t need green lawns, especially here in the west where the phrase “…..when it rains in July” was probably coined. Green lawns are one of my pet peeves. I have one because my husband likes them, but I shrink it a little every year, and I try to only water it two or three times a month in the summer.

Many developing countries are strained for water and I realize that we can’t take our water and transfer it to another continent. But maybe we can learn to use water more wisely and then use the money we might have used trying to maintain our own taxed water supply to find ways to help developing countries, as well as our own, use water more efficiently so that the poor can have clean water to drink every day.

I hope that this post doesn’t detract from my posts recently expressing the joy at knowing God as my father and provider. After all, ultimately he does sustain us all and provide water for the thirsty, but once we discover how much he loves us it’s good to think about how we can extend that to others.

Let’s make sure our good deeds do not arise from an attempt at acceptance or to work out our own salvation, rather let our good deeds extend from our relationship with Jesus who’s good deed on the cross is greater than anything we can do, and who offers us living water.

More Redwoods

Last week I had the most wonderful experience of hunkering down in Humboldt Redwoods State Park with my husband, five of my children and one niece. If you haven't seen a redwood tree in its optimal environment, you’re really missing something. Sharing a twelve man tent with six other people under the shade of redwood trees and California laurel trees was one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had this year, enhanced by the fact that many of the really big trees I had read about in 'Wild Trees' were in that park. Unfortunately I would have had to do a huge amount of detective work and go off trail to find them since biologists, understandably, would rather the average traveler not trample around these huge wonders of God's creation. I'm not about to take children bushwhacking in search of these trees, they were worn enough just following the nine mile Bull Creek Flat loop trail. Maybe my husband and I will go bushwhacking some other year. (It’s really fun to say you’re going to go bushwhacking by the way, it just sounds adventurous.)

After spending a good amount of time among these redwoods I had a dream that I would love to share. I dreamed I was standing at the foot of one of these 300+ foot giants looking up into its spectacular green canopy. I stood there, dwarfed and holding a plastic jug of water. (According to an article I read, redwoods transpire 500 gallons of water a day.) In my dream I was told that I was responsible for this one redwood tree. It was my job to make sure it had enough water and nutrients to allow it to not just survive, but thrive. I have never had such an intense feeling of being overwhelmed and under equipped in a dream before, how was I supposed to deliver enough water to this tree everyday to keep it from dying away? Fortunately, when I woke up, I sensed God reminding me that only He could sustain a redwood tree, and in fact he does sustain the entire redwood forest as well as all other life on earth.....including mine. Just as I cannot sustain a redwood tree, I cannot even sustain my own life. I am sustained by Christ alone. Why do I continue to worry about how I'm going to get by, when I have the One who sustains the largest trees in the world promising to sustain me? My father is the sustainer of all, and I want to gladly follow Him and know Him. I believe if I do that, I need never worry about my life or my lives of my family.

Another great book

During my trip to Lassen, I found opportunity to read when my friend proved her ability to fall asleep instantly while I lay awake for hours waiting for sleep to come to me. I finished my current book “A Road Runs Through It” which is really good because I have three books lined up behind it waiting to be read. (I’m now reading two books at the same time, how’s that for enjoying my summer!)
The book was fascinating and beautiful at the same time. In the book various writers explore the topic of building roads through public lands and why America has done much harm with these roads.
Of course we all know roads are important because they provide us necessary access to things such as stores, hospitals, vacations, and family who live on the opposite coast, etc. However, when is enough, enough? The book explored the problems when we build roads that allow access to logging forests which shouldn’t be logged, access for off road vehicles which destroy whole ecological communities, access to wild lands that might be better explored slowly. One of my best friends and my oldest daughter pointed out that the slower things are the easier they are. I would add that the slower things take, the more wonderful they are. The best way to experience nature is walking and bushwhacking is my favorite. What wonders we miss when we speed by in a car trying to get to a location. If we visit Yosemite and only stop our car to ogle at spectacular waterfalls and rocks, imagine what we can be missing. I have always wanted (rather unrealistically) to start at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and hike to the summit and down into Nevada through some canyon. This way I could see everything and experience so much more than from a car.
Roads fragment ecological habitats and diminish their health. The book ends with stories of roads which are being undone and as I read I was reminded of the bridge of Beruna in C.S. Lewis’s “Prince Caspian”.
“They turned a little to the right, raced down a steep hill, and found the long bridge of Beruna in front of them. Before they had begun to cross it, however, up out of the water came a great wet, bearded head, larger than a man’s, crowned with rushes. It looked at Aslan and out of its mouth a deep voice came.
‘Hail, Lord,’ it said. ‘Loose my chains.’……
‘Bacchus,’ said Aslan. ‘Deliver him from his chains.;
‘That means the bridge, I expect,’ thought Lucy. And so it did. Bacchus and his people splashed forward into the shallow water, and a minute later the most curious things began happening. Great, strong trunks of ivy came curling up all the piers of the bridge, growing as quickly as a fire grows, wrapping the stones round, splitting, breaking, separating them. The walls of the bridge turned into hedges gay with hawthorn for a moment and then disappeared as the whole thing with a rush and a rumble collapsed into the swirling water. With much splashing, screaming, and laughter the revelers waded or swam or danced across the ford.”
We can do our world well by undoing many of the roads we’ve put in unnecessarily put in (500,000 miles on federal forest lands alone, which were mostly abandoned when exploitation was complete according to the book). This book was definitely a good and recommendable read.

"A Road Runs Through It; Reviving Wild Places" Edited by Thomas Reed Peterson

Retreat

I recently took a mini retreat with my friend Mary. We felt that it would be good to go camping somewhere and spend time together getting closer to God. Here are a few of the valuable lessons we learned. Some can be applied to our relationship with God. :)

1. When the signs keep telling you that the road is closed and to follow the detour, the road is probably closed. We added an extra five miles to our late night drive because I wasn't completely convinced the road was closed that late at night. The man with the stop sign didn't seem to mind though, he apparently appreciated an occasional conversation with the drivers who weren't easily convinced the detour was necessary.

2. Cinder cone volcanoes are really amazing and it's worth the 1000 foot grueling uphill hike to see inside the crater and to view the lava flows. If you can ever get the time to go climb a volcano (dormant or extinct are best), I highly recommend it. To stand on top of a mountain that at one time spewed or oozed out molten rocks from deep within the earth's crust gives an amazing view of just how powerful God is. imagine picking up a rock and trying to wrap your mind around the fact that the rock, in some recent period of time (in this case 300 years ago) was deep below the surface of earth as magma.

I must admit that I am a bit obsessed with rocks, I love the stories they tell, whether they cooled deep beneath the surface of earth, or were thrown out and cooled as they flew through the air or crept along the surface. Then there are ones that hardened as sediment containing in them the fossils that tell their story. Most fascinating are the metamorphic rocks that were heated and bent and changed by the pressure, often of two plates colliding.

To me rocks and mountains do cry out in praise of God. They remind me just how powerful He is. He puts the rocks where he wants them. True we can explain them scientifically, but that doesn't leave God out of the picture; He is still the one who forms them and makes them what he wants them to be.

My point is, standing on top of Cinder Cone volcano in Lassen Volcanic National Park, I was overwhelmed with the beauty God had placed there and the power he displayed when he brought these rocks to the surface changing an entire landscape.


3. (This is most important.) We all need Daddies. A woman had carried her precious 35 pound child up the mountain on her back, stopping often to rest but determined to make it to the top. How she managed, I don't know. It was quite a feat since the angle of the trail was about 55 degrees most of the way up. Upon reaching the crater rim she discovered she was actually the second mother with a baby on the mountain that day. She offered this heartbreaking encouragement to her healthy boy, "see, you don't need a daddy, that mom carried her baby up the mountain too."

What a statement! That led to a prayer and conversation with my friend Mary. You see, recently I have been spending much time trying to grasp the fact that God is not just my FATHER but my Daddy. Father always sounds kind of severe to me, like I'd better behave or I'll be in trouble. Daddy means I'm cherished, I'm loved and the apple of someone's eye. What I thrill I have recently found, that I am the apple of God's eye. We all are! Suddenly I don't really care so much for the approval of others because my Daddy loves me. Of course I have a good earthly daddy, and I love him very much, but I think he would agree with me that the most fulfilling and wonderful relationship is with my Daddy God.

We all need a daddy. There isn’t a person on this planet that doesn’t feel the need deep within their soul. Deny it if you want, but how wonderful it feels to be loved by a father. It is those who have a good father here on earth who can best grasp what it means to have a heavenly Father, but those whose father was far from perfect or not even there, can come to a joyous discovery when they find they are cherished by a Father greater than any man could ever be.

Katie's version

This is my daughter Katherine's version of the same event with the bird. I thought it was so beautiful I asked her if I could share it here.

It jumped out, spread its wings and fell to the ground unhurt. Suddenly a murderous scrub jay attacks the young bird then is scared away by humans. It layed there, surrounded by huge beings. Then one picked it up and carried it away into a house. It struggled to get up; the pain covered its whole body. Then the pain stopped and it got up and saw a bigger being with a pair of huge white wings so big it couldn't even fit in the house. Then it said "Come with me and take the ultimate flight." The bird understood and flew onto the winged beings shoulder. It looked back and saw itself in the humans hands, lifeless, then looked at itself and saw it was ten times bigger and ten times brighter. The being said, "It's time to leave," and they flew off, past the sky and out past space.

Birdslaughter

Yesterday I witnessed a gruesome murder. Our neighbor Scrubby the Scrub jay, whom we’ve always enjoyed the company of, revealed his most violent side. As I pulled up on my bike I saw him holding down a fledgling mockingbird and attacking him. I steered toward him and he picked the poor little thing up and tried to fly away, only to drop it on a driveway occupied by a gang of small children (my neighborhoods version of the little rascals). When everyone was alerted that a bird was bleeding on the driveway calls came out of the gang’s house that any child who touched a bird would die of rabies. I came over, picked up the little bird and carried it home, promising that I would try to nurse it back to health or take it to the local bird hospital.
As I carried inside it quickly became clear that Scrubby would soon be guilty of birdslaughter and therefore banished from my backyard (only when I was out there of course.) The little fledgling had a pierced skull and was fighting for every breath. Lying in my hands for less than two minutes, it breathed its last breath.
Now I’ve always felt a justified sense of injustice when an animal lies dead on the side of the road. They just want to find food or a mate and “Wham!” their days are ended by our transportation machines. Or the poor cows crammed together waiting to become fast food burgers. How greedy we are for beef. There are plenty of ways I could list that humans over do their mistreatment of God’s animals. However, having always been taught about the balance of nature, I did not expect to feel angry at the scrub jay for killing a fledgling, anymore than I expected to react in anguish and frustration at the discovery of a decapitated sea lion on the lost coast, apparently the victim of a shark. After all, don’t they keep each other from overpopulation?
Don’t get me wrong, I love the study of ecology and I’m very grateful for the balance that keeps us from being overrun by rats and allows for such a variety of species to coexist. But it is all so violent and bloody. Surely there is a better way!
Roman’s 8:22 says that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth. Doesn’t nature groan and cry out to her Creator because she is kept in check by violence and bloodshed? I realize that the natural world functions quite gruesomely since Adam and Eve first disobeyed God, but there is hope for all creation.
Revelation reminds us that all things will be made new and Isaiah speaks of that time like this:

“The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together
and a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The infant will play near the hole of the cobra
and the young child put his hand into the vipers nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”


Of course what I worry about more is what vile and evil predator the gang of children may come to meet when they are fledglings. They are some of the most at risk children I know and I must pray for them daily and remember that though they are not my own children they are God’s children and he would not want their souls murdered, but rather wants his other children to show them who He is and guard them from the enemy who wishes to tear them apart.