Watershed
Finally, the showers have arrived. I know my friends back east will have trouble understanding what a relief it has been to have so much rain in such a short span of time. In the southeast, we have so much rain throughout the summer. Most afternoons there is a small shower of some kind. Then the fall/winter rains come; more gentle and longer lasting. But the weather in southern California is different. Summers here are the "dry" seasons, then the rains come in the fall. So coming as we have so recently from the southeast where we've become used to regular showers, our first eight weeks here have been a literal dry spell. Everything was dusty; cars would collect it so quickly that it looked the pollen of a Georgia spring. We washed our cars weekly, out of a sheer necessity of visibility.
So when the rains begain a few days ago, my wife and I stood out on our front porch and shared a sentimental tear. It's hard to explain how beautiful the sound is, how peaceful. Even now, as I sit at my desk, I'm listening to the rain all around me. The air literally feels so much cleaner, and it has that comfortable post-deluge smell. The cars and houses are clean. There's no dusty drift behind every car on the street.
But there is a downside, and I'm learning that is really what life is about. Let me explain the yin and the yang of these SoCal storms. You see, the forests here thrive on the occasional wild-fire. As mentioned in a previous post, it is necessary to clear underbrush and fertilize the soil so that many of the trees can release their seeds. Well all that burning can really strip a mountainside of its vegetation, and vegetation is critical to reduce erosion. So, what all of this adds up to is landslides, and they can be very severe. The threat of losing one's home down the side of a mountain or hill is very real for some. Now, of course one could easily go on a diatribe about humans living and forging their way into places where humans were not meant to live, but the point is moot by practice. Humans have always done so and will continue to push the limits of where human life is possible or sustainable. We live in the foothills: gently sloping streets, excellent drainage, no steep slopes. We enjoy the rains and have no concerns about their detrimental effects. However, just up the hill from us, in a city called Altadena, there are hundreds of homes threatened annually by these rains. Engineers continue to attempt new solutions to resolve the problems, but we'll never completely control the environment.
So there's a good and there's a bad. They're both part of the same event. So much in life is like this. Very few events/exchanges in the world are win-win. At best, they are usually win-neutral, but more commonly there is a win-lose. I have to be careful what I thank God for, because that very same thing may be something that someone else is cursing God for, when, in fact, God himself may be neutral on the issue. Rains happen; they happen everywhere. They aren't really a special gift from the Almighty as an answer to prayer. They are part of the natural clockwork fashioned by the Creator as one of the provisions for life. However, the good of them helps to balance the bad. Natural disasters are only disastrous when viewed from an anthropocentric perspective. Most, if not all, natural disasters have at least one, if not more, beneficial effects for many of the organisms that live in the affected ecosystem. Such a balance seems so clearly to be built into the system.
So how do I thank God for the rain, for anything? I must be careful not to be too selfish in my gratitude. I must, instead, thank God for a system that is bigger than me; a system that was not made for me, with me alone in mind. This is a subject for another blog, and a serious issue with Christianity in America of late. Too significant a focus is given to the id, the ego, the me, with a conseqent loss of the bigger narrative, the meta-narrative, of which I'm only a very small player among players that now number almost 6.4 billion. It is not about me, it never was. It is about God, the ground of being (as Tillich would phrase him), the author and completer, and how I chose align myself with the current, the flow, the direction of God's work in the world.
I must be careful to remember those who, even now, are out there in the rain without a proper roof over their head. My compassion for them must be informed by the imperitive of Jesus in his instruction on how the sheep would be separated from the goats: "...I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me." How does that motivate me? Do I merely thank God that I am not like them? "Thank you for the roof over my head!" But even that seems a harsh gratitude when others go without. If actions speak louder than words, how do I learn to live my gratitude? Otherwise, my prayers become like that of the Pharisee: a prayer condemned by Jesus in his parable in Luke 18. Rather, let me learn to see myself before the eyes of God as the tax collecter saw himself. Let my words be few and my life filled with actions that identify me with the life and teachings of Christ.
So when the rains begain a few days ago, my wife and I stood out on our front porch and shared a sentimental tear. It's hard to explain how beautiful the sound is, how peaceful. Even now, as I sit at my desk, I'm listening to the rain all around me. The air literally feels so much cleaner, and it has that comfortable post-deluge smell. The cars and houses are clean. There's no dusty drift behind every car on the street.
But there is a downside, and I'm learning that is really what life is about. Let me explain the yin and the yang of these SoCal storms. You see, the forests here thrive on the occasional wild-fire. As mentioned in a previous post, it is necessary to clear underbrush and fertilize the soil so that many of the trees can release their seeds. Well all that burning can really strip a mountainside of its vegetation, and vegetation is critical to reduce erosion. So, what all of this adds up to is landslides, and they can be very severe. The threat of losing one's home down the side of a mountain or hill is very real for some. Now, of course one could easily go on a diatribe about humans living and forging their way into places where humans were not meant to live, but the point is moot by practice. Humans have always done so and will continue to push the limits of where human life is possible or sustainable. We live in the foothills: gently sloping streets, excellent drainage, no steep slopes. We enjoy the rains and have no concerns about their detrimental effects. However, just up the hill from us, in a city called Altadena, there are hundreds of homes threatened annually by these rains. Engineers continue to attempt new solutions to resolve the problems, but we'll never completely control the environment.
So there's a good and there's a bad. They're both part of the same event. So much in life is like this. Very few events/exchanges in the world are win-win. At best, they are usually win-neutral, but more commonly there is a win-lose. I have to be careful what I thank God for, because that very same thing may be something that someone else is cursing God for, when, in fact, God himself may be neutral on the issue. Rains happen; they happen everywhere. They aren't really a special gift from the Almighty as an answer to prayer. They are part of the natural clockwork fashioned by the Creator as one of the provisions for life. However, the good of them helps to balance the bad. Natural disasters are only disastrous when viewed from an anthropocentric perspective. Most, if not all, natural disasters have at least one, if not more, beneficial effects for many of the organisms that live in the affected ecosystem. Such a balance seems so clearly to be built into the system.
So how do I thank God for the rain, for anything? I must be careful not to be too selfish in my gratitude. I must, instead, thank God for a system that is bigger than me; a system that was not made for me, with me alone in mind. This is a subject for another blog, and a serious issue with Christianity in America of late. Too significant a focus is given to the id, the ego, the me, with a conseqent loss of the bigger narrative, the meta-narrative, of which I'm only a very small player among players that now number almost 6.4 billion. It is not about me, it never was. It is about God, the ground of being (as Tillich would phrase him), the author and completer, and how I chose align myself with the current, the flow, the direction of God's work in the world.
I must be careful to remember those who, even now, are out there in the rain without a proper roof over their head. My compassion for them must be informed by the imperitive of Jesus in his instruction on how the sheep would be separated from the goats: "...I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me." How does that motivate me? Do I merely thank God that I am not like them? "Thank you for the roof over my head!" But even that seems a harsh gratitude when others go without. If actions speak louder than words, how do I learn to live my gratitude? Otherwise, my prayers become like that of the Pharisee: a prayer condemned by Jesus in his parable in Luke 18. Rather, let me learn to see myself before the eyes of God as the tax collecter saw himself. Let my words be few and my life filled with actions that identify me with the life and teachings of Christ.
