The Aral Sea Disaster

The Aral Sea stands as one of the monstrous environmental catastrophes of the 20th Century.

Before 1960, it was the world's fourth largest inland sea – behind Asia’s Caspian Sea, North America’s Lake Superior and Africa’s Lake Victoria – with an area of 68,000 km². It had a vibrant fishing industry employing 40,000 people. Today discarded fishing boats lie on the sand 20 kilometers from shore.

In the 1950’s and 60’s Soviet engineers began diverting its two major inflowing rivers to irrigate cotton fields. As a result Uzbekistan has become one of the world’s major cotton producers. But this drawdown had a disastrous result as the sea lost most of the inflow of its source waters. The mighty Aral Sea began shrinking – and shrank steadily until, in 2004 it was only 25% of its original surface area, and by 2007 it had declined to 10% of its original size.

To Serve and Protect

In the Garden of Eden story in Genesis 2:5-15, Adam’s priestly task also included a protective role. He was to ‘tend’ the garden and to ‘watch over’ it. Other translations say to ‘keep’ it or ‘take care of’ it.

The Hebrew word for ‘keep’, samar, is a military term. It is exactly the same word used in the next chapter when the angel with a flaming sword ‘guards’ the way to the tree of life against intruders. It is used again in the fourth chapter in Cain’s retort, “Am I my brother’s keeper?

Noah Part 4 - Fresh Takes on the Old Story

The story of the Great Flood is powerful and timeless. Every generation hears its echoes in the upheavals, urgencies and opportunities of their own day.

I wonder how its ancient melodies sound in our 21st Century ears?

According to Peter, Jesus’ apostle and water-walking protégé, the climactic event of human history was the coming to earth of Jesus to save his doomed creation. He was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan, but he spoke cryptically of another ‘baptism’, when he was engulfed by the flood of God’s judgment against sin. On the cross, he embraced that deadly torrent as God’s truly Righteous One, suffering to rescue the unrighteous ones and rising from death to give us living hope!

World Wetlands Day

I used to think that February 2 was simply Groundhog Day.

But apparently it’s also World Wetlands Day – a day to celebrate and appreciate the rich bio-diversity and economic benefits of an under-appreciated wonder of water. Forty years ago on this date, the world signed the Ramsar Convention to protect the world’s wetlands.

I had never heard about Ramsar until this year. I used to think of wetlands simply as wastelands – ugly, mosquito-breeding eyesores on the landscape. I considered them like the Dead Marshes near Mordor in Lord of the Rings whose mists and vapors gave off a terrible stench.

Actually, wet-lands serve us very well. Mud-flats and mangrove swamps buffer the coastline and reduce erosion. Swamps, bogs, marshes and fens are huge sponges that absorb flood-water, filter out pollutants and hold them in the soil, improving water quality. They filter rainwater run-off, minimizing the silting of rivers and streams.

No Shortage of Water

Moses sounds like a travel agent. . . After leading his people across the desert to the threshold of the Promised Land, he gives them a glowing description of the land before them.

The LORD is bringing you into a good land--a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills. Deuteronomy 8:7

It is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it. Deuteronomy 11:11-12

After forty years in the dry desert this sounded like paradise - rain-water, ground-water and surface water in abundance, streams and pools and springs - a farmer’s paradise for sure - and a hydro-geologist’s dream.

Joy to the World

It’s the Christmas carol that never intended to be one.

Joy to the World is Isaac Watt’s 1719 translation of the Psalm 98. But there’s nothing in that song about a baby or manger, about shepherds or angels.

It’s an ancient Hebrew song that summons the earth to shout for joy to God and burst into jubilant song because God is on the move! It calls on the sea to thunder an encore and rivers to add their applause in a rousing symphony that celebrates or anticipates the arrival of God’s wise and righteous rule over the earth.

The Cost of Water

What does water cost? And who should pay? Is water a human right or a human need? How should water be financed?

Two contrasting images in the Bible give a hint:
► prisoners forced to buy their own drinking water
► a free-entry hospitality suite for every thirsty person on the planet!

The first story comes from the heart-wrenching lament of Jewish prisoners-of-war in 586 BCE when the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, raped her women and burned the Temple. Among the atrocities they endured, we read,

We have to pay to drink our own water.

Even our firewood comes at a price.

We're slaves, bullied and bowed,

worn out and without any rest.

Lamentations 5:4 The Message

Nile Nightmare

The nightmare jolted him awake. Pharaoh stood beside his beloved Nile as seven fat cows climbed out of the river and begin grazing along the bank. All was well until, ominously, seven scrawny cows came out of the same river, stalked the healthy cows and devoured them.

Cannibal cows! – a bad portent – something nasty was afoot on the banks of the sacred Nile.  Pharaoh woke with a start.

Dance With the One Who Brung Ya

In keeping with my Water and Marriage theme of the week – my anniversary being tomorrow, it’s not just Shania Twain who sings about staying with the one who brought her to the dance.

The ancient wisdom of Israel also recognized the folly of infidelity. (Proverbs 5:15-17)

Drink water from your own cistern,

running water from your own well.

Should your springs overflow in the streets,

your streams of water in the public squares?

Let them be yours alone,

never to be shared with strangers.

This proverb knows how enticing forbidden love can be; it urges us to guard our hearts and marriage, to resist the beguiling call to squander our sexual energies with strangers. Seeking intimacy outside your marriage is sure to ruin the dance, foul the well or rot the staves of your rain-barrel.

The Blue Marble

From space, Earth looks like a "blue marble" - 75% of it covered by water. The vast blue of the oceans laced by swirling white clouds showcasing the beauty and symmetry of God’s Creation.

Psalm 104 revels in Earth-maker's workmanship – sky, clouds and rain, rivers and wet-lands, wild-life and forests - and now (in my final post on this ancient hymn) the wide blue oceans.

The Hebrews were not a sea-going people, so biblical oceans usually roar wild and restless. But in this song, the ocean is spacious and hospitable,“teeming with creatures beyond number, living things, both large and small” – from tiny microbes and plankton to dolphins and manta rays, from corals and conchs to octopus and sperm whales. Yet despite the fullness of the sea, it is not crowded; there is plenty of room for ship traffic and for whales to cavort, calve, graze and migrate.