Kairos Moments

I thought of calling this post “the ambiguity of time”, but what I really want to notice is the rich opportunity that every moment of life brings.

In Greek mythology, Chronos was ‘Father Time’, the personification of time in minutes, hours, days and years. But the wise Greeks also recognized that within the flow of time some moments are more momentous than others. There is a timeliness to things.

So they used a different word, ‘kairos’, to describe the right moment for something. Aristotle identified the point in an argument when the proof should be presented as the ‘kairos’ moment. Chronos is the quantity of time; kairos is the quality of time – time pregnant with purpose.

New Beginnings

After a four-week silence this blog is back – with a new name and a fresh focus. For the past 18 months I blogged about the Wonder of Water – 210 posts exploring references to water in the Bible and what they have to say to us about life today. You will soon be able to read many of these reflections – and more – in my new book Downstream from Eden.

In the last post I wrote before Christmas I used the phrase ‘downstream from eden’ to describe the less-than-ideal circumstances of our life journey in the real world. Yesterday was one of those, a milestone marker for me and my children.

The Scent of Water - Wells of Hope

In Job 14, the beleaguered wise man asks a lot of questions trying to solve the riddle of life and death.

Using a string of similes, Job ponders our human mortality – we’re like flowers that wither, fleeting shadows, day laborers (here today, gone tomorrow), lakes and rivers that evaporate, soil and stone eroded by running water.

But knotted into this string of death images is the intriguing thing called hope. Is it a mirage? Is it a false dream, a futile longing, that our lives have meaning and significance? Or does the world contain hints that point to a reality bigger than death?

At the Scent of Water

One of the signs of global climate change is that many places in the world are becoming drier by the year, though not always a result of decisions as reckless as the Aral Sea (see last week's post). Climate change is taking its toll and desertification is encroaching on many communities around the world.

It’s not just happening in Africa, Australia and California. Climatologists and meteorologists in central Europe have said that the region is seeing more and more extreme weather including long periods of dry and hot weather in the summer, severe flooding and bitter winter weather.

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.

Contentment

It can probably be argued that the wealthy King Solomon was a victim of his own success. His capacity to produce fed an almost bottomless craving for more. But at least he had the insight to recognize the power of greed. His collections of proverbs includes this gem:

"There are three things that are never satisfied, four that never say, 'Enough!':
the grave, the barren womb,
land which is never satisfied with water, and fire, which never says, 'Enough!'
Proverbs 30:15-16

Think about these four places in Nature where demand is fierce and insistent with an insatiable craving for more:

CSI - Ancient Israel Water Ritual

What should you do if a dead body is found in a field, and your basic detective work cannot discover a killer? Here is an ancient water ritual that ensured that cold cases didn’t just suffer the indignity of civil neglect.

You can read the extended ritual in Deuteronomy 21:1-9. Here is a brief summary:

Salty Pools

In my post last week I wrote about the positive influence of salt. It reminded me of a post last month about the proverb that you can’t draw fresh water from a salt-water well. That was about the inconsistency of praising God in one breath and cursing people with the next. Today I want to link the two with another story about remediating wells.

When wells become brackish or saline, they become useless. This is what happened after the tsunami in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. The day after Christmas 2004 when a tsunami struck the coast of Sumatra Island, large boats were hurled inland and thousands of people were washed out to sea – and some 30,000 shallow wells suddenly became saline.

Desert, Torrent and Sea

Woven throughout the puzzling images of the Book of Revelation are the twin themes of victory and suffering.

Half-way through the book, in Chapter 12, John sees ‘a great and wondrous sign’ that illustrates this double truth.

A pregnant woman is on the verge of giving birth, but a fierce red dragon stands in front of her ready to pounce on her infant the moment she delivers. It’s a bizarre picture to be sure, but it's a symbolic portrait of the cosmic battle under-lying the history of the human race.

The woman is a composite of Eve, the mother of all living (who was stalked by the serpent) and Mary, the mother of Jesus, stalked by Herod after Jesus was born. The new-born boy-child, we’re told, “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” So we know this is about the reign of Jesus and the hostility of the evil one who seeks to destroy him. The child is no sooner born than he is “snatched up to God and to his throne” (v.5). The story leaps from the birth of Jesus to his ascension to heaven.

The Sound of Silence

"The days are coming," declares the Sovereign LORD, "when I will send a famine through the land-- not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.
Amos 8:11

Amos had grown hoarse pleading with the wealthy farmers in the north of Israel to see that their religious faith had to translate into compassion and fair dealings with the poor – or it was completely fraudulent. He warned them that if they wouldn’t listen to God’s words, God would give them the silent treatment. And that silence would not remain golden for very long. People cannot live without spiritual resources, without answers for the questions of life. Their fears mount and they search desperately for direction.

Deep Calls to Deep

My previous post, As the Deer, reflected on the power of thirst as the writer of Psalm 42 said As the deer pants for steams of water, my soul thirsts for you O God.

Just a few lines later the writer's language shifts and he imagines himself in a middle of a raging river - “Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me” Psalm 42:7. From 'parched soul' to 'deluge' in less than a minute.

Turbulent water can knock you off your feet, all right. Every year all around the world we hear tragic stories of people being swept away by the current of rivers. But what prompts the psalmist to shift so radically from thirsting to drowning?

Elijah's Dew-Free Zone

It had been a grim three years in Israel’s northern region. Ahab was one of the bad kings. In fact, it was said that he ‘did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him’ 2 Kings 16:32-33.

One of his vices was his foreign wife Jezebel who had a special fondness for the sexually explicit Baal cult. ‘Human orgies lead to fertile fields’, she told them, and far and wide, Ahab’s people gave it a try. Her influence was pervasive; Asherah poles, Baal idols and hundreds of Baal priests filled the land.

So God sent the prophet Elijah with a message to Ahab. "As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word" 1 Kings 17:1.

This was not good news. In northern Israel rain is usually plentiful and agriculture flourishes. No rain or dew was a death sentence for thousands of people. It was a serious ultimatum - abandon Baal worship or face the consequences.

Baptism and New Life

In the New Testament - 1 Corinthians 10:1 – St. Paul imagines Israel’s crossing of the Red Sea as a baptism. The imagery is obvious – water, death resurrection, new life - a defining event that birthed Israel’s national life as God’s people.

Today in churches, friends will often burst into applause when a friend is baptized, so it’s no surprise that Israel erupted in spontaneous worship and celebration on the far side of the water. Miriam led the women in song and dancing to celebrate their new life, their freedom.

Surprise Pathway

'History repeats itself', they say; 'what goes around, comes around.'  But Isaiah says 'don’t limit your imagination to what has happened before. Keep looking ahead because God is as much a God of tomorrow as a God of yesterday. While God is consistent and faithful, God is not predictable. Yahweh is full of surprises!'

This is what the LORD says—

he who made a way through the sea,

a path through the mighty waters,

Forget the former things. See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the desert

and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43:16, 19

If You Had Only One Wish . . .

Kaitlin Boyda really knew how to live.  Here is an inspiring story from Compassion Canada

Kaitlin Boyda, who lived with a faith and compassion that inspired hundreds of people to give to water projects through Compassion Canada, passed away on Thursday last week, May 5, 2011 at the age of 17.

Kaitlin, from Lethbridge, Alberta, was diagnosed in the summer of 2009 with a cancerous brain tumour at age 16 and has spent the last year and a half battling its affects. When she was approached by the Children’s Wish Foundation in December 2010, she decided not to choose a wish to benefit herself, but to donate the wish to build a well for children in need in Uganda.

Taking the Plunge

Easter is on the horizon, so for the next three weeks, we’re going to follow water-stories that revolve around Jesus. Today, Jesus takes the plunge.

Ah, the amazing wonder of water!  Many religions practice ritual washing. Hindus plunge into the Ganges. Shinto worshippers in Japan seek cleansing under waterfalls, orthodox Jews use a mikvah to represent a flowing stream.
  

Baptism is an act of abandoning yourself to the water and embracing the purity, healing and renewal the water represents. It calls for courage and resolve. It says, ‘forget decorum, to hell with face-saving, a new life beckons, it’s time to answer the call’.

800 years before John the Baptist, the Syrian general Naaman, who had a dire skin disease, came to Israel looking for help. The prophet Elisha told him to wash seven times in the Jordan River and he would be healed. At first Naaman was offended - the Jordan was a mediocre river, quite inferior to the rivers of his homeland. But in the end he humbled himself, plunged in, and the God of Israel healed him.

Darwin Awards - The Jesus Edition

Since 1994, the Darwin Awards have held up a mirror to human folly. Their tongue-in-cheek books and web-site tell true stories of people who, as they say, ‘live in the shallow end of the gene pool’, people who 'show an astounding lack of judgment and cause their own demise'.

'Terminal stupidity', they call it, with lethal personal consequences. They cite these stories not to laugh at calamity, but as cautionary tales.

Jesus used a different metaphor, but his insight into disastrous human stupidity is just as clear. His story about the foolish carpenter and the raging river seems the perfect parable for April Fools Day!

As a carpenter Jesus knew the consequences of shoddy house-building. He probably knew peasants in the hills around Nazareth who skimped on the foundations of hasty summer-built houses only to see their investment collapse in ruins when the winter rains fell and the wadis swelled with torrential floods that tore the earth away from their doorsteps.

Earthquake and Tsunami

Apocalyptic!  That is how one news anchor described the scene in Japan in the wake of an 8.9 strength earthquake and its tsunami aftermath!

The focus of this blog is the wonder of the natural world of water and what it shows us about God's grace.

The stunning video footage of the tsunami shows us convincing evidence of the devastating power of water to splinter buildings, roll boats and cars, trains and aircraft like wine-corks and wipe out whole towns.

Where we might ask is the grace of God?

Ashes of Death - Water of Life

Today is Ash Wednesday.

Ashes and water combined to form a sacred part of ancient Israel’s purity code.

Not just any water – it had to be fresh spring-water, literally living water. And not just ashes from any old fire, but the ashes of a special sacrifice.

The animal had to be a red heifer, free of blemishes, one that had never calved and been put under the yoke! . . .

Noah Part 3 - The Rainbow Connection

Photo Credit: Marcheta Gibson

My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky.  William Wordsworth

I remember waking up the morning after a rain-storm aboard a yacht in Desolation Sound, British Columbia. My wife had died seven months earlier and despite the majestic beauty of the scenery, the name Desolation Sound echoed the recent deluge of loss in my life.

As I raised the deck hatch that morning I stared up at a magnificent double rainbow arched across the sky above the shrouds and mast of our boat. My heart leapt as those rainbows silently but eloquently proclaimed promise and hope to my soul.

The ancient story of Noah and the Flood is crowned with a rainbow.  By sheer mercy and grace the ark and its inhabitants survived the devastating flood. And by sheer mercy God does this over and over again in our lives. There are experiences in life that overwhelm us and change our world forever. But God is a master of new beginnings.