Getting Carried Away

Guest Writer – Kathy Legg

His voice was like the roar of rushing waters

 and the land was radiant with his glory. Ezekiel 43:2

The Singapore afternoon hung hot and muggy. But the green tangled rainforest where Kevin and I walked was refreshingly cool and full of moist, earthy smells. This 3 hour trek around McRitchie Reservoir was a favorite hike of his. We carried day packs with provisions: bottled water, dried mangoes, sketch books, money for the tea hut at the journey’s end. But long before the journey’s end we learned firsthand about rushing waters: the roar and the glory.

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.

Three Things that Amaze – No, Make that Four!

Near the end of a book written to teach us wisdom, comes a portrait of four things that can leave you in awe. Proverbs 30:18-19 says,

There are three things that amaze me—

no, four things that I don’t understand:

how an eagle glides through the sky,

how a snake slithers on a rock,

how a ship navigates the ocean,

how a man loves a woman.

Paul’s Shipwreck

The Book of Acts finishes with a crackling good story of shipwreck.

Since the time of Homer 1000 years before Jesus, Greek sea-faring stories invariably included the great adventures of the perils of the sea travel. Such stories not only entertained well, but served as metaphors of the challenge and uncertainties of human life, especially the precarious risk facing human beings pitted against nature and whatever divine powers, friendly or sinister, were thought to over-lap with the natural world.

The Book of Acts takes it place alongside these stories.

The Ocean Speaks

In honor of my brother Phil who loves to sail and to write, here is an excerpt from an essay he wrote about the sea.

* * *

Despite the ocean’s restless ambiguity, its confusing contrariness, its utter disregard of us, its entirely predictable infidelity to us – No! because of all those qualities - the ocean speaks to us of human life.

Early it is foggy along the bay, and in the coves and sometimes, in mysterious ways, out on the open water. The soft refracted light blinds us to the existence of anything beyond the self,

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.

Break-through

Guerilla warfare depends on evasion, stealth and surprise, and David was a master at the game. He had honed his skills through 20 years on the run from King Saul, but now that Saul was dead, David faced an even more formidable foe. The combined Philistine confederacy was moving in for the kill. 2 Samuel 5:17-25.

When David learned this he reverted to guerilla tactics instead of direct assault. He retreated to the caves near the Dead Sea and prayed for God’s counsel. With divine direction he attacked and routed the Philistines decisively.

Writhing Waters

Israel’s miraculous liberation in the Exodus was seared into their national consciousness. God intervened and they escaped into freedom through the Red Sea – and that deliverance defined Israel as a free people. In later years whenever they faced crisis, they went back to their founding story to get their bearings.

Psalm 77 is one of those times. Life in the real world seems to bring one crisis after another. Friends turn hostile, disease threatens, money runs out and debts pile up, plans go south and family peace disintegrates over-night. Life can get really scary sometimes – and faith doesn’t insulate anyone from distress.

Royal Wedding

In honor of the wedding today of William and Kate in Westminister Abbey, I’m re-posting some thoughts from October 17 on the ancient words from the Song of Solomon about water and love:

Many waters cannot quench love;

Nor can rivers drown it.

Song of Solomon, 8:6-7

The minister told the royal couple in Westminister Abbey today - and millions watching on television - that every wedding is a witness to hope. But it is an island of hope in a very perilous sea.

Mere Mortals Walking on Water

Three Gospel writers tell about Jesus walking on water in the midst of a wild storm, but only Matthew tells us about Peter’s wild response. “Jesus, if it really is you, tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” says Jesus.

'Come' is one of Jesus’ favorite words – part invitation, part summons – and always a call to do something that feels risky, to step out of our comfort zone and our places of pseudo-security and to trust him.

Walking on water is counter-intuitive. 'Terra firma' is home for us. A boat is a constructed extension of home, canoes and kayaks give us both buoyancy and adventure, but stepping out alone onto the deep at the invitation of Jesus is an act of daring faith.

So imagine the drama as Peter vaulted the gunwales to join Jesus out on the lake. Imagine the warnings of his friends – “Pete, you’re an idiot!” “Don’t be so reckless!” Imagine the shaking heads, the held breath, and then cheers as he stepped forward on solid water.

Peter mirrors us in our finest moments of courage and faith when we throw caution to the wind, when we take the plunge towards God, mere mortals attempting the impossible.

Water-Walker

The gale broke over them in the middle of the lake without warning and roared all night. For hours they strained at the oars, fighting the winds and the waves. They are seasoned veterans on this lake, but it was getting the best of them. The raging lake was showing its legendary renown as the face of Chaos.

And then, suddenly, they saw the unthinkable - the form of a man walking towards them across the water. ‘Ghost’ was all they could imagine.

But this ‘ghost’ was actually their very down-to-earth friend Jesus coming to them where they least expected him – but when they most needed his help. He called to them above the wind, “It is I. Don’t be afraid!”

It was a night they never forgot. It was a voice that rang in their memory forever.

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.

Erosion

This is Canada’s Water Week, culminating on World Water Day, March 22.

But today - one of the powerful effects of water on landscape and the human soul - erosion.

Erosion is part of the natural order. It can be devastating like a tsunami, but it can also produce magnificent scenery like the beautiful Garden of the Gods in Colorado, the Grand Canyon and the famous White Cliffs of Dover.

Erosion and the chemical process of dissolution that carves out cave systems all over the world, are signs of the universal law of attrition. Nature wears things down. Nature and time gnaw away at us – ‘erosion’ has the same Latin root as ‘rodent’. Whether gradually or ferociously, everything moves from order to disorder.

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?

Winter With a Vengeance!

It isn’t even officially winter, but already Europe and North America have been walloped by white stuff.

Skiers and school-kids love it, but truckers and the rest of us, usually not so much.

But snow does make cool pictures!

Snow is water vapor art, every flake unique, according to physicist Kenneth Libbrecht, the world’s foremost snow crystal photographer.  Check out his snowflake slide-show in Scientific American .

Engulfed

It is the darkest psalm in the Bible, anguished from start to finish. God is hidden and silent; the singer is terrified, abandoned, engulfed by despair.

Your terrors surround me like a flood;

they have completely engulfed me.

You have taken my companions and loved ones from me;

darkness is my closest friend.

Psalm 88:14-18

Like being lost at sea in thick fog, these deep-water terrors describe clinical depression - an ordeal of extreme mental suffering and hopelessness.

We might wonder what a poem like this is doing in a book of faith like the Bible.

Fearless at the Cliff Edge

On a stormy winter night in 1639, the residents of Dunluce Castle on the coast of Northern Ireland were entertaining neighbors.

Dunluce is Gaelic for “strong fort” - and doubly strong it was even as the raging sea clawed at the basalt cliff on which the 12th century castle was built.

The surf pounded the rock that night until without warning the cliff-face crumbled and the kitchen wing of the castle collapsed into the sea plunging servants to their death.

Storm Master

In March 1992, ten foot waves crashed into downtown Tiberius on the shore of Lake Galilee, causing significant damage.

As lakes go, Galilee isn’t very large – 13 miles long and 8 miles wide, but violent storms can erupt very quickly as cool air rushes down from the adjacent mountains – the Arbel on the west, seen in the photo here, and the Golan Heights 1200 meters above the lake on the east .

The disciples were seasoned fisherman familiar with the lake’s turbulent ways. They knew how to handle her storms. On one occasion, Jesus was asleep in the boat when the winds hit.

Storm Glory

Psalm 29 traces the fury of a thunderstorm blowing in from the sea.

It whips through the northern forests, tears across the land and into the Negev in the south.

It splits oak trees asunder and shatters the mighty cedars of Lebanon. It strips the forests bare.


The singer revels in the majestic roar of waves and thunder, howling wind, crack of lightning and reverberation of trees crashing to the ground. Nature is majestic, wild and breath-taking!

Water, wind and weather dwarf our pride. Sailors, mountain-climbers and airline pilots learn to respect nature’s laws. But this storm-song tells us more.

Jonah - discovering God's immensity

The strange story of Jonah is not just the tale of a runaway prophet and a very large fish.

It’s also an instructive parable with a provocative and global message.

I think it speaks boldly to the current debate about mosques in a post 9/11 America.

God refused to write off the city of Nineveh despite their vice and violence. God sent Jonah east to give them the word, but Jonah went west instead. He wasn’t about to risk his life or reputation for such unworthy and improbable converts.

In truth, Jonah could see where God was going with this mission – and he refused to accept.