A Dry Valley

Only You Know

As you walk in the same woods over a period of time you begin to notice changes. Familiar places begin to shift slightly with that slow pace of nature. It carries on whether you’re there in the woods to hear trees fall or not. I’m not wise enough to know whether it makes a sound. The woods are becoming drier. The creek beds are empty. They’re not only empty, they’re filling up with debris. If you hadn’t been here when there was water, you might not expect it to be any different. You might not know that in the right season, this is the most beautiful place to be — full of growth, full of life. But this dryness, it holds its own inherent beauty — the beauty of desolation. As you continue returning it has remained the same — only drier, more full of dead leaves, dead sticks, dead trees. Death is setting in. Not fall, but true winter. It feels like it will last forever. Ditches are so full you wonder even if water came, if it would follow the same paths. Would it carve out new ones? Is the way things were simply gone because it’s been dead for so long?

The last several years have felt like this. Life has not returned. The seasons have not followed their usual course. Winter has come, death has come, and it has stayed. There is certainly a season for death, but this one seems to have lasted. Cruel men have taken hold. Pride Rock is being held by imposters. The true king is nowhere to be seen. Hatred is not something whispered quietly, but stitched proudly on Etsy kitsch. It is a joke for those who cannot be serious. Casual cruelty hardly even shocks us anymore. Our souls are dry.

I sought water in the places where I last found it. I hoped after the world shut down that returning to these ministry groups, that participating more in church, I would find water where I once did. I found nothing there. In fact, the hatred had creeped into those places as well, and I lost friends for refusing to validate their views when they went beyond what was acceptable. Our souls are dry. This kind of water likely cannot be found alone — I have only found it in others. Perhaps the true king was right when he said that he was living water. And perhaps that is why we can only find it in others, when we see the reflection of the king in the water within them.

I volunteered again today with a group that provides services to refugee families. The group has found places for them to live — granted, some are not places we would choose to live ourselves — but they are somewhere to live. Our task today was to pick up and deliver donated items to these families — some furniture, warm clothes, space heaters for homes with no heating, and some toys for the children. I saw no self-pity today. In fact, I saw great dignity, people who repaired what little they had with great care, a man proud to say that he worked at the place on his shirt, and a wild little 3 year old running around gleefully pulling dolls out of a donation box with the purest of joy. These souls are not dry, despite all they have suffered.

These souls shared water with me without even knowing it. People who had little offered what little they had — bottles of water, oranges, kindness. They offered kindness. I think it made them feel like they weren’t just charity cases to offer something in return. I didn’t know it until we arrived at the last house, but my contact told me that when they heard we were coming they offered to cook dinner for us. I had one of the best meals I’ve had in my life in a trailer just off an unpaved road. I felt so unworthy of it, so humbled. We do not deserve these people. I don’t understand how anyone could be unkind to them.

We like to think that we are masters of our universe, that we have such control of science that we can fix anything ourselves, that we have nothing to fear. And yet we cannot control the rain. We cannot make a single drop fall from the sky. No single drop of water thinks of itself as the river. And yet, as the rain falls, the creeks will slowly fill again. This is hope, defiant hope, the belief that an evil version of winter will not win, that hatred and cruelty will not parch our souls forever.

Faith is continuing to walk by these dry creek beds. Faith is praying to God for rain because only he can give it. Faith is believing that the true king is living water, and believing that the only way we can quench the dryness within ourselves is to open ourselves to receiving from those who may only have a bottle of water to give. May God have mercy on us and send more rain. May we hold onto the defiant hope that one day the evil reign of winter will end and that rain will fall again bringing mercy, kindness, and love.