DRY

A BLOG by PASTOR KEN RICKETT

Lately, I have watched cracks in the dry soil around my yard widen up to a half inch or more. Dry.

I have seen parts of my unshaded yard turn brown. I am in my 3rd week without mowing, in an effort to keep my yard green as long as I can. Dry.

I have labored daily to water flowers and a couple of tomato plants. Dry.

When I moved here 5 years ago, I set out 2 tiny peach trees about a foot high. Now they are about 12 to 15 feet high and for the first time, they have fruit. I “mist” the trees almost daily and cringe at the fact that the fruit is smaller than it should be as we enter July. Dry.

Dry. We tend to think that dryness is always a bad omen. Dryness is the “mean side” of climate change, lowering fresh water availability and curtailing crop production or reducing meat supplies. Or we fear dryness is here to stay and annual rainfall will continue to slip downwards in coming years. Or dryness is Mother Nature’s reaction to humankind’s abuse of the planet. Granted, the worst can happen with continued dryness. But that is not my subject for today.

In simple definition, dryness is the lack of humidity in the air all around us and the lack of moisture in the soil.

I am amazed at the benefits of low humidity. I can walk my dog in 90 plus degree weather and not get drenched with sweat like I usually do. Dryness with low humidity. I am amazed that I can sit in my porch swing in low humidity and the sun’s heat is warming rather than uncomfortably hot. Dryness with low humidity is often a summertime respite.

Dry places are not always places of weakness and dying. Did not Jesus go into the desert for 40 days and nights (a biblical phrase that means “a long time”), and yet had the strength and fortitude to reject three temptations offered by the Adversary (Satan)?

Deserts are dry places with low humidity, yet places where insight into the Holy is lifesaving! And also the children of Israel, led by Moses, crossed the Red Sea into the Sinai Desert where they roamed for 40 years. There are no stories of thunderstorms in that narrative. A dry place with low humidity–where people have survived for a long, long time.

I am not ready to live in a real desert where it is dry with low humidity all the time. I want my green grass and tall, stately and leafy trees. I want to enjoy the coming harvests from trees–peaches, apples, walnuts and a few more delectable fruits. I want my flowers to flourish with greenness and blooms and my vegetables to grow large and tasty. I want nearby rivers to flow generously and streams to provide fishing. I want birds to flitter in the bird bath. I want to mow lawns again.

I am ready to welcome a few days of high humidity and soaking rains amidst these hot summer days.

Please, Lord, just send some rain.