Simple

"Water, water everywhere oh, how the boards did shrink. Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink."

This is a line from the Simon Taylor Coleridge poem, The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner. It is speaking of the crew on a ship dying of thirst for fresh water when all around them there is nothing but water. But you can't drink salt water. Well, you can, but then you'd go crazy like in the book "Mutiny on the Bounty". The point is, 70% of the earth is covered with water and 97% of all the water on earth is in the ocean, yet most of the country is not only in a drought but is slowly running out of water to drink. Albuquerque, NM will be completely out of fresh water in twenty years at its current growth rate.

Water has always been a precious commodity. Even Moses had to seek God's advice to provide water for the children of Israel in the wilderness on more than one occasion. The old-timers I know who lived during the dust bowl and survived the drought of the fifties in Texas, have said, "It'll rain. It always does." But even they are beginning to be skeptical. I have expressed my love for the west, the rural, the landscape that is the American frontier of the past and how it is dwindling away. I know things weren't all perfect in those days but there were many things that were better. I also know we can't live in the past, but progress doesn't always mean improvement, nor does change always guarantee that things will be better. This may seem like the rantings of a has been or a hopeless romantic ( I'd rather be the latter by the way), but I wish things were simpler. Drought, pestilence, famine, and even war have always been tied to a turning away from God. In a day when it seems every politician is lying to us, not to mention the news casters, and everything we hold to be moral and right is under attack, it is nice and pleasant to see horse drawn farm implements haying or plowing in a field, chickens in a yard, and traffic being held up on a country road for several men to move their cattle horseback to summer pasture in the mountains from desert winter ranges. For just a moment we forget cell phones and computers, business and appointments, troubles and trials in the moment of the serene. It is as if the images move in slow motion and the sound goes away. Then as they pass, it is back to reality. Traffic begins to move, slowly at first, then as the person behind you honks his horn like he's the only person in the world with people waiting for him to be somewhere, we are off and driving again to the next thing. Just like the water that is slowly running out, and just like the simple life that is dwindling away, so are the values God has called us to and the time we have left to change them back. Maybe the old saying is true. "You can't go back" but if we don't try, if we don't live by what we know to be right and better for us, then we have no hope and it is our own fault. I do not believe God ever intended us to get to this point. Not in technology, morality or many other things we have come to. But just like always, he loves us, gives us a choice, and lets us reap what we sow. I do not think for one minute that my thoughts put into words mean any more than the next person's, but I believe that everything starts somewhere. If you feel the way I do, then maybe if we each change a little today for the better in our own lives, maybe something bigger and better will come of it in the world around us. But if it doesn't, if change only takes place in our individual lives, then we have still accomplished something. As long as we head away from God and what He wants for us we will suffer. If not from lack of water it will be something else. In the Bible, these things are always tied to trust in Him or rebellion against Him. As for me? I prefer the simple. God is right. God is good, God is love. All the time. But we are not. At least not all the time. So I will live for the simple. I will look at the newborn calf in a field needing more rain and pray for the rain to come, all the while praising God for the blessing of life. I will look at the beautiful mountains in the distance whose tops have more snow today than the little bit that was there the day before, knowing that the light showers here in the valley last night were the remnants of a light snow in the higher country. I will thank God that the added snow there means added runoff to the valley below as it melts. The livestock, and yes, the small towns will be able to make it through another hot dry summer in the valley because of what takes place on the mountaintop. We may find ourselves seeing more valleys than mountaintops in our lives but as the old song says, "The God of the mountain, is still the God of the valley". I know that sounds simple, but hopefully, I'm still a simple man.