Soggy Days

My life behind the levee is all about water.

The rain gauge overflowed this morning for the second time in four days meaning that I have received at least 18 inches of rain at my house in the last eight days. More is on the way. I am catching tiny rivulets in pans in front of the fireplace and have been in the attic and on the roof searching for the leak.

My brother, Jonathan Paul, was born on this day 51 years ago. That also was a blue day for me. I already had three brothers, and I wanted a sister really badly. They tell me I was inconsolable when the sad news came, so they named the little boy “Jonathan” because he was the best friend of David.

I felt a little better, but it greatly distressed my older brother, Timothy, the eldest child, who thought that this fifth sibling should be named in reference to him rather than a noisy five-year-old like me. So Jon’s middle name is “Paul” because Paul was the close friend of Timothy.

You make the best of rainy days. And usually in hindsight they are not as disappointing as they seem at first. Jonathan Paul turned out to be useful to Tim and me in a number of ways. He made an interesting target when we got our new pop guns, and he took the girl’s part in our quartet.

Something good will come of all this rain, I am sure. The storm drains in the parking lots at the church were clogged a few days ago, and the lower parking lot turned into a retention pond. But at least it kept a little water out of the cemetery where caskets are at risk of bobbing when the water rises (a casket was stranded on church property after Hurricane Katrina).

I am in New Orleans, thankfully, where every drop of water that falls inside the levee system is channeled to giant pumps that spew it into the lake. I watched a flooded street once turn into a river running toward the drains, and then two creeks on either side of the street’s crest, and then small streams. You could almost hear the giant sucking sound as every drop disappeared into the storm sewers. It took all of 15 minutes to go from an eight-inch-deep lake to moist asphalt curb to curb.

The water was waist-deep in the baptistery Sunday as I baptized a Jordanian man who placed his faith in Christ as a teenager but waited to be baptized until both his father and mother trusted Christ as well.

Salem grew up in the desert where 18 inches of rain falls over a two-year period. John the Baptist walked into the Jordan River to baptize because half of the fresh water in that part of the world is in that one, not-too-wide, river. Galilee is the water pipeline for the rest of Israel.

I have stood in ancient baptismal pools along the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. The rabbis devised complex systems for capturing rain water and transporting water from nearby wells and streams.

Herod the Great actually built swimming pools at the impregnable mountain fortress of Masada. The water to fill these large pools was carried by slaves and beasts of burden up the precipitous cliffs along hazardous trails. The radical Hebrew sect that later occupied Masada had sufficient water in hand for a thousand people to endure a two-year siege by the Romans.

Baptists immerse new followers of Jesus in pools of water just as John the Baptist did. God’s abundant supply of all good things is strikingly illustrated in this powerful ritual that began in such a parched part of the world.

My father laments that Central Texas always needs rain. The further west, the more pronounced the need.

My yard in New Orleans is green today, and the roses and hibiscus are blooming. Soggy days are now and always have been God’s promise of blossoms and buds to follow.

Commercializing Christmas

My brothers and I were some of the original people to commercialize Christmas. Dad was trying to make ends meet one year, and he decided to sell Christmas candy in the suburbs of El Paso. I was about twelve, I think, and Tim was fourteen, Tom was eleven, Danny was nine, and Jon was almost eight. Our younger siblings waited in the station wagon.

I remember those colorful tin cans we carried from house to house. They had pictures on the outside of the candy on the inside. It was the hard candy that is good to suck but terrible to chew - sticks in your teeth and you have to rub it out with your tongue! I never could resist chewing that candy. It just melted too slow for me.

We thought we were on silver stocking lane in that subdivision. Looking back, I realize it was just an average middle class neighborhood, but I didn't have any idea about socioeconomic classes back then. I figured everybody wore hand me downs and took their lunches to school in grocery sacks.

The people in those houses were very nice to us. I suppose I would have been the same way, it being Christmas and us being young boys trying to make some money for a "needy family." That's what we told them if they asked we were raising money for a needy family. I think some of them guessed that the needy family was us!
So that's how we did our part to commercialize Christmas when I was a boy. I didn't know then that we could count the shopping days until Christmas. It would have helped us sell more candy. It's hard to communicate a sense of urgency about buying candy unless you have some kind of deadline to do it in.

Have a great holiday season, and don't let the pressure get to you. Remember that the time you spend together as a family is more important than what's in the boxes. Have your family in church for the Christmas concerts and the Christmas Eve Service. Sing the songs loudly enough so you can hear each other. Think about the words: "Silent night, holy night, all is calm."