Journalists, when reaching for a comparison, talk about floods of "Biblical proportion." So - they think the Genesis Flood really happened?
The newscasts said that 9 trillion gallons of water had fallen on Houston before the rain was over. That was equal to Lake Michigan falling on the area in a few days. Some suggested that was only half of the rain, since the tropical storm was continuing.
Houston has not done much to lessen the impacts of storms and hurricanes, but even a city like Phoenix - with mandated flood control - cannot contain a flood when a desert hurricane arrives. I drove out of that one and also came home from Tucson the night of 10,000 lightning strikes - which flooded the Interstates.
God creates rain - man creates floods to a large extent -
- building levees,
- covering low-lying land with houses and parking lots,
- draining fields with pipe rather than infiltrating the soil with deep-rooted crops.
We take the orderly progression of Creation for granted until one important event shows us what a disruption can cause. Creation awareness is almost zero. That might be one of the last dirty words in our vocabulary. When I wanted to name a Facebook page "Creation Gardening" - no problem - the name was not taken.
I use the term a lot. A pest control salesman came by, and I said, "Toxins in our yard? No thanks - this is a Creation Garden. You know the toxins do not work anyway. I like bugs, spiders, hornets. They work for free, feed the birds, and reproduce. You know well that your mosquito sprays do not work at all. Mosquitoes come in from other yards." He to agree, but added - "Some people are afraid of..."
We should be in awe of Creation, which rights itself when things go out of balance - and not by accident. If God did not hold back chaos, we would all be shivering in our darkened households, hoping for relief.
My favorite moment in gardening is sitting on the soil and planting something new. Underneath, billions of creatures work to make soil a living entity:
- Earthworms and slugs to shred plant material.
- Fungi to work on woody material.
- Bacteria to reduce soft tissue and serve as food.
- Moles to stir the soil, eat slugs and larvae.
All summer long, the soil has felt more like a waterbed than a parking lot. The living soil has digested many bags of wood mulch, autumn leaves, and the normal organic offerings of the living populations.
