About the Lack of Rain

Three inches of rain have fallen so far this morning.
Sassy made sure we walked before the thunderstorm began.

The Canary in the Coalmine Garden - Lack of Water - Corn, Pumpkins, Sunflowers, and Joe Pye

Not so long ago, I worried about too much rain. Yesterday's prediction did not yield a drop. Sassy's afternoon walk gave me a chance to look around.

The thirstiest plants have a lot of leaves exposed to the sun. Corn, pumpkins, sunflowers, and Joe Pye wilt first. The leaves start to sag and then droop alarmingly. Most of the garden looked fine, but one Joe Pye Weed, in the sunniest zone, looked as tired as the damage control units of the LCMS-WELS-ELS.

I had to thrash around in the vegetation to find the kinked up hose and broken sprinkler head. Hosing a few buckets worth of water on the worst looking plant gave it a chance to spring up an hour later.

Plants Are Like People - a great gardening book - describes the value of rinsing plants, giving them a shower when Creation is holding back. The best shower is from the sky, and we all love to sit on the front porch during a gentle rain, the plants getting immediate hydration and nitrogen, a cooling wash after hot days and demanding growth. Everything is greener and cleaner. In the soil, billions more creatures generate more life, more food, more storage of water and nutrition.

The topic always reminds me of Holy Baptism, the most basic symbol of life wrapped in the efficacious Gospel Word. Graduate students always want to be eggheads, using philosophical concepts and big words. I tell them - "Use concrete illustrations, emotions, colors, graphics. Speak to the eight year-old in all of us."

The sacrament of Baptism has those qualities - washing, rebirth, new life, and renewal. The Word makes us new creatures - new creations. I wonder if those who make Baptism nothing see the connection between the Word creating (Genesis 1, John 1:3) and Word converting hardened sinners into new creations.

17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 

2 Corinthians 5:17 KJV