Our soil is dry as the flour in our canister. I tried to water the front lawn the other day using one of those demented sprinklers that poke into the ground, the ones with multiple steely things that direct the spray. I fiddled long, but never got it right. Before I stopped trying, I鈥檇 watered the Preacher, our own and our neighbours鈥� windows and decks, the car and myself. I finally collapsed against the house in laughter. Even the neighbours came out and hooted. We saturated the street with the sweet sound of merriment. We needed that, all of us. The pandemic and other bad news has stripped the oil of joy from us all.
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The early summer heat assaulting our country as I write reminds me of the vaulted summer temperatures of our Winnipeg days. Rick and I met in college there in the mid-seventies while earning our bachelor degrees. After we married, we lived on the second floor of a hot, but cozy, one-bedroom apartment on Pembina Highway.
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On the most scorching days, I locked the apartment door, filled the tub with cold water, then stripped and dipped all day. That kept me reasonably cool. When the water got too warm, I drained it and filled the tub with cold again.
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I remembered all that last evening, over four decades later. I stood on our front porch in Saskatchewan, paintbrush in hand. It had been too hot to paint earlier. Now dusk made it harder, but the job needed doing. 鈥淭his heat feels just like our Winnipeg days,鈥� I told the Preacher later. 鈥淓xcept now we have air-conditioning.鈥�
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Before the current umbrella of heat over Western Canada, I鈥檇 never heard the phrase 鈥榟eat dome鈥�. As I type, fires threaten entire cites and villages, with daytime highs of nearly 50 degrees. Charred timbers and ashes are nearly all that remains of tiny Lytton, BC, population 250. Our family passed through that village often during my BC childhood. I recall my father telling us it was the hottest place in BC. I was sure it must be Hades. We didn鈥檛 have air conditioning. My siblings and I squeezed like one clump of melting flesh in the back seat.
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It鈥檚 bad, this heat. But there鈥檚 something infinitely worse than scorched earth鈥攑arched and thirsty souls. Our country needs a shower as refreshing as the dousing I got when I tried to manage our contrary sprinkler. But it鈥檚 soul-rain Canada needs most. Healing from years of emotional wounds. From fear and worry and anger and sin. From the consequences of ignoring the only thing that can really quench a thirsty soul. We need what Jesus offered the woman at the well, Living Water that springs from the heart of God himself. 鈥淲hoever drinks the water I give them,鈥� Jesus said, 鈥渨ill never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. John 14:4 TLB鈥� He still offers that water to anyone who asks. Help yourself.
