Rivers of Life

Water levels rising and four new friends will live in our home until after we see what the Missouri River has in mind for the summer of 2011. Hopefully, these four whom we once did not know, will turn into lifetime friends. We shall see what this River can do with our idea. From a new home built not so long ago, in a Community Investment Development called Dakota Dunes along the shores of the mighty Mo, people of the fledgling community, left in a hurry last week. Dakota Dunes is now being visited by the Missouri River, in a not so polite way. The river water flows where it wants, messes with whomever and whatever it finds the desire to, and doesn't even knock when it comes in the door - or the window or the garage or the basement walls.  Nothing polite about this river and there will definitely be some hard feelings towards this history making river, in days following.

I've been through 3 river floods; each one changed my life in irreversible, sometimes invisible ways. Rising water shows its power and nature, proves it is in charge, and the Creator seems gone unless you look quietly into the face of the disaster or the terror, and listen and learn.

This June 2011, I mostly see the creator in His people as they day after day, in the soggy heat, fill thousands of sandbags together alongside man made machines, bulldozers, cranes, helicopters. I see the creator in those machine operators. Decision makers and laborers, paid and unpaid working to conquer  that water's intent. I see the creator as people displaced shop for supplies they need as they become homeless and wandering, and relocated. I see the creator as dads, moms, grandpas, uncles, wait together as families, and decide on one move toward an unknown destiny. People pray together and cry sometimes. People listen to each other and carry hundreds of things hundreds of different directions. And people and machines build sand walls against an unknown fate.

We listen to tv and radio, to one or another governor or guide, to say what's next, and tell what the probabilities of demise and or loss might be. I see the Creator as those Governors adjust their own personal lives, forget the month's agendas, pitch in and help fill sandbags. The best phrase I've heard is "We are doing the best we can with the best knowledge, information and people we have." That is good.

I see weariness on every face, in life here in Iowa and on web photos. After weeks of getting ready to loose all you've worked for all your life, you load what you can in the next hauling truck. And then you can't go home anymore. I am impressed mightily when a carload of teens, arrives to load and unload boxed possessions, then quietly with grace and strength leave and go do the thing they just finished, one more time...for someone else, all day.  I do see God's work in them. I see God's love in life, not in a book this week. For someone they might not even know, hundreds of people go and do.  I see hugs, tears, lots of smiles and hear lots of kind words. Today, though I've been taught we are a sinful folk, I do think that we are good, and we know how to do good, and we are good at good when pressed to put down the TV remote and go outside and look around and see our neighbors and their need. Today I see, in spite of a raging river, and man made damns and dreams, new and good seedlings from the tree of life still growing in his Creation.   Toni Wheat  Sioux City Iowa 6/4/201