Certainly you’ve heard, seen and read about the recent flood in Mississippi and the faulty water system leaving homes, schools, hospitals to function without clean, drinkable water? Weeks later, drinking, bathing, or brushing one’s teeth with this water is still not advised and emergency management services are trying to get bottled water to everyone.
A few months earlier, over 9 million people in India and Bangladesh were affected by flooding, and 33 million in Pakistan. While some areas in America–like Mississippi–also experienced flooding, much of the South and West were in drought, desperate for rain. Why the imbalance?
We are surrounded by water. 71 % of the earth is water. It seems like it ought to be possible for man to provide everyone with clean water in the 21st century. Controlling floods in manageable reservoirs and containing this valuable resource when it pours, ought not be too difficult for today’s scientists and engineers. Their know-how and methodology ought to be able to keep us safe from floods and at the same time deliver plenty of clean water to the entire world.
Water. The most important commodity to life (along with air). We can’t survive without it. No creature nor plant can. Its value cannot be overestimated. Safe water ought to be our highest priority.
I love walking by the Atlantic Ocean just as I loved living by Lake Michigan years ago. To watch the waves crash along rocky ridges or sandy beaches is one of life’s more sublime experiences. One glimpses water’s power. Its majesty. Its beauty. One can’t help but feel part of this force and the grandness of nature it represents. Water takes us beyond ourselves. Through roaring or rippling it reminds us of the Creator who made it and us, the One who provided us with this precious fluid to keep us alive.
Yes, water can also take lives, flash with lightning, run over its banks, turn towns into rubble. But man has the ability to circumvent or re-build. He also has the undiminished enjoyment this magnificent flowing entity provides. Humans sail or swim, canoe or kayak, revel, laugh and play in it. We dive down and spot exotic fish in water’s depths or watch amazing dolphins, whales, and porpoises jump swells. It is an endless gift.
Water.
Are we grateful enough for it? Or do we take it for granted?
Tidal Surge, framed watercolor, 30” x 23″ by Gwendolyn Evans
Artwork: Tidal Surge, framed watercolor, 30” x 23″. Where I live in coastal Maine this is an everyday scene. Every day I have water in my life and seascapes to paint. This is one I just finished this summer. I’m especially happy about the aqua hue achieved in the curve of the wave.