PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

December 20, 2023

WATERS OF MARCH

When our three boys were young we bought a set of the World Book Encyclopedia to help supplement their formal education.  The encyclopedias have also proved to be a good resource for background material for sermons.  For many years we have been getting the World Book Year Books.  They provide an overview of a specific year, have updates to certain articles in World Book, and have helpful information.

One of the features in the 2018 Year Book is a section devoted to disasters in 2017.  One of their closer looks was entitled the “Waters of March.”  March 2017 saw heavy flooding and mudslides in South America that killed many people and caused extensive damage.   Especially hard hit was Mocoa, Columbia.  Mudslides and flooding killed 400 people and injured hundreds of others.

When I saw the heading “Waters of March” my thoughts turned not to March of 2017 but to March of 1913.  The end of March that year featured an extensive weather system that brought flooding and tornados to an area from Nebraska to Vermont.  I have an extensive collection of postcards from the flood from Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Nebraska, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

If you read the history of many towns in Indiana that are on a river they will talk about the Great Flood of 1913.  I have postcards of the flood from Aurora, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Logansport, Marion, Patriot, Rushville, Wabash, and Warren.  The Marshall County Historical Society Quarterly, Volume 42, No. 1 & 2, was about the Indiana’s great flood of 1913.  The issue has several pictures of flooding in Plymouth, Indiana.

The Book of Ecclesiastes begins by making the following point.  “A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. … All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they continue to flow. … What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecc. 1:4, 7, 9)  For almost anything that happens today we can search the past and see where it has happened before.  Spring floods and storms are a part of the very fabric of creation.  We should not be surprised when they once again occur in the present.

For several years I served churches in and around Rensselaer.  Much of the farm land had been claimed for agriculture when the Kankakee River basin was drained.  One spring there were heavy rains.  Much more than in previous years!  As the ground became heavily saturated old sink holes that had been dormant for many years reappeared.  When farmers began their planting they discovered the sinkholes when their tractors were engulfed by them.  Creation was trying to reclaim its swamps and wet lands from the interference of humans.

Creation has its rhythms and seasons.  A part of this God given patterns is floods, blizzards, fires, winds and storms.  The floods and mudslides that occurred in California this January are nothing new.  They have been a part of the long term pattern of the area for ages.  Humans may try to recreate the world God has made, but nature has a way of claiming its own.  There are just places that houses were never meant to be built.  Eventually they will be engulfed by nature on the move.

(This article was originally published January 28, 1018.  Comments may be sent to davidh15503@embarqmail.com.)