Encountering drought in one's soul
Washington State is experiencing drought, and for the first time in ages, Western Washington is being impacted. When most people think of Seattle, they think of rain, lots of rain. Anyone who would choose to live in the Puget Sound region, better like rain, we tell our visitors. We love lush green forests, and rushing streams. We love the mist that rises over our lakes and rivers, and we love our foggy days. In other words, we Western Washington folk love our rain!
Drought has had a significant impact on whole civilizations, even being responsible for the total abandonment of great cities, now buried beneath the sands of history. The Great Dust Bowl led to the mass migration of our own people, as farms and towns were gobbled up by dust storms, having a devastating impact on the lives of thousands of families. And, I don't have to remind people of the devastation by fire that impacted California, these past few years.
As we all meditate on the dire possibilities, should this Pacific Northwest drought continue, it is perhaps a good time to take a look at another type of drought, one that impacts the souls of believers. Periods of spiritual dryness come to all of us, and just as the earth is impacted, with the death of plants and animals, so too can this spiritual drought bring death to the soul.
The image of the nineteenth century "rainmaker" comes to my mind, when traveling entrepreneurs managed to garner sums of money from local townspeople and farmers, with the promise of "making rain". The desperate locals would fork over their remaining meager savings in the hopes of bringing the much needed rain for their crops, and dried up wells.
During periods of spiritual dryness, people tend to look in all the wrong directions, in a desperate attempt to quench their thirst for the meaning of life. Trying to fill a spiritual void, they look to entertainment, material goods, and worldly abandon, hoping to quench the drought they sense has taken hold of them. Like the farmers and townspeople of the Dust Bowl, they pay money to the "rainmakers" of pop music, entertainment, and material goods, all in a desperate attempt to find meaning to their lives, all the while ignoring the ocean of Living Water that resides within.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
Photo: My hot weather cassock, a gift from one of our bishops.
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