slogging along

It has been a very wet week.
Monday I spent hours trying to get the water in my basement to drain.
I dug a ditch.
I used a sledge hammer to pound a steel pipe through the drain that was clogged up underneath the basement floor.
I used a "plumber's snake" through a PVC pipe after opening the drain.
I bought a pump. It was not the right kind and so I spent 3 or 4 hours bailing water with a bucket.
All this just to keep pace with what was trickling in steadily through breaches in the concrete basement floor.
Now I have the right pump but still, it can only keep pace.

I went to work where the maintenance crew and volunteers were bailing the basement of the old school building and using a shop vac that could only just keep the water out of the dining hall with constant use. Stop for a break? The water built back up.

The homeless guests who frequent the hall were grateful to be out of the rain, and many were able to assist but all in all their spirits were damp from a very wet night. A record rainfall.

And it has rained all day today as well. There is standing water on some roads and others have been washed away.

And yet, I am warm now and dry with the new pump running in the basement, the doors closed and a fire in the wood stove that is beginning to chase away the feeling of dampness that has crept into our living space.  

I think of the people on the coastal areas of Asia and the South Sea Islands and the Indigenous Tribes on the coast of Alaska and in all the places where the waters are rising and the storms are growing more intense, and I am abundantly aware that I cannot complain. All the time that I was bailing water, for enough hours that my muscles were groaning and I could hardly sit and stand the next day!-- I kept thinking of the people who could not possibly bail the sea from their homes.

When I have a moment I check in with the news from Paris hoping that against all the odds the negotiators from around the world will act on behalf of the planet and the people. But the nations that are the real polluters can't seem to commit to any agreement that has accountability written in.

Here in the United States we have more Climate Deniers per capita than any other country in the world. And, of course, we are a major emitter of greenhouse gases.  This is an embarrassement - and it makes me feel sad and frustrated and sometimes I get pretty angry at the way that those who have much are unable to recognize the need to change.

Writing in Laudato Si Pope Francis reminds me that:
"The existence of laws and regulations is insufficient in the long run to curb bad conduct, even when effective means of enforcement are present. If the laws are to bring about significant, long-lasting effects, the majority of the members of society must be adequately motivated to accept them, and personally transformed to respond. Only by cultivating sound virtues will people be able to make a selfless ecological commitment." (#211)

Cultivating sound virtues takes time. It takes teachers especially those who are willing to do with a lot less in order to show others how to step down even a little on the ladder of consumption.  It will be a long time I am afraid, too long, before a majority of the members of our society are adequately motivated and willing to transform their lives.

When things are looking pretty hopeless, like right this moment, I must intentionally stop and remember that I am not alone in the work of cultivating and renewing the earth. The Earth Community is a well connected, interrelated web of life. When we do good it affects more than just our small place in the scheme of things. Earth is the common home of billions of beings -- all infused with the desire to live.

And so I will go down to check the water level in the basement, grateful for water and life, dry socks and the energy to keep slogging along.