guest post: “Rain, Rain Go Away?”

Here’s another brief note from Ancilla College campus minister Albert Escanilla, reflecting on the 2018 flooding in Northern Indiana (which I covered here and here with one more still to come). Followed by a couple photos.

It was late February morning, and the birds’ singing outside was a warm welcome from our eventful February month surrounding the topic of the weather.  The last several weeks of February was a time where we saw some of Mother Nature’s fury. We began with a blizzard in the second week of February, then followed by a thick fog and heavy rain, which then resulted in severe flooding all across the Marshall and Starke Counties. All these weather occurrences proved to be troublesome to the Center at Donaldson communities, especially to our coworkers and student commuters.

All these weather related happenings were burdensome to many, even though it has always been part of Mother Nature’s course. However, when looking at the contrasting views from that statement, “burdensome” and “always been”, it prompts the question of why it is so? Our struggles and frustrations surrounding the inevitable (weather), are often derived from our impressions of how Mother Nature “ought to be”, and how she “must conform to us”, instead of us needing to conform to her.

Therefore, if our mindsets were to shift, could we see Mother Nature’s “fury” be more so as a “friendly reminder”? Is it possible to view the blizzard, and the fog to be symbolic of our own clouded and worried mind; which many can agree the need for us to slow down in our self-imposed “busyness”? Can the heavy rains and current flooding, which forced many to take alternative routes to work, be seen as a metaphor of our lives needing a different route from what we are comfortable with?  After all, Marshall and Starke Counties’ swamp flooding are never a burden to Mother Nature, it is only so for us as we forget that our status quo does not equate to Mother Nature’s will.

Mother Nature can teach us vast amounts of knowledge, as she has unique ways of reminding us of our “human-ness”, and how Our Divine Creator works. As the great scientist, Albert Einstein had once said, “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” Thus, if we are to be more mindful and in harmony, our resistance (“ought to be”) should shift into acceptance (“is”); and that slight adjustment, does make an immense difference.

“Some people feel the rain. Others just gets wet.” -Bob Marley -Albert Peace.

I had posted this photo earlier. It was taken March 5, 12 days post-rainfall, looking East. You are looking at about a million gallons of water.

If you will please excuse my poor photography skills, below is a photo from yesterday morning, March 23. It is from the same side of the road, but looking Northeast. The surface water is finally almost gone, though there is plenty of left in the soil and just below the surface. This pasture stored water for over a month. There has been a little precipitation in the meantime, but not much… we’ve been pretty dry, and sunny (lots of evaporation and evapotranspiration). This was plenty of time for floodwaters to recede, and even enough time for certain small animals, insects, or microorganisms to complete critical portions of their life cycles (if the surrounding habitat were appropriate). It may have also provided a brief resting spot for the waterfowl that have been migrating northward.