I woke up feeling a little down. I went walking down to the streambed where my willow cuttings from 5 years ago are good size and the monarch caterpillars are crawling on the milkweed and a family of birds was fussing through an oak and I felt centered again. It reminded me of a story our minister told.
Heavy rains fell and the river started rising. The hydrologists alerted the emergency network that a life-threatening flood was imminent. The police went around door to door telling people in the flood plain to evacuate. One man said, “I trust in God. I don’t need to evacuate.” The water began to rise until there was water around all the houses. The emergency people came by in boats and called to the man who was now in the second floor of his house. “Come get in the boat. The water is going to keep rising. This might be your last chance.” But the man replied that God would take care of him and he was staying in his house. The water continued to rise until the man was forced to his rooftop. The Coast Guard came with a helicopter. The pilot let down a sling and through a loudspeaker told the man to get in, that his house would be underwater in a few minutes. But the man said God would take care of him and refused to go. The water kept rising higher and the man drowned. When he went to heaven, he walked angrily to God and said, “I put my trust in you and you let me drown. Why weren’t you there?” And God replied, “You refused the policeman I sent. You refused the boat I sent. You refused the helicopter I sent. You deserved to drown.”
I identified with this story because I live in the midst of a natural mystical world. It’s like God saying, “I sent the trees. I sent the birds. I sent the blue sky. If you don’t go walking out in the world and instead keep yourself locked up in your own thoughts, then you deserve to be depressed.”
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