I’m currently on the fringes of the Mojave desert – on the ridge above the place where I write these words, there’s was a flat piece of ground, that looked sort of artificial. So I clambered up to take a look, and lo and behold, in this arid region, which gets almost no rainfall – in comparative terms – there was a stream of cold, clear water. The contrast was surreal, sublime and quite truly delightful. As the Irish ballad says, I had to be sure I was standing there.
It’s an aqueduct, an engineering marvel built back in the 1950’s to supply water from Sacramento, all the way to south to Los Angeles – a distance of nearly four hundred miles. It uses gravity, the water all flowing downhill, and also generates electricity, which makes it cost efficient. (Someone mentioned there is one short region where they have to artificially push it uphill). You can walk along its edge for much of the way. I joked that they could also fund the huge project by letting people raft, inner tube, canoe or kayak into work in the city from the suburbs, but one can only imagine what mayhem – and what fun – that might cause. Swimming is illegal, in part since the undertows is so powerful it will pull under even a strong swimmer, which makes me only more eager to try. But fret not, dear reader; I strive to obey the laws of the places I visit. Sī fuerīs Rōmae, Rōmānō vīvitō mōre; sī fuerīs alibī, vīvitō sīcut ibī. When in Rome, do as the Romans do; if you are elsewhere, live as they do there. So I will stay dry, and save my swimming hopefully for the ocean, if opportunity arises.
The construction of the massive aqueduct was controversial, and still is, for the water has to come from some place, and be moved elsewhere. Los Angeles is a thirsty beast. Yet there is ultimately lots to go around – of water, that is. God is providentissimus, and Man is himself an ingenious creature, sharing in the very Logos of the Word Himself. We could trace all that water back to various sources: the Colorado River, aquifers, and further back still to high mountains and glaciers. But ultimately, as the great and good book of Genesis says, water comes from God.
No, streams of living water will do – aqua viva. All to say that God provides, even in the midst of what seems a dry desert land where no water is to be found, as Moses discovered to his chagrin. And as did I when I went through that fence to find the unexpected river in a dry land. We just have to trust and not lost hope.
