Thirst – Part of Our Life Style? 7-22-11

Anderson, South Carolina

Despite living on a class M planet nearly covered by water, possessing millions of miles of shoreline, people pay extraordinary amounts to live at land’s end. Several thousand miles of shoreline along man-made lakes make up the Fresh Water Coast of South Carolina. People happily pay more than $1 million an acre for isolated barely buildable lots on these lakes; lots requiring drives of ten miles or more to the nearest grocery store. Some of us willingly risk their financial well-being to buy lots and build expensive houses on river fronts often overtopping their banks, on flood-control lakes with greatly fluctuating levels, on coastal plains subject to catastrophic ravage by hurricanes. There’s a long-standing entrancement with living near water, for which many will pay dearly.

In the past fifty years a troubling world-wide phenomenon has accelerated; the drying up of large inland seas and lakes. The Aral Sea in Russia, the fourth largest body of fresh water on earth, once covered 26,300 square miles providing recreational and fishing resources for thousands. Since implementation of ill-conceived Soviet policy in the 1960s the Aral Sea has become barely a puddle, losing ninety percent of its surface area. Today boats are beached on dry ground miles from the nearest water. The shrinkage of the Aral has been called one of the world’s greatest environmental disasters.

The lowest point on earth would be expected to have increasing amounts of water. At 1,388 feet below mean sea level, the Dead Sea is rapidly shrinking secondary to government water management practices, drying out tourism and resort industries once associated with it. In the last fifty years the Dead Sea has shrunk by one third and the lowest point on earth is eighty feet lower, and dropping another three feet each year. Salinity in the Dead Sea approaches thirty-four percent; one day we will be able to nearly walk on water.

Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran is home to 212 species of birds, 41 reptiles, 7 amphibians, and 27 species of mammals. As the largest salt-water lake in the Middle East and perhaps second largest in the world, its extreme salinity prevents any fish from living in it. Lake Urmia has been shrinking for a long time with annual evaporation rates of 24 to 39 inches. Although measures are being taken to reverse the trend the lake has shrunk by sixty percent and could disappear entirely. Construction of a dam on part of the lake and recent drought has significantly decreased the annual amount of water it receives.

Hauntingly beautiful and eerie tufa formations are found in central California where the great Mono Lake once lapped its shores. By 1982 the lake was reduced to 37,688 acres having lost a third of its 1941 surface area, secondary to siphoning of inflows by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. As water levels dropped, radical changes in the ecology of the lake ensued.

Several years ago the Army Corp engineer in charge of managing the 60,000 acre flood control lake by my house told me consideration was being given to converting the lake back to its natural river status, letting the Savannah River run free through its dams. Long-term drought caused the lake to drop twenty feet, converting much of its shoreline into a bleak landscape of red clay punctuated by once-submerged tree stumps. The Army Corp stopped marking boating hazards on most of the lake, claiming they were too numerous to monitor. A reprieve from intense drought has allowed some refilling of the lake. Today individuals still see ‘living on the lake’ as a self-important moniker of prestige, privilege, and financial wherewithal.

Merriam kangaroo rats manage to live their entire lives without drinking any water. Adapted for life in arid environments with modified kidneys, they are able to extract life-giving hydration from seeds and other apparently dry food stuffs. It seems almost paradoxical that on a planet covered with an average of two and a half miles of salt water there would be any place where water is in such short supply.

In the early 1990s the consumption of bottled water became a status symbol in Europe. While travelling in France I found it considered gauche to drink tap water. Mountains containing billions of blue plastic bottles became common. In my travels over the past two decades consumption of bottled water has become nearly universal throughout the world. Investigations in some nations revealed bottled water is nothing but ordinary tap water put into plastic bottles and resold for an extraordinary profit. In the United States this is especially true; nearly half the bottled water in America comes from municipal sources. Water taken from ‘natural’ sources is subject to far less regulation and quality control than tap water.

Consumption of bottled water as a status symbol has recently reached new heights of insanity. A company in Tennessee bottles ordinary water sources for ninety-one labels. One of these is Bling. Twenty ounces of ordinary water in a glass bottle with the Bling name on it sells for $2,300 plus postage. When challenged about Bling’s pricing, management said it was selling a lifestyle by virtue of the pretty bottle covered with tiny Swarovski crystals. $13,800 for a gallon of Tennessee water? On a planet mostly covered with water? Americans now spend billions for bottled water, water that is essentially free at the tap.

Despite our need for and infatuation with Di-hydrogen oxide, there seems to be an even deeper thirst defying easy slaking. With growing secularization of Western civilization we’ve lost contact with those Sources that would satisfy our dryness of soul. As hundreds of millions of us live progressively more intense consumer lifestyles with their promises of fulfillment and satisfaction, we find ourselves in existential crisis; crisis so profound we will go to irrational lengths to satisfy the angst of our parched souls. Some of us actually believe there’s merit in spending $2,300 for a bottle of water, that somehow the ability to do so will engender respect and admiration from those around us. Have we become so desiccated of spirit as to believe such water can really provide meaningful refreshment? So shallow as to believe such reckless abandon with finance has some kind of virtue?

In the arid deserts of ancient Palestine Jesus asked a Samaritan woman for a drink of water. For a Jew to ask a Samaritan woman for a cup of water was a violation of powerful cultural taboos. Incredulous, the woman asked why Jesus would do this; citing the fact Jesus didn’t even have a pail to draw water with, let alone a Bling crystal bottle. Even more incredulous was Jesus’ declaring he had another Source one could draw from that would forever quench true thirst in our souls.

Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.

There’s a good chance if I build my house on the waterfront, it will either dry up, leaving me beached miles inland on a desiccated plain, or leave me inundated by flooding. At any time a military engineer has authority to determine if my waterfront lake lots will be high and dry on a red clay desert. I have little say about flooding or hurricanes. Unless I’m a kangaroo rat I will thirst again. Salty waters from the Aral Sea, Dead Sea, or Lake Urmia will never satisfy. Even after drinking Bling water from Tennessee I will thirst again.

It’s guaranteed if I go to the right pre-paid Source, the deepest thirst in my soul will never recur, and I will save a whole lot of money.