Waterfalls, roots, and the path forward

Originally published April 25, 2018

I tried to direct the flow of water recently. I can't seem to direct anything else in my life - clerics, children, churches, clients, or colleges - so I thought I'd see if I could bend Mother Nature to my will. Which is funny, considering the geological and hydrological properties of water, and considering my recent aqualogical history.

Water has been a constant and challenging presence in my life since I married Michael. It's necessary to sustain life, yet it can also destroy it and damage it. So, like many things in my life, I am both thankful for and fearful of it.

The basement of our home in Greenville was invaded by 6 feet of water one sultry August night during a 1000-year rain. When contained by concrete and drywall, water doesn't take anything with it, but most things in a home, and of which a home is made, are not designed to withstand a soaking, if only for a few hours. A small creek in our backyard spilled out of its banks and into our house and in the span of 5 hours rose to six feet and receded, as if it had behaved itself all along and been in its bed the entire night. Kind of like a mischievous teenager. It destroyed two cars, a library of books, a kitchen, office, den and bedroom, not to mention the walls, floors and insulation that had to be taken out and thrown away.

When we looked at houses to buy in Sewanee, it was pouring rain. I even slipped in the mud in the backyard of our soon-to-be new home and scraped my knee. But I saw the orderly flow of rain water spill out from under the road, flow neatly down the side of the house in a prescribed concrete channel, under a concrete footbridge and on into the valley below. It was so neat and tidy that I didn't even mind my bleeding knee.

Right: The poured concrete riverbed neatly catches Mother Nature's creek and leads it down the side of our yard.

Later, though, after we bought the house and soaking winter rains set in, we discovered it was the opposite corner of the house, without an engineered waterway, that would be the bane of our watery existence once again. During heavy rain, as the ground became saturated even as water flowed across the top, an underground river filled up and pushed against the foundation of our home. Just as water forms rocks in millions of years flowing over it, water pushed against our foundation, found an entrance, and seeped into our basement, settling on the concrete landing pad at the bottom of the stairs. A previous owner had tried to stop it, packing concrete into the corner in a futile attempt to hold back the stream.

"Ha ha ha ha," Mother Nature laughed at that concrete, and turned it into crumbly cake.

So during rain storms we would take turns Shop Vaccing the seeping water out of the corner, 10 gallons at a time, and then emptying it out the back door. Couldn't the water do that, go around the house instead of through it? During a 100-year storm last year, I emptied the Shop Vac 15 times. We had to carefully monitor forecasts and the basement corner to make sure the water didn't launch a surprise invasion.

We finally consulted a basement expert, who shook his head when we said we wanted to divert the water.

"Oh, the water's coming in," he said. "There's no way around that."

So his solution was to let it come in, catch it, and pump it back out, about 20 feet from where it came in. It's called a sump pump, and it's not new technology. Many basement owners before me have had these ingenious pieces of equipment installed.

Even though that underground river and abundance of rain have caused me no end of consternation, I know that it feeds the well from which we pump water to our house. That river is a little further down, maybe 300 feet or so, our well guy told us. His name is Mr. Jacobs. Jacobs Well Drilling. I'm not even making that up. We had to call him the first year we were here because the pump froze, and we had no water. For five days. Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Henley spent five days in single digit temperatures coaxing water up and into our house again. I was grateful for its return.

Still, as we sit on limestone deposits, that and a lot of other minerals came in with our water. I couldn't use the dishwasher because the mineral deposits ruined glass. Soap didn't lather, in the sink or shower. And the taste. It was like drinking dirty rock. So we finally got a saline water softener. It's a bin filled with salt that your water runs through before coming into the house. Now my dishpan hands are healing and my shampoo suds, but it's like we're drinking salty seawater sometimes.

Sump pump notwithstanding, I'd rather have too much water than none. In the fall of 2016, when Michael was across the pond in Cambridge for a semester, it didn't rain for four months and Gatlinburg burned. The fall leaves were spectacular because there was no rain to bat them off; but smoke - not fog - also obstructed the view from the mountain, a scary and dangerous experience.

Since Michael's return there has been no shortage of rain, winter, summer, spring or fall. And Mama's got a sump pump now, so bring it on.

Rainfall on a mountain is interesting, though. It doesn't all stay where it lands, like it does in the valley. Some stays, sinks into the ground, maybe far enough down to replenish my underwater streams. Some finds its way to dry creek beds that, during a persistent rain, turn into pop-up waterfalls that you don't notice until waters form a line and rush down the middle. In their rushing they carry lots of things with them: leaves, sticks, trash, weeds, rocks and silt. It's these things that alter the course of the pop-up waterfalls over time, forging new creeks and creating new landscapes.

Except I don't want them to go to a new place. I want the waterfalls and the creeks to stay in their predetermined paths, neatly flowing, like the perfect Instagram picture they're supposed to be. Sometimes the silt builds up and blocks a passageway; the water spills up and over, and finds a new way down the hill, sometimes rejoining its original path. The most recent split occurred downstream, where rocks and leaves and sticks drove the water out and around a tree, making a temporary island in the stream.

The tree on the right is our new island.

That island, like many things not specifically designed by me in my life, makes me nervous on first glance. Continued rain, which we expect, softens the ground, and wind, which we also experience here in abundance on the mountain, has been known to topple weakened trees. That tree may have roots deep enough to withstand a good soaking and bullying winds.

So I went out there, in my purple plaid Hunter rain boots, garden gloves and spade, and attempted to redirect the water from encircling the tree. I moved mounds of mud and dead leaves and the sticks and fallen branches that trap them. I rearranged rocks. I shoveled gravel.

Michael stood on the deck and laughed at me. Not mocking me, but at my futile determination to direct the flow of water. The tree still stands on its new island, encircled by the water Mother Nature wants to send around it. I guess we'll see how it stands this test. We expect rain all week.

My roots are being tested, just like that tree. We are at a crossroads in our journey and seem to have stalled out. We have done all we can do. Michael is finishing his degree and will be ordained a deacon June 2. We know there will be a new path, a new waterfall in our life, and we are waiting on God to show us that path, the church where Michael will begin his new vocation. It's just not been revealed yet.

It's not a place where I'm comfortable. I'm a planner. I look at my calendar probably as often as Michael reads the Bible. I like to know what's next. Not just that it's going to rain, or that Michael is going to be a priest. Because I'm pretty sure both of those things are going to happen. I'd like to know if the tree is going to stand, and where Michael will be a priest.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6

I know it's a trust issue. Does that mean I don't trust God? But I do. Because the ironic thing is that, looking over my life, God has made my path straight, even when I've tried desperately to build my own. I spent the majority of my 30s managing my own path construction, and it didn't go well until I let God take it over. Then I met Michael. After our house in Greenville flooded, the county acknowledged its poor urban planning efforts, and bought our house at market value; that meant that, moving here, we didn't have to repair it, stage it, market it, or pay a realtor. That made getting to Sewanee a pretty straight housing path.

I think I'll turn over construction on this path to God again, and enjoy the sound of rain on our metal roof. Let it rain, cause Mama's got a sump pump!