Common Sense Reborn

No Looking Back

⁶²But Jesus told him, “Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62)

Last Friday, as my family and I were about to leave our hometown of Richmond Hill, GA, we picked our youngest up from her pre-K2 class at Richmond Hill Baptist’s First Christian Academy. As we were pulling out of the parking lot, onto Rushing Street, we saw the beginning of a slow rise in the watershed levels from the flooding of the Ogeechee River. The picture below is the one I snapped of the rising water we observed as we whisked off to Alpharetta, GA for our post-deployment Yellow Ribbon event, which I wrote about in my previous post.

While we were away over the weekend, the water continued to rise, affecting around 150 families in four neighborhoods, including Mrs. Z’s best friend, who evacuated her home on Sunday and spent the next two nights at our home before heading out of town for a previously planned trip. The water levels finally crested on Wednesday and have slowly been receding as the Ogeechee was finally able to push all the water dropped by Hurricane Debby out to sea. Below is a picture of First Christian Academy’s parking lot at its highest point. SGZ3 has been out of school all week, which has given me a full week of one-on-one time with her as SGZ1 and SGZ2’s school schedule has been uninterrupted, and Mrs. Z entered her second week of her new job.

The response from local churches, including our own home church, Compassion Christian, (who conducted a donation drive of non-perishable foods), has been inspiring. The flooding from the slow-moving Debby shocked this small community and showed how grossly unprepared the utilities services are for major natural disasters. The flooding in Richmond Hill, from what we have learned in the community was a result of the Ogeechee’s watershed being flooded and the water entering the sewer system, resulting in the water rising from the sewers and flooding several neighborhoods. We were perplexed at how this could happen, as you can see from the picture below, most of these neighborhoods were far from the Ogeechee River, and very few communities along the Ogeechee actually flooded.

While the resulting flooding was devastating to all of these families (we have heard that most of these homes were not in a flood zone and most likely did not have flood insurance), the way this small community rallied together to rescue people from their homes, to collect food, and the ongoing fundraising efforts, has been uplifting to see. Since the majority of society continues to deny climate change, these natural disasters are going to continue to get worse. There is very little we can do to prevent them if we are unwilling to embrace green energy and let the earth heal the harm we have done through global warming. Until we get to that point, we will always be reacting to the next major disaster.

As Jesus stated in the verse above, we need to stay focused on the field ahead. There is no room to look back at the past, but to harvest the field for the future, to move forward into a world that embraces the power of renewable energy. I cannot be the only one that does not feel the intensity of the sun every day and realize how much opportunity we are losing by not pushing all power source to come from solar energy. God is providing us with the means to cut fossil fuels out of the energy cycle permanently, the way forward is to harness what has been here all along, the energy provided naturally by God. The Kingdom of God is a Backwards Kingdom. And this new song by Sam McCabe has the perfect lyrics to explain what “Backwards Kingdom” means. Click below and find out for yourself.