the magic tap

"The water pressure is dropping!"

This statement gets used at our house every day lately, 

and I rush to fill a tub to carry us through lunch time. 

We've had very little rain, and the river is low, and the land is parched with thirst,

and dust clouds blow billows through our front windows,

while my dust cloths do endless duty inside, trying to effect some semblance of clean.

In an effort to conserve what there is of the water, the city is daily shutting off our supply - 

sometimes at 8 in the morning, sometimes at 11, sometimes in the evening - 

for an hour, or maybe 4 hours at a time.

But we've noticed that, even if the water in the entire house is out,

this one tap inside the downstairs shower seems to continue to run for just a little while longer.

Michael calls it my 'magic tap.'

How often do we think to sincerely thank God for water?

For the beautiful, cleansing, refreshing water that flows ceaselessly from our taps?

Heartfelt thanks that it's clean;

fit to quench our thirst without needing to be boiled?

Our water outages are an inconvenience, yes.  

It's a challenge to do a load of laundry without running water, 

or to make a pot of vegetable soup,

or to shower after soccer practice.

But the outages also have been a means to grow my thankfulness for this precious gift of water,

and for taps that carry it straight into our home.

Much of the world has no such luxury.

But I do see the good side of water now. 

How good it is when you're really thirsty, 

how it glitters and gurgles! 

How alive it is! 

~G.K. Chesterton

a state of inelegance

Filipino summer is here,

which means temperatures are high;

with the heat index it's been reaching 104F every day,

and not cooling off much at night.

What dreadful Hot weather we have!—

It keeps one in a continual state of Inelegance. 

–Jane Austen

Jane knew what it was like to live in the heat without air conditioning!  

It's truly draining.

And to top it off, 

we're also having the first series of water outages that I can remember since 2010. 

These have been short-lived, between 1 and 4 hours, 

usually in the morning until noon.

After washing the breakfast dishes this morning, 

we found that the taps were again empty.

 

And now,  8 hours later, we're still without water.

The lunch dishes are still piled in the sink

(to the delight of the ants!)

at 4:30 in the afternoon,

and I'm beginning to wonder about creative solutions

for cooking dinner with no running water - 

in fact with little water at all.

(You can see all the empty water containers we've used up already by the sink,

though we are working to be very sparing.)

You don't want to use our bathrooms right now, either.

Have no fear - the water will come back on, and we'll be fine.

But the absence of water really truly does make the heart grow fonder.

I am more thankful for running water than I've ever been in my life.

Give thanks with me for the water from your tap today,

but even more, for the living water

and the gift of eternal life, satisfying the deep thirst of our souls!

Jesus answered her,

 “If you knew the gift of God,

 and who it is that is saying to you, 

‘Give me a drink,’ 

you would have asked Him, 

and He would have given you living water.

John 4:10