The Peak of Inspiration

I’d like to go back and relive an hour of my childhood.  Jump in the pickup with dad and Mickey, the old family dog.  Make the circuit around the farm, checking the oil, changing the water.  Everything was right with the world.  Those were the good ol’ days, just couldn’t see it at the time…

The majority of the irrigation engines Dad used were 800 Minneapolis Molines.  When I shut out the noise of what is now my life, the things of the here and now, the ringing in my ears from too many saws and nail guns and not enough hearing protection, I can travel back in memory to those summer evenings checking water.  And I hear the familiar throb of those engines.  Feel those vibrations on the inside of me.  Listen to their voice fade away from the back of that ’74 Chevy as we head for the home place.

I know very little about engines.  I can discern a tailpipe from a spark plug but anything past that I get a little insecure.  Maybe 800 M&M’s aren’t good engines, but I love them.  They’re a little bigger than normal.   They turn at slower rpms.  And they sound better than most of the other ones. It just seems like they have what it takes to reach that deep water and bring it to where it can be used. They remind me of a man I used to work with. 

I can picture him checking the oil and coolant in that “make sure” method he had.  Starting the engine, letting it warm a little, then engaging the clutch.  Seeing that first gush of water hit the air relief valve, then hearing it gurgle through that hot aluminum pipe.  Feeling the pipe grow cold and start to condensate with that clear goodness from way down deep.  I can taste that sweet Kansas water as I let it take my sweat and exhaustion with it down the furrow.  Feel the wind dry my face as I rode in the back of that old Chevy, leaving the engine to its task, pumping life down those thirsty rows.

Reminds me a little of how dad spent his life.  Pumping water for his family.  Not often was it a glamorous or particularly noble task.  Many times tedious.  Constant.  Demanding.  Just being a big engine, turning the pump that was down there out of sight.  Down there in that huge supply of life sustaining water.  Bringing up for us the things that we needed but couldn’t reach on our own.  Day after long summer day, strapping the pliers on his belt, lacing up his Red Wing boots, putting on his green Pioneer cap, stepping out the door to do the only thing he knew how to do.  Love his family through his hands.

Engines wear out.  Dad’s was no different.  A few days before his passing, the family was together for devotions.  And for one last time, dad supplied us with a drink.  Dad wasn’t perfect.  He struggled with some anxieties.  He resisted traveling parts of the path he was asked to take.  He told an experience of submitting, trusting, and answered prayer.  Of being lifted, his words now, by ”guiding wings”.  His voice was weak, his words slurred, his mouth dry.  He paused between sentences to gather strength.  But he proved to us one more time that his pump was way down deep.  In the water.  In that huge, inexhaustible aquifer that is our God and His love.  We felt it flow around us.  We cupped our hands and drank.  It was sweet, cool, and did everything for us that nothing else could.   

Sometimes it rains on our desert.  We love it.  God’s blessings surround us and we can sit and let it soak in.  We can turn off the pumps, revel in that glorious clean air.   But sometimes, we need more water than what falls from above.  The puddles dry up.  The bullfrogs stop their song.  The monsoons pass, the hot sun comes out, and we are left with a need.   Water.  Without it we will die.  There’s another source.  Its beneath us.  Same water, just in a different spot.  And if we’re in the right place, and our engine is tuned and dedicated, we can pump that water.  We can be the thing that draws it up, and brings it to the thirsty.  We aren’t the water, never will be.  We know what that is.  But we can deliver it.  Commit our lives to that mission.  It’s found in a deep place, and often, the deeper we find it, the sweeter it is. 

Someone, maybe one of your own, is waiting for the water.  For one reason or another, its out of their reach.  To deep for them.  They’re hot and exhausted, but dependant and trusting.   A lot like that boy back in the 90’s.  

Be there for them.  Be the pump.