Water Sense and Nonsense

In North Texas we find ourselves looking at a second summer of watering restrictions despite heavy rainfall over the past seven months or so. At first blush that doesn’t seem reasonable. Two of our three reservoirs are above conservation level. If I understand it that means they must release water downstream for flood control purposes. The third is half full and rising. By my calculation we are at net 90%+ normal storage capacity. If as seems likely the watersheds get any more rain it appears to me we should continue at that level for at least several more weeks, maybe even well into summer. It looks like we’ve dodged a bullet. By most measures a two year drought ended in January when soil moisture conditions returned to normal. Had it continued we might be beyond restrictions and well into rationing by now, with more severe measures on the horizon. It’s worth asking how we came to such a pretty pass. As droughts go two years isn’t that long. Officials have known for decades what our water usage projections were. They have always known we are subject to periodic drought. The drought was never the problem. Population growth has just outstripped water planning. For the moment they are right to continue restrictions. We have no spare water to provide for potential disruptions. Two years ago we had a big pipeline break. Had that happened last year we might have had big trouble. New supplies are supposed to come on stream sometime next year but who knows what could happen. There could be delays. We could have another dry spell. There could be a major accident or incident. I don’t think anybody is likely to go thirsty, heaven forbid, but a genuine water shortage would not be a pretty picture. So we need to continue restricted use for a bit longer. There are good reasons to practice conservation for the long haul too, though there has not been as much informed public discussion on the topic as I would like to see. The most common means of adding water capacity is constructing new reservoirs or adding depth to existing ones. That means taking private property through eminent domain, never a good thing and there has been a lot of public discussion on that. My favorite solution is waste water reclamation. That is a big part of the current North Texas answer and something we should all know more about. There has been a lot of silliness. My personal favorite is the official who complained recently that we have had a population explosion but there is no more water on the planet that when time began. He’s right of course, but the point is that when viewed from a global perspective water is in inexhaustible supply. No matter how much we use or abuse it is all pretty much still here. The issue is one of getting clean fresh water to where it is needed when it is needed. We have sometimes applied remarkable ingenuity to the task. Drive out to Yuma sometime and see what they’ve done with the Colorado, or ask the Israelis about the Jordan. Not uncontroversial maybe but you can’t argue that they have managed mighty feats of engineering. Then there are the environmental issues, the health of rivers and estuaries is a serious concern clouded by a lot of frivolity. How about the new eco-friendly McKinney Green building in Collin County? They brag about using recycled rainwater, a redundancy if there ever was one. It isn’t clear to me what the environmental advantage is. If they used the normal municipal supply the excess rainwater would presumably either be absorbed into ground water or go directly into the lakes as runoff. Aren’t both those good things? I wonder if they pay their fair share of the sewage bill.

Cherry Picking the Faith

My Church maintains that you have to accept all of its teachings. You can’t just choose the ones that suit you. It’s a powerful argument and one modern conservatives use in advocating unquestioned acceptance of the old traditions, for many of them those in place before the Second Vatican Council. They believe Vatican II went too far in bringing a poorly qualified laity into dialog on matters pertaining to faith and Church practice. There is a problem with that. Either ecclesiastical officials speak with authority or they don’t. If they do you have to accept the changes brought about by Vatican II. If you don’t you are by definition choosing what doctrine to accept and what not. You may allow certain trusted clerics to make those choices for you but you are choosing. It is impossible to avoid it. You can’t support all Church teachings for all of history. You would have to accept Pope Urban II’s homily that launched the Crusades. I don’t think even the most ardent traditionalist wants to go back to those days. What about the Inquisition, founded by St. Louis and the institution responsible for so much excess? Surely nobody would have us burning heretics at the stake again. OK, so I’m knocking down straw men but the point is that, holy as it is, the Church is filled with humans that are sometimes capable of some pretty bad stuff. A little healthy skepticism is in order. There’s the rub. Ours is a mysterious faith and it isn’t always clear why we believe what we do. A lot of it we have to accept on faith because we are never going to fully understand it, beginning with the concept of a Triune God. It is beyond human comprehension, or at least beyond this human’s comprehension. We have to believe in it though, it we are to consider ourselves Christians. I guess that’s why we call it faith. I can’t read even a little of the Catechism of the Catholic Church without questions popping up left and right. That’s partly because of the obscure language theologians like to use, but it is mostly because so many of the ideas expressed are really difficult. Some of them are downright strange. That doesn’t mean I reject everything I don’t understand. It does mean I have my doubts about more than a few things. I can’t help that. I pray about it a lot and I find that helps me think things through. I also find it helps to talk things out with my wife Lynne and with friends who often have the same questions. Sometimes I get answers but always some questions remain. So does that make it impossible for me to find my way to God? Some traditionalists would have me believe it does. I don’t buy it. It’s hard for me to believe anyone could accept all of our dogma without question. It is the nature of a healthy mind to inquire. Accept it all? Maybe. Without question? Impossible. None of the teachings at issue sprang from whole cloth. It has taken two millennia and the brilliant discourse of countless saints and theologians to get us to where we are. If such men as Saint Augustine and Thomas Aquinas had not challenged the conventions of their days Catholicism might be very different now. Theologians continue to explore assumptions long taken for granted and Catholics continue to adapt, if at a glacial pace. I don’t put myself on the same level with Augustine or Aquinas and I have no wish to substitute my own judgment for that of the Church. I certainly do not intend to create my own little religion but where I think something looks not quite right or if it doesn’t make sense to me I will challenge it. Surely that’s what God would have me do. I don’t see that I can do anything else.

Hidebound and Dangerous

The Dallas Morning News devoted the entire back page of the Points section in Sunday’s edition to advocacy for a return to traditional faith, Christian faith in general and Catholic faith in particular. Editorial writer Rod Dreher doesn’t say so but he is apparently an adherent of Opus Dei, the always controversial Catholic organization that found favor with the two most recent Popes and was made infamous by its depiction in The Da Vinci Code. Dreher not only wants a return to the Latin Mass, he wants to undo much of the reform introduced by the Second Vatican Council. He calls orthodoxy “right belief,” an unusual definition and not one found in Webster’s. He is openly derisive of any hint of departure from traditional church doctrine, for him that preceding Vatican II. Dreher represents the views of a growing number of young priests in my Church, a view that appeals to many Bishops too but a trend I find disturbing, not what our Church needs in this day of crisis. It demands unquestioning acceptance of not just doctrine but policies that should be and are being challenged. I don’t see how a retreat can work. We have an increasingly literate laity that has learned to think for itself. The days of blind faith are over. We can no longer be expected to look the other way when clergy behave badly. We will not let go without question decisions or even moral judgments that fall short of our notions of reason and justice. We will demand accountability and not just to God. The clergy are stewards of our Church but so are we. When we see something wrong we will speak up and expect to be heard. Vatican II did not go too far. It did not go far enough. Church officials have long retained far too much devotion to their own authority, even when it threatens the foundations of the Church. It is a misguided obsession that has been tearing the Church apart for a thousand years. It is at the root of the sex abuse scandals that so plague American Catholics today. It has rendered the Church irrelevant in Western Europe. It has not done that in the United States, not yet, but as Bishops dig in their heels and turn a deaf ear to the concerns of the laity they are themselves becoming irrelevant in the daily lives of ordinary people. Public opinion does matter, even in the Church. We have serious issues that are not addressed in a mindless return to orthopraxy, what Dreher calls “right practice.” Controversies such as the role of women, mandatory celibacy, and the indefensible practice of allowing divorce but calling it annulment are not going away. These new conservatives would tell me my faith is not legitimate, it cannot lead me to God. I think they are wrong. I pray that they are wrong. I don’t object to tradition. There is much that I find comforting in rites that have been largely unchanged for centuries. Nor do I reject the Latin Mass for those who prefer it. It is beautiful as anyone who has ever heard a really good choir sing Schubert’s Mass in G can attest. But I would rather hear the prayers in words I can understand, most of the time anyway. It is unthinking acceptance of wrongheaded practice I object to. God gave me a mind. I have to think he intended me to use it. We long ago rejected the notion of “Devine Right of Kings,” an idea promulgated by the same people Rod Dreher would now have us uncritically follow. He’s wrong. Kings could and did do evil things. So did Popes. They still do. They are men and like other men are subject to all the frailties and temptations of human nature. Because of their office they should be respected but they do not belong on pedestals. That is idolatry.