The April 2010 issue of National Geographic opens the mind the way seeing your first dusty orange, red and purple sunset opens your eyes to a new kind of beauty; or how upon hearing Chopin for the first time opens your ears to your own heartbeat or the rhythms of wind.
The April issue of National Geographic causes sadness so deep that tears can't find their way to your eyes.
The April issue of National Geographic is about Water. In words and images that are amazing even for National Geographic, the magazine details how water represents holiness, life and our ultimate need. Nothing else matters if we don't have water. Indeed, as a Christian I know water to be holy because Jesus said, "But whosoever drinketh of the water that I will give them will never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."
Water, simple H2O -- probably the only chemical compound most of us can identify -- is anything but simple for hundreds of millions of people around the world. According to the magazine, the average person in the U.S. uses about 100 gallons of water at home each day. For Aylito Binayo, a woman at the center of one story and whose four year old son is left to watch his two younger brothers while she climbs down a mountain to draw and bring back 50 pounds of cloudy, muddy and bacteria-filled water, she makes due with fewer than three gallons of water each day. What she retrieves she shares with her children, her husband and the scrabble of farm and livestock.
I would say go out and buy the issue to read for yourself, but the better use of the $5.99 cover price is to make a donation to one of the many fresh water charities.
A friend of mine a few weeks ago told me that he could tell the difference between one bottled water and another. He doesn't lie, so I'm sure that he could. But (and here comes the real sermon), the better thing to do is not to buy bottled water and do this: find an empty plastic bottle in the house, car, office -- somewhere; cut off the top and make a wide opening; every time the thought of buying bottled water comes up, toss a quarter into the opening.
Even at only once a week, after a year the bottle will have thirteen dollars in it. Thirteen dollars is about half the cost of clean water for life for a person in the developing world, according to Water.org.
I haven't yet contributed to water.org. My personal water charity is blueplanetrun.org, but I'm going to find some spare change in couch, the glove compartment of my car -- maybe even a few pennies in the bottom of an old jewelry box.
Not much to be sure, but it doesn't take much to make a real difference. Plus, if you really want to read the issue, I'll loan you mine.
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