There Have Always Been Arks: Lent Part 1/6

Why It's the Ark not the Flood that Matters

Lent Week 1 Texts (Revised Common Lectionary):

Genesis 9:8-17 | Psalm 25:1-10 | 1 Peter 3:18-22 | Mark 1:9-15

“Don’t let her get in the water.” When I was about 2 ½, I was with my mom and her brother who was visiting us in Alaska. My brother was an infant and had fallen asleep in the car. In those days it wasn’t that strange to just let the baby sleep, so that’s what my mom did, walking down to a small stream of glacier melt with me and my uncle. She returned to the car at some point to check on my brother, leaving my uncle with instructions to not let me get wet. My uncle’s response to this was to take a series of pictures of me taking off my socks and shoes while watching him to see what he would do, and when he didn’t stop me, I stuck my feet in the stream. This was spring in Juneau, and the stream was glacier melt, but I was undeterred. 

This apparently has been a theme in my life since before I can remember. There was a pond behind the house where I was born, its waters dyed orange …