As I sat on our deck a beautiful warm evening a few months ago looking out at what use to be our lake stretching wide in front of me, I had a realization.
Let me set the scene. In the spring of 2020, we had a major rain storm. The lake that my husband and I live on and where our children grew up was flooding like we have never seen it. The water was rising above our docks, above our deck and on to the next level where we have a fire pit built. No one ever believed the water would get this high.
As the next day arrived and the water kept rising, homes on the lower banks were flooded, and there was starting to be talk of the dam that holds the lake in place breaching. If that happened there would be devastating flooding to the homes and towns down river from the dam.
And our lake would be no more. It would revert to the river it had once been.
To everyone’s horror, that is exactly what happened. So many lost so much, their homes, their livelihoods, their memories, and their way of life. Things will never be the same.
So here I sit looking at what was left of the lake we loved. A vast amount of sand and stumps spread across the uncovered lake bed in front of me. As I look to where the river still flows there are varying heights of leafless petrified trees that once stood firmly on dry land before the land was flooded and the lake was created. The trees are now barriers, obstacles, and well-preserved eye sores in the landscape. Exposed for the dangers they held for those who once enjoyed the lake.
It struck me that this image is not unlike what is happening in the world now or at times of tremendous upheaval in our lives. Something devastating happens to change our world. Lives are changed, harm has been done. What is deep beneath the surface has been exposed. You don’t see these well-preserved and deeply rooted obstacles on the lake bed where the shallow water used to be. Instead, they are jutting out of the areas where the water was the deepest, totally hidden from view and protected by deep water. We stopped thinking about the fact that they were there, or we failed to see them for what they were. Our well-preserved biases and beliefs.
But now they are there in plain sight. What we do with those well-preserved and dangerous obstacles is now up to us. Their ugliness is exposed and can’t be denied. If we want to move forward and heal the wrongs, then we need to take a good look at the ugliness and learn to change. We need to learn how to remove those obstacles, those hidden beliefs, those unconscious biases and create an inclusive world that will make a difference in all of our lives. We need to look at how we are showing up and the energy we are bringing to the situation.
We need to consciously choose to act differently.