Today I had the opportunity to join the Clean Sweep of the Great Miami River Watershed 2022. For nearly two decades, volunteers from all over our area have gathered in July to canoe portions of the Great Miami River, picking up debris and trash in an effort to preserve the river for generations present and to come.
I personally feel passionate about caring for creation. In God’s original mandate to humanity, He specifically gave us the charge to tend and keep, cultivate and cause to flourish all that God had created. Not once does God ever rescind that command throughout the rest of Scripture. And Jesus declares that He has not come to abolish the Scriptures but to fulfill them. Over the centuries, Christianity has diverted from the calling to care for all of Creation and even our physical form in favor of the spirit and soul. Yet the work of Christ was not only to meet the spiritual needs of the crowds that followed Him, but also their physical needs, too: healing their illnesses, feeding the thousands, even turning water to wine!
So this was an opportunity to engage in Creation Care in a more public way by teaming up with others who likewise care, even though the reasons why they care are different than mine. I have been mindful of garbage in my area, picking up what lies around. It’s a new thing for me to join forces with dozens of others and take the handful of hours to canoe a five-mile stretch to pull up all manner of things.
Initially, I was a little uncertain as I was one person and it quickly became apparent that this was an event attended by big groups of people. I focused on absorbing the information I needed from the conversations happening around me, and eventually made it to the launch point with all the supplies required. Except I needed a partner to row the canoe with me. Thankfully, there was a guy named Tim who also needed a partner, even though he had come with a group.
I’m especially grateful for Tim. He was a gentle, easygoing guy with a love of the outdoors and a follower of Christ. The next three and a half hours were painless (you know, except for the growing weariness in my shoulders from rowing, lol!). He was game to go ashore to hunt for trash, to turn around and go back for something we passed, to wait while I went after something and vice verse. In one spot, we came across corroded coils of barbed wire. They’d been there long enough to have chunks break off and be laying on the lower bank beneath them and for the trees to have grown up around them and their roots grow around portions of the coils. We could have spent hours there, and both Tim and I were reluctant to go and leave them. We just didn’t have the necessary tools or time to collect it all, but we collected what we could. It was meaningful to me that we both were saddened to leave mess.
I came home with a few treasures. One was a piece of that barbed wire. A memorial piece I guess, to something we tried to remedy but couldn’t. Under an overpass, I found the remains of license plate for an Ohio non-commercial vehicle. Only the metal was left; all the paint was gone. It was our first time to go ashore and hunt garbage. From then on we tended to favor the left bank of the river. At another spot, I glanced up into the overhanging trees to see a large fishing lure stuck in branches. My brother, Ethan, has started fishing as a hobby, so I immediately felt the curious interconnectedness of life. I haven’t decided if I’ll give it to him yet or keep it as a memento ;P
Much further down river, Tim spotted blue trash hanging from a branch past the edge of the left bank. We made our way over, secured the canoe and began nosing around for other garbage too. Turns out there was a branch of the river on the other side. What we thought was the left bank was actually a slender island. I checked the water to make sure it wasn’t stagnant grossness before wading over. That water was clear and cold! Wow! I grabbed the trash out of the branch, and waded back. (Thankfully it was only ankle deep! My body would have gone into shock if it was much more than that, I’m sure, lol!) As I came out of the water I spotted a long feather. In my imagination, it belongs to an eagle, but more likely to a turkey vulture. Either way, the feather evoked a sense of awe and beauty, as it rested on the clear, cool water hidden from the rest of the river and the world, shaded by vibrant green trees. I stowed it in the front of the canoe with my other treasures.
This whole adventure was surprisingly cool for a warm July day. Or else getting in and out of the water did a lot to help keep us cool. Trees shaded much of the river, especially the left bank which was to the east. And we traveled at a slow pace, due to stopping often for trash retrieval. No precipitation, and not horribly muggy either. I wore my Aussie hat (that is uncomfortably tight, unfortunately) and my safety sunglasses, but the sunglasses ended up being too dark because I couldn’t see into the shadowy bank well enough to spot trash.
The hat was an opportunity to express myself and live into part of myself that I don’t usually show. Only now do I realize I really represented Australia with my Great Barrier Reef shirt on and my Aussie kangaroo hat, lol. I got to climb around on downed trees and jump out into the water, feeling adventurous and oddly sure of myself in the outdoors. At one point I commented to Tim that I was surprised how many shells we found. Like large clam-like shells as well as little ones. It was so puzzling. But they were up and down the river, so they must be natural to the river? Again, a strange sense of interconnectedness came over me, that maybe I wasn’t as foreign to these waters as I thought. Although when someone pulled up a catfish, I knew I wasn’t in my PNG mountain Kanye River! At another point, I overheard someone say that a particular area was full of poison ivy. I’ve not reacted to it, so either I’m not allergic or it wasn’t what they thought it was. Either way, I didn’t let it stop me from digging up trash.
I had to pee a half hour into our run. And I promise, I went before we left! Let me tell you, that was a battle the whole time, trying not to pee as I’m using my core muscles to get in and out of the canoe, leaning over to pull up garbage all the while feeling the wetness of the river water on my canoe seat and praying that it really was river water! A few times I debated about quickly wandering off to a tree, but while I could have gotten away with that in PNG, I feared that was not permissible in the US. So I endured.
And I laughed. Aspects of the retrieval process were just funny! In one place, the silt was thick but not dense. Trash had gathered under a fallen tree, and though Tim was able to get some of it, he didn’t get it all, so I got out to help. My feet got stuck in the muck! The sucking sound and the humor of thinking I was being smart and obviously not accomplishing want I intended all struck me silly and I couldn’t help chuckling as I finished retrieving the trash and slowing getting myself out of the mess and back in the canoe.
Another time I laughed when we rounded a bend and saw some of our group carrying a grocery shopping cart to the edge of the water! Like, how in the world did that end up in the river?! I figured they’d have to leave it, because how could they get that back? Surely not in a canoe, lol! We lost track of them as the river split around an island. But wouldn’t you know, as the river merged again, here came the canoe with the shopping cart set in between the front and back seats! Oh, it was comical to watch this green outdoorsy canoe carry a shopping cart down river!
At various intervals, Tim and I would chat. He’s the facilities manager for Regal/RexNord. Had spent much of his working career behind desks, but this job that he’s had for three plus years has been more hands on and active, something he’s very much enjoyed. He asked what I do, to which I responded that I am a pastor in training. He is a church goer, attending Ginghamsburg. In particular, he meets with a group of guys at 6am on Wednesday mornings around a campfire (because the local fire chief is a member of the group), and he loves it. Tim is a Tipp City man, having lived there since he was four, nearly five decades ago. When he can, he takes his camper out. This weekend, he’ll head up to the St. Mary’s lake, and since he has the rest of the day off, he’ll likely head up there this afternoon. Perhaps I’ll never see him again, and perhaps, as life goes sometimes, I’ll bump into him somewhere. He told me as we parted at the end that he would mention me to his Wednesday guys group, so that when I felt a special boost that day, I’d know where it came from. And I know I will need it because Wednesday is slated to be a very long day.
I am so grateful for the chance to meet some new people, connect to creation in a new way, work together with others who love our waterways, and for a beautiful day and setting for all of the above. I grew further into a truer version of myself. I showed myself that I am sufficiently capable of trying new things without my close people with me to lean on. I allowed myself to be myself (aside from not peeing in the woods) around these new people. I also discovered that I am not confident in talking about my profession with others when I don’t know their faith background. More room to grow. I want to create a cabinet or case to begin housing mementos from these excursions into my areas of passion and interest. I have a 1945 wheat penny I found while weeding in a community garden the other day that I would put in that treasure cabinet, too. And who knows what I may pull up with my magnet fishing gear?! All I know is that this a season of growing aware of and into myself, and I want to honor that in a special way. Perhaps my friend John can help me whip up something in his wood shop....
