Volume 28, No. 10
 March 9, 2003


Damming Evidence

   It generated hope long before electricity.

   The Hoover Dam was started in 1931 during the Depression, so plans to build the world’s largest dam on the Colorado River drew thousands of needy people to the Arizona-Nevada border to be part of a project worth $4 billion in today’s money.  To prevent dangerous and destructive floods that ravaged the area each year, engineers chose to put a huge concrete wedge across the river at Black Canyon, near Las Vegas, the only site with the solid rock needed to anchor the massive structure.  Work began when earthen barriers were built above and below the construction site to temporarily divert the water and leave the riverbed dry.

   The first of 7,000 workers then set about cleaning off the loose rock from the thousand-foot cliffs on both sides of the river.  These “high-scalers” used pry bars and jackhammers while seated on what looked like playground swings at the end of very long cables that were hoisted up and down the craggy rock face.  The “hard hat” was invented here when workers below protected themselves from falling rock by covering their caps with coal tar enamel.  In all, the high-scalers knocked off enough rock to fill a train nearly 160 miles long.

    It took another half year to dig through 40 feet of muck and debris on the riverbed to reach bedrock.  Only then could workers begin the mammoth job of pouring concrete for the five-foot-high blocks that were stacked on each other to form the dam.  It was the equivalent of a cement truck arriving every second, 24 hours a day, for two years.

   By the time the dam was finished on September 30, 1935, 112 men had died.  The first was a worker who drowned.  Ironically, the last fatality was that man’s son, who suffered a fall. But the sweat and sacrifice tamed a raging river, turning desert into fertile farmland.  Harnessing the potential of falling water generated electricity that changed the entire southwest, bringing light and power to millions.

   Even now, the concrete is still hardening, so the dam gets a little stronger every day. A close bond still unites the families who worked and lived together at the site.  “We all came from somewhere else,” says Alice Brumage.  “But we weren’t so close that we didn’t welcome other people from somewhere else.”

   Let the church say the same because we, too, are engaged in the all-important process of channeling the power of God through our lives to bring light and life to needy people desperately trying to find a way out of darkness and depression. But let’s realize it won’t be quick or pleasant as the Lord prepares us for that.

   Sometimes it takes a crisis to divert us from the rut cut into our lives by time and habit, one that leaves us dry and empty so God can do his work.  Even then, we can only be anchored to the Rock after He pounds, pries or scrapes away anything on the deceptively unstable surface of our heart that would give way under pressure, hurting those around us.  That’s an agonizing, sometimes ugly operation that shakes us to the core, but we’re still not ready.

   Once the debris of our former life lies dumped on the bottom of our soul, the Holy Spirit scrapes away the rubble to the underlying Rock, the only foundation upon which our new role and identity can be securely built.  The waste and failure are removed forever, to prepare us for our new purpose.  Then, with others of like mind and heart, we’re cemented into the family of God to help channel and change the flow of life in a way that reveals the transforming energy of God.

   It’s a process born of blood and sacrifice but the end result brings living water to parched lives;  light and spiritual electricity to those in the dark.  “May you experience the love of Christ... Then you’ll be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God...  By his mighty power at work within us, He can accomplish infinitely more than we’d ever dare to ask or hope.”  (Eph. 3:19,20)  Whatever the task, He can do it, if you’ll be the conduit.  To see if you’re letting God power your life, look for the damming evidence.

By Rick Gamble, published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the Followers of Christ congregation in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.  Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications.  To subscribe, contact sgamble@bfree.on.ca