I live off a gravel road in the floodplain of the Mississippi River. No levee protects my side of the river in southwest Mississippi, and floodwater inundates my property every spring with melted snow and rainwater from up north.
When the Mississippi River is at flood stage in Cairo, Illinois, my neighbors tell me, my four-acre yard will be flooded ten days later. So far, my neighbors have been right.
However, my patch of earth was dry last February, and I decided to build a fire in the fireplace to ward off a slight chill rising from Lake Mary. I selected sticks and twigs from the kindling basket on the hearth and constructed a small pyramid of dry wood that became the foundation for a crackling fire of oak and pecan logs.
All went well, and my living room was soon suffused with a warm glow and the pleasant aroma of woodsmoke. Ah, the country life!
Unfortunately, my kindling basket contained a chunk of poison ivy. When I acquired my little corner of southern Mississippi two years ago, many of the trees on my property were strangled by poison ivy vines. These vines can grow 15 feet high in the alluvial soil and are as thick as my wrist.
I severed these monstrous vines from their roots with my mini chainsaw, and all the poison ivy died. Problem solved, I told myself, and watched the dead vines drop from my trees over the coming months.
On the ground, however, these dead vines look like tree branches. I carelessly sawed them up for kindling along with branches from the oak, hackberry, and pecan trees that populate my woodlot. Then I put these noxious vines in my kindling basket along with the other sticks and twigs.
As I built my fire one winter night, a poison ivy branch brushed my right leg. By the end of the evening, my leg looked like it had sustained a second-degree burn. And my leg itched maddeningly, causing me to involuntarily scratch so hard that I broke the skin, which drew blood and made the poison ivy burn worse.
That was February 1st. The next day, I visited Our Lady of the Lake urgent care center, where an able doctor gave me a steroid shot and prescriptions for an anti-itching pill and a medicated ointment.
My problems are over, I told myself as I drove home. Indeed, the itching subsided, and the medications allowed me to sleep.
I was wrong. The blistering spread to my left leg, and two months later, my poison ivy burn has yet to completely heal.
God made the world, and I'm ever grateful for the beautiful Lake Mary sunsets and the flocks of waterbirds that gather in the sloughs along Lake Mary Road--the great blue herons, snowy egrets, ibises, and the fantastic pink roseate spoonbills.
But did God go too far? Did he have to create alligators, moccasin snakes, and poison ivy? If so, why?
As my poison ivy burn gradually fades away, I've concluded that God made poison ivy to remind us to be careful as we make our way through this troubled world.
Evil is everywhere, and the most vicious evils don't come from God. They come from the hearts of men and women driven by the lust for fame, power, and money.
I'm provincial enough to believe that a lot of the evil that plagues America comes from Washington, DC, and the urban lairs of the coastal elites. I'm not so naive as to think I can escape this evil by dwelling on Lake Mary Road in rural Mississippi.
No, evil can reach me anywhere. Thus, God left me a message in the form of poison ivy to watch my step.
