"Enough" Never Said

A few days ago this list captured my attention due to my recent focus on "enough".

There are three things that are never satisfied,
Four never say, "Enough!":

• The grave,
• The barren womb,
• The earth that is not satisfied with water —
• And the fire never says, "Enough!"

-- Proverbs 30:15b-16 NKJV

The grave. Now there's an absolute reality for you. The grave will indeed continue to overtake us humans as long as there continue to be births. It is surely never "satisfied".

I was impressed anew by this reality just days ago. A friend called saying that her daughter didn't wake up that morning. A 43-year life had come to a shockingly abrupt end. Yet, despite this "victory", the grave is still not satisfied. It will call for you and it will call for me. Perhaps not next Monday morning, but inevitably and inexorably, it will call. Because the grave never says "enough".

The barren womb. This proverb was penned in a less sophisticated era when a woman's status tanked if she was unable to produce children. Not so today. Childlessness neither attracts scorn nor relegates a woman to the margins of society. Nevertheless there persists a deep longing in the heart of many, if not most, women to bear children.

In recent decades new strategies have emerged to satisfy the cravings of the barren womb: in vitro fertilization, intra-uterine insemination, fertility drugs, surrogate pregnancies -- women go to great lengths to bear children. And when these strategies fail or become wearisome, many people opt to bring into their hearts and homes a child birthed by someone else.

My husband and I were married four years before we decided to add little people to our household. I suddenly became anxious about being able to conceive. I pleaded with him to assure me that if our efforts proved futile he would consent to adopt a child. Because the barren womb never says "enough".

The earth that is not satisfied with water. Remember those illustrations in our grade school science books? Water evaporating from the oceans, collecting in clouds, falling as rain on land masses, collecting in streams and rivers, and returning once again to the ocean. A cycle perpetuated by the Laws of Nature.

I'm having an close encounter with that cycle this summer. A friend and I are maintaining a landscaping project that we planted in May on our church's property. It includes a flowering crabapple, a dozen shrubs and about a hundred red and pink vinca plants. What we lack in skill and experience we make up for in diligence. You'll see us on average twice a week unrolling and lugging yards and yards and yards of garden hose (the spigot wasn't nearly so far away when we initially made our plan!) to soak the project throughly. Because when it comes to water, the earth never says "enough".

The fire that never says "enough". Once again, I think of science class lessons. And also the public service spots on TV that have inprinted "Stop, drop and roll" on our minds. We understand well that a fire rages until its craving for oxygen is thwarted.

When we lived in western Pennsylvania, we had friends whose rural house caught fire while they were attending a worship service. It was (rather typically) caused by faulty wiring in a bedroom wall, but because no one was home to hear the smoke alarms blare, and neighbors didn't spot the fire until it was going strong, the firefighters arrived to find it in ashes. Their little rancher had been totally consumed. Because the fire never says "enough".

In observing these perpetual realities, the ancient proverb's author visits some primal themes: death, procreation, our planet's life-sustaining essential elements, and the powerful, if sometimes destructive, forces of nature. And I too am here thousands of years later considering these same themes.

It's a wonder to be drawn into the continuum.