The 1988 film called The Milagro Beanfield War was on television Sunday night and we watched. It wasn't all that successful twenty years ago --could it have been the mouthful name? -- although it did win an Academy Award for its music and it got good reviews. It's about a small town that has all but given up on fighting the backroom deals which will divert precious water to a new golf course and resort. A couple of local activists, including a farmer with a bean field that needs water stand up against the powers-that-be. The war is more of a skirmish, but the point comes across in this often humorous and whimsical movie and the good guys win.
The gorgeous scenery was very familiar after my recent trip to New Mexico and it turns out that it was filmed about an hour east of Ghost Ranch in the high desert. Water is at a premium there and only about ten inches of rain falls in a year. There are signs up everywhere reminding people that water is a precious commodity which should not be squandered.
We could learn from the folks in New Mexico about conservation. We will discover that we can live without oil but we can't live without clean water and even in a country blessed by abundant H20 it is not an inexhaustible resource. The Great Lakes are slowly but surely receding and we experienced drought-like months this year which resulted in depleted rivers and streams. We can pray that the dire predictions of real wars fought over water are untrue, but what will happen in a world where people grow desperate because of climate change? There are already conflicts in Africa over water.
Jesus told a woman at a well that he is Living Water which would quench her spiritual thirst. In the arrid climate of Palestine, water was and still is precious. I hope we catch on in a hurry to the notion that we must be conservationists at heart.
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