As the Deer Pants for Water

When I was eighteen, I dropped out of school. I was not doing particularly well during my last year in secondary school, due mostly to a poor choice of courses and a less than industrious attitude. I felt I could not take another day of school and determined that I would leave and never return. I walked away from the building in March of 1966. I well remember my father having little to say about my choice other than a quietly understated admonition that was closer to an ultimatum that I should find a job within three weeks. After two weeks of doing little about finding employment, I took the night train and joined my cousin working at the Spruce Falls Power and Paper mill in Kapuskasing, Ontario. Upon my arrival in town, I applied for employment at the mill and found myself working for very good money as a millwright helper within two days.

The most valuable part of my formal and informal education, I have realized, was the five months I spent in the paper mill. With each passing day, school began to look better and better. Indeed, I was back in secondary school the following September with a much more mature attitude in evidence. There is insufficient space here to describe how I was unprepared for the real working world, particularly in a northern paper mill. One of the duties given to me might shed some light on this reality.

During maintenance shutdowns, the huge dryer drums upon which the finished paper rolled off the line were removed from the paper machine. A small hatch was unbolted and removed and, as the apprentice, I was given the unenviable job of crawling inside a very hot drum about eight feet in diameter and thirty feet in length. The temperature inside was probably about 130 degrees Fahrenheit, although it actually felt hotter, much like my sauna when it is heated up and ready to use. I never knew that the human body could shed so much water in the form of perspiration in such a short period of time. The loss of bodily fluids was so extreme that we were asked to ingest salt pills in order to keep from fainting, a practice that I suspect is no longer acceptable in terms of health and safety measures. Anyone with even mild claustrophobia could not remain in those close quarters to complete the maintenance required. I am not normally claustrophobic, but that escape hatch did look awfully small as I moved further into the drum. Suffice it to say that after two successive shutdown events, I started to plan my return to academia.

The thing that I remember most about the experience is the degree of thirst I felt while working in the drum for short periods of time in order to survive the heat. I could not stop thinking about water while I worked so slowly in the heat and I could not drink enough each time I climbed out of the drum. My vivid memory of that all consuming thirst has reminded me of another overwhelming thirst and longing that is described in Psalm 42: 1-2. This longing increases for me with each passing day. The language in this psalm is beautiful poetry.

1 ¶ To the Chief Musician. A Contemplation of the sons of Korah.

As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God.

2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?

I can identify so well with the thirst felt by the parched hart. He longs for the cool refreshing water of the brook. Jesus spoke of “the living water” in John 7:38. He said “…if any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink”. (John 7:37) I continue to feel that intense thirst for the Lord and I long to finally have the opportunity to stand before Him. Do you have that kind of thirst today?

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