Built upon the Swamp

In February of last year, before we ever imagined that we would be living in Bangkok, we were here visiting some family members who were living here at the time.  One day we went for a walk to the nearby Cultural Center and noticed that it was adjacent to a swamp.  It was at that point I remembered that much of central Thailand, including what is now Bangkok, is on bottomland—land with high water tables and likely propensity for flooding.

It is no wonder that in the original city much of the transportation was by water.  It was much easier to dig a ditch and have an instant canal than to try to build a road.

Houses along a major canal in old Bangkok

As these thoughts came to mind, I looked up at the tall buildings around me and wondered about their stability.  How big a footing is big enough to adequately support buildings that are more than 20 stories tall like the one Ingrid’s sister’s family was living in (or the one we are living in right now.)

In my past life, I worked with USDA as a Soil Scientist—making maps of where different kinds of soil are located and showing, among other things, there suitability and limitations for different uses.  The soils of Bangkok would likely have been rated “Severely Limited” for most urban uses—a term that means, more-or-less: “not impossible but has properties that would be expensive to overcome and/or prone to failure” (my own definition).

I was reminded again of this last week when we were exploring one of the nearby communities.  To get there, we had to cross under an elevated freeway.  As is quite common under many of these elevated freeways, the pillars appear to be built on mounds.

Pillars appear to rise out of the ground sinking around them

Under some highways, these mounds are quite high and extend well into the motorway underneath.  At first I thought it was a weird way to construct a highway—but then I realized that the more likely cause was that the supports for the upper highway had good footings and were stable, but the lower highway was on uncompacted ground subject to subsidence—the ground beneath the highway was sinking!

Jesus often used analogies about soil and farming to speak to his followers.  On one occasion he wrote:

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock.
   But anyone who hears my teaching and ignores it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.”  (Matthew 7:24-27--NLT)

So now, when I see these sinking highways, I will be reminded to do a quick check of my own life—am I building my life on the teaching of Jesus or on the teachings of ordinary men?  I want to be able to say, as hymn writer Edward Mote put it: On Christ the Solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.