Dying like the dead sea . . !

MANY friends send me pictures of them floating on the Dead Sea! But the Dead Sea is dying! The Dead Sea’s water level is declining by more than a metre a year, and its surface area has shrunk by around a third since the 1960s. The Dead Sea is really a lake, not a sea.

It’s so high in salt content that the human body can float easily. You can almost lie down and read a book! The salt in the Dead Sea is as high as 35% – almost 10 times the normal ocean water. And all that saltiness has meant that there is no life at all in the Dead Sea. No fish. No vegetation. No sea animals. Nothing lives in the Dead Sea.

Just north of the Dead Sea is the Sea of Galilee. Both the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea receive their water from river Jordan. And yet, they are very different. Unlike the Dead Sea, the Sea of Galilee is full of rich, colorful marine life. There are lots of plants and lots of fish too. In fact, the Sea of Galilee is home to over twenty different types of fishes.

Same region, same source of water, and yet while one sea is full of life, the other is dead. How come? Here’s apparently why. The River Jordan flows into the Sea of Galilee and then flows out. The water simply passes through the Sea of Galilee in and then out – and that keeps the sea healthy and vibrant, teeming with marine life.

But the Dead Sea is so far below the mean sea level, that it has no outlet. The water flows in from the river Jordan, but does not flow out. There are no outlet streams. It is estimated that over 7 million tons of water evaporate from the Dead Sea every day. Leaving it salty. Too full of minerals. And unfit for any marine life.

The Dead Sea takes water from the River Jordan, and holds it. It does not give. Result? No life at all. Think about it. Life is not just about getting. It’s all about giving. We all need to be a bit like the Sea of Galilee. We are fortunate to get wealth, knowledge, love and respect. But if we don’t learn to give, we could all end up like the Dead Sea. The love and the respect, the wealth and the knowledge could all evaporate. Like the water in the Dead Sea.

If we get the Dead Sea mentality of merely taking in more water, more money, more everything the results can be disastrous. Good idea to make sure that in the sea of your own life, you have outlets. Many outlets, for love and wealth – and everything else that you get in your life: Giving is living, while keeping is dying, like the Dead Sea..!