3.31.2009

Pondering Water



The theme of water seems to be coming up again and again lately. It comes up in conversations about the environment; it comes up in classes when we're talking about baptism. Yesterday in my "Future of Creation" course, a professor talked at length about the relationships between water, liturgy, the environment, and faith.

All these conversations have left me asking myself a big question: "Why am I so oblivious to water so much of the time?" Water is completely amazing. It's all around us and within us! And I generally do not recognize and acknowledge the harm humans and human-made industries are causing to the universe's water supply. I won't get into all the factoids here; you probably know more than I do as it is (if so, feel free to share the knowledge).

My first step in this renewed H20 awareness is going to try to become aware of how much water I use each day. And I'm going to try not to purchase bottled water again. It's a huge scam anyway.

It's pretty bizarro to believe, and it stops me in my tracks to think about the reality that there are millions of people without access to clean water. Truly - can you imagine that? If water wasn't just as easy as pushing a handle to the right or the left? I learned about this last year on internship in southern IL in conjunction with the Marion Medical Mission project. They are doing FANTASTIC work.

What I'm beginning to realize lately is that God cares a lot about water, and we are called as human beings to treat all water sources as part of God's good creation. And to remember that we are intimately a part of the whole cycle of water; we are water. Wow.

I'll leave you with a fantastic verse from the biblical book of Revelation, the 22nd chapter (as an aside, Revelation is totally not a scary book as I thought for many years, and after taking a class on it, it became one of my favorites). In these last verses of the book, the author (John of Patmos) is describing a beautiful vision of God's kingdom when all is restored and whole.

"And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift."

Water is such a profound gift that sometimes we don't even realize we are receiving this treasure on an ongoing basis. Our 'life breathing' assignment for today is: let's find a way to express our thankfulness for the water we use today.

Thanks for being fantastic. I'd be so happy to hear any thing you'd like to share related to water! If you have any thoughts on tea, pop on over to: http://lifeeating.blogspot.com. Have a genuinely great Wednesday.

2 comments:

  1. i am so glad that people are catching on to the idea that bottled water is a scam. unfortunately, sometimes it will do in a pinch, but i have a stainless steel bottle i carry around with me practically everywhere. do you remember only a few years back people never really carried anything to drink with them. now it's completely uncommon to see people walking around without carrying SOMETHING to drink, i.e. water, soda, coffee, and the list goes on and on.

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