“Water” by Wendell Berry
Centering
Find a comfortable location where you are able to hear water running: near a stream, a fountain, or other source of water sound (for instance, YouTube has several videos with water sounds).
Notice your breathing without trying to adjust it, just notice it as you breathe in and out. Once you are centered, either read or listen to Wendell Berry’s poem, “Water”
Water
I was born in a drouth year. That summer
my mother waited in the house, enclosed
in the sun and the dry ceaseless wind,
for the men to come back in the evenings,
bringing water from a distant spring.
veins of leaves ran dry, roots shrank.
And all my life I have dreaded the return
of that year, sure that it still is
somewhere, like a dead enemys soul.
Fear of dust in my mouth is always with me,
and I am the faithful husband of the rain,
I love the water of wells and springs
and the taste of roofs in the water of cisterns.
I am a dry man whose thirst is praise
of clouds, and whose mind is something of a cup.
My sweetness is to wake in the night
after days of dry heat, hearing the rain.
Wendell Berry
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/water-158/
Reflection
Water, when standing in a desert, derives new meaning to me. I have always lived in relative water abundance. To imagine a world where the need for water always underlies all other thoughts is difficult for me.
My experience of abundance is not the norm for most of the world. And in those locations where water scarcity is a reality, water becomes weaponized. The occupier limits access to water for the occupied. The wealthy reroute water from the poor to become a commodity. Water justice is a new way of thinking and I find that every time I dip my toe into the waters of scarcity, I find new ways that humanity has found to be unjust in the distribution of water.
My sense of abundance is problematic, however. In order for my culture to feel their water needs abundantly fed, water is taken out of aquifers at a higher rate than it is replaced through natural processes. And, as an individual, it isn’t my use which will make or break the aquifers. Christiana Zenner, Associate Professor of Ethics at Fordham University, and author of Just Water, stated at a forum at St. Bart’s Episcopal Church in New York City that consumer use of water is only 7% of water usage. Most water is used by industry and commoditization. In terms of water consumed and not returned to the water cycle and water siphoned out of the aquifers, there is little that my own individual usage patterns can do to help anything except in raising awareness.
The one thing which I can do is to stop buying those little single use water bottles. The commoditization of water through bottling it up in small single use bottles impacts water justice negatively and significantly. In order to provide single use water bottles, water is diverted away from those needing it for their livelihood and sent to grocery store shelves. If you take nothing else away from this blog, take away a commitment to stop buying single use water bottles.
Ironically, too much water is equally disastrous to local environments and economies. Water is a thing that we need enough of, but not too much. Rising waters are covering islands, creating environmental refugees in the US and all over the globe. Flood waters obliterate towns in Iowa and Madagascar alike. In Petra, engineers try to control runoff to prevent devastation of the Treasury and other ruins just as engineers worldwide try to control water and keep it where it is convenient.
Because we need water to survive, water is a consistent image which I particularly noted while I was in the Holy Land. It wasn’t just the weaponization of water in the struggles of the Holy Land, the dryness of the desert, or lack of potable water in Jordan. I was also immersed in images of water: the River Jordan, Mary’s Well where the Greek Orthodox Church commemorates the Annunciation, Jacob’s Well where Jacob met Rachel and Jesus encountered the Samaritan Woman and promised her the water of life, the Dead Sea where some of my fellow pilgrims floated, the healing pools of Bethesda, the Sea of Galilee where we meditated on fishing, Jesus’ miracles, the call of the Disciples, Jesus walking on water and Peter joining Him. The waters of Baptism tie us forever to Christ and scarcity of water reminds us of the importance of waters, both sacred and profane.
The water of life promises redemption and relationship with Christ. As Christians, deeply embedded in the symbolism of water, we are called to work toward water justice. Ensuring that the poor have adequate water, making sure that children aren’t missing school because it is their job to collect water for the family, providing adequate water for hygiene so girls don’t miss school because of menstruation, finding homes and safety for those who are displaced due to flooding and rising oceans. It is tempting to take a transcendent view of the water of life, but providing life-giving water for those who need it is one way that we are able to live into Christ’s water of life.
Word of the Week: Thirst
Consider for what you thirst this week. Are you thirsty for relationships? For justice? For redemption? Whenever you slake your physical thirst this week, consider ways to slake your spiritual thirst.
Gracious God, direct my thoughts to those things which keep me spiritually thirsty; help me to find new ways to satisfy my thirst for relationship with you and with your people. Remind me of your abundant love so that I may move from a posture of scarcity to one of radical generosity. Teach me to work for justice for all your children. Amen
My expectation.
A long it was and weary way.
The gloomy cave of Desperation
I left on th’ one, and on the other side
The rock of Pride.And so I came to fancy’s meadow strow’d
With many a flower:
Fain would I here have made abode,
But I was quicken’d by my hour.
So to care’s copse I came, and there got through
With much ado.That led me to the wild of Passion, which
Some call the wold;
A wasted place, but sometimes rich.
Here I was robb’d of all my gold,
Save one good Angell, which a friend had ti’d
Close to my side.At length I got unto the gladsome hill,
Where lay my hope,
Where lay my heart; and climbing still,
When I had gain’d the brow and top,
A lake of brackish waters on the ground
Was all I found.With that abash’d and struck with many a sting
Of swarming fears,
I fell, and cry’d, Alas my King!
Can both the way and end be tears?
Yet taking heart I rose, and then perceiv’d
I was deceiv’d:
My hill was further: so I flung away,
Yet heard a crie
Just as I went, None goes that way
And lives: If that be all, said I,
After so foul a journey death is fair,
And but a chair.
George Herbert’s Poem, “The Pilgrimage,” has traveled with me in the Holy Land. Expectations battle with reality. Commemoration of events collide against historic fact. It can be disturbing.
It is easy to lose the holy in a factfinding tour. Mired in facts and detail, I forget to listen to the voices of generations of pilgrims who whisper, “It was here.” I forget to listen for the echoes of endless prayers rising to the Lord.
It is also easy to lose the holy in the jostling and pushing humanity. Everyone wants to get a little closer, to touch, to kneel, to lay their forehead on the spot. The hoards forget that everyone ahead, behind, and beside them yearns for the same sense of proximity to the holy.
It is easy to lose the holy in the struggles of the land. Israeli against Palestinian. Jew against Muslim against Christian. Each group wanting land which they crave because of a need for their religious beliefs, their historic recollection, and their sense of safety. Walls go up and humanity divides. The powers forget the small kindnesses at ground level. Politics forget that we should all be one. Scarcity forgets abundance.
So, it is easy to lose the holy. It is easy to climb one hill after another and not find what a pilgrim seeks.
I felt empty and afraid of what I wouldn’t find as I visited the Holy Sepulchre. As I felt my yearning rise and as I felt the sacred seemingly slip through my fingers, I entered the Aedicule. I walked past the Angel’s Stone, which is a fragment of the stone which was rolled away, and entered the inner chamber with the tomb. Covered in marble, it may or may not be the tomb, as the site was destroyed several times. But that doesn’t really matter, the place reeks of holiness. Maybe it is the tomb, maybe not. But it is certainly the place where millions of prayers have been said. Millions of tears have flowed. It doesn’t matter, I felt the presence of God. My two friends who were in the Aedicule with me will remain special companions on the road for the remainder of my journey.
Have I found the gladsome hill? No. It remains always a little further. This was just a stop along the way. A happy glimpse to remember during the foul times, when I am faced with “a lake of brackish water.” What happened in the Aedicule will help make my step lighter and the path easier. There I found truth, not fact.
Expectation
We can let expectations get in the way of being present in the moment. How have you experienced your expectations keeping you from noticing where you are, and with whom you are traveling? Have expectations ever kept you from finding the holy in others and in the place you are visiting? Have preconceived notions kept you from that for which you yearn, separate from the sacred presence of God?
Gracious God, you sent your Son to live among us and to be in relationship with us; grant that we may learn to look past our expectations so that we may find your grace and presence in the places we go and the people we meet. Grant that others may find your presence and grace in us, so that they may know the blessing of relationship with you. In the name of the holy relationship of the Trinity; Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, we pray. Amen.
The Poet's Soul 