Genesis 1:1-7
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the
earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and
the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. God said, “Let there be light,”
and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and separated the light
from the darkness. The light was called “day,” and the darkness was called
“night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. God said,
“Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God
made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it.
And it was so.
Genesis 21:14-19
So Abraham rose early in the
morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar, putting them
on her shoulder, and gave her the boy, and sent her away. And she departed and
wandered about in the wilderness of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was
used up, she left the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down
opposite him, about a bowshot away, for she said, "Do not let me see the
boy die." And she sat opposite him, and lifted up her voice and wept. Then
God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water; and she went and filled the
skin with water and gave the lad a drink.
Revelation 22
Then the
angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from
the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the
street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with
its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of
the tree are for the healing of the nations.
******************************************************************************
Far into the
imaginary future, there is a desert planet called Dune. With the exception of
giant desert sandworms and a kind of small jumping rodent, it is believed
nothing else lives on Dune. It is believed there is no water. The only
commodity on this planet is an addictive spice which is mined from the sand.
But there is
water on Dune – dew slowly and painstakingly collected by desert dwellers
called Fremen, water reclaimed from the bodies of those who have died - hidden
in large underground reservoirs. This dry, desert planet was once green and
fertile, till people destroyed it with their desire to use its resources for
their own wealth. Yet the Fremen continue to plant hidden gardens, collecting
dew at night and saving water for the precious plants, and their plan is make
the planet green again.
On this desert planet, the elusive Fremen have learned
that when the giant sandworms come in contact with water, they die but fragment
into tiny sandfish, which grow again into giant worms. In the process of death
their essence mingles with water, which
is collected and called the “water of life”. The byproduct of the worms death
is a substance which smells and tastes like cinnamon – and which is addictive. If
ordinary people drink this ‘water of life’, they will die - only the religious
Bene Gesserit sisters can physically transmute the ‘water of life’. Once this
is done, it is not dangerous for others. The sandworm, the spice, and water are
all interconnected, and necessary if the cycle of life is to continue.
In a village
somewhere in the mountains, a lovely tree grows beside a beautiful sparkling
stream. Pilgrims on spiritual quests, travellers who are weary and tired, come
to this stream; they drink from the well, rest on the green grass under the
shade of the trees, take fruit for their food. They leave again, refreshed, to
continue their pilgrimage. The people of the village, seeing a good opportunity
for commerce, decide that more benefit from this marvellous oasis should be
garnered - so they install a gate at the road, and charge a toll. As the procession
of pilgrims continues to come, they decide to brick over the stream, and charge
even for a drink. Eventually, the pilgrims continue on their journeys without
stopping, the travellers no longer come. The village is isolated; the inns and
restaurants close, the parks are empty, the stream gradually dries up, the
fruit trees and the shade trees die, the village dies. The river of the water
of life no longer flows - only a desert remains.
******************************************************************************
Abraham - husband of Sarah and father of Isaac, sends
his Egyptian slave and concubine Hagar alone into the desert with her son
Ishmael. He essentially condemns them to death because Sarah doesn’t want
Ishmael to possibly encroach on Isaac’s inheritance. Isaac or Itzakh means
‘laughter’ – Sarah laughed when she heard she would have a child. Ishmael means
“God listens” because God heard Hagar’s laments, and provided water so they
would not die.
Here on this
earth, in this lifetime, water brings both life and death. In the river flowing
through the new creation, the water is life itself. In the river flowing
through Bangkok, though, human waste, food waste and industrial garbage flow to
the sea. In the rainy season, cholera, typhoid and parasites are prevalent. In
this same water, people bathe and wash their clothes; the water is used for
cooking. They are well aware that the water which gives life for some, gives
death to others. There is no choice. The water of life is also the water of
death.
In Ethiopia
and Eritrea, trees have been so consistently cut down for homes and fuel, that
the desert has taken over - water is a rare commodity. A “Dune”scenario. For
years, rain has barely fallen at all. When the water does come, disease is a
very real problem. People die without rain, they die with rain. A child’s life
expectancy is about five years, if even that.
Recently,
water in all its forms has been the source of much death. A tsunami resulting
from a Point 9 earthquake washed around the world, killing thousands and destroying
much that was once green. All the way to the shores of Cape Breton this tsunami
moved - in fact, it’s reported that the wave went around the earth more than
once. Levees broke in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, killing and washing
away most of a city, with the poorest of the poor suffering the most. Texas has
been hit with some of the most incredible flooding ever experienced.
In the
aftermath of Hurricane Florence, thousands of farm animals – pigs and cattle –
drowned. Its not possible to save all those animals in fast flooding. The waste
pools from the pig farms have been flooded polluting all of the possible
drinking water. The rotted bodies of the animals need to be removed or more
disease will be spread. Cholera, typhoid – other diseases. Water need to keep
animals alive becomes their death and the projected death of humans.
Most of our aboriginal communities still have no
access to clean drinking water.. “Let them move” people say, instead of “Why
are people in this country still without clean water?” yet when people died in Walkerton,
Ontario, from E. Coli poisoning, we were outraged - shouldn’t happen here, we
said. The problem was addressed. Yet where is our outrage when children die around
the world for lack of clean water? When our native communities are attempting
suicide because they can’t cope any more? Flint Michigan – water poisoned with
huge amounts of lead and a bureaucracy which knew perfectly well what it was
doing, but letting it go because the people mostly involved are black. And it still has not been addressed.
Michigan
State University sits on top of one of the largest garbage dump sites in the
United States. It has sat there for decades. Between 1979 and 1984 the water in
student housing was said to be safe and drinkable, yet when we lived there, it
was impossible to get baby formula to mix properly, and boiled water produced
an oily slick on the surface and in the cup.
Sometimes it came out of the tap red and sludgy, but after repeated
testing was pronounced safe to drink.
The great
company Nestle takes water out the ground in California, even as California
suffers one of the worst droughts in its history. Continues to take water even
as California dries up. The CEO of Nestle has said that human beings don’t have
a right to water. And so water becomes a commodity to be bought and sold.
And yet
water is also a miracle..............
Just outside
Corner Brook in Newfoundland is a place called Steady Brook. About a kilometre
or so along the Trans-Canada Highway past Steady Brook, is a stream which runs
steadily year round. It is absolutely pure clean water with no bacteria, and it
keeps for months without going bad. There are streams like that all over
Newfoundland – and it’s far safer than the city water, which often has to be
boiled before drinking.
A human
being can survive a long time without food, but only two weeks without water.
Water eases the pain of sore and tired muscles, helps provide a means for
healing of injury. Water soothes us when we are tense or upset – a long bath
can do wonders. Water and the smell of green air rejuvenates us.
******************************************************************************
Today,
in this millennium, we are finding ourselves in a desert wilderness of our own
creation, not God’s. In our destruction of the earth, we not only create a
physical wilderness, but a spiritual one as well. We read the papers and shake
our heads, but our garbage will still get shipped to someone else’s back yard.
We are slowly beginning to take seriously the connections between our actions
and the results of our actions, which have far-reaching effects.
In 1968 when
our creed was written, there was nothing about creation in it. Since then, the
world around us and our role in creation have come to further prominence. We
have begun to realise that the stories in Genesis were mistranslated - that we
were not given “dominion” over creation, but were asked to take responsibility
- a word called ‘stewardship’. So, we
added to our creed the line “to live with respect in creation”.
Our
Christian faith is also built on hope - the kind of hope which says “Out of the
believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water. “ This says to me, though, that the physical
renewal of the earth can only come about IF humanity has a spiritual renewal.
We have to drink the ‘water of life’ and undergo a transformation. Just as
drinking the water of life on the planet Dune was a transformative religious
experience, water is to be a transformative experience which calls us to care
for the world around us, before we run out of time. Our faith opens our hearts
like the rocks in the desert; the streams of living water, which renew our
souls, flow into the deserts. As the spiritual desert begins to bloom and
become green, then the water flows from us into the spiritual deserts of others
- and as that water flows, the physical desert again becomes green. We cannot
separate our faith from our environment - and we cannot separate our
environment from our faith. The one thing critical to all the deserts in our
creation is the water of life.
A river and
a tree, life and growth. In the city of God, the river of the water of life
flows through the city; on each side is the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds
of fruit, one for each month of the year. The river provides sustenance for the
tree, the tree provides food for the people, so there is no hunger and no want
any longer. Everyone will have access to the river of the water of life, without
having to pay for it. Everyone has a right to the water. The Holy City is Eden
recreated, the realm of God. There is nothing accursed – no poisons, no
disease, no death – only abundant life.
No comments:
Post a Comment