Today, October 15th is Blog Action Day.
What does that mean?
That simply means that bloggers from across the globe are writing about one issue and this year's issue is water. I can remember the elementary school lessons that cautioned us about wasting water. Turn off the faucet while you brush your teeth. Take shorter showers. Don't run the dishwasher or washing machine unless there is a full load. All of these lessons were designed to encourage us to be mindful of our tendencies to waste this precious resource.
In America, we buy filters and bottled water...because we can! We turn on a faucet and expect water to flow freely. We take long hot showers and at worst are inconvenienced when a family member gets in the shower first and uses all of the hot water. (Although, if we wait long enough, the hot water heater will make another hot shower possible.)We wash dishes in water that is so hot that we need gloves or burn cream. We pour water for our pets and some of us even use bottled water for Fido and Mittens. We own fish tanks that can hold more water than some people have access to for bathing. In other countries, people...in particular, Colored Girls...walk for miles to acquire water for their families. I get upset when I have to carry a heavy pallet of bottled water into the house and I become indignant when that same bottled water is not on sale at my favorite grocery store. Thinking about my sisters around the globe puts my indignation in check rather quickly. While I am grumbling along the fifty feet from my car to my front door, they are walking for miles in all manner of weather conditions because a heavy pallet of bottled water is not an option. There is no luxury; there is simply survival.
This week, a friend posted a song on Facebook that called me to remember my baptism. I did remember that luxurious baptism in a heated pool in a Baptist Church in northern New Jersey. I thought of the many happy people who gave me the opportunity to place my hands over theirs as they prepared to confess their faith and be submerged in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. I thought of the deacons who made sure that the pool was sanitary and the room was warm and humid enough to cause a Black woman's hair to frizz hard enough to push her church hat right off of her head! I thought of the joy that consumes us on the day that we are baptized in clean, warm water and then I also thought of the pilgrims who travel to the Ganges for a spiritual cleansing in water that is considered the dirtiest in the world. I wonder if I would have been so happy on the day of my baptism if the water had been brown and muddy. I wonder if I would have been as happy for them to "take me to the water" if I couldn't see the bottom of the pool. I wonder...do we sanitize more than the pool and the water with our processes? (My OCD tendencies are okay with the chlorinated water, but I still wonder...)
Water is key to our survival as human and spiritual beings. It's funny to me that although many of us have access to this key element, we are still thirsty. We are dying of thirst and there is no relief in sight. We are holding supersized cups full of so-called energy drinks, and yet we are still dying of thirst and too tired to move. We have access to living waters, and yet we find ourselves chapped, parched, and desolate inside.
Today, I pray that we will be moved to seek that water that satisfies the soul. I pray that we will abandon our filters, our bottles, our designer, mineral, and otherwise overpriced water that does not satisfy. I pray that we will reconsider that which satisfies and pour some out for someone who also needs a sip. I pray that we would teach our children to be mindful of how they use water as a natural resource, but I also pray that we would teach our children to seek, find, and drink from the Living Waters that satisfy the soul.
Shalom!
Living Water is readily available to all of us. Let's work to make clean water equally available...
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