Water

Reverie from a February Day, 2018:

It’s warming up today; as earth begins to thaw, thick clouds of fog settle over the ground and icicles drip steadily from the eves. Bits and chunks are drop to the deck outside my window; giant water drops are splatter and slide down windowpanes wet with condensation. Inside, my houseplants appreciate the moisture-laden air. They dry out quickly in winter, but today the earth around their roots is damp.

Thoughts of water fill my mind. Glad memories of swimming in it, of measuring thirst and sips on a mountain hike, of my father, on a summer evening in the 1940’s, hosing down a steaming rooftop to cool our upstairs bedrooms. That was an extravagance; we didn’t take water for granted, living in the city, we paid for every drop. But our grandmothers didn’t take water for granted either. Both grew up on farms without electricity where every drop of water was pumped— by hand.

So, in my childhood water was measured and conserved. My sisters and I shared the same bathwater; faucets were turned off to brush teeth or suds hands, and laundry water reused. Although water’s value was branded early on into my being, I’d never settled in to meditate on it—until today’s heightened awareness of the wonder of it all.

As I write. extra moisture is coming from the kitchen where two simmering stockpots send out steam and  savory aromas from bean soup and chicken broth. Contemplating  the transformation of clear colorless almost tasteless water into rich broth and soup feels magical—lifting me up, like an untutored child’s first delight at the change of caterpillars into butterflies, the change of cream into cheese, of seed into plant.

Suddenly, cooking water’s capacity to change and release the flavors of meat, vegetables, herbs, and spices and its ability to absorb nutrients and calories into mouth- watering concoctions turns my brain inside out. Once again the commonplace turns my heart towards God and my mind is too small to contain or order all the tumbling facts of common knowledge, all the scriptures, all the thoughts about water that begin to fill it.

Our bodies average between 50 to 60% water; human blood is around 82% water. Like water, we absorb into body, soul and spirit the sweet, the salty, the spicy and savory. Like water, we too are changed by nurturing energizing additives; and, like water, our bodies and souls can stagnate or receive poisons. I repeat the obvious.

Chemists can describe the how the interactions between water and all the substances it accepts vary, I can’t. But I do know the ordinary results of watering gardens, steaming and simmering food and drink, adding soap and bleach to my laundry water and the ordinary consequences of contaminating water with human wastes and chemical poisons. Water may refuse oil, but it does not discriminate between water-soluble substances: it equally accepts sweet perfumes, the healthy minerals in bone broth and the toxic minerals in my watercolor pigments. Water’s steady, consistent indiscrimination reminds me of Jesus’ description of His Father.*

. . . He makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew 5:45

Water’s renewable capacities are amazing. Invisibly, silently, the process of evaporation, distillation and filtration continually purify earth’s water supply. Come spring, the lovely reeds, grasses and trees along a nearby creek will automatically cleanse streams of melting snow and  ground water that’s been tainted by toxic chemical runoff from nearby fields. In mind boggling efficiency, the very plants that cleanse the water are supported by it. Oh the facets and edges of God’s ways! I wonder if Paul realized the natural bio-chemical depths of his metaphor when he compared the cleansing and renewing properties of God’s word to water and wrote

. . . Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it that He might sanctify and cleanse her in the washing of water by the word. Ephesians 5:25-6

Hugh Ross has written at length about the amazing properties of water and its essential role in the development and sustenance of all life—plant, animal and human. As said, my understanding of water’s properties are more domestic and personal. I’m grateful when hot water soothes and loosens stiff fingers and when cold water, frozen in an ice pack, eases the pain that wants to settle in my back. It is satisfying to brush my teeth, water house plants and push a wet mop across a dirty floor and watch the dirt disappear.

Given water’s ubiquity, its vital importance for survival and common usefulness, it makes sense for the Holy Spirit to use water to teach truths about Himself and His ways. Remember the incident of Jesus and the woman at the well? In pointing her away from idolatry and toward true worship, He promised lasting water, so that she would thirst no more.

A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” . . . Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

Jesus answered and said, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you,‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 4:7-13

His image of lasting water must have struck powerfully this spiritually parched woman who  walked to a well, drew her own water, and carried it home in heavy jars. She did not take water for granted.

Water comes up again and again in the life of Jesus— from His first miracle of turning water into wine to His final moments on the cross, when the soldiers pierced His broken heart and blood and water flowed down from his side.

The night before they nailed Him to the cross, in passing the cup of wine to His disciples, He’d said,

Drink you all of it; for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. Matthew 26:27-28

Without water, there would be no blood, no wine, no life on earth. Again, it’s obvious— yet again, how packed with the hidden mysteries of  an invisible God of Spirit and truth revealing Himself to man.

And after Jesus death, when the soldiers pierced His side, the water flowing down from His heart (which forensic scientists and doctors now tell us signifies that His heart had already burst apart upon the cross) recalls the washing of the water of His Word and the cleansing power of His truth upon our souls and spirits and His promise that

He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. John 7:38

Water. Water. Water. Water. Water—Living water flows through Jesus’ life to us. It flowed through Him from the moment his cousin, John who they called the Baptist, immersed Him into the Jordan River and the Holy Spirit fell upon Him as a Dove and led Him away from water—led Him into a desert wilderness to thirst and deprive Himself of drink while He refuted Satan’s lies and repelled the tempter’s temptations.

His closest friends and disciples were fishermen, men who made their living out upon the water. He walked on water and He washed His disciples feet in it. Water, ordinary water, was as much a part of His life as it is of ours. Yes, I know I ramble on.

Is it a coincidence that water droplets are formed around miniscule bits of stardust, dust like the minerals of the earth, dust made up of the elements that form you and me? That each drop of water, under the right conditions, functions like a prism? And that light shining through drops of water breaks into rainbows? In fact, considering the mystery of water, is it   surprising that a rainbow surrounds the throne of God? And that when the light of Jesus Christ, which is the life of men, shines through you and me we begin to resonate with the glory surrounding His own throne?

Nor, on reflection, does it surprise me that a foggy, water logged day, with wet droplets on my windowpane and soup on my stove converge to remind me of Jesus. Without being pantheistic, our Creator wrote revelation of Himself into all the ordinariness around us, into all that He made. Lord, Give us eyes to see.

Note:  Though of course God does not absorb evil; He rejects it; He overcomes it; He transforms it with love— and what irrevocably resists His will, will eventually be forever separated and banished from His domain.

Note: How I wrote this without mentioning Masaru Emoto’s experiments eludes me.
He found that water frozen after blessings and exposure to positive thoughts and feelings formed beautiful, shining, symmetrical snowflake crystals, but water frozen after cursing and negativity formed shadowy unformed, asymmetrical structures. Applying his discovery to us, since our bodies contain water, it follows that blessing and cursing, positive and negative influences, will change us physically as well in our souls and spirits. Let us bless.