Friday, 28 June 2013

We are Water

Water is the stuff of life, all life on earth depends on it. We are used to seeing the earth as land surrounded by sea but in ancient thinking, not knowing what lay beyond the ocean, the sea was the dominant, most imposing feature of the earth. It was a powerful entity onto which the land simply clung.

The Bible has a lot to say about water too. Interestingly it links it to the early days on earth when we know, from biological research, that the earth was something of a 'soup of life'. Cells formed and developed to form the building blocks of everything we see on earth today.

As well as the source of early physical life water is seen as the source of spiritual life. The spiritual searcher is like a deer who pants for water. If you have ever been truly thirsty and unable to access water then you will know what this means.

In my own spiritual searching images of water have featured prominently. One of the first quotes I wrote down when I first started to ponder such things was from an ancient Japanese poem. It reads,
'My heart thinking "how beautiful he is" is like a swift river.
Though one dams it and dams it,
it will still break through.'

Water is the spring of life and is the description used of Jesus in the Christian tradition and notably the Gospel of John. Jesus is the spring, bubbling up to life abundant. In baptism, the start of the Christian life, water makes new just as it gave life in the beginning.

One of my favourite programmes of late is the American series Nashville and I particularly love this song 'We are water'.

It reminds me so much of the journey we are all on. Constantly moving over new terrain, constantly on the move, always searching but ultimately heading back to the sea. As Zora Neale Hurston writes,

'Don't you realize that the sea is the home of the water? All the water is off on a journey unless it's in the sea, and it's homesick, and bound to make its way home someday.'

Thank you for stopping by!