Children and Water

This week my oldest grand-daughter turned nine. She was very excited about the bike she got from her parents, the notebook she got from her brother and the seashell souvenir I send her every year to mark her birthday.

I love exploring with her the tidal pools on the rocky shoreline near her home on the Atlantic coast. As an artist she loves the colors; as a story-teller she can imagine the drama of the snails and mollusks and other creatures competing or cooperating in their tiny biomes only inches across.

The Audubon Nature Preschool says
“Children are born naturalists. They explore the world with all of their senses, experiment in the environment, and communicate their discoveries to those around them."

If only every child had that opportunity. Sadly, in our downstream-from-Eden world, many North American children have limited exposure to the fascinating world of nature.

Culture critic Wendell Berry laments in his 1993 collection of essays, The Great Work, "Our Children no longer learn how to read the great book of Nature from their own direct experience, or how to interact creatively with the seasonal transformations of the planet. They seldom learn where their water comes from or where it goes. We no longer coordinate our human celebration with the great liturgy of the heavens."

Today’s theme - #8 of my list of ten disciplines for living in the most fully human way in our less-than perfect world – is the discipline of protecting and enhancing the lives of children.

The picture of Jesus holding children on his knee and blessing them runs counter to the culture of his day where adults were considered primary and children secondary. But Jesus models the high value of children. He warns us - "Beware that you don’t look down on any of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels are always in the presence of my heavenly Father."

The Bible has a strong bias in favor of children. Its first story of water scarcity records the cry of a child dying of thirst with his mother desperate but unable to help. The cry of Hagar and her son echoes down through history. Nine thousand people die every day from water-borne disease – more than half of these are small children.

The Bible mandates that children must be protected and cared for - and that is not a soft sentiment. It is part of God’s deep concern for the weak and powerless. We demonstrate our strength when we value and care for children. Children are the living embodiment of our continuity with the past and the future and of our need to invest in the next generation. And our attention to their need for sufficient clean and available water is one of the practical ways we can do that.

Photo Credits: Tiffany Svensson