All Streams Flow to the Sea

Qoheleth, the world-weary narrator of Ecclesiastes, often thought to be the voice of Solomon, Israel’s sage king, looked on the phenomenon of rivers flowing to the sea and saw in them evidence of the tedium and futility of life.

All streams flow into the sea,

yet the sea is never full.

To the place the streams come from,

there they return again.

All things are wearisome,

more than one can say.

Ecclesiastes 1:7-8

To Serve and Protect

In the Garden of Eden story in Genesis 2:5-15, Adam’s priestly task also included a protective role. He was to ‘tend’ the garden and to ‘watch over’ it. Other translations say to ‘keep’ it or ‘take care of’ it.

The Hebrew word for ‘keep’, samar, is a military term. It is exactly the same word used in the next chapter when the angel with a flaming sword ‘guards’ the way to the tree of life against intruders. It is used again in the fourth chapter in Cain’s retort, “Am I my brother’s keeper?

Drenched By the Dew of Heaven

The dew fell generously on the gardens of Nebuchadnezzar. His palace and gardens were one of the wonders of the world and he took pride in his architectural achievements. But he was about to learn an important life-lesson from the silent power of the dew.

As he tells his story in Daniel Chapter 4, he was at home in his palace contended and prosperous, when he had a dream that made him afraid, terrified him, in fact. He dreamed of a magnificent tree cut down by a decree from heaven; the tree had a human mind, but it lost its sanity and became like an animal. exposed to the weather for seven years.

A palace advisor named Daniel interpreted the dream as a warning to the king and urged him to practice mercy and justice.

Unruly Child

Imagine a womb large enough to hold the oceans of the world until it was time for them 'to burst forth from the womb'!  That is the bizarre but graphic image God uses in The Book of Job in speaking of the birth of creation.

Then, expanding on the birth metaphor, God describes wrapping the new-born Sea-child as a mother swaddles an infant: 'I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness.' 

Imagine thick ocean fog - Who can see through it? Who can see beyond the horizon or penetrate the silence of all that lies in the deep darkness of the sea? What a rich metaphor for the mystery of the oceans, their vast distances, beyond our sight and knowledge!

Soaked and Soiled - the Joy of Serving

In first-century Palestine, it was courtesy to welcome guests to your home by washing their feet. Since most of the roads and laneways were unpaved, both in rainy seasons and dry, people’s feet would quickly be caked with dust or mud. Simple hospitality required a host to arrange for a servant to wash the feet of the guests when they arrived.

But as Jesus and his friends gathered to celebrate Passover, there were no servants to wait on them. And every disciple was jockeying for the right to sit closer to Jesus, acutely focused on his prestige in the group. No one moved to initiate this basic gesture of hospitality.

A Cup of Cold Water

Today we celebrate – Post #100

Since this Wonder of Water blog launched last July, I’ve been drinking draughts from God’s deep well and trying to make each post a spillway of fresh cold water for you.

So please lift a tall glass with me and repeat these words of Jesus - "If you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, . . . you’ll surely be rewarded.” Matthew 10:42 NLT

That’s one cool promise!

World Wetlands Day

I used to think that February 2 was simply Groundhog Day.

But apparently it’s also World Wetlands Day – a day to celebrate and appreciate the rich bio-diversity and economic benefits of an under-appreciated wonder of water. Forty years ago on this date, the world signed the Ramsar Convention to protect the world’s wetlands.

I had never heard about Ramsar until this year. I used to think of wetlands simply as wastelands – ugly, mosquito-breeding eyesores on the landscape. I considered them like the Dead Marshes near Mordor in Lord of the Rings whose mists and vapors gave off a terrible stench.

Actually, wet-lands serve us very well. Mud-flats and mangrove swamps buffer the coastline and reduce erosion. Swamps, bogs, marshes and fens are huge sponges that absorb flood-water, filter out pollutants and hold them in the soil, improving water quality. They filter rainwater run-off, minimizing the silting of rivers and streams.

Desert Training

The Book of  Exodus tells an epic story – the transforma-tion of refugees from mud-pit slaves to chosen people of God – but it’s a roller-coaster odyssey, and they were slow learners!

After an astonishing deliverance at the Red Sea, these refugees trekked three days into the desert of Sinai without finding water. What a difference three days can make.

Yahweh had promised to adopt them as family, to be their God and bring them to a land of safe haven. Now the parched desert seemed to mock the promises of the invisible God.

But there’s more to the desert than meets the eye – and they were not to be the last refugees in history to be ravaged by thirst.

What Really Made the Nile Turn Red?

It was the first of the Ten Plagues – and it wasn’t pretty. The great River was bleeding and undrinkable. In a land with no rain, people were desperate. It was an ecological disaster – and it became even worse.

Hungary's Red Sludge
Photo Credit: Newscom

There were no industries to blame – no BP Oil Spill, no Hungarian Alumina tailings leak. This was a natural disaster with serious religious undertones.

Scientifically, there are various perfectly natural explanations. The Nile normally floods every year in late summer. If the annual flood were excessively high, it may have brought microorganisms such as Pfiesteria piscicida which could redden and poison the river and cause conditions that would kill the fish. Epidemiological theories and counter-theories abound.

All that the Rain Brings

I will send rain on your land in its season,

both autumn and spring rains,

Deuteronomy 11:14

At the Canadian Clay and Glass Museum in Waterloo, Ontario I saw a sculpture titled All That the Rain Brings by British Columbia ceramic artist Mary Fox.

Let me try to describe it and interpret what it seems to me the title and the sculpture suggest about rain.

All That The Rain Brings
Sculptor Mary Fox
Photographer: Janet Dwyer

The uppermost of three small bowls is tilted down-wards. Rain is sheer gift. It comes from above and what it brings is life-giving. It supports us biologically as surely as the wavy ceramic column supports the bowl physically and artistically.

The downward flow of the three bowls follows the flow of rain from cloud to earth and streams and back to the sea. The three bowls suggest multiple ways that rain sustains our lives physically, economically, spiritually.  We use water for drinking, washing, cooking, agriculture, industry and recreation.

The bowls are positioned erratically suggesting that the rain is not a neat and tidy process. We can’t control when the rains come – they may be late or early - doesn't rain often seem inconvenient? -  sometimes the rain is too much or too little. None of the bowls is level as if to remind us that we can’t hold on to water.

This sculpture looks to me like a haggard old woman – and perhaps that’s what we are as we wait for rain. We do our best to catch it and keep it, and we manage it as we can, but at best we’re at the mercy of the elements. We are receptors of nature’s bounty.

And maybe that’s part of what rain brings us – an extravagant gift, a humble reminder of our identity and lessons in patience, humility, gratitude and . . . wonder! As dramatically as rain brings the dry land back to life, so this gift - wonderful in every way - renews hope and energizes life. I'm pretty glad about that.

Generous Source of all that the rain brings,

how gladly we welcome your gift of rain. 

How vital it is -- and yet how anonymous You are.

Teach us your name, your largesse, your modesty.

Help us learn to tilt our bowls to others

as freely as You have tilted yours towards us. Amen

If interested, you can see more work by Mary Fox at the Jonathan Bancroft-Snell Gallery in London, Ontario - http://www.jonathons.ca/