The Great Bethlehem Water Caper

Water from your hometown well is always the sweetest - especially when you’re far from home!

Biyar Daoud - King David Wells, Bethlehem

David was a king-in-waiting – in hiding, actually, with a band of desperado friends. His home-town of Bethlehem had recently fallen into Philistine hands and David began to crave the best water in the world.

"Would I ever like a drink of water from the well at the gate of Bethlehem!” he sighed.

His daring friends secretly accepted the challenge, broke through enemy lines, secured a skein of water and carried it back to David - an exploit full of bravado and esteem for their good friend and leader. No doubt they told in vivid detail how they had pulled off the caper under the noses of the sleeping Philistines.

But for David, the hazards his comrades had faced to get this water for him, made the water sacred. It was no longer a consumable commodity. Drinking it would have reduced it to mere water, when it represented his friends life-blood. Only God was worthy of such a sacrifice. So instead of drinking the water, David poured it out reverently before the Lord.

It’s a timeless tale of friendship and heroic action and it shows how the most common thing like water can have meaning far deeper than the thing itself.

Joy to the World

It’s the Christmas carol that never intended to be one.

Joy to the World is Isaac Watt’s 1719 translation of the Psalm 98. But there’s nothing in that song about a baby or manger, about shepherds or angels.

It’s an ancient Hebrew song that summons the earth to shout for joy to God and burst into jubilant song because God is on the move! It calls on the sea to thunder an encore and rivers to add their applause in a rousing symphony that celebrates or anticipates the arrival of God’s wise and righteous rule over the earth.

Journey of the Magi

Whether you’re traveling this Christmas or staying home, I wish you the joy and wonder of
“a running stream and a water-mill.”

Let me explain. In his poem “The Journey of the Magi” T. S. Eliot describes the difficult journey of the Magi across the deserts of Arabia on their way to Bethlehem:
"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year . . .
The very dead of winter."

The camels were uncooperative, he says, lying down in the melting snow, the night-fires continually going out, the towns unfriendly and dirty, charging high prices, and always the voices of derision, mocking their journey. Until . . .

You Can't Stay Under-Water

It happened in San Francisco on December 13, when I was twelve years old.

My family watched without protest as someone plunged me under water, performing a ritual death and burial. They held their breath - as I held mine - while water filled in over my face.

In another place and time, that ritual might have ended my days. Fish breathe quite freely in water, but people don’t. If death had been the object that day, I would not be writing these words.

But in baptism, death and burial are just prologue to resurrection. When the ritual was over and I stood again on my own feet, everyone celebrated.

Pure as the Driven Snow

Snow – it’s the proverbial measure of clean, bright purity -- as in Snow White and Ivory Snow laundry soap.

I like Mae West’s quip “I used to be pure as snow but I drifted.”

We’ve all drifted, Mae.  Anyone who says otherwise is giving themselves a snow job.  Politicians do it with words; most of us cover up with denial.

King David knew that you can’t cover up forever.  His resume includes a shameful shabby episode – when he seduced his friend’s wife and then arranged the murder of the cuckolded man.  He pretended innocence as long as he could, but eventually broke through his denial.  

Winter With a Vengeance!

It isn’t even officially winter, but already Europe and North America have been walloped by white stuff.

Skiers and school-kids love it, but truckers and the rest of us, usually not so much.

But snow does make cool pictures!

Snow is water vapor art, every flake unique, according to physicist Kenneth Libbrecht, the world’s foremost snow crystal photographer.  Check out his snowflake slide-show in Scientific American .

Peace Like a River

The Peace River in
northern Alberta is named for a point on the river where the indigenous Cree and Beaver people smoked the peace pipe and made a treaty to settle a decades-long feud.

They agreed that the Cree would remain south of the river and the Beaver people would stay on the north.


Apparently, good rivers can make good neighbors.

Isaiah, Israel’s 8th century poet-seer, saw his community as a troubled river – shallow, filled with debris, political intrigue, judicial corruption, morally polluted. He predicted environmental disaster as well as political and economic doom ahead.

Cast Your Bread Upon the Waters

Pyramid Falls, B.C.

First . . . a fine photograph thanks to my brother Phil in Vancouver.

Next . . . this curious proverb to go with it:

Cast your bread upon the waters; you will find it again after many days.

Ecclesiastes 11:1-2

And with that, my dear readers, I invite you to help write today's post.

► What do think this proverb means?

► Have you ever experienced this to be true?

► Doesn't it seem a bit chancey to take risks like this?

Please share your thoughts in the comments below.   A quick sign-in and a spam-screen question - and you'll be casting your food-for-thought upon the wonderful waters of the blogosphere!.

The Cost of Water

What does water cost? And who should pay? Is water a human right or a human need? How should water be financed?

Two contrasting images in the Bible give a hint:
► prisoners forced to buy their own drinking water
► a free-entry hospitality suite for every thirsty person on the planet!

The first story comes from the heart-wrenching lament of Jewish prisoners-of-war in 586 BCE when the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, raped her women and burned the Temple. Among the atrocities they endured, we read,

We have to pay to drink our own water.

Even our firewood comes at a price.

We're slaves, bullied and bowed,

worn out and without any rest.

Lamentations 5:4 The Message