The Message of Water

Over the past few years, there have been two words frequently heard in national news reports: The words "flood" and "drought."  Less frequently heard has been an integrally related word that has religious connotations:  The word "water."

The words "flood" and "drought" speak of fears.  The word "water" speaks of life.  (I wonder if we, in our frequently urbanized lives, would appreciate Nature more if the news media more often talked about water itself.)

As I said, water has religious associations, and they are rich.  As examples from the Bible: Water is the very source of life, is associated with the water of birth (and of being re-born through baptism), is a symbol of fertility, and is a means of cleansing, both physically and symbolically.

In only the first four chapters (about one-fifth) of the New Testament's Gospel of John, the word "water" appears sixteen times, thus demonstrating its power as a theological symbol.  A few decades ago in the U.S., when the northern and southern branches of the Presbyterian Church re-united, the baptism liturgy became inordinately lengthy because there were so many Biblical references to water that both branches of the church (with their separate liturgical wordings) wanted preserved.

In the most famous book from Taoism, the Tao Te Ching, water becomes an important feminine symbol of the unnameable Ultimate.  The ironical ability of water to change even stone over time also turns water into a metaphor for ideal human behavior.  Such as in this passage:

"Nothing in this world seems softer and more yielding than water,

but nothing can compare with water

for defeating the hard and strong."

                              -- Tao Te Ching (Chap. 78)

In our lives and society today, do we know where the rivers and bayous that wind around and through our cities run?  Can we trace their paths in our minds?

The Hindu tradition contains in the Rig Veda a prayer that is perhaps the oldest written prayer in the world.  The prayer uses the cycle of water back to the sea in order speak to the unity and purpose of all of life:

"May the thread of my song

be not cut

before my life merges

into the sea of love."

~~~

Where do you see water in the world around you?  What is it like?  What is the water doing?

(The passage from the Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu,

 is my own rendering based on several translations.)

(The Rig Veda translation is adapted from that of Eknath Easwaran, in God Makes the Rivers to Flow, © 1991.)