Water Water Everywhere

(This should have been posted last week, but alas, it wasn't!!)

I first learned to swim at about 7 - or maybe 8. I don’t think I was afraid of the water - but I do remember numerous ear infections from the overly chlorinated water - or maybe under chlorinated, who knows. I think I even enjoyed the freedom of being in the water knowing that 1) I wouldn’t sink and 2) getting away from my little sister who was also learning to swim, but taunting her with my expertise...

I can remember playing in the puddles after the rain - in spite of mothers admonishments not to - “you’ll get dirty!” Well isn’t that the point?

Bath time was a treat - Gramma was the bath giver - and it was always fun.

Saturday night ‘bath’ night - and popcorn - only Daddy could make it right - and my sisters & I got to share an entire bottle of Coke while we watched TV. Yes - black and white and maybe only one channel!….go figure………..

But those were happy times, most of them...........

Fast forward to high school and mandatory swim lessons - dog paddling in place for 2 - 3 minutes - maybe more - swimming laps, staying submerged for what seemed like an eternity - just to prove to the instructor that we could - AND to get that coveted ‘pass.’ Back in the day we had to pass gym and swimming in order to ‘pass’ high school….baggy green cotton swim suits and ice cold water notwithstanding (fortunately it was an all girl’s class!!) - it had to be done.

So maybe it’s no wonder that water and watery places hold a special place in my heart - the ocean shore - whether rocky and or sandy, it doesn’t matter. And there are as many different rocky and sandy shores as there are grains of sand…..

Rivers rushing and tumbling over rocky beds, smoothing the harshness of the boulders to a soft and soothing stone for my pocket. Quiet canals as still as glass - so still God can count, again, every hair on my head. Oceans of vastness as far as the eye can see. So many colors of blue that even God must get dizzy just thinking about it all. Snorkeling at the Barrier Reef is a lesson in the majesty and artistry of God - who else could make fish of many colors (Joseph would be jealous) and those shapes? The most imaginative among us couldn’t come up with any of this on our own.

Lakes large enough to get whipped into a frenzy or small enough to walk across. Have you ever stood in the headwaters of the Mississippi? A seemingly inconsequential puddle, if you didn’t know where to look for it, you’d miss it altogether.

The pond in front of our house is coming to back to life - waking up after a winter’s nap. The geese are back, but so is the green stuff growing up from the bottom - the frogs will breed and it won’t be long before the edge of the water will be thick with black tadpoles. The turtles will be sunning themselves after a hard day of playing hide and go seek with their eggs. They hide - the raccoons seek.

No matter where we travel - there is a significant body of water somewhere close by (actually every body of water is significant - just ask those who live there…) Water that is refreshing, healing, cool sometimes warm, always full of life. But least we get too sentimental, it is also a harsh force - death and destruction are just as possible as the healing. God made a promise once upon a time - no more total destruction by water - but sometimes it seems as if God is playing it pretty close to the edge.

Water. We and all of creation need it in just the right amount. Too much will kill us and not enough will taunt death.

So maybe that is why it is so fascinating - that juxtaposition of life and death - as if it were a game - surely we will win?

As I write this - the water falling out of the sky has changed from rain to hail to snow within about 20 minutes. So it’s not just the liquid water that we hold in awe - but snow, ice cubes to cool our summer drinks and icicles to arouse our imagination, sleet, hail, steam. Mountains made of ice that are thousands of years old - and the one in a trillion snow flake that disappears the moment it touches your outstretched tongue……

Our scriptures talk about Jesus as the living water but there is dead water too. Water so full of salt that nothing will live there… Water so thick with salt you could almost walk on it. Dead water - full of the poisons that get flushed out of our houses, chemicals that are needed to make the things we need and want - dumped unceremoniously into rivers and lakes - poisoning the very earth that God created and said was ‘good’ - well not any more it ain’t.

No wonder water is a wonder - it runs the gamut from Awesome and Full of Life and Healing and Soothing and Majestic to Deadly - and Dead.

Even Jesus - the Living Water for all of creation - death that brings life. Fortunately that was not the end of the story - dead Living Water resurrected - infused with new Life- so that we too might be refreshed, our thirst quenched, and live.