Hunger

Author: Joan Harman
October 06, 2021

Our congregation is addressing hunger/food this weekend.  I'm addressing thirst/water.

As I write this I'm sitting on our back porch.  We're having a late afternoon soaker rain, a sustaining shower.  No thunder, no lightning, just warm rain.   AAh!  Water!

A very poetic paragraph I read this week led me to think and write about water and our spiritual life.  The author says, " "Water is aptly associated with birth."  Our faith is born at our baptism.  God picks us as child of God when we're born.  Baptism either confirms that belief if we are baptized as an infant or affirms that belief if baptism is a deliberate act by us when older.

"Water is associated with fertility."   There is a surface water reservoir at the lowest elevation in our neighborhood.  Frogs live in it and on its banks.  Thus, eggs laid in the water are fertilized and grow.  Then there's a certain rainy period here in about March, when frog eggs have matured through tadpole, and the adults leap about all over the yards and sidewalks near the water catchment basin.

What waters best fertilize spiritual insights?   Some of us grew into faith near the daily cycles of saltwater beaches.  Some spent many quiet times doing nothing but thinking and day-dreaming for hours along a singing, rushing creek or a mature river.  Some of us had to go camping or day trekking to find water that renews eyes, ears, and nerves at the ends of fingers and toes.

"Water is associated with renewal of the earth."  My friend in Minnesota who farms said this week that he felt good because the soybeans are harvested for the year, and the corn is OK because it can wait a month or so yet, if need be, rain or no rain.

Water is associated with "Earth, barren and lifeless at first, until water found its way home in its constituent elements on meteors."  The biggest % of any entity in our body is water.   Loss of body water due to summer heat or illness is life-      threatening.   We know it as dehydration.

The writer I've been quoting also gives me a great sentence to grab and repeat as my ending.  "As many of us continue to dry out, become distracted and/or become overworked, our superficial identities and roles solidify."  Quite an indictment!  This week enjoy your inner water.  Stick your toes in cold water even if you have to swing your foot up into the bathroom sink to do it.  Water your house plants or eggplant.  Drink a big glass of water all at once.  Read the fourth chapter of the gospel of John to think about drinking that water that will prevent us ever after from spiritual thirst.

Blessings,
Joan K. Harman <><<><
 joanharmank@gmail.com

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