What a powerful image water
can be. This week as we gathered at the
roundtable, we shared two stories about water.
The Exodus story (Exodus 17:1-7) takes
place in the wilderness after Moses has led the Israelites out of slavery in
Egypt. Out in the wilderness they find
out how dependent they are on God, for there is neither food nor water out in
this dry land. But God provides manna for
their hunger each morning, and then, to quench their thirst, God brings forth
water from a rock.
The gospel story (John 4:5-42) finds
Jesus at a well outside a Samaritan city.
A Samaritan woman approaches the well, and Jesus strikes up a conversation
with her. They talk surprisingly easily –
their conversation shifting back and forth between the literal water from the well
and the metaphorical water of life that Jesus says he has to offer.
As we read these texts
together at the roundtable, we were repeatedly drawn back to the essential
qualities of water. Even though, in both
stories, water is standing in for something bigger, more abstract, we found
ourselves pulled back to the practical aspects of accessing water that is fit
for drinking. Our basic human need for
water was showing through.
This is what makes water
such a powerful image for spiritual things.
It elicits all kinds of emotions related to the pleasing and calming sensation
of water, the relief of having your thirst sated, as well as the panic of
knowing drinkable water is not available.
It was impossible for us to stay away from the physical aspects of water
while we were trying to attend to the spiritual aspects of the image of
water. Water is a powerful image because
it so closely links the material with the spiritual, the tangible with the
ethereal, the concrete with the abstract.
Presbyterians are familiar with
the criticism that we approach worship with too much head and not enough
heart. We are accused of loving the Lord
with our whole mind – and leaving it at that.
Thus, an embodied spirituality is frequently hard for us. In fact, the mere idea of spirituality may
leave us mystified.
When I first became a Presbyterian
in the mid-1990s, I remember hearing fellow members speak of a desire to have
more spirituality in their religious life, but they were not clear about what
that actually meant. Interestingly, we
felt its lack but we were not yet sure what we were seeking.
Presbyterians, like some
other denominations, have dwelt too much in theology as theory, words as
concepts. We behave as though we have
risen above our bodies. Yet our bodies
stand abandoned and crying out in thirst.
How much more spiritual we might be if we, on a daily basis, connect the
material with the spiritual.
Richard Rohr writes, “’Thisness’ is the actual spiritual
doorway to the everywhere and always, much more than concepts.”[1]
Is it possible that the best pathway to things unknown are these ordinary known
things, like water? And that the way to
greater spirituality that so many of us desire is simply being truly attentive
to the material things of life?
Photo: The Susquehanna River in Bloomsburg, PA
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