"What water can do..."

"Isn't it amazing
Isn't it amazing it's true
Isn't it amazing,
what water can do.."

I hope you enjoy Johnny Diaz' song, "What Water Can Do," his tribute to the courage and generosity of the Nashville community in reaching out to flood victims, and his reflection on the power of baptism in the lives of Christians.

I love thinking about the nature, and power, of water.  To lift a ship off of its moorings, to inspire neighbors to service and sacrifice...to cleanse, refresh, nourish, and buoy us.

One of my favorite quotes is by the late celtic poet, John O'Donohue.  He writes:

"I would love to live like a river flows,
carried by the surprise of its own unfolding."

This is my deepest desire tonight.  To be like a river of water.  To let love flow, so unconditionally, so gently...over, and around, all that would  obstruct its only purpose...to reach the sea...that its touch only softens and hones all the sharp edges in the world. 

I long to live in the space of the question...to know nothing "for sure" but that: "I AM that I am"...and to still (never the less) be at peace.  I yearn to have only one reason for being...to flow in such deep stillness that it doesn't matter what is thrown in my path...I am still me...and I can still love.

So what does water do.  It just is. It refreshes the thirsty, and inspires the photographer.  It is breath to the fish, and nourishment to the plant.   It brings the dry savanna to life, and cleanses the feet of the Master.  It baptizes, and christens, and weeps, and purifies.  It carries cargo across the sea, holds aircraft carriers aloft, and safe, and, as Mary Baker Eddy reminds us, "yields to the touch of a finger..."

It softens shards of broken glass, and hones boulders with the tenderness of a mother's tear.  It reshapes fields, carves new paths through mountains, and sets boundaries for tribes.  It is home to the sea turtle, and fills a mother's womb.  It sits on the petal of a rose, and falls from a canyon wall with a thunderous roar.  It powers cities, and drives mills, it dilutes, and moistens, and sweeps the plains with healing rain.

I want to be like water.  To just show up each moment in the elemental balance of my spiritual identity...the complete and undiluted reflection of God's Allness-in-all.  And to flow.  To just flow in stillness, in the never-the-lessness of who I am, wherever I am sent. To love all that I see, and come in contact with, on my journey towards the sea...towards a greater understanding of the unity and wholenss of divine Being.  To be, as Eddy suggests,  "a drop of water, that is one with the ocean."

To be like water...

to be love...to just be love -- moment-by-moment, drop-by-drop,

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS