Recently I feel like the mariner in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.” The recent fundraiser for ALS has been a lot of fun to watch and has done a lot of good for those stricken with a horrible disease. And yet tongue in cheek, Chip Masters, president of the Department of Water and Power in California, reminds us that as we care for one another, we must not be so giddy with our own goodness that we forget to care for Mother Earth.
In the last one hundred years, humans have drained close to one thousand years worth of water from Mother Earth’s underground aquifers. This lack of stewardship along with corporate privatization has created a crisis on every continent. Some citizens in the U.S. particularly feel a divine right to use resources without consideration for the global impact. Human beings must remember that we are one small part of creation asked to serve and preserve the rest of Earth for all who call this planet home.
Fining people for indiscriminate water use in California’s drought location is just as ironic as Detroit families being torn apart because their homes have no water in the country’s most water rich location. The fact that $5 million public dollars had been raised for indigent water needs in Detroit only rubs salt into the wound.
Lest we forget, God asked us to serve and preserve the abundant water, which was already in the garden called Earth before humans arrived. God planted rain forests on every continent, as the perfect filtering and recycling system for even toxin prone humans. Our finite water supply continuously pours from the clouds to be used on earth. Water then filters through layers of organic matter to be returned clean to rivers and oceans so it can recycle back to the clouds. We live within the water system, have bodies made of the water system and should be lovers and protectors for this water system.
Let us mature in the ways we perceive the resources of our home, and not behave like reckless children who have no understanding of what it takes to maintain a household. Let us have fun with water and conduct business with water in ways which preserve water for the least of these. We need not pit personal needs against Mother Earth. Like any child caught in innocent error, let us humbly repent and pray to use our creativity in more Earth preserving ways. When we do, God has promised to heal our land. Let the healing begin…peace and blessings
Rev. M. Dele, is founder of Nature’s Friends and board member of VA Interfaith Power & Light. With UCC and Baptist affiliations, she weaves her roles as meditation teacher, Permaculturist, storyteller, and Climate Reality leader into a social fabric which redeems soil and souls together. http://www.naturesfriends.ning.com