Time Immemorial to Time Immortal: Relationships with Professionals as Extended Family
David Eijsenck Living water - Scarboro Missions · time immemorial, water—indeed the entire...
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overall loss of available freshwa- ter. Earth is often called the blue planet because of the abundance of water on its surface. However, 97.2% of that is ocean. Only 2.8% is freshwater, most of which is frozen in glaciers and ice sheets. That leaves less than 1% of fresh- water resources available, and that is all there ever will be. The waters of the Earth exist in a closed system and no more fresh- water can be added to the cycle. All life is related to water Water is a raw material of creation. The emergence of life and the presence of water are intimately bonded. Most life orig- inated in the oceans 3,500 million years ago. The salt in our blood is literally the history of the emer- gence of life from the salty oceans. All life is related to water. Mammals, including humans, still emerge from water—the embryonic fluids. Water flows through every cell of every life form. It is in every part of us— our memories, cells, blood, spinal fluid and digestive workings. Sophisticated systems in our bodies retain, eliminate or evapo- rate water. Babies are 75% water, men 64% and women 58%. Even our food contains water: 95% of a tomato, 90% of milk, 85% of an apple and 80% of a potato. Water has a very simple mole- cular composition: two hydrogen and one oxygen, yet it is a physi- cal anomaly. Water can exist in all three states—as a liquid, a solid and a vapour—depending on the temperature. It is denser as a liquid than a solid—while most other liquids sink in solid form, solid water (ice) floats and expands. Ice insulates the oceans, pre- vents evaporation, keeps temperatures stable and enables aquatic life to sur- vive the winter. Snow and ice prevent the Earth from warming too quickly. Even the whiteness of snow, ice (solid water) and white clouds (water vapour) reflects rather than absorbs sunlight and energy, keeping temperatures stable. Water absorbs large amounts of energy (heat) without evapo- rating and cools slowly. Within the whole Earth system, it both absorbs heat and transports warm water through huge ocean currents to warm other parts of the Earth. Oceans regulate the Earth’s temperature by storing heat in summer and releasing it in winter. The next time you get very cold or very hot, understand that it is the water in your body preventing you from dehydrat- ing, freezing or boiling to death. The spirituality of water “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” (John 4:10) W ater is a sacred symbol in all religions and is frequent- ly found in sacred texts. Faith traditions use water in imagery, rituals, prayers and teachings. Each tradition has an awareness of the natural world as a primary place of revelation and religious experience, a place of beauty, elegance and inspiration. Since time immemorial, water—indeed the entire natural world—has revealed the Divine. Water flows through, sustains and cleanses all. Thus we can speak of “sacred waters” not just as a symbol, because water is the sustainer of life—it is truly living water. Yet, in mainstream culture to consider water as sacred seems superfluous, as if it is only legiti- mate to view life as a commodity and to discuss ecological ruin in credit and debit terms. This gov- erning economic worldview must be countered with a more power- ful and alluring understanding of life where the Earth and its life forms are not a set of resources but modes of Divine presence. It is imperative that we reawaken to an awareness of a sacred presence active within the Earth’s sublime and sophisticated life systems, including water, to which the appropriate response is awe. SEPTEMBER 2004/SCARBORO MISSIONS 5 W ater, source of life. If we could ponder, even briefly, the nature and story of water, we gain some appreciation for the elegance of water systems and the genius within Earth’s systems. If we could ponder, even for a few seconds, the Earth within its time frames—four billion, hundreds of millions of years—we gain a perspective and some needed humility. Think of all the ways we use water in one day. We depend on water for cleansing, nourishment, recreation, entertainment, agri- culture, industry, transportation, religious rituals and inspiration. Our relationship to water is daily, often and multiple, but there are dimensions of water to be explored beyond our use of it. In examining the nature and sacred- ness of water, we begin to under- stand water within a new context in which humans are not the sole reference point, but rather part of the whole web of creation. The nature of water What is water? To answer this question, we need to look back to the Earth’s creation and evolution beginning more than four billion years ago. Over hundreds of millions of years the Earth devel- oped from dust particles into a large, hot, molten planet with a thin rocky crust. The climate was sulphuric, toxic to life as we know it, and at boiling tempera- tures for millions of years. As steam condensed, the miracle of rain and weather cycles began. The first rains fell, followed by torrential rains, until rivers ran over the Earth’s surface and pooled into great seas. For 300 million years it rained day and night, cooling the surface. Thus began a continuous cir- culation of water known as the hydrologic cycle. In this delicate- ly balanced cycle, the sun causes water to rise as vapour from the oceans, cool, fall back on the Earth as fresh water, and return to the oceans. It is a cycle that nourishes, purifies and cleanses. Another example of the stun- ning gracefulness of the Earth’s systems is the relationship between water and forests. Rain falls onto the trees and descends into the root systems, soil and organisms. From there it is taken up into the trunks and leaves. This sophisticated process—that took the Earth two billion years to fine-tune—releases oxygen and excess water vapour, now puri- fied. Large forests are their own ecosystems, demonstrating the purification systems, lifecycles and wizardry of water. This is one reason why deforestation has a major impact on water avail- ability, soil erosion, pollution in rivers and ground water, and an Living water A GLIMPSE AT THE NATURE AND SACREDNESS OF WATER—SOURCE AND SUSTAINER OF ALL LIFE 4 SCARBORO MISSIONS/SEPTEMBER 2004 By Heather Eaton THE FIRST RAINS FELL, FOLLOWED BY TORRENTIAL RAINS, UNTIL RIVERS RAN OVER THE EARTH’S SURFACE AND POOLED INTO GREAT SEAS. Pausing to have a little fun while on the task of collecting water for the family. Dominican Republic. David Eijsenck
Transcript of David Eijsenck Living water - Scarboro Missions · time immemorial, water—indeed the entire...
overall loss of available freshwa-ter.
Earth is often called the blueplanet because of the abundanceof water on its surface. However,97.2% of that is ocean. Only 2.8%is freshwater, most of which isfrozen in glaciers and ice sheets.That leaves less than 1% of fresh-water resources available, andthat is all there ever will be. Thewaters of the Earth exist in aclosed system and no more fresh-water can be added to the cycle.
All life is related to waterWater is a raw material of
creation. The emergence of lifeand the presence of water areintimately bonded. Most life orig-inated in the oceans 3,500 millionyears ago. The salt in our blood isliterally the history of the emer-gence of life from the saltyoceans. All life is related to water.Mammals, including humans,still emerge from water—theembryonic fluids. Water flowsthrough every cell of every lifeform. It is in every part of us—our memories, cells, blood, spinalfluid and digestive workings.Sophisticated systems in ourbodies retain, eliminate or evapo-rate water. Babies are 75% water,men 64% and women 58%. Evenour food contains water: 95% of atomato, 90% of milk, 85% of anapple and 80% of a potato.
Water has a very simple mole-cular composition: two hydrogenand one oxygen, yet it is a physi-cal anomaly. Water can exist in allthree states—as a liquid, a solidand a vapour—depending on the
temperature. It is denser asa liquid than a solid—whilemost other liquids sink insolid form, solid water (ice)floats and expands. Iceinsulates the oceans, pre-vents evaporation, keepstemperatures stable andenables aquatic life to sur-vive the winter. Snow andice prevent the Earth fromwarming too quickly. Eventhe whiteness of snow, ice(solid water) and white clouds(water vapour) reflects ratherthan absorbs sunlight and energy,keeping temperatures stable.
Water absorbs large amountsof energy (heat) without evapo-rating and cools slowly. Withinthe whole Earth system, it bothabsorbs heat and transportswarm water through huge oceancurrents to warm other parts ofthe Earth. Oceans regulate theEarth’s temperature by storingheat in summer and releasing itin winter. The next time you getvery cold or very hot, understandthat it is the water in your bodypreventing you from dehydrat-ing, freezing or boiling to death.
The spirituality of water“If you knew the gift of God,
and who it is that is saying toyou, ‘Give me a drink,’ youwould have asked him, and hewould have given you livingwater.” (John 4:10)
Water is a sacred symbol inall religions and is frequent-
ly found in sacred texts. Faithtraditions use water in imagery,
rituals, prayers and teachings.Each tradition has an awarenessof the natural world as a primaryplace of revelation and religiousexperience, a place of beauty,elegance and inspiration. Sincetime immemorial, water—indeedthe entire natural world—hasrevealed the Divine.
Water flows through, sustainsand cleanses all. Thus we canspeak of “sacred waters” not justas a symbol, because water is thesustainer of life—it is truly livingwater. Yet, in mainstream cultureto consider water as sacred seemssuperfluous, as if it is only legiti-mate to view life as a commodityand to discuss ecological ruin incredit and debit terms. This gov-erning economic worldview mustbe countered with a more power-ful and alluring understanding oflife where the Earth and its lifeforms are not a set of resourcesbut modes of Divine presence.
It is imperative that wereawaken to an awareness of asacred presence active within theEarth’s sublime and sophisticatedlife systems, including water, towhich the appropriate response isawe.
SEPTEMBER 2004/SCARBORO MISSIONS 5
Water, source of life. If wecould ponder, evenbriefly, the nature and
story of water, we gain someappreciation for the elegance ofwater systems and the geniuswithin Earth’s systems. If wecould ponder, even for a fewseconds, the Earth within its timeframes—four billion, hundreds ofmillions of years—we gain aperspective and some neededhumility.
Think of all the ways we usewater in one day. We depend onwater for cleansing, nourishment,recreation, entertainment, agri-culture, industry, transportation,religious rituals and inspiration.Our relationship to water is daily,often and multiple, but there aredimensions of water to beexplored beyond our use of it. Inexamining the nature and sacred-ness of water, we begin to under-stand water within a new contextin which humans are not the solereference point, but rather part ofthe whole web of creation.
The nature of waterWhat is water? To answer this
question, we need to look back tothe Earth’s creation and evolutionbeginning more than four billionyears ago. Over hundreds ofmillions of years the Earth devel-oped from dust particles into alarge, hot, molten planet with athin rocky crust. The climate wassulphuric, toxic to life as weknow it, and at boiling tempera-tures for millions of years. Assteam condensed, the miracle of
rain and weather cycles began.The first rains fell, followed bytorrential rains, until rivers ranover the Earth’s surface andpooled into great seas. For 300million years it rained day andnight, cooling the surface.
Thus began a continuous cir-culation of water known as thehydrologic cycle. In this delicate-ly balanced cycle, the sun causeswater to rise as vapour from theoceans, cool, fall back on theEarth as fresh water, and returnto the oceans. It is a cycle thatnourishes, purifies and cleanses.
Another example of the stun-ning gracefulness of the Earth’s
systems is the relationshipbetween water and forests. Rainfalls onto the trees and descendsinto the root systems, soil andorganisms. From there it is takenup into the trunks and leaves.This sophisticated process—thattook the Earth two billion yearsto fine-tune—releases oxygen andexcess water vapour, now puri-fied. Large forests are their ownecosystems, demonstrating thepurification systems, lifecyclesand wizardry of water. This isone reason why deforestation hasa major impact on water avail-ability, soil erosion, pollution inrivers and ground water, and an
Living waterA GLIMPSE AT THE NATURE AND SACREDNESS OF WATER—SOURCE AND
SUSTAINER OF ALL LIFE
4 SCARBORO MISSIONS/SEPTEMBER 2004
By Heather Eaton
THE FIRST RAINS FELL, FOLLOWED BY TORRENTIAL
RAINS, UNTIL RIVERS RAN OVER THE EARTH’S SURFACE
AND POOLED INTO GREAT SEAS.
Pausing to have a little funwhile on the task of collecting
water for the family.Dominican Republic.
Dav
id E
ijsen
ck
desecration of the sacred. To ruinEarth’s water is offensive beyondwords. It makes us unworthy ofthe gift of life. With a reverencefor water—its simplicity, itssacredness, its place within thegenius of the Earth—comes anawareness that we are held withinthe beauty and intricate patternsof water. From this position ofhumility, awe and wonder, wecan approach water issues such asthe human right to water, privati-zation of water resources, andpollution, with deeper, moretruthful and more effectiveresponses.∞
Heather Eaton holds an interdisci-plinary Ph.D. in ecology, feminismand theology from the University ofSt. Michael's College, Toronto Schoolof Theology, and a Master's of Divin-ity. She is an assistant professor inthe Faculty of Theology at St. PaulUniversity, Ottawa.
Awe and wonderAwareness of the power of
wonder and awe is available toanyone who spends time in thenatural world. This awareness isreturning in a new way in theface of today’s ecological crisis. ATaoist insight affirms:
“Those of us who contem-plate the world soon come tohave a great sense of wonder.The perfection of the stars, thebeauty of mountains andstreams, the invigorating quali-ty of clean ocean air fills uswith feelings of celebration andreverence. Reverence onlycomes with experience andcare. We must be responsible,and at the same time expressthe wonder of all that we knowas human.”
Wonder and awe lead to rever-ence, and reverence leads toresponsibility. Reverence for andresponsibility to the naturalworld are intimately connected toeach other, and to authentic reli-gious experience.
To see and know the spirituali-
ty of water requires a new way ofperceiving, and a confidence thatto experience a river or swamp assacred is not quaint, incidental,irrelevant or even heretical. Eventhe tiniest caterpillar is a bookabout God, as noted the Christianmystic Meister Eckhart. Ecologi-cally oriented religious voicesaffirm that this kind of awarenessis not a luxury, but the basis ofreligious experience and a neces-sary part of ethical deliberationsand political motivation.
Wonder and awe can become away of seeing and of informingour political visions. Herein liesthe terrain of genuine newinsights, understandings, ethics,analyses and awareness. Fromhere can emerge a dynamic politi-cal orientation and energy.
The primary mode of knowingin Western societies is analytic.Yet analysis has its limits. Analy-sis sheds light on aspects of asituation, exposes patterns, sys-tems, causes and effects, andunmasks power dynamics. But itcannot open the door to profoundinsights, to what can be knownbeyond all conventional know-
ing. Awe is also a way of know-ing. It is a dimension of life expe-rience and the essence of religiousawareness. Its social relevance isoften belittled, ignored or dis-missed, as if awe is acceptableonly as private experience ratherthan as a moment of revelation;as personal spirituality ratherthan as a crucial dimension ofreligious investigation.
The capacity for awe remainsomnipresent; a quiet eminencethat radiates everywhere. It cre-ates an unflinching and preemi-nent awareness of the extraordi-nary, abundant, unique andinterconnected array of life. Tomarvel at the natural world with-in the large horizon of the cosmicadventure—and to understand towhat degree we are embeddedwithin this drama—requires us toreturn to an appreciation andunderstanding of life on Earth asbeing interconnected and Divine-ly inspired. The whole is greaterthan the sum of the parts. It allmatters.
Tampering with water is athreat to our physical being, areprehensible moral choice, and a
6 SCARBORO MISSIONS/SEPTEMBER 2004
Resources• Blue Planet Project: www.blueplanetproject.net• People’s World Water Forum: www.pwwf.org• Global Water Grab (Polaris Institute, www.polarisin-
stitute.org/)• Pastoral Letter of the Catholic Bishops, 2003,
www.cccb.ca/Files/pastoralenvironment.html• United Nations: Water for People, Water for Life:
www.unesco.org/water/wwap/wwdr/table_contents.shtml• The Water Barons: www.publicintegrity.org/water/• Ontario: H2infO—The Water Information Network
Books:• Blue Gold: The Battle Against Corporate Theft of the World’s Water
(Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke) • Great Waters (Deborah Cramer)• Environment, Scarcity and Violence (Thomas Homer-Dixon)• Environmental Politics in Canada (Judith McKenzie)• Living Downstream: A Scientist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and
the Environment (Sandra Steingraber)• Water Wars (Verdana Shiva)• The Sacred Balance (David Suzuki)
For reflection:According to the author, Heather Eaton, to start with the ecology
of water opens new possibilities of understanding water and itsissues within a new context where humans are not the referencepoint, but rather part of the interdependent web of life.
• What do you think of this?
• Does this change your vision of the world?
• Discuss what the author notes as the spiritual values needed for thework of addressing water issues.
• How and where can you share what you have learned in this article?
“We can never sneer at the stars,mock the dawn or scoff at the totality of being. Sublime grandeur evokesunhesitating, unflinching awe. Awayfrom the immense, cloistered in our ownconcepts, we may scorn and revile everything. But standing between Earthand sky, we are silenced by the sight.”
RABBI ABRAHAM HESCHEL
“RAIN! WHOSE SOFT ARCHITECTURAL HANDS HAVE POWER TO CUT
STONES, AND CHISEL TO SHAPES OF GRANDEUR
THE VERY MOUNTAINS.”Henry Ward Beecher, preacher and writer (1813-1887)
SEPTEMBER 2004/SCARBORO MISSIONS 7
