What Does Water Mean to You?

 I'm a little surprised that I'm already getting social media messages about World Water Day, which isn't for another two months. The latest asks the question "what does water mean to you?" I.m inclined to respond with an emphatic "everything!" which would be something of an overstatement, although not by much. 

When we head out for walks we nearly always choose to ramble about at the edge of water, and at this time of year we are looking to see how ice has formed. Water has its own miraculous trinity of liquid, solid, and gas which is fascinating as science and as symbolic of transformation. 

Water is also a powerful metaphor within our Christian faith. John the Baptizer immersed Jesus in the river Jordan, employing the ritual of cleansing from his Jewish faith and inviting us into a new understanding in Christ. Jesus described himself as Living Water which quenches spiritual thirst. His encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well is the longest with any person in the gospels. 

This has been an eerily mild Winter and every time ice forms on streams and rivers and nearby Lake Ontario it disappears within days. While this concerns and saddens us, we are already looking to the Spring when we can explore again in our canoe and kayaks. In the strange circumstances of 2020 we paddled almost 50 times, more than in any other year, and it made such a difference to body, mind, and spirit.

World Water Day is March 22nd, which is just after the commencement of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. We will be anticipating a return to the waterways -- well, one of us will be. While this blog is called Groundling, we humans are formed from water, even more than our other components and this Waterling will be excited to get going!