Water, Water, Everywhere

Rev. Rebecca Husband Maynard

“The matter of creation is a holy and living energy

born from the hidden depths of God.”

John Philip Newell, Christ of the Celts, p. xiv

I was born by the waters of Darby Creek, not far from where the Schuylkill, Delaware, and

Wissahickon rivers flow, giving life to not only the city of Philadelphia, but also to me and my brothers. Naylor’s Run Creek flowed near my childhood home, nurturing my imagination and shaping my play. Along the mighty Youghiogheny River near Pittsburgh, my parents were born and raised. My mother remembered how they took their trash down the street and threw it into the river. “The river would carry it away,” she said. Then added, “No one thought about where the river would carry it.”

Thirty years ago, our family moved to Elkin, North Carolina, where the Little Elkin Creek feeds into the Big Elkin Creek, which drains into the Yadkin River. For twenty years, the river brought us geese, rising mist, and etched its rippling presence into our children. Now my husband and I live in Thurmond, with a small creek bordering our property. Our pond provides a haven for foxes, coyotes, rabbits, deer, wood ducks, geese, and a solitary blue heron.

Our daughter was married at Three Forks, Montana, where the Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin Rivers converge to form the Missouri River. Rivers that helped birth our family’s deep love for Montana.

Genesis tells us that the Spirit of God hovered over the waters, empowering them to bring forth life, sustaining every creature, tree, and blade of grass. That same Spirit-infused water courses through humanity still, as deep calls to deep.

Jesus offered living water to the woman at the well. In Ireland, certain wells are considered sacred because they harbor life’s source. The well is seen as the womb of the earth, birthing new life to all who drink of it. Author Gay Barbizon writes,"To watch water springing from the earth is to witness creation in the act of pure, unconditional generosity.”

Our relationship with water is, at its core, a spiritual matter. Without water, body and soul remain parched and withered. Our thirst for dominance may tempt us to subdue and exploit water, yet when we confess our primordial and divine connection with it, and thus with one another, we become its devoted guardian.

Water sustains my body, enlivens my spirit, and flows through my memory. Water birthed me. It restores me. Living water nourishes my soul, keeping it green and vibrant. In the waters within andaround me, I am invited to come, drink, and quench my thirst.

“I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things…

I come into the presence of still water.”

Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things