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flow, John Philip Newell, morning prayer, Praying With the Earth, river of life, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, thirst
Finally it seems that we have a break from the intense heat and high humidity that hinders movement and keeps effectiveness at a minimum. We were spared the violence of the storms that gripped the Northeast Corridor of our country yesterday but at one moment it was as if some caretaker in the heavens turned a spigot to let all the humidity out of the sky and gave us some moments of straight-down driving rain – a curtain of water to slake the thirst of the land. As I celebrate the freshness of this new day I am drawn to another image of water in a prayer for unity by John Philip Newell. I offer it as a morning prayer for us all.
All things come from you, O God, and to you we return. All things merge in your great river of life and into you we vanish again. At the beginning of this day we wake not as separate streams but as countless currents in a single flow: the flow of this day’s dawning, the flow of this day’s delight, the flow of this day’s sorrows – your flow, O God, in the twistings and turnings of this new day. (Praying with the Earth, p.26)
This morning the psalmist cries out: My soul is thirsting for you, my God! The whole of Psalm 63 is a passionate expression of what it means to be on a spiritual journey and is as relevant today as it was in the lifetime of Jesus or of the Israelites in the desert. Each of us is called, as we wake up to the necessity of relationship with something greater than ourselves, to search for what slakes that thirst. Some of us “go it alone” but most find companions on the way whose desire mirrors our own.
I drink a lot of water. After my morning coffee I rarely have any beverage other than water. I try always to have a container of water in my car, especially on a day of travel, but even for the half-hour trip to my local office I am annoyed at myself if I forget to refill my bottle. One would think I lived in the desert…
All the readings are familiar today. That sometimes makes it more difficult for me to find a new “spin” that will be worthy of attention. I think it’s fair to say that one of the most recognizable utterances of Jesus is today’s gospel verse: I give you a new commandment: love one another as I have loved you. (JN 13:34) As is often the case, however, it was one word that caught my eye, the word new. People have been hearing or reading and preaching about that line for centuries; some of us have known it since early childhood. I thought this morning that perhaps we come to know it daily in a different way according to the people and experiences that bump up against our own as we proceed along our spiritual path. One of the best examples of this truth for me is from St. Augustine, whose passionate words on this topic never get old.
Today there is a different sound outside my open window, one I don’t remember hearing since the leafing out of the trees was complete in the spring. It’s raining, a steady drenching rain that makes itself known in the sound of its passing through those leaves on its way to ground. Oh, we’ve had showers and the occasional rumbling of thunder with five minute sprinkles but this is different; this is like a long drink of cold water on a hot day. The birds are silent, most likely hunkered down like all of us humans trying to stay dry, but the farmers must be – no doubt – dancing with joy. I’m happy for the farmers and the animals and the tasseling corn. I’m happy for people everywhere who are thirsty and whose water has not been polluted by design or by neglect.
The Sophia Center for Spirituality 