Water

In today's readings we begin the three-part story of Noah and the Great Flood. Having heard the story yesterday of Abel's death at the hands of Cain, today's readings begin with God's great disappointment with man's evil ways, to the point he actually says "...I am sorry that I made them." He resolves to make things right by wiping the slate clean and starting over with the family of the one person on earth judged to be righteous -- Noah.

This is a familiar story, beautiful in its own way in spite of the destruction of the earth by flood. As we see so many times in the Bible, death and destruction are not final, but rather lead to resurrection and redemption. That is a theme we'll hear a lot about during Lent and the Easter season, so I'll save that one for later.

Another recurrent theme in this story is the cleansing and saving power of water, and how God uses water as an instrument of grace. We see it in Moses bringing forth water from the rock, John's baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, and the use of baptism as an initiation rite in the early church.

Water is of course essential to life, and it is something we in the U.S. have the luxury of taking for granted. Our water is safe to drink pretty much anywhere you can get it, and you can get it pretty much anywhere.

In Honduras, water seems to be plentiful. No less than eleven rivers have their source on the heights of El Celaque, the highest mountain in Honduras. But unlike here, you can't drink water from the tap without suffering serious consequences. Even when you take a shower, you have to be careful not to swallow the water lest you should pick up some nasty parasite or bacteria.

But as bad as that sounds to us as water-spoiled Americans, it is still better than the situation in parts of Africa and other areas, where women commonly travel miles -- ten or 20 or more -- to find water and bring it back to their families. Back in the day when my wife Pat worked on organizing the local CROP Walk, it was a very long walk indeed (10 miles? do any of you remember?). The point was to mimic the distance these women had to go to find fresh water. Over time, the CROP Walk was shortened to its present 10 km. because, well, not that many Americans will willingly walk 10 miles, even when they're not carrying 40 or 50 lbs. of water.

The scarcity of water in places like sub-Saharan Africa undermines the health and safety of those who live there, and is one more link in the chain of poverty.

Last night I heard about a way to break that chain, one village at a time. One night a month, we have a meeting of the Parish Pastoral Council and all of the major groups and commissions in the Parish. This year we started for the first time meeting all on the same night, so we could share with each other what we're all up to and to get to know each other better. So far it's been well received, though we're still working out the kinks.

The very last report last night was from Susan Rabold who is in charge of youth ministry. Starting tomorrow (Feb. 18) the high school youth are going to participate in The H2O Project, which is designed to raise funds for drilling wells to supply fresh water in areas where it is scarce.

Participants in the project forgo all beverages except water for two weeks, and contribute an amount of money equal to what they would have spent for each beverage they did not consume. Money raised goes to drill wells and bring fresh clean water to places that previously had none. The middle school youth have already raised $1000, and the high school kids are hoping to raise the rest of the $2500 to drill one well. They are hoping to drill that well in the home village of our beloved custodian, Michael.

Susan told me that it's a lot harder to do than it's sounds -- no juice, no soda, no coffee (!), no wine (!!!), nothing but agua. Makes you realize just how blessed we are in this country by the abundance of things we have to drink in addition to clean, safe tap water.

Obviously this would be a great act of sacrifice and spiritual practice for Lent. If you'd like to help, you can contact Susan via the St. Paul's parish website link on the left of this page. Let's see if you can make it two weeks!

God used the waters of the Great Flood to cleanse the earth of human sin. Wouldn't it be awesome if through this simple act we could use the waters from one well to cleanse a village in Africa of thirst, hardship and disease!