The recent water main break and its consequent boil-water advisory in Staunton remind us how vital clean water is to our daily lives. It is something that we generally take for granted – until it is unavailable. Clean water is essential for drinking, cooking, bathing, and so many other needs. Fortunately, we have alternatives – bottled water, other drinks, the means to boil water – that make such an event an inconvenience, but hardly a threat to life. Yet there are many places in the world that are not so blessed. For them, clean water is a luxury or a practical impossibility. Desert climates and droughts exacerbated by climate change make any water hard to find in some areas. Floods and heavy rains may provide a surplus of water, none of which is potable. In some war-torn lands, poisoning of wells is a tactic to attack enemies and drive them from their homes and towns. Agricultural, industrial, and municipal pollution of the waters has endangered waterways as vast as the Chesapeake Bay and Great Lakes while tainting the very rivers from which people draw their drinking water. The battle over water – among farmers and ranchers, sprawling cities, industries, and recreational venues – provokes intense conflict in parts of our own nation and among nations around the world. We may well find that clean water is as precious to us in this century as oil was to the economies of the 20th century!
Water is a gift from God for which we bear responsibility as stewards of all creation. We should not take it for granted but should do our part to assure that it is available to those who need it. We should support initiatives to clean up polluted waters and to build and repair water infrastructure. We can support projects like Living Waters that drill wells for communities around the world that have no other access to fresh water. We should be economical in our use of water and conscientious about not polluting or littering the land and waters around us while holding accountable those who do. We can oppose efforts to build communities, homes, or industrial sites that exceed the capacity of clean water to sustain them or endanger the very waters that are vital to communities around them.
Water is precious in our Christian tradition. It is through the waters of baptism that we profess our faith, join the church, and affirm our place in God’s plan. It plays a significant role in biblical stories from the waters of creation to the parting of the Red Sea, from the rock at Meribah providing water to thirsty Israelites in the wilderness to Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River and his turning water to wine at the wedding at Cana. Do not take it for granted! Give thanks for the blessing that clean water is to all of us, and do your part to assure that it is available to this generation and to future generations. For, that is what faithfulness demands – of all of us!
— John Peterson
