Sacred Water in the Columbia Gorge
by
Nancy Corson Carter
The
concept of “Sacred Water” has
rarely been so vivid in my experience as when I attended the PEC national
conference “Blessing the Waters
of life: Justice and Healing for Our Watersheds” September 24 -29, 2017, at
Menucha Retreat and Conference Center, Corbett, Oregon.
Two
of my photos illustrate:
PHOTO
ONE: Facing east, we look from Menucha’s high vantage over
the lower Columbia Gorge which symbolizes the rich history as well as current
problems of Indigenous peoples living there.
During
a pre-conference option, “Spirit of the Salmon:
Water, Culture, and Justice in the Columbia Watershed,” we learned of the
spiritual crisis of present-day tribal peoples, from representatives of the
Yakama, Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Nez Perce. These are survivors of those who
have lived in the Columbia River Basin for 10,000s of years. But now the
industrialization of American life, specifically the hydroelectric dams built
without their consent, has stripped away their culture as well as their
livelihood. “We are the water” they
assert; “this land is part
of our bodies and our spirit as we are linked with the salmon”—now reduced to
about 1% of their historical abundance.
They shared with us their grief over broken treaties and lost lifeways
but also their spirit to survive with efforts to keep their languages and
traditions alive with new generations. We gratefully received the hospitality
of a meal in the longhouse, their church, and being led in a ceremony on the
shore of the Columbia to “purify all the
waters of Creation.”
Their
elders warned us that all humans are suffering a sickness, and we must have the
courage to go from overweening focus on the mind to listening to our hearts,
which are in touch with the divine. This struck us with greater and greater
power as we learned of the terrible ways that the Doctrine of Discovery was
taken as a license to exploit native people and their lands by the 15th
century Christian European explorers—with lingering scars. One elder’s wisdom: “Interconnectedness
could change the world, especially as we have very little time left to change!”
PHOTO
TWO: This shows one of the several
springs at Menucha that invite contemplation of the resources of our faith for
peace and healing. “Menucha” is a word from Hebrew that suggests “rebuilding,”
“restoring, “renewing” and the
word “still” as in Psalm 23, “He
leads me beside the still waters; he restores my soul.”
In
the following part of the conference, filled with workshops and various panels
and speakers, Rev. Dr. Barbara Rossing explored sacred waters with us from her
work with Revelation and other biblical texts. The waters in the Bible bless
and heal us she said, and they also symbolize injustices of the world. She
reminded us that in Genesis “God saw that it was
good” and our role is to follow God’s seeing such goodness and beauty (Hebrew tob)
in the planet daily. We can let this seeing lead us to love the poor,
future generations, and nature itself.
The
photo of one of the four or five small Menucha springs reminds us of the gift
of having places and times to enter into the practice of opening our hearts to
God’s
guidance, of listening to “the still small
voice.”
Following
these thoughts, the worship committee prepared hand-outs for anyone to use if
they chose to spend some quiet contemplative time by one of these spring-pools
during the conference. We selected five of the many sonnets in Guite’s book to emphasize
the presence of “sacred water” in Christ’s life, and we added scriptures to amplify
his beautiful work.
MEDITATIONS
ON CHRIST’S LIFE IN WATER
& WORD
These
five meditations selected generally follow the life of Christ, beginning with
his baptism and ending with a vision of the resurrection dawn. They were chosen
from the evocative sonnets of Malcolm Guite. Guite, a poet, priest, and
singer-songwriter, generously shared these five sonnets to copy in full (sorry
not to copy them all here; the book is still in print) from his collection, Sounding
the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year (Norwich: Canterbury
Press, 2012). This text includes several helpful appendices which
include scriptural references, bibliography, and a short essay on The Sonnets
and Liturgy.
Meditation 1
The Baptism of
Christ
Luke 3.21
Meditation 2
The Miracle at Cana
John 4.13-14 (Jesus
and the Woman of Samaria as corollary)
Meditation 3
The Call of the
Disciples
Revelation 22.1-2
Meditation 4
Jesus Weeps
Luke 19.41-2
Meditation 5
O Oriens [O Radiant
Dawn]
Luke 1.78-9
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