"To Dust You Will Return"

David's post is part of our Lenten Water Project. Throughout this Lenten season our writers will be focusing on the subject of water and what that means to them. Please donate to our well-building efforts, and if you have something YOU would like to say about water, let us know and we'll post it here!

“Remember David, ‘you are dust and to dust you will return.’” (Genesis 3:19)

With that my professor dipped his thumb in the small cup of ashes and oil that he held against his chest, lifted my hair, and wiped his stained finger on my forehead.

First down.

Then across.

The smudged cross left on my skin in that Ash Wednesday ritual signified the beginning of the Lenten season; a time of preparation, repentance, and reflection.

Lent leaves space to reflect on many things.

Our finitude is one of them.

Among other things, the ashen cross is supposed to point us to the temporal nature of life. I think that is why the words of my professor wrapped themselves around me so tightly.

I am dust. We are dust. Particles of dry earth.

I guess it makes sense that we are dust. After all, a potter formed us (Isaiah 64:8), and potters work with things of the earth, even dust. Dust that with the help of minerals and water and time has become clay.

On its own, dust is just parched dirt, but when water enters the equation, something new happens. A new substance is created. One that with some time between the hands and fingers of a caring potter becomes a beautiful creation.

That cross of ash on my forehead is gone, long since washed away, but it still challenges me, and perhaps it challenges you. What if we could spend a few moments reflecting on the role that water plays in transforming our substance from dust…to clay…to a beautiful creation?

This is the season for just that sort of reflection.

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David Powers is currently pursuing a Master of Divinity at Columbia Theological Seminary, which he will finish up in May. His interests include running, learning new things, and Clemson Tiger football.

Louisiana 1927

Katie's post is part of our Lenten Water Project. Throughout this Lenten season our writers will be focusing on the subject of water and what that means to them. Please donate to our well-building efforts, and if you have something YOU would like to say about water, let us know and we'll post it here!

“Louisiana, Louisiana. They're trying to wash us away, they're trying to wash us away.”

In Randy Newman’s famous song, Louisiana 1927 he sings - laments even - the power of water, rivers, and rain. He captures in this simple but powerful song the damage that the Great Mississippi River flood of 1927 did to the states of Louisiana and Mississippi, leaving 700,00 people homeless. This song has most recently been identified with Hurricane Katrina in the public consciousness since Aaron Neville sang it on a televised hurricane relief show a few years ago.

This song always makes me stop and think about water. Water’s many and varied uses are quite remarkable when you think about it. We drink it, bath with it, cook with it, clean with it, swim in it, extinguish fires with it, and water our lawns with it. During my tenure as a volunteer organizer with the RHINO program at Saint Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church in New Orleans, I was struck by the many ways that water is also destructive and harmful. It can smudge and stain your 50 year old wedding album, it can pick up your bed and move it in to your kitchen, it can turn the walls of your living room fuzzy and black, it can drown the family dog, it can crack your grandmother’s china, it can push a barge on top of your house, it can fill your refrigerator with an indescribable smell, it can completely rearrange and destroy your life.

For me, much of Lent is about considering those things in my life that have been damaged and hurt and are in need of redemption and healing, and making the journey towards that healing. In the broadest level, New Orleans is certainly one of those things in my life that I lift up in need of healing. How do New Orleanians, or any one for that matter, come to terms with the things that have destroyed, changed, or hurt their lives? How do we make peace with the things that have harmed us, be that water, people, racism or sexism, governments, schools, etc? As Christians we seek redemption in and through the Holy One who claims us and washes us with the waters of baptism. In knowing whose we are and trusting this claim on our lives we can travel to Jerusalem, confident that the joy of Easter Sunday will be waiting for us at the end. We will move through the waters, and rather than be washed away, as Randy Newman and Aaron Neville sang, we will be held and saved.

A pilgrimage to New Orleans every Lent has been a spiritual practice of mine ever since leaving my job there. In a few weeks I will make that pilgrimage with a group of volunteers from the church I am currently serving in Annapolis, MD. In the meantime, I leave my apartment every morning and look at the water stained postcard that was salvaged from one of the flooded homes I worked in and that now hangs near my front door. I read these words written on it:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
when there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

It is my hope that my mission group will be an instrument of peace, that we will help a city that has been damaged and washed away move towards redemption and healing, and perhaps find grace in our own lives in so doing. Let us all make this Lenten season a time when we will all be able to reclaim our lives and find grace in those things that have hurt us or those around us. Let us make the journey towards Jerusalem, remembering the One who goes ahead of us, and make peace with the water.

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Katie Cashwell served as the Field Coordinator for the RHINO program (Rebuilding Hope In New Orleans) of Saint Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church from 2006-2007. She's now the seminary student intern at First Presbyterian Church in Annapolis, MD. She has one year remaining in the MDiv program at Union-PSCE in Richmond, VA.

Charity:Water update!

Wow. I'm floored. Floored by the generosity of the community here. This Charity:Water thing is incredible.

In just 14 days, we've had 35 donations totaling $1,314. The money we've raised thus far will provide clean, healthy drinking water for up to 65 people in need of it. This is a real, tangible difference we're making. Thank you.

We'll try to provide a weekly update, and if you feel so moved, be sure to share our progress with your friends, family, and co-workers. You can check up on the progress of the campaign at any time by visiting our Charity:Water campaign page at:

http://mycharitywater.org/churchisalive

In the Wilderness…

Katelyn's post is part of our Lenten Water Project. Throughout this Lenten season our writers will be focusing on the subject of water and what that means to them. Please donate to our well-building efforts, and if you have something YOU would like to say about water, let us know and we'll post it here!

After the Israelites had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day, they came into the wilderness of Sinai.
Exodus 19:1

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.
Luke 4:1

The wilderness is a not a place where most people would choose to be. It’s a scary place, full of uncertainty and devoid of life. In the wilderness, survival is a daily struggle, disorder and danger are everywhere, and desolation and drought threaten life.

For our biblical ancestors the Israelites, the wilderness is where they wandered for forty years, wrestled with God, and questioned whether God’s promises to them would be fulfilled. Jesus, still dripping with the waters of his baptism, was led into the wilderness where the devil was waiting for him.

The wilderness is nothing if not humbling. Perhaps it is appropriate then, that this is where the Lectionary has us begin our Lenten journey every year. We start in a place that reminds us of our dependency on our Creator God, the life-giving sacrifice Jesus made for us in his death, and the mysterious movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Yet we are assured that the wilderness is not the final destination. The Lord led the Israelites out of the wilderness, and the Holy Spirit did the same with Jesus. God leads us out of the barren wilderness to green pastures and still waters where life is abundant, and we are called to share this life with one another.

May this Lenten season be a time when we remember what it’s like to be in the wilderness, find hope in God’s faithfulness, and rejoice with one another for the incredible gift of grace we have received in Christ Jesus.

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Katelyn Gordon is a graduate of Columbia Seminary and is the Children's and Family intern at Trinity Presbyterian Church Atlanta, GA.

The First Few Drops

Matthew's post is part of our Lenten Water Project. Throughout this Lenten season our writers will be focusing on the subject of water and what that means to them. Please donate to our well-building efforts, and if you have something YOU would like to say about water, let us know and we'll post it here!

The steady hum and rattle of the diesel engine powering the drill echoed throughout the property, as the cold water from the rain collection tower poured over my head, washing the soap down to the drain. It struck me for the first time in that moment, showering in the middle of the plantain field under the water tower, what a huge moment had taken place the day before as the drilling truck pulled onto the property. Hope had come on the back of the truck, the opportunity for clean drinking water for those in Quimistan, Honduras, who had previously filled their buckets in nearby rivers and streams, or had to buy clean and safe bottled water. With this well came the promise of clean water, that didn’t cost hard earned wages. With this well came the promise of piping water into the medical clinic and Church community kitchen, to better serve those in the community. Yes, with the arrival of the drilling truck, this community had just been transformed in many ways.

I was involved in their first water project with the church in Quimistan, Hondruas, and it wasn’t entirely on purpose. You need to know that I do not have a scientific or engineering background, but rather had a small request to help get the final piece of the water project together. The final meeting with the drilling company and subsequent arrival of the drilling truck was the result of years of meetings between Church and community leaders with the drilling company. I was merely one of the last people, in the long line of those before me who helped get the drilling truck to the property that day. So as the drill hit water after hours of drilling that first day, I felt like my work was insignificant compared to those who had worked years on making this day happen. Though, that did not keep me from celebrating with the people gathered waiting for those first drops to hit the ground.

As the water began to pour from the ground and flood the property the community celebrated! It was an exciting moment, and a moment that I will never forget. I hope that through the water campaign we have embarked on, we can join those communities around the world, as they stand in anticipation waiting for water to flood from the earth. I pray for those who live amid the drought and scarcity of this world, and I pray that in the midst of my flooded life that I will seek ways to be a better brother in Christ to all. Even when we feel that our work is insignificant, let us press on, following into all the places and times that God is leading us. Often times we are just one person in the long line of many who have gone before us and will come after us, but what legacy will we leave? In a world in which "first" are few and far between, it is amazing to think that some communities around the world are yet to receive their first well, and first drops of clean water. What is our responsibility to those communities and to those people?

In this season of lent, as we reflect, pray, and discern, let us be ever present to what God is doing among us. Let us recognize that it's not the first time God has called or will call. Let us be a people who respond.

Today's article is based on my time reflecting this past week, on my trip to Quimistan, Honduras in 2006.

A Thirsty Lent

Jessica's post is part of our Lenten Water Project. Throughout this Lenten season our writers will be focusing on the subject of water and what that means to them. Please donate to our well-building efforts, and if you have something YOU would like to say about water, let us know and we'll post it here!

Since I was a little girl I have entered church with the same ritual, dipping the tips of my fingers into a tiny metal bowl of holy water near the heavy wooden door of the sanctuary. I tap these wet fingers on my forehead, on the center of my chest, and on both shoulders; it is the sign of the cross. This practice, inherited from my Catholic tradition, reconnects me with the first Christian ritual I ever experienced—baptism.

It also engages the natural substance—water—that pervaded Jesus’ life. Jesus was baptized in water. Christ used it for miracles, using it for winemaking and walking on its waves. Jesus taught about living water.

Water is ubiquitous in my life and the Christian tradition, which is precisely why I find the season of Lent so startling. When I enter a Catholic sanctuary to pray or attend Sunday liturgy, I instinctively place my fingers into the tiny water bowl only to find it empty. Dry. During this forty-day liturgical season, the baptismal fount at the front of the church no longer hums with the trickle of clear, blessed water. It, too, is empty.

This is how we prepare for the annual remembrance of Christ’s suffering passion: we experience a little bit of life without the water that we take for granted most of the time. That way, come Easter Sunday when the baptismal founts are flowing and my finger tips are wet with Holy Water once again, I rejoice in the resurrection and the Water of Life with new gratitude.

When was the last time you were thirsty?

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Jessica Coblentz is currently pursuing a Master of Theological Studies degree at Harvard Divinity School. Her interests include Catholic theology, religious and cultural identity, and ritual studies. Follow her writing on the Web at www.jessicacoblentz.com.

The God Who Drank

Katherine's post is part of our Lenten Water Project. Throughout this Lenten season our writers will be focusing on the subject of water and what that means to them. Please donate to our well-building efforts, and if you have something YOU would like to say about water, let us know and we'll post it here!

I sat on the bouncing bus, feeling so woozy that my brain seemed to be several feet above me and so nauseated that my stomach seemed to be…well…everywhere. 12,000 feet up on a winding Andean road, I sat grasping the little white altitude sickness pill in my trembling hand, wishing desperately that I could take it.

But I couldn’t, because I had no water.

On this long, rural road, there were few places to purchase water. Where it was available, stacked crowdedly in tiny, gated tiendas beside the road, or draped over the shoulders of traveling salesmen yelling “agua, agua!” it was impossible to know if it had been drawn from local faucets, containing parasites and bacteria that my unaccustomed gringa stomach could not tolerate.

Unlike the 1 in 8 people on the planet that drink dirty, unsafe water every day, me having nothing to drink was entirely my fault. I was thirsty, achy, trembling, dehydrated and sick because I had been stupid to take safe, accessible water for granted, to assume it would be available somewhere along the road, instead of buying it in a grocery store or larger tienda, where the water for sale is purified.

In the end, my stupidity cost me nothing other than an uncomfortable ride back to the capital city. I could chose, young and healthy that I was, to avoid drinking unsafe water. I did not have to choose between a certain death of thirst that day or a probable threat of death due to waterborne disease the day after, which of course is not a choice at all. But millions of people are forced to make this non-choice of a choice every day.

No one should ever be forced to drink water that kills. We serve the God of who offers us living water, who cried wearily for a drink as he fought for his last breaths. How then, can we let others go thirsty?

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Katherine Pater is a recovering Irish dance instructor from Wisconsin. She is currently a first-year Master of Divinity Student at Harvard Divinity School who is pursuing ordination in the PC(USA) denomination.