Water

In the ebb and flow of life, we allow the waves of change to care us to new destinations or we work agents the current and fight to stay where we are. To allow life to carry us on this adventure of living is a great adventure, one that brings with it may opportunities for new life.

As the waves of change carry us, we too have an obligation, one that will help determine our destination. Like a good sailor, you allow the waves to carry you, but you also create the situation to try and control the movement of the ship. We too can set our sails in to the wind, the wind of the Holy Spirit, and allow it to help us navigate the ebb and flow of life.

Now I am no sailor, so truthfully I know nothing about navigating a boat on the sea, or even in the tub, but I do know that, just like a car in a skid, there are things you can do to help control the boat in storms and high waves.

Water plays an important part in our life as Catholics, we are to bless ourselves each time we walk in to Church, we enter in to the faith with it being poured over our heads and throughout the year we are reminded of our connection to water with the sprinkling rite. Water is a central part of our faith, and we are reminded of that fact often.

Water, a cleansing element, used to wash away dirt and grime, to filter out and to refresh. Water is life giving and essential to our existence. And God and Jesus use water throughout the bible to remind us of its importance in our life. The great flood, the washing of the feet, the baptism of Jesus, the blood and water gushing form Jesus, walking on water, calming the storm and so on. Water is life, and life is water.

We have a rhythm inside of us, an ebb and flow of our own. Each person has a unique tide, a flowing of the life giving water inside of us. The driving force of our existence, and we need to learn to control it and learn how to flow with it. Much like the sailor on the high seas, we too need to learn how to read the waves of our own life.

Much can be said about what I just wrote, some will call it new age sounding, others just silly, but the truth of the matter is, we do have a unique bio rhythm. We have our own undertows and currents. We are affected by the moon, like the sea is; magnets will change our currents, alter our undertows and affect our reaction to life around us.

Jesus tells us when Peter failed to walk on water, Have Faith! Jesus understood that the waves of life will affect us, that the ebb and flow will alter us, if we allow them to. That outside things will affect us, try to change us, but we need to have faith, we need to learn how to ride the waves, how to cast our nets and gather in a good catch.

Water, pure and simple, yet life giving, water has controlled man from the very start, we have set up camp to be near it, created cities on its shores and devised ways to move it from shore to shore. Water the cleansing element of our faith.

Paul