The Elixir of Life

I take for granted the times when I walk to the cupboard, take out a glass and lift the handle on the tap.  Lukewarm water flows freely into the cup and I drink deeply but rarely do I think about this miracle of modern plumbing or, more importantly, how important this easily accessible water is to most of Western culture.

As if by some miracle of nature, there seems to be an endless supply of life's elixir - water - and far too often we treat it as such.  We (speaking in general) leave the shower pouring over us when our skin and hair has been cleaned ten times over.  Our toilets rinse with a gallon of water per flush.  We spend inordinate amounts of time and energy hooking up sprinkler systems to water a lawn on which we rarely walk.

But water is life. 

Life is very hard for the people around Charleville, when water has ceased to fall from the sky.  Clouds are a rarity; the sun is a constant, beastly friend with a searing smile which creases the skin of the planet.

The statistics of water are hopefully well known to you.  Seventy percent of the surface of the earth is water although the vast majority is beyond consumption and use because of its salinity.  Of the 326 million trillion gallons (326 with eighteen zeroes behind it), only two percent is freshwater.  And of that two percent, most of it is locked away in the polar ice caps leaving us with three minute sources for humans to be able to live - freshwater lakes, streams and water vapor.

Tapping into these lakes and rivers (and underground reservoirs) is how humans can survive, but it is the fickle water vapor that replenishes through the water cycle - as most fifth graders could probably describe in great detail. (hopefully)

These are some of the statistics - but there is another one I want to start off with today, a hydrationary one that I wasn't aware of but it was brought to my attention by two of my sisters-in-law a few weeks ago:

Water tastes funny sometimes.

I did my best to argue with them, but in my eighteen years of experience, arguing with the in-laws is like trying to use the Force to turn off the light after you've gotten into bed: Futile.

We were vacationing at the Gold Coast and had journeyed to the apartment where Nicole and Amanda were staying with their two broods of children, when over the night meal, Nicole took a drink of water and scrunched up her face as if she had tried to ingest a lemon by biting through its skin.

"This water tastes horrible."

Theoretically speaking, water shouldn't have any taste at all; it should only have two sensory qualities - touch and temperature - but according to my Princess and the Pea sisters-in-law, water has taste also.  So, I attempted to disagree.  Attempted. Like any good scientist, I smelled the water and like a great wine connoisseur, I swirled it in my glass looking for any discolorations, or anything else that might give the water a taste.  I raised the glass to my lips sipping (mind you) so that I could engage my nose in the process, because, as we all know, taste is very much dependent on our ability to smell also.  And as I drank, I noticed, briefly, a faint feathery touch of chemicals in the water...

But I spoke it not for fear that would open the door for a sense of rightness from my banded sisters by marriage.

If I reflect on life, I know that water, from different areas, has a certain taste.  For instance, if one were to drink the water from the taps at my parents house, one would get the sense that one does not just drink the water, but one chews it.  There is so much rust that it tastes like you just swallowed your bicycle.

In some countries, the water tastes so bad that they either drink sparkling mineral water, which, in my unprofessional opinion is the worst of all possible hydrated worlds, akin to ingesting carbonated urine (pronounced u-rhine in Australia) which is another story that may be told some day - or they drink beer. 

So, I admit - I was wrong, and it grinds me to write it.  There is nothing more defeating than having your in-laws stand over you like Tolkein's Galadriel, superimposing their will of awesome power in rightness.  But I must go into the west...

It's a good thing I think my sisters-in-law are excellent, or I might have to use the ring of power. 

I encountered the truest definition of their rightness when we first arrived in Charleville.  After meeting the most pleasant park attendant, Rhonda, (Whom I will write about later, but when introduced to her I kept thinking to myself, Help me, Rhonda, help, help me, Rhonda), we settled into our cabin and I proceeded to take a two minute shower because of what I assumed to be drought restrictions in the area.  The moment the water jetted from the shower head, I was aware of the smell.  The sulfurous odor smelled as if Hades had indeed spewed forth and was filling the steaming air with the Hell's eau d' toilette.  Not only did it smell bad...

It, indeed, did not taste particularly good.  Now I'm not prone to drinking shower water, but sometimes it happens, and the water issuing forth made me call it Satan's Martini.

But Charleville hasn't had a good rain for years.  I mean that - it's been years.  As I perused the scenery on a morning run, the air seemed to fold in on itself because of the lack of humidity.  My mouth dried out after minutes and the flies... (we'll get to them later)

As I ran, though, something strange assailed my early morning exertions.  House after house, lawn after lawn, was being watered by the residents.  I expected to see crispy grass, or at least dried out weeds for lawns, but some had manicured, verdant yards.  I stopped to watch a few from a distance, an older lady stood in her tattered, battered bathrobe, smoking cigarette held between two fingers of one hand, nozzled water hose in the other hovering over small patches of grass hydrating it inch by inch.  Another man stood, hand on hip, staring up at the sky as he waited for the water to spew out.  At first it appeared as if he was relieving himself, and perhaps that is the right way to emotionally think about what occurred, but he seemed to be imploring the heavens to once, just once, open and flood the town.

Literally flood the town.

It happens, sometimes, and the locals will talk about it, but as I asked one of those locals, Trader Schmidt, a friend of ours who I will describe him and his family in detail the next time, about the water usage, he said, "We don't get any rain, but there is a vast source of water underneath our feet.  We just need to pump it out."

Vast resources just out of reach, but takes some work to retrieve it.  Sounds like most of life, doesn't it. 

So, in this desiccated world, just below the surface is a reserve of the rejuvenating source of the elixir of life.  I think that's what God would say lies beneath the scratched surface of who Christ is when he proclaims, "I am the water of life - the one who comes to me will never be thirsty again."  Underneath the surface of God in Jesus, beneath all the detritus and sediment that our dried out, shallow theologies that have buried the essence of true life, we find a source of fulfillment for this life and the next.  We drink deep and find another Bible verse...

Psalm 34:8

Taste and see that the LORD is good.  Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

My sisters-in-law are right again.  The water does taste.