By Cathy Hird

On our farm, there is a fold in the land that runs across the first fields behind the barn. The farmers who settled our place found that water lay there and dug a deep ditch to carry runoff. A huge swamp oak grows where the ditch began. Then, where it crossed the lane, there is another low spot. Here willows grew, and ducks nested.

To make the field easier to plant, we laid drainage tile in the ditch and covered it over. The big field dries out well, but the swamp oak still thrives, and beside the lane is a pool where ducks swim well into the spring. The willows were removed, but it is wet enough that they will come back, and birds will nest here again.

Where the drainage tile comes out of the ground, a gentle stream flows right up until mid-summer. Water runs through a gap in the fence, past the oldest tree in the neighbourhood. It travels through a pile of rocks and here the music the falling water makes is glorious. Then, it flows across the grass and disappears through the cracks in the limestone. We don't know if it seeps down into the aquifer or finds its way into the valley to join the Big Head River.

This winter, surrounded by frozen water and snow, I longed for movement, for flowing water. It occurred to me that water would be a good image for the Spirit of God.

Water flows. Water nourishes and refreshes. Water cleanses.

Rain falls, seeps into the ground, collects into ponds and rivers. Rivers join lakes, flow to the ocean. Wind blows across the water of a lake or the ocean, picks up moisture and then when it hits cool air, the moisture falls as rain or snow. The movement continues.

Some of the rain that seeps into the ground finds its way deep down into pools we cannot see underground. The wells of our country homes and our towns draw from these aquifers. Some of these underground pools are refilled constantly. These ones press water upward into natural springs. Some are hard to refill, and these are depleted when we take away water faster than it flows in. Some aquifers are deep down and hard to reach. Some are near the surface, and these are easier to draw water from, but they can be contaminated by what we put on the ground.

Plants grow where there is water. Willows and cattails grow where water sits. Trees grow beside rivers where water moves. Roots reach down into the earth to draw the water that waits there to nourish their growth.

Animals need water. Deer come to a pool of water to drink. Frogs sing beside pools, and their tadpoles flourish in the water. Fish swim. Geese and ducks nest in the protected undergrowth. Beaver and muskrat make their homes beside the water.

We draw water from ponds and lakes, rivers and wells. We cleanse our bodies with this water. We refresh ourselves with a drink of water. We grow plants and trees. But there needs to be a balance between the rain that falls and the water we draw. If we draw more than the water that comes, the aquifer will be emptied.

Water moves us. A leaf that lands on a river is carried along. Place ourselves on the water, and waves will push us, a river will carry us.

The Spirit is in the world, flowing in us and around us. When we open to God, the Spirit flows into us and refreshes our thirst, cleanses our spirit. When we place ourselves in the river of the Spirit, we are carried in the direction God is moving.

And God is always moving. Like rain that falls, God seeps into all creation bringing life and healing, power to restore. Like a river that flows, God moves through the world carrying news of a new way. Like the water that rises into the wind to become rain, God continues the cycle of renewal. Like the mysterious ocean that is never still but always moving with depths than none can measure, no person can visit, God is.
Cathy Hird is a farmer, minister and writer living near Walters Falls.