Water, water, everywhere, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote, but, in spite of horrific floods in Pakistan and rising sea levels, there are places where there is no water, not potable, drinkable water. Jackson, Mississippi, is one of those places. We have ignored drinking water safety for far too long. Jackson is a crisis that did not need to happen.
For years Jackson has asked the State for funds to rebuild its water infrastructure, but Mississippi’s history of racism has ignored their cries. Although it had a different cause, the people in Flint faced the same problem. And there’s Keystone, West Virginia, where people have been boiling water for over a decade.
What on earth is the matter with us that we don’t seem to care that people do not have safe drinking water? We have allowed pipes to disintegrate, industry to pour enough chemicals into our water to kill a horse, not to mention the disastrous results of fracking in many communities. Safe drinking water is a precious commodity; allowing racism and greed to rob us of this element, so essential to our lives, is utterly insane.
Prayer for the Day
O Divine Light, that shines in the deep darkness,
Brighten our lives with the light of redemption;
Claiming that we are helpless, unable to change the world,
We have tolerated injustice and violence.
Help us recognize that the real change is in ourselves
So that we learn to love as we wish to be loved.
In the name of the One showed us how to love,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Clean water is such a treasure that we take for granted in America.
- Hannah Teter, Olympic snowboarding champion
Is wellbeing only economic growth? Only salaries? Or is wellbeing also being able to breathe clean air and drink clean water?
- Frans Timmerman, Dutch diplomat
Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongues of the speechless sing for joy;
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;
The burning san shall become a pool, and the thirty ground springs of water;
Isaiah 35: 5-7