WATER RANT

I laughed at the water bottle I found today at the bagel shop. Then tonight, after I put the boys to bed was reading this weeks Newsweek and found this article about the popularity of drinking water that claims to have some spiritual value to it. Water that does not "just promote good health, it actually makes you good" these companies claim. They are proving my previous post correct. You really can promise all kinds of bull and get people to pay ridiculous amounts of money, even for water.

I stopped laughing.

Here's a few quotes.

"Like a crucifix or a rosary, a bottle of Holy Water is a daily reminder to be kind to others."

"Holy Drinking water, produced by a California based company called Wayne Enterprises, is blessed at the warehouse by an Anglican or Roman Catholic priest."

"The most recent entry in this niche is Spiritual Water. It is purified municipal water, sold with 10 different Christian labels. The Virgin Mary bottle, for example, has the Hail Mary prayer printed on the back in English and Spanish."

The makers of spiritual water, "Calmly refutes the implication that his Spiritual Water is bad for the planet. People put fewer of his bottles in the trash, he says, because they don't want to discard the images of Jesus or Mary."

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

I recently went on a field trip with TJ to discover how to use water and resources more efficiently in San Diego. It was very cool and in the process I discovered that 90% of the water I get comes from the California Aquaduct and the Colorado River. San Diego is a desert and gets less than 10" of rain a year. This year we have had like 3 inches. I sorta knew that, but the details made me think about my shower a little more intentionally this week. Water is not an American Consumer product, it is a privelege. It is a gift. It should not be wasted. And by the way, it does not come from us, but the Creator alone. Maybe men create cars, but God creates water. Period. We should be careful when we jack with anything lent to us by the creator.

Some according to Newsweek agree with me.

"Some religious believers, also convinced of the elemental importance of water, are campaigning against its unbiquitous sale and packing on the grounds that the practice is neither ethical nor good for the environment. 'Water is life' says Sister Mary Zirbes. 'It really should not be a commodity to be bought.'"

And here's two quotes from Richard Cizik- of the National Association of Evangelicals

"In a world where a billion people have no reliable source of drinking water, where 3000 children die every day of waterborne diseases let's be clear: bottled water is not a sin, but it sure is a choice."

"Spending 15 billion dollars a year on bottle dbottled water is a testimony to our own conspicuous consumption, our culture of indulgence."

Richard takes a lot of crap from "Christians" who don't give a crap about the environment, believing it's ours to rule and that since God's going to destroy it eventually anyway, we can do whatever we want to it now. However Richard Cizik believes Romans 8:19-26 and lives it. I'm a big Richard Cizik fan. (You can read what he believes here) He takes a lot of heat for the gospel. He believes that all of God's created order, including the planet, was hurt by the fall and that Christians not only care about the souls of human beings, but of the creation which is also called to declare the Glory of God. David evidently agreed.

If you want to chew on the behind the scenes issues that are really at stake in this water debate and how some cultures around the world abuse it and what a Christian ought to do about it, then you might want to read this covenant commitment to simple living from the Lausanne Commity for World Evangelization- orignally founded by Billy Graham. But be warned, it's long, deep, spiritual, theological, practical... and it will jack with you. Very few documents have impacted my thinking as significantly as the theological conclusions this group came to. I fully agree with them and am trying desperately to figure out what it means for me. I suspect it will take a while, but I'm on the road.