RECTOR’S REFLECTION: An Accidental Fast and the Season of Creation

 

Fasting has a long history in the Christian tradition.

Fasting is going without, often food, but it can be other things as well.

Fasting can have many spiritual benefits – new insights, clarity, even transcendent experiences; it can build self-control, empathy and peace; it can express solidarity; it can illicit joy!

Sometimes fasts happen on purpose, sometimes they happen by accident.

We had a bit of an accidental fast the last few weeks – a fast from indoor plumbing at St. John’s.

I hope it had spiritual benefits for us. I hope that it increased our empathy for all the people in Canada and around the world who do not have easy access to plentiful, clean, potable, flowing water. I know for certain that we experienced joy (a fruit of the Spirit) when the fast was broken.

As the Season of Creation’s theme this year is “Living Water,” this fast has had me reflecting on the preciousness of this delicate, finite resource that we are blessed with in apparent abundance where we live.

It has made me wonder, is the old adage true? Does familiarity breed contempt? Do we take this life-giving liquid for granted because of how effortlessly we can access it?

There is a teaching in the Orthodox Church, that by virtue of Christ’s baptism, all the water of the world, which is fundamentally connected, is blessed.

I wonder if we would treat water conservation differently, if we considered water – all water – sacred, blessed by the one who gives living water (John 4).

I pray that our fast may have had spiritual benefits. And I pray that one of those benefits is that we might start to see that water conservation is not just important, but a profoundly spiritual practice.

Let me give you one small example and inspiration of something that happens every week at St. John’s. Each Sunday, I bless water for the font at the entrance of the sanctuary. It is meant to be a reminder of our baptisms and the living water that Christ offers each of us. And each week, following the service, Debbie uses it to water the plants that grow in our sanctuary. May the cycle of water, the cycle of blessing continue to flow.

Thanks be to God!

 

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