Streams of Living Water

LivingWater STREAMS OF

TABLE OF CONTENTS

OUR MISSION Inspired by the love of Jesus, we are building the kingdom of heaven, where differing people live in community, serving God and each other.

. DEAR CATHEDRAL COMMUNITY ,

We are moving into the fall, and the flow of life continues. The St. Johns River flows around our city, students return to school, families care for one another, many return from vacation and the Cathedral takes on new life.

It seems that our lives are in constant motion. Change is inevitable and yet, many of us do all that we can to stop change, to keep things the same, to hold on. What if this fall you leaned into change and celebrated the flow of life that comes from our living God? What if, instead of holding on to the way things were, you let go and enjoyed the ride?

The desire to hold onto wealth or possessions is another form of fear. To counteract this fear, to lean into trust and joy, every follower of Jesus is encouraged by him to give. Giving blesses the giver as the flow of generosity moves from God to the giver to the recipient.

Giving comes naturally to a person who is not afraid. To give is to embrace love in a tangible form, to trust that God is moving amid all things, and we don’t have to hold on to everything so tightly. Giving is an act of faith.

In these pages, I invite you to ponder the kind of life you wish to live this fall. Consider a Rule of Life, intentionally planning to give and pray and serve and worship. Consider some of the new ways that God is revealing the kingdom to us. Consider how you might live a life of trust and hope and blessing. If you believe in God, if you put your trust in such a One who made you and takes joy in you, you will find the courage to give, and you will be blessed.

Jesus said it in this way, “WHOEVER BELIEVES IN ME, AS SCRIPTURE HAS SAID, RIVERS OF LIVING WATER WILL FLOW FROM WITHIN THEM.” ~ JOHN 7:38

Join me in the flow of generosity this fall. And may God bless you richly. In Christ’s love,

.

SO TOO GOD IS IN CONSTANT MOTION, MOVING AND EVOLVING AND CHANGING. GIVING AND RECEIVING. SUCH IS THE NATURE OF THE TRINITY. IT IS MEANT TO POINT TO THE FACT THAT GOD DANCES AND FLOWS. GOD’S GENEROSITY IS CONSTANTLY IN MOTION. ,

THE FLOW DANCE

by The Very Rev. Kate Moorehead

GOD CREATED THE NATURAL WORLD and, as God’s handiwork, nature speaks of the artist who made it. To see a leaf, really see it, to give it the focus and attention that it deserves is to honor God. The artist is honored when someone gazes at her painting. So God is pleased when we marvel at the creation. And in gazing upon nature, we learn some of the qualities of its maker.

Think of how everything on this earth is flowing; it is in motion. Birds migrate…How do they know where to go? Bees drink nectar and then move about spreading their sweetness. Stars move in the universe in a dance that transcends our lifetime. And water flows through our bodies and all over this planet.

So too God is in constant motion, moving and evolving and changing. Giving and receiving. Such is the nature of the Trinity. It is meant to point to the fact that God dances and flows. God’s generosity is constantly in motion.

Humans are afraid of change. We want things to be static. We want to hold onto money for security, to guarantee our survival. Like squirrels who store up nuts for winter, we try to amass wealth to be sure we will survive. And some of this is natural… but it can also become distorted. People are meant to give and receive, to be loved and to love. And if we only take and hoard our wealth, we will find our lives stagnant and our love distorted.

Giving is an essential part of the spiritual life. We must let go and trust, give of our resources so that others may live and thrive. More and more, we are beginning to understand that the life of this planet and of the whole human race is deeply intertwined. It simply doesn’t work for some of us to hoard wealth and others to suffer. It causes discord and violence. But forcing people to share or give also doesn’t work, for it goes against our longing to be free. So the only answer to the problems of this world lie in the simple act of giving.

What would the planet look like if every person consumed less and gave more? If every person, no matter their net worth, automatically gave a minimum of ten percent of their income to Godly causes? What kind of joy would abound? How quickly could we begin to solve problems together?

When you give, love flows from you out into the world and that same love comes back more fully, more profoundly. This cycle, this flow of generosity creates joy. It is very simple. It is the motion of love, the dance of God. And you are invited to join.

RIVERS OF LIVING WATER

by Karen Marrolli

There shall be rivers of living water; there shall be streams of Spirit light.

There shall be rivers of living water that cleanse the soul and give us sight.

There shall be pathways of flowing fountains, where rivers seek us to embrace.

Oh let the thirsty come before all and drink the well of healing grace.

Oh does your soul cry out for oneness, like the deserts seek the rain,

like the deer longs for the wellspring? Great Spirit, quench us and sustain!

There shall be rivers of living water; there shall be streams of healing bliss.

There shall be rivers of living water; praise all for this.

BLACKWATER FALLS | Doug Eng

A REFLECTION… ON CHANGE AND FEAR, GIVING AND GENEROSITY, COMMUNICATION AND LISTENING, BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD

by Joe O’Shields

Poets observe the events of life and the world around them, reflect on all of that, and then share their reflections with us. Naomi Shihab Nye, born in 1952 to a Palestinian father and an American mother, grew up in Missouri and on the West Bank, has lived in Jerusalem and now considers San Antonio, TX her home. This poem is one of my favorites— I’m glad to share it with you.

GATE

A-4

Naomi Shihab Nye

Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement: “If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately.”

Well—one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.

An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. “Help,” said the flight agent. “Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”

I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly. “Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bitse-wee?” The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the next day. I said, “No, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just later, who is picking you up? Let’s call him.”

We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours. She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee, answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and

nuts—from her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate.

To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.

And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend— by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too. This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.

--from Honeybee, Harper Collins, 2008.

The events of our lives are the flow—the motion—of us. They provide us with opportunities for change and reflection. The poet was in an airport when she learned her flight was delayed for 4 hours—not an occasion for joy—and then that a ruckus required attention at her departure gate. Rather than fume about her delay and go to the airport lounge, she went to see what was happening, where she found airline service people trying to deal with a woman who might be a terrorist, who did not respond when English was spoken to her, and who was “crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.” I can imagine that the airport personnel might be resorting to various stereotypes as they saw, but really did not truly see, the woman in distress before them.

The poet listens and then speaks in barely remembered Arabic and that makes all the difference. The distressed woman begins to understand that she is only going to be a few hours late but should not miss the major medical treatment she needed.

And then the poet, having already given her talent (her halting Arabic and her willingness to be involved in the situation) gives of her time to make calls on behalf of her “new best friend” to sons, the poet’s own father and even a few “Palestinian poets she knows”—all of whom can communicate well with the poet’s new best friend. The poet’s generous giving contributes to the redeeming of the situation.

And the Palestinian woman naturally wants to contribute what she has to show her appreciation for the new community who comes to be her friend—she gives everyone her homemade mamool cookies— “it was like a Sacrament” —everyone took a cookie, and everyone was covered with the same powdered sugar. Even the airline contributed free apple juice and lemonade! All to the diverse group who found themselves at Gate 4-A at the Albuquerque Airport.

The poet notices that her new best friend is carrying a potted plant— “some medicinal thing” —a spiritual practice that reminds the practitioner to “stay rooted to somewhere.”

None of this a chore—it is all joy. As the poet observed this whole marvelous scene, she thinks “this is the world I want to live in.” It’s a shared world; where no one sees the gate mates apprehensively, as those who are “other” or “enemy;” where all shared the cookies. Rather, all these are part of a family—those who we would hug.

What a marvelous hope— “this can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.” This is one poet’s reflection on how generous giving and deep listening can break down barriers and bring us into real community. We need each other. We need those spiritual practices that root us. A world we want to live in is one with a large family, all willing to share and hug.

The Bible and our religious tradition speak of this community often. Three short examples—the prophet Isaiah speaks of the peaceable kingdom where wolf shall live with the lamb (Isaiah 11); Jesus proclaims the kingdom of God and invites us to pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven… (Matthew 6); and the Episcopal Church invites us to the lifelong work of becoming Beloved Community. All of this describes how the flow of generosity creates joy, and how we, all children of God, are invited to join in this motion of love, the dance of God.

WHAT IS YOUR VISION OF A WORLD YOU WOULD LIKE TO LIVE IN?

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO BRING THAT WORLD INTO BEING?

.WHAT WE CALL NATURE IS SIMPLY THIS GRAND, EVOLVING FLOW, WHICH BRINGS EACH OF US INTO EXISTENCE, BEARS US ALONG, AND EVENTUALLY RECLAIMS US. ,

THOUGHT PATTERNS | Dottie Dorion

CONSCIENCE AND RESISTANCE

by Scott Russell Sanders

SOON AFTER THE 1962 PUBLICATION OF SILENT SPRING, Thomas Merton wrote in his journal: “I have been shocked at a notice of a new book by Rachel Carson on what is happening to birds as a result of the indiscriminate use of poisons. . . . Someone will say: you worry about birds. Why not worry about people? I worry about both birds and people. We are in the world and part of it, and we are destroying everything because we are destroying ourselves spiritually, morally, and in every way. It is all part of the same sickness, it all hangs together.”

In his writings from the 1960s, Merton traced this sickness to our false sense of separation from nature and our unchecked appetite for power and possessions. His diagnosis was grounded in the teachings of Jesus and the Hebrew prophets, with their stern warnings against greed and the piling up of material wealth; it drew on the Christian monastic tradition, with its devotion to poverty and simplicity; and it was informed in his later years by Asian philosophy, especially Zen Buddhism. Beginning with “Rain and the Rhinoceros,” his work has helped me understand that our ecological crisis is, at root, a spiritual crisis. We abuse and exploit Earth for the same reason we abuse and exploit one another: because we have lost a sense of kinship with our fellow human beings, with other species, and with our planetary home.

Merton felt this kinship keenly. “Here I am not alien,” he wrote from his cabin in the woods. “The trees I know, the night I know, the rain I know. I close my eyes and instantly sink into the whole rainy world of which I am a part, and the world goes on with me in it, for I am not alien to it.” His experience as well as his faith convinced him that the waters and woods and fields and their myriad creatures, human and nonhuman, all arise from the same divine source. “[T]he whole world is charged with the glory of God,” he exulted in The Sign of Jonas, “and I feel fire and music in the earth under my feet.” We are sparks of that primordial fire, notes of that music, each of us, all of us, along with birds and butterflies, maples and monkeys, frogs and ferns. Whatever power gave rise to the cosmos, to life, to consciousness, still infuses and sustains all things. What we call nature is simply this grand, evolving flow, which brings each of us into existence, bears us along, and eventually reclaims us. Knowing this vividly, as Merton did, how can we desecrate Earth? How can we keep from crying out in wonder and praise?

Scott Russell Sanders’ most recent books are Dancing in Dreamtime and Stone Country. Scott is among the longest-running regular contributors to Orion; this is his twenty-third piece in the magazine.

From Orion Nature Quarterly 2018

WAVE SPLIT | Doug Eng

THE RIVER

by Marcus Courtney

Creeping north from hell n’ blazes

Seeps through the skin into the blood Slow currents grab the heart and enslave the mind, while freeing the soul.

My life; enhanced through this ancient basin of dirt and rain

All that’s needed to make life thrive…

Taught me how to love Taught me how to hate

Catalyst of manhood for both dad and me Immovable from my veins, That river of lakes…

I thank God everyday pops drew that short straw

The river cut it that way, Calling that Courtney to come south and see Same way its cut and commanded me. Yearning to return to the days of old

I go back to those long late summer nights under shrimpin lights The smell of that mud hangs tight in the wet air.

.TODAY, I REMEMBER, AND I WANT TO DEFINE GOD AS UNFOLDING, ENGENDERING, KEEPING, YIELDING. I WANT TO IMAGINE GOD, NOT STATIC AS THE RIVER IS NOT STATIC, AS MOUNTAINS ARE NOT STATIC, AS THE STARS ARE NOT STATIC, AS LIFE IS NOT STATIC, BUT GOD AS MIGHTY, EMPOWERING, URGING, INFUSING, COMING, AND CONTINUALLY PRESSING AGAINST OBLIVION. ,

BORN AGAIN AND AGAIN

by Pattiann Rogers

I GREW UP NEAR A SMALL RIVER in southwest Missouri, really a large creek, an easily navigable waterway with a calm current, deep in places, in others flowing with low white ruffles over rocky shoals. I went to this river often, as if to a favorite relative, to see what was happening, wading and swimming sometimes, watching the creatures of the bank shallows and shore sedges, a buzzard or two slowly spiraling the sky, finches and sparrows prattling in the mat of wild brambles. The fragrances of spring blackberry and sassafras, the spicy scent of summer grasses, the musty cold of damp, autumn leaves, hickories, walnuts, and oaks rooting in the river’s domain—I found them all.

One summer afternoon I went to this river with my parents and brother and another family. Together we were an ecclesia, as they called it, a word from the fundamentalist religion my parents had just joined. I went to the river this time for baptism by immersion. Mine. I was thirteen. Words would be said. Transformations would take place, I was told. What would the river be then, I wondered, a participant in a religious ritual? Every religious ritual I had ever known had been performed inside a church sanctuary, out of the wind, away from the sunlight and commotion always present under an open sky, in a subdued church sanctuary enclosed by stained glass, lined with heavy wooden pews, the soldier-like brass pipes of an imposing organ standing at attention at one end, a choir in black robes, the minister in velvet. Baptism in my former church had meant a red rose dipped in water and held to an infant’s head.

Beside the river on this day, they told me my sins would be washed away. I would be cleansed of all the sins of my thirteen years alive in Missouri and be born anew. I didn’t doubt it, whatever my sins were. I already knew the river’s chants and spells. I knew, without knowing I knew, that the river had something elemental to do with beat and blood, their rising and ceasing, everything to do with the transformations that happen when earth and sun and water come together, what emerges from that union breathing, grasping, seeking and scrambling, suckling and nesting, what cacophony of webs, tones, carols, and spans sustain themselves within that union.

Inside the aura of the ceremony, I walked into the river, meeting it as always, feeling the cool shore water on my feet, scattering a swirl of rivercolored minnows, passing the black beads of a tadpole pod in the reeds, the circling of two water striders, down into the river’s moving presence, its flow stronger, colder, unrelenting, knocking a stick against my knee, wrapping a broken weed at my ankle. A knot of fishing line snagged on a small branch drifted by. I don’t remember the words said as I balanced against the current, but I went down over my head into the river’s swath and tasted, its muffled silence, through the dim, broken light of the underwater sun, feeling the muddy leaves and slippery stones of its base, a living fish bumping my shoulder, the river sliding against my face, through my hair, far beneath birds winging above faster than the current, down into the force and time of the river’s body.

And when I came up again and gasped the rash blaze and explosion of summer, I believed wholeheartedly in river belief. The river was here, tangible, soothing and biting, cresting and waning, not a gift but an ongoing giving and re-giving. The river, with all the beings it spawned, was acting. River was a verb, not a noun. Bank swallow, blue butterfly, bumblebee, bittersweet were not things but soaring and alighting, bearing and consuming. Wild grape meant twining and persisting, dogwood reaching, blossoming, seeding, withdrawing, perch and carp and catfish pulsing, holding, enduring. The river was being—swift, assertive, foresworn—moment by moment by moment. And I knew I was joined in that same being and supreme in the being of believing, moment by moment by moment.

Later that afternoon we ate beside the river. We made a small fire on the gravel bar, just large enough to recall again the frenetic art of fiery vigor and brilliance, the art of woodsmoke climb and fragrance. The river and our place beside it took on the colors of evening. And the crickets with their glass castanets, the frogs hidden near the water with their long bass strums and trilling trebles, struck up their defiant sounds of declaration, once the low melodic call of an owl. The dim fire points of the stars and the blinking fire points of the lightning bugs in the heavy bank bushes transfigured the shore, the sky, the night. As the river grew darker, I could hear more distinctly the slow lap and easy slap of its moving waters. We gathered up then and started back, walking single file with flashlights along the narrow path.

I never regarded the river as a god. I would never have tangled it up in the vagaries of that word. Today, I remember, and I want to define God

as unfolding, engendering, keeping, yielding. I want to imagine God, not static as the river is not static, as mountains are not static, as the stars are not static, as life is not static, but God as mighty, empowering, urging, infusing, coming, and continually pressing against oblivion.

All the earth is engaged in this being. Every living entity—from the eelpout on the bottom of the Arctic Ocean to the bar-headed goose flying over Mount Everest to the golden, orb-weaving spider of the mangroves to the giant forest hog of the Congo to the bent and twisted bristlecone pine in the ice of the Rockies to the beds of fluff grass on the barren Mojave—every living entity is testifying to this and agreeing with me.

Pattiann Rogers is a poet of nature—but also a profoundly theological poet. “Everything I see of heaven,” she writes, “I know by the earth.” Hers is a theology grounded in the hard particulars of the natural world, an anagogic way of knowing that, as she demonstrates in a poem called “Whence and the Keeper,” finds in the images of horses and rivers, glaciers and plankton, a vocabulary for understanding a thing as cosmic and distant as the Milky Way. With the power of sustained attention and persistent observation, she brings to her writing a field biologist’s eye for the details of species and phenomena. Alive to the earth’s scents, moods, and variety, her gaze reveals nature’s power and terror, but also its grace and comedy. Like God’s answer to Job from the whirlwind, Rogers’ work locates in the animal, vegetable, and mineral world a theology more profound than abstract systematics could ever offer. – Editors of Image Journal

KELP | Doug Eng

LIFELINES: NOTES ON LIFE & LOVE, FAITH & DOUBT

by Malcolm Doney & Martin Wroe

“Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.”

~Wendell Berry

It’s often called the golden rule, and a version of it features in many of the great religious traditions.

In Islam it appears like this: “No one of you as a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.”

In Buddhism: “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”

In Confucianism: “Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you.

In Judaism: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary.”

In Hinduism: “This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain is done to you.”

Someone summed it up as “the Law of One”: “We are all one. When one is harmed, all are harmed. When one is helped, all are helped.” The ethic of reciprocity is the jargon term or, as Jesus of Nazareth put it, “do onto others as you’d have them do to you.”

While the idea is sanctified by religions, it’s not owned by them. It’s also cherished by people who don’t buy religion at all. Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes probably goes back before religion itself, before shoes too.

Empathy promotes kindness, passion, understanding and respect. My decisions affect my neighbor - not just over the road but over the sea. On a neighboring continent. Not just later today but later in this century. Everyone’s connected when we all share one planet.

Trust a farmer to understand. And a poet to capture it. That’s Wendell Berry, who’s both.

FLOW OF IDEAS

The photography by Doug Eng featured in this issue is from the exhibition FLOW in Taliaferro Hall from September 18 through November 6. A Jacksonville, Florida native and resident, Doug Eng is a photographer and installation artist whose visual interests are urban and natural landscapes. Eng’s recent projects focus on raising awareness of social and environmental issues - redlining, urban renewal, deforestation, and the effects of climate change on the health of our forests. An engineer and software programmer by education and trade, Eng is pursuing a lifelong interest in the visual arts and has established a reputation for unique imagery and meaningful public projects.

To learn more, visit his website: https://www.dougeng.art.

CATHEDRAL QUARTERLY EDITORIAL BOARD

Owene Courtney Nancy Purcell, Managing Editor

The Rev. Dr. Linda Privitera

ADVISOR

The Very Rev. Kate Moorehead jaxcathedral.org

256 East Church Street Jacksonville, FL 32202

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“DO UNTO THOSE DOWNSTREAM AS YOU WOULD HAVE THOSE UPSTREAM DO UNTO YOU.” ~WENDELL BERRY ,