We use cookies to make your experience better. To comply with the new e-Privacy directive, we need to ask for your consent to set the cookies. Learn more.
Taking Action to Save Water
Water is a key theme throughout Saying Yes to Life: The Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent Book 2020. Whilst Ruth Valerio reflects on light and water in relation to the Days of Creation (Genesis 1), she also relates this back to the environmental, ethical and social concern that we face today with Climate Change. In this extract from the book Ruth explores three ways that we as individuals and as churches can take action to save water.
Many of us can't help but take the water that we drink, use and bathe in for granted. Have you ever thought about what life would be like without clean and readily available water? In this extract from Saying Yes to Life, the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent Book 2020, Ruth Valerio explores three ways that we can take action in our lives and in our churches to reduce our use of water as well as help others who don't have access to clean and readily available water.
...
It does not have to be this way, and we can make a difference through the actions we take in our lives and in our churches.
First, we can pray. Water is something we use often throughout the day. Why not say a prayer every time you use water in the coming week: when you turn on a tap, flush the toilet, have a shower, put on the washing machine or dishwasher? If you have easy-to-reach, clean water and don’t bat an eyelid at putting it down the toilet, ask God to help you remember those who are in a different situation.
Second, we can give. On my bathroom wall, next to the loo, I have a picture of a toilet in Bihar, India. It’s very basic, but it is clean and decent. I asked to have the bathroom toilet twinned for Christmas one year, and it is nice to know that the money spent on my Christmas present has gone to provide a community with a proper toilet, plus the hygiene education process that accompanies it.
Many organizations are involved in helping provide proper access to water and sanitation facilities, and training around how to use them well. In development speak, that is called WASH – water, sanitation and hygiene – and is encapsulated in Sustainable Development Goal 6, ‘To ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all [by 2030]’). Let’s return to Ungwa in the DRC. She is now in a very different situation because of work being done by the partnership between the ODI (Overseas Development Institute), Oxfam and Tearfund. The community now has access to clean, safe water in the heart of the village. Many families have constructed latrines with ‘tippy-taps’ where they can wash their hands, and pits where they can get rid of their rubbish. Hygiene has improved considerably and there is now a ‘healthy village’ committee with a water sub-committee. Ungwa has seen a significant improvement in the health of her children: ‘I’ve noticed that my children are less sick and we don’t have to go to the clinic like we did before,’ she says, and the health benefits of the process have been felt across the whole community, saving people money and giving them more time for their families and livelihoods.
Third, we can take practical action. Think about the water in your area. Maybe there are local initiatives you could get involved with that look after your rivers or canals. Could you or your church join in or initiate a clean-up? A Rocha UK was started because Dave and Ann Bookless saw a large area of abandoned open space near them known as ‘the Minet tip’, which included a small river, clogged up with rubbish. Over five years, with the involvement of the community and local churches, they transformed it into the Minet Country Park. One of the highlights has been the clearing of the river itself, which now attracts all sorts of wildlife including kingfishers, newts and dragonflies.
The Church can also be present in standing up for the protection of waterways and the people and ecosystems that depend on them. US Episcopalian, Bishop Michael Curry, in his Letter for Creation to Justin Welby, talked of the role of the Church in the fight to stop the Dakota pipeline which would have split the Missouri river and thus put at risk that vital source of water for the Standing Rock Sioux’s reservation: I saw people of every nation, faith, age and race move to stand with the Standing Rock Sioux as they struggled to turn back a pipeline that threatened their sacred lands and their water supply. And I saw the Episcopal Church flag at the front of that procession. When crowds chanted ‘Mni Wiconi’ (water is life), Episcopalians chanted with full voice because we have been given new life in Jesus Christ through the waters of baptism. Yes, water is life. Yes, we should honor it.
...
Saying Yes to Life lifts our focus from natural, everyday concerns to issues that are having an impact on millions of lives around the world. As people made in the image of God, we are entrusted to look after what he has created: to share in God’s joy and ingenuity in making a difference for good. Ruth Valerio imaginatively draws on the Days of Creation (Genesis 1) as she relates themes of light, water, land, the seasons, other creatures, humankind, Sabbath rest and resurrection hope to matters of environmental, ethical and social concern.
Related Posts
-
New for December 2019
December sees the publication of a great selection of titles for Lent 2020. So if you've started your Lenten preparations early make sure to keep an eye out for these new books. Highlights include Saying Yes to Life: The Archbishop of Canterbury's Le -
Jesus, the Earth, and Environmental Justice (an extract from Justice for Christ's Sake)
Twenty years before Greta Thunberg arrived on the scene, Bishop James Jones asked young people how worried they were about the future of the world. In an assembly of 250 young people, all of them raised their hand to show concern. In this extract fro
