Chris McDonnell: The thirst of prayer
Water is fundamental to life on Earth. We can go for many days without food, not without some considerable discomfort of course, but not life-threatening. Without water, the risk to life is far more serious.
The adverts on our screens for Water Aid graphically show the huge struggle that so many people have in gathering this basic essential necessity of life. In one of them, a young girl is seen filling a yellow plastic can, lifting it on to her back where she wraps her shawl round it in order to carry it to her village. Much of the water is already contaminated, and the consequence of drinking it can bring disease. It is a daily danger that millions have to face.
A couple of years ago, one of my grandsons, wrote these few words that reflect the same story.
‘The long walk of thirst, so long, so exhausting,
so far, just to reach the water spring.
Now all that our beloved water spring spurts out is dirty,
horrible disease-riddled water.
Sadness stains the tribe forever
such hope was lying in our veins.
that now springs out with water from our eyes.
We knew that death was near.’
Yet time and again, water is a powerful symbol of life in our lives. From the account of Moses and the Rock of Horeb, issuing forth with the spring of life, through to the words of the Psalms, this image is present.
In, for example, Psalm 63 we hear these words,
‘O God, you are my God; at dawn I seek you;
for you my soul is thirsting.
For you my flesh is pining,
like a dry, weary land without water’.
On into the New Testament, the water image is ever present. The gospel account of Jesus meeting the Samarian woman tells us a great deal about relationships and attitudes of the time, all centred round the imagery of water as the source of life,
‘I will give you living water’.
From the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan through to the words of Jesus on the Cross-‘I thirst’– the thread of water continues. Drought is feared by people whose lives depend on their ability to harvest their crops and rear their animals. Without rainfall, the riverbeds dry and water holes are emptied. The generous earth returns to desert and the loss is life-threatening.
Mary Oliver, the American poet, published a collection of poems entitled ‘Thirst‘. The title poem starts and ends with these words.
‘Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have
…… to be told to pack nothing except the prayers,
which with this thirst I am slowly learning.’
We often use the word ‘thirst’ as a description of needing something that we are desperate to have. Mary Oliver’s concluding words imply that we learn to pray out of the need to pray. We learn through our struggle, our thirst, not once and for all, but again and again. A few words written some weeks ago.
‘There is a gathering thirst,
as days and months wear on.
Words are lost in a parched throat,
lacking shape or sense
as cracked lips falter
and the dry imagination
of a previous time of certainty
cannot find expression.
An unutterable cry
of unanswered questions.
Wait, be still, listen.
Ultimately our thirst, our prayer, can only be satisfied if our patience is not broken by an apparent lack of success, by failure. That is the story of so many human struggles, both in our lifetime and in earlier years. The images of thirst are all around us, both the physical needs of our bodies and the spiritual needs of our innermost self. Faced with aridity, the choices are stark. We can walk away or hang on in and keep trying.
Psalm 42 tells the same story,
We are not the first to thirst, to struggle with prayer, nor will we be the last.
It is a challenge that all will experience one time or another.