蜜芽传媒

A reflection and prayer to start the day with Canon Simon Doogan.

Good morning.

Following the driest start to the year in northern regions for almost a century, many of the UK's rivers are running exceptionally low. Without the rainfall that should currently be seasonal, water supplies to households, farmers and businesses could all be affected. The meteorological fact is, when it doesn鈥檛 rain, rivers feel the shortage first.

A poem called From This River, When I Was a Child, I Used to Drink caught me out spiritually on this. Its author Mary Oliver discovers that the body of a girlhood river she returns to, is dying 鈥� still singing out its old songs, but only faintly. Accused by someone of being melodramatic, the poet defends her right to grieve, among other things, 鈥淔or the children who will not know what a river can be - a friend, a companion, a hint of heaven.鈥�

Deuteronomy in the Old Testament, describes Canaan as a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. According to the later prophet Nahum, on the other hand God makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Carmel wither and the blossoms of Lebanon fade. For avoiding spiritual dryness, Jesus鈥� advice to thirst after righteousness remains timeless.

However, widening that out to the shrivelled watercourses causing such concern around the planet, stage one of acknowledging God鈥檚 ultimate sovereignty over creation, has to be penitential.

How else will we learn to treat them properly if we don鈥檛 first examine the ecological imbalance that seems to be all around us for evidence of our own fingerprints,

Lord of earth and heaven, as we remember the precious streams and waterways which formed the landscape of our lives, we pray for those whose shrinking rivers pose a growing threat, to sanitation, irrigation, livelihoods 鈥� even survival. Amen