Thirst, water and life
When I was young, I was petty much thirsty all of the time. Running and playing and yes fighting and sweating makes for a thirsty boy. When I was a young monk and used to work in the garden at the hottest times of the day, I would always be thirsty no matter how much I drank. There used to be a water spicket in the middle of the garden and I would often lie under it and take in a great deal of water. I did not mind, for the quenching of thirst is one of the great pleasures of life. That was in my early twenties.
As I aged, my thirst response changed, until today I am seldom thirsty and in fact have to tell myself to drink as the day goes on. I do miss feeling thirst, though I do not want to go back to being thirsty a great deal of the time. I drink coffee, tea, milk at breakfast and when I remember I drink down a glass of water. A few weeks age I found my leg calves hurting a great deal when I walked down the stairs. It was I found out from dehydration, so I started drinking more water and it went away after a couple of days. So my age is catching up to me and I can’t get away with not drinking enough liquid like I did when younger…when I was in my 40’s and 50’s. I am grateful that my body warns me now when I forget to drink. I am sure I will need these reminders in the future.
If only I could do that with food. When I went to have my pacemaker checked, my doctor really gave me the riot act over my weight. He told me that I have to lose weight and if I did not my other health problems would get worse. I told him that it was not my fault, but it was the cinnamon rolls that were doing it to me. He laughed and said that he understood, but I needed to lose weight. I did listen to him, so now for the last couple of weeks have not eaten any pastries and have lost about 10 pounds, with more to lose on the way. I want to be of use to the community for as long as I can, so the weight has to come off. I hope to have 20 more years of life (I will then be 88), and most of them I want to be able to still serve the community and others, and then the time will come when I will be forced to let others serve and take care of me. Lord, I hope I have the humility to do it with grace. Or I may die tomorrow. Who knows?
Water and food are the stables of life. We eat and in the end I guess we are eaten in turn when we slowly return to the earth after death. Or get cremated and miss that messy part. It is all around us and the need for water especially apparent. We have some plants on our back porch outside of our ‘talking dinning room’. Yesterday I noticed that our ‘Lambs Ear’ plant was not just dropping but prostrate lying over the pot. So I got some water and poured it into the soil and within an hour was right as rain, perky and ready to jump out of the pot it could.
I suppose ‘prayer’ could be consider a sort of watering of the soul. To pray or to be in the presence of the Infinite is to be transformed and ones soul slowly healed and made strong by the grace of the ‘Living Water’. When people begin to pray (of course I am speaking from my own experience), it can be quick and for a few moments each day. Then as the ‘Living Waters’ unhurriedly do their work, the one who is praying finds themselves praying in places that they never thought of in the past. Slowly over the years when in a doctors office, or waiting at the air-port, or in traffic, they find themselves at first weakly and then over time more forcibly praying automatically as if responding to an invitation. They don’t need the radio as much when driving but find their selves content to simply be with the Lord in prayer, in silence. It becomes normal to be open to ones interior life, because our inner struggles, pain, failures and joys are the very stuff of prayer, the energy that allows us to open up to God’s transforming love. We discover that peace and joy are more present to our conscious minds and we find that we have a feeling of unity with all people. Soon we pray for our enemies and those who hurt us, we seek to forgive and to understand. It is a stop and go affair, but grace once it touches us allows the seed to grow/take root over time. Some grow a hundredfold, others sixty and still others thirty. When we seek to pray and to grow in the love of God, we always love God to our full capacity, but there is always room for more growth. So there is the struggle and death to ‘ways of life’ that keep us back from a deep loving intimacy with God
We thirst for God and as we age and pray this thirst will deepen and when we for whatever reason stop praying, or can’t, we soon come back to it, even if there is great struggle. For ‘waiting on the Lord’, often takes place in the desert where there are no sign post, all we can do is to be patient and trust. In that we grow in deeper love of God and where true healing takes place. Once the Spirit of God wounds the soul, it can only find healing in the ‘Fire of God’s Love’.
Br. Mark Dohle, OCSO
Holy Spirit Monastery
