Where the River Goes: Living Waters and the Season of Creation

As I write this, my oldest daughter is wrapping up her first week of college and the other three are concluding their first week of a new year of high school. The weather shifted, as if to coincide with the new school year beginning. The crickets are chirping, the first few leaves are falling, and football season is upon us. Just like that, it feels like fall! 

Each season carries its own personality, its own frustrations and joys. Fall brings with it cooler weather and comfort foods. It also brings busier schedules and shorter days (and completely different seasonal allergies!). Our lives shift in fundamental ways as the air around us shifts. We become the people that the new season requires and becoming those new people requires a spiritual reset. Whether we think of it this way or not, our inner lives are recalibrated when we step into Advent and Lent. We encounter different texts, different language, and different music. We reorient ourselves to the change the season will bring that mirrors the changes in Creation. 

The Season of Creation has the ability to give us the same kind of reorientation as summer fades and autumn emerges. Every year, I witness more and more congregations embracing the Season of Creation not just as a programmatic opportunity but as an occasion for deep theological and liturgical reflection on relationship to Creation and, by extension, our relationship to the Creator. Worship becomes filled with prayers for our more than human kin, hymns that praise the beauty of water, earth, and sky, and sermons that highlight the way that God has always been present to us in that which has been created. And while there will undoubtedly be new hymns and prayers written as the occasion continues to gain in popularity, what the celebration does best is refocus our attention on the fact that Creation has always been central to our worship and spiritual lives. 

This year’s theme, for example, highlights the prominent role that rivers, lakes, streams, and seas play in the biblical narrative. Ezekiel 47 paints a vivid picture of living waters pouring from the temple of God in a land that has been restored after devastation. It’s not just that the water is living as it flows from the temple, it gives life to everything that it touches. Where the river goes, life flourishes. As we contemplate what “immersion in living waters” means for our communities, our attention shifts to the rivers and streams that bring vitality to our bioregions. What does it look like to protect and share the living waters that enliven our communities? What might it mean to restore the dead and dying waterways impacted by our activities? “Immersion” is not passive. It is an invitation to deep intimacy with the streams and estuaries as well as all of the creatures that rely on them to eat, drink, play, and swim.

To center us in the theme, we will be launching our first Creation Justice course on the theme “Is a River Sacred?”. Creation Justice Courses are a way for us to make eco-theological education more accessible to our network. The title is borrowed from Robert Macfarlane’s excellent book “Is a River Alive?” in which he highlights efforts around the globe to secure legal rights and protections for waterways. We’ll be considering the spiritual importance of rivers both Christian and indigenous traditions and considering what practical applications might emerge for those of us who consider rivers both living and sacred. Registration for this course will be open very soon. 

As the days get shorter and the air eventually gets cooler, Creation gives witness to the cycles and patterns that hold the world together. This gives us an opportunity to give thanks for the way that the world God has made takes care of us and gives us the spiritual encouragement to reciprocate that care. May this Season of Creation be a time of renewed dedication to loving and serving the whole community of Creation and listening to its testimony of God’s goodness.