I grew up in a family that said grace at dinner. We were thankful for the bounty of food. We never said anything about water. We would go to the water, be it lake, river, bay or ocean, to celebrate birthdays as well as major family and community events – but we never celebrated the water. We would be blessed by baptism with water, but we never treated the water like it was blessed.

Water is probably the most used, viewed, touched, and precious resource that is mentally invisible. We do not connect the water we see with the water we use in the kitchen, the bathroom, in business and industry, to make electricity, and to grow food. Water is where we go for vacation, it is what we want to live by, it is the liquid that comes out of the faucet or the hose and then goes away. We do not think of how the different waters are connected, nor do we accept and acknowledge that we all live downstream from each other and ourselves. The proverb of “remembering the source” seldom plays in our mind as we use, discard, disregard and discharge the liquid upon which all life depends.

Water is life, health, dignity, prosperity, hope, sustenance, and resiliency. Water shapes landscapes, men’s minds, and people’s souls. Water is an entity, a resource, a commodity, a habitat, and a conveyor of people, commerce, life, and toxins. Water is a marker of seasons and time; water is a solid, a liquid, a gas, and a dynamic force.

Water is our lifeblood. It is precious and it is magic. Out of respect and/or dependency, we need to change our mindset about water from being assumed and invisible to being cherished and invaluable for our planet does not make water, it just recirculates it. All that there will ever be is already here.

So maybe it is not too much to ask that at least once a year we take a moment to think about it, acknowledge it, be thankful for it – and maybe even say “thank you” to it.

Tim