A play on words here from the old hymn, this is a place that captures my spiritual imagination like no other, is it the water, the brickwork, the location with an amazing panorama and next to the beautiful old church. Ah yes, it is this and so much more. It is where I like to walk through every day and just be present in the place. It is surrounded by the beauty and reminders of creation and faith, and it holds so many, many stories and secrets I am sure. For this amazing font is where the ladies of the village all gathered to do their laundry for many centuries until the last 50 years.
My friend Lucia as we stopped there on a walk actually called someone to find out if it was safe to drink the water, yes it is. As a matter of fact, Riccardo says it is the best water in the world to drink, bubbling up from underground springs. Ah, fresh water, the source of life! All over the world there are issues of water and water rights now coming up. In the American Southwest and even Southeast there are shortages, one region of the southwest is so bad that farming communities are considering how they can divert water from the mountains to their areas, over hundreds of miles at the cost of ½ the water to evaporation. To see this fresh water pouring out into the fount is a beautiful sight of abundance.
One more reason for be to find this place to be of great beauty is that we live in a world where fresh water is coming to be in short supply. There are times when it is so easy here to forget the problems of the world, partly because of the language difference, but also because I have no t.v. and the new owners of the café do not have the news on every morning when I go for a cappuccino. And yet I know, I know that font is more to me than a pretty place to visit, it is a sign that God’s world isn’t getting completely destroyed, it isn’t New Mexico in a search for farm water, it isn’t Seattle with summer water rations, it isn’t Mexico or India where citizens are fighting Coca-Cola for rights to clean drinking water. No, it is coming forth fresh right here. In this place where women shared stories for centuries as they went about their daily work together. It is this place overlooking the local industry, the world’s largest coop glass factory, as well as the local farms. It is in this place next to the old church, tucked between garden patches and animal pens, beautifully built and reflecting the fullness of life.
We are borne in the water of our mother’s wombs, we are baptized and cleansed in water, our bodies are mostly water, it is the first element God put on the land. As I look at this font I see the beauty of life in wondrous abundance.
Where do you see life about you?
How are you called to care for the world, for God’s creation to affirm the life here on earth?
What do you think of when you think of water?
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