The Bible holds beautiful images of flowing water as sacred metaphors for refreshment, goodness, purity, spirituality, peace, and life itself. I love to sit by a river, especially our local McKenzie river as it comes down the mountains, and watch the water flow over, around, and through the obstructions placed in its path. To me, it’s a metaphor for unstressed persistence and the continual newness of now. The water I see before me is never the same in one moment as the next. It has a musical joy that flows unimpeded from its inexhaustible headwaters.
Always moving, always fresh, rivers also represent the constant inspiration of divine Mind, the source of all movement. The human mind has so many limitations it has placed on itself. It is said that 90% of its thoughts are the same every day.
Living waters. Do you sometimes long for something that lasts, something pure and good and unpolluted and dependable? Who doesn’t love pure, fresh, flowing, cold, beautiful water?