This morning the resident robins were fighting over the Vicarage garden’s feather cleaning services, otherwise known as the bird bath.
The fight went like this. The bird, who is not patiently waiting for its turn, flies aggressively at the bird who is bathing, who then flies off into the various shrubs and brambles at speed. Then, they reverse roles about two seconds later, and the whole fight plays out again!
In the case of the resident robins, they do seem to know, somehow, that they will reverse roles and both will bathe in the end. They are, I think, a breeding pair, although their breeding is done for this year.
Competition for essential resources doesn’t always resolve in the kind-of-almost amicable way that our breeding pair resolved it, whether between a breeding pair, or between territorial males, or between species, or between humans, or between humans and other species.
Geoff, my husband, and I have an uncanny ability to end up at the kitchen sink at the same time over lunch (which is self-service around the comings and goings of ministry), both wanting water at the same moment; mostly we share the sink and the water very easily, but sometimes we don’t, at least not to begin with when our timetables clash!
The hot dry weather this summer, and the recent water restrictions in some areas of the UK in the northern hemisphere, is one reminder very close to home of the essential place of water within the earth’s eco system and of the fragile balance of the earth’s eco system. Without water there is no life on Earth, human or otherwise.
The hot dry weather, not just in the UK but more especially in other parts of the world, and the resultant water scarcity and droughts in north and west Africa and parts of southern Africa, much of the Middle East, significant areas of India and whole swathes of Asia, show the tipping point that the earth’s eco system has reached due to changes in the climate.
The WRI, the World Resources Institute, a global research non-profit organisation, states on its website that ‘more than a billion people currently live in water-scarce regions, and as many as 3.5 billion could experience water scarcity by 2025.’
I find that I need to translate those statistics into proportions of the global human population in order to begin to grasp their implications. And then I need to translate them into more local proportions, to a scale where their implications affect me and the people around me.
The world currently has a human population of 7.6 billion. This means that around a seventh of the current human population lives in water scarce-regions. Seven years from now, almost half of the human population could be living in water-scarce regions if current trends continue.
What does one in seven of the population of Clayton or North Staffordshire feel like? What does half of the population of Clayton or North Staffordshire feel like?
The current statistics show that people are more like to be experiencing water-scarcity if they live outside of the UK and if they are poor. But ultimately, we are all affected. And, ultimately, the ecosystems on which we all depend are affected. An increase from one in seven of the population to half of the population feels rapid and scary to me.
The WRI focuses not only on climate and water but also on energy, food, forests, cities and transport, which together reflect the vital connections within the ecological or natural web of life, and in the anthropological or human web of life, the global village in which we live.
Water is essential for drinking, sanitation, and crops. We soon get thirsty if we haven’t got access to water as we go about our daily lives. Our skin develops sores and becomes infected if we can’t bathe and keep clean. Public health is threatened if whole populations don’t have access to safe drinking water and adequate sewage systems. And we soon get hungry if crops fail and food becomes scarce. Whole populations face starvation and displacement as a result of sustained crop failure.
Access to safe drinking water raises questions about the availability of water, and also about the pollution of water that is available, which in turn raises questions about the viability of the ecosystem of the area or region that is affected by water-scarcity or water pollution.
It isn’t only human populations that face starvation and displacement when ecosystems become unviable. All of the non-human species that make up that environment face it too; avia, fauna and flora.
Our robins’ competition for feather cleaning services, for the water in the bird bath, is just one reminder of the way in which non-human species depend on water for life, too. Their dependence is about bathing to remove parasites from their feathers, and about life itself in all of its interconnectedness.
Water is at the heart of the story of God’s love for creation and for God’s people, beginning with the account of creation when ‘the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good’ (Genesis 1:10), continuing with the waters of the Red Sea through which Moses led to the people of Israel to freedom (Exodus 14:21-25), through to the waters of the River Jordan in which Jesus the Son of God was baptised (Matthew 3:13-17).
Water is at the heart of baptism, our initiation as Christians. In baptism water, as an essential element of life, symbolises God’s love in creating, sustaining and redeeming life. And in the birth and baptism of Jesus, God shares in our dependence on the material elements of life and opens the way for us to receive those material elements as a spiritual gift of grace.
As we approach the August bank holiday weekend, I’m preparing for the baptism of two young children. And my hope and prayer for those two young children, and for the young child whom I will baptise at the end of September, is that through the waters of baptism they will know that they are loved by the parents and godparents, family and friends, who surround them.
And I hope and pray that those children will know that they are loved by God whose ‘right hand hold[s] [them] fast’ and who leads them in ‘the way everlasting’, to paraphrase Psalm 139.
And I hope and pray that those children will know a world in which the earth’s resources are safeguarded by the adults of the world in order that they, and all of the children of the world, are able to flourish physically and spiritually.
© 2018 Julia Babb