Page 44 - Eggs and Ashes pages

Lent discipline 43

Prayer

Give thanks for the rain, so often treated as the poor relation of the sun.
Give thanks for planners, construction firms, plumbers, who bring water long distances
into homes.
Give thanks for the people who invigilate the quality of water.
Pray that all people may have clean water.

In Latin America, a guerrilla stands in a river, her rifle lying within reach on the
bank. She has not removed any clothes, but is exhilarated by the rush of water
penetrating them to wash out dirt and to refresh her tired body. O, the joy on her
face – the long weeks of mud and watchfulness temporarily behind her!

Prayer

Give thanks for clouds, rivers, lochs, seas, the great gifts of creation, which we can use
well or badly but cannot contrive.
Give thanks for baths, showers, bathing, which cleanses the body, draws out weariness
from the bones, refreshes people for whatever awaits them.
Pray for people in shanty towns, in cramped accommodation, deprived of access to
clean water.
Pray for fire fighters confronting house and forest fires.
Pray for protesters braving water cannons.

In Bungsipsee in Chaiyapoon province in Thailand, a Buddhist/Christian student
work camp is building water tanks, one each in four neighbouring villages. At no
great distance there is a stream which could be dammed to make a small reservoir
adequate to meet all their needs. Village labour could construct it. Were the
villagers lazy? the students from the city wondered.

Then they learned the truth of the matter: There was a strong-man in the neighbour-
hood whose thugs would have waited until the work was finished, taken it over, and
then sold to the villagers the water that the villagers had worked to make available.

Prayer

Pray for situations where the powerful exploit water resources to the disadvantage
of the weak.

Ian M Fraser