Water, Please, Sir!
ʿAmmār
Soldiers with child.
“Jesus stood up and exclaimed, ‘Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. As Scripture says: Rivers of living water will flow from within him who believes in me.’ He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive. (John 7.37-39)”
Reflecting on this passage (Gospel for the Vigil of Pentecost), I was drawn to a memory from Southwest Asia in 2003 ….Traversing the Iraqi desert, our team arrived at Al Qurnah, the location of the Garden of Eden… well, once upon a time maybe, but no residue of Paradise remained. It was 150 degrees, and the ‘rivers’ there were reduced to filthy puddles. Garbage, stray dogs, and debris conveyed the town’s despair. The war had hit small towns especially hard, with supply chains cut and slim pickings in the markets. We dismounted our Humvees, stretched, set up security, and decided to eat the usual—MRE’s (Meal Ready to Eat—precooked, packaged) . We chatted, and I washed my spaghetti in meat sauce down with sun-heated water from a plastic water bottle.
It was then that 9-year-old ʿAmmār (meaning virtuous life) walked down the road toward us with his little sister and brother sheltering behind him. With great courtesy, he said: As-salaam 'alaykum seydi (Peace be upon you, Sir). I smiled. His little sister giggled. Wa 'alaykum as-salaam (And peace be upon you as well), I replied. He got to the point. Mae seydi, (Water please, Sir!) Ok, no problem, I gave him two of our 24-ounce bottles. That was the cue for the ambush. More than a hundred children charged us from several directions!
Mae seydi! (Water, Sir!)
Halavi seydi! (Sweets, Sir!)
We were deluged. Almost every water bottle we had went into stemming the tide, but it was nowhere near enough water. They begged and tugged at our uniforms, while the kids who had gotten water ran toward their homes. It was their mission to gather water for their families. The parents knew that American soldiers and Marines would give what they could, especially to their children.
But now, in the face of their thirst and hunger and the increasing urgency of their pleas, disengaging and driving safely out of the crowd of small pillagers before they looted us was a hazardous process.
The incident highlighted the threats posed by hunger and thirst to Iraqi health and welfare as combat operations ebbed that spring. Commanders began sending trucks of water and food into the villages until we could get the markets’ supply chains restored and improve or repair wells. But thirst and hunger remained persistent threats in the weeks that followed.
Considering this, we return to Jesus’s words.
Water as a symbol for the Holy Spirit is especially helpful because we know water is essential for life. But the metaphorical impact of Jesus’s language—using words like “thirst,” “drink,” or “rivers of living water”—can be diminished in places where water is abundant and taken for granted. Whereas, in Jesus’ Palestine and the surrounding deserts, His reference to water or living water would have caught His audience’s attention.
In the Holy Quran, water, especially rain, is seen as manifestation of God’s mercy and a proof of the resurrection. In the Hebrew Scriptures, water nourishes the human heart.
For us disciples, the Holy Spirit is the living water that nourishes the hearts that thirst for Jesus Christ. St. Francis de Sales wrote that the Holy Spirit was, “as a spring of living water, [which] flows up to every part of our heart to spread his graces in it…” (Treatise 2.11. Mackey, 92).
But only those who thirst for it can appreciate the gift of living water, or so ʿAmmār and his posse taught me. I pray for the children in places where they thirst, that they have their thirst satisfied … but also that we who thirst for life in Christ will be satisfied. As-salaam 'alaykum!
Fr. Mark Plaushin, OSFS
Love. Learn. Serve. Charlie Mike