AS IN A FERTILE VALLEY

From deep within the Syrian hills
Fresh water bubbles irrepressible
And clean, receiving from creation’s
Womb that greatest life-sustaining
Gift: this is the Jordan, gurgling in its
Infancy through sandstone channels -
And onward to the valley far below.
Here we step aside.

What right have we to taste this water
If we will not walk its winding course
Through fertile plain and arid wilderness?
What right do others claim, to seize this spring,
To steal her balm, to irrigate industrialised
Oppression? What rites are there, indeed
That call us to repent, to turn again?
Here we must choose.

And so with cameras, sunshades, hats
And tourist bags, tentative, we speak the
Words: “we choose to follow Christ!”, as
Pilgrims down the years have done,
And done again. But now with water
Sprinkled - Asperges me, Domine – we know
There is no turning back, no easy path.
Here is the via crucis.


On renewing baptismal vows at Banias,
one of the sources of the Jordan River
May 2010.