The Roman fountain with the gaurding mask, the Holy water in every church narthex, and the waters of the Dutch Polders all emerge from before modern times. They are the waters of survival, a balance between too much and not enough. The dikes errected in the 16th and 17th century and the windmills that pump the waters away stand as a monument to a ingenuity coupled with vision. The waters of belonging and washing address our need for visible and practical metaphors.

The swan swiming down a nurse canal confirms the tranquil goodness.

The holiness of water, the drops that bind and create our humanity, the tranquility of its vistas and the crushing presence of drought and floods are each a story of remembrance. A baptism into community.

If we grand-stand on the banks of the Tiber or hide in the shadow of tagging-graffiti or spiral down in a drowning-flood or shrivel dehydrated in a sun-stroked drought — we need a parting of the waters with dikes, sprinkles and walls as we await a rushing wind to drive the whirling windmills of our will.