Mississippi River Walk 2013 on Facebook/Peter Johnson as published on Minnesota Public Radio web site, March 12, 2013
I have been back for two weeks from my 1,300 mile road trip on Megabus to the Twin Cities via Chicago for the annual conference of Spiritual Directors International on the theme "Cultivating Compassion on the River". The Crowne Plaza Hotel in St. Paul is located right on the Mississippi and it is as far north as I have ever seen this great and powerful river. From my 20th story window I could look down on the river. I thought that it might be small but even in the north, far from New Orleans, it is wide and formidable.
As I looked at this river (through the snow and sleet, I am sorry to say) I remembered other great rivers that have played a part in my life. There is the Hudson on whose banks I lived for a time both in New York City and in upstate New York. There is the Amazon where I was doing my youthful backpack trip as a Peace Corps Volunteer when the Six Days War broke out in 1966--I remember that the river was so wide that you could not see either side from our little steamer. There is the Zambezi where I saw Victoria Falls once from my one and only ever helicopter ride. There is Niagara Falls and Iguacu Falls, both dumping with incredible noice and power water from rivers and tributaries. And there is the Congo River that I travelled by motor propelled canoe several times when I worked with missions in Africa. Surely these rivers contribute to my love of water as well as to my deep fear of it (well, for one thing I can't swim!). Both my love and my fear equate deep respect. So I was surprised during the conference that in the plenary opening rituals, much attention was given to two Ojibwe women, pictured above, who are walking the length of the Mississippi, from the headwaters in Minnesota as far as the Gulf of Mexico with a copper bucket filled with water from the headwaters of the Mississippi. Their intent is to call attention to the condition of our water resources. Sharon Day is walking the 1,200 miles with her sister, Doreen. The copper bucket that they are carrying is filled with water from Lake Itasca, the source of the Mississippi. She commented: "This time we we'll take the water from the headwaters, where it is still clean and pure, and all along the way to where it enters the Gulf." Day is the executive director of the Indigenous Peoples Task Force in Minneapolis. By mingling the clean water with the polluted waters at the mouth of the Mississippi, they will provide a sign of healing and of memory. During the conference, I attended many workshops, plenaries, discussions around dinner tables and elsewhere. But two weeks out from the conference the impression that is greatest and most important to me is of Sharon and Doreen making a sacred pilgrimage along one of North America's great rivers. This small, holy act reminds me so powerfully of water as the source of sustenance for all of God's creatures. The work of these two women is the most basic spiritual act that I can think of and I keep them in my imagination and my thoughts and my prayers. If Spiritual Directors International had not met in St. Paul on the banks of the Mississippi, I would never have known this story. Of all the things at the conference, this is what most nourishes me now. Each night I dip my finger into the holy water font in my icon corner and make the sign of the cross remembering my baptism. Water. Nurture. Life. The Mississippi, Doreen, Sharon. Holy women, holy water.
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AuthorDan Hoffman is an Indianapolis USA based spiritual director, supervisor of spiritual directors, and workshop/retreat leader. This occasional blog discusses things he is thinking about and wants to share. Comments are always welcome. |