“Water for the people!“– It is not the polluted “pool of religion” that can quench the thirst of those wandering in the desert, but only the “living water” that springs forth from solid rock.
As the environmental and political climate becomes increasingly heated, desertification becomes an apt term that is not only descriptive of the changing environment, but the social landscape, where true believers may be the only fount found for miles around. “While the water that flows through us is for ourselves,, the water that flows out of us is for everyone else.” (Haggin)
The term Living Water, or the absence thereof, serves not only a spiritual barometer regarding ones own spiritual state, but that of “Turtle Island” (a water nation). Sink or swim, it’s not too late to bow the knee to drink from your own cupped hand. In doing so you not only demonstrate that you are a humble servant of the Most High, but a warrior-savant, fully cognizant of the game at play and willing to engage in spiritual warfare at the highest level, down here on the ground to deliver those held in captivity. Although not yet a done deal, the future of the world does in effect hang in the balance, while those who walk in balance engage in conflict to determine the final outcome. Yet, for that to happen we must first become wellsprings of living water ourselves, not empty cisterns or passing “clouds without rain.”
But, lest we become too self-absorbed by our own significance, as latter day saints, we might well reflect upon the fact that there remain “…other sheep who are not of this fold.” (Jn. 10:16) Those who identify as Native people and continue to adhere to the “original instructions,” as reiterated in the Noahic Covenant. For that reason, the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, whether in defense of culture, land or the right to self-determination, a case can be made for a convergence of their collective thought, resulting in a radicalized Christianity, a revitalized Christianity capable of bringing the heat to historical faith institutions, whose spiritual mendacity and social timidity has closed door to the downtrodden. This in turn is now causing many Christians to finally realize that the common denominator of the Christian faith has been and will always be a proposition of liberation. Let us then consider those who labor alongside us, evidencing the same hard-core idealism and pragmatism needed to engage our common adversary – the world, not as the Creator intended it to be, but “strange new world” populated by automatons, organic or mechanical.
Yet the fact remains, that in responding to the call of what might be called the “crisis of humanity, “the remnant” might offend well-meaning religious factions who continue to labor under their own delusions. As for them, they might in turn harken to the Lord’s rebuke when he spoke to the prophet Ezekiel, saying: As for you, my flock, behold, I shall judge not only between rams and goats, but between sheep and sheep, between fat sheep and lean sheep. You who have foraged in green pastures, yet trampled what remained for the hungry; you who have drunk of the clear waters, yet fouled the very pool at which my flock drinks…” (Ez. 34:17). And, regarding the history of Indigenous America(s), parallels can be drawn with Israel, both prophetically and practically, as the Lord said: “…The time is approaching when I will judge all those who have caused destruction upon the earth.” (Rev. 11:18)
CoupStick Chaplain 