Give Mexico City This Day Their Daily Water
by Lowell Bliss, Director of Eden Vigil Institute for Environmental Leadership
I remember when the City of Atlanta was anxiously watching its reservoir levels drop in 2007, much like what Bogota, Colombia is doing now. I remember visiting California in 2015 when the Governor had instituted water rationing. But there is something uniquely unsettling about when a municipality projects a “Zero Day” for their water supply, as Cape Town, South Africa did in 2018. First set for April 22, 2018, officials revised it up to April 12. In the end, Cape Town was spared as people responded wisely to residential and agricultural water usage restrictions until the winter rains proved good. Mexico City is the latest to project a “Zero Day”—in this month--June 26, 2024-- for their city of 22 million people. You are invited to join us on Tuesday, June 11, for our regular Climate Intercessors prayer meetings where we will definitely be praying to the Lord of the Rain Clouds and the Giver of Municipal Wisdom about “Zero Day” in Mexico City and the region.
A prayer we recite—some of us every Sunday—is traditionally rendered, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt 6:11). The First Nations Version of the New Testament, paraphrased into indigenous thought forms, renders the prayer: “Provide for us day by day—the elk, the buffalo, and the salmon. The corn, the squash, and the wild rice. All the things we need for each day.” It’s an interesting prayer to read in a Bible version published by an American company (InterVarsity Press) in 2021. For indigenous people in North America, there was a Zero Day for the provision of buffalo. For the Potawotami nation, there was a Zero Day for wild rice when they were removed from the shores of the Great Lakes and relocated by government decree to the plains of Kansas. Provision of our daily sustenance comes in all shapes and sizes. So does Zero Days.
The First Nations Version doubles down on the daily aspect of our prayers: “provide for us day by day. . . all the things we need for each day.” For a middle-class Canadian resident (settler) like myself, sitting as we are on one-quarter of the world’s supply of fresh water, I have had to grapple with the daily aspect of this prayer. Though I know that I am dependent on God for every new intake of breath, for the next beat of my heart, the idea of “daily bread” (meaning provision before 11:59:59 PM on the day that I am writing this) doesn’t automatically compute. Consequently, I often pursue the following course in my prayers:
“Thank you, God, for the food in my belly”—recognizing that having already eaten breakfast, and should I not eat another morsel all day, I may go to bed tonight greatly “peckish” but I won’t be starving.
“Thank you for the food in the pantry”— recognizing that I have enough groceries in the house that I can survive for multiple days.
“Thank you for money in the bank”—recognizing that I can afford multiple more trips to the grocery store when I need to with just the money I have on hand.
“Thank you for the likelihood of another paycheck”—recognizing that for various reasons I have some reasonable job security.
On June 28, 2018, officials in Cape Town postponed “Day Zero” indefinitely. Honestly, that’s kind of how I feel about praying for my daily bread. That “day” never seems to be this day for me and my family, nor next week, nor next month, nor never. At the very least, my prayers should be full of thanksgiving for my personal condition. Then, we are encouraged to contemplate others and to realize that many of our brothers and sisters in this troubled world are experiencing the threat—to work backwards—of a missed paycheck, or of depleted savings, or of an empty storeroom, or of empty bellies. Consequently, my version of the Lord’s Prayer, at least in my head, sounds more like, “Thank you for my bread this day, and give the people of Gaza their daily bread, and the people of Mexico City their daily water, and the people of the Potawotami nation their daily justice.”
Since “Zero Day” can come in many shapes and sizes, I understand that in this climate crisis, Zero Day in some form may appear for me and my own family one day. Consequently, for all the civic planning that we engage in, we may want to invest in new and deeper understandings of old religious practices as well. The Lord’s Prayer wasn’t given so that it can be a set piece in our Sunday morning liturgies. It was given to help frame up our life-giving conversation with the Creator God:
“O Great Spirit, our Father from above, we honor your name as sacred and holy.
Bring your good road to us, where the beauty of your ways in the spirit-world above is reflected in the earth below.
Provide for us day by day—the elk, the buffalo, and the salmon. The corn, the squash, and the wild rice. All the things we need for each day.
Release us from the things we have done wrong, in the same way we release others for the things done wrong to us.
Guide us away from the things that tempt us to stray from your good road, and set us free from the evil one and his worthless ways. Aho! May it be so!”
(as recorded by Gift from Creator, also known as Matthew, in Matt. 6:9-13, First Nations Version.