WATER
Cleanses, Purifies, and Sanctifies
as it plays an active role in our many rituals.
Water across traditions means:
Life & Creation - the source of existence and fertility
Purification – cleansing physical, moral, or spiritual impurity
Renewal & Rebirth – new beginnings, initiation, and transformation
Sacred Presence – holy rivers, springs, rain, and oceans
Responsibility – we care for water as a divine gift or living relative
When people have water they rejoice.
And when they do not have adequate safe water, they suffer.
Suffering is not what our shared symbol is meant to be.
Water offers a path to dignity for every person.
Water offers our faiths a way to make that path possible.
Together, we can make water the source of health & life
for all.
Water offers our faiths a way to make that path possible.
Together, we can make water the source of health & life
for all.
Faiths for Safe Water offers free resources throughout this website to educate and engage youth and faith communities around this singular shared symbol, to bring us together, and help prioritize the global water crisis.
BLESSED BY WATER
As we reflect on water, we invite you to take a quiet moment to ejoy this moving display by award-winning filmmaker and photographer, Haik Kocharian. Haik has graciously allowed Faiths for Safe to present Blessed by Water, rare images of tradition, ceremony, and spirituality as celebrated by the Christian Orthodox community in Ethiopia. Epiphany, called Timket in Ethiopia, is attended by thousands in the capital city of Addis Ababa, to celebrate the baptism of Jesus.
As we see worshipers in states of spiritual connection as they are dampened by water sprayed from towering pipes, these intimate photographs bear witness to people gathered by the joys and blessings of water. We invite you to sit quietly for a moment, enjoy these photographs, and may every one of us be blessed by water.
"The Great Mystery gave us the life’s blood of our mother to sustain us. When the new day dawns, the first thing we use is Water and it’s the last thing we use at night. It comes from the springs, brooks, ponds, lakes and rivers. It is found not only on the earth, but even falls from the heavens in the form of blessed rain. Let us be of one mind that we may do this properly. We give thanks for Sacred Water."
- from Prayer of Thanks from the Seneca Nation (500+ years old)
Faiths for Safe Water is dedicated to supporting the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sector and does not advocate for any particular faith or field projects. We encourage all faiths to unite around water in support of this life-saving solution, and embody interfaith at its life-giving best.