Water, Theology, and the New Mexico Water Code

Natural Resources Journal, Dec 2008

By Martha C. Franks, Published on 04/01/08

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Water, Theology, and the New Mexico Water Code

NATURAL RESOURCES JOURNAL Water, Theology, and the New Mexico Water Code Martha C. Franks 0 Recommended Citation 0 0 Martha C. Franks , Water, Theology, and the New Mexico Water Code, 48 Nat. Resources J. 227, 2008 , USA Available at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nrj/vol48/iss2/2 Water, Theology, and the New Mexico Water Code INTRODUCTION: THREE WAYS OF THINKING ABOUT WATER Water, according to Mircea Eliade, an historian of religions, is the "reservoir of all the possibilities of existence."1 Certainly in the book of Genesis water existed before creation. Before God spoke, when the earth was without form and void, the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters. 2 Thus, Eliade observes, water is the symbol of the formlessness from which form arises. This is true not only of the moment of creation, but in all the changes of our lives. Water is the symbol of the formlessness in which the dissolutions and reformations of all kinds of birth and death occur. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, for example, the great flood first destroys the world and then gives way to God's promise. The Hebrews walk through the Red Sea in going from slavery to freedom. In the waters of baptism people die to sin and are born to new life. Water dissolves old forms and gives place to the possibility of re-formed life. For this reason, says Eliade, water is not just one mythic symbol among others, but has a special place. It is by analyzing the religious value of water that one can understand the structure and function of all religious symbolism, and of the working of symbolism generally. Thus, he claims, no matter in what religious system one encounters it, the emergence of form from the pre-formal water is not only a vision of physical creation common to many religious traditions, it is also - not coincidentally - an essential metaphorical backdrop for the human experience of the emergence of a sense of order and meaning out of formlessness. As with any good metaphor, these high-flown ideas match the matter-of-fact. There is no need to look to esoteric philosophies or symbolic systems to know that life emerged from water and that how we live in the * Martha C. Franks is an environmental attorney specializing in water law and concentrating on issues of drought and scarcity, water rights adjudication and administration, the Endangered Species Act, and environmental compliance. Before entering private practice, she represented the State of New Mexico on water matters for many years and then worked for the Office of the Solicitor of the United States during the Clinton Administration, advising the Bureau of Reclamation on water questions. A great deal of her work consists of negotiation among a broad array of water interests, including state, federal, tribal, city, and county governments, as well as irrigation districts and environmental groups. She is also a graduate of the Virginia Theological Seminary, having received her Masters in Theological Studies degree in 1997. She has published articles on both legal and theological subjects and has lectured on environmental theology. She teaches part time at St. John's College in Santa Fe. 1. MIRcEA ELIADE, LE SACRt ET LE PROFANE 112. 2. Genesis 1:2. world is shaped by water. These things are true in a perfectly literal way. Water was in fact the pre-condition for the development of our global biological systems. Living bodies were formed in water both at the literal beginning of all life and the particular beginning of each human life. Even the symbolism of water as a dissolver of form to make room for new life has a perfectly literal analog. The property of water as a near universal solvent is an indispensable part of the various ecological cycles that support life, growth, and the continual evolutionary re-formation of life and growth. Whether approached through a spiritual tradition or as a practical and biological matter, water is the preliminary from which organization arises. The essentialness of water to life echoes all the way across human existence from the heights of spirituality to the fundamental level of material need. There is a third way to talk about water that puts these vast perspectives in conversation, along with a great many more prosaic points of view. In my experience as an environmental lawyer specializing in southwestern water law, I have found that when people argue about water the whole range of spiritual and physical meanings for water are, at least in recent years, part of the fight. The physical aspect of the situation is obvious. People will of course legislate and litigate over practical material property issues concerning how any commodity is distributed. Equally obvious, the scarcity of water in a desert society like the American Southwest- a scarcity that also exists in the part of the world that gave us the Judeo-Christian scriptures - turns up the heat on all of that legislation and litigation in the same way that the rarity of diamonds (...truncated)


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Martha C. Franks. Water, Theology, and the New Mexico Water Code, Natural Resources Journal, 2008, Volume 48, Issue 2,