The month of June – remember how each day we wondered, will this be the day? The day without rain? June was cloudier than usual, temperatures were below average and the sixth wettest June on record. Rutgers University climatologist David Robinson writes: "It was not just the amount of rain, it was how often it fell that made June so damp. Measurable rain fell somewhere in New Jersey on every day of June except the 1st. An inch or more fell at one or more locations on ten days and eight others had between half an inch to just under an inch." (link) We had enough rain to affect drainage … this year's Vacation Bible School outdoor station turned the backyard into a swamp.

How soon it changes. It hasn't rained all that much in the month of July. I noticed going back and forth between the church and the parsonage that the grass by the back entrance of the church is dry and has some brown patches. I got out of the habit of watering my herbs and other plants … for a month we didn't need to. They quickly began to droop from lack of water. As we all know, plants need some kind of regular watering in order to thrive.

Every Easter we remember our baptisms. This past Easter we came forward to plunge our hands into the water of the baptismal font in order to take a piece of sea glass. The sea glass was a symbol of God at work in our lives, healing and restoring … turning our brokenness into something beautiful. It was a moving experience to participate in, and to watch as people came to remember their baptism. A few weeks ago, and again today we witness baptisms. Our Easter remembrance and the celebration of these baptisms are times in which we are washed in the waters of God's healing and saving love. They are beautiful moments and they connect us to God. We know the truth found in the words of the Psalmist and the prophet Jeremiah: "Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, they are like trees planted by water, sending roots into the stream."

It doesn't take us long though, does it? The attendance we see on Easter quickly drops back to our normal crowd. We sometimes forget ourselves. And our regular connections with God's healing and saving love fall away. Our deep roots into the source of our being are gone. It's not simply about regular worship on Sunday morning … it's about our lifestyle of … let's use the words from our membership vows … it's about our prayers and our presence, our gifts, our service and our witness. We're not meant to exist spiritually like the cactus plant that can survive on little and irregular water. Spiritually, we need to be connected to God in as many ways and as often as we can.

Otherwise we become like the grass in the yard, the plants that drop when the rains don't come. Speaking for myself, I know what I'm like when I forget this connection … I'm as brittle as the dry grass, grouchy and out of sorts, I feel as if I can't take one more thing without my head exploding, and I'm sure I'm not the most pleasant person to be around. In different ways, we take our spiritual dryness out on others.

In the text from the Gospel of John, the Samaritan woman comes to grips with her spiritual dryness. For her it is a lifestyle issue, one that Jesus exposes. In their exchange, Jesus tells her of the waters of eternal life … waters that will spring up in those who drink of it. And, while the Samaritan woman is still not quite sure what Jesus is talking about … still is thinking of water in the physical sense, she knows that there is something going on, and asks Jesus for this water: "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or having to keep coming here to draw water." In Jesus we find our connection to God's love.

I recently read Ammon Shea's Reading the OED, One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages. It is the story of his year spent reading the twenty volumes that make up the Oxford English Dictionary. As he tells the story he also picks out words that have caught his fancy. I share two of his words that caught my attention in helping us to remember our need to be connected to our source, to the streams of God's love. The two words are impluvious and petrichor. (By the way, the spell check on my Microsoft word doesn't recognize either of these words. Spell check tells me perhaps I mean implosion for impluvious; and for petrichor the first suggestion is portico.) Anyway, impluvious means "wet with rain." Baptism is a literal reminder of our need to "be impluvious with the love of God." In other words, as we are washed in the waters of baptism we are wet with the rain of God's love. All through our lives we have to find ways to be so connected with God's love that gushes forth for us, that we might be lifted into being eternally present with God. Again, we aren't wired to be like spiritual cacti, where we take our spiritual refreshment in small stingy doses, worshipping now and again, praying once in a while offering ourselves for service now and then. I believe we are wired to be as the thirstiest plants, in constant need of connection with God. "Like trees planted by water, sending their roots into the stream." May you find ways to be live as one impluvious with the love of God.

Then there is our response – how we turn to others. That's where petrichor comes in. Petrichor is defined as the pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell. The smell comes from the oils given off by vegetation that are released into the air after rain. It is a beautiful smell, particularly after a long dry period. We humans love the scent – it is duplicated in candles, perfumes, air fresheners, soaps, just to name a few. When we are connected to the source of love, when we remain washed God's saving grace … well, then we are pleasing to others. More than that we are like that compelling scent that comes from rain after a long dry spell … drawing others to avail themselves of what we have found in God's love. So many are parched for what we have to offer. How can we not reach out to them?

In our baptism we begin … our connection to the spring of the water of life is made. But that is not the end of the story, only the beginning as we journey to find ways to be in constant connection with the love that saves us. Our charge is this: Impluvious with the love of God, we go as petrichors to all we meet.

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