Let Justice Roll Into the Dark
But let justice roll down like water
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
It has always puzzled me why many Christians don’t seem to give much thought to creation care and its connection to God’s transformative justice. We all seem to know these words spoken by the prophet Amos, however, words connecting changemaking with thundering, cascading, living water. But do we know what Amos says earlier in the chapter?
The one who made the Pleiades and Orion
and turns deep darkness into the morning
and darkens the day into night,
who calls for the water of the sea
and pours it out on the surface of the earth,
the LORD is his name.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth—but the water was there first. “The earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” The water was there, and then God said “Let there be light.” The water was there, and then God made Sky, separating water from water.
I am a woman shaped by water, by the lack of it growing up in a small town in California, by the abundance of it leaching from the clouds in Oregon and Washington, where my families are rooted. Now by Kotor Bay, the piece of the Adriatic that edges the place I now call home, a place that makes its living from the sea and those who flock to it. From the bottle I always carry to the innate awareness of where I can refill it, knowing the dangers dehydration poses to my dilapidated body, water constantly flows through my consciousness. It also shapes my spirituality. Drenched in it once, forever, daily, in the act of baptism that symbolizes God's promise and presence in my life, I hold the pouring of water to be a sacred act.
The majority of my formative years were spent in Chowchilla, California, where industrial agriculture flourished while ordinary humans’ access to water was rather sparse at best. I spent my summers playing in muddy sloughs or sloshing through the muck of irrigation canals, waiting for the days our neighborhood was allowed to turn on the sprinklers, ready to drag out the Slip-and-Slide and fill up our wading pools. We were taught to take short showers, turn off faucets while brushing our teeth, and load our dishwashers without rinsing our plates first (my mom never obeyed that particular rule).
Families being asked to limit their water usage temporarily is nothing compared to the lack of access to potable water that 2 billion people experience on a daily basis. With global temperatures rising, aquifers aren’t being replenished, water tables are falling, rivers are drying up, and entire lakes are disappearing. Water is a nonrenewable resource in dwindling supply, and any action we can take toward conserving it is a means of caring for creation.
Yet, according to Filippo Menga in his recent book, Thirst: The Global Quest to Solve the Water Crisis, households account for only about 10% of worldwide water use. Industrial use amounts to 20%, but it is irrigated agriculture—of the type I lived alongside in California, cooling myself down in its runoff—that uses 70% of the worldwide water supply. And that inefficient runoff is not only entirely unnecessary, but the fertilizer and pesticides it carries contribute to increased water pollution, further diminishing worldwide supply (and leaving me surprised I’ve not sprouted gills from the amount I swallowed as a kid). In other words, if we really want to help solve the global water crisis, we need to consider how what we consume affects what other living creatures are able to drink.
This year, the theme of World Water Day—a United Nations observance that occurs annually on March 22—is the intersection between water and gender. “Where water flows, equality grows,” proclaims the organization, noting that in areas without access to safe drinking water, women and girls miss out. Collecting water, managing water, caring for those made sick by water: all this leaves women more susceptible to illness and more vulnerable to violence, while reducing time available to capitalize on other opportunities, such as education and paid work. At the same time, argues the UN, “the systems that govern water leave women and girls out of decision-making, leadership, funding and representation.”
We cannot solve a structural problem with individual actions such as using the eco program on our washing machines or turning off the tap when we brush our teeth. Nor should we be misled by corporations using World Water Day to encourage consumption, like when Levi’s campaigned for “water consciousness” by promoting its jeans alongside actions consumers could take to reduce individual consumption. Making one pair of jeans, Menga notes, uses nearly a thousand gallons of water (3,781 liters). Pushing back against fash fashion, or an industry intent on changing the color and shape of denim each season, can make more of a difference than a shorter shower.
Perhaps the most significant thing most of us can do is to stop our consumption of bottled water. Water, as the UN itself states, is a “common good,” meaning it should be managed by the community it serves and distributed as a resource essential to health and wellbeing. Instead, it has been privatized and commodified, with bottled water companies driving up the price of water in poor areas, and often making it inaccessible to locals. That water is then shipped off to countries that often do not need to purchase it; Belgium, France, Germany, Japan, and the United States are all top importers of bottled water, yet have easy access to potable tap water. Meanwhile, transporting water long distances results in massive emissions of greenhouse gases, and plastic water bottles—which themselves pollute through their production—are the third-most likely item to be pulled out of the ocean. And it is certainly not women and girls from water-scarce countries sitting on the boards of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, or Nestle, determining where their water gets sent or how much it will cost them to import it.
Deciding not to purchase or consume bottled water is, of course, an individual decision, but one that can lead to structural change. So, too, is committing not to purchase new jeans—old ones can be visibly mended, while new-to-you ones can be obtained from thrift stores or clothing swaps. If thousands decline to purchase a “slight wide-leg jean” for 2026, the fashion industry just might catch on that we’d like them to change their approach to water use.
The passion I have for water and its use comes not just from reading about the global water crisis (though I strongly encourage you to check out the Graceful Punks Book Club, where we gather together to learn from the various books we’ve each chosen to read). It also comes from reconsidering my relationship with nature. Taking time outside each day—tending to plants, listening for different birds, trying to spot weather patterns by watching the clouds change—is not only personally restorative, but can alter our perspective. We see how everything weaves together, realizing that we must care not only about our own little space, but for faraway corners of the planet.
At the same time, my belief in a Creator God who cares passionately about all aspects of the created universe, who created the land and the seas and continues to renew the rivers and the fields, prompts me to actively participate in protecting the planet.
Remember your baptism daily, Martin Luther advised. “Through the Baptism in the Jordan of Your beloved Son, You sanctified and instituted all waters to be a blessed flood, and a lavish washing away of sin.” All waters are a blessed flood. If we were to look at the water in our facets, our lakes and streams, our rivers and oceans, our mountain snowpacks and hulking glaciers, all as blessed, what more could we do to protect them? By decreasing our own extraneous water use, of course—but we also must consider what other sins we need to wash away, such as our collective acceptance of the privatization of water rights, or our reluctance to change societal approaches to urban planning and transportation.
Remember the holiness of God’s sacred water each day over the next week, and consider how you might change your individual habits, as well as work to influence corporate patterns that result in water overuse, hoarding, and/or pollution.
Step outside your door for a moment. Listen to what the earth might be telling you. Could you help your local birds by installing a birdbath, using funds saved on forgoing a new pair of jeans? Should you collect rainwater on your balcony, or connect with your neighbors to determine if you can build cheap rain barrels on your apartment building roof, or shrink the lawn surrounding your home—all of which would result in less need to rely on private companies that sell and transport water from vulnerable communities? Do you have any space for a vegetable garden—even a container garden or vertical garden—which might reduce your reliance on industrial agriculture and the toll irrigation takes on water tables? The longer you spend with your head in the clouds, breathing the saturated air, the more likely you are to shift your behaviors on the ground.
Water is the very essence of creation. From it, the Creator shapes the constellations, directs the rise and fall of the sun, pulls land forth. “And it was good.” And so we must keep it.
This blog was originally posted at: https://gracefullypunk.substack.com/p/let-justice-roll-into-the-dark
Kirsten Schlewitz is Peace Catalyst Program Director in Belgrade, Serbia. She educates current and future pastors and church leaders on how peacebuilding can bridge their congregations’ spiritual practices, and she also engages in digital ministry to help Christians adopt peacebuilding as a way to live out their faith. Learn more about Kirsten here.
