The faith I was raised with holds deep reverence for water.
Many times Jesus' god nature was confirmed because he had a relationship with water like no other -- wild, dashing water would obey him, water would hold him up as he walked instead of swallow him, he transformed water, he offered living water so that a soul would never thirst again.
Baptism looks to water as the giver of life. Old things become new, the dead is resurrected but changed.
Before I'd ever heard the words #MniWiconi, I'd understood water as life.
And now children and elders are among the bodies being brutalized in Standing Rock, because corporations and law enforcement think the preciousness of water is up for debate.
Communities drink and bathe in poison, because so many make money desecrating the life source of the poor and black and brown.
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Lawmakers fight about whether they should "have to" pay to clean up drinking water supplies, water that is causing skin rashes, brain damage, and cancer. CEOs say that life should go only to those who can afford it, that there is no human right to water.
My heart to Flint, where the crisis has not ended, but the political grandstanding, for the most part, has.
My heart to Standing Rock, where hundreds of tribes unite and pray and stand vigil, only to be met with tanks.
My heart to southeast Louisiana, where the person I am was first watered and where the water was too polluted to touch.
My heart in me, as I realized just now, that I didn't learn to love being in water til a few years ago because for so long it wasn't a safe option.
And the water falls down my face as I get ready to fight some more and I wonder why I don't hear more from the faith I was raised with about how this is sin.
