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A reflection and prayer to start the day with Canon Simon Doogan.

Good morning.

Northern Ireland’s Lough Neagh, the UK’s largest fresh-water lake, has been blighted over recent years by large blooms of a potentially toxic blue-green algae. Because dry weather promotes it, sightings this year are already reported. Since the lough supplies half of Belfast’s drinking water and 40% of the Province’s water overall, that’s worrying.

Not that neglect or abuse of vital waterways is confined to local shores. Perhaps you saw the alarming pictures from Argentina a few months ago after a dump of chemical waste turned a canal in Buenos Aires bright red It brought arrestingly to mind, the first plague God visited on Egypt to compel Pharoah to release the Israelites from slavery. The river of blood, plays to an almost primal environmental fear: the fish shall die, the river shall stink, warns Exodus, and the people shall be unable to drink its water.

Although in Exodus Pharoah’s magicians replicate the devastation, it’s a somewhat dubious sign of progress that in our own age dark arts aren’t required. And yet lots I’ve read about nature’s ability to repair itself undoubtedly points to a power that if it isn’t beyond human understanding is certainly beyond mine.

There’s a world of evidence to suggest, that given the right encouragement most rivers have the capacity to recover and revive. And that hope too, lo and behold, finds unlikely pre-scientific expression, in the book Ezekiel: every living creature which swarms in every place where the river goes, will live, says Ezekiel, everything will live where the river goes.

Show us, Lord, in Jesus’ name, the ultimate power of purity over pollution, forgiveness over sin, and resurrection over death, as we pray for projects around the world to restore rivers and protect water sources, to cleanse and refresh. Amen