Holy Water From the River Jordan

2012

“Human beings,” as Tom Robbins mused in Another Roadside Attraction, “were invented by water as a device for transporting itself from one place to another.”

One of the ideas behind 108 Beloved Objects is that the act of “owning” something is often just permission to move it around. But I wonder if we actually “move” water, or if even thinking of water in those terms makes sense. We’re not only made of water; water is made of us. I recently read that every drop of water contains molecules shared by every single person who has every lived.

So if you want a personal connection with Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Joan of Arc, Galileo, Genghis Khan, Gandhi, Billie Holiday and Bjork, just have a sip of water.

Can this be true?

It is—or very close. Every drop of water contains (more or less) 1.67 x 1021, or 167,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules. And a total of about 107,602,750,000 human beings have, thus far, been born. All of them have passed water through their bodies, and all of this water has comingled, in every waterway on Earth. (For more contemporary personages, less so. My drinking water may not yet hold a few trace molecules of Billie or Bjork.)

The point is, there’s plenty of room for all of us in that drop, and a million generations to come. All the saints past, and all those as yet unborn.

So we had better think of all water as holy—not just the stuff in this jar. Which means I can give this Holy Water away without regret. My bathtub is full of the stuff.