Unlocking the Fountains: Inspiration and Challenge from Biblical Rivers and Springs

This book unleashes hidden secrets and forgotten messages of the rivers and springs that flow through the Bible, alerting us both to ecological realities and spiritual challenges. To understand the biblical story we must attend to these features of the land, for they are important threads in the tapestry of the scriptural narratives, the context and matrix of the workings of the Divine. They become, literally and symbolically, sources of faith.
But it is impossible for us to revisit the rivers and springs of the biblical story today without attending to their present physical state of degradation. The varied crises facing the rivers and springs furnish us with a hermeneutical tool for approaching ancient biblical stories, confronting us with demanding questions that become an interpretative lens refocusing our attention as we approach the texts. The environmental dangers they face today raise issues with which we revisit the biblical accounts, helping us to discover there elements and questions that have not addressed us before. To assist our quest, we go in search of those who have lived on the riverbanks in past times and listen to their ancient and abiding wisdom, which speaks uncannily to us across the centuries.

Andrew D. Mayes, Episcopal priest and Franciscan, served as Spirituality Adviser to the Diocese of Chichester and the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf. For several years he worked in Jerusalem, as a theological researcher and later as Director of Courses of St. George's College. Currently leading retreats, he is the author of seventeen spirituality books including the award-winning Learning the Language of the Soul; Beyond the Edge, and, from Wipf and Stock, Gateways to the Divine; Treasure in the Wilderness; Roads of Hurt and Hope; Another Christ.