Lessons from a Water Treatment Plant

Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,

This afternoon, I presented three addresses on the theme “Being Seen, Known, and Loved in the Power of the Holy Spirit” at the St. Thomas’s parish retreat, held at St. Aidan’s in the Beach. My predecessor Fr. Mark Andrews was the incumbent at St. Aidan’s before his move to St. Thomas’s, so it was poignant to see his name on the plaque listing the parish’s senior clergy in the Narthex. There was also a plaque to the men of the parish who had died in the Great War, one of whom, I noticed, was named Norman Pentecost. And the Mary & Child statue in the nave was strikingly familiar, though I don’t know when it was installed. What most stood out to me, however, was how accessible the building was, with an at-grade semi-circular driveway to the front door, an elevator, a lift, and several accessible washrooms! (I can’t help myself. Every time I go into a church now, the first thing I look for is an accessible washroom and an elevator or a ramp.)

The Mary & Child statue at St. Aidan’s in the Beach.

The parish hall was located in the undercroft, so Fr. Micah and I agreed the best location for me to deliver my addresses was in the beautiful church itself. However, since there were only about twenty or so of us, if we were seated in the nave, it wouldn’t feel very intimate. But their choir pews, instead of being parallel to the altar as in our church, are in rows facing the nave behind the freestanding altar. The space was perfect for a more intimate feel, and I couldn’t help noting that I was literally preaching to the choir.

Actually, when I give retreat addresses, I’m always sitting down, because giving three addresses isn’t the same as giving three sermons. For one thing, my sermons tend to be under ten minutes, while an address tends to be twenty to thirty minutes long. That’s a lot of talking!

It’s even more listening on the part of those who are willingly subjecting themselves to my torrent of words. A few were kind enough to ask for a copy of the addresses at the end of the day, though as I was reading them I was mentally criticizing my mixed metaphors and awkward transitions. But what else is new? It’s like apples and oranges in a mixed bag.

We also visited the R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant. (How’s that for an awkward transition?) We had an hour and a half of free time between my second and third addresses, so about a dozen of us decided to meander down to the Art Deco water treatment plant, which always gets rave reviews for their Doors Open event. It’s the only time of the year that it’s open to the public, and let me tell you, it’s a treat. Dubbed “The Palace of Purification,” its architecture is beautiful and the engineering is mindboggling, treating 950 million litres (nearly 251 million gallons) of water pumped from Lake Ontario every day, eventually delivered as safe, clean, potable water to our homes and gardens.

The R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant on a much clearer day.

Photo credit: By Canmenwalker - Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=140504738

It might seem odd to shoehorn a field trip to a water treatment plant on the same day as a pre-Pentecost retreat. But the parish is itself a sort of “palace of purification,” especially when we bless Toronto tap water and use it in baptisms, as we did last Sunday. And the descent of the Holy Spirit as tongues of fire at Pentecost is its own sort of purification by fire. So there are plenty of mixed metaphors I can draw on in future sermons.

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We had hoped the retreat would fall on a gorgeous spring afternoon, but millions of litres of fresh water dropped from the sky throughout the day. As we walked to the treatment plant along the shores of Lake Ontario, the winds gusted, breaking umbrellas and blowing my coat’s hood back so that I had to hold it with a gloved hand. The lake itself was churning with rather impressive waves (for a lake), as approximately 1.64 quadrillion litres flowed in the lake itself. “Water, water, every where,” but unlike Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1834 poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, thanks to the R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant, all of it is potentially drinkable. You’d have to be pretty thirsty, though.

Reflecting on this afternoon’s experience, another body of water comes to mind, mentioned in the Book of Revelation, chapter twenty-two, the last chapter of that strange epistle:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations…The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let everyone who hears say, “Come.” And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.

According to the brochure I was handed at the treatment plant, “the cost to fill an average-sized [reusable] water bottle with tap water is less than one cent.” But the water of the Book of Revelation is free, and purer than any palace of purification could ever make it. It is this water after which we truly thirst, and the Spirit of Pentecost invites us to come. We may not yet be on the crystal shores of the river of the water of life, but on Pentecost Sunday we can come to be seen, known, and loved in the power of the Holy Spirit as we await that blessed day.

Yours in Christ’s service,

Nathan J.A. Humphrey+

VIII Rector