Water is easy to take for granted in Maine.

It surrounds us. We live beside the ocean. We cross bridges over rivers and tidal coves. We watch rain move across the water and listen to it on the roof. We turn on the tap, expecting water to come.

Until a dry summer reminds us that we cannot take it for granted.

This year, drought has returned to much of Maine, including parts of the coast. July was Maine's fourth-driest July on record. The state received only 2.06 inches of precipitation, 1.73 inches below normal.

Those numbers can sound abstract. But drought is not.

It is dry ground beneath our feet. It is gardens and fields needing water. It is streams running lower than they should. It is the quiet concern of people who depend on private wells and wonder how much water remains below the ground.

Even here, surrounded by the Atlantic, we are learning again that fresh water is precious.

What we are experiencing in Maine is part of a larger story.

This summer, the Danube River has fallen to extraordinarily low levels in places. The consequences have been startling. Navigation has been disrupted as ships struggle with shallow channels and exposed sandbars. Cargo vessels have had to carry lighter loads.

And then the river began to reveal its history.

Near Prahovo, Serbia, drought has exposed wrecks from Nazi Germany's Danube flotilla, sunk during the final months of the Second World War. The ships were deliberately scuttled in 1944 as German forces retreated before the advancing Soviet army.

For decades, they lay beneath the surface.

Now the water is low enough to reveal them again.

There is something haunting about that image: a river so diminished that it exposes what had been hidden for more than eighty years.

Perhaps that is one of the ways drought changes our imagination. We think of it simply as the absence of rain. But drought changes landscapes and lives; farms and rivers, wildlife and the water we depend on. It reminds us that what seems permanent may not be.

And sometimes, it reveals what has been hidden beneath the surface.

Water connects us.

The rain that falls on our roof seeps into the ground, fills our wells, runs into streams and rivers, and eventually finds its way to the sea. We live within a watershed, whether we often think about it. What happens upstream affects what happens downstream. How we care for water affects our neighbors, other species, and those who will come after us.

Perhaps that is one reason water has always been such a powerful spiritual symbol.

Beginning September 1, the Congregational Church of Boothbay Harbor will join Christians around the world in the Season of Creation, an annual time of reflection and action focused on our shared home. This year's theme is Living Water.

Our inspiration comes from an ancient vision in the book of Ezekiel. The prophet sees a small stream flowing from the temple. As he follows it, the water grows deeper and wider until it becomes a river. It flows toward waters that have become lifeless and brings life wherever it goes. Trees grow along its banks. Fruit returns. Even places that seemed beyond hope begin to flourish.

An ancient vision. But not, I think, an outdated one.

Over the coming weeks, we will follow the course of that water. We will begin with gratitude, reflecting on water as one of life's great gifts and asking what it means to receive it with wonder rather than entitlement.

We will also face harder questions about drought, scarcity, and the changing climate.

What does it mean to care for water?

What do justice and responsibility require of us?

And where might healing begin?

The Season of Creation runs from September 1 through October 4, the Feast of St. Francis. Everyone is welcome to join us for worship on Sundays at 10:00 a.m. at the Congregational Church of Boothbay Harbor.

But the invitation is larger than a church service.

Pay attention to the water around you.

Notice where it comes from and where it goes. Notice the rain. The wells. The streams. The tidal coves and the sea.

Consider how much of our lives depends upon something we so easily take for granted.

In a summer when drought has reminded us that water is precious, perhaps this is a good time to ask a simple question:

How might we become better caretakers of the living water that sustains us all?