I live in the watershed of a beautiful, 40-mile long glacial lake.  Today was a sparkling, unseasonably warm day, so I drove up the lake to see if any interesting birds were lurking in a sheltering cove.  There weren't, but the clear blue sky and reflecting water, the sunshine, the wind and hills around, and the estuary where the creek empties were worth the trip anyway.  It was bare, brown, unadorned winter, but clear and blue, and simply lovely.

Earlier in the day a newly established Orthodox Christian church had traveled down to the lake shore to conduct a "Blessing of the Lake," I guess as part of Orthodox tradition around Epiphany.  I know they mean well — and for god's sake, good will is the most important thing there is — but what incredible theological presumption!  The lake doesn't need to be "blessed" by some well-meaning but fundamentally irrelevant human; the lake is inherently blessed, and a blessing to us fortunate enough to live here. 

 The lake has been there since the last glaciation retreated.  When the lake was made, woolly mammoths and mastodons drank from the river that formed it. Birds have plotted their semi-annual migrations along its north-south axis for millennia, and indigenous Americans were at home here for nearly as long.  But the earliest descendants of Europeans moved in only 220 years ago.  So how can some Christian priest possibly confer benefit or holiness on this lake?  Is a 12,000 year-old lake less conversant with the divine than a middle-aged American priest?  How does a well-meaning fellow in fancy robes and a funny hat saying words and waving his hands add value, comfort, or meaning to nature? 

 It seems to me that if you live in relationship to a lake, you have only two choices:  either you abuse and pollute it, or you respect and appreciate it, and try to take care of it.  But the act of "blessing" the lake assumes that you have some authority or dominion over it, and that's both naive and arrogant. 

The Orthodox congregation and priest may mean well, but they're fooling themselves; and unintentionally, insulting our lake.  Better we should all  spend a little time quietly enjoying it, and feeling ourselves blessed by its presence.