All creatures, including humans and nonhumans, cannot sustain life on earth without water. Water represents the highest virtue because it gives everything to creatures; and yet it is also placed at the bottom, where people do not like to put themselves. Water is beneficial to nature and neither destroys others nor fights to get a higher position. Water’s tendency is that it must be flowing at the bottom rather than at the top. If this flux is obstructed, the flow stops, and if it is open it continues. Through the foundation of water, life is given life and redeems all life. The self-centeredness of humans is not characteristic of water.

In some sense, the crucified God is like water. The cross shows us God who came down to the bottom, like the tendency of water. While water follows the principle of nature, this God seems to be powerless, unable to kill or destroy anything. Paradoxically, God has great power due to this powerlessness that can save the world. Rather, weakness has great power. Through the weakness of God, we can see, feel, and confess the fact that God is with us and helps us. Only God who suffers can help us in the midst of hardships. In a river we may see some obstacles that disturb the flux of water. But no one can stop water. Water naturally flows in its own way. The Holy Spirit is flowing to the bottom. The Spirit is with creatures who are at the bottom of the earth, marginalized, exploited by the top and the mainstream. That is why the Gospel of Luke describes the SpiritThe Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4: 18-19When we are thirsty, we must drink water. As the Sprite commercial states, "obey your thirst". If all creatures are thirsty, who is going to fulfill our thirst? Water as the Spirit is the answer. Creatures must go to the place where water exists. If they go there, they will not be thirsty. The Spirit of water can eliminate thirst among creatures. And they can feel and meet the Spirit through water.

The Spirit, which is ruach in Hebrew, pneuma in Greek, means wind and breath. It seems that, as Korean American theologian Jung Young Lee expresses it, "ruach meant the air, which manifests itself in two forms--that of the wind in nature and of breath in living beings" (Lee, 103). This means "God is both wind and the breath of his creature" (Lee, 103). The wind shows the power of God. Lee says, "God is manifested in nature and rules nature as the wind" (Lee, 104). In nature the Spirit, manifested as the wind, has the power to change all things. "Power of change is the essence of all existence" (Lee, 104).

Air also represents breath, which indicates life. If you cannot breathe, you are dying. Breath is important to a creature’s life. If you breathe, it means you are alive through air. Like this breath, the Spirit gives life to all creatures who can breathe in and out. The recycling of breath in and out plays a crucial role in the ecosystem. Breath in and breath out operate together in all creatures. If either one of them has a problem, it is risky to life.

When air is totally polluted, creatures are coping with a serious problem, even death. That is why we humans should keep the air clean. As air has no limitation, so the Spirit is not limited. When the Spirit is free, all creatures have boundless and liberated feeling and life.