I started thinking about what to say today the same way I prepare all of my talks – by asking myself some questions. The first question I had was: why water? Water communion is a common ritual for this ingathering service among the UUs, but as I thought back on those I’ve participated in, I couldn’t remember ever hearing how it got started. Maybe you haven’t heard how it started, either. So, I did some research.
I found out the first water communion ritual was in 1980, at the Women and Religion Continental Convocation of Unitarian Universalists. It was created by two women—Carolyn McDade and Lucile Schuck Longview. They set out to create a ritual for the women that spoke to our connectedness – to one another, to the totality of life, and to our place on this planet. The symbol they chose to represent women’s spirituality was water.
They wrote:
“Water is more than simply a metaphor. It is elemental and primary, calling forth feelings of awe and reverence. Acknowledging that the ocean is considered by many to be the place from which all life on our planet came—it is the womb of life—and that amniotic waters surround each of us prenatally, we now realize that [this worship service] was for us a new story of creation… We choose water as our symbol of our empowerment.”
The eight women who participated in that first water communion came from distant places. Their water communion bowl received water from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, from rivers, and even some rainwater. And, really, isn’t that just water doing what water always does: falling as rain into the rivers, flowing to the ocean, returning to the clouds to become rain again. Water is never not in communion.
When we gather again after summer, to begin our new year as a congregation, it’s fitting to bring some water from wherever held meaning for us, to symbolically reunite the waters of the world as we are reunited with each other.
This summer, two or three mornings a week, I put my standup paddleboard into Paradox Lake, which is a small lake just north of Schroon where I live. It was a peaceful and beautiful way to start the day. When I arrived home with a jar of water from Paradox for today, my husband thought about it and asked where we were going to put the water afterwards. How do you make sure you aren’t spreading milfoil or some other invasive?
That made me think about it, too. We’ll water the garden with our combined waters, which hopefully will not harm the land we’re standing on. But if we pour our bowl into another body of water? We could spread milfoil, zebra mussels, the spores of amphibian chytrid fungus. Okay, stop, I’m overthinking.
But we do need to keep in mind, as we each bring our containers forward, that the water you have been present with and collected is not the clear, clean water that it once was, no matter where it came from. That’s why the time for all ages story of Pete Seeger and the Clearwater resonated with me.
It wasn’t just Pete. A legal battle fought to preserve a Hudson River scenic resource and to protect threatened fish spawning habitat was the first major environmental case in the United States. The case was the first to give citizens “standing” in court to challenge the government over the environmental impacts of their decisions. When the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, it became illegal to discharge pollutants into waterways without permits and brought an end to uncontrolled dumping into the Hudson River and its tributaries. The Clean Water Act also contained a citizen suit provision, which enabled environmental groups to stop polluters. One of those groups is Riverkeeper, originally called the Hudson River Fishermen’s Association, the group who brought that first case to court. They are still fighting for our river today.
They know that continued vigilance is needed to ensure that the great gains in water quality made in the past half century are not reversed. Many parts of the Hudson River, particularly where it flows past urban communities and areas of sprawl growth, remain threatened. And government enforcement of environmental laws is dropping off at the state and federal levels. Just recently, a train carrying hazardous materials derailed in the city of Amsterdam along the Mohawk River, igniting concern about train safety and the potential of future spills contaminating the river. That’s our neck of the woods. Our water. But it’s all our water, isn’t it?
Maybe you know that, about a month ago, Lewis Pugh jumped into the Hudson River at its source and is swimming the entire 300 some miles to the mouth. He plans to arrive in New York City a week or so from now, during the UN’s climate week. I found out about what Lewis was doing when a friend made an excited Facebook post about him swimming past her house in Schuylerville.
Lewis is swimming to highlight the importance of clean, healthy rivers to keeping our oceans healthy and our planet habitable for everyone. He’s done these swims all over the world, and his foundation had support getting started from someone you may have heard of – Desmond Tutu.
Lewis Pugh and his foundation are doing what we were asked to do in the story for all ages: inventing new ways to inspire people to take care of the water. My friend and her family were out there with signs, cheering Lewis on as he swam by. This stuff matters.
So as we move into the water communion, let’s do so with care for the waters of the world on our minds and in our hearts. And know that the waters we combine connect us not just to each other but to the web of life, to the trees and the otters and the fish, and the turtles. As we participate in the process of ingathering – symbolically coming back together as a congregation – may our ritual be one of not only connection, but commitment.