Replenishing Our Well, Powering Our Visions (September 7, 2008 by Nancy Irish)
(Including readings)
OPENING WORDS (author unknown)
I am but a drop of water.
Alone, I would disappear,
dried up by the scorching sun,
or sucked up by the dry, thirsty earth.
But together we can wear out stones,
carve out the Grand Canyon,
make streams and rivers,
and find our way to the sea.
BUDDHIST OFFERTORY SONG
Row Row Row Your Boat
“Go with the flow and enjoy the ride, remembering that we are full of illusion.”
INTERGENERATIONAL WATER CEREMONY
This morning we join many hundreds of other UU congregations and fellowships worldwide in celebrating the ingathering of our beloved communities after the scattering of the lovely summer months. This water communion, as it is known in some places, has come to be one of the most widely shared UU traditions. This ceremony originated in 1980, in East Lansing, Michigan, for the occasion of a Women and Religion Conference. The event is described as a gathering of angry women who felt that laywomen’s voices had not been heard in the movement, nor women’s needs in worship honored. Now women comprise more than half of UU ministers, and we can be glad that the angry women of the early eighties are now happy to share this ritual that celebrates inclusivity.
REPLENISHING OUR WELL, POWERING OUR VISIONS
Two powerful gifts and forces of water are replenishment and momentum. According to my handy online dictionary, “replenish” means “to fill somebody or something with needed energy or nourishment.” What is more basic to nourishing life than water?
I have been struck by the connection between life and water, as our friend Judy Bennett has been approaching death, and until yesterday, frequently expressed a primal urge to be in contact with water. Her partner Barb talked about it last night at Judy’s bedside, saying that oddly, Judy has always been rather resistant to being in water. Yet, many of her last requests this past week have been about water – pans of water to soak her hands and feet in, two showers a day, an urgent desire to be wheeled down by Lake Superior “just to get in it,” a kiddy pool for their deck after she got home from the hospital a few days ago. Barb wrote in an email this morning, “Going to go wash her face and hands...holy, this is.” I will leave it to you to ponder what the basic nourishment of water might mean to someone who is nearing death.
The blending of our individual water symbolizes, of course, that the body of water that is our community can, if we allow it to, nourish and replenish each of us. The web of interconnection that is the Marquette Unitarian Universalist Congregation is a source of energy that can give us courage, compassion, hope, and challenge, according to our need. I love to contemplate the cosmic laws of matter which inform us that not only are our very cells intermingled with one another’s cells, but also with the cells of people long ago and far away. Just think - this water may contain cells from Gandhi, Harriet Tubman, Henry David Thoreau, Rachel Carson, and Bozo the Clown. How encouraging!
Let us be reminded by this bowl of water, then, as we mark the beginning of another trip around the school year together, that we can seek and offer inspiration, strength, and replenishment in this beloved community.
I encourage us all to also remind ourselves regularly that our coming together is not just to feel nourished. We also come together because together we can accomplish what we cannot accomplish alone. “Momentum” is defined as the “capacity for progressive development,” or a “measure of movement” that expresses the motion of a body and its resistance to slowing down. It is equal to the product of the body’s mass and velocity.
It was the momentum of a body of water that carved the Grand Canyon; that powers civilization along the Columbia River in the northwest. It is the momentum of water that grinds grain in a grist mill. It was the momentum of a body of citizens that brought an end to slavery; that achieved the vote for women; and that accomplished legislation to protect endangered species. Unitarian Universalists have always provided some of the mass of that great human body that moves relentlessly forward toward positive social change.
Think not only of our lovely bowl of water that we have collected and combined here in Marquette, Michigan. Think of all the UU bowls of water being collected in Michigan, and across the country and the world. We are part of a movement, and the mass that each one of us contributes multiplies the speed of forward motion.
Here in our own time and place, we have the opportunity and yes, the responsibility of the privileged, to contribute to the forward motion of humankind. As we resume our conversation this fall about what we want to be and do together in community, I encourage us to think about the energy efficiency and power in momentum. I hope that we will revisit and recommit ourselves to efforts we have already put in motion. I will just mention them briefly here, with apologies to newcomers unfamiliar with our doings. The efforts I’m referring to are the national UU Green Sanctuary certification process; our Big Creek Adopt-a-Watershed project, which is a component of the Earthkeeper Coalition; and supporting the youth among who want to address the racism and sexism inherent in the local high school “Redmen and Redette” logo that most of us support with our tax dollars.
These efforts are local manifestations of the agenda of the greater body of Unitarian Universalists, like hillside rivulets that flow into increasingly larger streams, until rivulet meets mighty ocean. So let this bowl of water remind us of the power of momentum when we join forces. Let our heady understanding of the principles of physics motivate us to hang the posters I passed around, so that our mass can grow into an increasing measure of momentum.
As we begin another round of the seasons together in community, nourished by our common well, may we be mindful of the the mass that each one of us contributes to our Marquette UU community. May we remember that our collective mass contributes to the momentum toward the day when justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
CLOSING SONG
Step by Step, the Longest March
Step by step the longest march can be won, can be won.
Many stones can form an arch, singly none; singly none.
And by union what we will can be accomplished still.
Drops of water turn a mill; singly none, singly none.
CLOSING WORDS
Be Like Water, by Kendra Ford, Minister, First Unitarian Society of Exeter, New Hampshire
run deep run clear
fill any space to its own dimensions
respond to the moon, to gravity
change colors with the light
hold your temperature longer than the surrounding air
take the coast by storm
go under ground
bend light be the one thing people
need, even when they're fasting
eat boulders
quietly be a
universal
solvent.