The Rev. Dr. Morris W. Hudgins
Northwest UU Congregation
August 29, 2010
History of Water Ceremony
The Water Ceremony or Communion as it is sometimes called started in 1980, at a Women and Religion Conference in East Lansing, Michigan. Carolyn McDade and Lucile Shuck Longview were the creators. It began as a service to empower women. I It was a celebration of their connectedness. “The water symbolized the birth waters, the cycles of moon, tides and women, the solidarity with women globally, as women the world over traditionally draw and carry water.” (Ellen Blanchard) Thirty years after its creation, Longview and McDade’s ritual speaks to a deepening awareness of our solidarity with brothers and sisters globally who lack the most basic and precious resources. It also speaks eloquently of our interdependence. Water carries memories—of special trips, of former homes, of places that have become holy to us.
I am proud to be in a religious association that emphasizes the empowerment of women. We were among the first denomination to ordain women ministers. Our forefathers and mothers supported women’s suffrage. This led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment, August 26, 1919. Women’s Suffrage was one aspect of the empowerment of women. Women encouraged in ministry was another. This changed our Association. We now have a majority of women in the ministry and rituals like the Water Communion is one example of their contribution.
In recent years I have heard some criticism of the Water Ceremony or Communion, because some people use it to brag about their summer travels. I am sensitive to this criticism. I grew up in a poor family. A vacation was a one hundred mile trip to Grandmother’s house. I remember writing to the National Parks around the country when I was a boy, asking for materials, then dreaming about visiting them one day.
My first real vacation was when I was 14, my family came to Georgia to witness the graduation of my brother, Larry, from Military School at Ft. Gordon. I remember sleeping in a tent in a state park, witnessing a skunk in the bathroom and losing my wallet. I had to order a new social security card.
I want to encourage us to use this ceremony as a time to reflect on “The Message of the Water.” Summer travels can help us do this if the water represents more than where you went. Maybe it was, like mine, as representative of a special community (like the Southeast UU Summer Institute (SUUSI) at Radford University in Virginia or a trip to the Mountain, the UU Camp and Conference Center, near Highlands, NC where we will have the Northwest Retreat in a couple of weeks) or maybe you went somewhere for a special family event. Maybe some of you went to the Gulf in support of the people there.
I want us to think about the problems with water around the world—floods in Pakistan, or Nashville or even Atlanta. I understand some of you have had some problems here. We learned this week that we had a problem here at Northwest. A water line broke and water seeped into the catch basin. The water bill we received was $8,000. Jennifer and the Board have been working to get this reduced. Yes, there are many messages the water brings.
Don Marshall’s reading this morning gives us this message. It takes me back to my childhood. Having grown up in St. Louis, you would think my first memories of the river would be of the Mississippi. That is not the case. We rarely went to the Mississippi when I was growing up. Rather, we would go to Illinois to the Wabash River. My first memory of a river when I was a small boy recalls my first fishing trip to an unknown river. I remember catching my first fish, then watching as the “huge” fish came off hook, and I went sliding down the back to catch it before it got to the water. I grabbed the fish with my hands and began crawling up the bank to the top when I dropped the fish and it slid back to the river and went away, muddy and disappointed.
Don has also reminded me of my summer days in West Virginia, where I had a summer home, when I would get up early in the morning and walk down to the river to fish. The river taught me many things in those days and I would like to share some of them with you now. As I talk of these things think of the river as life itself. The river is life. The river is Shiva God as described in Hinduism. The river is creator, sustainer, and destroyer. The river is in each of us. We are part of the river.
First, I learned that the river is creator. It brings new life into being. In religion the river is a symbol of the creative power of nature and time. It is a symbol of fertility. And it is a symbol of the irreversible passage of time. All life comes from the sea. In the end all life returns to the sea. Lau-Tsu wrote that “Water never rests, neither by day nor by night.” It is always flowing. So it is with life. Water never stops. If it does, it becomes stagnant. The river of life is every flowing, around us, and in us, and through us.
The river like life is ever changing. Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher known for his ideas on change, said, “You cannot step twice into the same river.” I learned that each time I would walk to the river in the early morning. It was different each time.
My first chore after putting my hook into the water was to stop and watch for the differences. I would look for the birds, or for the deer that would enter my world. Yes the river was always creating, putting out energy for me to witness and feel and take into my being. My goal when I would go to the river would be to capture part of the energy of the river and use it to write. My best sermons were written after I had been to the river. God, creativity, energy, beauty, peace, entered my life through the flowing waters. The river, life is creator.
Second, as we learned this summer the river can be a destroyer. We have all seen that power of the river. What was once a quiet stream can be a roaring river, taking everything in its path, no matter how sturdy it seems, and moving it out of the way. I think of the river of lava from a volcano. Hot, steaming gasses, running through villages, and over homes, killing everything in its way. The river and life can be dangerous. We must be cautious as we move down the river of life. We must look for the possible destruction. It can come from others or from ourselves.
Third, the river, and life is preserver. It not only creates. It also preserves what has been created. We can go to the river for peace and solace. We can find God in the waters. We go to the water for healing, for peace, and for new life. Yes, the river can bring us peace. But peace can only be found when we stop to let it come over us. We can’t find peace. It finds us. The river of life can preserve us and heal us.
The most important teaching of the river is that the river and life are all connected. Marshall writes:
Even as the river’s origin and its mouth are present at every point along its banks, so also do each of us imply each other, all over the world and from the deepest recesses of history unto the farthest reaches of the future. All of humankind is but a larger river.
This is the way we must look at life. We are all connected. We are from the same river of life and we must return to the river. We are humbled and we are proud of our connection to the river. I see this when I go to Transylvania, the birthplace of Unitarianism. I see the connections between our faith and the peoples there who have defended their faith through the centuries. We are richer for knowing our brothers and sisters in Transylvania. I am so glad the youth of Northwest were able to spend some time with young people from Transylvania. I hope these youth are able to make the trip to Transylvania. They will learn much more than they teach.
Each of us could have been born into the poverty of Transylvania or Pakistan, or Haiti. We are here not by our choosing, but by the choices of others, and by the hand of creation. Life brings us blessings, it brings us destruction, and it gives us the possibility of moving on from where we are, in peace and harmony or in continued brokenness. May we flow like the river, ever changing, ever creating, finding peace and wholeness. Amen.