UCF August 31, 2003
© Rev. Sally B. White

Once again this morning, our celebration focuses on water. Once again, as it has on many Sunday mornings in this month of August, 2003. Once again, as it has on Sunday mornings at the end of summer for a number of years here at the Unitarian Coastal Fellowship.

This morning’s Water Ceremony links us with many other Unitarian Universalist congregations, who also mark the end of summer with an ingathering of members of the community, bringing and mingling water from the real or virtual journeys they have taken during the less-structured summertime days and weeks. And something more. Because this is a ceremony that this community has observed more than once, each repetition links each one of us with the history of this community, and with ourselves. If you were here last year, no doubt memories of last year’s service, last year’s participants (including last year’s you), and last year’s journeys are present, like echoes or shadows, underlying the words and images of today’s ceremony. If you were not here, the care with which today’s waters were offered and received is in itself an eloquent introduction to one important way in which this community pays attention to its members, celebrates their unique contributions, and renews its collective and individual spirits.

Through repetitions separated from one another by time and by space, this Water Ceremony helps enfold us in yet another dimension of the interdependent web that Anne spoke of. In a human dimension that goes far, far deeper than the metaphorical mingling of the waters in the bowl, this morning’s ceremony serves to connect and reconnect us to ourselves and one another. It is, indeed, a ritual.

I suspect that I am treading on shaky ground, here, suggesting that our Water Ceremony is a ritual. For many Unitarian Universalists – and you may be one of them – "ritual" is a loaded word, carrying as it does connotations of religious observances which follow long-established forms and are repeated faithfully – even mindlessly. You may shrink from the idea of ritual as empty observance, stifling free inquiry or question, condemning innovation or creativity. We want our worship to be fresh, meaningful, personalized, and stimulating – a format that seems to be in tension with the very idea of ritual.

Nonetheless, I submit that we are, here, enacting a ritual. And that this ritual is, in its very essence, religious.

It is a ritual in the sense in which Robert Fulghum speaks of rituals, a sense rooted in his understanding of humans as religious beings:

To be human is to be religious.

To be religious is to be mindful.

To be mindful is to pay attention.

To pay attention is to sanctify existence.

Rituals are one way in which attention is paid.

Rituals transform the ordinary into the holy.

And it is religious in that it reminds us that we are connected to something larger than ourselves.

For today, we have taken time, together, to remember and to pay attention. Remembering meaningful moments in our own lives connects and reconnects us with those moments, and with all the forces and influences that made them meaningful. Sharing them with one another connects and reconnects us with one another, renewing and restoring the bonds of community that, in themselves constitute "something larger" that holds and sustains us. Exploring together in words and silence the meaning and the metaphor of water; recognizing that each offering is unique and different yet all are, fundamentally, the same water – this, too, connects us to one another and to a marvelous, mysterious much-larger world.

Good rituals do this. They are thoughtful and intentional. They remind us of the past, center us in the present moment, and offer us possibilities for the future. They embody symbol and metaphor, in layers of meaning that enrich and invigorate our spirits. They connect us in myriad ways.

Far from being empty and meaningless, good rituals change and evolve, and they reflect the vitality of those who celebrate them. And good rituals offer important benefits to individuals, families, or communities that observe them. An article in the July-August issue of the ÚU World describes a process of creating family rituals that inspire and instruct children and adults alike. The author, Meg Cox, suggests that good rituals can:

• Impart a sense of identity
• Provide comfort and security
• Help navigate change
• Teach values
• Teach practical skills
• Solve problems
• Keep alive a sense of departed family members
• Pass on ethnic and religious heritage
• Help heal from loss and trauma
• Generate wonderful memories.

As a vital religious community, we celebrate and we create rituals each time we gather. We know the importance of freshness and excitement in our gatherings, and we know the importance of paying attention and remembering.

Let us now take the water we gathered this morning, and give it a place in the ongoing life of this community.

Last year, the mingled waters were taken outside and used to nourish the flowers planted at the entrance of the building. This year, as we celebrate the beginning of a new ministry and of my presence as your first full-time, called minister, let us do something new with our gathered waters.

Some of the water I will pour into this bottle. It will be saved for special occasions in our congregational life – for beginnings and endings, for rites of passage, for child dedications and the Blessing of the Animals. Transformed from the ordinary into the holy by the power of our presence, our focused attention, our good will and good wishes, this water will carry the essence of this day, and all the days leading up to it, forward into our congregational future. Blessed be these gathered waters, the waters of our lives, symbol of our gathered community.

Some of the water I will use to water this newly-bought Rosemary plant. As befits this morning’s ritual, rosemary is an herb long, long associated with memory and with remembrance. The ancient Greeks carried sprigs of rosemary to funerals, to signify that the deceased would not be forgotten, and since Elizabethan times, rosemary has also been used in wedding ceremonies, as a symbol of faithful love. The Latin genus name of the plant, Rosmarinus, means "dew of the sea," and it is usually found growing near the ocean.

In honor of new beginnings and faithful memories, I will water this Rosemary plant with our gathered waters. When the weather cools off, we will plant it outside – in our Unitarian Coastal Fellowship flower garden near the ocean – and its sprigs may also be used for special occasions in our congregational life. [Blessing] "Through the interdependent web of life the gathered waters flow. With each drop the mysterious gift of life is given."

Blessed be this gathered community, and each of its members.

Blessed be the days of your lives, and the rituals that mark their passing.

Blessed be the web of life, that holds us all.

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