Water ingathering ceremony

The words below were used by Rev. Dan Harper to introduce the annual water ingathering ceremony at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. As usual, what is below is a reading text. Text copyright (c) 2007 Daniel Harper.

Introduction to water ingathering

Water links all persons together in the cycle of life. Let me explain how that is literally true. A human being contains on the order of 10 to the 27th molecules of water — 10 to the 27th is a huge number, a one with 27 zeros after it. On an average day, we each probably consume about 10 to the 25th water molecules (that is, if I did my math right), and excrete the same amount. The water that comes out of us continues on in the water cycle, draining into the ocean, evaporating, forming clouds, and raining down again — so you are linked to the ocean and the sky, and to all living things that partake in the water cycle. You can also consider this historically. Since water molecules are pretty much indestructible, and since such a huge number of water molecules passes through us each day, there’s a decent chance that some of the water molecules currently in your body were formerly in the body of Socrates, Gotama Buddha, Jesus of Nazareth, and/or Hildegard of Bingen. So it is scientifically true that water links all beings.

It is also poetically true to say that water links us all together. Standing on the edge of the Rio Grande River, the poet Jimmy Santiago Braca writes:

I’ve come here after drinking all night,
come here after betraying myself and others I’ve loved
come here and offered all the shame and guilt to this river,
to take it down river, pouring it out into the Gulf of Mexico
there for the whales to spout it up in the air…
to cleanse it, joining me
    in their wholeness, their completeness.
I breathe part of its being in me….

When we gather here to begin a new church year together, we participate in a ritual gathering of the waters. If you get the church newsletter, you were invited to bring a small amount of water that somehow represents your summer: some of the water you used to water your garden, perhaps; or water from one of the city or town beaches that you visited this summer; or water from a place you visited; or water from a stream or river nearby that is important to you. If you didn’t get the church newsletter, or if you forgot, don’t worry: we have cups of water here for you to use; when your turn comes, you can pour one of these little cups of water into the communal bowl and tell us what it represents from your summer.

Here is how we will do this: Please line up here, to my right and your left. When your turn comes, step up onto the platform. Speak clearly into the microphone, say your name, and tell us in one or two sentences what your water represents. Please be aware that there are lots of people who will want to speak. Tell us just enough to make us curious, so that people will want to approach you during social hour and ask you about your summer.

I’ll start us off. My name is Dan Harper. This I went to visit some cousins I hadn’t seen in twenty years, and this water is from their house….

Ingathering water ceremony, 2006

This water ingathering service was led by Rev. Dan Harper. As usual, the text below is a reading text. The actual worship service deviated from the text due to ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Copyright (c) 2006 Daniel Harper.

Introduction to the Water Ingathering Ceremony

Those of us who live near the ocean know well that the sea gathers people from all over the world, brining vastly different cultures in contact with each other. In the book Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Henry Dana tells how he shipped as a common sailor, before the mast, in 1834, to engage in trade along the then-wild coast of California. Dana spent several months of that two years curing hides on the beach near the mission of San Diego, where a truly international group had gathered on the beach:

“We were sitting at dinner in our little room, when we heard the cry of ‘Sail ho!’ … and there, sure enough, were two sails coming round the point, and leaning over from the strong north-west wind, which blows down the coast every afternoon. The headmost was a ship, and the other, a brig. … As they drew nearer, we soon discovered the high poop and top-gallant forecastle, and other marks of the Italian ship Rosa, and the brig proved to be the Catalina, which we saw at Santa Barbara, just arrived from Valparaiso. They came to anchor, moored ship, and commenced discharging hides and tallow. … and the beach, for several days, was all alive. The Catalina had several Kanakas [or Polynesians] on board, who were immediately besieged by the others, and carried up to the oven, where they had a long pow-wow, and a smoke. Two Frenchmen, who belonged to the Rosa’s crew, came in, every evening. … Several of the Italians slept on shore at their hide-house; and there, and at the tent in which the Fazio’s crew lived, we had some very good singing almost every evening. The Italians sang a variety of songs-barcarollas, provincial airs, etc.; in several of which I recognized parts of our favorite operas and sentimental songs. … One young man, in particular, had a falsetto as clear as a clarionet.
“The greater part of the crews of the vessel’s came ashore every evening, and we passed the time in going about from one house to another, and listening to all manner of languages. The Spanish was the common ground upon which we all met; for every one knew more or less of that. We had now, out of forty or fifty, representatives from almost every nation under the sun: two Englishmen, three Yankees, two Scotchmen, two Welshmen, one Irishman, three Frenchmen (two of whom were Normans, and the third from Gascony,) one Dutchman, one Austrian, two or three Spaniards, (from old Spain,) half a dozen Spanish-Americans and half-breeds, two native Indians from Chili and the Island of Chiloe, one Negro, one Mulatto, about twenty Italians, from all parts of Italy, as many more Sandwich Islanders, one Otaheitan, and one Kanaka from the Marquesas Islands.

“The night before the vessels were ready to sail, all the Europeans united and had an entertainment at the Rosa’s hide-house, and we had songs of every nation and tongue. A German gave us ‘Och! mein lieber Augustin!’ the three Frenchmen roared through the Marseilles Hymn; the English and Scotchmen gave us ‘Rule Britannia,’ and ‘Wha’ll be King but Charlie?’ the Italians and Spaniards screamed through some national affairs, for which I was none the wiser; and we three Yankees made an attempt at the “Star-spangled Banner.” After these national tributes had been paid, the Austrian gave us a very pretty little love-song, and the Frenchmen sang a spirited thing called “Sentinelle! O prenez garde a vous!” and then followed the melange which might have been expected. When I left them, … they were all singing and talking at once, and their peculiar national oaths were getting as plenty as pronouns.”

So writes Richard Henry Dana. Here in our church, in the port city of New Bedford, we gather together as people descended from many different lands, from many different peoples. We are Yankees and Irish and Italian and Portuguese, we are descended from the peoples of Africa and the native peoples of North America, our families spoke Spanish and English and Portuguese. Let us take two minutes, 60 seconds, and hear from each other: If you are moved to do so, say out loud your ethnic identity or identities: where your people come from, whom you consider yourself to be. Don’t wait for others to finish before you speak, just speak as soon as the spirit moves you. Let us begin now.

[People speak as moved]

Rain is what lets the cool green hills of earth stay green; rain falling from dark rain clouds; clouds made up of evaporated water from lakes and oceans; lakes and oceans fed by networks of rivers and streams and brooks that we call watersheds; watersheds wherein grow the plants and herbs and trees and shrubs that make up the cool green hills of earth. That is one part of the vast cycle of water; and we too are part of the cycle of water, water we drink and wash in and depend upon to grow our food; everything living thing is part of the cycle of water. So it is that we linked by water to the blue-green hills of earth and to every living thing; so it is that we are all linked to each other by our dependence on water.

When we gather here to begin a new church year together, we participate in a ritual gathering of the waters. If you get the church newsletter, you were invited to bring a small amount of water that somehow represents your summer: some of the water you used to water your garden, perhaps; or water from one of the city or town beaches that you visited this summer; or water from a place you visited; or water from a stream or river nearby that is important to you. If you didn’t get the church newsletter, or if you forgot, don’t worry: we have cups of water here for you to use; when your turn comes, you can pour one of these little cups of water into the communal bowl and tell us what it represents from your summer.

Here is how we will do this: Please line up here, to my right and your left. When your turn comes, step up onto the platform. Speak clearly into the microphone, say your name, and tell us in one or two sentences what your water represents. Please be aware that there are lots of people who will want to speak, and that we usually try to end our worship services no later than five after noon, and limit your remarks accordingly. Tell us just enough to make us curious, so that people will want to approach you during social hour and ask you about your summer.

I’ll start us off. My name is Dan Harper. This summer my partner Carol and I spent the summer taking care of a cat in Cambridge, and this is Cambridge tap water.

[PEOPLE ADD THEIR WATER]

We have all added our water to this common bowl, as a symbol that we have gathered together again in community. We can no longer separate this water back out into its constituent parts; I can not remove my Cambridge tapwater from this bowl; and this a symbol, too, a symbol that our covenant with each other will keep us together in the face of adversity.

Ingathering water ceremony

The following words were given by Rev. Dan Harper at the annual ingathering water ceremony. As usual, the text below is a reading text. Copyright (c) 2005 Daniel Harper.

INGATHERING WATER CEREMONY

It has become the custom in many Unitarian Universalist congregations to hold an ingathering water ceremony each year at the close of summer.

The water ceremony started in the 1970’s, when Lucile Shuck Longview, Carolyn McDade, and other strong feminists wondered about creating a worshipful ritual which would recognize the strength and power of women. They created a ceremony where women got together, each woman bringing a small amount of water to represent some part of her life; and then the waters from each woman were gathered into one communal bowl to symbolize that we are all connected, that we are all a part of life.

Each person here this morning will have an opportunity to come forward, and add a small amount of water to this bowl. Perhaps you read the newsletter or the announcement in last Sunday’s order of service and brought water from some place that is important to you, or from some place you visited this summer. Or perhaps you brought a memory, or an idea of a place that is important to you, and you will use one of the small cups of water up here to symbolize water from some place that is important in your life, or from some place you visited this summer.

One by one, we will pour water into the communal bowl. Each of us is an individual, each of us is important to this community: even if this is your first time here, this morning you are as important to this worshipping community as someone who has gone to this church all their lives. Our worshipping community is made up of the hopes and dreams and aspirations that each of us brings here this morning. We symbolize that by pouring a bit of water, a bit of who we are, into this bowl.

And water connects us with the wider world as well. When it rains, the water tha falls on this church drains into the harbor just down the hill from where we sit, and flows into Buzzards Bay, and out into the stormy Atlantic Ocean: so rain becomes oceans, oceans become clouds, clouds become rain –– become us become the world. Water connects us with each other, and with the whole world.

The original ingathering water ceremony was created in protest and in anger, and some of that remains as we gather together today. Bodies of water around the world are threatened by pollution and misuse. Our own New Bedford harbor is a Superfund site due to years of pollution with PCBs. Fresh water sources are getting contaminated, or overused. Water ties us to everything around us, and so this ceremony also represents a responsibility and a commitment for making the world a better place.

If you would like to add water to the communal bowl, please come forward now, and line up over there (point to my right). One by one, walk up and put your water in the bowl. If you would like to tell us where your water came from, please say your name first, and speak clearly into the microphone. And please limit yourself to one or two sentences, so everyone can have an equal chance to speak –– and so we’re not here all afternoon.

I’ll begin: My water comes from the Fox River in Geneva, Illinois, where I lived up until month ago. The Fox River is a quiet little Midwestern River currently suffering from a severe drought….

*****

So we have mixed water from different places, water of memories and thoughts and emotions. So we come together again as a worshipping community. Rivers and oceans run though us….