BY LYNN UNGAR, MINISTER FOR LIFESPAN LEARNING, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP
Happy New Year! Jewish New Year, that is. Rosh Hashana, which means “head of the year” in Hebrew, falls on the evening of September 18th this year. It’s always seemed to me that September is a sensible time to mark the new year. It’s the time when most kids are headed back to school, and most UU churches count September as the start of the church year as well.
One Jewish tradition for the new year is to eat apple dipped in honey, so that you will have a sweet new year. UUs have a September church new year tradition as well. Many of our congregations choose a Sunday early in September to honor the community coming together in a new church year through the ceremony of water communion.
How water communion works is pretty simple. Over the summer, all the members of the congregation are encouraged to collect a bit of water from wherever they might travel. And then, during the water communion, everybody brings in their little jar or cup or bottle of water representing water from the lake where they went camping or their vacation to Iceland or the wading pool in their back yard or wherever. And one by one, each person pours their little bit of water into a big bowl, so that everyone’s water is all mixed together.
It’s a relatively new ritual, as rituals go. Carolyn McDade and Lucille Shuck Longview came up with the idea in 1980 for a Women and Religion conference, as a special way of honoring what each person brought to the gathering. Women at the conference were so moved by way the ritual expressed how the power of each person is magnified when we all come together that they brought the idea back to their home congregations, and the practice just spread from there.
The water communion is a ritual of gathering, of bringing people together as they launch into whatever the new year might bring. But what if you don’t belong to a congregation where everyone comes together in the same building at the same time?Is there a water communion that celebrates the new year for a CLF family who might be the only UUs in town, or even for a person to do all by themselves?
I think there could be. After all, there are a bunch of different parts to every one of us. As we focus on the year to come, it helps to name and honor all the pieces that go into making up our whole selves. So here’s a way that you might celebrate water communion with your family—or by yourself:
Find a nice spot outdoors, maybe under a tree, and have a pitcher or water bottle or glass full of water for each person, and a big bowl you can pour the water into.
You might want to begin with this poem by Langston Hughes:
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the
rivers.
Imagine your soul as a river. Rivers are formed as the streams flow into them, and streams form from the rain and the snow that falls in the mountains. Think about all the things that go into making you who you are: your interests and talents, your personality, your experiences. Think about what you have learned and done over the past year, and where you hope those things will take you in the next year. Now, take your water bottle or pitcher or whatever and pour a little bit into the bowl as you name some aspect of yourself or your life that you will be bringing into the new year. If you are in a group, take turns naming the parts of yourself, with everybody taking as many turns as they like. You might pour water in the bowl for your courage or your intelligence or your sense of humor, for your skill as a writer or your gift for making friends or for your fierce temper. Little by little, pour all the bits of yourself into that bowl. Then bless the water, saying: “As streams join to become rivers and rivers meet in the great oceans, all that we are meets with all we are becoming. May we be blessed by the new year, and may we be a blessing.” You might wish to close by singing “I’ve Got Peace Like a River.” (You can hear the tune at the CLF Music page). And if you’d like to learn more about the water communion, you might want to take at look at the September 2003 issue of Quest. Here’s wishing you a sweet new year!
