Living Water. (sermon for water communion FUUF August 2012)

My mother says, while most people describe their travels by roads and towns, her daughter names rivers. I have lived by the Monongahela and the main, the wWabash, the Detroit, the Little, and the tennessee. I have visited the Thames and the Tiber, the Virgin and the Columbia, the Delaware and the Colorado. I love to follow rivers on a map. I love to look at rivers, watching the water in constant change. I love to put my feet in wild rivers, and become part of the river. When I was younger, I thrilled to test my skill and courage against the rapids. Now I just chart a mental path through them.

What is so fascinating about water, and especially moving water? Water is life. We start life in the water of the womb , our lungs filled with fluid. We are born to the air with the breaking of the water, the first flowing water we experience.

People have followed, lived by, been nurtured by rivers since before we were human. Several cultures use the snake as a symbol for life and fertility. The snake symbol can represent a river. The Rainbow Serpent is a common motif in the art and mythology of Aboriginal Australia. It represents the snake-like meandering of water across a landscape. The Hopi of the American southwest also use the snake motif to represent rivers, water,  life and fertility. At the climax of the  Hopi snake dance, snakes are released into the fields to bring fertility.  The snake represents the life giving water.

In the desert, the river is the current bringing life, and rivers are life in motion. I remember standing in a high place looking over a huge valley north of Brice Canyon in Utah.  Red rocks, hoodoos, bluffs were breath-takingly gorgeous. But here is what really made them beautiful: all the red was accented by a strip of bright green in the valley floor. We descended from the mountain on a long switchback road, through all the Martian red.  And then we arrived on the bottom. A landscape of the occasional dull green sage or cactus suddenly burst into bright green cottonwood, tamarind and grasses. Then we reached the water. Calf creek, maybe 20 feet at its widest, bubbling happily along, bringing all this life to the desert. Deer were taking a drink, and humans had a campground. Children were splashing in the water, and upstream, a fisherman was trying to fool fish onto his hook. I have always thought  I loved the desert, with its spareness, its clean lines, its dry air and deep blue skies, but honestly, it is the desert RIVERS that I love.

The biblical poets, living in their dry land, felt the soul soothing effect of living water. No wonder water is used over and over to sing songs of the spirit.

 Still water can be beautiful, and peaceful, and inspiring of beautiful poetry and awareness of spirit.  Maybe today someone has brought in water from a lake or pond. This is nourishing water, a thick soup of life, bringing peace and restoration. The psalmist in the desert wrote: "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul".

Jesus uses flowing rivers as a metaphor for the holy spirit
Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”

Again the  psalmist sings of Joy caused by the river:
There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most high

 and Isaiah sings in ecstacy.
 "Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert."

We have the picture of John the Baptist, standing in the river Jordan,  baptizing the sinless Jesus and proclaiming him Messiah.  Did this really happen? I neither know nor care, but it is a lovely story of life beginning in the river, and it is part of our cultural mythology. Maybe the fundamentalists are on to something with their insistence on baptism in the living waters of the river. The symbolism is powerful. The river gives life and cleanses, speaks of the holy spirit and joy.

Even in the lush lands, rivers are the corridors of life. Most of the great cities have  grown from riverside villages. Name any city in the world, and there is a river associated with it. The great human migrations have been along the rivers. Americans followed the Hudson, the Ohio, the Shenandoah, then the Mississippi, the Missouri and the Platte. They were the first highways, sustaining life while the people traveled to new places of hope and opportunities.


Rivers are water  with purposeful motion, going somewhere,  doing something. Cutting canyons, eroding mountains, carrying nutrients, bringing the water of life.

Last week we sang
And by union what we will can be accomplished still
Drops of water turn a mill, singly none, singly none.

As the drops of water form rivulets and the creeks come together, so do we come together,  to work, to share, to laugh and love. As all rivers run to the oneness of the sea, we, in our shared experience, come to realize our oneness with all humanity, and ultimately, with all that is.

I started writing this piece early in my UU experience, and go back to work on it from time to time. It has grown as I have grown.

Rock and water

I tried to stand on  the rock,
but I had outgrown it.
It wouldn't support me.
 I knew I must yield myself to the water,
but I was afraid.
The water was unknown,
to what would I cling?

I left the rock behind.
Not so much by my will.
Instead, I was carried away by the force of the water.
It was freeing. Preconceptions  gone.
No revealed knowledge.
Unlimited possibilities.

Freedom to explore, yes, but freedom is also FROM.
There are so many negatives. Not this, no to that.
But where are the YESSES?

Why does the rock support everyone else, but not me?
What is wrong with me?
I flail around in the water.
I am angry.

 My stream brings me to a larger one.
Here are other people who have leapt
From their rocks of childlike faith.
Some are flailing around like me.
BUT  some embrace the fluidity and prosper in it.

There is hope!
I give up grieving that the solid is not for me
I discover a new truth
The YES to center life
I believe in US! WE!

Giving love and support to each other,
SEEING and encouraging each other
As each of us swims our independent journey,
Confident in our own strengths,
Yet returning to the community
For joyous reunion
And sharing of learned truths
As we move and change and think and grow and love.