Water
Preached 8/2/2020 at SouthWest UU in N. Royalton OH
By Rev. Meg Mathieson
Here at SWUU, our worship team subscribes to a service that aggregates worship resources and suggests monthly themes. The theme this month is Creation, and all of the resources are around it have to do with environmentalism and the planet, so we decided to devote each Sunday this month to one of the four sacred elements, and as I mentioned earlier, this week we are talking about the holiness of water.
A reverence for water as a holy item can be found in most cultures around the globe if not all. And of course it would be, we need water so constantly, so completely. It makes up more than half of what we physically are.
That is to say, as you are looking at me, you are seeing me, but you are really seeing mostly water with some other stuff mixed in. So of course water is important to humans, and it seems, to all living creatures.
Water is beautiful, as we see in waterfalls, lakes, oceans, rivers, water is powerful, as it carves out ridges in the sides of mountains and can cause a surprising amount of damage to our houses and cars. Water is medicinal, as it instantly restores vitality to dehydrated bodies. Water is mysterious, as it swirls in blackness, miles below us, giving home to the world’s most mysterious creatures.
If you’ve ever traveled somewhere that you didn’t have immediate access to fresh water, you know that the realization comes quickly and constantly. Without a tap to turn on, there are suddenly a thousand little ways you need or want water. For the tending to our bodies, to clean and to hydrate, for the tending to the food that we consume,
for general refreshment, Water is the element of life. And as such, I’d like to read a prayer of invocation over our joys and concerns water here. May this blessing cover all of the joys and concerns that all of us hold in our secret hearts.
Hail Guardians of the West,
I summon the powers of Water!
Rushing stream,
Vast, dark ocean,
Poetry of the soul in motion,
With Intuition, feeling, the power to Dare,
We invoke you!
By the Waters of Her womb,
Be with us now!
So as you heard at the beginning of that invocation, The West corresponds to the element of Water.
This represents the Deep self, emotions, intuition, and the power to Dare. Its color is the blue of the oceans, and its tool is the chalice.
Our chalice is an important symbol to us also, dating back to World War II. Originally, according to a pamphlet by Rev. Susan Ritchie, the flaming chalice was a two-dimensional image stamped on documents created by the Unitarian Service Committee (USC) to help Jewish refugees escape Nazi persecution on the eve of World War II. Eventually the chalice design formed the basis for the American Unitarian Association’s official logo. After Universalism and Unitarianism merged in 1961, the symbol acquired two overlapping circles, to represent each of the two traditions.
Like our faith itself, the symbol of the chalice remains open to interpretation and individual impression, even as it simultaneously represents our community. There, in our symbol of faith is a mixture of both individualism and community, together.
And there we again acknowledge the fundamental holiness of the element of water. We are encouraged to see the many meaning that the chalice has. If you were here in person, I would ask you for ideas. Does the chalice hold us, as a community? Does it hold water, as chalices are meant to do? Why is there fire in the chalice? These are deep and potentially beautiful questions, but there is no mistaking the correspondence between our sacred symbol and a deeper reverence for the holiness of the element of water.
There is a clear similarity, probably not consciously intended, but still very real - between the flaming chalice and the Tarot suit of goblets or cups. The suit of cups pertains to events of an emotional nature - as opposed to physical, intellectual, or creative natures. In ancient times, cups were the symbol of clergy, a vessel which carries and gives life. Thus, our chalice represents that in our faith, we are all saved. We are all clergy.
Unlike other faiths where the clergy is the medium through which you must go to reach the divine, we affirm that there is nowhere to go to reach the divine - it is you. You are holy and the holy is reachable within you.
And the holiness of water is a great example. You are mostly water, and that itself is divine.
As a water sign, maybe I’m biased. But the importance of water to humanity cannot be overstated. At the same time it is deadly. How strange, a substance that we cannot live without and which can paradoxically kill us in an instant? What mysterious element is this? To quote Bill Bryson, “Imagine trying to live in a world dominated by dihydrogen oxide, a compound that has no taste or smell and is so variable in its properties that it is generally benign but at other times swiftly lethal. Depending on its state, it can scald you or freeze you. In the presence of certain organic molecules it can form carbonic acids so nasty that they can strip the leaves from trees and eat the faces off statuary. In bulk, when agitated, it can strike with a fury that no human edifice could withstand. Even for those who have learned to live with it, it is an often murderous substance. We call it water.”
Water is feared and revered in almost every world religion. Those of us familiar with Western Christianity are aware of the waters of baptism, Jesus called himself “living waters,” or “the water of life.” On the cross, Jesus bled a mixture of water and blood.
But reverence for the deadly and holy life-giving power of water appears in virtually all cultures. There is a list on wikipedia of water deities that lists names from all over: Mayan, Inuit, Samoan, Yoruba, the Egyptians worshipped gods and goddesses of the Nile. In the ancient Middle East, the gods and goddesses of the Tigris and Euphrates.
In India, the Ganges, among many others, in China, the Yellow River, among many others. Humans throughout history and across the globe have bowed to the mighty element of water, the mysterious, the sacred, the holy. Terrible and life-giving.
And we are the lucky ones with access to it. Because humans have of course defied and angered the water gods, poisoning our earth and our precious water along with it. You know this, this is not news. Flint Michigan has been without clean drinkable water since April 2014. A year ago I arrived here in Cleveland from Baltimore. Baltimore, under the Chesapeake Bay watershed, is poised on the brink of water disaster as the Chesapeake Bay continues to suffer from extreme pollution. Imagine my surprise to find that you all in Cleveland know just as much, if not more about this sort of suffering and fear. I don’t need to tell you about polluted water. I don’t need to explain how damaging it is to whole communities. I don’t need to tell you that our president has been passing legislation to roll back the Clean Water Act as recently as last week.
And in bringing this up, I want to point to something larger: intersectionality. The issue of access to clean water demonstrates intersectionality beautifully. Because we are not just worried about water. We are worried about the whole environment. And we are not just worried about the environment for its own sake, but because of the way that these environmental disasters impact people. Again, Flint Michigan has been without access to clean water for over 6 years. This is in the United States. These are American citizens, humans with inherent worth and dignity are being poisoned by the tens of thousands daily.
How is Cleveland different from Flint? No, I’m asking you. We get our water from a polluted Great Lake. How much longer do we have?
How much longer, under this presidency that insists on stripping away all pretense of protecting its citizens, how much longer until someone somewhere is preaching about Cleveland’s water? All of the valuable and fantastic work that has gone into cleaning Lake Erie - we should be proud of that! You should be proud of that! And you should be angry when you see Trump stomp all over it, disrespecting our people, putting us in danger. He is angering the mighty water gods and goddesses.
Earlier, I said that water is holy, and you are water. So therefore you are holy. Is it possible that the great water deity resides in you, in your bones, in your cells? Is it possible that this powerful deity will arise one morning in November determined to exact revenge, to set things aright?
I want to encourage you today to take some time to connect with the powerful water god or goddess or non-binary deity within your very cells. Water is an element of calm but also an element of extreme change-making. How is your inner water deity guiding you?
Preached 8/2/2020 at SouthWest UU in N. Royalton OH
By Rev. Meg Mathieson
Here at SWUU, our worship team subscribes to a service that aggregates worship resources and suggests monthly themes. The theme this month is Creation, and all of the resources are around it have to do with environmentalism and the planet, so we decided to devote each Sunday this month to one of the four sacred elements, and as I mentioned earlier, this week we are talking about the holiness of water.
A reverence for water as a holy item can be found in most cultures around the globe if not all. And of course it would be, we need water so constantly, so completely. It makes up more than half of what we physically are.
That is to say, as you are looking at me, you are seeing me, but you are really seeing mostly water with some other stuff mixed in. So of course water is important to humans, and it seems, to all living creatures.
Water is beautiful, as we see in waterfalls, lakes, oceans, rivers, water is powerful, as it carves out ridges in the sides of mountains and can cause a surprising amount of damage to our houses and cars. Water is medicinal, as it instantly restores vitality to dehydrated bodies. Water is mysterious, as it swirls in blackness, miles below us, giving home to the world’s most mysterious creatures.
If you’ve ever traveled somewhere that you didn’t have immediate access to fresh water, you know that the realization comes quickly and constantly. Without a tap to turn on, there are suddenly a thousand little ways you need or want water. For the tending to our bodies, to clean and to hydrate, for the tending to the food that we consume,
for general refreshment, Water is the element of life. And as such, I’d like to read a prayer of invocation over our joys and concerns water here. May this blessing cover all of the joys and concerns that all of us hold in our secret hearts.
Hail Guardians of the West,
I summon the powers of Water!
Rushing stream,
Vast, dark ocean,
Poetry of the soul in motion,
With Intuition, feeling, the power to Dare,
We invoke you!
By the Waters of Her womb,
Be with us now!
So as you heard at the beginning of that invocation, The West corresponds to the element of Water.
This represents the Deep self, emotions, intuition, and the power to Dare. Its color is the blue of the oceans, and its tool is the chalice.
Our chalice is an important symbol to us also, dating back to World War II. Originally, according to a pamphlet by Rev. Susan Ritchie, the flaming chalice was a two-dimensional image stamped on documents created by the Unitarian Service Committee (USC) to help Jewish refugees escape Nazi persecution on the eve of World War II. Eventually the chalice design formed the basis for the American Unitarian Association’s official logo. After Universalism and Unitarianism merged in 1961, the symbol acquired two overlapping circles, to represent each of the two traditions.
Like our faith itself, the symbol of the chalice remains open to interpretation and individual impression, even as it simultaneously represents our community. There, in our symbol of faith is a mixture of both individualism and community, together.
And there we again acknowledge the fundamental holiness of the element of water. We are encouraged to see the many meaning that the chalice has. If you were here in person, I would ask you for ideas. Does the chalice hold us, as a community? Does it hold water, as chalices are meant to do? Why is there fire in the chalice? These are deep and potentially beautiful questions, but there is no mistaking the correspondence between our sacred symbol and a deeper reverence for the holiness of the element of water.
There is a clear similarity, probably not consciously intended, but still very real - between the flaming chalice and the Tarot suit of goblets or cups. The suit of cups pertains to events of an emotional nature - as opposed to physical, intellectual, or creative natures. In ancient times, cups were the symbol of clergy, a vessel which carries and gives life. Thus, our chalice represents that in our faith, we are all saved. We are all clergy.
Unlike other faiths where the clergy is the medium through which you must go to reach the divine, we affirm that there is nowhere to go to reach the divine - it is you. You are holy and the holy is reachable within you.
And the holiness of water is a great example. You are mostly water, and that itself is divine.
As a water sign, maybe I’m biased. But the importance of water to humanity cannot be overstated. At the same time it is deadly. How strange, a substance that we cannot live without and which can paradoxically kill us in an instant? What mysterious element is this? To quote Bill Bryson, “Imagine trying to live in a world dominated by dihydrogen oxide, a compound that has no taste or smell and is so variable in its properties that it is generally benign but at other times swiftly lethal. Depending on its state, it can scald you or freeze you. In the presence of certain organic molecules it can form carbonic acids so nasty that they can strip the leaves from trees and eat the faces off statuary. In bulk, when agitated, it can strike with a fury that no human edifice could withstand. Even for those who have learned to live with it, it is an often murderous substance. We call it water.”
Water is feared and revered in almost every world religion. Those of us familiar with Western Christianity are aware of the waters of baptism, Jesus called himself “living waters,” or “the water of life.” On the cross, Jesus bled a mixture of water and blood.
But reverence for the deadly and holy life-giving power of water appears in virtually all cultures. There is a list on wikipedia of water deities that lists names from all over: Mayan, Inuit, Samoan, Yoruba, the Egyptians worshipped gods and goddesses of the Nile. In the ancient Middle East, the gods and goddesses of the Tigris and Euphrates.
In India, the Ganges, among many others, in China, the Yellow River, among many others. Humans throughout history and across the globe have bowed to the mighty element of water, the mysterious, the sacred, the holy. Terrible and life-giving.
And we are the lucky ones with access to it. Because humans have of course defied and angered the water gods, poisoning our earth and our precious water along with it. You know this, this is not news. Flint Michigan has been without clean drinkable water since April 2014. A year ago I arrived here in Cleveland from Baltimore. Baltimore, under the Chesapeake Bay watershed, is poised on the brink of water disaster as the Chesapeake Bay continues to suffer from extreme pollution. Imagine my surprise to find that you all in Cleveland know just as much, if not more about this sort of suffering and fear. I don’t need to tell you about polluted water. I don’t need to explain how damaging it is to whole communities. I don’t need to tell you that our president has been passing legislation to roll back the Clean Water Act as recently as last week.
And in bringing this up, I want to point to something larger: intersectionality. The issue of access to clean water demonstrates intersectionality beautifully. Because we are not just worried about water. We are worried about the whole environment. And we are not just worried about the environment for its own sake, but because of the way that these environmental disasters impact people. Again, Flint Michigan has been without access to clean water for over 6 years. This is in the United States. These are American citizens, humans with inherent worth and dignity are being poisoned by the tens of thousands daily.
How is Cleveland different from Flint? No, I’m asking you. We get our water from a polluted Great Lake. How much longer do we have?
How much longer, under this presidency that insists on stripping away all pretense of protecting its citizens, how much longer until someone somewhere is preaching about Cleveland’s water? All of the valuable and fantastic work that has gone into cleaning Lake Erie - we should be proud of that! You should be proud of that! And you should be angry when you see Trump stomp all over it, disrespecting our people, putting us in danger. He is angering the mighty water gods and goddesses.
Earlier, I said that water is holy, and you are water. So therefore you are holy. Is it possible that the great water deity resides in you, in your bones, in your cells? Is it possible that this powerful deity will arise one morning in November determined to exact revenge, to set things aright?
I want to encourage you today to take some time to connect with the powerful water god or goddess or non-binary deity within your very cells. Water is an element of calm but also an element of extreme change-making. How is your inner water deity guiding you?