I stood in the hard rain, holding the taxicab door open as one of my senior riders swung herself around, planted her feet on the ground and grasped her walker to stand up. The cold raindrops were pelting us as gusts of wind came rushing through, and the streets were deluged with water flowing into the storm sewers. We laughed and hooted as we went, hunched and hurrying as quickly as we could through the downpour, but within a few short steps of her door, we were drenched, and her new ‘doo was less neatly sculpted on the crown of her head than it had been when she left the hair salon. “Water, water everywhere …”, she said, as she chuckled and rolled on through the doorway.
Indeed, this spring we have seen “water, water everywhere”. Though we recently have experienced an overabundance, we know we cannot survive without water, and it is logical this is the case since water is our earliest home. We are evolved from primitive life-forms spawned in the primordial oceans of the earth millions of years ago. We are carried inside our mothers’ wombs in something akin to that ancient water, and our arrival in the world is first announced by a deluge and concluded by the sputters, coughs, and cries of one who moves from the water world to the realm of air-breathers. No wonder so many stories and rites of passage in the world’s religions (e.g., in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the story of Noah and the ark, and the Christian rite of baptism) include water as a symbol of birth/rebirth!
Keeping these associations in mind over the summer months, the members of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Decorah will be collecting samples of water from summer travel destinations (or from home, if we plan to stay put) and will return with them to our first annual ingathering service in September. At that time the group members will bring forth all of the collected water and pour it together into one vessel, an act symbolizing the unity of the earth and its people, the importance of the smallest spring and winding stream as well as the largest ocean, the “water, water everywhere …” that makes up two-thirds of the surface of our Earth home.
We are reminded by this Unitarian Universalist tradition that we are all part of a natural world of bold and diverse interminglings, and a complex network of “streams” that flow together to compose the human community. Yet we often go to great lengths to avoid mingling like the waters, to keep from encountering anything different or new because we fear the “worst” may happen – we may change, and thereby lose our old lives, the ones we are used to, the ones we are comfortable with. We build walls to try to hold back the flow, hoping to create contained, undisturbed pools inside us and among us. We are afraid, and our fear keeps us from fully engaging in life, with all its changes.
Inevitably, however, we cannot remain isolated and unchanged. To rephrase Donne, “No one is a pool, entire of itself; everyone is a stream, flowing into the Great Oneness of the sea ...” Just as the Upper Iowa and all other rivers ignore our attempts to dam them up and keep them from going on their way to the oceans, we, too must ultimately flow on to the place we all go, dodging the obstacles we have created for ourselves and continuing our journeys toward the Great Oneness where we are all united. We are meant to flow together in unexpected ways, to encounter and change and grow, to not remain stagnant pools or brackish backwaters. As we “go with the flow”, we encounter those who are truly different from us, and we discover that openness to such encounters brings us deep joy and greater understanding.
Water, water, everywhere … it makes us stop and think. May we be grateful for the life it brings. May it remind us that we all flow together into one human community with many questions and many paths. May we encounter, change, and grow in our “flowing together” with others.
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About the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Decorah:
The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Decorah is just over a year old, if we count our very first gathering to consider formation of the group. Though we are a young congregation, there was a previous Unitarian church in Decorah around the turn of the 20th century that was led for a time by the first woman pastor in the community, Margaret Olmstead. The church building still stands on the corner of River/Main Streets and is now the location of the Elks Club. We are hoping to affiliate with the national body, the Unitarian Universalist Association, within the coming year.
Unitarian Universalists do not profess a particular creed, but do affirm and promote the following: the inherent worth and dignity of every person; justice, equity, and compassion in human relations; acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations; a free and responsible search for truth and meaning; the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large; the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
The living tradition of Unitarian Universalism draws from many sources, including: direct experience and observation; words and deeds of prophetic women and men throughout history; wisdom from the world’s religions; Jewish and Christian teachings; humanist teachings; and spiritual teachings of Earth-centered and native traditions.
Because the denomination is less well known in the Midwestern states, here is a list of prominent Unitarians/Universalists: John & Abigail Adams, Louisa May Alcott, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Alexander Graham Bell, Tim Berners-Lee (developer of the World Wide Web), Luther Burbank, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Dorothea Dix, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Millard Fillmore, Benjamin Franklin, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Horace Greeley, Edvard Grieg, Julia Ward Howe, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel F. B. Morse, Florence Nightingale, Beatrix Potter, Joseph Priestly, Christopher Reeve, Paul Revere, Albert Schweitzer, Pete Seeger, Adlai Stevenson, Emily Howard Stowe, William Howard Taft, Henry David Thoreau, Daniel Webster, Frank Lloyd Wright.