Lifting Water Communion above Privilege and Trivia
By Rev. Amy Zucker Morgenstern
A Unitarian Universalist friend and I were talking about class tensions in church, and he said that he found Water Communion hard to bear because it was so much about the places people had gone on their summer vacations.
Oh yeah. I’ve been to some Water Communions that felt that way too. It is so easy for our ingathering ceremony, in which people bring water and pour it into a communal bowl, to turn into a “what I did on my summer vacation” recitation, which can make the ritual obliviously exclusive of those who don’t have summer homes, or summer vacations, or the money for airfare, or the luxury to stop working for even one week out of the year. What a shame; it’s so opposite of what the Water Communion can be.
The core symbolism of the Water Communion is that we all come from water: as a species on a planet where life began in the ocean, as mammals who float in amniotic fluid as we are readied for birth, as beings whose cells are mostly water. And yet we are separate from each other, and we have been apart–since there tends to be a slowing-down, a different rhythm in the summer months, even in churches that have services and religious education right on through the summer – and now we are reuniting. We are separate and together, the way water scatters into rain and streams and clouds and springs and ponds and puddles and yet flows together again and again, one great planetary ocean. Not only is no drop of water superior to any other; all water comes from the same place.
So the class issue is only a part of what’s awry with the “where I went this summer” approach to the ritual. Even if everyone in the world had a summer home in Provence, “This water comes from our summer home in Provence” would not be what I wanted this ceremony to be about. It’s so trivial, whereas “We are separate beings and yet all one” is one of the profoundest truths we try to encompass.
I’ve deliberately shaped our Water Communion at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto (UUCPA) with these concerns in mind, and that conversation with my friend made me realize that other UUs could learn from that process, so I’m going to share it here. I’d also like to learn from readers: judging by this description, or by your experience of UUCPA’s Water Communion if you’ve been there, have we succeeded? And what do you do in your congregation to keep our attention focused on the deepest meanings of the Water Communion?
Here are some dos and don’ts that have guided me.
Don’t: have an open mike where everyone describes where the water came from. Not only is this impractical for any but the smallest congregations, but it just about orders people to say “We brought this from the Mediterranean, where we went on a beautiful cruise.”
Do: provide a way for people to share the significance of the water they’ve brought, and have a leader or leaders share a precis. Doing this has allowed me to rephrase people’s descriptions in a way that honors the most important aspects, while playing down the others. So, for example, if someone writes, “This water comes from our family’s summer home on Cape Cod, where I’ve gone since I was a small child visiting my grandparents–this year I was there with my grandchildren,” I might share, “Water from the Atlantic Ocean,” or “Water from a place made sacred by five generations of one family,” or “Water from a multigenerational family gathering,” or some combination of those.
Do: frequently model modest origins for your own water. I usually bring mine from my home tap, even if I’ve been somewhere exotic. (In the spirit of full disclosure, one reason is that when I do travel, I always forget to bring back a little bottleful . . . !)
Do: make reference to the water’s many sources. At UUCPA, we have banners that artistically express the four directions and elements; sometimes we use those in this service and people pour their water into a bowl under one of the banners. They can have a time of meditation to think about where their water comes from, symbolically or literally, and choose the direction/element accordingly. Jane Altman Page wrote nice words to accompany something like that here, on the Worship Web.
Don’t: just pour the water down the drain. While keeping it in the water cycle, that doesn’t honor the sacredness of the ritual. People are bringing something of themselves when they bring that “water from a special day at the beach” or “tap water from my great-grandfather’s house,” so it’s important to let them know that it will be treated with due reverence.
Do: do something important with the water. For example, carry it out ceremoniously after the service and water a special tree. . . . Bless it and invite everyone to put it on their foreheads / hands / feet / hearts. . . . We save some of ours for dedications throughout the year, and pour some in from last year’s dedication water so that the water is now gathered from many years of rituals (does anyone else do this? I don’t even remember if I came up with that idea, or inherited it on arriving in Palo Alto). I usually pour the rest out on our grounds with some words of thanks and praise. (A comment by a church member just reminded me of another possibility: invite people to bring some of the mingled water home, the way we do with the flowers at Flower Sunday, and encourage them to mindfully use it, e.g., to water a plant.)
Do: frame the ritual in terms of its larger meanings. There are so many. Our Minister of Religious Education, Dan Harper, has done a wonderful, geeky demonstration of just how many molecules of water we’re talking about, and how big a number that is. (Remember, we’re serving in Silicon Valley. When you ask, “Are there any geeks here who can come hold this paper for me?,” many hands shoot up.) He uses that to prove our literal interdependence. The year Water Communion was preceded by Hurricane Katrina, we had to talk about the destructive power of water, and that was a chance to go into some theological depth.
And, if you’re reminding folks about Water Communion now, as summer starts,don’t emphasize that they should bring their water back from special travels. There’s no need to mention travel at all. This year, my reminder in the newsletter said “We bring water from the places of our lives.”
I’d love to hear what others do.
Rev. Amy Zucker Morgenstern is the minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto and author of the blog Sermon in Stones, which she began in 2010. In her posts, she explores matters of religion (theology, ecclesiology, congregational dynamics, you name it), art, literature, politics, philosophy, and culture.
I Work, Therefore I Am …
by Bethany Ramirez
UU Class Conversations
Advisory Board member
Defining Working Class
How do you define “working class”?
The girlfriend of a friend of mine used to insist that she was working class because her parents worked. They paid for her car, utilities and all of her credit card bills. They paid all of her undergraduate tuition without financial aid. They even paid for the weekly maid service she enjoyed.
She used to casually stop into Nordstrom’s (an upscale department store) and drop $200 on a single pair of shoes on a whim, because her parents would pay the bill. The only thing she paid for was her half of the rent on a 4-bedroom waterfront condo for just the two of them – which she could not have afforded if her parents hadn’t been paying for everything else.
She used to chide my friend for being broke all the time even though he technically made more than she did (by only a few thousand). He had student loans. He had to pay all of his bills himself. He owed money on his car. He did not have parents who could underwrite spontaneous $200 purchases of shoes.
She genuinely could not understand why he was financially strapped all of the time.
Understanding Class Privilege
And this, to me, is why I have never been able to view her as working class. Well into her 30s her parents supported her in a life of comfort. And she so firmly believed that she was working class (because she and her parents worked) that she could not understand that it wasn’t the same for everyone else.
By the classic definition “nothing to sell but labor-power and skills,” she was working class. But when it comes to privilege and relating to money, it always felt like she came from a different world. She chose to work. But her parents had enough wealth that she didn’t have to. And she had no concept of what it was like to have to rely on income from a job in order to survive.
This makes me feel that the definition was too broad. She can define herself as working class, and a dictionary can define her as working class, but I cannot accept that she is working class.
Leave comment, and let me know: Where is the line for you?
Don’t Feed the Birds, Animals — or People?
by Nancy Hilliard, M.Ed
When I learned about the latest indignity aimed at people living in persistent poverty, I had to ask myself, How did we dehumanize people living in poverty so thoroughly?
According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, well over 30 municipalities have restricted or banned sharing food with homeless people across the USA. Learning about this horror made me think about how (increasingly) rare it is for people from different class groups – and even with different class backgrounds – to interact. It becomes easy to view someone as “the other” when you see them only from afar – if you see them at all.
This thought brought back memories of one summer, during the mid-80s, when I saw how the myth of “other” began to crumble ever so slightly for one young man.
Creating Change
I worked on a grassroots campaign to pass a Consumer Utility Bill (CUB), which would have allowed consumers to contribute $1 to hire an expert to rebut Utility Company testimony during rate hike hearings. No one had organized Chelsea, home of the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman, Richie Voke. Ever.
Chelsea was the poorest city in Greater Boston, and one of the poorest in the state. It was expected that my crew would last a couple of hours, at most. But with youthful optimism and energy, I gathered all the multilingual canvassers who would accept my invitation, and off we went. Our assignment was to gather handwritten letters to deliver to Rep. Voke, as well as contributions of any amount (wink, wink).
As that one evening stretched into the second week, a young man in preppie attire balked at joining the crew. “Of course, it is easy for you. You’re working class.” Ummm.
Not exactly. I explained that I had grown up in a well-to-do suburb of Boston. Once upon a time, it was known as “one of the three Ws for wealth: Winchester, Weston, and Wellesley.” Moreover, I had graduated with honors from Harvard-Radcliffe College just a few years before, albeit on scholarship.
Well, perhaps he could give it a try, even though he was coming from an upper class family on the North Shore. He grudgingly came with us to Chelsea.
Opening a Window
Given his misgivings, we agreed to a check-in within the first hour. Turning the corner toward the designated meeting spot, I wondered what I would find. Up ahead, the young man stood quietly, as if trying to avoid attention. As he slid into the passenger seat, he was beaming. He waved a letter in his hand, and exclaimed, “You were right, Nancy. Working class people are just like us!” I did bite my tongue. His sincere amazement caught my breath.
This young man joined us for a second evening, and his enthusiasm contributed greatly to our campaign. All told, we visited Chelsea for two weeks, gathered 50 letters, over 250 signatures, and many memberships. It turns out that Chelsea is a city with many different neighborhoods, and socioeconomic classes. We even received a $50 contribution (well before the gentrification and condos of the new millennium).
Richie Voke responded immediately, rescuing the CUB and setting it up for passage. Unfortunately, in October that year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar provision, disallowing consumers to piggy-back communication in the utility statement envelopes. Alas. The campaign was successful in so many ways, for all of us.
Widening the Circle
Perhaps my own openness to all classes developed from the economic reality of my childhood in Winchester. Recently, my mother informed me that we would have had more money if she, as a widow with two small children, had applied for welfare. Instead, my grandparents assisted with budgeting (not actual funds) and my experience of socioeconomic realities was fluid and not particularly painful. I worked from the age of nine, but then so did many babysitters.
Whatever our response to the challenges of class discrimination, we cannot leave our cross-cultural encounters to chance. Class conversations are one way to begin deliberate steps toward widening our Circle of We, and ending classism.
The Intersection Between Class and Race
Too many events of the past several months remind of us how insidiously classism intertwines with racism. In the recent piece “Class Prejudice Resurgent” by David Brooks, he writes, “During the civil-rights era there was always a debate about what was a civil-rights issue and what was an economic or social issue. Now that distinction has been obliterated. Every civil-rights issue is also an economic and social issue.”
Read his full piece:
