Reflections  An Ingathering Water Ceremony for This Chalice Year

                                                                   Rev. Susan Karlson

The Water Ceremony usually signals the start of another church year.  This year’s theme is The Chalice Year, a year where we reflect on what the Chalice, often a symbol of Unitarian Universalism, means to us.  And because this is our Water Ceremony Sunday, we did not light a regular flaming chalice; we poured water to begin our worship time together. 

The Chalice can mean many different things.  Created by cartoonist Hans Deutsch, during the Second Great World War last century, the chalice was printed on papers that helped people escape from death and harm.  The flaming chalice looked like the goblet often known in legend as the Holy Grail, believed to have miraculous powers.  It reminded people of the ancient stories told in myths.  Or the chalice could be a sign of many different religions or stand for the flame of truth.  The beautiful thing about the chalice as a symbol is that it can mean so many different things to so many different people.  And we begin this Chalice Year recalling how important water is to life and our very existence on this earth.

This year the children and youth will be exploring our seventh principle—how we are dependent on each other.  When we show how much we care for one another; or when we care for the earth and its many harbors, rivers, seas and oceans, we can feel that connection, that unity.  If the water is polluted, the water is undrinkable, then life suffers.  And when one kind of animal or plant or country or city or person suffers, so do we all.  What happens to one of us, happens to all of us in the Web of Life.

The middle school group may be starting a unique project here in the coming months.  They hope to design posters and signs and decorate jars that would go in the bathrooms in the library and near the Parish Hall.  Their hope is to raise awareness and money through a Toilet Tax to benefit WaterAid, a project that brings clean water to places in the world where people need it.  Kate Howard, our Religious Exploration Coordinator, passed along some information I never knew—that there is a World Toilet Day which is November 19^th and that this project, if approved by the Board, may bring our attention to the fact that 2.6 billion people in the world do not have access to adequate sanitation. 

Sometimes, our Water Ceremonies can seem too much like a travel competition.  Some of us didn’t go anywhere special; we didn’t see any magical places to report back on.  We may feel bad about that. But this project, this kind of solidarity with the need for everyone to have safe and clean ways of disposing of human waste takes us to the heart of our faith, to the common care we have for one another.

          I look forward to us sharing from our hearts what is important to each of 
us about this Chalice Year.  We’ll have lots of ways for people to express what the Chalice Year theme means to you.