The Way of Water — Carolyn McDade, Lucile Schuck Longview, and the Feminist Origins of the UU Water Communion: A Water Communion by Eric Hepburn
Updated: Sep 7
Annual Water Communion is where the community bring a small amount of water from a place that is special to them. During the appointed time in the service, people one by one pour their water together into a large bowl. As the water is added, the person who brought it tells why this water is special to them.
The combined water is symbolic of our shared faith coming from many different sources. It is often then blessed by the congregation, and sometimes is later boiled and used as the congregation’s “holy water” in child dedication ceremonies and similar events.
"When you shed a tear, it is likely that some of the water in your tears has been cried before. Maybe many times. Maybe countless times."
This is a recording of our Water Communion service. I've left the voices of congregants sharing their blessings in the episode, so that those blessings might be passed on to you as well — sixty-odd voices, one to three words each, spoken into the water before it was poured into the bowl. Some are ordinary and some will stop you.
The ritual began in November 1980, at the Women and Religion Continental Convocation in East Lansing, Michigan, in a service called "Coming Home Like Rivers to the Sea." It was co-created by Carolyn McDade and Lucile Schuck Longview, who gathered women from around the country and asked them to bring water from their home places. It was a feminist gathering and a social justice gathering, and its founders asked that congregations keep changing the ritual rather than preserving it. We take them at their word.
In the message I turn to residence time — how long a water molecule stays in a given reservoir. Hours in your body. Nine days in the sky. Millennia in the ocean. Over a million years in the deepest Antarctic ice, which means a mastodon's frigid breath became a cloud, fell as snow at the bottom of the world, and is still there. And the arithmetic that beckons the deeper truth: a single cup passing through you today carries enough molecules to add fifteen hundred of them to every other cup of water on earth.
Our Voice of Wisdom is an excerpt from Carolyn McDade's water song, read by Sarah Smith. Recorded live at San Gabriel Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Georgetown, Texas.
Pulpiteer Podcast Full Transcript
Eric Hepburn: Welcome to the seventh episode of the third season of The Pulpiteer. I'm your host, Eric Hepburn, and I'm glad to have you join us for today's episode.
Today's episode is called "The Way of Water." It is a recording of a water communion service at San Gabriel. We'll begin with our water communion ritual. As a note to my podcast listeners, I've chosen to leave the voices of congregants sharing their blessings in the podcast, so that their blessings may be passed on to you. We'll then have our Voice of Wisdom, read by Sarah Smith.
Water Communion
Eric Hepburn: Today's a special day. It's our Water Communion.
The Water Communion has been around in Unitarian Universalism since the 1980s. It has been a religious tradition in this community since its founding in 2007, and this is my second time celebrating the Water Communion with all of you.
For those of you new to the ceremony, a brief outline. Congregants collect water in special moments or from special locations, and once a year we bring that water to the Water Communion ceremony and we share it with the community. Now, if you didn't think to collect water — or you did, but you left it safe at home — we have a community pitcher, which you are welcome to use to represent, or symbolize, or transmute if you prefer, into the water that you would have brought.
We approach this ceremony as a blessing ceremony. So we're going to take a moment for silent reflection. Thinking of the water that you hold in your hands, or picturing the place and time from which you would have collected water, ask this question: what blessing did you receive from that water, that moment, that place? And what of that blessing do you wish to pass on to this beloved community?
When you approach the altar, we're going to ask that you express that blessing in one, two, or three words. I'm inviting you to speak your blessing into the water and then pour the water into the bowl. The microphone is here so that, if you wish for others to hear your blessing — which you are welcome to do silently or subvocalized — but if you want to say it loud enough for others to hear it, the microphone is here so you can speak your blessing through the water into the microphone, and others can hear your blessing aloud.
We're going to follow the teachings of water, and we're going to circulate like this: up the front aisle, around the back aisle, like a big figure eight. When I call you, we'll line up in the center aisle and come forward, and we'll take turns adding our water to the bowl. If you don't have water, this is the community pitcher. And then we'll flow out and around the back — so if you're on the sides, you're going to flow back first and then up the front. Does that make sense to everyone? All right. We will use that flow to honor the way of water in this ceremony.
And I will begin.
This is the combined water of this congregation's nineteen previous Water Communion ceremonies. Let this water receive the water of all those who will share today.
I add my water to this water, with blessings of yearning and self-compassion.
All are invited to come forward and participate as you are ready, willing, and able.
The blessings, as spoken:
History and healing. Peace and tranquility. Healing. Family and heritage. Beauty and nurturing. Learning and exploration. Being present in the moment. Friends and bonding. Strength and stability. Water for all the world, and our preservation of water. Joy and unconditional love. Growth and nurturing. Worldwide love and compassion. Miracles. Unexpected abundance in sanctuary. Friendship. Community and joy. Relaxation and high energy. Wonder. Family, community, and worldwide love. Patience and devotion. The unconditional love of the dog. Family and new beginnings. Mental, physical, and emotional healing for all. Family and happiness. Belonging and chosen family. The warmth of glacier waters. Water into which my son's cremains were deposited, to send him on the next part of his journey. This water comes from a fountain in front of our kitchen — and this morning I saw a deer drinking out of it. But on top of that, we have squirrels, we have raccoons, insects, an array of different animals. This water is from friends in Round Rock who were very welcoming to us when we first moved back here. I just want to be a part of the big water. Hope for clean water for everyone. Peace and love for everyone. Family and strength. Hope, joy, and abundance. Community. To those things in nature that bring us happiness. This is from my backyard birdbath. This is from a birdbath also. I wish I could fly. Water is the soul of the earth and the necessity of our planet. Spiritual enlightenment. Celebration with family. This water is from the bowl of my dog and cat, who remind me of the most loving I've ever received. This water is a blessing to me, and I hope that it becomes, through better actions on my part, a blessing for others as well. Healing and hope. Renewal and healing. Quality time and connection. For all those who thirst for unity. From St. David's Heart Hospital. Compassionate care, and peace for the journey. Ocean waters from long ago, representing salty tears for loved ones lost — and now may it be a blessing that I'm very grateful they were in my life. For healing. Family and friends. Imagination.
Eric Hepburn: There is a simple truth: that we make things holy with the kind of attention we give.
Thank you for sharing, and thank you for listening to the dreams and the aspirations and the blessings of one another.
Please repeat after me:
We come to this Water Communion, carrying blessings. In the way of water, those blessings merge, they combine, and they return. Such is the way of water and of love. That by giving, shall we also receive.
This altar will stand during our service. And when the children return at the end of service, we will close this ritual out.
Voice of Wisdom
Sarah Smith: A Voice of Wisdom. After the words are spoken, we will breathe together in silence until the ringing of the bowl calls us onward, into the space where the Word unfolds among us.
We welcome this Voice of Wisdom. It is an excerpt from a song written by Carolyn McDade, one of the creators of the Water Communion ceremony, and performed during the first Water Communion.
Listen, Sister, listen, Listen to the waters calling us like rivers to run our truest paths to sea — from high hill and lowland valley, and remote areas of our inner be-ings, in rushing fury, white-foamed and swift, at times quieting to hold the colored leaf, settling in cracks and breaking dams, tides waxing and waning to answer the moon, blood running, rain falling, tears dropping, the heart beating upstream, the earth pulling down, rising in vapor, falling in rain, soaking the roots. Birth waters holding the babe, wetting the canal, signaling the birth. Water — the mirror giving us back to ourselves, our images, our beauty, our strength, bodies and faces double-lined with waves and years. Water, you fall — there is poetry, you run, there is music, you rise, there is dance, sweeping, swirling, spinning, running, settling, rushing, quieting, rising, misting, fog-thick and ice-formed, thawing, dripping, enlivening the dry root, juice of the flower, wine of the fruit, drop by drop and ocean full, one water around one earth, dashing the shore, soothing the sand, leaving, returning, together, apart, distinct collective, Source of Life, the great recycler, carver of rocks, writer of canyons, shaper of earth. Water, you come from the early whispers of my beginnings, on and on, intimate of every generation and all to come. The great equalizer, morning tea, evening broth, I know you waters. We've met some time before. Why do I know you so well? You run over my body and I am at home, you fall on my naked face and I feel welcomed from a long journey. You of a thousand stories, a million years, spiraling through formless time, you of the endless flow, blood rhythmic, red, mindful of the moon.
Unfolding in Word: The Way of Water
Eric Hepburn: Coming Home Like Rivers to the Sea: A Women's Ritual.
That's how the UU Water Communion began. It was created as an original worship service in November of 1980, at the Women and Religion Continental Convocation of Unitarian Universalists in East Lansing, Michigan. It was co-created by Carolyn McDade and Lucile Schuck Longview.
This convocation gathered women from around the country who were invited to bring water from their home place to this gathering, where they shared stories and blessings and water with one another. It was a feminist gathering. A social justice gathering. A gathering of powerful and spiritual UU lay women — and it has grown to be a central ritual of Unitarian Universalism.
In honor of the ritual that they crafted, we continue to evolve our own practice of the ritual, as they expressly wished.
Like them, we bring water laden with story, with memory, with hope. Water that represents the amniotic fluid of life itself. Water that is the repository of all the tears ever wept.
Perhaps you prefer science to poetry. I think these facts are both.
Different water sources have different residence times. Residence time is the volume of a reservoir, or a container, divided by the inflow and outflow rates.
If that reservoir is your body, the residence time is measured in hours, or at most days. So every several days your body takes in and expels as much water as it contains.
If that reservoir is the sky, the cycle is about nine days. If that reservoir is a river or seasonal snow, it's two to six months. Water resides in lakes for decades, in the ocean for millennia, in deep groundwater for ten thousand years. The oldest ice in the deepest part of the Antarctic ice sheet is over a million years old.
A mastodon exhaled her frigid breath, which became a cloud, and fell as fresh-fallen snow on the farthest southern point of our world — and is still there.
The one cup of water that will almost inevitably pass through your body today is enough water to add fifteen hundred water molecules to every other cup of water on earth. That little bit that you put in here was enough to stretch around the globe.
It's math like that that beckons deeper truths.
When you sweat, it is likely that some of the water in your perspiration has been sweated out before. Maybe many times. Maybe countless times.
When you shed a tear, it is likely that some of the water in your tears has been cried before. Maybe many times. Maybe countless times.
When you bleed, it is likely that the water in the blood you shed has been bled before. Maybe many times. Maybe countless times.
That is the circulatory truth of water, and what it comes to teach us.
When strong UU lay women lead ritual, it is not the first time or the last. It is one of many times. Maybe countless times.
When we honor our community, our history, our reality, it is not the first time or the last. It is one of many times. Maybe countless times.
When we share our blessings with one another and cherish their sharing with us, it is not the first time or the last time. It is one of many times.
And may it be countless times.
Amen.
Closing of the Water Communion
Eric Hepburn: While we were doing our Water Communion in here, the children were doing their own. I'd like to invite them to come forward and add the water from their ceremony to our own. Just pour it in the big one.
Thank you.
This water we save, holding the memory of these blessings we have bestowed today, and all the blessings that came before. We consecrate this water to hold those blessings until we gather in Water Communion again.
I invite each of you, if you wish, to come and collect in your container a portion of this consecrated water, and to bring it and its blessings home with you as you journey from this place. There are vials here for sharing, and we're using the same flow as before. Children and adults are welcome to come and dip your container in and bring some of the blessings home with you.
This water that remains, we will place in the hands of our children, who will bear it as a gift to our Mother Earth, to the land on which we stand, to the many plants and creatures that are our kin. May this water bless the land, make it sacred, and nourish us all.
Benediction
Eric Hepburn: As you leave this place, carrying the water blessings of this congregation, I send you forth with this reminder.
At some time in the next year, you will pour the blessings in your hand back into the cycles of Mother Nature, in awe and acknowledgment of some fresh blessing that will fill your vessel anew — refill this container, and find its way back to this altar during our next Water Communion ceremony.
For this is the way of water. And this is the way of love.
Go in peace.
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