Classism and the "Water Ingathering."

Last week I told the youth in the Religious Education program I teach on Sunday at the Unitarian Universalist congregation I work at that they had to attend the Sunday program today -- Water Ingathering. The Water Ingathering is where people come up and add water to a fountain. At my congregation they come up and talk about where they went this summer, or bring water from their home. The custom has potential to have some significance. However, what it seems to be now is an opportunity for some people to be "socially active" and talk about how much we need to conserve water and how we are too privileged in this country. Other people use it as an opportunity to share with the rest of the congregation all the nice places there were able to afford to visit on vacation throughout the summer. Alaska is so beautiful in the summer. Niagra Falls is such a wonderful place. Oh, Colorado is suffering from a drought, and so is Michigan.

I sat back and thought, "What if you are too poor to take cruises to Alaska, or go to the mountains in Colorado and then sojourn over to Michigan, blah, blah, blah." What might have been more meaningful would be for people to make a water offering in honor of something or someone. Or perhaps to share with the rest of the congregation a piece of wisdom they learned over the summer.

Something else the congregation could try is a water communion ceremony where we gather water (and we would have to make sure it is all potable) together and then charge the water with energy, through a song or intention, so that everyone in the world will "never thirst." Something like this I could really get into, and I facilitated such a ritual at Midwest Leadership School (a UU week long leadership program). What I sat through at my congregation today was the most excruciating program I think I've attended at said congregation. I typically don't attend the programs because I'm with the youth or doing "Director of Religious Education" stuff. This was the first full program I've been to in over eight months that I have not had a role in and I was incredibly disappointed. When it was all over I felt bad for the youth who had to endure it, and also felt my own "economic class."

On a different and totally unrelated note, on Saturday I received a letter of acceptance to Methodist Theological School in Ohio, the graduate theological school I applied to this summer. I'll scheduled to start there Fall 2008 contingent upon graduation from Wright State University. I was pretty happy to have that news.