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This Sunday we invite you to bring some water from home to the service, a little bit of water to pour into a common bowl.

I write this in the midst of the 109-degree Tuesday heat (having, with some pride, sent my Michigan family photos of the weather app stats on my phone), and so the value of water is near the top of my thoughts.

Some of you will know this annual UU ritual, called a Water Ceremony or Water Communion. The original was created in 1980 for the Women and Religion Continental Convocation of Unitarian Universalists by Carolyn McDade and Lucile Schuck Longview. They “wanted to create a new ritual ‘that spoke to our connectedness to one another, to the totality of life, and to our place on this planet.’ They included a new, inclusive symbol of women’s spirituality: water.”

Eight women were asked to bring water from their far-flung homes across the continent, to pour them into a shared bowl, and to speak to the significance of that particular water, now joined with the rest. Women at the convocation brought the powerful ceremony home to their congregations, and so a new UU ritual was born.

For many years, the localized versions of this ritual involved people bringing water from special places to which they had traveled over the summer, and naming the water’s significance. It has long been a fall ingathering ceremony in UU congregations. As you might anticipate, this has often led to some very clear distinctions between those who have the means to travel the country or world in the summer, and those who do not.

Here, this year, as we enter our theme of belonging, we invite you simply to bring water from your home or someplace special nearby. (If you bring water from a special far away elsewhere, that’s okay, too.) Once again, we will pool our waters in a shared bowl, with all the layers of meaning such a gathering of waters might call forth in these sweltering, arid, and bifurcated times. In fact, I’ll ask you about the meaning you find in this! NOTE: If you will be joining online Sunday, we invite you to have some water to pour into a bowl as well. We’ll invite you to be seen on-screen as you pour, if you are willing.

Meanwhile, may you find the hours of respite you need from the many kinds of high temperatures that hover over our lives.

With care,

Rev. Kevin

Today we enter the September theme of “belonging.” Belonging has been a resonant if unofficial theme for the past nine or ten months, and the Board has wisely identified “connection and reconnection” as a primary goal for this current congregation year.

I know that some of you are feeling disconnected and distant, wondering whether and how this community continues to be important to you.

Perhaps you’ve heard the story about the little boy who kept saying “I don’t care!” And then a lion ate him. And then his parents took the lion, with the little boy inside, to a doctor. The doctor said there was nothing he could do. The little boy, meanwhile, kept saying, “I don’t care!”

The lion got tired of the whole situation and threw up the little boy. When this happened, the little boy changed his tune. He started saying, “I do care!”

How many of us find ourselves saying, “I don’t care!” Especially these days when caring is risky? Fortunately, UUCM has a Parish Caring Team with members who find active ways to care. A recent survey is available where those interested can check off what they wish to do and ways they can serve our UUCM community. Here is the link:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1T5TW9VGKZCm8ZTO5Y_SrT9CA5T2cQY0f8MHF1n89Ca4/edit?usp=sharinghttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/1T5TW9VGKZCm8ZTO5Y_SrT9CA5T2cQY0f8MHF1n89Ca4/edit?usp=sharing 

There are many ways to contribute. If interested, please contact caring@uucmgrassvalley.org. or reach out to a member of the team.

Gwen Eymann, Chair, Anne Lyon, Penny Harlan, Cheryl Morris, Robin Hart, Carol Hyndman, and Jenny Dewey.

Although it was my funny corndog line that got reported in the local paper, I was speaking that day to offer the blessing at the opening of this year’s Nevada County Fair. I love to do this kind of thing both because it gives people an experience of Unitarian Universalist values and openness, and because I have a chance to serve those who are not met or fed by the language and the assumptions of more typical public prayers. I understand this kind of opportunity as my chance to represent you, the congregation. 

Here’s what I said that day, with some context setting followed by the blessing. 

For many years my seven brothers and sisters and I lived one warm week each August at the Northwestern Michigan Fair. We were there with our sheep, and dairy goats, and steers, and pies and paintings and vegetables and crafts. Since then, my nieces and nephews have taken over, adding llamas and chickens and turkeys o the mix, among other things. 

A bunch of my family is there as I speak this morning (I’ve been receiving texts with photos and updates since 5:30 am), and so I am honored and very glad to invite a blessing on this Nevada County Fair – on what are indeed beautiful fairgrounds- knowing something of the inner workings, the joys and the aches of an annual county fair: bunnies and carnival barkers, grand champions and less grand champions, mucking out stalls, perfecting showmanship and what it means to be a good sport, promoting organizations and businesses, bumping into neighbors and friends, and riding high on cotton candy and elephant ears.  

I will say that corn dogs at the fair in Northwestern Michigan are just corn dogs – they are not the revered, sacred objects that they are here in Nevada County. And I’ll share that the ugly cakes exhibit here has become a new favorite of mine.  

So, with gratitude for all the ways this fair links people across the community, helps young people grow skills and confidence, connects people to nature, gives people thrills and outlets for their creativity, and peaks their curiosity, I invite you to pause with me for moment here at the start to invite a blessing: 

In the name of all that each of knows as holy, knows as the source and foundation for what we believe to be life-giving and true,  

Let us ask, in our own ways, let us pray: 

that this year’s Nevada County Fair be an avenue of connection in our community, across the divides that might otherwise separate us, That all upon these grounds this week be safe and well,  That these days be graced with kindness and caring as well as fun, from the parking lot to the ticket booth to Treat Street to the barns to the rides to the grandstand to the campground,  That plenty of much-needed joy and laughter and hooting and hollering bless these grounds,  That all of us who attend and participate learn – about ourselves, about each other, about this amazing world we move within, May all the competitions grow appreciation, and compassion, as well as healthy resolve in all who participate, May those who have worked so hard to make this fair happen, and all who contribute their gifts and their resources, their time and skill so generously this week, know the blessings of this fair, and receive heartfelt gratitude. 

And, in the end, may this year’s Nevada County Fair leave Nevada county, and each of us, better for having taken place once again, and starting now. So may it be, Amen, Ashe, and Blessed be