In a couple weeks, ‘summer vacation’ – that usual hot school-escape time we as kids enjoyed from june through august – will be over and school will start again: charter schools start on 4 august, public schools start back up on 10 august, UTC classes start 21 august & on 28 august for Chatt State. Unitarians and Universalists both followed traditional northern-hemisphere european calendars: academic for the Unitarians, farm for the Universalists; summer vacation for the academics, summer work for the farmers. These days it’s mostly just so hot that people like to take a seasonal siesta from ‘church’ – a time when our absences will be more expected than the rest of the year.

Our annual UUCC re-gathering will be on sunday 13 august this year – a few days after most of our youngest kids will have started back to school. The main theme of our annual late-summer re-gathering is water – the hot humidity in the air, the sweat it drenches us in as we step out the door of our air-conditioning, the earth’s and our bodies’ thirst for it. Our UUness changes our historic christian ritual of baptism and the miracle of water changed into wine into a seasonal metaphor that means whatever we make it mean for us: coolness, cleanness, green life, play, refreshment.

Traditionally, i.e., in the past & elsewhere & by other people, the UU Water Communion was about privilege – the places we visited, the more exotic, the better – the oceans, the seas, the rivers of the world far away from Chattanooga: “… some people thought it was classist and competitive and that it excluded first-time visitors” that “turn[ed] 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.” So we’re hoping to make this one different, and more inclusive.

There at least a hundred local sources of water within a 30mile radius of UUCC, not even counting the variety of faucets & toilets & baths&showers we have in our own homes. Your mission in the next 6 weeks is to go to one of these places, or find one unlisted, collect a sample, label it (place, date, some personal context), then bring it home to UUCC on sunday 13 august. Here are 53 of the better known very local water places nearby that you can visit & get a water sample:

Chattanooga Creek
Chickamauga Creek
North Chickamauga Creek
West Chickamauga Creek
Little Chickamauga Creek
Citico Creek
Lookout Creek
Soddy Creek
Middle Creek
Suck Creek
Battle Creek (South Pittsburg)
Running Water Creek
Murphy Hollow Creek
Murphy Spring
Bee Branch
Mills Creek
Burnt Cabin Spring
Rattlesnake Creek
Shoal Creek
Dobbs Branch
Cherokee Branch
Lynnbrook
Peavine Creek
Mill Creek
Coahulla Creek
Mouse Creek
Sale Creek
Spring Creek
Roberts Mill Branch
Barker Spring
Falling Water Creek
Lake Katherine
Griffin Lake
Gillian Lake
Krystal Lake
Catoosa Springs
Crawfish Spring Lake
Dry Branch

Tennessee River
Conasauga River
Hiwassee River
Nickajack Lake
Chickamauga Lake
Lake Winnepesauka
Rainbow Lake
Bluehole Ocoee
North Chick Blue Hole
Blue Hole/Council Spring, Red Clay
Raccoon Mountain reservoir
Fish Hatchery
National Cemetery pond
Firefighter fountain, County Court House
Miller Plaza fountain

Or if you want Something more Completely Different, find another spring, pond, even puddle, gutter, water main break, open fire hydrant, sink, tub, shower, basement that has some kind of water in it. The only requirement: it be water.

The point of this whole thing: our request: Put some water a small container, label it (time & place), & bring it to church on sunday 13 august. Maybe write some words about it & what it means to you. Send it to us. We’ll be talking about it all.

Hope to see you there. ;>

~ tom kunesh, Sunday Services Committee member (WOWzers)