- ‘Water Communion’ is a relatively new ceremony created by UU ‘lay’/religious underclass women activists in 1980 as a women’s ritual to celebrate motherhood & their own empowerment as women, “as a way for women who lived far apart to connect the work each was doing locally to the whole”. It was taken up as a ritual by the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans (CUUPS). The first Water Communion was held at the november 1980 UU Continental Feminist Theology Convocation in East Lansing, Michigan, sponsored by the Continental Women and Religion Committee. It can be done anywhere, in any season, at any time.
- As ‘Water Communion’ spread among UUs, it became popular to celebrate in september after the Labor Day weekend to correspond with the end of school summer vacations, the end of the crop-growing season, and the beginning of the new academic year. We did that here in Chattanooga, then the last 2 years on Labor Day weekend itself, and now this year to correspond again with the end of summer vacation & the month-earlier beginning of all the new school years: Chattanooga Girls Leadership Academy began ten days ago, all Hamilton County Schools start this thursday, and UTC & Chatt State on the 21st.
- This year’s Water Communions in Tennessee’s largest UU congregations are also being held in august:
august 6 Oak Ridge UU Church
august 13 Tennessee Valley UU Church, Knoxville
august 13 UU Church of Chattanooga
august 28 First UU Church of Nashville
- Water communion here at UUCC has been led by the WOWzers/Sunday Services Committee for the past couple years here at UUCC, both times on Labor Day weekend: Steve Hollingsworth in 2016 (4 september), and Anne Johnson in 2015 (6 september). UUCC began with member-led sunday services, and has a long tradition of them, especially during the summer. (‘WOW’ = Working on Worship or Working on WOW! for those who don’t use ‘worship’ to describe our sunday morning activities.)
- Bring some water this sunday! OR use a ladle from a bucket of sweetwater that we’ll have ready for you.
- We’ll also have pen & paper ready for you to write about your water, & post on the walls for others to read.
