THE RIVERS OF OUR LIVES
Rev. Kit Ketcham, Sept. 7, 2014
Pacific UU Fellowship
“I’ve
known rivers”, wrote Langston Hughes, “ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the
rivers.”
Growing
up in Oregon, I mark several of the stages of my life (and maybe you do too) by
the presence of the Columbia River, the river to whose shores Astoria and much
of Clatsop County are anchored.
As
kids, driving with our parents from Athena down the Columbia River Gorge to
Portland, we’d compete to see who would be the first person to spot the river
as we got closer to Boardman. The
first one of us to see it would burst into “Oh Columbia the gem of the ocean…”
knowing full well that the song didn’t refer to “our” river but needing to
herald its presence in some majestic way.
As
a young adult in my first real job, living in Stevenson in the Gorge and
watching the river rise and fall with the spring runoff, held back by
Bonneville Dam, I looked across the river at night to try to spot the campfire
of a hermit who reportedly lived in the forest above Cascade Locks, wondering
if he was watching it too.
When
I moved to Denver in the mid-60’s, I joined up with the Denver Friends of Folk
Music partly so I could sing “Roll On Columbia” with others who liked intoning the
names of that river and its tributaries:
Woody Guthrie sang “Other great rivers add power to you, the Yakima,
Snake, and the Klickitat too, Sandy, Willamette, and the Hood River too, it’s
roll on, Columbia, roll on”.
Other
rivers, however powerful, paled in comparison to this River of the West, the
Columbia. The Colorado rolled
through some pretty beautiful country like the Grand Canyon, but I always
yearned to come back to the Columbia River and my homeland.
Are
there rivers that have shaped your lifetime? What might they be?
Call
them out.
Rivers
have been analogies for some important ideas. The UU song writer Peter Mayer has a song with the theme of
“God” as a river. And I like Bill
Staines’ song River whose chorus
says it this way: “River, take
me along, in your sunshine, sing me your song, ever moving and winding and
free, you rollin’ old river, you changin’ old river, let’s you and me river run
down to the sea.” In this song,
the sea represents the vast pool of souls who have gone before us.
I
like the analogy of a river as representing Life and its constant movement, its
changeability by tides, by weather, by obstacles in the channel. Rivers can get dammed up, choked with
debris, just like life. Rivers
need to run clear and clean but they’re often laden with silt, fallen logs,
beaver dams, and the clutter so common in nature---and in life.
Many
of us have brought deep hurts and ecstatic joys to share today, important
insights to ponder. We share all
these experiences as we share these waters, as we begin a new year together as
a community. We will use these
pooled waters, during the year, to bless our children and dedicate ourselves to
their wellbeing; we may also use these waters to say goodbye to beloved members
of this congregation.
I
always save the water from year to year, purify it, and add a small amount of
it to the common vessel, in acknowledgement that this community, represented by
this shared water, is an ongoing thing.
In past years, our friends Michael Link and Ruth Jensen brought their
waters to this ceremony. They are
still a part of this community, in this way.
In
gathering these waters every fall, we commemorate the ways our lives have
changed during the past months and share those changes with this
community. Water is the basic
stuff of life and, like community, we need it for our very survival.
All
over the United States and even the world today, Unitarian Universalists in
many congregations are bringing water representing the rivers of their life
experience. We join our waters
together today in memory and celebration.
Let’s
pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.
BENEDICTION:
As Veja extinguishes our
chalice, I will close with these words.
Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but
our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering that
our lives affect one another, for our experiences shape us and thereby shape
our relationships. May we remember
this and share ourselves and our lives in ways that enhance our time together,
for this is how we heal ourselves and each other and knit up the rips and tears
in the interdependent web of existence, of which we are a part. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.
