‘The Sacredness of Water’
Sara Kelley, UUCSV Director of Religious Growth and Learning
First published in the Sunbury Daily Item, October 10, 2026
My church’s congregational year started three weeks ago, the first Sunday after Labor Day. Unitarianism and Universalism were both Christian religions and followed Christian calendars and liturgical traditions. When the merger that created Unitarian Universalism finally happened in 1961 those traditions remained. While most UU churches no longer take summers off, we still “start” again each fall.
Most UU congregations focus their first service of the church year on a Water Service, also called a Water Ceremony or Water Communion. The tradition began in 1980 at a UU Women and Religion Convocation in East Lansing, Michigan as a way to honor women’s widely varying journeys to the meeting.
In many congregations members and friends bring a sample of water from their travels or water that has other significance for them. The combined water is meant to be symbolic of our shared faith coming from many different sources, as well as a coming together again into one community after a summer apart.
More and more congregations, including ours, are moving away from telling individual stories of water as a way to be more inclusive of everyone’s experiences. Not everyone travels, not everyone has easy access to clean water, and we can de-center privilege.
Some congregations use the Water Service as a way to express their commitment to the Shared Values of Justice and Equity. They learn more about water and water issues all over the world. Some congregations focus more on the Value of Interdependence and the importance of water in our connected natural world.
In all the ways the Water Service uses and honors water, UUs are in good company with other religions and, indeed, with all of human history. Almost every city in the entire world, as well as many historic civilizations, was settled on a river with life-giving water. That water was used for people, for livestock, and for crops. Those rivers became the pathways for trade and connection to other settlements, other tribes, other nations. Modern economies wouldn’t exist without access to water.
We also remember that water has two faces – the beauty and the danger, both clearly visible in this area. We look at the beautiful Susquehanna River regularly, maybe daily. Many of us use it as Lake Augusta in the summer. Have you ever been to Rickett’s Glen and its gorgeous waterfalls? Or swum at Halfway Dam at R.B. Winter State Park? We are very lucky with our state’s park system and all that free access to water for recreation and beauty.
At the same time we see the flood wall in Sunbury and Hufnagle Park in Lewisburg and recall hurricanes and storms and floods that have been damaging and deadly. Too much rain or too little rain can wreak havoc on our crops and affect our food supply.
The dichotomy is clear in religious scriptures and sources. The stories of Noah and the Great Flood that destroyed life on earth and of Moses saving his people from disaster by parting the Red Sea appear in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures. Yet water is a vital force in Hindu texts, and appears often in Buddhist teachings about clarity and calmness. There are stories from many Indigenous peoples all over the world about life giving water. Origin stories of most religions honor water.
Water’s most recognized religious connection locally is likely baptism, whether by anointing or immersion. Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River in Christian gospels, a practice that Christians have followed since. In Unitarian Universalism, water is used for a related ceremony in which families, friends, and the congregation pledge together to help raise a child in a loving, just, and good community. It is one of our most sacred rituals.
How is your connection to water a sacred part of your life?
