{"id":8199,"date":"2011-09-04T16:26:52","date_gmt":"2011-09-04T21:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/?p=8199"},"modified":"2011-09-04T16:26:52","modified_gmt":"2011-09-04T21:26:52","slug":"water-communion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/water-communion\/","title":{"rendered":"Water Communion"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_4186\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-8199-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2011-09-04_Water_Communion.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2011-09-04_Water_Communion.mp3\">http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2011-09-04_Water_Communion.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2011-09-04_Water_Communion.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/?powerpress_pinw=8199-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2011-09-04_Water_Communion.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"2011-09-04_Water_Communion.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p>Rev. Meg Barnhouse<\/p>\n<p>September 4, 2011<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">This is a service done in September at most UU congregations across the US, a home-coming where people renew their sense of being a community.<\/p>\n<p>A large bowl is set up at the front of the sanctuary. Singly or with their partners, spouses or families, people come with water in a small container and add it to the water in the bowl. Members of the congregation share a few words about the places that feed their souls. That might be the tap in your grandmother&#8217;s kitchen, a stream behind your house, or a place you visited during the summer holiday.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><strong>Meditation<\/strong>\u00a0&#8211;\u00a0<em>Tess Baumberger<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Drops of God<\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">God, God is water sleeping<\/p>\n<p>in high-piled clouds.<\/p>\n<p>She is gentle drink of rain,<\/p>\n<p>pooling lake, rounding pond,<\/p>\n<p>angry flooding river.<\/p>\n<p>She is frothy horse-maned geyser.<\/p>\n<p>She is glacier on mountains and polar ice cap,<\/p>\n<p>and breath-taking crystalline ideas of snowflakes.<\/p>\n<p>She is frost-dance on trees.<\/p>\n<p>And we, we are drops of God,<\/p>\n<p>her tears of joy or sorrow,<\/p>\n<p>ice crystals<\/p>\n<p>and raindrops<\/p>\n<p>in the ocean of her.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">God, God is air wallowing<\/p>\n<p>all about us,<\/p>\n<p>She is thin blue atmosphere embracing<\/p>\n<p>our planet, gentle breeze.<\/p>\n<p>She is wind and fearsome gale<\/p>\n<p>centrifugal force of tornado and hurricane,<\/p>\n<p>flurry of dust storm.<\/p>\n<p>She is breath, spirit, life.<\/p>\n<p>She is thought, intellect, vision and voice.<\/p>\n<p>And we, we are breaths of God,<\/p>\n<p>steady and soft,<\/p>\n<p>changeable and destructive.<\/p>\n<p>We are her laughter and her sighs,<\/p>\n<p>atomic movements,<\/p>\n<p>(sardines schooling)<\/p>\n<p>in the firmament of her.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">God, God is fire burning,<\/p>\n<p>day and night.<\/p>\n<p>She is sting of passion,<\/p>\n<p>blinking candle,<\/p>\n<p>heat that cooks our food.<\/p>\n<p>She is fury forest fire<\/p>\n<p>and flow of lava which destroys and creates, transforms.<\/p>\n<p>She is home fire and house fire.<\/p>\n<p>She is giving light of sun and<\/p>\n<p>solemn mirror-face of moon,<\/p>\n<p>and tiny hopes of stars.<\/p>\n<p>And we, we are little licking flames<\/p>\n<p>flickering in her heart,<\/p>\n<p>in the conflagratory furnace of her.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">God, God is power of earth,<\/p>\n<p>in and under us.<\/p>\n<p>She is steady, staying,<\/p>\n<p>fertile loam, body, matter, tree.<\/p>\n<p>She is crumbling limestone and shifting sand,<\/p>\n<p>multi-colored marble.<\/p>\n<p>She is rugged boulder and water-smoothed agate,<\/p>\n<p>she is gold and diamond, gemstone.<\/p>\n<p>She is tectonic plates and their motion,<\/p>\n<p>mountains rising over us,<\/p>\n<p>rumble-snap of earthquake,<\/p>\n<p>tantrum of volcano.<\/p>\n<p>She is turning of our day,<\/p>\n<p>root of being.<\/p>\n<p>And we, we are pebbles<\/p>\n<p>and sand grains,<\/p>\n<p>and tiny landmarks,<\/p>\n<p>in the endless terrain of her.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">God, God is journal of time marching<\/p>\n<p>through eternity.<\/p>\n<p>She is waking of seasons, phases of moon,<\/p>\n<p>movements of stars.<\/p>\n<p>She is grandmother, mother, daughter.<\/p>\n<p>She is transcending spiral of ages<\/p>\n<p>whose every turn encompasses the rest,<\/p>\n<p>history a mere babe balanced on her hip.<\/p>\n<p>She is spinning of universes<\/p>\n<p>and ancestress of infinence.<\/p>\n<p>She is memory, she is presence, she is dream.<\/p>\n<p>And we, we are brief instants,<\/p>\n<p>intersections, nanoseconds,<\/p>\n<p>flashing gold-hoped moments in the eons of her.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">God, God is.<\/p>\n<p>And we, we are.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rev. Meg Barnhouse September 4, 2011 This is a service done in September at most UU congregations across the US, a home-coming where people renew their sense of being a community. A large bowl is set up at the front of the sanctuary. Singly or with their partners, spouses or families, people come with water&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19,16,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-available","category-meg-barnhouse","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}