Watershed: Days of Awe

A sermon offered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lafayette

September 16, 2007

By Rev. Hilary Landau Krivchenia

We are in the time of the Jewish High Holy Days – during the period when the year turns and new beginnings are possible.  It’s a time that begins with Rosh Hashanah – a time of forgiveness and ends with Yom Kippur – a time of reckoning and Atonement.  In any case, it is the time of new beginnings and just so for us in this congregation. Beginnings and endings are linked. And so we find ourselves at a watershed moment in our congregational history – a time of great change.  I’ve used that expression most of my life – but without knowing exactly what it meant – what was a watershed and why did it mean change?  Sometimes the thought would creep across my mind that I was using the word wrongly because I just knew it idiomatically – to use in a sentence – but I didn’t know the source or real meaning.

Then I started to learn about watersheds through my husband Mark, the river lover.  Now probably many of you are thinking – geez – I’ve known about watersheds forever – but for me the process of discovery was one of deep revelation.

As you could see on the charts earlier – everything that happens above the watershed ends up in the watershed one way or another – every bag of fertilizer, pound of road salt, every tomato that decomposes into the soil, every pile of leaves or ashes, even the exhaust of a car or the spiral of smoke from a factory waits – sits on the earth of hovers in the air until rain comes and carries it down into the soil and into the watershed. And in the watershed everything flows downhill and therefore into the river that is at the heart of the watershed.  If you set lots of impermeable objects – impervious surfaces – on the land the water cannot sink down into the ground and flooding occurs.  Here our river is the Wabash River and everything we do on land runs into our river.  Knowing this changed my experience of canoeing – as I dip my paddle into water carrying whatever chemicals sink down from homes and farms or my child swims in whatever has washed off city streets.

Everything that happens above the watershed affects the watershed.  The river is the heart of the Watershed and it is where the watershed is strongest and most visible. The river is the strong voice of the watershed.

Our relationship with our watershed is intimate whether we know it or not.  The plants that grow, the other animals that survive and we are all bound in a deep interrelationship – we don’t simply live in a region – it lives in us – in the food we grow in our yards or get at the farmers market or the local community supported agriculture project, in the water we drink, the air we breathe, in the vistas we see or the ones that are blocked by tall buildings.  Modern life – with its purified water, trucked in food, concrete cities – has separated people from the immediacy of the watershed – so it seems almost like we could live in a bubble unaffected by the health of the land and water around us.  And yet – through the watercycle, in the air, when I see the Wabash water level rise and people’s basements are flooded – it is most often because in some way – the river’s natural direction has been ignored.  Our bubbles pop -- our levies break.

So in one way certainly watersheds are about change – because everything that happens on, in, around the river and the earth it flows throw are completely affected.  And eventually these gather up and become sea changes.  There’s constant change in the watershed.

And yet – we can’t remain completely regional – because the Wabash Watershed is part of a much larger system – it’s part of the Ohio River Watershed which is part of the Mississippi River Watershed upon which the Ohio is nested, and the Wabash is nested and the Wildcat and Sugar Creeks are nested.  And the great Mississippi River Watershed carries the message of the Wabash into the Gulf of Mexico.

The Great Mississippi Watershed stretches all the way West to the Rocky Mountains and East to the Appalachians.  There – where two ranges of mountains heave up the land are the Continental Divides – the deep geologic formations that – with the help of many natural forces – nudge the watersheds downhill and into their vast Basins.

I’m sure that I was staring out the school room window when some unfortunate teacher tried to pass this knowledge on to me.  I vaguely remember voices saying Continental Divide – but I suspect I was thinking about the things that obsessed me as a young person – social injustice, peace in Vietnam, why parents are the way they are, and whether I’d be able to get the new Beatles album.  On the other hand – it’s not too likely that the teacher was as moved by the reality of the Continental Divide as the people I meet through Mark’s river conservation work.   And it’s equally likely that the science of ecology was a fringe science that the teacher was still suspicious of.

A continental divide is the result of shifts deep in the earth’s crust ages ago that literally parted the waters and directed their flow downward into the Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, or the Atlantic Ocean.  Somewhere off in the distance is the edge of the watershed, shaped by a geologic hand and beside it is another watershed whose life moves close by – but in a completely new direction.  And it’s those great divides that have given us the notion that a watershed is a place of momentous change – because, in fact, a watershed divide is a place of momentous change.

This summer I attended the Annual Meeting of the Wildcat Creek Foundation – a hearty local group that focuses on conserving land along the creek – which is part of the Wabash watershed.  At that meeting I saw Steve Hall present a gripping powerpoint on Watershed management that got me so excited I began taking notes in my summer notebook on my sermon pages.  It was the pictures that I shared with you earlier that really rocked me because it dawned on me that Watersheds and congregations have a lot in common.

Just as we are in the Wabash Watershed in the Ohio Watershed in the Mississippi Watershed so are we gathered here – IN this house we sustain for those who speak of God and those who never do and those who seek to discover the deeper meanings of words like God or watershed, IN the heart of the Days of Awe at the turning of the Jewish New Year, IN a time of momentous change, transition and challenge for our congregation and our larger movement.

Congregational life is like a watershed – a ground is created by an early gathering up of people and a series of events and choices and happen and a history begins to flow – first as a quiet streamlet and over time gathering people and widening – changing and being changed by the historical events around it and all the events within it.  A congregation forms with deepening layers of history and the things which grow out of that history and along its banks.  And each person who come – here – steps onto that ground – witnesses that flow, feels – at times faintly – that history, drinks from the well and either wanders away or brings their own history in and sets it down upon the ground.

It was that image that struck me as the Annual Meeting of the Wildcat Creek Foundation went on.

This watershed is built up and permeated through all the choices that are made here – not only the by laws – but every action here shapes the future. 

A couple of weeks ago Gale Kvam spoke here about the Rabbi who said that words are more like arrows than swords because once they are sent forth is impossible to stop them and hard to retrieve them.  There is a poem of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s in which he speaks of words that can spill feelings onto the ground that then can never be gathered back together.  All our choices – our words and our actions sink into this holy ground and create the texture.  If you’ve ever come for the Annual Holiday Art Show and sale you’ll see this.  You can feel the legacy of the creative people who started the sale – out of love for art, for local artists, for this congregation.  No matter how hectic the holiday season seems to be, people help out and discover great fun.  New friendships are made while wrapping packages or ladling soup.  There is a distinctive and unstoppable character of warmth that lives in this congregation.

There are legacies of other choices – kindness, comfort, generosity, faithfulness, affection, respect, trust, confidence, and steadfast love.  You can feel their traces.  And there are admittedly other legacies – of secrecy, gossip, judgment, impatience, arrogance, bullying, criticism, and betrayal. Small acts and large – traces clear or faint or unseen that live in the watershed of this congregation.  It is the historical ecology of this place. 

For almost 60 years this congregation has made choices together and will long into the future.  Among the highest purposes of Unitarian Universalist Congregational Life is to empower people to work together to make complex ethical choices – in their own lives and in our shared life together.  As minister, it is my honor to sit with many people as they wrestle with those choices. 

But also as minister I have had my share of trying to gather up my own spilled words – or to offer a remedy for my own unskillful choice or action.  Actually as a minister I am gladly bound by a larger covenant of professional ethics that makes me accountable to you, to my colleagues, and the association. But truly -- as part of a congregation each person is accountable to do no less.  For just as the warmth that lives here is durable, other, more regrettable actions are often not easily washed away.  It can take generations of new choices to wash away heavy traces – to cleanse wounds or bitterness. 

            This congregation passed through a rough period a couple of years ago when the dream of designing and building a brand new building fell through.  But at that time – the leadership created a strong, healthy process by which the congregation could learn about what had happened, become informed, and make decisions together without acrimony and two years later – or thereabouts we are in the process of moving into a new home – a home that we did not design but that you will make your own – that will support the watershed by reusing a ready made building and making it ever more earth friendly.  It is the choices that we make together that shape the contours of the future.

So it becomes the challenge for every congregation of merely human folk – and so we are – merely human – through understanding and extending ourselves to heal the past and restore the watershed for the future.  Covenants help to guide us – our congregational covenant is one of the things that attracts people here – so they tell me.  But other covenants can be created – covenants of right relation in congregations can help clarify that spirit of love – help to facilitate that process of being together well.  By holding one another accountable in love and according to our covenant of love and service, by making that clear and understandable – you create the possibilities of safety, healing, and renewal that can be available to every person who walks in here.  Like a watershed, a congregation is a living system – responding to natural forces – like safe boundaries, clear paths, plentiful light, renewing energy, and refreshment.  A congregation is a living system carrying tremendous resilience and hope within it.

When we move our Religious Education classes will all fit into one place – the office will have real space – the Forum will meet in our very own space – our chairs will not be folded up after the service.  Sounds great – but, frankly – to be in a time of great change in a congregation is to be in upheaval – because old ways are challenged and new ways have not yet arrived.  It is at best unsettling.  To be at a divide between great watersheds is to be at the site of geologic upheaval.  By moving from this wonderful but cramped old building to the new place on Meridian is like a river changing its course.  So – if you have felt anxious or worried – it is natural.  It is no wonder.  Change stirs up stuff that had settled down and been hidden from sight.  It’s as though the ground is cracking exposing faults and ancient history. And, in truth, there have been rough passages in this process here.  The crisis of change can bring out our worst.  Conflict – large and small – no point pretending – even to newcomers – it is not just about the placement of furniture or the way that something was always done – or just about rougher matters – it has been about upheaval and all that comes in its wake and how we humans respond to that – often with crankiness or impatience.   The watershed moment is an uncertain moment – because we are in between, at the divide, on the cusp, unsettled.

But for that very same reason other, even more remarkable things are happening.  I have watched as leaders here have created newer and healthier ways of doing many things and remained firm; I have witnessed people look beyond their own preference and care for the well-being of the congregation that is to be – one they are a part of but have not yet seen and met; I have seen people step in and feel that deep reservoir of warmth and create order out of chaos and play out of work;  I have seen you fill the halls of the new building with eager hands to make the future joyful and new;  I am in awe of so much that is occurring and even of what is possible.  But it does require courage.  It is an important time to be – as someone recently remarked – steadfast – full of care and yet moving forward.

We take our history with us as we move – old friendships will remain – and breaks will require cleansing and healing.  But we will also enter a time of rich possibility. The river of this congregation’s history will move forward – guided by your choices together and there will be amazement and discovery.  We have only to keep in mind the living watershed that is this congregation’s life and treat it with love and reverence for the past as well as love and healthy intention for the future.

The new building will change this congregation – as Gale also mentioned two weeks ago – every time a new person arrives here this becomes a new congregation and soon many people will arrive.  With their hopes, their gifts, and their histories bundled up.  It will be the strength and firmness of your covenantal ground, the clarity of your intention to be together as a healthy community that will make them welcome and build the congregation you hope to see – 60 years from now.

So – as we pass through this time – these High Holy Days – days which will always be remembered as historic to this congregation – let us give our best to one another – and to this place.  May the new year bring you peace and health – and may you all be the best of stewards for this open living system of your watershed your holy ground -- that will make all things possible.  

Closing words

Adapted from the Jewish Reform Prayerbook.

This is the first day of the world’s beginning; now we recall creation’s first days.

Now at the beginning of a new year,

May we establish within ourselves

The spirit of wisdom and understanding,

The spirit of insight and courage.

The spirit of knowledge and reverence.

May we overcome trouble, pain, and sorrow.

May our days and years increase.