The Blue Boat: A Homily at the Beginning of a Church Year

THE BLUE BOAT
A Homily at the Beginning of a Church Year

James Ishmael Ford

First Unitarian Church
Providence, Rhode Island

7 September 2014

A READING

Chapter eight of the Tao Te Ching

The supreme good is like water,
which nourishes all things without trying to.
It is content with the low places that people disdain.
Thus it is like the Tao.

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don’t try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.

When you are content to be simply yourself
and don’t compare or compete,
everybody will respect you.

For the first couple of years after we moved out here in that period before MapQuest and is cousin apps, when I had call to read a map of the area, I’d unfold and look at it. Then, I’d have to turn it the other way around. Apparently, somewhere deep down, the ocean was supposed to be on the left side of the page. But here, here in lovely old New England, that big blue patch is on the right side of the page.

Whatever side of the map it sits on, it seems I have some sort of deep body orientation to the ocean. I have a sense of where it is, pretty much always. It’s a big part of my way of “feeling” where I am, of orienting myself on the compass.

Perhaps some of you have that experience, as well? You just know the ocean is somewhere out in that direction.

Water. Water is such a powerful image. It stands so easily for life itself. It is, after all, essential to life, as we understand that word. I gather somewhere in the neighborhood of seventy percent of our biological mass is water. Deprived of it we quickly die. Also, of course, water is dangerous. We can easily drown if we’re not careful. It is wise for us not to forget that part, either.

Gathering water has become the image with which most of our liberal congregations begin the formal church year. And we’re no exceptions. We’ve started our day with a gathering of water, our individual contributions, our hopes and aspirations streaming together into a rushing river flowing toward the ocean.

Water’s most common metaphorical usage in most of the world’s religions is as a purifier, to bring blessing. We see this in the mikva of Judaism, baptism in Christianity and in Islam as a necessary preliminary to the five daily prayers. I think appropriately this water we’ve gathered today, or some of it, will be present at child dedications throughout the church year.

Water can be used to bless. And it holds other truths, if we’re willing to notice. I’m constantly drawn back to the images of water: streams, fountains, rivers and the ocean itself.

Water is the more of which we, you and I, are a part. This more is a powerful thing, a central thing for us to notice. It is so important some call that more God. Of course we Unitarian Universalists struggle with that word. So for today, let’s just call that more of which we are, each of us, a part, the ocean, the great ocean.

Here’s a truth about us that we can find as we consider the ocean. We, each of us, are more like waves on the surface. Made of that precious substance, taken a specific form for a while, and destined to return in its time, really so quickly, to the source.

Of course there are other ways to see this, perhaps in some ways even more useful. While we are made of water, we are also separate from the water, if only for a time. And, so, we are also like that man in the story Cathy told, or, to shift the image one more time, like passengers together on a small boat sailing across the great ocean.

The spiritual congregation is often seen as a boat. I find myself thinking of Old Ship, our congregation in Hingham, where when you look up at the ceiling, it sure looks like a boat. Our little boat home.

This image of a boat in the great ocean contains many pointers for us. We need to learn the currents, to read the skies, to go with that ancient flow. We do this, and the work of our lives becomes something precious, something powerful. Flowing with rather than against, we can find ourselves bringing the full power of the ocean into the many tasks, small and large we are called to engage.

The many streams gather together into a great current.

We need to follow it as it circles around to our very lives, our hopes, our dreams, our aspirations.

Our call to live, to work, to love, informed by flowing with the great ocean.

As we sail out beneath the starry skies, the earth our blue boat home.