Water

A Sermon by the Rev. Daniel Charles Davis

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Winston-Salem, N.C.

September 11, 2005

Flowing snowing always going.

Even the stagnant pond changes as it festers with life.

Life giving life overwhelming

Flooding destruction and morning dew.

Renew destroy renew destroy.

I grew up around water. As a child I used to swim in Lake Huron. In June the water was cold and still as glass. By July it was not bad – once you got used to it. In August the waves were wild and the water warm. We would throw ourselves against them as a last celebration of summer. By September it was too cold again. By November it was cold and stormy. No one went into the water.

But our town was a sailing town, with large ore boats that carried stone to the steel mills in Cleveland and Chicago. Our livelihood depended on the lake, even though in November the lake was a dangerous place. Soon the water would be clogged with ice and become impassable.

The rush was on to make a few last trips before the boats are put in for winter repair.

In his song “The Deep Forbidden Lake” Neil Young sings:

On the boats, the old and creaky boats,

the shoreline goes gliding by,

and the wind, there was a dying breeze,

is making the banners fly.

See the colors, floating in the sky,

the pride of the captain's eye,

as he glides

his slender craft inside

and opens up the door.

Sometimes the wind that makes the banners fly causes the waves to rise and sink the boat.

Two years before I was born, my town lost a boat, the Carl D. Bradley, to the storms of November. We remembered the sailors who died and prayed for those who continue to risk their lives to make a living on the lakes.

The eulogies are said and people gamble with their lives again.

On the coast, the long and tempting coast,

the cards on the table lie,

and a speech, so eloquent in reach,

was made by a passerby,

passing by the way between

here and left behind.

And it ripples through the crowds

who run and cast their doubts

in the deep forbidden lake.

I was a teenager the night the Edmund Fitzgerald went down. The winds were fierce. Walking home from wrestling practice, I saw the stop sign flipping back in forth. The screen door was ripped off of our garage. I knew because I had often been told that the Bradley went down on a night like this.

We worried when we hear a boat was sinking. My best friend’s father was on the boats. We waited for news. The song Gordon Lightfoot wrote about the Edmund Fitzgerald asks: "Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?"

Does anyone know where the love of God goes when God troubles the water? Some religious leaders have said that the love of God has been replaced by the judgment of God, by the hurricane Katrina, that the floods are divine retribution.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the leading spiritual mentor of Sephardic Jewry, told an audience in Jerusalem on Tuesday that Katrina was U.S. President George Bush's punishment for supporting the pullout from Gaza and northern Samaria. (Jerusalem Post, Sept 10.)

"Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city," stated Repent America director Michael Marcavage. "From 'Girls Gone Wild' to 'Southern Decadence,' New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. From the devastation may a city full of righteousness emerge." [1]

In reaction to Hurricane Katrina and the destruction in its wake, a high-ranking Kuwaiti official, Muhammad Yousef Al-Mlaifi, who is director of the Kuwaiti Ministry of Endowment's research center, published an article titled "The Terrorist Katrina Is One of the Soldiers of Allah.” “When the satellite channels reported on the scope of the terrifying destruction in America [caused by] this wind, I was reminded of the words of [Prophet Muhammad]: 'The wind sends torment to one group of people, and sends mercy to others.'” [2]

Stephen O’Leary, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California and an expert on the media and apocalypticism, says, “God’s got a two-fer here. Both sides are eager to see America punished for her sins; on one side it’s sexual immorality and porn and Hollywood, and on the other side it’s conspicuous consumption and Hummers.” [3]

I find it hard to believe that in this day and age. So many believe that God destroys people. I believe that many of the victims of the waters prayed to God. Were their prayers unanswered?

And the innocent children – if a god did this, then he is not a god but a demon. If God is good, then how can God be responsible for the loss of innocent life? If God has power over nature, then God is responsible over nature. I find it interesting how newscasters suddenly become pagan when a natural disaster hits. Instead of blaming God they blame mother nature.

But what if it is God who troubles the water? Rabbi Kushner says that sometimes bad things happen to good people. He said he had to redefine his god: God was not all powerful but rather all loving, grieving with us, holding our hearts and inspiring us to have compassion.

Perhaps God was not present in the waters of the storm surge – but present in the cases of bottled water that came from all over the world

Today we have brought water from all over the world and put it into one vessel, symbolizing that we are one, despite our differences.

I take comfort in a naturalist explanation of water and natural disaster. There is no why? Water just is. It follows natural laws. There is no intention to punish or bless. Water is a force of life. Our bodies contain water. Yet we can also drown. Water is not good or bad. It just is. It does not plan to hurt. It does not plan to harm. It follows the laws of nature and must be respected.

People lived on the Gulf Coast because it is beautiful, but they did not fully acknowledge that it is also powerful.

Water seeks its own level. A town below sea level will flood. We do not have to fear water. Because of science we can take precautions. We are not at the whim of a troubling god who troubles the water. As we rebuild what has been destroyed, we must respect the water. Some people will not return to the Gulf Coast. Others will return, more mindful of the power of water.

We cannot live without water. Therefore, we must live with it, casting our doubts in the deep forbidden lake, sailing our dreams on the wide ocean, risking our lives and saving our lives, earning a living and living for weekends at the beach.

From water we emerge, and with water we return to this community. May it support us as we navigate our lives.

-o-o-o-

1. http://www.repentamerica.com/pr_hurricanekatrina.html

2. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/9/1/205639.shtml)

3. http://www.beliefnet.com/story/173/story_17395_1.html