Click here for video
For a video of Bob Mesle’s presentation of this talk, follow this link to the Water Communion Service of the Unitarian Church of Evanston on Sept 7, 2025. Bob’s talk starts at abut 21 minutes into the service, and lasts 7 minutes. Bob offers a very process relational view of the unity of all things, very simplified for the “time for all generations” section of the service. He is often looking down at the children seated on the floor in front of him.
The key word today is water! So everyone say water.
You probably know that your body, like all life on earth, is mostly made of water.
It is tempting to think that when you drink a glass of water it runs through you and you just pee it out again. Not so. While old water is leaving, the new water replaces it and becomes part of you—part of the living cells that form your body right now—including your blood, muscles, heart and brain. As your body and brain,, this water thinks, and laughs, and loves, and hugs, and drinks more water.
Where did that water come from? Where has it been before it got to be part of you?
The long story is that it comes from the big bang, water is made of hydrogen and oxygen. The big bang filled space with hydrogen, which formed into stars. Oxygen and other elements were formed in the fiery hearts of those stars. When the stars died, they exploded and spewed their hearts into space. The oxygen and other elements mixed with the hydrogen in vast clouds of gas and star dust. Out of all this, came new stars, and planets, and water, and the earth and you. YOU are made of stardust, and the raindrops of the universe.
Lots of your water was made when the earth was formed. But lots of your water was formed far, far, off in space, and carried to the earth through space on comets and asteroids, and meteorites. You have come a long way to get here.
However it was made, wherever in the universe it came from, the water in your body right now has probably been on the earth for over 4 billion years.
It has been part of clouds, raindrops, lakes, rivers, and oceans. It has also been part of the soil. You have gotten it from the water you drink and the food you eat, because all living things on earth are mostly made of water.
That whole four billion years your water as been moving in and out of every kind of living creature that has ever existed on earth. So, your water may have been part of a tree, and a roly-poly bug, an earth worm, and a lion.
So, think about the water that is forming you right now. I want you to imagine one kind of creature in earth’s history that the water that is part you right now, might have been part of before it became part of you. When i say “now” shout out your one thing.
Imagine! And…now!
Great. Did anyone say a dinosaur? Flower? Eagle?
Now that you have practiced, I want you to imagine the future of your water. Think of the water forming your living body right now. Then imagine just one thing your water might become part any time in the long future of the earth and the universe. Your thing may be living or non-living.
Imagine……and now!
our water is going to do amazing things in the future.
We Unitarian Universalists celebrate water communion because it reminds us that we are all part of this one vast and beautiful web of nature.
We are all one.
Go forth in your bodies of living water and think, and laugh, and love, and make the world a better place.