Ingathering Practice
September marks the beginning of the church year in Unitarian Universalism. Congregations celebrate this coming back together – this gathering in of people — of its community in different ways. In Good Faith has asked the UUA’s Director of Communications and Public Ministry, Rev. Nancy McDonald Ladd, to explain the importance of Ingathering as a UU religious practice and what it means to UU communities.
In her ingathering message (video, 4:48 minutes) to Unitarian Universalist leaders and congregations, our UUA President Rev. Dr. Sofia Betancourt acknowledged that “our ministries unfold in challenging and complex times. And yet, we know that our tradition teaches that love’s reach is expansive enough to include everyone.” She called us to do “this work of centering love — connected as a faith and in our own communities” in all that this coming congregational year will bring.
Grounded in our values, her message invites us to ask, as Unitarian Universalists, just what “ingathering” means in this time of seasonal transition.
“With the mingling of water molecules, we symbolize the greater reality that there is room for each of us in community and that what we bring into our sacred spaces — gifts and joys and sorrows of differing measure, are all vital components of what it is to be us.”
There are historical answers that have to do with the yearly patterns of churchgoing in un-air-conditioned old meetinghouses, when people would come back together to worship after the hot summer months were done. There is an old socio-economic interpretation, arising from class-bound concepts of extended summer vacations.
And then there is the simple, natural flow of time and transition, the comings and goings of the new school year and the changing season. There is a sense that worshipping communities “come home” again as the days begin to shorten and the familiar connections hold the power to help lead us through times of change.
Often, this ingathering season comes along with a liturgy of mingling waters from travels or taps, a ceremony in which we enact the intermingling of a community through the blended water we pour out together.
With the mingling of water molecules, we symbolize the greater reality that there is room for each of us in community and that what we bring into our sacred spaces — gifts and joys and sorrows of differing measure, are all vital components of what it is to be us.
In the words of Rabindranath Tagore:
“The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers. It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean – cradle of birth and death, in ebb and flow.”