Water Communion is one of my favorite services of the year at Westside. It marks a time that we all come together again after our summer schedules and travel, a time when we return to each other. In RE, we mark the beginning of our program year with our annual Water Play in the yard, greeting each other with super soakers in hand and running through sprinklers together.
What better way to come back together, to begin our year together, than in the spirit of play? Many great passages in life are celebrated and honored with a gathering, a party, where we kick back and fully enjoy ourselves and each other for that moment in time. It becomes special. It becomes a memory that bonds us to each other. And when it is repeated year after year, it becomes a meaningful ritual that we look forward to.
It’s a powerful thing, this simple act of celebrating through having simple fun together. It’s a spiritual act that develops the spiritual lives of children. They’ll look back over the years and upon the pictures from the various years and see themselves in new ways. They’ll carry forward different memories from each year that will piece together the mosaic of their young lives here at Westside. 2017 was the year of cotton candy and maple syrup gigantic bubbles.
See, that’s a funny story right there. We had the bubble juice, but realized we needed more corn starch or syrup to hold it together. So I went off to the kitchen in search of corn syrup. Chris Edkins and William Wallace were there, so I thought to ask them if they’ve seen any in their time in the kitchen. The gears in Chris’ head started turning and he said, “If I know Americans, they keep their corn syrup in the refrigerator.” Then he pulls out the pancake syrup, which is mostly corn syrup, and announced his victory.
At the risk (or bonus) of maple scented bubbles, in the name of science I returned to the party and poured “maple” syrup into the bubble juice. We had a good time joking about how that would affect the bubbles. But you know what? It worked! The bubbles held their form and the kiddos made gigantic bubbles from them. The laughter and enjoyment that erupted from that strange little entertaining twist brought us all together in some small, important way. You know, what we really end up celebrating is that each person is important and that each of us is important to each other.
Come join us in RE! Sign up to be an RE Helper and lend an extra hand from time to time in the classroom. RE Helper Orientation is Sunday, Sept 24 at 9:30am. Let DRE Wendy Weiss Southern know you’re interested. dre@westsideuuc.org