Always Connected ©
Reverend Janet Parsons
Gloucester UU Church
September 7 2025
I love living near the ocean. It fascinates me: beautiful and yet intimidating, grounding and yet constantly in motion. But each year I try to find my way to fresh water, to rivers and lakes, to seek another kind of grounding. Some years we camp near tiny streams, tumbling over rocks on their way downhill to a lake. Whenever I’m camping at our favorite pond, I always kayak to the far shore to see the outfall, where the pond water flows out and begins a journey downhill. This year I found myself in far northern New Hampshire, almost never out of sight of a lake. We could walk to a nearby spring to get our drinking water. There, in the Connecticut Lakes, is where the Connecticut River rises and makes its way over 400 miles, finally joining the Atlantic Ocean in Long Island Sound. We know, when we stop to think about it, that water from the northern tip of New Hampshire enters the ocean far to the south. But we seldom stop to think about it, to imagine that journey, the joining of smaller tributaries, the flowing in and out of lakes along the way.
Two things are true about rivers. First, they are constantly in motion, flowing, catching a shaft of sunlight in one spot, or a breeze in another, rippling around submerged rocks. A river is both always the same, and at the same time, always changing.
There is another truth about rivers: they create connection. The Connecticut River flows out of Fourth Connecticut Lake near the Quebec border, making its way south through several enormous lakes, being fed by smaller streams, all the way to the ocean. Bodies of water connect across distance, and as we see in the movement of the water, across time as well.
As I sat down to write this, some words began coursing through my head, as so often happens. I remembered the words of author Norman MacLean, from his novella A River Runs Through It: “…in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.”
All water is connected. We just mingled water that we brought from different places into a common bowl, to create a connection that we can see and touch. And water is connected in invisible ways as well; the water cycle draws water skyward as vapor, and returns it to us as rain.
Churches share the same truths as rivers. Here our building has stood, not changed dramatically for the past 219 years. And yet, we know that, in the way of rivers, a church might look always the same, but the congregation is constantly changing. People who become dear to us move away, or die. Children arrive, and grow too fast, and go forth to lead new independent lives. New people are welcomed among us, and we are grateful for the new relationships that form. Here we aspire to create a forever flowing river of friendship, of shared values and commitments, and of love and belonging. Always here, and yet always new.
Rivers teach us that along the way, the continual mingling, the meeting and merging of new streams can change our identity. I think again of the new Connecticut, narrow, tumbling over rocks, and the wide Connecticut flowing placidly into the ocean. We mingle, and grow, and change, as we become part of a new whole. As we each poured out our individual water, we gave it up. Our containers are now empty. In joining together here at church, we might give up some independence, some individuality. We practice putting the community first. But in doing so, together we have created something larger than ourselves; the strength and power of being joined together, working together, sharing hard and sad times and the burdens that are too heavy to carry alone.
My friends, as we enter this new church year together, may you know the great power we create here by stepping into the living waters of this old and beloved community. May you sense the continuity and the flow of time as you each take your place within our living tradition. May the image of a flowing river carry you forward, always new, always connected. May you remember that “eventually all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.”
