Virtual Water Communion: My Life Flows On

Written By Caroline Bright

Reverend Caroline Bright
September 7, 2025

Wonderful friends, our life together is not bound by walls, by pews, or by the clink of water poured into a single bowl. Instead, our communion flows across screens, across towns and states, across oceans. We gather as people whose lives intersect not in one sanctuary, but in the shared current of spirit and hope.

The hymn goes:
My life flows on in endless song above earth’s lamentation…
Even scattered as we are, the song binds us together. It reminds us that love and courage run deeper than the noise of the world.

In a traditional UU water communion, each person brings water from travels, from the kitchen tap, from rain gathered in the garden. That water symbolizes life carried from many places, poured into one shared bowl. Today, though we cannot pour it in one vessel, we are still part of that stream. The waters of our lives- the daily grind, the sacred joys, the tears shed for what breaks us- all mingle in spirit.

The hymn’s last verse says:
When tyrants tremble as they hear the bells of freedom ringing… how can I keep from singing?
These are not just words of comfort. They are a call to remember that even in what feels like a political nightmare, even as storms rage around us, even as injustice howls—there is another truth. Love lives. Hope rings out. Community endures.

So I invite you:

  • Think of the “water” you bring today. Is it joy? Exhaustion? Longing? Hope?

  • Imagine pouring it into this shared river we are making together.

  • Feel how the current carries you, even here online, where our separate streams converge into one vast sea of belonging.

No storm can shake our inmost calm while to that love we’re clinging.
Since love prevails in heaven and on earth, how can we keep from singing?

Blessed be and Amen.

Caroline Bright