Partnership Spotlight - WUICAN Grant

Pastor Sadie Cullumber
May 26, 2024
3 min read

Updated: Jun 1, 2024

Learn more about Harbor's involvement with UCI climate solutions grant

ree — From the new WUICAN website, linked below

It’s been almost a year since Harbor was invited to participate in the Wildland Urban Interface Climate Action Network (WUICAN, pronounced we can) through our connections at the University of California Irvine. This network is a consortium of community based organizations (like Harbor), California Native American Tribes, land managers, and universities in Southern California. The newly developed website for WUICAN shares that the purpose of the network is to:

Create a new model for co-governance and co-design of climate solutions that center the needs of impacted communities
Build capacity for collaboration, communication and decision-making across community-based organizations, universities and land stewards
Develop community-driven policies and practices for land and water stewardship in the face of climate change

One of the most exciting parts of the partnership for Harbor is that it has connected us to a huge and diverse network of community groups, tribal partners, and educational partners. As we involve ourselves more deeply in this network, we will be able to connect with people and institutions who are each facing the climate catastrophe in unique and thoughtful ways. As capacity for collaboration, communication, and decision making is expanded within the network we will see relationships develop and grow between those doing the research on climate change and communities most directly impacted by climate change.

When Jesus was doing his ministry, he made a point of gathering diverse people as his disciples. This meant that his disciples and followers included fishermen, tax collectors, religious leaders, sinners, men, women, Roman Centurions, children and more. Jesus understood that it is in bringing together diverse perspectives that we are able to learn from one another and support one another. It is exciting to see this same concept within the WUICAN network: get a diverse group of people and community based organizations together to learn from each other and support each other.

This partnership is doing something that is rarely done in our modern world: bring together people who rarely share space including scientists, interfaith religious leaders, California Native American Tribes, community leaders, people impacted by climate change, community based groups, and more.

If you are interested in learning about the many diverse projects that are happening within the wide WUICAN network, please explore the new website: https://newkirkcenter.uci.edu/wildland-urban-interface-climate-action-network/

While you are on the website, be sure to look for Harbor Christian Church in the Partners tab. You can also read about the specific project that Harbor is involved in under the Projects tab. Scroll down and you’ll see Harbor mentioned as part of the Interfaith Climate Action Working Group. And finally, you will be able to see our recent event, WATER: An Interfaith Exchange mentioned under Events.

WATER: An Interfaith Exchange

On May 9, Harbor was delighted to show up in full force for our interfaith event held at St. Mark’s Presbyterian in Newport Beach. Thank you to all who were able to make it out to this important event. Rae and Nate Hower-Haken wrote a short reflection on the experience they had attending the event. Thanks to them for this lovely review.

It was wonderful to come together as Muslims, Christians, and Jews at the interfaith climate conversation about water, especially in this time of such visceral global strife. Coming together to remind ourselves that what we have in common biologically, ecologically, and culturally felt like a relief, remembering that what we share is bigger and deeper than what pulls us apart. The water communion was especially meaningful, as everyone lined up to pour water into a single basin from across Orange County and as far away as the holy city of Mecca. We were grateful to be a part of this lovely event. - Nate and Rae Hower-Haken

ree — Harbor members attend Water WUICAN event. Nat and Rae Haken, not pictured.

Pastors Sadie and Ryan led the gathered community in a Water Communion that Rae and Nate mentioned in their reflection. If you would like to read the script for the Water Communion, expand the text below by clicking the ( > ) symbol.

Water Communion

INTRODUCTION TO WATER COMMUNION

Good evening, and once again, welcome to this special event. My name is Rev. Sadie Cullumber and I am the Senior Pastor of Harbor Christian Church in Newport Beach. It’s an honor to be here tonight with all of you, with the interfaith religious leaders, with scientists and academics, with community leaders and activists.

What a gift to gather, all of us in our uniqueness, our incredible diversity, to consider the absolute wonder and sacredness of water.

We all come from different parts of the county and beyond. Many of our journeys began far from here. We all come with different ways to pray, to honor the sacred. Some of us may not even pray at all. We all come with vastly different life experiences, backgrounds, worldviews, belief systems. We all come with different languages, different hair colors and skin tones. We all come with different dreams and visions for our lives, and our communities. And yet, there are sacred things that remind us, no matter how different we all are, we are eternally bound to one another and to this earth we call home. One of these sacred things that reminds us of our connections is water.

Water that makes up 70% of our bodies.

Water that has been recycled through rocks and minerals and root systems, and soil ecologies, and gardens, and bodies, and rivers, and seas, and aquifers for billions and billions of years.

Water that is life.

Water that held each one of us in the womb of the one who birthed us.

Water that cleanses and nourishes and refreshes.

Water that moves and flows around our globe, just as it moves and flows through our bodies.

Water connects us, even when we live in a world of disconnection.

Water soothes us, even when we live in a world of pain and violence.

Water refreshes us, even as we experience weariness that never ceases.

Water cleanses us, even as we clutter ourselves with life’s worries and griefs.

Water also represents the joy and peace that is possible when we join with one another in community.

And so, in order to honor the sacredness of water, we are going to create a community ritual this evening. Our ritual this evening can serve as a reminder of how water has been a healing element in our lives. And maybe this community ritual will also be an opportunity to remember how our diverse faith traditions have used water in ritual, in cleansing, healing, birthing, and releasing. And for those who don’t claim a faith tradition, this ritual can be a reminder of how water holds and nourishes you.

Several of those gathered this evening have collected water this week from across Orange County. We’ve filled bottles with ocean and harbor water. We’ve also brought water from our homes and other bodies of water. Each bottle has a different kind of water, with different qualities, different salts and minerals, representing the sacredness of diversity.

And so in a moment, I’m going to invite those who would like to come forward to choose a bottle, or bring your own. And once you have your bottle, you’ll notice a label on it which tells us where the water was collected. We’d like for you to read the label into the microphone and then pour the bottle into the baptism font that has been generously offered by St. Mark’s.

In our ritual, we’ll combine our waters together, reminding ourselves of the connections and unity that lies BELOW all the things that we have allowed to divide us, to separate us from one another.

To begin our ritual, I’d like to invite any children or youth to come forward first.

COMMUNITY WATER RITUAL

Thank you for bringing your water. Thank you for combining your water with mine, with each one here. Thank you. My heart is very full.

EMBODIED PRACTICE

At the beginning of our time together, we combined our water collected from diverse places across Orange County. And you’ve listened to Dr. Steve Allison share about water as part of the larger climate ecology of Orange County. And you’ve listened to Kayla Villegas who shared the importance of water from a justice perspective.

And now, I’d like to take a moment and really embody what we’ve experienced. I’d love for you to close your eyes, or if that’s not comfortable for you, just soften your eyes, and let them gaze at something.

As you’ve softened and closed your eyes, I’m wondering if you’re beginning to see how unique this gathering is, all of the different people that are sharing space together.

And I’m wondering if we can imagine ourselves as beautiful vessels of water, seated next to each other, pulling the shared air through our own vessel of water.

Your diversity next to mine, each one unique.

And I wonder what it would take for each of us to pour ourselves into the vessel of community. I wonder how mighty a river we could create, if we did.

Your water is sacred, each one of you, just as you are. Become aware of the water in you, and offer it blessing and kindness. Now, become aware of the water in the person to your right, and offer it blessing and kindness. In the same way, become aware of the water in the person to your left, and offer it blessing and kindness.

Before we open our eyes, imagine the communal vessel that we poured our waters into. These are the waters that were poured out and joined with one another. These are the waters that forgot their separation, and remembered their unity.

Offer blessing and kindness to these waters and give thanks.

When you’re ready, open your eyes as you take a few deep breaths, giving thanks and blessing and kindness to yourself, all those gathered, and the waters that connect us.

CLOSING OF WATER COMMUNION

Blessing for Water

Spiritual Practice by Starhawk, The Earth Path

Praise and gratitude to the sacred waters of the world, to the oceans, the mother of life, the womb of the plant life that freshens our air with oxygen, the brew that is stirred by sunlight and the moon's gravity into the great currents and tides that move across the earth, circulating the means of life, bringing warmth to the frozen Arctic and cool, fresh winds to the tropics. We give thanks for the blessed clouds and the rain that brings the gift of life to the land, that eases the thirst of roots, that grows the trees and sustains life even in the dry desert. We give thanks for the springs that bring life-giving water up from the ground, for the small streams and creeks, for the mighty rivers. We praise the beauty of water, the sparkle of the sunlight on a blue lake, the shimmer of moonlight on the ocean's waves, the white spray of the waterfall. We take delight in the sweet singing of the dancing stream and the roar of the river in the flood.

We ask help to know within ourselves all the powers of water: to wear down and to build up, to ebb and to flow, to nurture and to destroy, to merge and to separate. We know that water has great powers of healing and cleansing, and we also know that water is vulnerable to contamination and pollution. We ask help in our work as healers, in our efforts to ensure that the waters of the world run clean and run free, that all the earth's children have the water they need to sustain abundance of life. Blessed be the water.

RECOLLECTION OF WATER

Community is invited to return to the joined waters and take a bottle to bring to their own home and use as a blessing.