Enter the Conversation: Liturgy and Water

From baptism to funerals to ritual cleansing, water is used in most religions to signify passage–into life or into death, from the everyday to the to sacred. A woman’s water breaks just before her child is born. Rivers carry away the dead. Everywhere we see spirit, we see water. It is above us, below us, inside us. Liturgy is a language of metaphor, and water can be used as a metaphor for nearly everything. Water connects different countries by serving as boundary or transport; water connects spiritual traditions by reminding us how little boundaries mean. The role it plays in our lives, and the emotions and ideas it evokes, do not change much between cultures. To explore the use of water in liturgy is to see the common human awe of the divine, as well as human gratitude for the mercy of nature.

Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche, distinguished teacher and founder of Jewel Heart, a Tibetan Buddhist Center will join Daisy Khan, Executive Director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), and The Reverend Tom Miller, Canon for Liturgy & the Arts at the Cathedral to examine how water is used and understood in the Abrahamic and Tibetan Buddhist traditions. The Very Reverend Dr. James A. Kowalski, Dean of the Cathedral, will moderate. An additional guest will be announced shortly.