Returning to the Springs

a reflection by Rev. Abhi Janamanchi

I had been waiting almost thirty years for Friday night. I have been coming to Meghalaya for years, but somehow every visit missed Founders Anniversary. This time, the calendar finally aligned.

So Friday evening I found myself walking through the streets of Jowai with hundreds of Khasi Unitarians. Torches burned throughout the procession. Unitarian hymns played over a loudspeaker and people sang as they walked: children, young people, adults, elders. All along the route, people had placed illuminated chalices in windows and doorways. You would pass one house and see a chalice, then another, then another.

I was thrilled just to be in the middle of it.

At one point I looked ahead and saw the procession moving down the street, torches flickering among the people. I turned around and saw how far it stretched behind us. Somewhere among the Khasi hymns, another song started running through my head: This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. 

And then, inevitably: Hide it under a bushel? NO! I’m gonna let it shine.

Nobody was hiding anything under a bushel in Jowai that night. The faith was out in the streets. People were singing it, walking it, carrying it. Children beside grandparents. Neighbors standing outside watching. Chalices glowing from houses as we passed. It was embodied Unitarianism, the good news of our faith out in the world where everybody could see it and hear it.

That procession began long before any of us stepped onto the road that evening. On September 18, 1887, Babu Hajom Kissor Singh experienced the revelation of Divine Light that would give birth to Niam Ai Ei, the indigenous Unitarian faith of Northeast India. Niam can mean belief, custom, religion, rites, worship. Ai Ei means to give freely. A faith rooted in prayer and service, in what is freely given.

Kissor Singh received something and gave it away. Others did the same. People gathered. Congregations formed. Children learned the faith, grew up, and taught it to their children. And there we were, 139 years later, walking through Jowai.

Over the weekend, Dr. Rupaia Lamar, whom some of you may remember from his visit to Cedar Lane, taught me another word: anibarsari. Related to the word anniversary, Rupaia has proposed using it for the anniversary of the founding of the church by Hajom Kissor Singh and the other founders. But he spoke about more than marking another year. He spoke about returning, reunion, coming home, going back to the founders and to the inspiration that gave birth to the faith.

Returning to the springs.

You return to the spring because you are thirsty. You drink. And then you go on.

While I was in Meghalaya celebrating the 139th anniversary of Khasi Unitarianism, Cedar Lane was approaching an anniversary of its own. 

Today, we turn 75.

Seventy five years ago, people gathered for Cedar Lane’s founding service. They could not have known what Cedar Lane would become. They didn't know whose children would grow up there. Whose weddings we would celebrate. Whose lives we would gather to remember. What causes we would march for. What music would fill the sanctuary. What arguments we would have. What mistakes we would make. Who would arrive at our doors needing a religious home.

They simply began.

And seventy five years later, here we are. What they began is in our hands now.

Maybe that is what an anniversary is for. Not only to say, look how long we have been here, but to go back to the spring and ask: What gave these people life? What were they trying to make possible? What have we received from them? What needs repair? What can we let go? What do we want to hand to people we will never meet?

There is another Khasi phrase that many at Cedar Lane will recognize: To Nangroi. Keep progressing. Keep growing. Keep flourishing. Keep shining.

From here in Meghalaya, I hear our own 75th anniversary theme, Rooted and Rising, differently.

Anibarsari calls us back to the springs, to remember what has given us life. Rooted.

To Nangroi calls us to keep going, keep growing. Rising.

I keep seeing that procession through Jowai. I looked ahead and saw people walking in front of me. I turned around and saw people coming behind. For a little while, I was simply somewhere in the middle.

That is where all of us are. Someone was here before us. Someone will come after us. For a little while, this faith is ours to tend.

Perhaps that is the invitation of this 75th anniversary: to be grateful for what has been handed to us without thinking our work is simply to preserve it. To keep becoming the congregation our time asks us to be. To carry our Unitarian Universalism beyond our walls, out into the world where people can see it in how we live.

May we know what gives us life and keep growing.

May we mend what needs mending.

May we release what no longer serves life.

May we love where love is needed.

May we leave something worthy in the hands of those who come after us.

And may the faith entrusted to us never be hidden away, but lived boldly in our homes, in our congregation, in our communities, and out in the streets.

Seventy five years behind us. The road ahead of us.

Happy Anibarsari, Cedar Lane!

Keep Progressing. Keep Flourishing. Keep Shining.

To Nangroi.