The annual Blessing of the Waters at Waterfall Park in Blue Island will be back at full strength on Saturday after a quiet celebration last year after a pause because of the coronavirus pandemic, and the date has a special meaning.
“Water is extremely important to us. We selected this date because of World Water Week to celebrate clean water all over the world,” said Tom Shepherd, a community activist who helped launch the event in 2006. “The river touches on so many communities as it comes through.”
He said the blessing “brings people out and makes them aware of the environment and how important clean water is.”
“We think that folks should learn about and acknowledge the fact and participate in a clean environment, doing their share to participate in cleaning the environment — if not actually cleaning it (then) praying for the environment,” Shepherd said. “This is a good brotherly way for people to come together one day of the year because water is good for humans, animals and plants.”
Shepherd spent 20 years with the Southeast Environmental Task Force based in Chicago’s Hegewisch neighborhood and persuaded his good friend and Episcopal priest the Rev. Rodney Reinhart, of St. Joseph/St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church in Blue Island, to become a task force board member.
“We were involved in fighting dirty coal, landfills … all the industry and dirty stuff that had occurred over there,” he said. “When Rod came on board, he brought spirituality with him and we’d pray about things.”
They were touring areas by the Cal-Sag Channel in 2006 and decided to conduct a blessing of the waters, which was attended by about a dozen people. The event moved to Waterfall Park the following year.
The park has a special role in the channel — helping to clean the water, thanks to help from four pumps.
“By pumping the water up and having it go down the waterfall, it puts oxygen into the water,” Shepherd said. It somewhat cleanses it and replenishes it.”
Officials with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, which operates the site, typically attend the blessing, he said.
After Reinhart’s death in 2015, Shepherd invited the Rev. MaryBeth Ingberg of Immanuel United Church of Christ in Evergreen Park to lead the blessing. The two had worked together in Southsiders for Peace — she said she’s known him for 25 years — and Ingberg had attended previous blessings.
“My first year it was the first anniversary of Rev. Rod’s passing,” Ingberg said, adding that more and more people have been coming to the event and helping out by providing donations, putting up canopies and bringing food and water.
The event, which starts at 3 p.m. Saturday, is designed to represent many perspectives.
“My comments as officiant are inclusive of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Native American traditions that call on us to love and protect water, the Earth,” she explained.
The ceremony typically lasts an hour, she said, though people often stick around afterward “to enjoy refreshments and conversation.”
She said she did a lot of research for the blessing itself, which she tries to keep to about 10 or 12 minutes. As a member of SWIFT — the SouthWest InterFaith Team, which promotes dialogue among Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religious communities, she wanted to be inclusive.
“I have a quote from the Quran there. The Dalai Lama has four Buddhist responses to the challenges of caring for the environment and I named those,” Ingberg said. “I have a handout I give everyone. It’s this poem that I do in Spanish and English from a Vietnamese Buddhist monk.”
She also includes an affirmation from the Unitarian Universalists of America called the Water Community Ritual for Justice Making.
The Mudcats Dixieland Jazz Band will play as people arrive at the park as well as during the fellowship time after the program.
Blue Island Mayor Fred Bilotto will say a few words before the blessing. He said he’s been involved in the event for years because he has known Shepherd for a long time and was Reinhart’s friend.
“I was the alderman in the area where the waterfall is before I was mayor,” he added.
“It’s a good get-together to see friends and people who appreciate the water and what it means to the community. We’re unique where we have a lot of history with the MWRD. We had the canal during the I&M days and had the locks before they were moved to Lockport.”
The mayor thinks Blue Island has “the prettiest waterfall park” of those built by the MWRD.
“It was built (in the 1990s) with a purpose. There’s underground pipes, a pump house. The whole 9-acres park has a system to pump water out and through the waterfall, providing more life into the water.”
After the blessing, attendees are invited to dip small tree branches into a bucket of water scooped from the canal and share their own small blessings.
“I think that’s my favorite part — that different people get to say something in their own way, thanking God and mentioning about the environment and clean water,” Shepherd said.
He added that Reinhart used to blow a ram’s horn in each of the four directions and say something. “He was a good showman,” he said.
Ingberg said she “has a great time” doing the blessing and enjoys hearing the short blessings of people who dip a branch into the bucket of water and wave it over the spillway. She also loves seeing the diversity of people who participate and how the event seems to grow each year with participants, vendors and donors.
“I get so many positive, amazing responses,” she said. “They’re like ‘Wow — this was really meaningful. This was really great.’ I charge them to make this part of their life and bring up the positive.”
Ingberg said she designs her portion of the program to be positive to motivate people to do advocacy work and look at long-term effects.
“I think it’s helping the community become aware of how important the water is not just for drinking or our human use, for but nature itself, for our environment and some of the dangerous things that we really need to be mindful of and actively participate in protecting.”
Melinda Moore is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
