Full Service

Sunday December 18, 2016

CZ

Prelude: What Night is This? vocals, keyboards, adaption- Katerina El Haj
guitar- Jay Myerson – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATDVDGlc7oc

Welcome:

This is the Solstice,
the still point of the sun,
its cups and midnight,
the year’s threshold
and unlocking, where
the past lets go of and
becomes the future;
the place of caught breath,
the door of a vanished
house left ajar.

Margaret Atwood

Song: Gathered Here

Chalice Lighting:  In the Bleak and Cold Winter By Cynthia Landrum
In the bleak and cold winter,
We gather ourselves in
To light the fire to warm our spirits,
To kindle the flame of love and hope.

Song: The Principles Song (to the tune of Do Re Mi):
One, each person is important.
Two, be kind in all you do.
Three, we’re free to learn together.
Four, and search for what is true.
Five, all people have a voice.
Six, build a fair and peaceful world.
Seven, we care for Earth’s lifeboat.
That will bring us back to me and UU.

Continue reading →

Sunday December 4, 2016: Walking In the Woods

Robert
Swallow Falls State Park, Oakland, MD

Prelude: Heyr himna smiður – Árstíðir

[Heyr, himna smiður (Hear, Smith of the Heavens) was written by the Icelandic chieftain and poet Kolbeinn Tumason, according to tradition, on his deathbed in 1208 AD. Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson set the poem to music in 1973. This recording features the Icelandic “Indie Rock” group Árstíðir. For more information, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolbeinn_Tumason.]

Welcome: The beauty of the whole, By Meg Barnhouse

We gather to worship, our hearts alive with hope that here we will be truly seen, that here we will be welcomed into the garden of this community, where the simple and the elegant, the fluted and frilled, the shy and the dramatic complement one another and are treasured. May we know that here, each contributes in their way to the beauty of the whole. Come, let us worship together, all genders, sexualities, politics, clappers and non-clappers, progressive or conservative, may we root ourselves in the values of this faith: compassion and courage, transcendence, justice and transformation.

Chalice lighting: Afraid of the dark, By Andrew Pakula

In sightless night, terrors draw near
Nameless fears of talon and tooth
Hopelessness yawns before us—an abyss
Alone and unknown in the gloom, longing for the dawn
O sacred flame blaze forth—wisdom brought to life
Guide us—
With the light of hope
The warmth of love
The beacon of purpose and meaning
Because we are all afraid of the dark
Let there be light

Song: Come Whoever You Are (5 times) Continue reading →

Sunday November 20, 2016: Joy in the Moment

Robert

Prelude: Morning Has Broken – Cat Stevens

Welcome: Look To This Day by Kalidasa

Look to this day:
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence.
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendor of beauty
Are but experiences of time.
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision;
But today well-lived, makes
Yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day.

Chalice Lighting by Yvonne Aburrow

The chalice is the fullness of life’s experiences
And the emptiness of innocent openness to wonder
As we light the chalice flame
Let us explore the empire of the senses,
Let us celebrate experience and experiment:
the twin expressions of freedom, reason and tolerance. Continue reading →

Sunday, October 4, 2016: Defying the Nazis

Robert
Martha and Waitstill Sharp

Welcome: To Remind Ourselves What Is Real, By Elena Westbrook

In a world ravaged by violence, by hatred,
by conflicts that seem eternal and insoluble,
sometimes the only thing we can do
is be still for a moment
to remind ourselves what is real:
the sun that rose this morning,
the dirt under our feet,
the air whispering in and out of our lungs.

This hour, try just to be present in each moment as it unfolds.
Your simple attention is what makes these moments holy.

Chalice lighting: Embrace The Night, By Jennifer Leota Gray

Universal mystery,
Guide us away from the desire to
Shine light in all the corners.
Teach us to embrace the night,
For without the darkness,
We never see the stars.

Continue reading →

Sunday, September 4, 2016: Love in a Time of Fear and Loathing

LdeG

Prelude: Once to Every Man and Nation

Welcome: Thich Nhat Hanh (SLT 505)

Let us be at peace with our bodies and our minds. Let us return to ourselves and become wholly ourselves. Let us be aware of the source of being, common to us all and to all living things.

Evoking the presence of the Great Compassion, let us fill our hearts with our own compassion—towards ourselves and towards all living beings.

Let us pray that we ourselves cease to be the cause of suffering to each other.

With humility, with awareness of the existence of life, and of the suffering that are going on around us, let us practice the establishment of peace in our hearts and on earth.

 Chalice Lighting: The Gift of Love

Come, Spirit, come, our hearts control,
Our spirits long to be made whole.
Let inward love guide every deed;
By this we worship, and are freed.

Song: Gathered Here (3 times) Continue reading →

Sunday August 7, 2016: Redemptive Art?

Robert
6 Turning Leaves

Prelude: Amarillo by Morning – George Strait

Welcome: We gather together to face ourselves honestly, By Philip Larson

We gather together to face ourselves honestly,
to forgive ourselves gently,
to love one another fervently.

Chalice lighting: For every time we make a mistake, By Maureen Killoran

For every time we make a mistake and we decide to start again:
We light this chalice.
For every time we are lonely and we let someone be our friend:
We light this chalice.
For every time we are disappointed and we choose to hope:
We light this chalice.

Song: Gathered Here In the Mystery of This Hour (3 times)

Gathered here in the mystery of this hour.
Gathered here in one strong body.
Gathered here in the struggle and the power.
Spirit draw near.

Principles of Unitarian Universalism
Unitarian Universalist congregations affirm and promote seven Principles:

  • The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
  • Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
  • Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
  • A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
  • The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
  • The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
  • Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Story for All Ages: from “Leaf by Niggle”, by J.R.R. Tolkien
(https://heroicjourneys.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/niggle.pdf)

{Today’s “story for all ages” was taken from a little-known story by J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien says that he wrote it around 1938 or 1939, after he woke one morning “with it already in mind.” It was originally published in 1946 in the Dublin Review, then republished in 1964, joined with the essay “On Fairy-Stories”, in a small volume titled Tree and Leaf.}
Continue reading →

Sunday July 17, 2016

CZ

Prelude: Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony 2nd Movement

 Welcome:
“Belief must be something different from a mixture of opinions about God and the world, and of precepts for one life or for two. Piety cannot be an instinct craving for a mess of metaphysical and ethical crumbs.”
― Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers

“Whenever I find a spark of that hidden fire that will sooner or later consume the old and create the new, I am drawn to it with love and hope, regarding it as a sign of my future home.”
― Friedrich Schleiermacher

Chalice Lighting: IN THE MYSTERY OF LIFE ABOUT US THERE IS LIGHT. By George Kimmich Beach

In the mystery of life about us there is light.
It gives us a place to be, to grow, to rejoice together.
It opens the pathways to love.
In this place of friendship there is freedom.
Let the light we kindle go before us,
Strong in hope, wide in good will,
Inviting the day to come.

Continue reading →

Sunday, May 22, 2016: Dissent, Heresy, and Innovation

Robert
Dissenter of Sidmouth

Prelude Galileo – Indigo Girls

Welcome The beauty of the whole – Meg Barnhouse

We gather to worship, our hearts alive with hope that here we will be truly seen, that here we will be welcomed into the garden of this community, where the simple and the elegant, the fluted and frilled, the shy and the dramatic complement one another and are treasured. May we know that here, each contributes in their way to the beauty of the whole. Come, let us worship together, all genders, sexualities, politics, clappers and non-clappers, progressive or conservative, may we root ourselves in the values of this faith: compassion and courage, transcendence, justice and transformation.

Chalice lighting In memory of all the flames – Amarette Callaway

In memory of all the flames that didn’t die—
in the midst of darkness,
in spite of the darkness,
we light this flame today.
“The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:5 NRSV)

Continue reading →

Sunday, April 24, 2016: Frontier Faith and a God of Love

LdeG

Prelude: Morning Prayer by Hosea Ballou Sung by Second Ireland Sacred Harp Singers

Welcome
Hosea Ballou said “Man, being not only a religious, but also a social being, requires for the promotion of his rational happiness religious institutions, which, while they give a proper direction to devotion, at the same time make a wise, and profitable improvement of his social feelings.” And so we gather here, not only to practice our religion, but to support each other.

Chalice Lighting Drawn Together – Jennifer Leota Gray
We come together every week bound not by a creed,
Or a mutual desire to please one God or many Gods
Yet we are drawn together by a belief, that how we are in the world,
Who we are together matters.
We light this chalice, together in the knowledge
That love, not fear, can change this world Continue reading →