chalica

Chalica 2019 Day 3

CZ

Chalica is a week long holiday celebrating the Seven UU Principles. It is a time of reflection, community, and living our faith.

Here are some ways to help you celebrate.

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A Meditation:

Marginal Wisdom by Leslie Takahashi

A thought to Ponder:

The adult version of this principle states we accept one another. Who do you have a hard time accepting?

A Song:

A Story:

 

Yellow picture credit to Kris Nobis Cervantes. 

Chalica 2019 Day 2

CZ

Chalica is a week long holiday celebrating the Seven UU Principles. It is a time of reflection, community, and living our faith.

Here are some ways to help you celebrate.

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Two Meditations:

A Prayer for Rising to the Occasion by Laura Horton-Ludwig

To the People who Have Mistaken Freedom for Justice by Theresa I. Soto

 

A Thought to Ponder:

Should you be kind to people who hurt you? What about people who commit really terrible crimes?

A Song:

 

 

Orange picture credit: Kris Nobis Cervantes

Chalica 2019 Day 1

CZ

Chalica is a week long holiday celebrating the Seven UU Principles. It is a time of reflection, community, and living our faith.

Here are some ways to help you celebrate.

FB_IMG_1575262726010

A Meditation: Prayer of Storytelling by Mandie McGlynn

A thought to ponder:

What makes someone important? Is it their abilities, their job, their status? Or, is it something more?

A Song:

Red Image Credit: Kris Nobis Cervantes

Chalica 2017 Day 7

CZ

For each day of Chalica we will offer activities, some are fun and some are more reflecting, a chalice lighting, and a meditation. Gather everyone together, light the chalice, and breathe into the principles with us each day.

Activities:

  • Identify ways your family can be more green. Start a compost, recycle, bike more? As a family, choose one and commit!
  • Clean up trash at a park or in your neighborhood.
  • Advocate that your workplace, or your school, be more eco-friendly. Ask for recycle bins and reuse as much as possible.
  • Volunteer at a local animal shelter.
  • Shop your local farmer’s market for local and organic fruits and veggies.
  • If you aren’t already vegetarian or vegan, plan to make a vegetarian or vegan meal.
  • As the saying goes, “Reuse, Reduce, Recycle.” Today, recycle something from your house that would have been trash and create something with it: art, a gift, or a handy item.
  • Write a journal entry about how the world is connected together.
  • Rescue an animal.

Chalice Lighting: (If you don’t have a chalice at home, remember that the point of a chalice is that it is a symbol so any candle will work.) Since it is the last day there are two.

For the Web of Life By Paul Sprecher

We light this chalice for the web of life which sustains us,
For the sacred circle of life in which we have our being,
For the Earth, the Sky, Above and Below, and
For our Mother Earth, and for the Mystery.

 

All Animal Chalice By Mark Causey
We light this chalice, spark of the original fire of creation, to remind us that we all on this planet—the furred, the feathered, the finned, and the scaled, along with us featherless bipeds—we are all made of the same star-stuff and all share a common destiny. We all share the same hopes of a life free from harm and suffering and the same aspirations of happiness, love, and flourishing—being able to express our own unique natures and capacities as best we may. We are just that many diverse perspectives from which the whole is seen and experienced. We are inextricably intertwined, interconnected and interdependent. And it is good.

Blessed be.

 

Meditation: 
There are two meditations.

Blessing of the Water by Ranwa Hammamy

Bring us Close to Earth by Lyn Cox

Here is a musical meditation as well. This is Peter Mayer’s “Blue Boat Home”.

 

Season’s Blessings,
Cricket

Chalica 2017 Day 6

CZ

For each day of Chalica we will offer activities, some are fun and some are more reflecting, a chalice lighting, and a meditation. Gather everyone together, light the chalice, and breathe into the principles with us each day.

Activities:

  • Volunteer as a family or make a plan to volunteer on a regular basis
  • Write a Holiday card for a veteran, person, at a nursing home, or a neighbor
  • Go for a walk and randomly compliment people you pass.
  • Write a journal entry about what peace means to you
  • Write a journal entry about what liberty means to you
  • Write a journal entry about what justice means to you
  • Read stories of injustice from around the world
  • Read about other holidays from around the world.

Chalice Lighting: (If you don’t have a chalice at home, remember that the point of a chalice is that it is a symbol so any candle will work.)

 A Spark of Hope By Melanie Davis

If ever there were a time for a candle in the darkness,
this would be it.
Using a spark of hope,
kindle the flame of love,
ignite the light of peace,
and feed the flame of justice.

 

Meditation: 
There are two meditations.

Beatitudes for Justice Builders by Lindi Ramsden

Children’s Christmas Sermon by Gary Kowalski

Here is a musical meditation as well. This is “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” by John & Yoko, The Plastic Ono Band with The Harlem Community Choir.

 

Season’s Blessings,
Cricket

Chalica 2017 Day 5

CZ

For each day of Chalica we will offer activities, some are fun and some are more reflecting, a chalice lighting, and a meditation. Gather everyone together, light the chalice, and breathe into the principles with us each day.

Activities:

  • Listen to a friend who needs to talk without offering advice.
  • Write a letter to someone in the legislature.
  • Find out how to get on the board at your church.
  • Find out when your City Council meets and plan to go to the next meeting.
  • Host a family meal and everyone gets to vote on what you will make.
  • Write a journal entry about what the democratic process means to you.
  • Watch a movie as a family, but everyone has to vote on what it’s going to be.

Chalice Lighting: (If you don’t have a chalice at home, remember that the point of a chalice is that it is a symbol so any candle will work.)

Reminder of the Inner Light By Gregory David Miller

This fire is a reminder of the light within us all;
the yearning for freedom,
the longing for truth,
the flame of intuition,
the torch of conscience.
We dedicate this service to the remembrance of this Holy Light.

 

Meditation:
There are two meditations. The second one is even fun for kids.

Give Voice to Mourning by Lindasusan Ulrich

The Great Pie-Rat Controversy by Naomi King

 

Here is a musical meditation as well. This is Dion’s “Abraham, Martin, and John” because it focuses on people who lived this principle.

 

Season’s Blessings,
Cricket

PS: Very sorry this is a day late.

Chalica 2017 Day 4

CZ

For each day of Chalica we will offer activities, some are fun and some are more reflecting, a chalice lighting, and a meditation. Gather everyone together, light the chalice, and breathe into the principles with us each day.

Activities:

  • Find answers to questions in your family question box or find the answer to a question you have wanted to learn for a long time.
  • Go the whole day without lying (no white lies, answer honestly when people ask how you are, no lies of convenience).
  • Unitarian Universalism is a very long name, and not many people know much about it. Create an elevator, or playground, speech so you can tell people what it means to be a UU in one minute or less.
  • Check out a podcast like The Pamphlet or The VUU to learn some history or about something going on in the UU movement at the moment.
  • Do a science experiment.
  • Write a journal entry with your thoughts on truth and meaning. What does it mean to search for them? What is a free and responsible search?
  • Walk a labyrinth or do a virtual labyrinth meditation

Chalice Lighting: (If you don’t have a chalice at home, remember that the point of a chalice is that it is a symbol so any candle will work.)

The Meaning of the Chalice By Martha Kirby Capo

For some, the chalice cup is a communion cup, freely offered to all who would seek the greater Truth. Others see the circle of fellowship in its embracing sides. The sacred hoop of its rim, the ambient energy cradled in its basin, the abiding, grounded strength of its pedestal: may all be lit by the fire of spiritual integrity; so too may we each be bathed in the glow of our shared Truth, multifaceted and radiant.

Meditation: Today there are two meditations.

Hide and Seek with God by Mary Anne Moore

Try to Love the Questions Themselves by Rainer Maria Rilke

Here is a Music Meditation for you. It is “I Know This Rose Will Open” performed by the Clarence High School Treble Choir

Season’s Blessings,

Cricket

Chalica 2017 Day Three

CZ

For each day of Chalica we will offer activities, some are fun and some are more reflecting, a chalice lighting, and a meditation. Gather everyone together, light the chalice, and breathe into the principles with us each day.

Activities:

  • Cook a meal you’ve never made before, especially one from another culture
  • Attend a lecture, visit a museum, or go to see a play. Discuss the event with someone around you.
  • Discuss your religious beliefs and how they have changed over the years.
  • Write a journal entry about acceptance and spiritual growth
  • Play a board game with family or friends that none of you have ever played before
  • Meditate on something from each of the Six Sources

Chalice Lighting: (If you don’t have a chalice at home, remember that the point of a chalice is that it is a symbol so any candle will work.)

Thirsty By Gregory Pelley

And so we gather, from the ebb and flow of our lives
Thirsty for connection to ourselves
Thirsty for connection to others
Thirsty for connection to the larger life.

As we light this chalice
May all who gather here be filled:
Filled with joy and hope
Filled with compassion and love

Here, may we be filled
So that we may pour ourselves out
into the world.

Meditation:
There are two meditations today one about building spiritual walls and one about choice.

Towers of Babel by George A. Tyger

Choice by Alex Kapitan

 

Here is a musical meditation as well. U2’s “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” is about doubt, which is part of Acceptance and Spiritual Growth.

Season’s Blessings,
Cricket