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  • “The beauty of the world is the mouth of a labyrinth,” writes Simone Weil. We would be foolish not to follow its call. And so we enter the labyrinth, lured by the whiff of a dream still in the making: the possibility of a new relationship, the promise of a new career, the potential for a new...
    Reading | By Erik W. Martínez Resly | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Challenge, Change, Failure, Faith, Journey, Living Our Faith
  • May you be brave enough to expose your aching woundedness and reveal your vulnerability. May you speak your deepest truths, knowing that they will change as you do. May you sing the music within you, composing your own melody, playing your song with all your heart....
    Blessing | By Jean M. Olson | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Bridging Ceremony, Brokenness, Change, Child Dedication, Courage, Integrity, Journey, Love, New Child, Truth, Vulnerability, Young Adults, Youth/Teens
  • shouting back to Stevie Smith who cried “I’m drowning! Not waving!” I ain’t waving babe, I’m drowning going down in a cold lonely sea I ain’t waving babe, I’m drowning so babe quit waving at me I ain’t waving babe, I’m crying I’m crying, oh why can’t you see? I ain’t fooling...
    Poetry | By Ric Masten | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Brokenness, Caring, Connections, Despair, Pain
  • I stretch forth my hand Knowing not what I shall touch... A tender spot, An open wound, Warmth, Pulsing life, Fragile blossoms, A rock, Ice. I am tentative, trembling... Wishing to avoid hurt, Wanting to link my life with Life. Lonely, I desire companions Naked, I long for defenders....
    Poetry | By Gordon B McKeeman | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Caring, Connections, Despair, Hope, Intimacy, Vulnerability
  • In order to get out I must go through. There is no other way. No other way? But there must be another way, an easier path, a well-lit road. I cast about, scan the horizon— No other way. The way out is the way through. The way through is the way hard....
    Poetry | By Kathy Fuson Hurt | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Challenge, Ending, Journey, Letting Go, Patience, Strength
  • Headlights, taillights, going, coming; it does not matter inside. Draw a curtain across the window, lock the door and break the key. Let the interior deepen and broaden until it exceeds this ­little room. You will go out when you are ready, when the tiny inner Self no longer fits. Awareness will...
    Meditation | By Jean M. Olson | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Change, Growth, Identity, Integrity, Progress, Transformation
  • It hurts to let go of intensity that zapped like electricity yesterday. It hurts to disconnect arcing power, watch it ground and vanish. What was it that surged through us to lighten gray, indifferent skies? What was it that connected our hearts to hope?...
    Poetry | By Stephen M. Shick | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Forgiveness, Letting Go, Pain, Power
  • Oh, the comfort—the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person—having neither to weigh thoughts nor mea­sure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then...
    Quote | By Dinah Maria Mulock Craik | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Caring, Direct Experience, Friendship, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Relationships
  • with a bow to Ysaye Barnwell and Stephanie Kaza Spirit within all, mysterious force giving shape to life, miraculous source and river of being, help us to know who we are, to see our place in the history of the earth and in the ­family of things; help us to see that we are part of all that ever...
    Prayer | By Rebecca A Edmiston-Lange | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Awe, Connections, Earth, Generations, Gratitude, Wonder
  • Today we light our candle of remembrance. On April 19, 1943 the Jewish community in the Warsaw ghetto rose up against their captors in a valiant effort to regain their freedom and return a common humanity to those intent on destroying their very existence....
    Reading | By Karen Mooney | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 6th Principle (World Community), 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Anti-Oppression, Brokenness, Direct Experience, History, Holocaust Remembrance / Yom Ha'Shoah, Human Rights, Humanism, Identity, Judaism, Prayer Practices, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Race/Ethnicity, Solidarity
  • I somehow lost my chalice necklace on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston the same day I lost my marriage and my religion. I must have dropped it while I was walking down the street. It was a bad day. Let me back up. I grew up Unitarian Universalist. I had a chalice necklace for a long time that I only...
    Reading | By Robin Bartlett | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Identity, Meaning, Searching
  • Our task is to be who we are, in every way we can be; our salvation proceeding in putting ­ourselves back together after each tumble...We irridesce, shine, and radiate. We exclaim and roar: we are.
    Quote | By Kenneth L. Patton | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Identity, Purpose, Self-Respect
  • Identity is one of those concepts I have tried desperately to push to the sidelines for most of mi vida. It was always too complicated, too painful, or too divisive....
    Reading | By Saul Ulloa | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Anti-Oppression, Direct Experience, Family, Generations, Identity, Multiculturalism, Race/Ethnicity
  • They teach us to read in black and white. Truth is this—the rest false. You are whole—or broken. Who you love is acceptable—or not. Life tells its truth in many hues. We are taught to think in either/or. To believe the teachings of Jesus—OR Buddha. To believe in human potential—OR a power...
    Meditation | By Leslie Takahashi | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Connections, Direct Experience, Diversity, Division, Interdependence, Multiculturalism, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Truth, Unitarian Universalism, Unity
  • I must live my own way, Refusing all that binds. I must know my own mind Among all other minds. I must do my own deeds, And in whatever lands. I will know my own hands Among all other hands. I must forsake the crowds, And walk with lonely fools, To seek for my own face In bleak, deserted pools. I...
    Poetry | By Kenneth L. Patton | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Identity, Individualism, Self-Care
  • I realized I was a woman, or more precisely at the time, a girl, the day in first grade I noticed boys were looking up my dress when I was on the monkey bars. I started wearing shorts under my dresses. I now prefer pants. I realized I liked other women when I was nineteen and noticed I was...
    Reading | By Kayla Parker | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Anti-Oppression, Direct Experience, Identity, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer, Living Our Faith, Self-Respect, Young Adults
  • Each of us is meant to have a character all our own, to be what no other can exactly be, and do what no other can exactly do.
    Quote | By William Ellery Channing | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Character, Identity, Purpose
  • Wisdom, fundamentally, is knowing who you are, where you are, and what you’re trying to do or be.
    Quote | By Gordon B McKeeman | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Identity, Purpose, Wisdom
  • By the time I was in my late twenties, I was convinced that I would never find love. I had had a few boyfriends, but over and over again, I was exiled to the dreaded Friend Zone. I always suspected that it was because I was “too much”: too smart, too feminist, too radical, too fat, too...
    Reading | By Ashley Horan | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Direct Experience, Gender, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer, Living Our Faith, Love, Relationships, Young Adults
  • Give all to love; Obey thy heart; Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good-fame, Plans, credit and the Muse,— Nothing refuse. ’T is a brave master; Let it have scope: Follow it utterly, Hope beyond hope. It was never for the mean; It requireth courage stout. Souls above doubt, Valor unbending, It...
    Poetry | By Ralph Waldo Emerson | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Caring, Family, Friendship, Generosity, Love, Relationships
  • This is what one hundred years look like: A rounded wrinkled back, sparkling wet and soapy above the shower bench, and my hand, having ­gently formed in your seventieth year, and emerged with lifelines bent ­toward blessing, scrubbing ­circles across your soft, white skin. I drag the cloth...
    Poetry | By Angela Herrera | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Body, Caring, Connections, Direct Experience, Generations, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Relationships, Service
  • New ­People came this time, and we shared our stories, the familiar truths, about shock and healing and being glad that at last our children can say who they are, and we know them now, love them more. Funny stories and good news ripple around, and smiles about lesbigay ways, and jokes, against...
    Poetry | By Geoffrey Herbert | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Brokenness, Connections, Direct Experience, Healing, Love, Relationships, Wholeness
  • Be ­gentle with another— It is a cry from the lives of ­people battered By thoughtless words and brutal deeds; It comes from the lips of those who speak them, And the lives of those who do them. Who of us can look inside another and know what is there Of hope and hurt, or promise and pain? Who...
    Meditation | By Richard S. Gilbert | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Anti-Oppression, Caring, Compassion, Love, Pain, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Vulnerability
  • There was a period in my life when, within three months, all my major relationships changed. The most joyous of these was getting married; Sarah and I had dated for three and a half years, and I proposed to her at our holiday party....
    Reading | By Carey McDonald | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Change, Direct Experience, Letting Go, Marriage, Transformation, Young Adults
  • Love is knotted and gnarled, like an old tree fighting with the wind, like branches too brittle for their own good, like roots that relentlessly inform how deeply we can trust and how freely we can forgive.
    Quote | By Jan Carlsson-Bull | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Forgiveness, Love, Strength, Trust, Weakness
  • The history and legacy of Unitarian Universalism are shaped as much by Emerson, Fahs, and Channing as it is by the ancestors in our congregations. We come to it through different avenues: the Internet, an invitation, reading the Transcendentalists, or as babies or ­little kids. I came as a fourth...
    Reading | By Elandria Williams | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Anti-Oppression, Community, Direct Experience, Faith, Identity, Living Our Faith, Love, Violence, Wholeness
  • In the ­struggles we choose for ourselves, in the ways we move forward in our lives and bring our world forward with us, It is right to remember the names of those who gave us strength in this choice of living. It is right to name the power of hard lives well-lived. We share a history with those...
    Affirmation | By Kathleen McTigue | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Día de los Muertos, Generations, History, Justice, Leadership, Memorial Services, Ordinations, Progress, Responsibility
  • I call upon you, <ancestor>, from the Cloud of Witnesses to accompany me today. You teach me <value(s)>, and today I am called to <action/mission>. Walk with me. Inspire me....
    Prayer | By Tandi Rogers | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Identity, Presence, Reverence, Spiritual Practice
  • I lift my eyes up to the hills from where will my help come? My help comes from Love abundant. my help comes from the hills my help—my help, it comes from ancient Mothers whose hearts beat in mine. It comes from the trees that sway and the breeze that sways them . . . my help comes from all that...
    Poetry | By Alicia R. Forde | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Awe, Beauty, Healing, Love, Wonder
  • Now is the time to call on the memories of the ancestors who thought they ­could not walk another step ­toward freedom—and yet they did. It is that time and place to call on the memories of the ancestors who, when the darkness of their lives threatened to take away the hope and light, reached a...
    Poetry | By Qiyamah Rahman | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Calling, Connections, Generations, History, Power, Purpose, Responsibility
  • Let my body remember. Let my hands and feet remember. Let my breath remember those who have come before me, those who have come before us. Didn’t Muhammad wait quietly in his cave? And didn’t Jesus sigh silently by the blue lake? And Guan Yin, didn’t she sit in silence thinking about what to...
    Poetry | By Mark Belletini | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Connections, Contemplation, Generations, History, Silence, Unity
  • A few years ago, my ­little sister moved in with me from our native Los Angeles to the coast of Maine. The move brought a lot of firsts for her: snow, the Atlantic Ocean, and seeing me as an older brother instead of an older sister....
    Reading | By Andrew Coate | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Choice, Direct Experience, Family, History, Identity, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer, Young Adults
  • The universe sings no less because time and space wear us thin. The music calls us to recognize our limitations, to recognize that the song is best sung with others.
    Closing | By Manish Mishra-Marzetti | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Arts & Music, Community, Limitations, Wonder
  • Once upon a time, most folks used the offering plate to fulfill their pledges of financial support. Nowadays lots of folks click on their church websites or set up automatic transfers from their checking accounts. Some still write a monthly check, paying their "church bill" along with all the...
    Offering | By Paul R Beedle | April 24, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Commitment, Direct Experience, Generosity, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Spiritual Practice, Stewardship
  • Unitarian Universalists are mosaic makers.
    Reading | By Marcus Liefert | April 23, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Community, Connections, Direct Experience, Friendship, Identity, Relationships, Unitarian Universalism
  • We meet on holy ground, Brought into being as life encounters life, As personal histories merge into the communal story, As we take on the pride and pain of our companions, As separate selves become community. How desperate is our need for one another: Our silent beckoning to our neighbors, Our...
    Opening | By Richard S. Gilbert | April 23, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Community, Connections, Purpose, Relationships, Sacred
  • Let us enter into a time of meditation, contemplation, and prayer. Feel the earth beneath your feet as it supports you. Feel the love of this community as it surrounds and enfolds you. Feel your breath as it flows in and out of your body. Listen to your heartbeat. Listen to your heart . . ....
    Meditation | By Thomas Rhodes | April 23, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Acceptance, Brokenness, Community, Compassion, Despair, Disaster or Crisis, Healing, Hope, Love, Suffering, Wholeness
  • There is a living web that runs through us To all the universe Linking us each with each and through all life On to the distant stars. Each knows a ­little corner of the world, and lives As if this were his all. We no more see the farther reaches of the threads Than we see of the future, yet...
    Poetry | By Robert T Weston | April 23, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Awe, Connections, Individualism, Unity, Wholeness, Wonder
  • We never know who we are (this is strange, isn’t it?) or what vows we made or who we knew or what we hoped for or where we were when the world’s dreams were seeded. Until the day just one of us sighs a ­gentle longing and we all feel the change one of us calls a name and we all know to be there...
    Poetry | By Margaret Wheatley | April 23, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Connections, Identity, Wonder
  • I am part of you, O Truth Unfolding. I am part of you. I am part of a cosmos. I cannot see either its edge or its end. How amazing! I am part of a galaxy of a million, billion stars. They say it’s a pinwheel. How wonderful! I am part of a system of planets that swing around a small parent star.
    Poetry | By Mark Belletini | April 23, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Awe, Earth, Gratitude, Nature, Unity, Wholeness, Wonder
  • Spirit of the universe, Life force that flows through all beings, Power beyond our knowing, We ask you to help us see beyond our dependence on opposites— To transcend our desire to know who is like us, and who is not. Open us to the knowledge that in this room there are complexities and...
    Poetry | By Alex Kapitan | April 23, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Beauty, Diversity, Individualism, Multiculturalism, Unity, Wholeness
  • When I look up into the night sky, I am in awe of all that is. There in a far away galaxy A star has died, Yet it is still bright for my eyes to see. And make a wish upon When I walk in the ocean I feel the waves rush across my feet And I feel a certain peace with the world I peer out into the...
    Poetry | By Jay Wolin | April 22, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Awe, Earth, Earth Day, Nature, Presence, Wonder, WorshipWeb
  • With our words we have given our mind's consent to the letter of this covenant. Now let us come together in the spirit of covenant, laying on our hands, and offering our heart's consent. As we begin, join me in placing your hands over your heart. Feel its precious beating....
    Blessing | By Keith Goheen | April 22, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Commitment, Compassion, Hospitality, Installations, Ministry, Ordinations, Presence, Relationships, Reverence, Service, Spirituality, Tradition, Unitarian Universalism, WorshipWeb
  • Note: This ritual combines fresh water with water from the previous year that has been boiled and filtered. The combined water is poured over the hands into the common bowl. Minister: The ancient Greek philosopher Heracltus of Ephesus is famous for one belief. He taught his students that...
    Blessing | By Charlie Dieterich | April 22, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Beginnings, Body, Caring, Children, Earth-Centered, Education, Generations, Gratitude, Growth, Homecoming / Ingathering, Humanism, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Purpose, Teacher Recognition, Tradition, Unitarian Universalism, Water Communion, WorshipWeb
  • Forgive me dear father For all the trouble I caused The missed curfews The missed classes Your unfulfilled dreams for me Forgive me dear father But your dreams are not my dreams Forgive me dear father And I will forgive you For missed moments That you sacrificed So that one day I could follow my...
    Poetry | By Jay Wolin | April 22, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Children, Direct Experience, Father's Day, Fathers, Forgiveness, Generations, Love, Pain, Parents, Relationships, Wisdom, WorshipWeb
  • When I begin to bless this food and close my eyes I lose myself first just in green: how do leaves grow themselves this green and how do they grow at all to be so large and how do they make themselves from soil which in itself is only brown and sunlight helps and water but how is the end of this,...
    Meditation | By Nancy Shaffer | April 18, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Awe, Body, Direct Experience, Earth, Food, Grace, Gratitude, Table Grace, Wonder
  • To those who gave birth this year to their first child—we celebrate with you To those who lost a child this year–we mourn with you To those who are in the trenches with little ones every day and wear the badge of food stain–we appreciate you To those who experienced loss through miscarriage,...
    Prayer | By Amy Young | April 17, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Children, Despair, Direct Experience, Failure, Family, Love, Mother's Day, Mothers, Parents
  • Ground of all being, Great Nurturing Spirit, This morning especially, we give thanks For beautiful days right in between spring and summer, For flowers and green trees and freshly cut grass and lazy lakeside afternoons, For the sound and sight and heart-swell of being together in this place made...
    Prayer | By Kristin Grassel Schmidt | April 17, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Children, Direct Experience, Family, Father's Day, Fathers, Love, Men, Parents, Peace, WorshipWeb
  • Based on a folktale from Africa and China. Printed in Doorway to the Soul, ed. Elisa Davy Pearmain (Pilgrim Press, 1998). Themes: cooperation, gratitude, sharing, generosity Roles: 5* for rehearsal; 9 more characters can be briefed by phone or email Preparation: moderate This humorous folk tale...
    Complete Service | By Erika Hewitt | April 16, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Connections, Generosity, International, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Relationships, Responsibility, Stewardship, Water Communion
  • What does deep spirituality feel like to you? Spirituality is impossible to define and difficult to describe. For me, it feels like connection—connection to myself, to others around me, to the earth and all of creation. Connection to myself feels like deep peace, awareness, calm, authenticity.
    Meditation | By Peter Morales | April 16, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Connections, Direct Experience, Earth, Relationships, Seven Principles, Spiritual Practice, Spirituality, Unitarian Universalism, Unity

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