We know that our financial contributions to this congregation come from sacrifice and hard work. We are so grateful for this, and commit together to ensure the funds we gather collectively do a greater good for ourselves and our world than they could have done alone. May there be an offering to...

Spirit of Life and Love, known by many names and yet fully known by none, we give thanks for this time and this place of renewal. We give thanks for the ability to begin again: after the disaster, after the tragedy, after the loss, after meeting the challenge set before us....

Note: this was written for a worship service with a Wizard of Oz theme. Come you accidental pilgrims, you who find yourself on a journey of surprise and wonder. Come you who emerge into this place as an act of liberation. Come you who seek a life of mindfulness and a place to test your thoughts.

Holy One, our hearts are weary; are tired; and are breaking. Our hearts are stretching as they are pulled and pushed, bruised and battered by all the suffering and brokenness and pain. Our ears are ringing—ringing with harsh words, with yelling, with gunfire that echoes in our streets and takes...

Our whole life is a series of signs. Any slight action: a dim semaphore. Our redemption, if it happens, will mean somebody tried.

For the blessing of animal companions we give thanks. For the beautiful ones, those whose fur is silky and whose tails are long; whose feathers are brilliant or whose voices are splendid... we give thanks. For the frantic ones, the runts and the hungry, who run for a food bowl or a pat as though...

The poet Langston Hughes has written: "Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly." May this chalice flame challenge each of us to cherish to our dreams, for all things worth doing begin in the courage and inspiration of a dream.

Gracious God, from Exodus we hear you say, "I am going to send an angel in front of you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared." You have called us all toward uncertain destinies, to cast our fate into unknown perils, upon paths as yet untrodden....

A glass of tea sweats a circle of droplets on an old table Drying, they pull dirt and stain from the wood, leaving a ring Water makes its mark Deep in the earth, in a cave, a drop falls each minute Where it lands, a great pillar of white rock has grown up Water makes its mark On the surface above...

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." —Rumi ...

In his autobiography, Theodore Parker relates that as a child, four or five years old, living on a farm in Roxbury, he was walking through the fields one day absent-mindedly swinging a stick through the tall grass. This was many years ago, in the days before the Civil War. It was summertime. He...

[We suggest that the Worship Leader act out the relevant parts of this message: e.g clutch a bag tightly; let the contents spill; hold it like a "club" for bopping congregants over the head.] Babies don’t believe anything. Babies aren’t born Buddhists or Baptists or believers of any sort. But...

Holy God, we admit to you that all is not right — in our hearts and in our world, We look to the darkness and not to the light. We look for what is broken, and not at what is being mended. We look to criticize and not to praise. We look at ourselves and not to you. Turn us around so that we look...

Holy God, hear our prayer. There is pain and there is sorrow, there are broken relationships and broken hearts. Sometimes we are the cause of those things. We have caused pain. We have broken the relationship....

Calling to Unburden Our play is marked by merriment, but beneath that looms the Other: our worry; our sorrow; our shame, our guilt, our grief. Let us surrender all that to the One who loves us beyond measure, the One who heals us, the One who makes us whole. Silent Prayer Prayer I have failed. I...

O God who gave us life and death, you hold us in your hands. You cradle us in our need, and you push us into growth. We confess to you that all is not well, that we grieve the loss of many things and people....

"I remove my shoes because this is hallowed ground," the guide says. "A holy place, not an everyday life place." The guide tells us how we know—or think we know—it was the one and not the other for those people millennia ago. But aren’t the places where we live holy ground? Don’t our very...

This child dedication includes some multi-sensory elements. We recommend talking to parents in advance about how the child might respond. Worship Leader: Friends and family, we have been brought together by [child] for a joyous occasion: to recognize and welcome [Child’s Name] into this world and...

Spirit of life and love, light within and without, mystery from which we have all emerged, within which we live and die: be with us now as we allow ourselves to drop into the silence and stillness at the center of our being. As people of faith, we seek to live in a spirit of love, a spirit of...