• Small worship table and cloth
• Chalice, candle and lighter or LED battery-operated candle
• Newsprint, markers, and tape
• Optional: Microphone

• Set up the altar or centering table with the cloth, chalice, candle and matches or lighter.
• Place chairs in a semicircle around the table.
• Prepare and post a sheet of newsprint with these words of Annie Dillard:

We are here to abet creation and

to witness to it,

to notice each other's beautiful

face and complex nature

so that creation need not play to

an empty house.

Welcome participants. Invite a participant to light the chalice while you share words written by Rev. Dr. Thandeka:

We [Unitarian Universalists] affirm human nature in positive terms rather than condemn it as irretrievably broken and fallen from grace. We nurture the redemptive capacity of the human heart to be transformed. This means that we are pro-active in creating human communities that nurture the capacity of human beings to bond in ways that are productive for their own wellbeing and for that of the wider world.

Invite participants to join in reading the opening words you have posted on newsprint, "We are here to abet creation" by Annie Dillard.