Leader: Whether you have come here with heart full or heart empty, with spirits high or low, rested or tired, hopeful or despairing, Congregation: Whether we have come here out of habit, conviction, loneliness, or curiosity, Leader: You belong here because you are here, and all that you have and ...

With faith to face our challenges, With love that casts out fear, With hope to trust tomorrow, We accept this day as the gift it is— A reason for rejoicing.

A person is a puzzle. Sometimes from the inside, it feels like some pieces are missing. Perhaps one we love is no longer with us. Perhaps one talent we desire eludes us. Perhaps a moment that required grace found us clumsy. Sometimes, from the inside, it feels like some pieces are missing....

When we say, "Go now in peace," we mean the peace that asks us to stop grasping after power over and the peace that demands that we live fully, that we love with a fierce love, that we hope with a bold hope, that we pray and sing and struggle....

Do not leave your cares at the door. Do not leave there your pain, your sorrow or your joys. Bring them with you into this place of acceptance and forgiveness. Place them on the common altar of life and offer them to the possibility of your worship. Come then, and offer yourself to potential...

Come into this circle of community. Come into this sacred space. Be not tentative. Bring your whole self! Bring the joy that makes your heart sing. Bring your kindness and your compassion. Bring also your sorrow, your pain. Bring your brokenness and your disappointments....

Come in. Come into this place which we make holy by our presence. Come in with all your vulnerabilities and strengths, fears and anxieties, loves and hopes. For here you need not hide, nor pretend, nor be anything other than who you are and are called to be....

Note: This call to worship was written to be preceded by the first three sentences of "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver (Singing the Living Tradition #490). As we enter into worship, put away the pressures of the world that ask us to perform, to take up masks, to put on brave fronts. Silence the voices...

As the rain has washed our land this season, may we enter this morning with hearts washed clean of complaints or bitterness. May we begin this morning by intentionally relaxing the tensions we carry, the strains of those things we cannot abandon, the responsibilities of our lives. As the sun has...

"I accept the universe."...

Doctor, you say there are no haloes around the streetlights in Paris and what I see is an aberration caused by old age, an affliction. I tell you it has taken me all my life to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels, to soften and blur and finally banish the edges you regret I don't see, to...

Come, come, whoever you are - you are welcome here! No matter your age, your size, the color of your eyes, your hair, your skin—you are welcome here! No matter how you came here, if you came alone, or with others— you are welcome here! No matter whom you love, or how you speak, or whatever your...