Note: This ritual involves writing grievances on a piece of paper and casting them into a flame. All our lives we have been told to seek that which is good, to turn our faces from the dark and toward the light, toward beauty, toward truth. But the truth is that the world is not always good. The...

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....

Minister: The life of our religious community is fluid, ever changing with new lives, new visions, new possibilities and new ministries. [Length of time] ago we welcomed our intern minister, [Name]. And we have been changed....

Spirit of life and love, In this season of beginning Some of us are hurried and harried. Some of us feel sorrowful and afraid. Some of us are not yet ready to step forward into the future. May we minister to one another with wisdom, Meeting our friends with open ears, open eyes, and open hearts....

I hate goodbyes. I hate everything about them. It bothers me that “goodbye” isn’t really what I think we most often want to say. When those I love leave me, or I leave them, goodbye isn’t what I want to say. I want to tell them that their warm hand on my cheek, which caught my desperate...

A one-paragraph newspaper article describes a subway platform during the morning rush hour at Grand Central Terminal. A train pulls in; a well-dressed woman gets off. Before the doors close, the woman realizes that she is holding only one of her leather gloves. She looks back into the train and...

"For a time, I rest in the grace of the world and am free." —Wendell Berry In this time of meditation, may you rest in the grace of the world and be free. In weakness, may you sense the strength of the eternal hills, and rest in the grace of the world. In failure, may you be upheld like the...

Shall we pray? Too often, God, we have ignored you. We have lived as though you didn't matter. We have denied the new life that you would have us embrace; we have perpetuated that which depletes life. Forgive us for hesitating when we knew action was the needed response. Forgive us also for...

Holy One, known by many names -- Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer -- you make your presence known to us in the sunshine of winter, in the dance of the flame, and in the lingering embrace of a trusted one. Fill us this day with your warmth, your power, your strength. Help us to see our lives with a...

God of goodness, you are the life of life, the breath of all, the eternal yet ever-changing wholeness into which infinity is poured and from which life is born anew. To you I offer myself, with you I simply am; as you I amaze myself with energy, compassion and calm....

Let us enter into a spirit of meditation. Much of our human struggle is with what we do not know or understand. It is often difficult not to want answers—or even more difficult, not to think we have them already. May we experience what we do not know not as an individual failure but as an...

"Dukkha," they say. The Buddhists say, "All is dukkha." It is hard to translate, they tell us. It means literally "suffering" but the feeling of dukkha is closer to impermanence. The fact of impermanence is central to the Buddhist path to nirvana, enlightenment. Dukkha. All is impermanence....

The world is a slippery sort of thing. It can be hard, very hard, to hold on to all the many pieces of life. In our days on this earth, we may try new ideas, new plans, new relationships, careers or places to live. No matter how many or how few sorts of things we devote our living to, we can be...

There was once a crow who was very hungry. Flying over the tops of the trees, it spotted a large, tasty-looking walnut growing from one of the tallest branches below. Seeing the makings of a fine supper, the crow swooped down and plucked the dangling walnut and held it triumphantly in its beak....

Overview: New Year Ritual or Transition Ritual Theme or Background: Burn an effigy to welcome the new year, or any major transition....