For Our Ancestors, for Our Children, for Ourselves

Frederick Franck’s sculpture “Seven Generations.” The sculpture consists of six consecutively smaller metal sheets standing upright in a straight line. The outer edge of each dark gray sheet is in the form of a simplified human silhouette, but inside each sheet there is a smaller cutout in the same shape, through which the next sheet is visible. The smallest sheet does not have the interior cutout, but instead has a red shape representing generations yet unborn.

Each Sunday we light the chalice of our religious heritage.

We do this for our ancestors, who taught us through their various religious traditions and by their actions for justice and hope.

We do this for our children, who are learning the traditions we teach and who learn more from our actions than our words.

We do this for ourselves, so that we are inspired to remember our beginnings; reflect on who we are now; and spread our wings as we understand who we seek to become.