Holy and Creative Light, teach us to love this earth, our home. Together we live in one small house, even though to us it seems so large, with so many rooms. This quiet star, marbled blue and white, was hanging here and spinning in black space long before we came. Whole families, kingdoms, empires of teeming life arose and passed away before us. Now we are here, not knowing how or why. Slowly we have begun to learn about our house: how delicate, how self-contained, how easily torn apart! Holy it is, this bubble of rock, water, air -- not to be consumed, nor smashed like the careless child's toy, but to be cared for and cherished, to be kept clean and livable for all the later tenants in their generations. Teach us to be servants of life, and not prideful masters. For we are caretakers and stewards here, with a great responsibility: to watch over the house, to savor its beauty, to breathe its air.

Eternal One, addressed by the human heart through many names, but never to be encompassed by any name, even the holiest: we would know more of ourselves within this hour. We would find more light, knowing dimly somehow that to be a human is, precisely, to be responsible. To feel shame at the sight of misery condoned; to feel shame when we hear of suffering shrugged away; to resist the inroads of arrogant wrong from whatever quarter; to struggle against oppression. We would stand up with quiet strength, and together plant our tree of justice and truth, our flower of mercy, our stone of understanding, our foundation for peace. May wonder and adventure, curiosity and humor, live in us always. May we search in faith for the green fields beyond the desert of this time, and look for the dawn coming over the sea's horizon rim, and for the stars beyond the dark. Amen.