There is too much beauty
in this world
to give up
on it
yet,
and it is always too soon
to surrender
to cynicism.
Bring your doubt,
your skepticism
your downright confusion
even your bitterness -

but in the midst of all these,
in the center,
wrap your tender fingers
around that still
"bright thread
of hope,"*
feel in your heart that
still steady hunger for
something more,
the vision
we glimpse
every day
in the rising sun
across the foothills
the light
that spreads across
the face
of the one we love
the look of knowing
all there is to know
and still
loving life, loving us
just as it is, just as we are.

For this hour
we come to
celebrate, to praise, to give thanks
to refuse to give up
to steady ourselves
keepers of hope
brave builders of
this still-possible
world.

Come, let us worship, together.

* the words of Rev. Victoria Safford in A People So Bold (p. 97)