May the invitation of prayer and meditation embrace this holy house and each precious person, moving each and all to connect with a sense of affirmation— sound, movement, or silence— in whatever way your body knows to be true. [chime] Spirit of Life and Love, our hearts are overflowing with...

Let me find peace within So that I may be calm throughout. Let me find silence within So that I may find compassion throughout. Let me be reminded that some things Are worth waiting for. Let me be reminded that the journey Is more important than reaching the destination. Let me see that the...

Goddess, Make me an instrument of peace Where there is hatred, let me know love Where there is injury, healing Where there is doubt, reassurance Where there is challenge, compassion Where there is pain, rest O Divine Mother, Grant that I may Not so much seek to control as to co-create, To be...

As my body begins to loose its hold On this life, this earth, this entirety, May I lay my past to rest And face the unknowable With courage and curiosity. May those to whom I am connected gather. May they recall me as I am and have been....

Spirit of Life and Love, Holy God, Source Eternal, in our midst yet still ever so elusive: To breathe your sacred name is a blessing. Your world become, Your will be done here, on Earth, inspired by our aspirations to do and be better people. May we have all that we need to survive, live, and...

Spirit of Life, ancestor of the stars and the sun, you who embrace the vastness of space and us along with it, be with us today. Hold us in our worry, our exhaustion, our grief. Keep us close as we sit with our truth, whatever that may be....

Spirit of Life, Source of Love, you who know our struggles and failures as well as we know them ourselves, be with us as we enter into this time of reflection. Give us the courage to travel through a moral inventory of our lives, to notice the places where we have missed opportunities to live our...

God, teach us to consider also how others experience the world. To understand how my reality and their reality are different and yet they share qualities of the same core desire. Teach us to listen for shared feelings, for places of connection. Teach us to be curious and open to hearing differences.

May we find love in this place: love in our hearts, love for the broken-down, love for the lonely, love for those yet to feel whole, love for those in-between, love for those out of our reach. May we find love, add love, and be love in this world. Amen.

As we begin a new year together, let us offer our blessing to the lay leaders who invest their time and care in the well-being of this congregation. If you help lead a ministry here, I invite you to rise in body, in spirit, in all the ways that we do. And I invite all of us to enter a spirit of...