Hi folks -
Happy New Year - I've been missing you since Winter Solstice and Christmas Eve and was looking forward to seeing you this morning. Alas, it's too icy to go out, but here are a few of my inspirations for what would have been this Sunday's service, and I hope they will warm up your morning - stay safe, and I'll see you soon - Rev. Jennifer
When we try to pick out anything by
itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. - John Muir
Call to Worship
Praise wet snow
falling early
Praise the shadow
my neighbor's chimney casts on the tile roof
And Praise the invisible sun burning beyond the white cold sky, giving us
light and the chimney's shadow.
Praise
god or the gods, the unknown,
that which imagined us, which stays
our hand
and gives us still,
in the shadow of death,
our daily life,
and the dream still
of goodwill, of peace on earth
Praise
flow and change, night and
the pulse of day
- - Denise Levertov
We are exploring Liberations, and there are 4 parts to an "Ethics of Care" which is one way to reach interdependence and liberation for all life. Children were going to practice the first part of an ethics of care: Attentiveness
Attentiveness can be explored many ways - this Sunday we were going to watch, count, feed and learn more about the birds around First U. Our local Audubon chapters are always hard at work being attentive to our native species, and reaching out to help preserve our beautiful habitats. You and your children can learn more at http://birds.audubon.org/great-backyard-bird-count
Prayer
It is neither spring nor summer. It is Always
With towhees, finches, chickadees, California quail, wood doves,
With wrens, sparrows, juncos, cedar waxwings, flickers,
With Baltimore orioles, Michigan bobolinks,
And those birds forever dead,
The passenger pigeon, the great auk, the Carolina paraquet,
All birds remembered, O never forgotten!
All in my yard, of a perpetual Sunday,
All morning! All morning!
- - Theodore Roethke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tNjf9VGlZQ - Spirit of Life meditation
As we explore Liberations we will turn to the inspiration of Unitarian Universalist minister and author Galen's Guengrich's new book: God Revised: How Religion Must Evolve in a Scientific Age
"If you and I were forced to design principles of justice for our nation or (perhaps more tellingly) our world, and if we had no idea what place we would subsequently occupy in either, my guess is that we would do our best to upgrade the downside. I can do the math. The current odds of any randomly chosen person in human history enjoying the level of comfort and well-being that I do now are at least a million - maybe ten million - to one against. If we can think rightly....we must at times choose and act and legislate as though we are ignorant of our own good fortune. Reason demands it, and justice requires it. Besides, the world is our world; an ethic of gratitude demands that we take it personally (185)."
Meditation
If I were alone in a desert
and feeling afraid,
I would want a child to be with me.
For then my fear would disappear
and I would be made strong.
This is what life in itself can do
because it is so noble, so full of pleasure
and so powerful.
But if I could not have a child with me
I would like to have at least a living animal
at my side to comfort me.
Therefore,
let those who bring about wonderful things
in their big, dark books
take an animal
to help them.
The life within the animal
will give them strength in turn.
For equality
gives strength, in all things
and at all times.
- - Meister Eckhart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTvr79Oe5w8 - If I Had a Hammer
