The International Council of Unitarian Universalists publishes a reading for the lighting of the chalice every month, with the intention that all of our congregations across the globe have the opportunity to come together for worship with a common focus.

The Global Chalice Lighting for May came from France, submitted by Jean-Claude Barbier.

Global Chalice Lighting, May 2008

English

Hallelujah for the chalice which contains the wine, which contains our lives
Hallelujah for the flame which rises with our prayers, with our hopes
Let us give thanks to God, to the divine Breath, to the Matrix that is the source of the life.
Let us give thanks for this Creation given and received.
Thanks to rabbi Jesus of Nazareth and all the wise ones of our Humanity,
of all the religions, all wisdoms, all philosophies.
Thanks to the men and women of our History who built this world,
That we are present, by mutual agreement, together at the meeting-point of our worship.
That we are present, listening each other, helping each other, at the meeting-point of our worship.

French

Alléluia pour le calice qui contient le vin, qui contient nos vies.
Alléluia pour la flamme qui s’élève avec nos prières, avec nos espérances
Rendons grâce à Dieu, au Souffle du divin, au Matriciel source de la vie.
Rendons grâce pour cette Création donnée et reçue.
Merci au rabbi Jésus de Nazareth et à tous les sages de notre Humanité,
de toutes les religions, de toutes les sagesses, de toutes les philosophies.
Merci aux hommes et aux femmes de notre Histoire qui ont construit ce monde.
Que nous soyons présents, d’un commun accord, les uns avec les autres, au rendez-vous de notre culte.
Que nous soyons présents, avec écoute mutuelle, les uns pour les autres, au rendez-vous de notre culte.

Source: The International Council of Unitarian Universalists’ Global Chalice Lighting for May, 2008, submitted by Jean-Claude Barbier from the Assemblée Fraternelle des Chrétiens Unitariens.

One of the most important events at the Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly is the Ware Lecture, where we invite an important thinker from outside our movement to speak to us on a topic of interest to Unitarian Universalists. Previous speakers include theologian Rheinhold Neibuhr, Martin Luther King, Jr., poet Mary Oliver, and scholar Elaine Pagels.

This year, the speaker was Van Jones, an activist working to tie issues of environmentalism and social justice, particularly poverty concerns, together to create real change, and he had a warning for Unitarian Universalists: “Y’all are about to mess up and be successful!” when it comes to needed social and environmental change.

A good description of his lecture can be found on the UUA website, along with a video (WMV format, or Real Media) of the event.

In this speech, given in July of 2005 to the Spiritual Activism conference, Mr. Jones sides with Rabbi Michael Lerner in calling for an alliance of spiritual progressives across the board to enact real changes in our society, and speaks particularly to the anti-religious bias that is a very real presence in many progressive organizations.

The Religious Left Fights Back

by Van Jones

Rabbi Michael Lerner is stirring up trouble again—thank God.

Earlier this week, Lerner was the main organizer of a national gathering in Berkeley, California, for the religious Left. His “Spiritual Activism” conference was intended to help launch a much-needed new initiative: the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP).

Lerner has been the spark-plug for many progressive, faith-based undertakings over the years, including Tikkun magazine. But this latest effort is an order of magnitude more challenging than anything he has attempted thus far. And given the stakes for our ailing would-be democracy, the birthing of NSP may prove to be his most important calling.

Lerner wants to help forge a new alliance of “religious, secular and ’spiritual-but-not-religious’ progressives.” This alliance will someday expose and challenge the cancer of American consumerism. And it will oppose the religious Right’s abuse of scripture to promote war, intolerance and ugly corporate agendas.

(Read on … )

As I am traveling today, I encourage you to peruse the archives of this site. Here are some of my favorite selections tagged “connection:”

• “from outsider to belonging at the table. . .”
• “we have to go down into the wave’s trough. . .”
• “Everyone saw one another’s real faces that morning. . .”
• “A path out of the hollow up to the hallowed”
• “the circles of love radiate out. . .”

Enjoy!

Beginning Thursday, I will highlight writers who will be presenting at General Assembly, which starts next week in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Stay tuned!

Poet Anne Porter published her first volume of poetry at age 83. She has a fascinating story, and was featured in the Wall Street Journal back in 2006.

This poem, “Susanna,” is from her book Living Things, a finalist for the 1999 National Book Award, and helps to remind us how simple certain things can truly be. I first heard it on the Writer’s Almanac a few weeks back.

Susanna

by Anne Porter

Nobody in the hospital
Could tell the age
Of the old woman who
Was called Susanna

I knew she spoke some English
And that she was an immigrant
Out of a little country
Trampled by armies

Because she had no visitors
I would stop by to see her
But she was always sleeping

All I could do
Was to get out her comb
And carefully untangle
The tangles in her hair

One day I was beside her
When she woke up
Opening small dark eyes
Of a surprising clearness

She looked at me and said
You want to know the truth?
I answered Yes

She said it’s something that
My mother told me

There’s not a single inch
Of our whole body
That the Lord does not love

She then went back to sleep.

Source: “Susanna” by Anne Porter, from Living Things, as printed by the Writer’s Almanac on April 6, 2008.

Philosopher Henry David Thoreau’s Walden has long been a source of wisdom for Unitarian Universalists. This excerpt, from the chapter titled “Conclusion,” calls us to a higher purpose than the deep meditation in solitude usually envisioned when Walden is invoked.

from Walden, “Conclusion”

by Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862)

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and confortuity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

. . .

I desire to speak somewhere without bounds; like a man in a waking moment, to men in their waking moments; for I am convinced that I cannot exaggerate enough even to lay the foundation of a true expression. Who that has heard a strain of music feared then lest he should speak extravagantly any more forever? In view of the future or possible, we should live quite laxly and undefined in front, our outlines dim and misty on that side; as our shadows reveal an insensible perspiration toward the sun. The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement. Their truth is instantly translated; its literal monument alone remains. The words which express our faith and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to superior natures.

Source: excerpted from the chapter “Conclusion” in Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, in the public domain. For further reading, see Rev. Patrick O’Neil’s brilliant sermon, “Out from Walden.”

Coming out of winter can sometimes feel like coming out of hibernation. As spring grows, it doesn’t take quite as much effort, or at least bundling up, to get out of the house and connect with others. Rev. Max Coots, minister emeritus of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton, New York, reminds us of the importance of these connections:

Garden Meditations

by Rev. Max Coots

Let us give thanks for a bounty of people.

For children who are our second planting, and though they
grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away, may
they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where
their roots are.

Let us give thanks;

For generous friends…with hearts…and smiles as bright
as their blossoms;

For feisty friends, as tart as apples;

For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers,
keep reminding us that we’ve had them;

For crotchety friends, sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;

For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and
as elegant as a row of corn, and the others, as plain as
potatoes and so good for you;

For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and
as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes;

And serious friends as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle
as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as delightful as
dill, as endless as zucchini and who, like parsnips, can be
counted on to see you through the winter;

For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time,
and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;

For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold
us, despite our blights, wilts and witherings;

And finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past
that have been harvested, but who fed us in their times that
we might have life thereafter.

For all these we give thanks.

Source: “Garden Meditations” by Rev. Max Coots, minister emeritus of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton, New York, as quoted on Patchwork Reflections.

A video today, created by the Rev. Michael McGee, lead team minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, VA. Rev. McGee has made four videos titled “Two-Minute Timeouts,” in which he gives a short reflection, with imagery, on Unitarian Universalist spiritual life. This is the first.

Two Minute Timeout

by the Rev. Michael McGee

Source: “Two Minute Timeout” by the Rev. Michael McGee, lead team minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, VA, as published on YouTube. Hat tip, Shelby Meyerhoff at the UUWorld’s “Interdependent Web.”

The Rev. Dr. Forrest Church, formerly the senior minister at All Souls in New York City and now the Minister of Public Theology there, announced in early February that he has terminal cancer.

Rev. Church has devoted his ministry to not just caring for his people and his community, but also to scholarship and theological writings meant to further the movement of Unitarian Universalism. Many of his writings can be found at his website, and he has also published many wonderful books.

The central message of his life, however, has been consistently that of how we are called to love one another. This sermon (PDF), given on February 3, 2008 to All Souls New York and a week later to All Souls Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is a culmination of that message.

Love and Death

by the Rev. Dr. Forrest Church

Audio from Tulsa can be found here.

Although I have delivered some thousand sermons on almost as many discrete topics, one way or another each circles back to a single theme. This tendency, I’m told, is not uncommon. Every minister worth his or her salt has one great sermon in them. It’s no wonder that we return time and again to its familiar music and uplifting chords.

Even church administrators pick up on their bosses’ penchant to repeat themselves. In certain instances, they have little choice. One of my storied colleagues, James Madison Barr of Memphis, Tennessee, had a habit of disappearing periodically, especially on Mondays and Tuesdays, when the office staff was composing and printing the weekly church newsletter. At the top of each newsletter, they included the sermon title for the following Sunday and a brief précis of its theme. Whenever Dr. Barr was missing in action and necessity forced the Memphis church administrator to be creative, she listed his forthcoming sermon as follows:

“The Great Mystery”
James Madison Barr, Preaching
What Dr. Barr will be preaching about this Sunday is a mystery, but we’re certain it will be great.

Whether great or no, my recurring sermon, too, is rich with mystery. Time and again, I return to the abiding themes of love and death. I do so this morning for personal reasons. Since there is no way, or call, to be artful about blunting this news, let me begin by reading you the letter I shall send tomorrow to the members and friends of this wonderful church, whose destiny and mine have been interwoven now for so many years.

(Read on … )

Unitarian Universalists make much of our intellectual tendencies, our “deep thoughts.” But our tenets strive to honor the whole person, mind and physical body alike.

In this sermon from October of 2007, the Rev. Jan Nielsen, serving the Universalist Church of West Hartford, Connecticut, reflects on the value of honoring our bodies in our spiritual lives. Honoring the body, she argues, can become a spiritual practice that leads to a deeper commitment to living one’s religious values.

Honoring the Body

by Rev. Jan Nielsen

The first time I ever danced in public was at school, in the fifth grade. I don’t remember exactly why we were dancing at school; it must have been an indoor recess on a rainy day. But I do remember very clearly what happened that autumn day. When I danced, a bunch of the other kids laughed, loudly. As the new kid in school, eleven years old and desperate to fit in, I was mortified. I loved to dance at home, in the privacy of my bedroom, but after that day, I swore I’d never dance in public again.

By the time I got to junior high, I did dance in public, at football games, while I twirled a baton. Title IX may have been the law of the land, but in the Arkansas schools, all the money still went to boy’s sports, big time. A girl could be a cheerleader, a majorette (my choice), or sit on the sidelines. For girls, there was no soccer, no softball, no basketball, no running, no nothing. (I used to shoot baskets in our hayloft wishing I could play on a team, all 5’4” of me.) What physical education classes we had were a joke, and they weren’t required. Big time injustice, if you ask me, but no one ever asked us girls.

(Read on … )

The past few readings have explored the Unitarian Universalist perspective of the human place in the natural world, particularly in the context of evolutionary science. But what of our understanding of the concept of God, in the light of scientific progress? Indeed, many among our number have dismissed the idea of a deity as irrelevant.

However, evolutionary evangelist Rev. Michael Dowd has a way of bringing the language of faith into a marriage with scientific language in his new book, Thank God for Evolution! He argues that we need not abandon the language of religion as we discover more about the Universe around us, but that the use of metaphor is a valuable insight into the human experience of the Universe. His view of God is much larger than the traditional personal deity described in many faiths relying on what he terms “flat earth” theology, or theology developed when humanity knew the earth was flat and orbited by the sun. Science and religion can exist in a greater harmony, in this view, and enhance each other as we search for meaning in our lives.

The entire book is available as a free download at thankgodforevolution.com, and is very thought-provoking reading.

Experiencing God versus Thinking about God

from Thank God For Evolution!, by Rev. Michael Dowd

“Thinking about God is no substitute for tasting God, and talking about God is no substitute for giving people ways of experiencing God.” — MATTHEW FOX

Our hominid ancestors experienced Reality as divine. For them, Nature was majestic, mysterious, awesome, benevolent, occasionally severe, all-powerful, nourishing, and more. Virtually every human attribute (the bad, as well as the good) was not only mirrored but also magnified in the mysterious forces of the natural world. Our ancestors experienced Reality this way long before words would label the experience—indeed, before there were verbalized beliefs of any kind. Most beliefs, rational and irrational, spring from the womb of symbolic language.

(Read on … )