Two years ago today, Rev. John Cullinan led this meditation at the Christmas Eve service at Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Oak Park, Illinois, where he served as the ministerial intern. He now serves the Unitarian Church of Los Alamos, New Mexico, where we will happily celebrate Christmas Eve in story and song with family and friends.

Bright blessings on you and yours, and Merry Christmas.

Postings will continue in the New Year, so stay tuned!

Christmas Eve Meditation

by Rev. John A. Cullinan

Put away, for one moment, all the anxiety and obligation of this season.

It is another time, another country– a place shattered by violence, oppression, and poverty. Its people cry out for peace and for love.

On a silent night much like any other night, to a family much like any other family, a child was born who would answer that call.

Tonight, we come together in celebration of that one night. It is a different time, a different country, and yet so much now remains the same. Our world is still touched by violence and fear, still cursed with poverty and oppression.

Tonight, we still cry out for peace and for love.

(Read on … )

Today’s selection ties the ideas from Monday and Wednesday neatly together. Why, in a Unitarian Universalist setting, where people believe in “at most, one god,” is prayer an important part of so many congregations’ liturgy?

What is prayer if it is not talking to a god?

Rev. John Cullinan explored these very questions in this sermon, “Prayer,” preached at the Unitarian Church of Los Alamos, New Mexico this November 4th.

For consideration: Do you pray? Why or why not? Do you think prayer has a place in your congregation’s worship life? Why or why not?

Prayer

by Rev. John Cullinan

I.

I have had a rocky relationship with prayer. Even in my early life as a Roman Catholic, prayer was never a large part of my routine, outside of Sunday Mass. When I put aside the church in my early adulthood, I put aside all thought of prayer as well. And when I returned to the church through the doors of Unitarian Universalism, I returned to a congregation that did not, as a rule, pray. I assumed it was not a UU practice, and at the time, I didn’t feel as though I was missing anything.

My reconnection with prayer began during my time as a hospital chaplain. Prayer is, more often than not, the stock in trade of the chaplain. I assumed I was going to have deep theological conversations with the sick and the dying. I can’t begin to tell you why I assumed that. To say it was a false assumption is being kind.

No, what most folks wanted in the hospital, patients and families alike, was prayer. And I was going to have to find a way to be with them in they way they needed me. I didn’t trust myself to do it “right” in those days. I didn’t feel as though I had an authentic Unitarian Universalist vocabulary for prayer, and I was fearful of winging it. And, since most of the patients in the hospital were Catholic, it seemed logical to fall back on the familiar words of my past.

(Read on … )