gatherings
We will meet at Island Park at 10:30 am on August 22.
We will resume our normal meeting time at Sri Yoga Center on August 29.
We gather each Sunday at Sri Yoga Center at 4:00pm, and our services usually conclude around 5:30.
Themes and Readings for August 2010
12th Principle: Ecological justice is essential for the sustainability of life on Earth.
Ecology is the local expression of cosmology and so we commit to live in light of this value: to pass on the beauty and health of Creation to future generations.
The 7th principle of Unitarian Universalism is to affirm and promote “respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” The 6th source of our living tradition is “Spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.”
Sunday, August 1, 2010 – The Call to be Earth Healers
Chalice Lighting - May the light we now kindle inspire us to use our powers
to heal and not to harm,
to help and not to hinder,
to bless and not to curse,
to serve you, Spirit of freedom
Meditation – Chant - We Are a People at the height of our power...
Readings
Sterwart Brand, Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto
Build knowledge about where you live in order to take responsibility for where you live. There is a verse chanted by Zen Buddhists called the “Four Great Vows.” The first line goes, “Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them.” It’s a bit daunting to announce this intention – aloud – to the universe daily. This vow stalked me for several years and finally pounced: I realized that I had vowed to let the sentient beings save me. In a similar way, the precept against taking life, against causing harm, doesn’t stop in the negative. It is urging us to give life, to undo harm.”
[This] helps make the link from earth discipline to whole-earth discipline. Like it or not we are all finally ‘inhabitory’ on this one small blue-green planet. It’s the only one with comfortable temperatures, good air, and water, and a wealth of living beings for millions of miles. There is harm to undo in this place. Earth as a whole is the most ambitious and necessary restoration project of all.
Starhawk
The world needs to shift to values which have long been held by Pagans but are certainly not unique to us. Indeed, every religion holds within it an imperative to care for and nurture creation. We must make a shift to a culture that values life over profits and the health of the environment over the financial balance sheet. To do so is not only a moral and religious imperative but a matter of survival. We are meant to be earth healers, not destroyers, and a moral person is one who cares for the web of life which sustains and supports us all.
Unity – We will present the large group with a large variety of ways each person can make a change to heal the earth. Then we will ask people to form small groups and talk about what change each is willing to make for the month and what will make this change challenging but feasible.
Sunday, August 8, 2010 – The Wonder of it All!
Chalice Lighting – With heat and light, the Great Radiance blazed forth
With heat and light, ancestral stars fused atoms, exploding in awesome power
With heat and light, the fire on our Ancestors’ hearth cooked their food
With heat and light, modern scientists harnessed new energy sources
With heat and light, we light our chalice today, looking toward a sustainable future
Meditation – Chant – We Are a People at the height of our power...
Readings
Meister Eckhart
Apprehend God in all things, for God is in all things. Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God. Every creature is a word of God.
Earth cannot escape heaven, flee it by going up, or flee it by going down, heaven still invades the earth, energizes it, makes it sacred.
Everything which God created millions of years ago and everything which will be created by God after millions of years – God is creating all that in the innermost and deepest realms of the soul. Everything of the past and everything of the present and everything of the future God creates in the innermost realms of the soul.
God’s being is my being and God’s primordial being is my primordial being. Wherever I am, there is God. The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.
e.e. cummings
I thank You God for most this amazing day:
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings; and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how would tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any – lifted from the no
of all nothing – human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
Unity – We will invite the group to share a moment of wonder/awe/connection...when they realized they were part of a larger and intricately interconnected reality.
Other Notes – Each Sunday at announcement time we will give people an opportunity to tell us how their commitment to heal the earth is going. We will also invite those who weren’t with us on the first Sunday of the month to join our community in committing to do something more to promote ecological justice.
Sunday, August 15, 2010 – Honoring the Web of Life
Chalice Lighting – May the fire that has illumined the Universe since the beginning, and lit up the stars, ignite a flame of possibility in our hearts and minds today.
Meditation – Chant – We are a people at the height of our power...
Readings
Reading 1 Albert Einstien
A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, "Universe," a part limited in time and space. S/He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his/her consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Reading 2 David S.Blanchard, A Temporary State of Grace
Why Did the UU Cross the Road?
There may be several possible answers to why the Unitarian Universalist might cross the road. Among them: because that’s where they were serving coffee; they didn’t cross it, the transcended it; or that they only got as far as the middle of the read since they didn’t want to take sides. The fact is that we “cross the road: for the same reason the chicken did: to get to the other side
Getting to the other side isn’t always simple. People we love die. We grow and change in unexpected ways. We make mistakes and hurt people we care about, and vice versa. We can find ourselves more alone at times then we think we can bear. And yet there are times when we are overwhelmed by the beauty of this world or by the blessing of unexpected kindness.
Getting to the other side is made easier when we choose to travel with others. Life in community isn’t always easy, but it’s the only place we can practice being human.
Finding our way to the other side is less treacherous when we listen and learn from those who have made the trip before and how know something about the route: Jesus, Buddha, and Zoroaster; Rumi, Starhawk, and Thoreau; Harriet Tubman, Malcomlm X, and Harvey Milk. Teachers whose living was, and remains, a testament to the sacred dimensions of being human.
We will reach the other side with fewer regrets, and with less baggage, if we have found a way to accept each other for who we are, even as we seek to be who we might become. In community we are reminded of our ideals, yet it is also a place to confess our limitations and express our deepest hope.
Liberal religion is not “easy street,” but what we do have to offer is this: a tradition that affirms human dignity, that encourages spiritual growth and discovery, and that is intellectually honest in the face of the complexities of our time. We offer these tools and our companionship so that we might help each other get safely from here to the other side.
Unity – Celebrating the Sacred Circle of Life – Jen or PR will give us nice beat/rhythm on a drum and then we will ask people to speak aloud, in their own time, those things they hold as sacred, those things that have helped them live in harmony with the rhythm of nature and in reverence for the web of life. We will close this part of our Gathering with a body prayer led by Mary.
Other Notes: Bonnie will open with an introduction of our Gathering, introducing both me and Richard. She will touch on the idea that we are gathering to seek unity. Bonnie will also ask Hillary and Rick and Helen to share a musical number that compliments our theme. Both Mary and Richard will offer closing prayer and/or closing comments.
Sunday, August 22, 2010 – Connecting with Nature
THIS SUNDAY GATHERING WILL TAKE PLACE AT 10:30 AM AT ISLAND PARK!! In case of rain we will meet at our normal 4pm at Sri.
Chalice Lighting – May the fire that has illumined the Universe since the beginning, and lit up the stars, ignite a flame of possibility in our hearts and minds today.
Meditation – Guided Meditation led by Persephone
Readings
Joan Chittister, Becoming Fully Human
Nature is a Sunday school of spiritual lessons: grass teaches us that however frail the pieces of our life may seem, they persist in us; water that the basics of life sustain us, not its frills; mountains that every effort in life leads to another valley. The problem is that, too often, we fail to wonder what the life around us has to say to our own.
Unity – After giving folks some time to walk around the park in quiet solitude listening for what they life around us has to say to our own, we will invite the group to re-gather and share the insights they’ve gained.
Other Notes: THIS SUNDAY GATHERING WILL TAKE PLACE AT 10:30 AM AT ISLAND PARK!! In case of rain we will meet at our normal 4pm at Sri.
Each Sunday at announcement time we will give people an opportunity to tell us how their commitment to heal the earth is going. We will also invite those who weren’t with us on the first Sunday of the month to join our community in committing to do something more to promote ecological justice.
Sunday, August 29, 2010 – An Eco-Challenge for Kids and Other Free Spirits
Chalice Lighting – We light our chalice today in gratitude for the struggles of our billions of Ancestors. In our mutual pledge to use our evolved minds for the common good,
And in hope for the future generations of all creatures who inhabit this Earth.
Meditation – Chant – We are a people at the height of our power...
Readings – A story for children and other free spirit’s read by Persephone!
Unity – A celebration of people’s successes and good effort in adopting their month-long commitment to do something to heal the earth and Bonnie will share a couple of success stories that groups of people have undertaken to care for the earth and then Tree of Life as a COMMUNITY will commit to an action that supports ecological justice and healing the earth.