Worship Resources
November 22, 2020
Time for All Ages Story
Resources
Book: Why Won’t You Apologize?
November 15, 2020
Time for All Ages Story
Resources
Excerpt from The Cure at Troy by Seamus Heaney
Human beings suffer
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.
The innocent in gaols
Beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker’s father
Stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
Faints at the funeral home.
History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave…
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.
Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky
That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.
“Democracy is not a state, it is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.” – John Lewis
John Lewis wrote in Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement
“More than half a century has passed since that day, and it has struck me more than once over those many years that our society is not unlike the children in that house, rocked again and again by the winds of one storm or another, the walls around us seeming at times as if they might fly apart.
It seemed that way in the 1960s, at the height of the civil rights movement, when America itself felt as if it might burst at the seams—so much tension, so many storms. But the people of conscience never left the house. They never ran away. They stayed, they came together and they did the best they could, clasping hands and moving toward the corner of the house that was the weakest.”
“When faithfulness is our standard we are more likely to sustain our engagement with tasks that will never end: doing justice, loving mercy, and calling the beloved community into being.” – Parker Palmer
“What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb? What if our America is not dead but a country that is waiting to be born?” – Valerie Kaur
Barack Obama said of John Lewis in his eulogy:
“And that’s what John Lewis teaches us. That’s where real courage comes from. Not from turning on each other, but by turning towards one another. Not by sowing hatred and division, but by spreading love and truth. Not by avoiding our responsibilities to create a better America and a better world, but by embracing those responsibilities with joy and perseverance and discovering that in our beloved community, we do not walk alone.”
November 8, 2020
Time for All Ages Story
Resources
“If there is to be peace in the world, There must be peace in the nations. If there is to be peace in the nations, There must be peace in the cities. If there is to be peace in the cities, There must be peace between neighbors. If there is to be peace between neighbors, There must be peace in the home. If there is to be peace in the home, There must be peace in the heart.” – Lao-Tse
John O’Donohue’s “Blessing for One Who is Exhausted”
Community Means Strength
By Starhawk
We are all longing to go home to some place
we have never been—a place half-remembered and half-envisioned
we can only catch glimpses of from time to time.
Community.
Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion
without having the words catch in our throats.
Somewhere a circle of hands
will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter,
voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power.
Community means strength
that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done.
Arms to hold us when we falter.
A circle of healing.
A circle of friends.
Someplace where we can be free.
“My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” – Adrienne Rich
November 1, 2020
Time for All Ages Story
Resources
A Zen Master had a disciple who was perpetually unhappy and dissatisfied. One day the disciple approached the Master and said, “Master, bless me too with your wisdom and help me find happiness.” The old Master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and drink it. “How does it taste?” the Master asked. “Awful”, spat the young man. The Master chuckled and then asked the young man to take another handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and when the young man swirled his handful of salt into the lake, the Master said, “Now drink from the lake.” As the water dripped down the young man’s chin, the Master asked, “How does it taste?” “Good!” remarked the young man. “Do you taste the salt?” asked the Master. “No”, said the young man. The Master sat beside this troubled young man, took his hands, and said, “The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount we taste the ‘pain’ depends on the container we put it into. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things. Stop being a glass. Be a lake!”
Krista Tippett Interview of Sharon Salzberg
“Stung by Bees” by Victoria Safford from Walking Towards Morning
Dalai Lama: “pain is inevitable but suffering is optional.”
Barbara Brown Taylor wrote in “An Altar in the World”: “One night of real pain is enough to strip away your illusions about how strong you are, how brave,how patient and faithful. ….Your virtues can become as abstract as algebra, your beliefs as porous as clouds.”
October 25, 2020
Time for All Ages Story
Resources
Angeles Arrien: Cornerstones of Wisdom – The Four-Fold Way
Cynthia Bourgeault: The Fall Triduum – Another Turn of the Spiral
Ancestors Never Sleep by Alice Walker
October 18, 2020
Time for All Ages Story
Resources
Prayer to the Universe by Julie Excell
Dear ever-Expanding,
show me how to expand,
Dear Ever-Unfolding,
teach me to unfold
Dear Recklessly Rushing to Reach Higher,
help me to raise my arms,
if I am made of stardust, then
use me as your avatar:
Blow me open, spin me around,
Burn me bright in this man-made mire,
on this lost and lovely blue-green ball,
oh claim me, claim me
and make me whole.
The more you’re here and the more you’re alive, the more you realize you’re a mortal human being and that you’ll pass from this place. And will you actually turn up? Will you become a full citizen of vulnerability, loss and disappearance, which you have no choice about? – David Whyte
Breath of Life by Danna Faulds
I breathe in All That Is-
Awareness expanding
to take everything in,
as if my heart beats
the world into being.
From the unnamed vastness beneath the
mind, I breathe my way to wholeness and healing.
Inhalation. Exhalation.
Each Breath a “yes,”
and a letting go, a journey, and a coming home.
Richard Rohr Reorders the Universe
Taoist story “Maybe“
Brene Brown’s first Ted Talk
October 4, 2020
Resources
Rachel Naomi Remen‘s books – “Kitchen Table Wisdom” and “My Grandfather’s Blessings”
The story of John Murray and the growth of Universalism
Rep. John Lewis’ posthumous letter
September 20, 2020
Time for All Ages Story
Resources
Percy Wakes Me by Mary Oliver
On Being Podcast: Sharon Brous – Days of Awe
One Being Podcast: Rachel Naomi Remen – The Difference Between Fixing and Healing
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front By Wendell Berry
Quotes
“When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you
don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not
doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or
less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have
problems with our friends or family, we blame the other
person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will
grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive
effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason
and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no
reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you
understand, and you show that you understand, you can
love, and the situation will change” – Thich Nhat Hanh
“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. … And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.” – Alexander Solzhenitsyn
September 13, 2020
Time for All Ages Story
Quotes
“To be a people of renewal is to ask not simply, “How do I refresh?” but also “How do I return?” The challenge of life is not just about moving forward but moving forward without losing touch with all we hold dear.” – Rev. Scott Tayler
“Just as grief work is a process by which bereaved persons unblock their numbed energies by acknowledging and grieving the loss of a loved one, so do we all need to unblock our feelings of despair about our threatened planet and the possible demise of our species. Until we do, our power of creative response will be crippled.” – Joanna Macy
“When the crowded Vietnamese refugee boats met with storms or pirates, if everyone panicked all would be lost. But if even one person on the boat remained calm and centered, it was enough. It showed the way for everyone to survive.” – Thich Nhat Hahn
Other Resources
“The Book of Awakening” by Mark Nepo
“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver
Unlocking Us Podcast – episodes on March 19 and September 2
September 6, 2020
Time for All Ages Story
Other Resources
To Be Of Use – Marge Piercy https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57673/to-be-of-use
August 30, 2020
Time for All Ages Story
Here We Are – https://www.amazon.com/Here-We-Are-Living-Planet/dp/0399167897
Other Resources
The Peace of Wild Things –https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/peace-wild-things-0/
August 23, 2020
Time for All Ages Story
After the Fall (How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again) – https://www.amazon.com/After-Fall-Humpty-Dumpty-Again/dp/1626726825
Quotes
Kamala Harris – “The constant chaos leaves us adrift. The incompetence makes us feel afraid. The callousness makes us feel alone.”
Pablo Casals – “Throughout my career, nervousness and stage-fright have never left me before playing. And each of the thousands of concerts I have played at, I feel as bad as I did the very first time.”
And still, he kept on. Even when he was 90 years old, Casals practiced for four or five hours every day. Someone asked him why at his age, he still worked so hard on the music, and he responded, “Because I think I am making some progress.“
Pema Chodron – “Finding the courage to go to the places that scare us cannot happen without compassionate inquiry into the workings of ego… Openness doesn’t come from resisting our fears but from getting to know them well.”
August 16, 2020
Time for All Ages Story
AntiRacist Baby – https://www.amazon.com/AntiRacist-Baby-Ibram-X-Kendi/dp/0593110412
August 9, 2020
Time for All Ages Story
Whimsey’s Heavy Things – https://www.amazon.com/Whimsys-Heavy-Things-Julie-Kraulis/dp/1770494030
Quotes
Muriel Rukeyser – “The universe is made of stories, not atoms.”
Father Richard Rohr – “Pain that is not transformed is transmitted.”
Rachel Naomi Remen – “Wounding and healing are not opposites. They’re part of the same thing. It is our wounds that enable us to be compassionate with the wounds of others. It is our limitations that make us kind to the limitations of other people. It is our loneliness that helps us to to find other people or to even know they’re alone with an illness. I think I have served people perfectly with parts of myself I used to be ashamed of. ”
August 2, 2020
Time for All Ages Story
The Youngest Marcher – https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Youngest-Marcher/Cynthia-Levinson/9781481400701
Readings/Other Resources
Dr King’s Ware Lecture – https://www.uua.org/ga/past/1966/ware
Dr. King’s Letter from the Birmingham Jail – https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
Rep. John Lewis on good trouble – https://time.com/5087349/why-getting-into-trouble-is-necessary-to-make-change/
Member Reading List from July 19 Slideshow
The Reader
The Help
Becoming
So you want to talk about race
Brilliant Beacons
White Kids
The House of the Gerulean Sea
Finding Meaning
White Fragility
Deacon King Kong
A New Earth
Say Something!
Kept Animals
Conflict Resolutions for Holy Beings
Pale Rider
Down the Great Unknown
Ghosthunters and the Incredibly Revolting Ghost
Between the World and Me
What is Owed
The Warmth of Other Suns
My Grandmother’s Hands
A Thousand Mornings
A Death at Tollgate Creak
A Woman of No Importance
The Club
Inheritance
Maniac Magee
Two Old Women
Normal People
Beguiled
The Eyes of Gray Wolf
Stamped from the Beginning
Billionaire’s Vinegar
America’s First Daughter
Les Miserable
The Testament
Puppy Bible
Braiding Sweetgrass
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
notes from a small island
Bridging Worlds
Miles from Nowhere
Strength in the Storm
The Uninhabitable Earth
The Institute
The Stone Sky
Devils Tower-Stories in Stone
Go Dog Go!
Good Time Girls
Little Weirds
Prayer to the Universe
Americanah
The Art of Living
The New Class War
The Black House
Antiracist Baby
The Way of Gratitude
American Harvest
How Long ’til Black Future Month?
En el tiempo de las mariposas
Best American Science Fiction Fantasy 2019
Everything Here Is Beautiful