Small Group Ministry A New Way of Doing Church

Session Plans

First Parish Church Unitarian Universalist Duxbury, Massachusetts Duxbury Small Group Ministry Topics as of 3/05 Listed in Alphabetical Order A Call Not Taken No. 31 Living Through Loss No. 03 A New Year No. 59 Living With Fear No. 18 A Sacred Place No. 11 Longing No. 43 Approval No. 55 Mentors No. 12 Atheism No. 29 Money No. 44 Bitterness No. 30 Mothers No. 16 Christmas Traditions No. 58 Order & Chaos No. 60 Community No. 01 Perfection No. 45 Covenant No. 32 Pets No. 46 Curiosity No. 33 Poetry No. 07 Dance No. 34 Prayer No. 10 Faith & Practice No. 36 Preparing For Christmas No. 17 First Impressions No. 57 Racism No. 47 Forgiveness No. 04 Relaxation No. 35 Forgiveness- option 2 No. 62 Retrospective No. 48 Friendship No. 24 Sacred Moments No. 21 Guilt No. 37 Sense Of Gratitude No. 06 Habits & Rote No. 38 Service To Others No. 08 Happiness No. 27 Shadow No. 50 How Can I Help? No. 23 Success No. 51 Images Of The Goddess No. 39 Taking Risks No. 61 Is Anything Sacred? No. 54 The Right Of Conscience & No. 22 The Democratic Process Jesus No. 41 The Road Not Taken No. 49 Learning From Failure No. 02 Timelines No. 13 Letting Go No. 56 Values No. 19 Listening No. 28 What We Love No. 05 Living And Dying No. 09 Wilderness & Wildness No. 52 Living Faithfully No. 42 Worship No. 14 Living Simply No. 15 Wrestling With Angels No. 53 Duxbury Small Group Ministry Topics as of 3/05 Listed in Numerical Order Community No. 01 Curiosity No. 33 Learning From Failure No. 02 Dance No. 34 Living Through Loss No. 03 Relaxation No. 35

Forgiveness No. 04 Faith & Practice No. 36 What We Love No. 05 Guilt No. 37 Sense Of Gratitude No. 06 Habits & Rote No. 38 Poetry No. 07 Images Of The Goddess No. 39 Service To Others No. 08 Jesus No. 41 Living And Dying No. 09 Living Faithfully No. 42 Prayer No. 10 Longing No. 43 A Sacred Place No. 11 Money No. 44 Mentors No. 12 Perfection No. 45 Timelines No. 13 Pets No. 46 Worship No. 14 Racism No. 47 Living Simply No. 15 Retrospective No. 48 Mothers No. 16 The Road Not Taken No. 49 Preparing For Christmas No. 17 Shadow No. 50 Living With Fear No. 18 Success No. 51 Values No. 19 Wilderness & Wildness No. 52 Sacred Moments No. 21 Wrestling With Angels No. 53 The Right Of Conscience & The No. 22 Is Anything Sacred? No. 54 Democratic Process How Can I Help? No. 23 Approval No. 55 Friendship No. 24 Letting Go No. 56 Happiness No. 27 First Impressions No. 57 Listening No. 28 Christmas Traditions No. 58 Atheism No. 29 A New Year No. 59 Bitterness No. 30 Order & Chaos No. 60 A Call Not Taken No. 31 Taking Risks No. 61 Covenant No. 32 Forgiveness- option 2 No. 62 Top

COMMUNITY NO. 1 (Source: Rev. Glenn H. Turner) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "Each of us brings a separate truth here, We bring the truth of our own life, our own story. We don't come as empty vessels… But rather we come as full people-people who have our own story and our own truth. We seek to add to our truths and add to our stories. This room is rich with truth, rich with experience. All manner of people are here: needy…joyful…frightened…anxious…bored… We all bring our truth with us. May we all recognize the truth and the story in everyone's life. And may we hear and honor the truths that we all bring as we gather together. Together we have truths. Together we have a story. Together we are a community." Penny Hackett-Evans Check-in/Sharing

Discussion: "A community is made up of people who enjoy and are ready to participate in mutual helpfulness. Not that they are busybodies always prying into one another's affairs. They are not conscious 'do-gooders,' but they know how to be helpful without making a big thing of it." Harry Meserve

Questions: How do we want to be in community? How do we want others to be? What do you need to know about me, and what do I need to know about you?

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Closing Words: "And now we take our leave. Before we gather here again- may each of us bring happiness into another's life; may we each be surprised by the gifts that surround us; may we each be enlivened by constant curiosity; and may we remain together in spirit 'til the hour we meet again." Barbara Cheatham Top

LEARNING FROM FAILURE NO. 2 (Source: Rev. Glenn H. Turner) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words:

"We gather to affirm the potential we all share: for building community, for undertaking constructive change, for engaging in mature growth, for achieving greater humanity than we have known. May our meeting together be a time of reflection on possibilities untried. May it help us on our perilous ways during the week ahead." Adapted from Harold Babcock

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Discussion: "Whether or not we soften the sense of "sinners" to what Eugene Kennedy calls "mistake makers," the fact remains we are not and never can be perfect. This is not to say we are condemned to making the same mistakes over and over. If we learn from past mistakes, we shall have the joy and sorrow of making some entirely new ones and learning from them as well. That is learning. That is growth. That is what being alive is all about." Glenn Turner

Questions: What have we learned from our mistakes or our failures? How do we make imperfection a wise teacher?

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Closing Words: "We receive fragments of holiness, glimpses of eternity, brief moments of insight. Let us gather them up for the precious gifts that they are, and, renewed by their grace, move boldly into the unknown." Sara Campbell Top

LIVING THROUGH LOSS NO. 3 (Source: Rev. Calvin O. Dame) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, And round beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell And I understood more than I saw. For I was seeing in the sacred manner the shape of all things of the spirit And the shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that make one circle, wide as daylight and starlight, And in the center grew one mighty flowering tree To shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy." Black Elk -- Singing the Living Tradition #614

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Discussion: Ask the members of your group to share an experience of loss that has been a significant part of their life journey. Introduce the sharing with this reading: "I have journeyed to a place of great sorrow and there did I cry from the very depths of my soul. For days you thought I might never return, but I have come back to you: stronger, richer, with greater knowledge of myself. The crack in my heart will remain forever-its purpose no longer to let grief out, but to let greater love in." Myrriah Osbourde (from Life Tapestry, UUA Curriculum- used there by permission of the author from Mourning 1989 copyright) Questions: Was your journey a meandering route or a straight line? Where were the dark places? Where were you lonely? Where did you have a companion? How has it shaped you? Your faith? What strength has it given you?

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Closing Words: "Hold on to what is good, even if it is a handful of earth. Hold on to what you believe even if it is a tree which stands by itself. Hold on to what you must do even if it is a long way from here. Hold on to my hand even when I have gone away from you." - Nancy Wood Top

FORGIVENESS NO. 4 (Source: Rev. Glenn H. Turner) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "If you knew how I felt inside, you would not act that way outside. But most likely, If I knew how you felt inside I would not mind so much the way you act outside. Why don't we try turning ourselves inside out?" Edward T. Atkinson Check-in/Sharing

Discussion: "We cannot let the world's wounds destroy our spirits. We cannot let our hurts and betrayals destroy our capacity for growth and caring. That there will be judgments and, perhaps, justice, is necessary. That the violence be confronted and, if possible, contained, is essential. But, most important, is our capacity to nurture a loving heart, to affirm and not to curse, to forgive even when we cannot completely forget." Glenn H. Turner Questions: How do you respond when you are wounded? How do you feel toward the person who has hurt you? How long do you carry your anger and how does that re-sentiment (feeling it again and again) continue to hurt you? Can you forgive and break the cycle? Can you understand the other? What does forgiveness mean to you?

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Closing Words: "May the love which overcomes all differences which heals all wounds, which puts to flight all fears, which reconciles all who are separated, be in us and among us now and always." Frederick F. Gillis Top

WHAT WE LOVE NO. 5 (Source: Rev. Calvin O. Dame) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-over and over announcing your place in the family of things." Mary Oliver -- Singing the Living Tradition #490

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Discussion: Mary Oliver says, "You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves." What do you love? Tell a story of when you first encountered one of your loves. How does it feel: doing or being with the thing you love? How do you feel when you are apart from it or unable to do it? Are you at peace with the things that you love to do or be? What would you have to do to "let" yourself love what you love? How could we help each other achieve that?

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Closing Words: "As we leave this community of the spirit, may we remember the difficult lesson that each day offers more things than we can do. May we do what needs to be done, postpone what does not, and be at peace with what we can be and do. Therefore, may we learn to separate that which matters most from that which matters least of all." Richard S. Gilbert Top

SENSE OF GRATITUDE NO. 6 (Source: Rev. Glenn H. Turner) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "Who can make an accounting of gratitude? For the universe we give thanks, an expanse of life to stretch us with wonder… For the earth we give thanks, fragment of the stars that is our home… For life we give thanks, the burning of stars ordered and tempered here allowing us life and breath… For growth we give thanks, for the heritage of the spirit, for all the forces past our knowing, power past our control… For the ages which follow us, for the eternity of days, in which life is ever renewed and fulfilled, we give thanks." Adapted from Kenneth Patton, Hymns for the Celebration of Life

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Discussion: There are things in life that just sort of hang there: like free-floating guilt and angst. But, what about a sense of gratitude? Doesn't that well up at times and demand expression? A blessing, a song of praise, a shout, a loud HURRAH! I'm talking about a sense of gratitude that goes beyond just what another person does for you. I'm talking about the fiery sunset, the smell of the rose, the very existence of the artichoke and the giraffe. It should take our breath away. And our breath, oxygen-yes, thank you!

Questions: How do you cultivate a thankful heart? How do we stay aware of that in Life which is sheer blessing?

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Closing Words: "God, my our ears be open to little birds who are the secret of living, may we take time to see flowers and people for the beauty they are, may we make room in our lives for one another." Richard F. Boeke Top

POETRY NO. 7 (Source: Rev. Calvin O. Dame) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and I am free. Wendell Berry -- Singing the Living Tradition #483

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Discussion This lesson takes planning. Ask participants to bring a poem that has changed their lives: a simple poem from childhood, their own poem, the 23rd Psalm, whatever. Simply a poem that has deeply touched their lives. Remember to remind them before the meeting. Then share and discuss.

Ask as the unfolds, "How is your life different because of this poem?"

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Closing Words: Hold on to what is good even if it is a handful of earth.

Hold on to what you believe even if it is a tree which stands by itself.

Hold on to what you must do even if it is a long way from here.

Hold on to my hand even when I have gone away from you. Nancy Wood -- Singing the Living Tradition #688 Top

SERVICE TO OTHERS NO. 8 (Source: Rev. Calvin O. Dame) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "To Be of Use"

I want to be with people who submerge The work of the world is common as mud. in the task, Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. Who go into the fields to harvest and But the thing worth doing well done has a work in a row and pass the bags along, shape that satisfies, clean and evident. Who stand in the line and haul in Greek amphoras for wine or oil, Hopi vasestheir places, that held corn, are put in museums but you Who are not parlor generals and field know they were made to be used. deserters but move in a common rhythm The pitcher cries out for water to carry and when the food must come in or the a person for work that is real. fire be put out. Marge Piercy -- Singing the Living Tradition #567

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Discussion: This is a topic to encourage a conversation both about the nature of service and the form of our Small Group Ministry. One of the hopes for our Small Group Ministry Program was that each group would engage in some sort of service to the church community or beyond in the course of the year. Several observations have been made. Many value this time as a time for oneself without further obligations, a place to grow and 'be fed'! And many or most participants serve in other roles in the congregation. Yet a maturing spirituality issues forth in service and a shared project could deepen the groups connections and experience. And small sharing groups can be overly self-involved. What do you think?

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Closing Words: If, here, you have found freedom, take it with you into the world. If you have found comfort, go and share it with others. If you have dreamed dreams, help one another, they may come true! If you have known love, give some back to a bruised and hurting world. Go in peace. Lauralyn Bellamy -- Singing the Living Tradition #692 Top

LIVING AND DYING NO. 9 (Source: Rev. Calvin O. Dame) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "For the sun and the dawn which we did not create; for the moon and the evening which we did not make; for food we plant but cannot grow; for friends and loved ones we have not earned and cannot buy; for this gathered company, which welcomes us as we are, and from wherever we have come; for our free churches that keep us human and encourage us in our quest for beauty, truth and love; for all that comes to us as gifts from sources beyond ourselves; for gifts of life and friendship, and for this day, may we give thanks." -- Richard M. Fewkes (adapted)

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Discussion: John Buehrens, [past] UUA President writes; "Religion is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die." The knowledge of our own death is an enormous shaper of human behavior. How does this knowledge shape your life? What sorrow does it bring? What will you most miss? And how can the foreknowledge of our own death enrich our days?

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Closing Words: Did someone say there would be an end, What has been plaited cannot be un-plaited -- An end, Oh, an end, to love and mourning? only the strands grow richer with each loss. What has been once so interwoven cannot And memory makes kings and queens of us. be raveled, nor the gift un-given. ark into light, light into darkness, spin. Now the dead move through all of us When all the birds have flown to some still glowing. Real haven, Mother and child, lover and lover mated, We who find shelter in the warmth within, are wound and bound together and Listen, and feel new-cherished, new-forgiven, enflowing. As the lost human voices speak through us and blend our complex love, our mourning without end. "All Souls" by May Sarton -- Singing the Living Tradition #718 Top

PRAYER NO. 10 (Source: Rev. Calvin O. Dame)

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "Spirit of life and love, that lives in us and in all people, be present with us this day. Help us to be grateful for all that we have, grateful for this time of connection, grateful for these friends, and for all who enrich our lives. Spirit of life, be present with us as compassion, that we may open our hearts, listen with care, and be truly present with one another. Spirit of life, be present with us as a generosity of spirit, that we may meet the world with good will. Be present with us as vision, so that we may see beyond this moment and beyond the limits of our own day to day concerns, and remember, once again, that we are a part of a larger world, and all that lives therein. Amen" -- Calvin O. Dame

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Discussion: Human prayer is as old as the oldest evidence we have of human activity. Prayers come in many different forms: communal, personal, ritual, civic, petitionary (other?). And we come with different experiences, different expectations, different attitudes towards prayer.

Share your understanding of prayer, the experiences which have gone into that understanding; and if you have a prayer practice, what it is like, or if you were to have or begin a prayer practice, what you imagine it might be like.

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Closing Words: "As we leave this place and this company, may the fellowship of this circle carry us forward, remind us of that which we hold to be most sacred and encourage us in every hour, until such time as we meet again. Amen" -- Calvin O. Dame Top

A SACRED PLACE NO. 11 (Source: Rev. Calvin O. Dame)

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: Come out of the dark earth Here where the minerals Glow in their stone cells Deeper than seed or birth.

Come into the pure air Above all heaviness Of storm and cloud to this Light-possessed atmosphere.

Come into, out of, under The earth, the wave, the air.

Love, touch us everywhere With primeval candor. May Sarton -- Singing the Living Tradition #428 Check-in/Sharing

Discussion: "There are places I remember, all my life..." Lennon/McCartney We all have places that have been important in our lives, and remain significant in our memories. Ask participants first to recall a special or sacred place from the past, to reflect on it's importance in their lives and then to draw a picture of that place, including in-as-much as they can those details which make the memory rich. Then share.

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Closing Words: Beauty is before me, and Beauty behind me, above me and below me hovers the beautiful. I am surrounded by it, I am immersed in it. In my youth, I am aware of it, and, in old age, I shall walk quietly the beautiful trail. In beauty it is begun. In beauty, it is ended.

From the Navajo Indians of North America -- Singing the Living Tradition #682 Top

MENTORS NO. 12 (Source: Rev. Calvin O. Dame) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: They Are With Us Still "In the struggles we choose for ourselves, in the ways we move forward in our lives and bring the world forward with us, it is right to remember the names of those who gave us strength in this choice of living. It is right to name the power of hard lives well-lived. We share a history with those lives. We belong to the same motion. They too were strengthened by what had gone before. They too were drawn on by the vision of what might come to be. Those who lived before us, who struggled for justice and suffered injustice before us, have not melted into dust and have not disappeared, they are with us still. The lives they lived hold us steady. Their words remind us and call us back to ourselves. Their courage and love evoke our own. We carry them with us: we are their voices, their hands, their hearts. We take them with us, and with them, choose the deeper path of living. Kathleen McTigue, slightly adapted -- Singing the Living Tradition #721

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Discussion: Human beings learn how to be human beings from other human beings. All of us have learned the most startling and important lessons of life from those around us. And for each of us, at some time, some person or persons have touched our lives in deep and formative ways. • Who have your mentors been? • How has your life been shaped and changed by their example?

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Closing Words: "May the light around us guide our footsteps, and hold us fast to the best and most righteous that we seek. May the darkness around us nurture our dreams, and give us rest so that we may give ourselves to the work of our world. Let us seek to remember the wholeness of our lives, the weaving of light and shadow in this great and astonishing dance in which we move." Kathleen McTigue -- Singing the Living Tradition #706 Top

TIMELINES NO. 13 (Source: Rev. Calvin O. Dame) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words:

"We clasp the hands of those that go before us, And the hands of those who come after us. We enter the little circle of each other's arms And the larger circle of lovers, whose hands are joined in a dance. And the larger circle of all creatures, Passing in and out of life, who move also in a dance, To a music so subtle and vast that no ear hears it Except in fragments." Wendell Berry -- Singing the Living Tradition #646

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Discussion: Create a religious time line. Divide a line into sections, one for each of your decades of life, plus the decades you expect to live. Draw pictures for each decade representing how you understood God or felt about religion during each of those periods, plus how you hope to experience your religious life in the decades to come (20 minutes). Then share. (Materials: appropriate paper and crayons or colored pencils)

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Closing Words:

"Take courage friends. The way is often hard; the path is never clear, and the stakes are high. Take courage. For deep down, there is another truth. You are not alone." Wayne Arnason Top

WORSHIP NO. 14 (Source: Rev. Calvin O. Dame) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "Ancient as the home is the temple. Ancient as the workbench is the altar. Ancient as the soldier is the priest. Older than written language is spoken prayer; older than painting is the thought of a nameless one. Religion is first and last-the universal language of the human heart. Differing words describe the outward appearance of things; diverse symbols represent that which stands beyond and within. Yet each person's hunger is the same, and heart communicates with heart. Ever the vision leads on with many gods or with one, with a holy land washed by ocean waters, or a holy land within the heart. In temperament we differ, yet we are dedicated to one august destiny; creeds divide us, but we share a common quest. Because we are human, we shall ever build our altars; because each has a holy yearning, we offer everywhere our prayers and anthems. For an eternal verity abides beneath diversities; we are children of one great love, united in our one eternal family." W. Waldemar W. Argow-- Singing the Living Tradition #647

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Discussion: This is on the experience of worship. These are questions you might use: What kinds of worship can you think of? (newsprint might be helpful) What is worship for? Share an experience of memorable or moving worship. What makes worship meaningful for you? How do you prepare yourself for worship?

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Closing Words: "Take courage friends. The way is often hard; the path is never clear and the stakes are high. Take courage. For deep down, there is another truth. You are not alone." Wayne Arnason Top

LIVING SIMPLY NO. 15 (Source: Rev. Calvin O. Dame) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? … We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. ……I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life…. to cut a broad swath,… to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it… Henry David Thoreau

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Discussion: (materials: pen and paper) Many of us would like to live more simply, to simplify our lives. But not many of us are likely to follow Thoreau's example and build a cabin in the woods. Take ten minutes to answer these questions: • What are the demands in my life that keep me too busy? • What needs or forces in me keep me busy? • What do I push aside? • What would I be willing to give up? • Take time to share. • Ending question: • What one thing are you willing to try in the next weeks (until the group meets • again) that will move your life closer to your goals for a simpler and more • meaningful life?

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Closing Words: "May the light around us guide our footsteps, and hold us fast to the best and most righteous vision that we seek. May the darkness around us nurture our dreams, and give us rest so that we may give ourselves to the work of the world. Let us seek to remember the wholeness of our lives, the weaving of light and shadow in this great and astonishing dance in which we move." Kathleen McTigue Top

MOTHERS NO. 16 (Source: Rev. Calvin O. Dame) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: Earth mother, star mother, You who are called by a thousand names, May all remember we are cells in your body and dance together. You are grain and the loaf that sustains us each day, And as you are patient with our struggles to learn So shall we be patient with ourselves and each other. We are radiant light and sacred dark -- the balance -- You are the embrace that heartens And the freedom beyond fear. Within you we are born, we grow, live, and die -- You bring us around the circle to rebirth, Within us you dance Forever. Starhawk -- Singing the Living Tradition #524

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Discussion: In the matters of mothers, our culture swings from the saccharine sentimentality of Mother's Day to laying blame for every shortcoming imaginable at the maternal feet. Everyone has a mother, we are the same in this. But the story of every mother and child is different. Some stories have a great deal of turbulence in them, though every story is a story of gifts. What is your story?

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Closing Words: "Because of those who came before, we are. In spite of their failings, we believe. Because of, and in spite of the horizons of their vision, we, too, dream. Let us go remembering to praise, to live in the moment, to love mightily, to bow to the mystery."

Barbara Pescan Top

PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS NO. 17 (Source: Rev. Glenn H. Turner)

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: THE WORK OF CHRISTMAS When the song of angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone, When the kings and princes are home, When the shepherds are back with their flock, The work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among the brothers, to make music in the heart. Howard Thurman -- Singing the Living Tradition #615

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Discussion: (use the following selection as a responsive reading)

The relatives have gone. The harvest season passed with Thanksgiving. Even as we bought our turkey, the Salvation Army bells jangled our nerves toward Christmas.

THE DECORATIONS OF CHRISTMAS ARE HUNG IN OUR TOWNS AND CITIES. WE HAVE LEFT- OVER TURKEY SOUP AND (?) MORE SHOPPING DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS.

This is the advent of peace and goodwill, songs to be sung, choirs to do their Messiahs. There will be Christmas Teas and office parties, Christmas Fairs, and hot rum toddies.

BY THIS WEEK WE SHOULD HAVE OUR CARDS IN THE MAIL. GREETINGS TO A HUNDRED FRIENDS ALL OVER THE WORLD, EACH WITH A LETTER TELLING ALL THAT WE DID FOR THE YEAR. LAST WEEK OUR PACKAGES SHOULD HAVE BEEN MAILED. WHEN IS THERE TIME TO GO SHOPPING?

Giving gifts takes more time than we have. Siting in the endless traffic, hustling and bustling through the stores, lining up in the Post Office behind the man with six packages all going overseas, all to be insured, all to be registered.

SOON WE'LL BE EATING AND DRINKING MORE THAN WE SHOULD. ANXIOUS, UNEASY, WE MAY MISS THE SPIRIT WE SEEK. WE PAUSE, CENTER DOWN, AND REFLECT ON THE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS.

What shall we celebrate? A closeness with family and friends, a warmth in the chill of winter, a birth-what shall we celebrate? THE YULE LOG, THE FEASTING, THE GIFTS, THE CARDS, THE TREES, AND THE WREATHS ALL POINT TO OUR FEELINGS OF CLOSENESS, DECLARE OUR NEED FOR A CARING COMMUNITY.

The winter is cold, the snow will lie on the ground, soon are the snowmen and skating, hot chocolate, skiing, and singing-all that this season is bringing.

THERE MUST BE SPACE FOR THE SINGING OF ANGELS, BRIGHT LIGHT OF BEAUTY AND MEANING. THERE MUST BE A PLACE UNDER THE STARS TO CHART A COURSE THAT IS OURS TO OUR OWN BETHLEHEMS. - Glenn H. Turner

Questions: • What are you feeling as we move into another Christmas season? • What do you dread? • What do you look forward to? • What rituals keep you focused? • If your tradition is not Christian (i.e. being Jewish, Muslim…) how do you experience this season?

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Closing Words:

"Give us a child's heart, that we may be filled with wonder and delight." Sara Moores Campbell Top

LIVING WITH FEAR NO. 18 (Source: Rev. Calvin O. Dame) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: Transcendental Etude No one ever told us we had to study our lives, Make of our lives a study, as if learning natural history or music, That we should begin with simple exercises first and slowly go on trying the hard ones, Practicing till strength and accuracy become one with the daring to leap into transcendence. And in fact we can't live like that: we take on everything at once before we've even begun to read or mark time, we're forced to begin in the midst of the hardest movement, The one already sounding as we are born. Adrienne Rich -- Singing the Living Tradition #665

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Discussion: (Preparation: make sure that writing materials are available) Fear of failure. Fear of dependency. Fear of destitution. Fear of other's judgements. Fear of physical harm. More of our lives have been shaped by fear than we would readily admit. Take a moment to reflect, then write, briefly, answers to these questions: How has my life been shaped by fear? What hold does fear presently have over me? How have I overcome fear in my life?

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Closing Words: "Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it. Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield, but to my own strength. Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved, but hope for the patience to win my freedom. Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling your mercy in my success alone; But let me find the grasp of your hand in my failure." Rabindranath Tagore -- Singing the Living Tradition #519 Top

VALUES NO. 19 (Source: Barbara Bates) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: A person will worship something -- have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts -- but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshiping we are becoming. Ralph Waldo Emerson-- Singing the Living Tradition #563

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Discussion: Adapted for FUSN from The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook by Senge, Roberts, Ross, Smith, & Kleiner p. 209 Our deeply held values give meaning and dimension to our lives. They are the mental models that guide our behavior. Use the list below (or add you own items) to select the ten values most important to you -- as guides for how to behave, or as components of a valued way of life. Now eliminate all but two of the ten. Watch how you went about eliminating items. Which two items do you care most about? What do they mean, exactly? What are you expecting of yourself -- even in bad times? How do these values sustain you? How do you "worship" these values?

• Achievement • Friendship, closeness/rapport with others • Advancement, progress, promotion • Health, physical/mental wellbeing • Adventure, challenges, risk • Helpfulness, assisting others/society • Affection, love, caring • Inner harmony, being at peace, serenity • Arts, music, beauty, esthetic values • Integrity, honesty, ethical practice • Belonging, involvement, community • Loyalty, commitment, dependability • Competence • Nature, the natural world • Competitiveness, striving to be the best • Order, structured, organized, systematic • Cooperation, collaboration, teamwork • Personal development, learning • Creativity, being imaginative, inventive, • Pleasure, fun, enjoyment, good times original • Democracy • Power, influence • Ecological awareness, health of the • Recognition, respect from others, status earth • Economic security, adequate income, • Responsibility, reliability, accountability wealth • Fame, renown, distinction • Self-respect, self-esteem • Family, close happy relationships • Spirituality, faith, beliefs • Freedom, independence, liberty • Wisdom, insight, enlightenment

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Closing Words: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead -- Singing the Living Tradition #561

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SACRED MOMENTS NO. 21 (Source: Calvin Dame/ Helen Cato) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness. Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. -Rumi Check-in/Sharing

Discussion: I looked up the definition of sacred in the dictionary and found some definitions that were too general and some that were helpful: "worthy of religious veneration: holy" and "entitled to reverence and respect." Questions: 1. Tell a story of a sacred moment. What made it sacred? 2. Are there ways that you live your life that you believe either inhibit or encourage your openness to the sacred?

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Closing Words: And I have felt a presence that/ disturbs me with the joy of/ elevated thoughts; a sense sublime of something far/ More deeply interfused,/ Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,/ And the round ocean and the living air, A motion and a spirit, that impels/ All thinking things, all objects of/ all thought, And rolls through all things. Singing the Living Tradition #499 William Wordsworth Top

HOW CAN I HELP? NO 22 (Source: Cindy Ladd Fiorini) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: (to be read responsively) We need one another when we mourn and would be comforted We need one another when we are in trouble and afraid. We need one another when we are in despair, in temptation, and need to be recalled to our best selves again. We need one another when we would accomplish some great purpose and cannot do it alone. We need one another in the hour of success, when we look for someone to share our triumphs. We need one another in the hour of defeat, when with encouragement we might endure, and stand again. We need one another when we come to die, and would have gentle hands to prepare us for the journey. All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us. 468 Singing the Living Tradition Check-in/Sharing

Discussion Topic: This seeks to explore and share our experiences as helpers. But helping is not always easy. Two questions occur: first, do you see yourself as someone who has learned to bless the world? And second, how have you learned what that means for you? Share stories. Hymn: 84 Singing the Living Tradition How Far Can Reach a Smile?

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Closing Words: Love cannot remain by itself - it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action and that action is service. Whatever form we are, able or disabled, rich or poor, it is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing; a lifelong sharing of love with others. Mother Teresa Top

THE RIGHT OF CONSCIENCE NO. 23 & USE OF DEMOCRATIC PROCESS (William B. Hurlbut) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "My counsel tells me that if I answer questions about myself, I will have waived my rights under the Fifth Amendment and could be forced legally to answer questions about others. This is very difficult for a layman to understand. But there is one principle that I do understand. I am not willing, now or in the future, to bring bad trouble to people who, in my past association with them, were completely innocent of any talk or any action that was disloyal or subversive. I do not like subversion or disloyalty in any form and if I had ever seen any I would consider it my duty to have reported it to the proper authorities. But to hurt innocent people whom I knew many years ago in order to save myself is, to me, inhuman and indecent and dishonorable. I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group." Lillian Hellman, Letter to HUAC, May 19, 1952

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Discussion Topic: We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large. Questions: 1. Do you find it difficult to live this principle? Why/why not? 2. How can we work things out when what is in our conscience differs from what is in the conscience of others? 3. Where did your conscience come from? How has it grown over the years? Has it changed in any significant way? 4. How can we go about promoting this principle? 5. How much are you willing to give up for a principle, to live up to what your conscience tells you? 6. Lillian Hellman risked her reputation and her career for her conscience. Could you do that? For what principle of conscience? 7. When we advocate the use of democratic process, what exactly do we mean? Is voting always the best way to arrive at a democratic decision? When is voting the right thing to do? When is it not?

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Closing Words: "The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death." Thomas Paine (1737 - 1809) Top

FRIENDSHIP NO. 24 (adapted from San Jose) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him. Ralph Waldo Emerson Check-in/Sharing

Discussion: “Friendship is the joy, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring all right out as if they are, chaff and grain together, confident that a faithful, friendly hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of comfort, blow the rest away.” Geoge Eliot, Middlemarch

Questions: 1. Think about a very special friend you have had, or now have. Write a poem or make a valentine for this friend. Share why you chose this friend and this valentine. What makes this friendship special? What have you learned from each other? How has the friendship changed over time? 2. What is your role in maintaining a relationship? Think about what you really do to maintain and or deepen your friendships, or what you wish you did.

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Closing Words: If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love friends for their sake rather than for our own. Charlotte Bronte Top

PLAY’S THE THING NO. 25 (Adapted from First Unitarian of San Jose) Chalice/Candle Lighting

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Opening Words: O God of Work and Leisure Teach me to shirk on occasion, Not only that I may work more effectively But also that I may enjoy life more abundantly. Enable me to understand that the earth Magically continues spinning on its axis Even when I am not tending thy vineyards. Permit me to breathe more easily Knowing the destiny of the race Rests not on my shoulders alone. Deliver me from false prophets who urge me To “repent and shirk no more.” I pray for thy grace on me, Thy faithful shirker. - “The Shirk Ethic” Richard S. Gilbert, In the Holy Quiet of This House

Discussion: One day a little boy was playing in front of his house, when it occurred to him that he had never seen an adult playing with a red wagon like his. And he burst into tears. When his mother asked why he was crying, the boy said he was afraid that when he grew up he wouldn’t be able to play with his red wagon anymore. The mother assured the child that when he grew up he could play with his red wagon if he wanted to. That quieted him for a moment. Then he burst into even greater sobs. The mother asked, “What’s the matter now?” The boy replied, “I’m afraid that when I grow up, I won’t want to play with my red wagon anymore.”

We invite you to consider some or all of the following questions. Remember what playing meant to you during your childhood, and how it helped you grow. What were your favorite ways to play as a child? What made them interesting and exciting? Think about the role of play in your adult life. How do you play as an adult? Why do you value this kind of play? Do you ever feel like you just don’t deserve, or can’t afford to, have more fun? What would you do if you could spend an entire day just playing? What’s stopping you from doing it? -Anthony Friess Perrino, The Numbering of our Days

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Closing Words: May I remember to keep my face to the sun, / To play, laugh and experience joy whenever possible,/ To celebrate the world and my fellow human beings,/ To say YES! to life each day. Based on “I Do Not Pray” by James Madison Barr Top

OUR WORK, OUR SELVES NO. 26 (adapted from First Unitarian of San Jose) Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words And what is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit. It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit. And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching. Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger. And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distills a poison in the wine. And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle men’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night. Excerpted from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran Check-in/Sharing

Discussion: We all have work whether we are paid for it or not. Share your thoughts about the journey that led you to your work and its relationship to your image of self. What would happen to your self-image if that work were taken away?

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Closing Words: The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes not its theories will hold water .- by John Gardner. Top

HAPPINESS NO. 27

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: Happiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice we make pursuant to our individual organization. Marquis De Sade ~ Discussion: Story for all the read The 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud lady, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o'clock, with her hair fashionably coifed and makeup perfectly applied, even though she is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today. Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary. After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready. As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on her window. "I love it," she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy. "Mrs. Jones, you haven't seen the room ...... just wait." "That doesn't have anything to do with it," she replied. "Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how the furniture is arranged...it's how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it" "It's a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open I'll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I've stored away ... just for this time in my life. Old age is like a bank account... you withdraw from what you've put in. Remember the five simple rules to be happy: 1. Free your heart from hatred. 2. Free your mind from worries. 3. Live simply. 4. Give more. 5. Expect less. Questions: What fills us with happiness? What stops us from being happy? What are the happiest moments you will never forget? What could we do to fill our account with happy memories?

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Closing Words: True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.-~ Joseph Addison ~ Prepared by Wednesday Night Group, UU First Parish Church, Duxbury, Massachusetts Top

LISTENING NO. 28

Chalice/Candle Lighting

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Opening words: If it is language that makes us human, one half of language is to listen. Silence can exist without speech, but speech cannot live without silence. Listen to the speech of others. Listen even more to their silence. To pray is to listen to the revelations of nature, to the meaning of events. To listen to music is to listen also to silence, and to find the stillness deepened and enriched. Reading 482

Discussion: Hearing is an involuntary physical act that happens through our primary sense organ when sound waves impinge upon the ear. Everyone with healthy ears can hear. Listening takes cultivation and evolves through one's lifetime. Listening is noticing and directing attention and interpreting what is heard. Deep Listening is exploring the relationship among any and all sounds. Hearing is passive. We can hear without listening. This is the state of being tuned out - unaware of our acoustic ecology - unaware that the fluttering of a butterfly's wings has profound effect near and in the far reaches of the universe. We can hear sounds inwardly from memory or imagination or outwardly from nature, or from civilization. Listening is actively directing one's attention to what is heard, noticing and directing the interaction and relationships of sounds and modes of attention. We hear in order to listen. We listen in order to interpret ourselves and our world and to experience meaning. Questions: What is real listening? What is Deep Listening like? What stops us from listening? How does silence fit into listening?

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Closing Words Prayer I pray for deep listening in the new century -- listening alone -- listening together -- listening to others -- listening to oneself -- listening to the earth -- listening to the universe -- listening to the abundance that is -- awakening to and feeling sound and silence as all there is -- helping to create an atmosphere of opening for all to be heard, with the understanding that listening is healing. Deep listening in all its variations is infinite. Deep listening is love. By Pauline Oliveros from Prayers for a Thousand Years, Harper San Francisco, 1999

Prepared by Wednesday Night Group, UU First Parish Church, Duxbury, Massachusetts Top

ATHEISM NO.29

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the attendant of truth. Doubt is the key to the door of knowledge; it is the servant of discovery. A belief which may not be questioned binds us to error, for there is incompleteness and imperfection in every belief. Doubt is the touchstone of truth; it is acid which eats away the false. Let no one fear for the truth, that doubt may consume it; for doubt is a testing of belief. The truth stands boldly and unafraid; it is not shaken by testing: for truth if it be truth, arises from each testing stronger, more secure."Robert T. Weston

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Discussion: Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist beliefs are not based on the concept of a deity, they are essentially atheistic. Dan Kennedy in a recent article in UU World "Are You With The Atheists" stated that 46 % of UUs in 1997 defined themselves as humanists - a category that includes atheists and agnostics, and according to a 2001 report 18% of UUs polled in Ohio, West Virginia and Western PA considered themselves to be atheists. The following month's issue contained a letter to the editor which stated "when liberal theologians use the word "God" to mean precisely what the general population means by "not God," atheists see this not as a matter of semantics, but rather as a matter of dishonesty. Do you believe in God, or do you merely believe in the word "God?" Another letter asked "Can we find any evidence for the supernatural gods, devils, saviors, miracles, etc. If we cannot, how can we voice the honest conclusion?" Questions: 1. Can you find any evidence for the supernatural? 2. Are you an atheist? If so, why? If not, why not? 3. If you are an atheist, have you felt welcome in our congregation?

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Closing Words: "A person will worship something - have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts - but it will out. That which dominates our imagination and our thoughts will determine our lives and character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

BITTERNESS NO. 30

Opening Words: A Poison Tree I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I watered it in fears Night and morning with my tears And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night Till it bore an apple bright, And my foe beheld.its shine, And he knew that it was mine And into my garden stole When the night had veiled the pole; In the morning, glad, I see My foe outstretched beneath the tree. by William Blake

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Discussion: As we grow older, our losses accumulate, and can sometimes be difficult to accept. Many of the dreams of our youth will never come to be. Regrets, missed opportunities, roads not taken: all begin to pile up. Or perhaps someone hurt us, and we hold a grudge. Some of us may slip into bitterness, become hard and unforgiving-angry at a cruel world. Others will let go and find the grace to accept, forgive and find joy amid the hurts and losses of the past. Questions: 1. Describe a significant time in your life when you faced the possibility of sliding into bitterness. What was your choice? How did you make the choice? What influenced you, what did you find within yourself to step in one direction or the other? What has this meant to your life? 2. Is there bitterness that you carry with you now? What would it take for you to let it go and move on?

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Closing Words: "Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. Life is beauty, admire it. Life is bliss, taste it. Life is a dream, realize it. Life is a challenge, meet it. Life is a duty, complete it. Life is a game, play it. Life is a promise, fulfill it. Life is sorrow, overcome it. Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle, accept it. Life is a tragedy, confront it. Life is an adventure, dare it. Life is luck, make it. Life is precious, do not destroy it. Life is life, fight for it." Mother Teresa

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

A CALL NOT TAKEN NO.31

Opening Words: "We gather this day in expectation and in hope. To this gathered circle we bring memories and connections, hopes and fears and aspirations. May we renew again that. fellowship which is deepened and enriched by our sharing. May we be reminded again of the wider horizons of our human community. And may we hold one another in that esteem that makes family of us all." Calvin Dame

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Discussion: "None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding, except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Many of us have any number of issues or concerns floating around in our thoughts which we think that somebody really ought to do something about. For example: that the Second Amendment to the Constitution ought to be repealed to decrease the level of gun violence in our country, or that prisons are medieval and ought to be radically reformed, etc., etc. Questions: 1. What thoughts do you have about things that "someone" ought to do something about? 2. What would be needed to get you involved in changing some of these things? 3. What prevents you from taking some action on the issues that burn in your heart?

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Closing Words: "As we leave this circle, may we carry one another in our hearts. And may the fellowship that we have shared expand our sympathy, strengthen our resolve and carry us forward into tomorrow." Calvin Dame

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

COVENANT NO. 32

Opening Words: "We come to this time and this place; To rediscover the wondrous gift of free religious community; To renew our faith in the holiness, goodness and beauty of life; To reaffirm the way of the open mind and full heart; To rekindle the flame of memory and hope; And to reclaim the vision of an earth made fair, with all her people one." David Pohl Check-in/Sharing

Discussion: The Small Group Ministry Program was envisioned with four goals in mind. a) Love ourselves and each other; b). Learn about the mysteries of our world and our spiritual paths; c) Serve our community and the needs of one another; d) Maintain personal connections and a caring community with and for members of our groups. This is designed as a challenge to each group to make or renew a covenant. Question: 1. What will you promise one another and what expectations will you hold for one another? (topics to consider might include attendance, confidentiality, listening, connections beyond group meetings, sharing information, leave taking, welco~ng new members, etc.)

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Closing Words: "As we leave this place and this company, may the fellowship of this circle carry us forward, remind us of that which we hold to be most sacred and encourage us in every hour, until such time as we meet again." Calvin Dame

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

CURIOSITY NO. 33

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "Mother of science and the critical method Keep us humble." Kathleen Norris A Prayer to Eve

"Seven Blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle." Mahatma Gandhi Check-in/Sharing

Discussion: Curiosity got Eve in a lot of trouble. Tasting the forbidden fruit of knowledge, she and Adam were cast into the real world filled with back-breaking work and debilitating disease. And we're all familiar with the troubles let loose from Pandora's Box! But curiosity, the human urge to know, has led to discoveries that, in turn, have led to labor- saving devices and immunizations against disease. All the same, are we pushing the limits of knowledge, reaching too far into the realm of science in an attempt to change life for the better? Think of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and modern genetics. Questions: 1.Is there Forbidden Fruit? 2.Should we curb our curiosity? 3. Are we mature enough as a species to handle the knowledge that we are capable of acquiring? 4. Which new discoveries concern you most?

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Closing Words: "The Divine's words comfort and bless, soothe and illumine, and the Divine's generous hand lifts a fold of the veil which hides the infinite knowledge." The Mother "Curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought him back." Folk Wisdom

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

DANCE NO. 34

NOTE: THIS ACTIVITY WILL REQUIRE PLANNING AHEAD: This activity will REQUIRE a CD or tape player and each person will need to bring their own favorite dance music!

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "We gather this day in expectation and in hope. To this gathered circle we bring memories and connections, hopes and fears and aspirations. May we renew again that fellowship which is deepened and enriched by our sharing. May we be reminded again of the wider horizons of our human community. And may we hold one another in that esteem that makes family of us all." Calvin Dame Check-in/Sharing

Discussion: "Dance is the hidden language of the soul." Martha Graham (1894 - 1994) US dancer, choreographer "He who is unable to dance - says the yard is stony." Kenyan Proverb

There are many types of dance: Ecstatic, Ballet, Folk Dance, Break Dance, Tap Dance, Sacred Circle Dancing, Sufi Dancing, etc. ad infinitum. Dancing comes in many variations - from very stylized dances such as Hip Hop or Balinese Dance to the free form movement of Woodstock and contemporary Raves. Many of us are uncomfortable with some forms of dance yet quite at home with other forms. 1. If you are comfortable, can you share a recording of some of your favorite dance music and invite members of your group (who are willing) to dance with you for a few minutes. 2. What is your experience of dance, what has dance meant to you in your life?

Closing of Dance Activity: "1 have no desire to prove anything by dancing. 1 have never used it as an outlet or a means of expressing myself. I just dance. I just put my feet in the air and move them around" Fred Astaire (1899 - 1987) US dancer, actor

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Closing Words: "As we leave this circle, may we carry one another in our hearts. And may the fellowship that we have shared expand our sympathy, strengthen our resolve and carry us forward into tomorrow." Calvin Dame

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

RELAXATION NO.35

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: The time to relax is when you don't have time for it. ~ Sidney J. Harris Check-in/Sharing

Discussion: Share the edited sermon ... Observing a Unitarian Universalist Sabbath by Amanda Aikman

Questions: Do you vacuum-cats? When was the last time you really relaxed? How can relaxing benefit you? Can it benefit you spiritually? What happens if you don’t ever take the time to relax? What are ways you can include relaxing into your

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Closing Words: Deep in the innermost recesses of your soul, the secret place within you, there is a haven of peace and stillness. It is there that you find respite from the tumult and confusion of the world; there that you are poised, composed, inspired, and directed. It is in this secret place that you realize your unity with life, light, and abundant goodness.

Prepared by Wednesday Night Group, UU First Parish Church, Duxbury, Massachusetts ... Observing a Unitarian Universalist Sabbath by Amanda Aikman

Are we becoming a nation of cat-vacuumers? I raise this pressing question remembering my neighbor Betty. She had a rambling three-story house filled with knick-knacks. She had a gentle husband, Jay, who mostly stayed out of her way, tending his roses. And she had a cat. Betty also had some sort of compulsion that made it impossible for her to leave the house in the morning without first dusting or vacuuming every single item in it. This included Reuben. He was a slim, black little fellow whose elegance of gait and demeanor did not betray his humble origins: As a kitten, he had been rescued from a dumpster by Jay, who brought him home in his pocket. Reuben knew he had been rescued from a dumpster. He knew about the world outside Betty and Jay's house-a harsh reality where there were bad smells, hunger, other cats, and noises even louder than the whine of a vacuum cleaner. And so every morning, with a martyred expression on his furry face not unlike that of Saint Sebastian in Guido Reni's famous painting, Reuben would lie on his back and submit to being vacuumed. Betty used the Hoover's upholstery crevice tool, determined to get every last scrap of fur and dander. Jay would sometimes come by and say (over the noise of the vacuum), "Now, Betty, why do you have to vacuum that poor cat?" Betty didn't know. She just kept vacuuming. She had to do it before she could feel free to leave the house. Brothers and sisters, is there something in your life that is the equivalent of cat vacuuming? Something you feel compelled to do, even though it drains your time and energy, even though it makes very little sense-something to which you have bound yourself and from which there is no rest? Does it sometimes feel as if your entire life is like this-an endless round of work and frantic consumption and leisure that feels suspiciously like work? Is true, healing rest something you are vaguely planning to enjoy . . . one day? Can you even remember the last time you were truly, totally relaxed? Was it days ago? Months? In the early years of the twentieth century, Sandor Ferenczi, a disciple of Sigmund Freud, noticed a phenomenon he called "Sunday neurosis": normally healthy professional people would experience mental and physical distress on the Sabbath. Ferenczi theorized that these patients, deprived of their normal busy routine by the advent of Sunday, feared that their usual self- censoring mechanisms would prove inadequate to keep their impulses repressed. They felt out of control-and developed pain or mental anguish to drown out their anxiety. A hundred years later, we have eliminated the blue laws that restricted the range of things you could do on a Sunday. Now we can work, shop, and engage in all kinds of organized recreation, twenty-four seven. We don't suffer from Sunday neurosis; most of us never sit still long enough to experience it. Because we Americans turn even leisure into work, true rest eludes us. Some years back, when sensory deprivation tanks were in vogue, I "floated" a few times as an aid to meditation. I loved the dark tank, the skin-temperature water so saturated with minerals that it felt oily, the effortless floating sensation, the physical and mental refreshment it brought. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that some floaters turned even that deliciously empty time into an opportunity for self-improvement. Once, as I was emerging from the tank, I noticed a small screen on its inside lid. On my way out of the building, I asked what the screen was for. "Oh," a staffperson said, "some people study videos about how to improve their golf swing while they're floating." The Sabbath comes to us from the Jewish tradition. In the story of creation in Genesis, each of God's six acts of creation is like an act in a play. And the climax is: God rests. Why would God have thought it so important to rest? Rabbi Elijah of Vilna said that God stopped to show us that what we create becomes meaningful to us only when we stop creating it and start to think about why we did so. We don't stop to rest, however. We don't stop to think about the meaning of what we have created. We don't stop to consider ourselves and our place in the universe. Judith Shulevitz writes that "the Sabbath, the one day in seven dedicated to rest by divine command, has become the holiday Americans are most likely never to take." Longingly, Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote: "When will you ever, Peace, wild wood-dove, shy wings shut, Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?" Peace does not just come and alight under one's boughs. If we are relentlessly and unceasingly busy, we can't even recognize peace. Peace might come and start cooing around our tree, and we might mistake it for boredom or depression. Yet how can we hope to create peace in the world when we don't experience it in our own bodies, our own souls? It is extraordinarily difficult to take a real Sabbath, to shut out the myriad voices that berate us for lazily sitting still when we could be earning money, improving ourselves or society, or-our real patriotic duty-shopping. It is difficult. But it can be done. We can set aside time and space, and keep it sacred. We can clear out the underbrush to make space under the tree, and sit there quietly. Then peace can gently come and roost, nurturing us, giving us joy and a sense of reconnection with the holy. That is why the Sabbath was created: to build that nest for peace. Observant Jews light candles on Friday evening to welcome the Sabbath. Observant Christians may start Sunday with prayer or quiet Bible study. But many nonreligious people, too, have learned how to usher Sabbath into their own lives. Sharing a meal with loved ones-or preparing a beautiful meal for oneself-is one popular Sabbath activity. A woman who regularly invites friends over to cook with her tells Wayne Muller, author of Sabbath, "It becomes almost sacred, sacramental, the way food and hands and friendship all work together in the warmth of the kitchen." The Sabbath does not have to be restricted to one day a week, of course. There should be moments of Sabbath in every day-moments of hallowing the world. Kalu Rinpoche, a Tibetan spiritual leader, visited an aquarium and kept stopping to put his fingers to the glass of each tank, quietly blessing every fish as he walked: "May you be happy. May you be at peace." My partner and I spent last Thanksgiving at a lodge on the Olympic Peninsula and went for a long hike one morning. As we set out, we agreed to walk in silence for the first hour. I took a brief detour off the trail, and when I returned to it, Nancy was signaling to me urgently, smiling. There, just off the trail, was a doe, staring calmly at us. We stood silently for a long minute, the two humans and the wild creature, before the doe melted away into the underbrush. If we had been talking, she never would have lingered, and we would have missed that transcendent moment. Observing the Sabbath, observing a day of mindfulness, taking a real day off, does not require anything extra of us. It does call for the intentional creation of sacred space and time. It takes a little discipline. It also calls us to overcome our fear of what we will find in the silence and the emptiness, our fear of what disaster will strike if the cat remains un-vacuumed. The most challenging thing about Sabbath is that it is useless. Nothing will get done, not a single item will get checked off any list. Our work is necessary. But Sabbath time offers the priceless gift of balance. We are valued not for what we have done, but simply because we are. During Sabbath time, we reconnect with what is truly valuable: the beauty of the world, the love of God, the miracle of being itself. Sabbath is waiting quietly for us, a haven of calm, a nest of gentleness, a sweet apple on the tree of peace. Let us reach up toward it, and taste it for ourselves.

The Rev. Amanda Aikman is minister of the Olympic Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Port Angeles, Washington. Adapted from her sermon, " Top

FAITH & PRACTICE NO. 36

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "Practice makes perfect." "It is only through continued, disciplined practice that we can touch the wholeness, the perfection, that is within us." Diane Mariechild

"Only faith can guarantee the blessings that we hope for, or prove the existence of the realities that at present remain unseen. It was for faith that our ancestors were commended." Hebrews 11: 1 Check-in/Sharing

Discussion: Karen Armstrong in her book, Islam; A Short History, observes that Islamic and Judaic traditions are traditions of practice, they are religions that give humans rules by which to live. Christianity, in contrast, is a tradition of faith or belief. She argues that Jews and Muslims care less about what's in a person's heart and more about how a person conducts herself in day-to-day life. Christians have come to care more about what a person believes. Questions: 1. How do faith and practice interact in your spiritual life? 2. Which calls you more deeply? 3. Which is most supported by our Unitarian Universalist principles?

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Closing Words: Like billowing clouds, The longing of the soul can never be stilled. Hildegard of Bingen

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

GUILT NO.37

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "The very presence of guilt, let alone its tenacity, implies imbalance: Something, we suspect, is getting more of our energy than warrants, at the expense of something else, we suspect, that deserves more of our energy than we're giving." Melinda M. Marshall (20th century), U.S. writer and editor. Good Enough Mothers, Chap. 4 (1993).

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Discussion: Some of us were raised in homes with traditions that instilled varying degrees of guilt; many of us have complained and suffered as a result. l. How has the experience of guilt shaped your perception and/or behavior? 2. Can guilt serve a useful purpose?

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Closing Words: "I can feel guilty about the past, apprehensive about the future, but only in the present can I act. The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness." Abraham Maslow (1908 - 1970) US psychologist, philosopher

"Without the spice of guilt, sin cannot be fully savored." Alexander Chase (1926 - ~) US journalist, editor

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

HABITS & ROTE NO. 38

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "We gather this day in expectation and in hope. To this gathered circle we bring memories and connections, hopes and fears and aspirations. May we renew again that fellowship which is deepened and enriched by our sharing. May we be reminded again of the wider horizons of our human community. And may we hold one another in that esteem that makes family of us all." Calvin Dame

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Discussion: To be human is to seek the comfortable and the familiar. In many ways, we are reatures of habit. For instance, we may seldom see the people we love--rather, we may live with them by habit, not truly looking with fresh eyes. Or we may drive home each day without "seeing" the sky, the trees, the changing landscape. There are many ways that living out of habit infuses our daily life. For some, this is easy and satisfying and holds no risks. For others, this is dull and boring. Perhaps most of us live with the ambiguity of both wanting the comfort of habit, and the longing for the excitement of stepping out of our routine. Questions: 1. How are you a creature of habit? 2. In what ways does this work for you? 3. In what ways does this work against you? 4. How might you live more consciously in the present?

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Closing Words: "You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land, there is no other life but this." Mahatma Ghandi

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

IMAGES OF THE GODDESS NO. 39

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "There was a time when we were not [part of a male hierarchy], remember that. We walked along, full of laughter, we bathed bare bellied. We say you have lost all recollection of it, remember...you say there are no words to describe it, you say it does not exist. But remember. Make an effort to remember. Or, failing that, invent." Adapted from Monique Witting, Les Guerilleres

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Discussion: The Unitarian Universalist curricula Cakes for the Queen of Heaven (1986) and Rise Up and Call Her Name (1994) have had a profound impact on Unitarian Universalism. Chants and readings of the Goddess and earth-based traditions are part of worship; the language is more inclusive, and there are special services honoring these traditions (Solstice and Equinox celebrations, for example.)

Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Kali, Innana are all words for the female divine from ancient cultures. Spider Woman, Kuan Yin, Mary and the Earth as Mother are modem variations.

1. What is your relationship with female images of the divine? 2. Have these images influenced you or your spiritual practices? 3. Has your spiritual history affected your relationship to the female divine?

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Closing Words: The Charge of the Goddess "I who am the beauty of the green earth and the white moon among the stars and the mysteries of the waters, I call upon your soul to arise and come unto me. For I am the soul of nature that gives life to the universe. From me all things proceed and unto me they must return.. .And you seek to know Me, know that your seeking and yearning will availe you not, unless you know the mystery; for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will. never find it without. For behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and I am that which is attained at the end of desire." Starhawk, The Spiral Dance

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

JESUS NO. 41

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesare's Phillipi, he asked his disciples, 'Who do men say that the Son of man is?' And they said, 'Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." "He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?''' Matthew 16, 13-15 Check-in/Sharing

Discussion: Jesus of Galilee joins with the Buddha, Mohammed, and Confucius as one of the figures of history whose life and words have influenced hundreds of millions of lives across centuries. Called Prophet, Son of God, Savior, Teacher, Redeemer, Friend, the Christ, a historical figure, the Perfect Man: no one who lives in our culture, believer or no, is untouched by this legacy. The writer of the book of Matthew has Jesus ask again and again. "Who do men say that I am?" Do you remember when you first heard about Jesus? Who do you say Jesus is?

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Closing Words: Because of those who came before, we are; in spite of their failings, we believe; because of and in spite of the horizons of their vision, we, too, dream. Let us go remembering to praise, to live in the moment to love mightily, to bow to the mystery. Barb Pescan

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

LIVING FAITHFULLY NO. 42

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: Then the King will say to those at his right hand, "Come, 0 blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundations of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me," Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?" And the King will answer them, "Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me." Matthew 25: 34-40

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Discussion: Not all of us feel called to live in poverty or refuse taxes, but all of us hold ideals by which we would like to live or to judge our lives. Questions: 1. What ideals or moral positions have you been committed to over the years, and' how have you managed to stay faithful to those ideals or positions? 2. 2.What do you think it means to live faithfully? .

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Closing Words: "Is this not the fast I choose: To loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see them naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then shall our light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly,: If you remove the yoke from among you, and the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." Isaiah 58: 6-11

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

LONGING NO. 43

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: There is a community of the spirit. Join it, and feel the delight Of walking in the noisy street. And being the noise Close both eyes To see with the other eye. Open your hands, If you want to be held. Sit down in this circle Why do you stay in prison When the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking Live in silence. Flow down and down in always Widening rings of being. Rumi

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Discussion: Spiritual longing is different from a church improvement project. It has nothing to do with committees, structures, sermons, or personalities. It has everything to do with our deepest level of desire. Questions: 1. What is your spiritual longing? Is it, like the Hindus, to have union with God? Or is it, like the Buddhists, to reach enlightenment? Perhaps your longing is more immediate - it may be a desire for guidance on the path of a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning." Or, perhaps, you long for the time to undertake such a search. 2. What is your spiritual longing?

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Closing Words: Something opens our wings. Something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills the cup in front of us. We only taste the sacredness. Rumi

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

MONEY NO. 44

Preparation: Newsprint and Marker

Opening Words: “For Aristotle, economics, management of the household, was a branch of ethics. Did each person in the household receive what is required for a fully human life? .. . Ethical and economic theory must be in dialogue, if just and effective policies are to result. Otherwise, it may be said of us that we may know the price of everything and the value of nothing. " Adapted from Richard S. Gilbert, How Much Do We Deserve? (Introduction), The Flaming Chalice Press, 1990

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Activity: On Newsprint, spend ten minutes brainstorming everything that the word "money" brings into association.

Discussion: Money and our attitudes towards money shape our lives. Here is the fact of it: most of us find it easier to talk about sex than to talk about money. And most of us do not find it easy to talk about sex! Questions: 1.How did you learn what money means? 2.How has money shaped your life? 3.What limits or license, does your attitude toward money allow you? 4.What would you change in your relationship to this shaper of the world?

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Closing Words: "Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold; for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her." Proverbs 8: 10-11

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

PERFECTION NO. 45

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words:

If we worship beauty, we will fear aging; If we define ourselves by achievement, the whole of our life will be a test. Christina Feldman

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Discussion: Christina Feldman writes in The Quest of the Warrior Woman: Women as Mystics, Healers and Guides "Throughout our lives we receive the message that perfection exists and that for our existence to be worthy and significant we must dedicate ourselves to its attainment. . . . The striving for perfection may bring applause; it rarely liberates. [Instead] the pursuit of goodness and the fear of not being good enough deprive us of authenticity, which leads to a malnutrition of our spirit." Questions: 1. What images of perfection have you inherited from your parents, your peers, your religion, the media? 2. Which of these images of perfection haunt your life? 3. What would happen if you let go of the quest for perfection?

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Closing Words: And when the soul reaches the stage At which it pays little attention to praise, It pays much less to disapproval; [I]t rejoices in this [freedom] And finds it a very sweet truth. Saint Teresa of Avila

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

PETS NO. 46

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "We need another and a wiser, and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and. the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they moved finished and attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth." The Outermost House Henry Beston

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Discussion: Having and loving pets is vitally important to many people. A life without a dog, cat, guinea pig, or even a fish in a bowl, is unthinkable. Pets bring unconditional love, they depend on us for affection and forgiveness. Questions: 1. What is your pet history? 2. What have pets meant to your life? 3. If you do not have pets now, why? 4. If you have pets now, why?

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Closing Words: "Hear our humble prayer, 0 God, for our friends the animals. Especially for animals who are suffering; for many that are hunted or lost or deserted or frightened or hungry; for all that must be put to death. We entreat for them all the mercy and pity; and for those who deal with them we ask a heart of compassion and gentle hands and kindly words. Make us, ourselves, to be true friends to the animals and to share the blessings of the merciful." Dr. Albert Schweitzer

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

RACISM NO. 47

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "I just cannot accept the proposition that some people are better or worse than other people because of their race--whatever that may be. I accept my race and the race of everyone simply as a condition of existence, like height, weight, age, sex, or shoe size. Now this doesn't mean at all that I am blind to the fact that other people may regard race as the most consequential aspect of their being and my being. I have almost a half century of scars, fortunately most of them on my memory and not on my body, to remind me that I live in a racist society. However, I refuse to permit anyone to infect me with the virus of racial pride, because I know it would turn out to be a cancer that would destroy my spirit, my physical self, and the world in which I live." The Hon. Wade H. McCree, First African American to serve as U.S. A Assistant Solicitor General, McCree served as UUA Vice -Moderator 1965-1966.

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Discussion: In 1992 the General Assembly passed a resolution that committed the Unitarian Universalist Association to a vision of becoming a racially diverse and multicultural religious movement. Referred to now as the Journey Towards Wholeness, congregations, individuals and organizations have been challenged to engage in the work of building anti-racist and anti-oppression institutions. This task begins in coming to understand racism as it effects institutions and as it is experienced in individual lives. And a beginning to this task is to consider our own stories and our own experiences. Questions: 1. Do you identify, from your own personal heritage, with one or several racial or ethnic groups? 2. If so, how do you embody that part of your identity? 3. What is your earliest recollection of racial differences? 4. What is your most vivid experience of racial prejudice? 5. What challenge does racism present to you as a religious person? 6. To your spiritual practice? What more would you need to know to understand these questions better?

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Closing Words: "Millions upon millions of people everywhere are drifting from the old formulations, no longer willing to view the ancient myths as religious truths. They are looking for a vital, modem religion with a personal and social imperative. We may have it! I think we do!

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

RETROSPECTIVE NO. 48

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw stones, and a time to gather up stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to throwaway; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silent and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace." Ecclesiastes

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Discussion Topic: Following the sudden death and a very moving memorial service of a member of the congregation, one of our Small Group Ministry groups centered their meeting around these questions: 1. How would you like to be remembered, what do you hope that people will recall about you? 2. How do you envision your own memorial service, i.e. what symbols do you want to have there?

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Closing Words: "Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we are saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history. Therefore we are saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone. Therefore we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous form the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own. Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness." Reinhold Niebuhr

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN NO. 49

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And both that morning equally lay And sorry I could not travel both In leaves no step had trodden black. And be one traveler, long I stood Oh, I kept the first for another day! And looked down one as far as I could Yet knowing how way leads on to way, To where it bent in the undergrowth; I doubted if I should ever come back.

Then took the other, as just as fair, I shall be telling this with a sigh And having perhaps the better claim, Somewhere ages and ages hence: Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— Though as for that the passing there I took the one less traveled by, Had worn them really about the same And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920 Check-in/Sharing

Discussion: There are clear points along the history of our life where we have stood squarely at a crossroads. Two paths beckoned, but being only one - we had to choose a particular path. Looking back through your life, share with the group one significant crossroad that you have faced in your life. Questions: 1. What made you choose the path you took? How did you reach that choice? 2. What did you lose by choosing that path? What did you gain? 3. How has your life been influenced, directed, affected by that choice? 4. What role does your spiritual life play in helping to make these choices? 5. If you could go back, would you make the same choice? 6. Are there any crossroads you face now or will face in the near future?

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Closing Words: Be not afraid to choose, to risk it all. In this short spark of a life there is much to gain, And always much to lose. There is birth and death And much life to be lived in between. So make a temple to your choices. Dance and sing of celebration Whether it be a gain or loss that comes to you. And in this, be truly and fully alive. Sarah Broughton Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

SHADOW NO. 50

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "Spirit of life and love, that lives in us and in all people, be present with us this day. Help us to be grateful for all that we have, grateful for this time of connection, grateful for these mends, and for all who enrich our lives. Spirit of life, be present with us as compassion, that we may open our hearts, listen with care, and be truly present with one another. Spirit of life, be present with us as a generosity of spirit, that we may meet the world with good will. Be present with us as vision, so that we may see beyond this moment and beyond the limits of our own day to day concerns, and remember, once again, that we are a part of a larger world, and all that lives therein." Calvin Dame

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Discussion: Jungian psychology suggests that we all learn to relegate parts of ourselves into our "shadows", that is, psychologically out of sight and mind. This may include anything we learned growing up that was not acceptable: sexuality, aggression, fear, kindness, ambition, artistic ability, exuberance. Jung felt there was great power in the shadow, unacknowledged needs can skew our behavior, repressing healthy aspects of our personalities and diminishing the scope of our lives and our capacity to live joyfully. This explanation is oversimplified, of course,. Questions: 1.What would be most upsetting to hear if it were being said about you? 2.What do you think you carry in your shadow? 3.What influences helped to shape your shadow? 4.What lessons from the shadow have you learned about yourself over the years?

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Closing Prayer: "As we leave this place and this company, may the fellowship of this circle carry us forward, remind us of that which we hold to be most sacred arid encourage us in every hour, until such time as we meet again." Calvin Dame

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

SUCCESS NO. 51

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "There'll be two dates on your tombstone, and all your friends will read 'em, but all that's gonna matter is that little dash between 'em." Kevin Welch "Your work is to discover your world, and then with all your heart give yourself to it." the Buddha

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Discussion:

1. What is your defInition of success? 2. How has your defInition changed over time? 3. Do you consider yourself successful? 4. What is left for you to do in order for your life to be successful?

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Closing Words:

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you lived. This is to be a success." Ralph Waldo Emerson,

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

WILDERNESS & WILDNESS NO. 52

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "Wilderness is (the) place where the wild potential is fully expressed, a diversity of living and nonliving beings flourish according to their own sorts of order ... To speak of wilderness is to speak of wholeness." Zen writer and poet Gary Snyder, The Practices of The Wild Check-inISharing

Discussion: Thoreau said, "In wildness is the preservation of the world." Clarissa Pinkola Estes advises women to "run with the wolves" a way of rediscovering their authentic selves. Questions: 1. Is the external wilderness a place we enter for spiritual experience and renewal, a sacred place that takes us out of our small selves and into the grandeur of creation? Or is it a place of fear and inadequacy? 2. Is our internal wildness a place that we brave to discover something essential to our true selves, or is it a raw and dangerous place that we avoid? 3. Is there a relationship between the external wilderness and the internal wildness?

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Closing Words: "We were born in the wide domain of the wild! The trees sheltered our infant limbs, the blue heavens covered us. Let us be children of the wilderness." Adapted from the words of George Copway (Ojibwe) .

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June Top

WRESTLING WITH ANGELS NO. 53

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "When God comes into our midst, it is to upset the status quo." Kathleen Norris, Meditations on Mary

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Discussion: When Jacob wrestles with the Angel of God, he is blessed and his name is changed to Israel, which means "he who strives with God." Throughout the scriptures of nearly all world religions, when God comes into the midst, life for those who heed the call is forever changed. Throughout history as well, the truly inspired have caused change: Jesus; the Buddha; Gandhi; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Mother Theresa. Questions: 1. When have you wrestled with Angels? 2. When has your own personal growth interrupted the comfortable flow of your day to day life? 3. Can disruptions in the status quo change the world? Is it God disrupting the status quo?

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Closing Words: Take courage friends. The way is often hard, the path is never clear, and the stakes are high. Take courage. For deep down, there is another truth. You are not alone. Wayne B. Amason

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

IS ANYTHING SACRED ? NO. 54

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "When is a rock not just a rock? When does it become an object which can convey communion with the sacred? Can it ever? When are a priest's hands not a priest's hands, but the hands of God? Are they ever? When are your actions so intentional, so absolute as to become holy? Can this happen?" Karen Fisk Check-in / Sharing

Discussion: In his book The Sacred and the Profane, French philosopher Mircea Eliade claims that for primitive humans, the everyday acts of life were never merely physiological, they were or could be sacraments or communions with the sacred. Further, he claims that all people, religious or not, yearn to create scared space or objects, points from which they can view the world and/or universe and from which they can gain understanding. Questions: 1. Well, what do you think? Are there objects, ceremonies or actions that offer communion with what is sacred? 2. What does it take to make something sacred? 3. Is anything sacred?

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Closing Words: "May we leave this circle of friendship refreshed. May the musings that have emerged feed our spirits and encourage our dreams. May the ideas that we've encountered rattle in our brains. May the laughter that's emerged echo in our ears. May the comfort that we've shared continue in our hearts. May the love that has arisen sustain us in our days, and the community we've shared guide us on our way." Calvin O. Dame

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

APPROVAL NO. 55

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: "We are here to follow the promptings of our deepest heart. We are hear with expectations, alive, spoken and unspoken. We are here because we are human. Creatures of Solitude and communion. Wanting wholeness, knowing brokenness. We meet here once again to remind ourselves of what we already know. We open ourselves to word, story, song. To whatever breaks in upon us or summons us to speak or act. Our time together affects our time apart. We want to participate, to be known, to be loved. We know limits, yet so much is possible..." Mark Belletini

Check-in / Sharing

Discussion: We all seek approval in one form or another. We play music and hope for applause. We recommend a new approach at work or school and hope others will support us. We reach out to a new friend, wanting them to be interested in getting to know us, too. Sometimes we can confuse approval with being liked or even with love. We may set aside who we uniquely are in order to gain approval. To an extreme, we can become "pleasers" who seek approval rather ripening our own individuality. In our society, we call people eccentric who have the courage to live to their own drumbeat. Questions: 1. What is the experience of approval in your life? 2. Describe a time in your life when you had to choose between being true to yourself or getting approval. What was your choice? What was this experience like for you? 3. Are there times when seeking approval might be a positive choice? 4. How does one develop the courage to be true to themselves in the face of disapproval? 5. Is there any area in your life where you might be considered eccentric?

Check-out / Likes and Wishes

Closing Words: "Go out into the highways and by-ways. Give people something of our new vision. You may possess a small light, but uncover it, let it shine, use it in order to bring more light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men and women. Give them not hell, but hope and courage; preach the kindness and everlasting love of God." John Murray

Prepared by UU Community Church, Augusta, Maine, June 2003 Top

LETTING GO NO. 56 * suggested that this session get used when a group is changing, a way to let go of the group as it is- to prepare for it being different.

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: To live in this world, you must be able to do three things. To love what is moral; To hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it. And when the time comes - to let it go; to let it go. Duke T. Gray Check-in / Sharing

Discussion Topic: If we can not let go; we cannot survive. Letting go is freedom, autonomy and emancipation. When people hold on to a faith, simply our of lazy habit and hoary tradition, as it does nothing for the growth of the spirit or the nurturing of the mind, burying their soul in a pit of irrelevance- they should be letting go. When people hold on to biases or prejudices, lies inherited in childhood, that restrict their vision of humanity, spreading pain and suffering to the innocent victims of a distorted perception of reality - they should be letting go. When people hold on to the images of youth with makeup and facelifts, unbuttoned shirts and long gold chains, trying to relive a wasted adolescence, while ignoring the challenges of wisdom and maturity - they should be letting go. When people hold on to the grief of a death, sleeping with the ghosts of the past, embracing the demons of remorse, and refusing to walk in the sunshine, where the light leads to growth, happiness, and God - they should be letting go. Let us heed the encouragement, to have, to hold and in time to get go. Discussion Questions: What does this reading say to you? What does it evoke to you of your own experience of letting go? How do you relate that to the ending of our group as it has been configured?

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Closing Words: The blessing of truth be upon us, The power of love direct us and sustain us, And may the peace of this community preserve our going out and coming in. From this time forth, until we meet again.

Prepared by UU First Parish Church, Duxbury, Massachusetts, February 2004 Top

FIRST IMPRESSIONS NO. 57

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words:

“First impressions are often the truest, as we find (not infrequently) to our cost, when we have been wheedled out of them by plausible professions or studied actions. A man’s look is the work of years; it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay, more, by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid of easily.”

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) British writer, best known for his humanistic essays Check-in/Sharing

Discussion:

“Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view they take of them.” Epictetus (55-135)

Questions to Ponder: What contributes to your first impressions of a new situation or person? What kind of first impression do you feel you make when meeting someone new?

Have you ever had the experience of a strong positive or a strong negative first impression of someone or something? If so, how did things work out over time? Was your first impression correct? Has your first impression ever been completely wrong?

Do first impressions last? What can we learn from them? Do you trust your own first impressions, and how much weight do you give them?

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Closing Words:

“What we have to do is to be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions.” Walter Pater (1839-1894) English critic & essayist

Prepared by , UU First Parish Church, Duxbury, Massachusetts March 2005 Top

CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS NO. 58

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home! Charles Dickens

Check-in/Sharing

Discussion: Whatever else be lost among the years, Let us keep Christmas still a shining thing: Whatever doubts assail us, or what fears, Let us hold close one day, remembering Its poignant meaning for the hearts of men. Let us get back our childlike faith again. Grace Noll Crowell

We talk a lot about all of the hustle and bustle that surrounds Christmas these days, and how to simplify the holiday. Whether we choose to and are successful at “unplugging the Christmas tree,” many of us have long-standing traditions we associate with the holiday.

Questions to Ponder: What are some Christmas traditions that you have that are particularly meaningful to you? Do you still observe any traditions from your childhood? Have you created any new ones? What do you enjoy about Christmas? Are there some past Christmases that especially stand out to you? Do you have any special hopes for this Christmas?

Check-out / Likes and Wishes

Closing Words: Christmas--that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance--a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved. Augusta E. Rundel

Prepared by, UU First Parish Church, Duxbury, Massachusetts -March 2005 Top

A NEW YEAR NO. 59

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: The first of January is another day dawning, the sun rising as the sun always rises, the earth moving in its rhythms, with or without our calendars to name a certain day as the day of new beginning, separating the old from the new. So it is: everything is the same, bound into its history as we ourselves are bound. Yet also we stand at a threshold, the new year something truly new, still unformed, leaving a stunning power in our hands: What shall we do with this great gift of Time, this year?

Katherine McTigue SLT #544

Check-in/Sharing

Discussion:

What will you remember especially about this past year? How much should we hold on and how much should we let go? What do you h to let go of this year?

What are your hopes and wishes and worries for the New Year? Have you made any New Year’s resolutions? Do you have any special traditions for marking the passing of the old year and the beginning of the New Year?

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Closing Words: And now let us welcome the New Year, full of things that have never been. Ranier Maria Rilke

Prepared by, UU First Parish Church, Duxbury, Massachusetts-March 2005 Top ORDER AND CHAOS NO. 60 Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: “Small as is our whole system compared with the infinitude of creation, Brief as is our life compared with the cycles of time, We are so tethered to all by the beautiful dependencies of law, That not only the sparrow’s fall is felt to the uttermost bound but the vibrations set in motion by the words that we utter reach through all space and the tremor is felt through time.” Maria Mitchell Check-in/Sharing

Discussion In mathematics, the term “chaos” really has nothing to do with whether or not a system is disorganized. A chaotic system can evolve in a way that appears smooth and ordered. Chaos in this sense refers to the question of whether or not it is possible to make accurate long-term predictions about the system’s behavior. In everyday life, chaos refers to the lack of order or predictability. Chaos is in evidence in both trivial and tragic mishaps – our new car breaks down and makes us late to work, or a seemingly healthy young mother of three dies suddenly.

Some thoughts about order and chaos:

“Chaos often breeds life, for order breeds habit” Henry Adams Brooks “I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness which characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm. I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.” George Plimpton “Confusion is a word we invented for an order which is not understood.” Henry Miller Questions to Ponder: • Do you feel your life is mostly chaotic or mostly orderly? • Are you more drawn to order or to chaos? • Is the universe fundamentally chaotic? Orderly? Is there a larger order that can be perceived behind everyday chaos? • Is there such a thing as taking comfort in chaos? When there is perfect order, is there nothing left to do?

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Closing Words “Given all the inexplicable acts of violence, injustice, and cruelty, mixed with the unexpected small miracles of kindness and happiness that we see in the world every day, I remain convinced that life is chaos, but that it is within our power to establish order and meaning.” Christopher Reeve

Prepared by XXXXX, UU First Parish Church, Duxbury, Massachusetts-March 2005 Some Definitions of Chaos a state of extreme confusion and disorder www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn the formless and disordered state of matter before the creation of the cosmos www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn Complicated patterns that are not truly random. Chaos is a cryptic form of order, what a random-number generator produces. There is, as the phrase goes, "a sensitive dependence on initial conditions." Because chaos was defined in a paradoxical way ("It may look random, but it's merely chaotic"), it is a term often misused or misunderstood. See attractor, basin of attraction, itinerancy. faculty.washington.edu/wcalvin/bk9/bk9gloss.htm A state of a system where patterns exist, but are difficult to discover, in contrast to random where there are no patterns. www.metainnovation.com/certificationcenter/resources/glossary.htm complete lack of order. In the mythology of the ancient Near East, chaos was sometimes personified as divine beings who had to be conquered by other gods in order to establish an orderly and habitable universe. www.geocities.com/mcprepsite/Bible_Glossary.html a condition that gradually comes into being when things are accumulated without being organized www.ups.edu/faculty/phuo/diction.htm

Some Definitions of Order condition of regular or proper arrangement; "he put his desk in order"; "the machine is now in working order" www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn arrange thoughts, ideas, temporal events, etc.; "arrange my schedule"; "set up one's life"; "I put these memories with those of bygone times" www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn In the context of sensemaking, order refers to an organization or structure of information. For example, an order might be an organization of elements into disjoint or overlapping classes, arrangement into a taxonomy, an organization in terms of objects and attributes, organization in terms of a table, or a precedence relation. The term order is more general than the term ordering. See also structuring. www2.parc.com/istl/groups/hdi/sensemaking/glossary.htm Top

TAKING RISKS NO. 61

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: To laugh is to risk appearing the fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out for another is to risk exposing our true self. To place our ideas-our dreams-before the crowd is to risk loss. To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk despair. To try is to risk failure. To live is to risk dying. Anonymous SLT #658

Check-in/Sharing

Discussion: “What you risk reveals what you value.” (Jeanette Winterson, author)

Questions to Ponder: Do you consider yourself a risk-taker? How do feel about taking chances, and how do you approach taking risks? If you want to, share an example of a time when you took a risk, or a time when you decided not to take a risk and what happened. What did you take away from that situation? How do you think you’ll approach taking risks in the future?

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Closing Words: People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. Peter F. Drucker

Prepared by, UU First Parish Church, Duxbury, Massachusetts-March 2005 Top

FORGIVNESS-OPTION 2 NO. 62

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words: “We cannot let the world’s wounds destroy our spirits. We cannot let our hurts and betrayals destroy our capacity for growth and caring. That there will be judgments and, perhaps, justice is necessary. That the violence be confronted and, if possible, contained, is essential. But, most important, is our capacity to nurture a loving heart, to affirm and not to curse, to forgive even when we cannot completely forget.” Glen H. Turner

Check-in/Sharing

Discussion:

Questions to Ponder: What does forgiveness mean to you? Have you ever struggled with forgiveness? What got in the way of forgiving and what helped? Looking back on a time you forgave someone, were you too quick or too slow to forgive? Do forgiving and forgetting go hand-in-hand? How important is forgiveness? How does it compare to be the forgiver and to be the forgiven? Do you find it easier to forgive others or to forgive yourself? Questions to Ponder:

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Closing Words: “Forgive us that often we forgive ourselves so easily and others so hardly; Forgive us that we expect perfection from those to whom we show none; Forgive us for repelling people by the way we set a good example; Forgive us the folly of trying to improve a friend; Forbid that we should use our little idea of goodness as a spear to wound those who are different; Forbid that we should feel superior to others when we are only more shielded; And may we encourage the secret struggle of every person.” Vivian Pomeroy Singing the Living Tradition #477

Prepared by, UU First Parish Church, Duxbury, Massachusetts-March 2005