The Spirit of Life Is Here
We come together in this quiet moment to unify our hearts again towards the clarion call of our time: May justice and equity guide us to great connection, a greater truth.
We come together in this quiet moment to unify our hearts again towards the clarion call of our time: May justice and equity guide us to great connection, a greater truth.
Here in the quiet, may we lift up our hearts in gratitude for the gifts of our lives, pausing in thanksgiving.
Meet me in the heartbeat between what has been and what will be; meet me in the flicker of our eternal flame. We need not face this moment alone.
Spirit of Transformation, may our hearts break open and stretch out to join with the hearts of others who yearn for a freer world…
Oh Spirit of Life and Love, fortify us with the wisdom and tenacity of our ancestors to continue toward the promise in the founding documents of our nation: a nation where all of us are created as equals and are endowed with the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Ours is the work of creation. Ours is the work of inviting people into an irresistible movement, rooted in our belief that a new world is possible. And the center of our work is love, and joy, and the spirit of abundance.
This prayer is designed to be woven into the song “Comfort Me,” #1002 in Singing the Journey.
Voice still and small, as we turn inward we listen for you. Deep inside all, this Easter morning, open our hearts to hear you in the figure of Jesus.
May we be bold in our faith, declaring that Gone are the Days! We are Unitarian Universalists. We are the blessings we seek for this world and the Beloved Community we are building.
Spirit of Love, come alongside with all the holy nudges that we need, so we may live in such a way that we celebrate all the blessings that we have been given. So we may be the blessings in the world.
May we each model in our natures, the best in Nature. Eternally changing; knowing only movement, and an urge to create life.
The human spirit has enormous resilience. But it is pushed to the limit by grief following the tragedy we have witnessed: sudden and unexpected death, the loss of so many lives. These vicious attacks defy our understanding. It hurts. We grieve....
May we remember we are a people of resilience. We have faced uncertainty before; we have weathered storms; we have been consumed by flames; we have risen like the phoenix from the ashes. And we will again.
We move for justice; we live for peace; we will not rest until we are heard. We will not rest until equity is made more real, all around us.
Spirit of my longing and lonely heart, help me travel through the barren borderlands that separate me from others. Teach me to willingly explore relationships with those who frighten or threaten me, grant me the courage to risk confidently my own comforts, that I might make others more comfortable.
Spirit of Life and Love, known by many names and yet fully known by none, be with us in this hour of grief. Be with us as we reach out to one another in comfort. Be with us as we come to terms with our sadness, anger, and despair. Hold us in the embrace of eternal love...
Spirit of Life and Love, God of Many Names, we gather in awareness of the opportunity before us as Unitarian Universalists. We have been given many chances before today to heal the wounds of the racism and oppression that have beset our denomination for many years...
Holy One, Emmanuel, You are with us and we with You, now on the eve of a birth like no other, and a birth exactly like all others. We ponder the dreams and foretelling—royalty, savior, the light of the world. Revolution and possibility wrapped in helplessness and vulnerability.…
Spirit of the divine masculine, grant us the strength to nurture in ourselves, and in every young person we have the privilege to know, the gifts of patience, curiosity, and compassion.
Remind us that resilience is in our bones, that peace will prevail on earth
Lead us to the love that holds us all and is with us always; the love that can help us through the messy and necessary life-altering work of building movements across beliefs, across difference, for change that can endure.
Our faith also gives us hope. A faith that knows that transformation is a holy and sacred task, that affirms that the democratic process is a faithful act, that brings a generous heart and a lens of justice and liberation to all that we do, that values equality and equity and is centered in love.
Let our hearts be welcoming of multiple truths, not holding hard or fast to closed mindedness or judgmental thinking. What can we learn from each other in the richness of our differences?
We lift up those who fear that their hurts, their pains, are too insignificant for healing. May they know that their hurt and their pain is valid, no matter the size, and may they feel comforted in the knowledge that they are not alone and that they are loved.
Let us rejoice for those who safely passed through the shades of night towards the daylight of freedom.
God of many names and mystery beyond all our naming, Our time together today is a precious gift. We gather in the name of justice in love and service to a higher good. We gather in hope for a world where oppression of any kind is challenged. We gather to spark the fire of commitment lit in every...
Take a moment to breathe into the silence. Our breath is always with us. We can always come back to the breath, our anchor, our grounding, our freedom. Spirit of life and love, we are here not just minds and hearts, but bodies too. We human beings, spirit and body joined together. On this day we...
Sisters, I stand before you without homily or lecture or opinion. I stand here naked on the page. I stand here with my hands extended in helpless prayer. I will never know your pain. I will never know your agony of spirit. I will never know the dark nights of your souls. I will never know the...
May we reconnect to our life-giving, breath-freeing connection
Spirit of Life, We hold in our hearts the peaceful protestors of all tribes and faiths who are gathered at Standing Rock, protecting sacred water and land. They ask for respect, they ask for our government to help protect their sacred lands and the water that sustains their lives....
Spirit of Life, God of Love, I am entwined in your delicate web of mutuality. The life energy that makes me reach for the sun also moves me to become wrapped, like the strong bittersweet vine and the delicate sweet pea, around those I meet and love. Here in the tangle of my daily life I feel your...
Oh spirit of life and love, We pause for a moment on this snowy day to reflect on the changes one week can make in our lives. We celebrate the feast of Imbolc, the pagan holiday that heralds the coming of spring. Our hearts stir with the thought that lambs are being born, that the light is...
Spirit of Life, God of Love, who are we to know how you moved over the waters when all was new? We were not there when you parted them and formed dry land. We didn't hear you cry with joy when earth gave birth to life, or when love began to grow in the human heart....
Today we gather with determination and commitment that is grounded in a profound sense of sorrow for those who have suffered and will suffer in the future because of climate change. As always, those who suffer most are the poor and marginalized....
The road of history is long, full of both hope and disappointment. In times past, there have been wars and rumors of wars, violence and exploitation, hunger and homelessness, and destruction of this earth, your creation....
Prayers to be said on the four Sundays of Advent while lighting the Advent candle wreath.
Spirit of life, help me remember that all animals belong. Bless the bats for eating mosquitoes. Bless the crows and buzzards for cleaning up the dead, and bless even the snakes, who keep the mice out of the rice. Each of them is important. And each does good in its own way. Blessed be.
As we repent in full body and form, secure our names and the generations to come as you have done through time. God who blessed the womb of life, save us once again.
For dragonflies, butterflies, Caterpillars on leaves, Lizards, wild turkeys, and tigers and deer, We give thanks! For sunset and seashells And starfish and sand, Octopus, jellyfish, and hammerhead shark, We give thanks!...
In this familiar place, listen: to the sounds of breathing, creaking chairs, shuffling feet, clearing throats, and sighing all around Know that each breath, movement, the glance meant for you or intercepted holds a life within it....
Dear God, hear and bless Your beasts and singing birds; And guard with tenderness Small things that have no words...
In this heartbreak what we carry forth is our humanity in newly revealed form—our hearts tender and delicate.
Turn toward the thaw, and turn toward the rebirth of spring with New Hope.
Holy One, our hearts are weary; are tired; and are breaking. Our hearts are stretching as they are pulled and pushed, bruised and battered by all the suffering and brokenness and pain. Our ears are ringing—ringing with harsh words, with yelling, with gunfire that echoes in our streets and takes...