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Affirmations Benedictions Blessings Chalice Lightings Closings Invocations Litanies Meditations Openings Poetry Prayers Readings Responsive Readings Rituals Stories
Body Scan Meditation

Body Scan Meditation

…Now that we have enjoyed the quiet, connected to our bodies, and noticed how we are connected to the world around us, may we remember that connection with every breath.

L Lóre Stevens
Psalm 23: A Prayer Dialogue between Chaplain and Patient

Psalm 23: A Prayer Dialogue between Chaplain and Patient

There is so much that I want. I want to be well.

R Robin L Zucker
The Spiritual Tasks of Yule

The Spiritual Tasks of Yule

Yule is a time to rest and settle into the darkness.

C Cyndi Simpson
Beauty Is Our Birthright

Beauty Is Our Birthright

Sometimes we awake in the morning, and we’d rather go back to sleep… And then, the first sliver of sunshine may dance across our face.

R Rebekah Savage
Being Present

Being Present

Let every moment be a prayer. With every sip of trea, let your lips move in thanksgiving. Be fully present to every stroke of the hairbrush, every cup of milk you pour for the children....

E Elena Westbrook
A Prayerful Meditation for Renewal

A Prayerful Meditation for Renewal

We call upon all the transcendent gifts of renewal to be bestowed upon us, for an energizing renewal to fill us in all the ways that serve our lagging spirits when our own resilience wanes.

R Rebekah Savage
Theology of Love

Theology of Love

My theology understands humanity as simultaneously fragile and resilient, weak and strong, greedy and generous, mean and compassionate. I see the divine spark in the tension between those opposites....

D DC Fortune
Give Voice to Mourning

Give Voice to Mourning

Give voice to sorrow and fear — the wracking sobs at family betraying family the shock at the chasm separating neighbors...

L Lindasusan Ulrich
Our Roots of Resilience

Our Roots of Resilience

A movement meditation for all ages

K Kimberlee Anne Tomczak Carlson
The Strength of Water

The Strength of Water

Settle your mind upon the strength, the power that is yours. Draw that strength into your heart. Draw it up into your soul. As we gather together the many waters of this community, we need each of your power, each of your resilience, each of your love to make us whole.

J Jamila Batchelder and Molly Housh Gordon
Winter Solstice Meditation

Winter Solstice Meditation

Let this be a time of resilience. May the changing seasons bring new meaning and new insights. May creativity and persistence lead us to find resources for all to share. May those who migrate find safety, and may there be good news in the wind. May transformation lead us onward.

L Lyn Cox
Before, During, After a Storm

Before, During, After a Storm

There will be help and community and kindness....

E Elizabeth Mount
You send us into the world, O God, with freedom to choose and to act.

You send us into the world, O God, with freedom to choose and to act.

You send us into the world, O God, with freedom to choose and to act. When we are wrong, correct us and help us to make amends. When we are right, give us the humility not to judge others and thereby excommunicate them from our hearts. Let your Holy Spirit come to us now in this moment of prayer;...

T Thomas D Wintle
Prayer for Travelers / Oración Para Los Viajeros

Prayer for Travelers / Oración Para Los Viajeros

In English This is a prayer for all the travelers. For the ones who start out in beauty, who fall from grace, who step gingerly, looking for the way back. And for those who are born into the margins, who travel from one liminal space to another, crossing boundaries in search of center. This is a...

A Angela Herrera
Meditation on Planting

Meditation on Planting

EARTH, clay from which we are made and to which we will return. Soil, rich and aromatic, crumbling in my fingers, dark under my nails. This, cleansing dirt, the natural filter for aquifers, holds life....

D David Snedden
Fierce Urgency

Fierce Urgency

My four-year-old daughter has taught me this lesson: when a child wants to derail Business As Usual— to curb the hubris of adults who dare believe in schedules and plans and productivity— one fierce little body and one clear, piercing voice, strategically applied to the right pressure point,...

A Ashley Horan
We gather to be together

We gather to be together

We gather to be together,We gather to celebrate and to support our beloved communityWe gather to commune in body as well as in spirit.Let us share both the food and the fellowship we find here tonight.

K Katie Stein Sather
Food for the Spirit

Food for the Spirit

In one church it was meals, prepared and frozen to be shared with those in need. Food was handed out at the door, or taken to where it was needed. In another church it was casseroles, brought to families whose strength was consumed by illness or disaster....

M Mary Wellemeyer
A Prayer Addressing All Hungers

A Prayer Addressing All Hungers

We are hungry We are eating our daily bread and bowing our heads and yet we are hungry We are thanking the farmer and the farm worker and yet we are hungry We are speaking in spaces for food that is healthy and still we are hungry We are tiring of slogans that say Feed the Children and mean feed ...

D Debra Smith
A Centering Practice

A Centering Practice

A centering practice for meetings, gatherings or worship in person or online.

L Lauren Wyeth
In the name of all that is good and holy

In the name of all that is good and holy

May your journey know joy and contentment and satisfaction.

D Dana E Worsnop
We Hold Hope Close

We Hold Hope Close

We don’t always know what comes next, but that cannot dissuade us.

J Julián Jamaica Soto
In Betweenness

In Betweenness

We—you and I—are in-between right now

M Michelle LaGrave
Emmanuel

Emmanuel

Emmanuel means "God is with us." Who is your Emmanuel? Who is your "God is with us," the one you were promised, the one you have been waiting for? For the ancient prophet Isaiah, he was a boy soon to be born who would guide the people of Judah back to peace and harmony with God....

S Sarah Movius Schurr
A Bird in the Hand

A Bird in the Hand

I sit alone, planning the rest of the day. Last night, I was joking and smoking, in broken Pashto, with the resident contingent of the AUP.* I introduced them to the beauty of Dominican tobacco, hand-rolled and perfectly aged. They all seemed to enjoy this symbol of Western democratic values, the...

G George A Tyger
Embodiment & Sexuality

Embodiment & Sexuality

Spirit of life and love, may we find appreciation today, and in our lives, for our embodiment. We are physical creatures: mind, spirit and soul housed within our bodies. Our bodies, our physical form, allow us to experience the world: Taste—chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven. Touch—the...

S Seth Carrier-Ladd
Calling

Calling

When you heard that voice and knew finally it called for you and what it was saying—where were you? Were you in the shower, wet and soapy, or chopping cabbage late for dinner? Were you planting radish seeds or seeking one lost sock? Maybe wiping handprints off a window or coaxing words into a...

N Nancy Shaffer
The Work of Creation

The Work of Creation

I invite you now to join me in the spirit of meditation and imagination. Find a comfortable position in your seat and close your eyes. Take a deep breath and try to find the restorative power of air and water in the breath. We must breathe to live, but our bodies also need water to survive. Our...

I Israel Buffardi
This Is Our Home, But Not Just Ours

This Is Our Home, But Not Just Ours

We gather here to remember this is our home, but not just ours....

L Laura Bogle
The Moment of Magic

The Moment of Magic

Now is the moment of magic, when the whole, round earth turns again toward the sun....

V Victoria Safford
Meditation: Breathe with Me

Meditation: Breathe with Me

Breathe with me You who feel sorrows calling across the oceans, calling across the room, echoing in the spacious cavern of your chest. Breathe with me You who wake with the sun carrying a restlessness to make justice and do mercy....

S Susan Maginn
There Is a Love

There Is a Love

There is a love Holding me. There is a love Holding you. There is a love Holding all. I rest in this love. —Rebecca Parker, Unitarian Universalist...

R Rebecca Ann Parker
May All the Beings in the Worlds Be Happy

May All the Beings in the Worlds Be Happy

May all the beings in all the worlds be happy. May all the beings in all the worlds be happy. May all the beings in all the worlds be happy. Om Peace, Peace, Peace. One of the earliest and most important religious texts of ancient India, the Rig Veda is the oldest of the four collections of hymns...

R Rig Veda
Wage Peace

Wage Peace

Wage peace with your breath. Breathe in firefighters and rubble, breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds. Breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children and freshly mown fields. Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees. Breathe in the fallen and breathe out...

J Judyth Hill
The Inescapable Divine

The Inescapable Divine

Waiting is a window opening on many landscapes. For some, waiting means the cessation of all activity when energy is gone and exhaustion is all that the heart can manage. It is the long, slow panting of the spirit. For some, waiting is a time of intense preparation for the next leg of the journey.

H Howard Thurman
I Want to Be Better

I Want to Be Better

The concern which I lay bare before God today is my need to be better: I want to be better than I am in my most ordinary day-by-day contacts: With my friends— With my family— With my casual contacts— With my business relations— With my associates in work and play. I want to be better than I...

H Howard Thurman
I Am Afraid of Nearly Everything

I Am Afraid of Nearly Everything

I am afraid of nearly everything: of darkness, hunger, war, children mutilated. But most of all, I am afraid of what I might become: reconciled to injustice, resigned to fear and despair, lulled into a life of apathy. Unchain my hope, make me strong. Stretch me towards the impossible, that I may...

A Anonymous
Faith, For Now

Faith, For Now

As we settle into our seat all of our life comes down with us, like an extended slinky retracting into a single cylinder Back you snap into this body and breath where each day is born and done familiar in this cushion familiar in this ache....

S Susan Maginn
Prayer for Congregational Meeting

Prayer for Congregational Meeting

Spirit of life and love God of many names—and no name— Divine spirit which resides in all, We do not always understand each other. We do not always speak or listen carefully. We often find it difficult to look beyond our selves to our common purpose, and We cause suffering to each other and...

L Lori Gorgas Hlaban
A Prayer for the Faithifiers

A Prayer for the Faithifiers

Gracious One: Keep watch on the innovators, the trailblazers, the takers of risk. Invite us to be persons of vision and integrity. Help us to remember the mystery from which possibility is born. Lead us to honor the sacred space where ministries, idealists, and realists meet....

H Hilary Allen
Communion Prayer

Communion Prayer

Spirit of Life and of Love, Deep down we know that there is a greater mystery, a life and a pulse with which we are all connected. We know also that our lives are happier, healthier and more satisfying when we reach out to it, when we make it a conscious and real aspect of our lives. Yet it is so...

K Kate Lore
Easter Meditation

Easter Meditation

Let us do the unthinkable thing. We'll sit and breathe together on the edge of our seats in a world that pollenates and reproduces, shape shifting and breaking into bloom. Let us sit and breathe together as one breath, sit still just long enough for each of our dreams to rise and silently hover...

S Susan Maginn
A Thanksgiving for the Elements

A Thanksgiving for the Elements

The strength of the Earth is the stones And the same is the source of our bones. The Water flows across the ground And within our blood. The Air blows around the world And brings us our breath. The Fire streams forth from the Sun without ceasing And sustains our lives. By these elements We are...

E Eric Williams
On Veterans Day

On Veterans Day

"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is 'Thank You,' it will be enough" — Meister Eckhart Today we have set aside time to publicly say thank you to our siblings who have served in the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Navy and Marines; to say 'Thank You' to all who served, whatev...

W Wren Bellavance-Grace
Veterans Day Invocation

Veterans Day Invocation

Father God, Mother God, God of many names and of none, we invite your presence; be with us this morning. Be with us as we honor our veterans of wartime; teach us how to care for those who have borne arms in our names. Be with us as we honor our veterans of peacetime; teach us to care for all who...

W Wren Bellavance-Grace
As the year winds down

As the year winds down

As the year winds down to its close And we are submerged once again In the seasonal darkness we have come to know so well, We have reason to think back upon the year that was, If only because it will soon be gone....

M Mark Stringer
Christmas Eve Prayer

Christmas Eve Prayer

Source of all gifts, Giver of all peace, On this silent and holy night we celebrate once again our deep faith that this venture we call existence is not meaningless, is not hopeless....

K Kristin Grassel Schmidt
The Invitation

The Invitation

We know the story: an angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds. The glory of the Lord shone around them. A great light descends on dark fields, happy angels and cherubim sing for joy, play their lutes, and dance about to defy the gravity of earthly cares....

T Teresa Schwartz
Let Us Hear, Let Us See, Let Us Be

Let Us Hear, Let Us See, Let Us Be

Source of Life, Taker of Life, Transformer of Life, Life Itself We implore you—hear us. Let us hear ourselves. Let us hear our own cries for help. Let us hear the pangs that rise from our bodies. Let us hear our bodies. Let us hear our breaths. Let us hear our living soul, its bellowing laughter...

M Ma Theresa "Tet" Gustilo Gallardo
UU Leader's Prayer

UU Leader's Prayer

With gratitude and grace we lead forward to answer the call of our faith, we move happily together into the unknown, we open ourselves to growth, we go forth to begin the change to our corner of the world, we covenant together to transform the world through love and we are moved by Spirit to...

K Kirk Bogue