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Affirmations Benedictions Blessings Chalice Lightings Closings Invocations Litanies Meditations Openings Poetry Prayers Readings Responsive Readings Rituals Stories
Committed to Respond

Committed to Respond

Committed to respond to the call of a wounded world… We join together this day with loving hearts, hands and minds. Embracing the interconnected web of water, air and earth… We light a fire of sustaining hope, ever bright with love and justice. May we bring forth this day new wisdom, strength...

L Lynn Harrison
Rise!

Rise!

A: Because the tides are rising B: So must we C: Rise! A: to this moment C: Rise! B: to this day C: Rise! A: to this life B: This place in the web A: That is yours, and ours. C: Rise! B: Because the earth remains A: Our only home C: And we B: Fellow travelers A: Its only hope C: For healing B:...

G Gretchen Haley
Empowering the fathers of this world

Empowering the fathers of this world

Today is Father's Day, a day in which we honor and offer gratitude for our fathers, in whatever form or fashion they come into our lives—biological fathers, stepfathers, adoptive and foster fathers, grandfathers, spiritual fathers, and all of the uncles, brothers, and friends who, whether they...

L Loraine Bottorff McNeill
Your Body Is Welcome Here

Your Body Is Welcome Here

Your body is welcome here, all of it. Yes, even that part. And that part. And yes, even that part. The parts you love, and the parts you don’t. For in this place we come with all that we are All that we have been, And all that we are going to be. Our bodies are constantly changing, cells die and...

S Sean Neil-Barron
Opening Words for Labor Day

Opening Words for Labor Day

We enter this meeting house for kindness and comfort. May rough-worn hands and aching backs be healed. We enter this meeting house of hope for equality. May those who labor to survive live to know justice. We enter this meeting house of love and vocation. May our bonds of solidarity be strengthened.

M Megan Visser
Let Your Body Tell the Truth

Let Your Body Tell the Truth

We are learning to regroup and remember perfection was never the point.

G Gretchen Haley
Opening for an Annual Meeting

Opening for an Annual Meeting

May we be kind in our speaking, thoughtful in our deliberating, and never stray from the love that binds us together.

L Linda Hart
Our Holy Hearts, Our Sacred Bits of Soil

Our Holy Hearts, Our Sacred Bits of Soil

There is no separation, here, of the sacred from the profane. No setting apart from the natural world.

S Shari Woodbury
Many Hopes in Our Hearts

Many Hopes in Our Hearts

May our time together honor all the hopes we hold within; may our time together bless us with the gifts of inspiration, comfort and renewal.

R Rebekah Savage
Justice Is Our Prayer

Justice Is Our Prayer

Justice is our prayer. We affirm in covenant with the Beloved Community that is possible.

R Rebekah Savage
Rejoice with Full Hearts

Rejoice with Full Hearts

Rejoice! May this time of worship celebrate what we know at our core.

R Rebekah Savage
Let Beauty In

Let Beauty In

Let beauty in. Let beauty in like waves lapping on the shore, covering the beach and soaking the sand like an embrace.

R Rebekah Savage
The Mysterious Pull of the Unanswerable

The Mysterious Pull of the Unanswerable

We join together in solidarity as a covenanted people, who are drawn together by the promise of connection and the mysterious pull of the unanswerable.

B Bran Lennox
May Your Call Be Awakened

May Your Call Be Awakened

If you have come here seeking comfort, may your pain be soothed. If you have come here looking for answers, may you find new questions.…

M Michelle LaGrave
Agape Love

Agape Love

Agape love—radical, quiet, boundless, unconditional—is the love we have for God, the Universe, the Interconnected Web, for whatever words for Spirit make your soul sing.

Monica Clark-Robinson
Love Invites Us

Love Invites Us

… Love is not only at the center but also the opening that invites us to lament, celebrate, and care.

a anastasia birosh
For Five Thousand Years, Or More

For Five Thousand Years, Or More

For five thousand years, or more,more than two hundred fifty generations,human beings have been invoking spiritual power.My predecessors, and yours,have gathered togetherto make sense of their livesand their place in the cosmos.And they have spoken aloud,and invited what they conceived as sacred ...

M Matthew Johnson
This Faith

This Faith

Let us be a faith that gathers, reaching for one another through the walls of hate others build, through the cages of ignorance and arrogance, and through the fear that burns city streets....

H Heide Cottam
You Are Beloved and You Are Welcome Here

You Are Beloved and You Are Welcome Here

Voice 1: You are beloved and you are welcome here Voice 2: Whether tears have fallen from your eyes this past week or gleeful laughter has spilled out of your smiling mouth Voice 1: You are beloved and you are welcome here Voice 2: Whether you are feeling brave or broken-hearted; defiant or...

J Joan Javier-Duval
The Heart of Our Faith

The Heart of Our Faith

What is it That calls you here That calls you onward That calls you inward That leads you homeward? What is it That gives you the power To make that change To ask that question To take that journey?...

M Monica Jacobson-Tennessen
Wholeness

Wholeness

We speak so often of brokenness in religious life, Let us speak today of wholeness....

S Sharon Wylie
Thresholds

Thresholds

Thresholds. We cross them every day. From room to room, from outside to inside, and back again, from here to there, from anywhere to everywhere, from age to age. Each threshold offers an opportunity for change, for renewal, for transformation, from what we were and what we are to what we can be....

A Arlen Goff
It Will Be Enough

It Will Be Enough

In ancient times, they said Dayenu It would have been enough to have been spared after the plagues. It would have been enough to have been freed of slavery, It would have been enough to have had food in the desert, Now we question, when will it be enough again? Dayenu Will it be enough to stay home?

E Elizabeth Mount
Multiple Intelligences Welcome

Multiple Intelligences Welcome

The diversity of the human species is astounding. The fact that we can gather together for common experience is nothing short of a miracle. Today, let us celebrate some of those differences....

D Dawn Skjei Cooley
Call to Worship and Action

Call to Worship and Action

It is said that ministers are here to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. I say, we are all afflicted, and we are all comfortable. May our time together this morning be a comfort and a confrontation. May we here find peace in times of tumult; May we here invite tumult into lives of...

S Sharon Wylie
Praise the World in all its Pain and Blessing

Praise the World in all its Pain and Blessing

We are called today, from the midst of pain and challenge, we are called to praise the world. From a world that appears broken, we are called to praise life’s moments of joy and grace. From time that seems to freeze in ongoing exchanges of platitudes and blame, we are called to reach out to those...

M Maureen Killoran
Call To Gather Days Of Awe

Call To Gather Days Of Awe

We are held by the great Book of Life, in which it is written that we will inevitably face deprivation and discomfort. Each among us must contemplate our own place in it all.

L Leah Ongiri
You Are Never Alone

You Are Never Alone

It's okay to be feel weary of resiliency and wholeness and learning and growth.

S Sharon Wylie
Witnesses World

Witnesses World

It is now, when we are called to act on our values, not to hide, not to fear, but to be bold and loud.

T Tania Y Márquez
Love Brings Us Back to Life

Love Brings Us Back to Life

Easter is a holiday of miracles.

P Peggy Clarke
Co Regulation

Co Regulation

We cannot begin to find ourselves without love.

E Elizabeth Mount
Watershed

Watershed

Watershed moments are turning points, moments that permanently alter an understanding.

M Martina Thompson
We Join Together As One Congregation

We Join Together As One Congregation

We gather together....

M Michelle LaGrave
Our Lives Intersect and Intertwine

Our Lives Intersect and Intertwine

Let us marvel at the miracle of being here, right now.

T Tania Y Márquez
Celebrating the Darkness

Celebrating the Darkness

Darkness is as important as light.

J Jo VonRue
The Right to Choose

The Right to Choose

Without consent, our ability to create becomes not a blessing, but a burden and an imposition.

E Elizabeth Mount
You Are Beloved and You Are Welcome Here

You Are Beloved and You Are Welcome Here

Whether you have made promises, broken promises, or are renewing your promises, you are beloved and you are welcome here.

J Joan Javier-Duval
Come in from the Wind

Come in from the Wind

We need places where we can come and find our grounding once again.

H Heather Rion Starr
Weavers of One Story

Weavers of One Story

May we know ourselves as vessels of infinite possibility

L Leah Ongiri
A Moment of Rest from Our Journeys

A Moment of Rest from Our Journeys

Pause here, and be renewed and restored.

L Linda Hart
Wake Up!

Wake Up!

Let us wake up. Not just from the Sunday morning exhaustion, from the wish for a few more drowsy minutes in bed. Let us wake up to this world we live in: to its beauty and wonder, and also to its tragedy and pain. We must wake up to this reality: that not all in our world have what we do, however...

C Christian Schmidt
Autumnal Welcoming

Autumnal Welcoming

Come in, from the crisp morning air outside, come in, wearing the autumn sunlight on your face, come, carrying the turning of the seasons in your heart. Whatever and however the greatness of life is speaking to you now, you are welcome here in our circle of friends.

S Sarah Gettie McNeill
Hoping, Trusting for So Many Things

Hoping, Trusting for So Many Things

Here we have come into this sacred space— quieter now with our readiness Hushed voices, hoping, trusting for so many things: For connection, for communion For inspiration, for information For healing, for wholeness, For words, for music, For celebration and consolation, Here we have come into thi...

K Katie Kandarian-Morris
Come Sit By Our Fire

Come Sit By Our Fire

Come sit by our fire and let us share stories. Let me hear your tales of far off lands, wanderer, and I will tell you of my travels. Share your experience of the holy with me, worshipper, and I will tell you of that which I find divine. Come and stay, lover of leaving, for ours is no caravan of...

J Jennifer Kitchen
Let Go

Let Go

Let go Of all that binds you Of all that burdens you Of what you carry Of all that shames you Of fear Of trespasses and transgressions Of woundedness Let go of guilt Let go of anger Let go of small mindedness and pettiness Of ways of being that no longer work for you Of compulsions that consume y...

L Lois Van Leer
We Speak the Language of Love

We Speak the Language of Love

We arrive from many different experiences and backgrounds. Some of us have trouble speaking; others are so young that they’re still learning to talk. Some of us speak English as a second language, and others of us can speak several foreign languages....

E Erika Hewitt
Welcoming the Ancestors

Welcoming the Ancestors

The ritual of welcoming and honoring ancestors is an ancient spiritual practice found in many cultures and traditions. Thus we begin this ceremony with paying tribute and expressing gratitude to our ancestors. From our histories our ancestors call to us, asking “whence we come, and how and...

C Christina Shu and Tera Little
Our Souls Speak Spring

Our Souls Speak Spring

If we lived in another climate Our souls might speak other languages We might speak oasis or permafrost, dry season or monsoon But our souls speak spring Our souls speak green shoots pushing through last year’s leaves Our souls speak flower buds stretching to sun Our souls speak mud puddle and...

E Evin Carvill Ziemer
Never Fully Extinguished

Never Fully Extinguished

In this hour of holy stillness we gather to honor the life and the person we love. In this hour of Holy Stillness we remind ourselves that the flames of life and love are never fully extinguished. In this hour of Holy Stillness we offer ourselves for sharing the weight of each other’s grief. In...

P Patricia Shelden
In whom will we be reborn?

In whom will we be reborn?

We come together tonight to remember the history, or the myth, that says hope was born in the form of a baby named Jesus. What is so compelling about the story of Jesus’s birth, his life, his love? Why has this story reached across the ages to us while so many others have faded into history?...

A Alix Klingenberg