Wandering and Wondering

Call to Worship, et al

The front door before renovations at the First Congregational Church of Brimfield, UCC.
-July 1, 2021

Call to Worship

Pastor: In times when we feel like giving up,

People: come to us anew.

Pastor: In moments when we are lost or confused,

People: illuminate your path that we might see where to tread.

Pastor: In times of trouble,

People: protect us and give us refuge.

Pastor: When we are arrogant, believing in only our way,

People: humble us that we may remember our interconnectedness with you and with each other.

Pastor: You sent your son that we might all live,

so let us open our eyes and our hearts that we might learn and live as he did.

Assurance of Pardon

God of Grace,

Pour your love upon this world.

Mend the torn.

Heal the broken.

Weave us together.

Remind us that we are your children, loved, beloved, and forgiven.

Invitation to share:

God as we think of seeing things in new ways, let us not think of what we are necessarily giving to God, but recognize what we are withholding. Help us to notice those areas that our heart is still full of plaque and needing to be cleansed. Relax our grip on personal security and help us trust on the care of one another. Remind us of the widow, who thought not of her own needs, but gave out of faith all that she had, making way for a new way to be birthed.

May we make space by giving out of joy and faith

And not reserving out of fear.

Let us be a part of a new economy of love and thanksgiving.

Prayer of Dedication

Holy One,

As we have opened our hearts to you,

refill us with even more generosity.

Give us new eyes to see potential where others see lack.

Give us new hearts to embrace creative solutions to problems.

Give us new hands to be the helpers the world needs.

Let us honor all you have done for us,

by doing the same for our siblings. AMEN

Pastoral Prayer

Holy One,

The world is in need of prayers – not just our typical prayers for those who are physically ill or dying, but for an illness of the heart and a struggle of the soul.

There are too many who are grasping control and forgetting about compassion.

There are too many focused on greed and overlooking the simple rules about sharing that we learned even in the sandbox when we were young .

There are too many who are so focused on their own needs and desires that they are failing to see the suffering that exists, some of which they may have a hand in themselves.

God, today we pray for all people,

for all who need a softer heart,

a deeper conscience,

and wider understanding of your golden rules.

We pray for our own prejudices, frustrations, and anger.

We pray for others’ short sightedness, selfishness, and unwillingness to face the impact of their actions.

We pray that we all look to grow as individuals.

We pray that we are all willing to name our shortcomings.

We pray that we are all willing to grow.

We pray that we all are given strength to support the downtrodden,

voice to speak for the voiceless,

courage to stand up for their siblings.

We pray for changed hearts and transformed souls.

May your son’s teachings continue to teach us all,

and may he lead us into a world filled with deeper compassion and care

where we all look to each other’s care, even the stranger’s.

In this silence, let us lift up those who we know who need to be surrounded by and filled with God’s inexhaustible love and grace today:

Now let us pray in the words of your son –

Our Father / Mother / Creator*, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy Name,

thy kingdom come,

thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those

who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory,

for ever and ever. Amen.

*Use the words you are most comfortable with or try something you haven’t before to see how that fits or pushes against your theology (understanding of God). Take some time to reflect on your experience.

Blessed to be a blessing

“I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
    and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
    will be blessed through you.” – Genesis 12:2-3

Can you imagine a world where we walked around consciously blessing one another and the world around us? Might this simple act deflate the tensions and anxiety that pervade our society. Could you imagine if we sought to find the holy chard (tikkun olam) that everyone and everything contained? or sought the holy fingerprint of the potter himself (Isaiah 64:8)?

What would it mean to begin to see the world as holy, to act as if it were, and to encourage it to be so? The act of blessings is an ancient practice that perhaps we should reinstitute. Doing so does not require an act of congress, nor a majority vote, it simply means that you and I make it so. Maybe, if we are lucky, the practice will grow.

Step one is simply to look with new eyes and see the beauty before us (Remember beauty is not always external; and beauty is not always what society names it to be.).

Step two is to name what you see or what you hope to see. If I were blessing my fireplace this morning, I might offer a blessing for the many days of warmth that it has brought to my house allowing me to be comfortable and to invite friends and family within. If I were blessing a person, I might offer a hope, “May this new year offer you opportunity and growth. May you find your footing, feel your strength, and be granted the courage to live fully into who you were meant to be.”

Step three is to share your blessing. You may say it quietly to God, say it aloud to the another person, or maybe take a moment to drop a note or a text to let them know that you are thinking about them. You might even post it on social media.

Blessings can also be done quietly within your heart as a prayer to God. I started to bless my feet in the morning after my mother passed away. She had thrown blood clots in her legs which subsequently caused an unhealing foot wound and caused the loss of several toes. My kids even were known to refer to her as Grandma Boo Boo Foot because, in their memory, she could never wear two shoes and usually need the assistance of a wheelchair. So now when my feet hit the floor I try to remember that even getting up in the morning and standing is not a blessing that everyone is afforded.

A Blessing for Feet

I wiggle them awake

and say, “Thank you!”

I touch them to the ground

and say, “Thank you!”

I press my weight upon them

and say, “Thank you!”

“Thank you little toes

and feet

and ankles.

Thank you phalanges

and metatarsals

and navicular bone.

Thank you to my muscles

and my tendons

and all the nerves

that go into each step I take.

Thank you God for my feet.

Bless them as they carry me through my day.

AMEN

NOTE: All rights are reserved for this blessing or anything published on this page. Permission is given for usage in religious or educational settings with citation.

If you would like to read some more blessings including two of my own, check out Ruth Burgess’ book from Wild Goose Publications, Blessed Be God:

Pastoral Prayer – God as the one who catches us

Pastoral Prayer –

Holy God who fishes for humanity,

We pray this day that you throw your net into the world.

There are so many who need to be caught by you:

There are those harboring resentments and anger,

Those lost in old storylines of who they could be or should be.

There are those who feel tossed and turned on the sea of life,

And those drowning in the murky waters of half-truths and made up tales.

There are those who feel abandoned out in the wide waters,

And those who are struggling trying to navigate their current conditions.

There are those who need someone to hear their cries for help and throw them a lifeline;

And those who have thrown themselves in the sea believing that no one would miss them if they were swallowed by the depths.

There are those who are afraid to sail into deep waters;

And those who hesitate to even leave port.

So many need your presence, Lord, be with them and meet them where they are.

Today, we also have specific people on our mind that need your care. Listen as we say their names:

Invite people to say names one atop the other trusting that God knows already who is in need and what they are in need of.

In your mercy, care for all who are in need; those we have named and those who we have left unnamed, and even those we do not know to name. We pray all of this in the name of your son, who taught us to pray together saying:

& Lord’s Prayer

Our Father / Mother / Creator*, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy Name,

thy kingdom come,

thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those

who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory,

for ever and ever. Amen.

This was used along with our reading of Luke 5:1-11, which is a Lectionary reading for the 5th Sunday of Epiphany in Year C.

Call to Worship & Invocation

Prlude

Call to Worship (based on Psalm 138 )

L: We give you thanks, O Lord.

P: We give you thanks with our whole heart.

L: We give thanks for your steadfast love.

P: We give thanks for your abiding word.

L: We give thanks for your presence in our lives.

P: We give you thanks.

L: Let us honor the one who is, was, and ever will be.

ALL: AMEN

Invocation

Holy and steadfast God,

You stand beside me each step I take and yet I look past you, over you, and around you. I act as if I am an island floating on the open sea. In our time today, open me to seeing, noticing, and appreciating the many ways you seek to make yourself known and the many ways in which we are interconnected with our siblings and the earth itself. Give me eyes to see and ears to hear your constant and consistent presence. AMEN

It takes a long time to create Bethlehem

This week’s mid-week meditation led to a powerful insight:

it takes a long time to create Bethlehem.

There is so much going on in the world, it came seem like a frivolous waste to gather and simply create art, but I have found this creative time to, in fact, be more important than ever. It is in these peaceful settings that we can take a moment to take stock of all that we have seen and heard and begin to try to understand our place and our calling within it all.

This week, when we gathered, our theme was mosaics. Given our time frame, we created our mosaics with paper, and I limited our paper to just solid colors. I offered the option of some pre-drawn blackline masters that I gathered from the internet and also had plain paper available. I tried to give people as little direction as possible because, like in each of our other weeks, the purpose is the reflection on our thoughts and the process more than the product that is produced.

People always find our time too short and these activities could easily be done on retreat in multi-hour blocks.

This was my creation based on Rublev’s picture of The Trinity. I was really caught by the idea that each of us have the capacity to be part of the trinity; thus the non-identification of the personalities. I also recognized how we need to be mindful of how we interact with one another. Even with our best intentions we sometimes press into each other’s space.

To help us be in the right mindset to create, we began our time together by putting our hands in the form of a bowl and filling our bowls with all the dread, frustration, anger, and worry that we brought in with us. After gathering it together in our own imaginary bowls, we placed the bowls below the cross in the center of the table and agreed that if stressful thoughts came our way we would give them over God through a symbolic gesture of hanging our worry on the cross. Once we released the troubles we came in with, we offered a prayer and lit our candle. Then I read a poem called Mosaic by Lily Whitelock (click here to read the whole poem) and offered a quote by Anita Krizzan. We were particularly enamored with the words of Lily’s third verse,

“Every word I know somebody else has told me.

Every smile I give someone else has shared.”

“We are mosaics. Pieces of light, love, history stars . . .Glued together with magic and music and words.

Anita Krizzan

We then created for half an hour, gathering back together to discuss and reflect on the process. There were many insights that individuals had about how they created, what they created, why they created; and there was one that took all our breath away. As one congregant shared this work:

She explained that she didn’t have enough time and would be taking this home to finish. She somewhat flippantly said,

“If you didn’t know, it takes a long time to create Bethlehem.” MC

When she said that, my heart stopped. It was a reminder to us all that within the struggle and frustration that we are all feeling these day, we need to remember that to create takes time, energy, perseverance, patience, and vision especially when your vision is as complicated and simplistic as love, justice, and compassion.

We closed with a simple prayer and all went out into the world with a little more hope and with clearer understandings of where we might fit into the larger picture and how our gifts and talents might be used.

If you decide to try to create, I’d love to see what you make. Please post in the comments.

Holy One, Sometimes challenge comes not in complexity but in simplicity. As your co-creators in life, help us to step back and take stock on that which is essential. Encourage us to release that which gets in the way of your vision of heaven on earth being made real in the world. Call us into partnership with you so that together we might together create a peaceful, loving, and just world. Remind us of the time when your son was born in a simple stable. Let us remember its simplicity and yet also his power to transform the world. May you use us to do the same way. AMEN

What seed would you be?

And where would you be planted best?

Tonight at prayer group, I began with three offerings:

A question that was in a meme I saw on Facebook – “How do I keep up with all the bad news?” We pondered what this might mean and how we should even engage with the question.
Then we watched a video that was recommended to me today called Keep Hope Alive by Kristen Graves and thought about the tension between the terrible and tragic and the concept of hope. We considered how we could actively hope in the world.
Finally, we watched this video by Sir David Attenborough:

After watching, I asked two simple and very complicated questions: What is your seed? And where does it need to be planted?

May we each consider our part in the healing of the world. Amen

BTW – If you have a prayer or if you wish to share your thoughts, please comment below and I will do my best to notice and respond.

Sacred Noticing

Yesterday, as I was preparing to leave for church, I looked out our backdoor to the lake and there I saw the beauty of creation in a way I had never seen it before.

I think it was a rare confluence of events that made it so. In the eves of the overhang to the porch were these fragile ice crystal cobwebs. They were invisible to the naked eye normally (not that we’ve been doing a whole lot of outdoor sitting these days in -6 degrees), but the kerosene heater with an outdoor vent had come on. It was very cold, and the eves caught the moisture.

Every moisture molecule that landed on the spider’s web froze immediately creating this crystalline creation. Each layer upon layer brought forward and made visible the beauty of the underlying design. It is surely a wonder to behold – similar to dew captured on a web as it glints in the sunlight. Part of the wonder in both of these situations is its impermanence. It was there in this moment, but within a few hours they were invisible again. It was a deep reminder to pay attention – deep attention.

When we think of prayer, we often think of words that we say out into the world, but perhaps we should expand our understanding to include that which enters into us as well. Perhaps our prayer is that moment when our breath is caught and all we can utter are syllables: “ahh”, “ohh”, “wow”.

Sacred noticing is a spiritual practice to always be on the look out for wonder and to be willing to pause the rest of the world so that you can fully take it in.

In this case, I called my husband over to behold it with me and he too offered the sacred prayer of “Wow! That is amazing.”

What have you seen today that has taken your breath away?

Listening to God through art

This week in our Mid-Week Meditation: the Arts Edition we did collage. Most people associate collage to the vision boards that we all made in Jr. High where we pasted pictures from magazines on a board as a way to try to capture our hopes and desires. This session was a little different than that although the basic artistic process of cutting and pasting was the same.

I put out a plethora of materials, but only a few magazines (and the magazines that I read are not very picture oriented). I had glue sticks and created some modge-podge type glue through a 50/50 blend of white glue and water. I had both straight edge and design edge scissors out, but had considered not putting them out so that they would have to rip and tear the materials. I had old maps, bags with designs on them, excess materials from my scrapbooking days, and other odds and ends (I encourage you to trust that what you put out will be enough)

We opened as always with lighting the candle. Then, I then offered three short readings. One a quote from Pablo Picasso about taking a lifetime to create like a child. The second a quote from Rilke about living the questions. Then finally, this passage from Journey of the Universe by Brian Thomas Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker:

In a simple but elegant form, awareness appears in unicellular organisms. The capacity for discernment resides in a thin outer layer of each cell, called its membrane. The membrane, through its receptor and hannel protiens, selects what is of interest and what is not, what will enter and what will not. Each cell encounters a wide spectrum of atoms and molecules and otehr ogranisms floating alongside it. Each time the cell makes contact, primitive discernment emerges.

In the vast majority of these interactions, the membrane remains tightly sealed in order to block a novel molecule form its inner life. However, in encounters with molecules of particular configurations, the cell responds very differently. the molecules of the cell’s membrane latch onto this new molecule. The cell then alters the structure of its own membrane so that this molecule can be drawn in. Because of this discernment, the new molecule becomes part of the cell’s internal milieu. In this way the cell finds and captures its “food” – the energetic molecules it can digest.

Discernment is crucial. Mistaken decisions can lead to death because the inner coherence may be broken by the strange new guest-molecule. Thus, at the edge of its body, each cell makes an elemental choice. Is this a risk worth taking? Is this food nourishing? Will this increase the chances of remaining alive?

I then tried to offer as little direction as possible so that those that participated might look deep into their own heart. The two pieces of guidance that I did offer was:

Try to engage. At least, move yourself over to the materials and see what shimmers.
Don’t try to “make” something. Let you mind, heart, and the materials do the creating. Later we will look to see what may have been said through them.

They then got to it. We could have used a much longer expansive time, but due to our limitations and our desire to share about the process and our insights, we only had 30 minutes to create. (One benefit to a shorter period of time is that it encourages quick decisions that rely more on our gut than our mind that often gets high-jacked with judgement.)

When they finished creating, we took 2 minutes to listen to what God and / or our own inner being might be trying to say to us. Then we thanked God for this opportunity to create. We talked about what we learned in the process of creating and then about what we noticed in our own creations.

It was amazing, as always, how different they all looked.

One of the interesting responses that I have been getting from these workshops is how not only are they a place of peace, but that the peace they find in the moment also carries with them throughout the day. I noted that this is important. There is definitely a lot of work to be done in the world AND we must balance that we self-care, time for reflection, and worship. The rhythm between the two becomes sustaining rather than depleting. It also helps us with our discernment about where to put our energy and invites us to think about problems from a more creative perspective. Activist, Attorney, and Author Valerie Kaur likens the balance we should find in life to giving birth. You cannot keep pushing. Periodically, you have to take a breath.

May we each find our balance and in our balance, may we offer the world a more grounded and compassionate perspective.

I usually try to create alongside the participants as best I can given the other things I am focusing on. Here is my creation that day.

If you take time to give it a try, I’d love to see what you create.

Psalm inspired liturgy

Sometimes it can be a challenge to write liturgy from week to week, so sometimes I need to look elsewhere for inspiration. Sometimes I find liturgy that others have written that I can use (I especially appreciate https://re-worship.blogspot.com/ ). Other times, I reach into the Biblical text, especially the Psalter. Because the Psalms were originally sung, the liturgy gathered from the Psalms practically writes itself. Here, for example, is the Call to Worship and Invocation that I am using this week, which is drawn from Psalm 18. One Psalm can often be the inspiration for a multitude of prayers, litanies, and the like. The Psalms are like a well that is fed by an unending aquafer.

Call to Worship

Pastor: In the Lord I take refuge.

People: God is my deliverer.

Pastor: God is my rock and my fortress.

People: God is my safe place.

Pastor: In the Lord, I put my hope and my trust.

People: God is my protector.

ALL: I will praise God forever more.

Invocation

O God, my protector, you are with me in all that I do: from my waking to my sleeping. You watch over me and seek to guide me. Today, in this time, wake me up so that I may witness your work and begin to see the world around me with more clarity. AMEN

An extra special resource as it pertains to Psalmody is Richard Bruxvoort Cooligan’s Psalm Immersion. His musical creations from the Psalms can be used as background for meditation, for musical prayer responses, or for deepening your perspective on a specific psalm. I encourage you to check his work out.

NOTE: You are welcome to use the liturgy in worship or educational settings. Please cite the origin sources.