Message by Dr. Cathie English
Moment of Perspective – Hope is the Thing With Feathers – AJ Fox
Let’s listen to Grace Meets Us Where We Are, by Rev. Gretchen Haley
There is nothing you need to bring with you
to be welcome here
no right beliefs or proof of citizenship
no eternal optimism or clarity of conviction
no boundless courage or endless expertise
You do not need to know what brought you here
Or how you will solve that problem
you are turning over and over and over in your mind
Your bills do not need to be paid
and your checkbook can be a mess
your children may have been up half the night
your hearing aids may not be working
& your knees may be creaking
You do not need to be already perfect—or even half-way—
to belong in this circle where grace meets us where we are
but does not leave us as it found us*
where love resides in each of us
yet is somehow more than all
where life still pulses and rages and heals and transforms
creating us and this day anew once again.
Come, let us worship together.
*This phrase was coined by writer Anne Lamott.
Can I See Another’s Woe?
Congregational Hymn
Words: William Blake
Music: Melody based on “Veni Redemptor Gentium,” Enchiridion, Erfurt Harmony by Seth Calvisius
We Will Rest
Words and Music by Amanda Udis-Kessler
Performed by Emily McKinney
Permission Granted
Abide With Me
Congregational Hymn
Words and Music: Joyce Poley
Keyboard arr. Lorne Kellett
Permission Granted
I’d like to share a poem by Mary Oliver, titled “On Meditating, Sort of.”
Meditation, so I’ve heard, is best accomplished
if you entertain a certain strict posture.
Frankly, I prefer just to lounge under a tree.
So why should I think I could ever be successful?
Some days I fall asleep, or land in that
even better place — half asleep — where the world,
spring, summer, autumn, winter —
flies through my mind in its
hardy ascent and its uncompromising descent.
So I just lie like that, while distance and time
reveal their true attitudes: they never
heard of me, and never will, or ever need to.
Of course I wake up finally
thinking, how wonderful to be who I am,
made out of earth and water,
my own thoughts, my own fingerprints —
all that glorious, temporary stuff.