Message by Mike Brown

Moment of Perspective – Circles – AJ Fox

The opening reading is Walking the Crooked Path, by Thomas Rhodes.

Holy Spirit of Life and Love,
You who are our source and our ultimate destiny,
Lead us this day on a crooked path.
So often we are in so much of a hurry
Taking the direct route to our goal,
Not allowing ourselves to be distracted,
Sometimes being too direct with one another
in all that we seek to do, to be, and to have.
But we can see that no river takes a direct path to the sea.
Your trees and bushes sprout crooked limbs,
And birds, beasts and insects meander in their search
for food, shelter, or a mate.
We lose so much when we take the direct route –
The interstate which bypasses the quaint township,
The arrow that misses the mark,
The chance to stop and say hello, and how are you,
And really listen to the reply.
So lead us on the crooked path
Past wandering streams and crooked trees,
Following our hearts’ desire,
Not just duty’s demands,
For the crooked path also leads us home.

Morning Prayer
No. 23 from Album for the Young, Op. 39 by Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky
Public Domain
Performed by Colleen Appel

We Lift Our Hearts in Thanks
Congregational Hymn
Words Percival Chubb
Music: Public Domain (1599)

The Final Reading is We Hold Hope Close, by Theresa I Soto.

In this community, we hold hope close. We don’t
always know what comes next, but that cannot dissuade us.
We don’t always know just what to do, but that will not mean
that we are lost in the wilderness. We rely on the certainty
beneath, the foundation of our values and ethics. We
are the people who return to love like a North Star and to
the truth that we are greater together than we are alone.
Our hope does not live in some glimmer of an indistinct future.
Rather, we know the way to the world of which we dream,
and by covenant and the movement forward of one right action
and the next, we know that one day we will arrive at home.