Message by Rev. Michelle Scott-Huffman

Moment of Perspective – Thich Nat Hanh: The Magic Seeds of Our Minds – Rev. Michelle Scott-Huffman

Hear these words from Rev. Karen Johnston:

As we gather this morning,
let us be a people of not-forgetting.
Let us practice
holding collective memories that might otherwise slip into that enormous void that sucks at and corrodes any future we hold dear.
Let us practice honoring truth-telling
up from the past that must come fully into the now, lest we falter and fail, lest the whole remain in pieces.
Let not our need for comfort or simplicity,
for easy forgiveness or false pardon
smother the heartbreak that still needs healing.
Let us practice resilience with reckoning.
Let us marry memory and promise.
Let us dance in the tension we find there.
Let us rest in the integrity we cultivate there.
Let us be partners with the possibility that emerges there.
It is good we gather.

Here We Have Gathered
Congregational Hymn
Lyrics by Alicia S. Carpenter; used with permission by the Estate of Alicia Carpenter
Music: Genevan Psalter, Public Domain

Rondo Alla Turca
WA Mozart; Public Domain
Performed by Carter Meints

Touch the Earth, Reach the Sky!
Congregational Hymn
Words and Music: Grace Lewis-McLaren
Permission Granted

Ralph Waldo Emerson wisely said:

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.