In these precious days of summer, there are wilderness moments, times when we can allow ourselves to wander into unknown territory within and beyond ourselves. We will explore what “wilderness” can mean, and how it might illuminate how we see ourselves and what paths we might want to travel. **If weather allows, we are planning to worship outdoors! This will be a hybrid service so that folks can join us via zoom .

 

We anticipate that this service will be both in-person and on Zoom. Click right here Sunday shortly before 10:00 a.m. to join via Zoom. Click here to read our protocols for in-person attendance.When attending in person, please completely power off your cell phone during the service to preserve the Church’s WiFi bandwidth for our Zoom attendees.

“Welcoming the Wilderness of Summer”

Order of Service
Sunday, July 24, 2022

Greeting                                                                       Rev. Telos

Board Welcome & Announcements                         Jamie Gibson

Remembrance Candle in honor of Judy Ingison

Prelude: Chanson de matin   Edward Elgar
Tom Baehr, flute; Eva Greene, piano

Chalice Lighting   by Jay Griffiths from Why Rebel             Elizabeth Lewis
We kindle our flame with these words: Shapeshifting is a transgressive experience, a crossing over: something flickers inside the psyche, a restless flame in a gust of wind, endlessly transformative. The mind moves from its literal pathways to its metaphoric flights. Art is made like this, from a volatile bewitchment of self-forgetting and an identification with something beyond.”

Lighting Our Children’s Chalice
We light this chalice to celebrate Unitarian Universalism. We are the church of the open minds. We are the church of the helping hands.  We are the church of the loving hearts.

Call to Worship                                                          Rev. Telos                                                     

Opening Hymn #82  “This Land of Bursting Sunrise”

Story For All of Us:       “Finding Wild”      Megan Wagner Lloyd, author      Abigail Halpin, illustrator                                

Sharing Our Covenant                                                Maisie Crowther                                                  
“We build our church on a foundation of love,
and covenant with one another:
to freely explore our values and honor our diversity
as a source of communal strength,
to accept responsibility for our individual acts
and promote justice and peace,
to celebrate the joys of discovery,
embracing the fullest measure of our humanity,
to communicate with kindness and support,
to serve with compassion and commitment,
to openly share our laughter and tears, and
to show reverence for the divine in all that is.”
(Covenant adopted on April 17, 2001)

Responsive Reading: The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee by N. Scott Momaday

I am a feather on the bright sky
I am the blue horse that runs in the plain
I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water
I am the shadow that follows a child
I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows
I am an eagle playing with the wind
I am a cluster of bright beads
I am the farthest star
I am the cold of dawn
I am the roaring of the rain
I am the glitter on the crust of the snow
I am the long track of the moon in a lake
I am a flame of four colors
I am a deer standing away in the dusk
I am a field of sumac and the pomme blanche
I am an angle of geese in the winter sky
I am the hunger of a young wolf
I am the whole dream of these things

You see, I am alive, I am alive
I stand in good relation to the earth
I stand in good relation to the gods
I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful
I stand in good relation to the daughter of Tsen-tainte
You see, I am alive, I am alive

“Bewilderness”           A poem by Maisie Crowther

Hymn #163  “For the Earth Forever Turning”

Sermon: “Welcoming the Wilderness”                Rev. Telos

Hymn #83: “Winds Be Still”

Offering shared with The Minister’s Discretionary Fund

Offertory: “To A Wild Rose” from Woodland Sketches, Op. 51 (1896)      Edward MacDowell
Eva Greene, piano

Blessing Our Candles of Joys and Sorrows
                             
Chalice Extinguishing by Jay Giffiths from Why Rebel     Elizabeth Lewis
As we extinguish our flame “Ted Hughes once said that the secret of writing poetry is to imagine what you are writing about. See it and live it … Just look at it, touch it, smell it, listen to it, turn yourself into it… We are what we think, and we humans have a way to become other, in a necessary, wild and radical empathy.”

*Closing Circle: “Carry the Flame of Peace and Love” (sung two times)

*Please join in standing as you are able.

Benediction                                                                   Rev. Telos