In the young, elders hope for justice.
In elders, the young see the wisdom of faith.

We are one with the creatures,
One with the plants,
One with the life of Earth.

O God, Infinite and everlasting!
By what name shall we call you? Being human, we have only human words to use.

Each individual
is like an angel
with only one wing

Divine Wisdom, we come seeking your guidance in our efforts to work together for peace. We come from diverse ethnic groups, cultures, and religions. We believe these differences enrich us all. Lead us on your paths to lasting and true peace.

Dear God, bless my taxes! Give me peace of mind as I struggle to fill out the forms and determine the right amounts I should be sending to Washington and Sacramento. Keep me calm, I pray, as I write out those fat checks on April 15. And whisper a reminder to me, Lord, of all the good reasons that I send my money to my government every year.

The problem with being an atheist
is the lack
of imagination.

When Man from Eden new-cast out then tore at Earth and ripped
Her coal and iron, her oil and gold, his melancholy tipped
The world toward devastated blight, toward envy, hatred, wars.
They turned sweet hills to desert wastes and pocked the Earth with sores.

All: We are all partners and stewards of the unfolding universe, which is God’s glorious creation. Together we make the following shared commitment:

I lift up my eyes to Diablo
looming over the bay, a diadem of gold and green
spreading its dun folds down to its urban skirts

This light which bathes the world,
pours from a source so close, so near
and yet we cannot touch it
or fence it in that it not be lost.

“Why look for the living among the dead?” [Luke 24:5] “We live in a post-resurrection age, which in many ways is not unlike that of the first followers of a Galilean peasant sage and martyr, who was …

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

Once upon a time, God was Good, and Good was born in each of us. Good took on human form to move across the face of the earth. As we let Good direct us, it taught us …

Beatitude Nine: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Beginning with the traditional opening from Charles Wesley, this moves into a progressive Christian expression of resurrection.
Christ the Lord is risen today – Alleluia!
Mortal tongues and angels say: – Alleluia!

I’m a scientific kind of guy and to tell you the truth
I find the stories of the empty tomb hard to take in

As a progressive clergy person from my first day in the pulpit, thirty years ago, I always felt that everything from Lent to Easter Sunday was the most important and exciting season for Christians. It was another opportunity to teach and even to practice the path of kenosis, to move beyond our familiar boundaries of mind and body by learning to let go and change.