“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The quintessential cry of despair, when all hope is lost.

“Weep not for Me, Mother, 

in the grave I have life.”

Good Friday, with its graphic images of death and despair, is endurable every year because we already know that Easter is coming, soon. But what if we didn’t know that?

A recent memorial service for a much-loved artist in our church ended with a poem and a prayer. The poem was “When Death Comes” by Mary Oliver,

Presider: It was a dull, tasteless thing;
People: This life, before salt.

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:

Light one candle for the Maccabee children
With thanks that their light didn’t die
Light one candle for the pain they endured
When their right to exist was denied

I will light candles this Christmas.
Candles of joy, despite all sadness.
Candles of hope where despair keeps watch.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.

The seed of God is in us.
If you are an intelligent and hard-working farmer,
it will thrive and grow up into God,

Show me the suffering of the most miserable;
So I will know my people’s plight.
Free me to pray for others;
For you are present in every person.

Go into the seething cauldron of the world.
Listen for the questions and voices
that you would rather not hear.

The Christianity we have inherited in the 21st century is like an onion, with Jesus’ wisdom at the core and layers and layers of church doctrine added over the centuries. Each of those layers was a solution to a problem in its own time. Progressive Christianity has let go of virtually all of those layers, recognizing that the core teaching – the Jesus experience, if you will – is what transcends time and is worth preserving. The result is that most progressive Christian churches no longer use the old creeds. We are not willing to recite what we cannot believe.

The Liturgy Project has been in the works for several years, and now that our new website has launched, the liturgy contributions have too. The idea behind the project is straightforward: all over the world, progressive clergy …

May Love Divine fill all our hearts, our bodies, minds and souls.

Let’s love our neighbours as ourselves as Spirit makes us whole.


Advent… a time of anticipation, of waiting and watching as the darkness deepens. There are many ways to mark the passing of this time…

In the rising of the sun and in its going down,
We remember them.


John Becker has written a simple chant called “Litany of the Saints,” which in its original form is literally a list of saints of the Catholic Church. But it is easy to write your own lyrics!

God bless this food we are about to receive. Give bread to those who hunger; and hunger for justice to us who have bread.  Amen

Do you know how to catch a raccoon? I mean good old backwoods ingenuity, no guns, no weapons of mass destruction. Well, I didn’t know either, until some years ago…

A non-canonical liturgy from the first century.

“The Golden Rule” from many different religious traditions

Dr. Polly Moore of College Heights UCC, San Mateo, CA, offers a list of the biblical references in "A NEW EARTH" by Eckhart Tolle, used by the church for its study group focusing on the book.