“At the center of the Christmas story is hope…hope which comes to us in the form of a vulnerable, poor baby. A child, not a king, changes the world. God appears to us as a marginalized, Afro-Semitic, Jewish child from Nazareth in Palestine. A child who grows up to teach us to welcome the stranger. How would our world be different if we loved our neighbors as ourselves?” asks the Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, senior minister of Middle Collegiate Church.

  PENTECOST Here's a call to worship, rooted in the Christian past, but open to the global voices, and celebrating an Earth-based liturgy.

After searching for an opening Easter Acclamation that is progressive and cosmic in nature, and finding nothing that went where I'd like to take the congregation, I decided I'd just have to write one. This acclamation/invocation draws on themes found in the Gospel of Thomas, Meister Eckhart, Hildegard von Bingen, Teilhard de Chardin, and Thomas Berry. I also hope is has some of the poetic flare of that great earth mystic, Saint John (Muir) of the Mountains.

Reinhold Niebuhr's brother, H. Richard, argued for faithfulness to the example of Jesus's nonviolence, while Reinhold believed this was naive and unrealistic in an imperfect world. H. Richard was the purist to the Christian faith, believing that following the Golden Rule, no matter the consequences, is what Jesus and God called us to do -- the success of the mission being in God's hands rather than our own. Reinhold, however, looked at the more practical side of things, substituting his or the world's idea of what was possible and changing his ethics accordingly. H. Richard thus trusted more in the providential moral arc of history as M.L. King, Jr. , would call it rather than a realist's version of what humans believe is attainable given their corrupt nature. In essence, H. Richard focused on the power of God's grace to transform our spirits and the world for the better, while Reinhold accepted a more cynical view of our ability to be radically changed as a specie.

ON RISING May awareness be my companion, love my friend and amazement my expectation.

Whatever our beliefs may be or holiday meals that we celebrate, I hope that these “transfaith” blessings may help to nurture focus and gratitude.

We give thanks for the plants, Give thanks for the creatures Whose flesh supplies this meal.

We eat and drink these fruits of earth that love may grow between us all, between us all.

The butterfly lives in a seamless realm, a matrix, poetically in the palm of God/dess’s hand, not alien or estranged. Is it possible for us to find that kind of confidence, or trust in the nature of the Universe itself? Let’s take a moment or two to think about Wisdom, and our place in the Universe. What kind of liturgy, or worship experience, would celebrate the kind of inclusive, nurturing community the butterfly knows without thinking about it?

May the food that we eat And the friends that we share Give us strength for spreading True justice and peace.

Oh, nurturing God we thank you for the seeds The source is yours and all in it

Drawn by God’s presence. . . . . .we gather Inspired by God’s spirit. . . . . .we worship

For the mystery that enfolds us and blesses us, For the beauty that surrounds us and nourishes us,

Hungry for meaning? Welcome home. Thirsty for purpose? Welcome home.

When Jesus prayed, he found a sense of sacred oneness, when Buddha meditated, he became awake to deeper levels of awareness. No one truly knows the effectiveness of prayer, but one thing is for sure- when we take the time to be still, to slow down, to go inward, we almost always discover something about ourselves and the potential awareness that we are not alone.

For deeper love we spread the bread I won’t be full till all are fed Till every soul has home and bed The rest of us can’t move ahead

Come to us, God of peace. Come with your healing and your reconciling power. Come, that fear may be cast out by love;

In this New Year, let us lift our vision of what we can do and what we can achieve:

Full of God, full to birthing, Mary howls: head back, hair tossed, Hands skyward with joy That wrongs are about to be righted, Salvation's about to be sighted.

"you who delight me" is in two parts: poems of love—secular and spirited writing about people, places and events; and words of spirit and faith—inclusive language, contemporary liturgies for individual contemplation and progressive faith communities.

Born to a poor uneducated carpenter and his partner All: Jesus was one with oppressed humankind

American retailers have essentially pre-announced that the annual Thanksgiving observance -- when we presumably pause to gratefully remember everything we have -- has been cancelled so bargain shoppers can get an even earlier jump-start on their holiday shopping for all the things we don’t have yet. Meanwhile, halfway around the world a typhoon of record proportion hit landfall only a few weeks ago; nearly wiping an island nation off the face of the earth, and leaving those who survived with virtually nothing. Then last week an unseasonable swarm of twisters flattened whole towns across the Midwest. By comparison, it all makes the plight of those first pilgrims facing the harsh realities of their first Thanksgiving in a brave new world look like a walk in the park. And, all the while, the airwaves and media have been filled with docu-dramas and documentaries commemorating the half-century mark of those events that shattered an age of relative innocence for those of us old enough to remember it; ushering in an age of extraordinary upheaval and anxiety, starting with what social critics and historians alike attribute to the assassination of JFK. Juxtaposed and taken together, these events represent a seeming un-reality that hasn’t really abated much in the last fifty years. We live in an age of anxiety. Jesus masterfully taught in the philosophical tradition known as Jewish cynicism, with such parabolic tales and quaint-sounding imagery as the “lilies of the field.” And he did so at a time and age that – while seemingly ancient to our modern way of thinking – may not have been all that different from our own anxious age. Consider then our fretful, misbegotten ways, and the wild lilies of the fields.

In Advent, we build the framework of Christmas together we put up scaffolding signalling something’s being renovated something new is being created.

Gracious life-giving God, you call us to live out our faith in ways that honor you and bless our neighbors, and we recognize that worship is an essential part of our faith journey.

God in our distant places Draw us closer

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

In the beginning was the Word ... It all started with an act of divine self-expression. and the Word was with God … It all comes from the center of God.

We are community Embraced by the mystery of God’s love for all creation

One What is the sound that calls us? Listen carefully. Many The beating of our own hearts calls us to ourselves. It calls us to be our true selves, our best selves. Calls us to be what we might become.

Together we hold a place where each can find voice as they long to reflect the Christ for our time.