New ways to plumb the meaning of texts in a contemporary setting

One of the forms of worship content we are using in some of our contemplative lay led services is modelled on the format of wondering questions used in the pre-school church curriculum, Godly Play, or in the Unitarian context, Spirit Play.  Simply put, one reads a paragraph of text, in our case it was the Transcendentalists, someone re-phrases it in modern language, then someone else asks "wondering questions" that challenge the listener to make a personal connection with the message of the text.
Here are a couple of examples:

TRANSCENDENTAL WISDOM:

The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth becomes part of his daily food….Standing on the bare ground – my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space – all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I saw all; the currents on the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part and parcel of God.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

MODERN RESPONSE:

If I open myself to an awareness of what is truly around me, I may sense a greater spiritual truth and feel a oneness with the Universe.

            WONDERING QUESTION:

What prevents me from seeing others and their concerns?  How could I begin to look at familiar faces and places in new ways?

(followed by three or four minutes of quiet music or silence)

TRANSCENDENTAL WISDOM:

I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account; for,

beside that before he has fairly learned it I may have found out another for myself, I desire that there be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father’s or his mother’s or his neighbor’s instead.

- Henry David Thoreau, from “Economy,” Walden

MODERN RESPONSE:

Within ethical and healthy limits, we should consider valuing another person’s individuality instead of looking askance at people who choose to look or say or be what we might otherwise consider “unconventional.”

REFLECTION:

How can I find the “best” me, even if it’s not considered conventional? And how can I remove myself from judging people who seem “unconventional” to me: the street musician? the itinerant? the “other”?

(followed by quiet reflection in silence or with quiet music)

Clearly these are not ancient texts, but the 19th century language can be a challenge. This format can work, however with biblical texts or old forms of language. It is important NOT to pull things out of context, but rather use fully crafted paragraphs to give the most credit to the author of the text used.

Starting the New Year with some refreshing humility...

A reading we adapted from Elizabeth Tarbox's wonderful book of meditations, Life Tides:

“It’s strange to talk about New Year’s resolutions when so little can ever be resolved. Resolving suggests to me completion…the tying up of loose ends. I’m lucky if I resolve the laundry or dinner plans; I can never hope to resolve my feelings or my behavior.

The best I can do it to try to be aware of these feelings that have no name, that crowd each other, bubbling up sometimes like a mountain spring, and more often like a broken fire hydrant. My days are a series of unresolved feelings. With all life has taught me of the cycles of birth and death, the orderliness of the universe, and the arbitrariness of our individual fortunes, there are still moments in almost every day when my weeping voice cries out, “Oh no, don’t let this happen.”

…[While I do] keep open the invitation to love…the price I pay for all this openness is an equal amount of fear. The price I pay for loving is the panic of pessimism. The shower of well-being and gratitude is opposed by the slimy mud of jealousy, anger, and bitterness; my appreciation of this exquisite planet brings with it the weight of knowing I am contributing to its ill health…Unresolved feelings, prayers which cannot be answered to my satisfaction without breaking the very laws of nature that the Creator took such care to establish.

This year I’m not making resolutions, or asking a higher source to resolve things for me. This year, as I take my self-inventory, I’m aiming for the continued willingness to keep the doors of my feelings open, to participate in life as well as to observe it, to contribute more to the solutions and less to the problems.”

Solstice Lay Service Opening

OPENING THE THEME OF THE RETURN OF THE LIGHT:

Today the time of growing darkness has come full stop. 

We pause. We watch. We listen. 

Forces far beyond us are moving and we feel their power.

Tonight marks the darkest of hours. We celebrate that darkness. We know that we need it.

Darkness has been a place of growth, of introspection, of quiet formation.

We have listened deeply in the nights of December to our hearts calling. 

We have given ourselves permission to go deep, face our fears, find strength in our inner core. 

Now, as we light the lights of rebirth, of hope, of clarity, we gather the strength which darkness as allowed us to nurture and we start to bring it forward.

Light in darkness can stand for hope in an age of despair, truth in a time of casual falsity, youth springing out of the body of age, clarity in a fog of doubt, the symbols are many.

Tonight each of us takes a candle of our own and, as it is lit, we silently fill it with the joys and sorrows of our present lives.                                   

                                  (Hand out votive candles to all.  Quiet music on guitar)

Embracing the darkness

This year, we decided not to contrast darkness as evil with light that is good as we approached the weekly services leading up to the Solstice. We framed darkness as a quiet place where resolve can be strengthened, change of attitude can occur, and rest can be achieved. We used this lovely meditation from a piece titled, Winter, by Daniel O'Connell, found in the essential book, Rejoice Together: prayers, meditations and other readings for family, individual ans small group worship, edited by Helen Pickett, Skinner House, 2006,  as our opening invocation:

This is the season where stillness reigns.  (pause)

Is it the silence of death?  (pause)

Is it the silent of hiberation?  (pause) 

It is a quiet time – even the birds are still.  (pause)

Perhaps the earth becomes quiet so that we can better hear

The Spirit of Life, who is always whispering to us.  (pause)

And so I say, Okay, Spirit of Life – I’m listening now.              (pause)

                                                                                        Daniel O’Connell

How do we pray?

Two of our favorite minister/writers, Wayne Arneson and Kathleen Rolentz have some interesting insights about prayer in an article they wrote for the UU World back in 2008:
http://www.uuworld.org/spirit/articles/90593.shtml?p

"Our advice is to keep it simple. If you like to use diverse invocations, don’t use them all in one prayer. Use ones that have both integrity in the context of your own theology and the potential to include the widest variety of people. As an alternative, begin with the same invocation every week, but let the congregation know what it means to you from your theological perspective and how you believe its consistent use adds to the worship life of the whole congregation."


"To sit together in silence requires confronting the inner workings of our own minds. In silence, we see more clearly our thoughts and feelings, our hopes and losses. We can shut them out by compiling our to-do lists or fretting about the crying baby, but if we continue with the silence, we feel the tug of the spirit calling us to a larger life. For some, these feelings are strange and unsettling. There is nothing to do in that silence but “be.” There are no landmarks, no roadmaps, no GPS systems to guide us, save for the rhythm of our own heartbeat and the rise and fall of our own breath.

A skillful prayer can provide a congregation with these landmarks and put a name to the feelings that well up in silence. It can guide beginning travelers through the emptiness of their own silence and help them to see the variety and beauty that exists there. Worship leaders whose prayers touch the congregation deeply and consistently are people whose prayers well up from their personal spiritual practice. The single most effective thing a person can do to create meaningful prayers is to have a rich private prayer life oneself. When a congregation enters a deeper silence together, the feeling in the room is palpable. The silence is rich and dense, as if all had just dived into a refreshingly clear lake on a hot summer day. It is here, in this space, that the knowing comes, that the insight is seen and the healing witnessed.

To make this possible, this silence can be neither too long nor too short. If it is too short, there is not enough time to delve deeply, but allows for skimming the surface. If it is too long, those meditating or praying may find their minds wandering far afield. "

Worship That Works

At a Ballou Channing District Fall Conference in 2009 I got my first glimpse of transformative worship at a workshop led by Rev. Ken Belden of Wellsprings Congregation in Pennsylvania. This feeling of excitement for the potential of “worship that moves the soul” was reinforced through reading Worship That Works by Revs. Wayne Arnason and Kathleen Rolenz.

By the time of the Ballou Channing District Annual Meeting in spring of 2010, the urgency of “change or die” was driven home in moving fashion by church leaders like the Rev. Erik Wikstrom. The Pew Institute had just published its findings on how mainstream churches are fading into oblivion while people who identify themselves as “spiritual but not religious” is growing rapidly.

I felt a need to do something to contribute to my Unitarian Universalist faith, and I have come to believe that worship is the answer. So I read voraciously, attended workshops, and traveled near and far to find excellent worship so I could contribute to transforming lay worship at my congregation in Kingston, Massachusetts. Along with my fellow travelers, Rosemary Donahoe and Ellen Snoeyenbos, we listened, learned and tried some new forms of worship: pastoral, healing, intellectual, and community-building. We hope to share them with others who are looking for innovative forms of worship.

Take away messages from the Salt Project Retreat

It was wonderful attending the inspiring worship and practical lessons given by the Salt Project team this week at Andover Newton Theological Seminary.  Many good points were made and here are some of the highlights:

• Worship is not about lecturing or being talked at. In this day and age people need worship that moves them, gives them an experience with the Holy, is excellent in quality (well-rehearsed, evocative, content-rich), and challenges them to work on being better people.

• Worship can be multi-media without being hokey. Carefully chosen images can enhance a reading and bring people to various connections - not necessarily the same one. Words on a screen make reading the fine print unnecessary and voices can harmonize freely without reading the music.

• People need to feel understood in an honest way, flaws and all, then given the affirmation of community and/or God's unconditional love in order to bring transformation into their lives. It can be done. People need to know that they are capable of great things.

• Social media is a great tool if used judiciously. Using tools such as "hootsuite" frees administrators up to schedule updates and still be relevant to their online community.

• Watch http://www.saltproject.org/  for more ideas and inspiration!

Prayer: what are we afraid of?

Prayer seems to have taken a back seat in modern worship. I wonder why?
Can we discover the value of prayer? Does prayer always require an object to whom to pray?


Check out Erik Wikstrom's book, Simply Pray, for some interesting answers.
Wikstrom identifies the four major types of prayer that are practiced by all the world's major religions: 

• "Naming" the many ways in which the holy is present in daily life and the wider world 
• "Knowing" the self introspectively--both in its strengths and weaknesses 
• "Listening" to the "voice of quiet stillness" that resides in each individual
• "Loving" by reaching out to the world

These might also identify components to an Arc of Worship.... I wonder....

http://www.ucc.org/feed-your-spirit/your-life-better/remembering-prayer/

Worship can lead from facing the past to creating the future

"You are more than the sum of what's happened to you so far. 
You are also what could happen to you in the future, the sum of your hopes and aspirations."
Still Speaking Daily Devotional
Christina Villa is on the staff of the United Church of Christ in Cleveland, Ohio

A blessing with which we end our contemplative service each week

           “Bless these, our circumstances,
             Bless the hardship and the pain as well as the delight.
             Bless the hunger and the thirst as well as the abundance.
             Bless the things that do not turn out right as well as those that do.
             Bless those who take all and give not and also those who love.
             In these circumstances, find growth.
             In growth, discover clarity.
             In clarity, an inner vision. “  

Adapted from Nancy Woods "Native Blessing" as found on the White Bear Lake Unitarian Universalist web site. Victoria Stafford, minister.

Using multi-media can set the stage for contemplative worship if used judiciously.

An example of a lay led contemplative mid-week service