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