Worship can challenge us to reach deeper

Every report I read lately is pessimistic about the dismal state of worship in the U.S. today:

http://faithcommunitiestoday.org/sites/faithcommunitiestoday.org/files/Decade%20of%20Change%20Final_0.pdf
But if we are fortunate enough to discover worship that challenges us to reach deeper to plumb our innermost spiritual yearnings, to establish spiritual practice, and to embrace sharing the journey, then I believe that pews would fill up. We are all struggling with complicated lives and overflowing to-do lists. Taking time to re-center through worship can give me the emotional charge I need to carry me through the week. It also reminds me to open myself up to belonging to the world...and the responsibilities that go along with that. To be completely honest, I am afraid to dig deep, to go there, but the surface I've scratched at over the past few years encourages me to go on.

That worship has to be based on intention and reality, though.


In my opinion, some of the problems I see in worship today happen when we lose our focus. We cling to old ways. We feed our minds but not our souls. We mingle our candles of Joys and Sorrows and the person with a struggle is left feeling unheard because we're all cooing over a child's first lost tooth. Although I've never met her, I find myself inspired time and again by the words of the Rev. Victoria Safford, minister of White Bear Unitarian Universalist Church in Mahtomedi, Minnesota:

Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of hope--not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower; nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness, which creak on shrill and angry hinges (people cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through); nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of "Everything Is Gonna Be All Right." But a different, sometimes lonely place, of truth-telling about your own soul first of all and its condition, the place of resistance and defiance, from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it will be; the place from which you glimpse not only struggle but joy in the struggle. And we stand there, beckoning and calling, telling people what we're seeing, asking them what they see.

As a Unitarian Universalist, words like this give me hope for the future of worship that can truly "nurture the spirit and heal the world."

Creating Sacred Time

Sometimes when we are creating worship, we get caught up in the important details of the elements, the flow, whether or not everyone knows what is coming next. These things are important in building  a worshipful space and they bring meaning and value to those participating, but the most important element seems to me to be to create sacred time. Pacing that allows for a shifting of our inner clocks to a contemplative time frame is crucial in developing life-affirming worship. How do we do that?

• Rehearsing is important. Knowing that everyone is on the same page means we can focus our worship energy on building that sacred time for ourselves and others. 
• Taking a moment before worship to pray together as worship-givers can give us the perspective we need.
• Allowing empty space to co-exist with filled space can heighten the value of what is said and felt. It gives us the room we need to connect with our inner spirit, hear our soul's voice, and makes the possibility of change more real.

Now here's a great resource on building spiritual practice that includes individual AND communal practice! Go Erik Wikistrom!
http://uua.org/re/tapestry/adults/practice/index.shtml

Finally getting back to posting here again!
We are hoping to bring our Transcendental Sampler experience, that we outlined previously to other churches.  The first place we will be leading our experience is at Hope Central Church, www.hopecentralchurch.org,
on June 1, 2012

Here is a trailer to give you an idea of what to expect:

Hope you enjoy it!

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)