Pray All Ways – 4/6/23

Musical Prelude: ‘Miniature for piano trio No. 1’ by Frank Bridge (played by Abby Lorimier, Sydney Mariano and Peter Crockford)

Opening Words: ‘Here We Are So Gathered’ by Patricia Shelden (adapted)

Here is where we gather in the presence of the Sacred.
Here is where we gather to experience the Holy
Here is where, together, we face the unanswerable questions
and acknowledge that not knowing is as sublime as it is frustrating.

Here is where we unite in the midst of Life and all the glories
and suffering it can hold, knowing both are ever present.
Here is where we ask, think, risk, discuss, ponder and offer what
might not be welcomed or even acceptable somewhere else.

Here is where, if we allow it, we are deeply moved.
Here is where we encounter each other in deep and powerful ways
that surprise us, yet without which, perhaps, we might not make it through.

Here we gather to worship, to experience something happen –
perhaps something different for each of us according to our beliefs,
something unnamed, uncategorized, and unusual yet absolutely necessary.
Here we are so gathered: our minds, our hearts, and our souls. And, so, our worship begins.

Words of Welcome and Introduction:

These opening words – by Unitarian Universalist Patricia Shelden – welcome all who have gathered this morning for our Sunday service. Welcome to those of you who have gathered in-person at Essex Church and also to all who are joining us via Zoom from far and wide. For anyone who doesn’t know me, my name is Jane Blackall, and I’m Minister with Kensington Unitarians.

The title of this morning’s service is ‘Pray All Ways’ – a title borrowed from a book by Edward Hays, a Catholic writer – someone who approached the practice of prayer over and over again, from many different angles – creatively, imaginatively, eccentrically – in his many books on the subject. The title is a sort-of pun on the instruction from Jesus to ‘Pray Always’ (as in, pray all the time, continually); Edward Hays cheekily interprets it as ‘Pray All Ways’ (as in, let’s shake up our ideas about prayer, let’s experiment with as many different and creative ways to pray as possible, let’s pray with all our senses and not get trapped in our heads about it, let’s integrate the practice into our everyday lives). Of course, prayer is a subject that we return to again and again at church. Prayer is so central to the spiritual life, and yet it can be something that many of us struggle with, for a multitude of reasons. So today’s service is another chance for each of us to reflect on where we’re at with prayer – how we understand it – the point of it and the practice of it – the place of prayer in our life outside of Sunday mornings – and whether it might serve us well to experiment with different approaches to prayer.

Before we go any further let’s do what we often do and take a moment to check in with ourselves. Each week this moment comes around, it’s Sunday morning, and here we are again. We each stop what we’re doing, we temporarily put aside all the goings-on of our everyday lives, all our duties and our distractions, and we set them down for an hour while we attend to the life of the spirit. So let’s remember why we came here. And let’s ground ourselves in the here and now – you’ll know how best to do that for yourself – maybe you can wiggle and stretch – maybe you can consciously put your feet on the floor – maybe you can take a few slow and steady breaths. You are here.

Chalice Lighting: ‘Remembering Our Unity’ by Katie Romano Griffin (adapted)

Let’s light our chalice flame now, as we do each week. This simple ritual connects us in solidarity with Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists the world over, and reminds us of the proud and historic progressive religious tradition of which we are a part.

(light chalice)

May the flame of this chalice, the symbol of our faith,
connect us to all who have come before us,
all who are part of our community today,
and all who are yet to come into being.
May it serve as a reminder of our unity
and connection across all time and space.

Hymn 26 (green): ‘Spirit Divine! Attend Our Prayer

Let’s sing together now. Our first hymn is number 26 in the green hymn book – ‘Spirit Divine! Attend Our Prayer’ – for those joining via Zoom the words will be up on your screen to sing along at home. We haven’t had this one in a while so I’ll ask Peter to play it through in full before we sing. Feel free to stand or sit as you prefer as we sing.

Spirit divine! attend our prayer,
And make our hearts thy home:
Descend with all thy gracious power:
Come, Holy Spirit come!

Come as the light: to waiting minds,
That long the truth to know,
Reveal the narrow path of right,
The way of duty show.

Come as the dew: on hearts that pine
Descend in this still hour,
Till every barren place shall own
With joy thy quickening power.

Come as the wind: sweep clean away
What dead within us lies,
And search and freshen all our souls
With living energies.

Candles of Joy and Concern:

Each week when we gather together, we share a simple ritual of candles of joy and concern, an opportunity to light a candle and share something that is in our heart with the community. So we’ve an opportunity now, for anyone who would like to do so, to light a candle and say a few words about what it represents. This time we’re going to go to the people in the building first, and take all of those in one go, and then I’ll call on the people on Zoom to come forward.

So I invite some of you here in person to come and light a candle and then if you wish to tell us briefly who or what you light your candle for. Please do get up close to the microphone as that will help everyone hear (including the people at home). You can take the microphone out of the stand if it’s not at a good height and have it microphone pointing right at your mouth. And if you can’t get to the microphone give me a wave and I’ll bring it over to you. Thank you.

(in person candles)

And if that’s everyone in the room we’ll go over to the people on Zoom next – you might like to switch to gallery view at this stage – just unmute yourselves when you are ready and speak out – and we should be able to hear you and see you up on the big screen here in the church.

(zoom candles)

And I’m going to light one more candle, as we often do, to represent all those joys and concerns that we hold in our hearts this day, but which we don’t feel able to speak out loud. (light candle)

Time of Prayer & Reflection: based on words by Krista Taves

And let’s take those joys and concerns into an extended time of prayer now. This prayer is based on some words by Krista Taves. You might first want to adjust your position for comfort, close your eyes, or soften your gaze. There might be a posture that helps you feel more prayerful. Whatever works for you. Do whatever you need to do to get into the right state of body and mind for us to pray together – to be fully present here and now, in this sacred time and space – with ourselves, with each other, and with that which is both within us and beyond us. (pause)

Spirit of Life, God of All Love, in whom we live and move and have our being,
we turn our full attention to you, the light within and without,
as we tune in to the depths of this life, and the greater wisdom
to which – and through which – we are all intimately connected.
Be with us now as we allow ourselves to drop into the
silence and stillness at the very centre of our being. (pause)

We come together in prayer even though some of us struggle with what that means.
We come together to stand before that which is greater than us,
although we may struggle to say what that is.

And so on this day we pray for those things we struggle with in our everyday lives.
For the conflicts we feel within ourselves and between us and those we love.
We pray for guidance, compassion, for the opening of a path.

We pray for those things that give us joy and hope each day.
For those things that we trust in, believe in, will sacrifice for.
These are gifts of grace, and perhaps we need not define them
in order to savour them, rejoice in them, be thankful for them.

What we do know is that we gather here this morning with all kinds of needs.
Some are facing health problems and are in need of healing.
Others are worn down by all the challenges of the times we’re living through
and need healing of a different kind – emotional and spiritual.
Some are facing family problems. Some are weary with the struggles
of life and seek assurance that this, too, will someday pass.
Others face the anguish of making difficult decisions
for themselves, their families and friends, and for the common good.

For each of us, we speak the deepest prayers of our hearts in different ways, knowing
that what it means for them to be answered will look and feel different for each of us.
May we, somehow, this morning be met at the point of our differences
and also in the places that we are one, of the same
breath of life that courses through all living things.

May we always hold in our hearts gratitude for those things that bless us
with their presence, forgiveness for the ways we have turned from those blessings,
and the willingness to open ourselves anew to this beautiful and hurting world. (short pause)

And in a good few moments of shared silence now,
may we speak inwardly the deepest prayers of our hearts —
maybe something in our own life or the life of the world is weighing heavy on us –
maybe we are feeling full of gratitude, despite it all, and feel moved to give thanks for our blessings – let us each lift up whatever is on our heart this day, and ask for what we most need. (long pause)

Spirit of Life – God of all Love – as this time of prayer comes to a close, we offer up
our joys and concerns, our hopes and fears, our beauty and brokenness,
and we call on you for insight, healing, and renewal.

As we look forward now to the coming week,
help us to live well each day and be our best selves;
using our unique gifts in the service of love, justice and peace. Amen

Hymn (on sheet): ‘Thanks Be For These’

Let’s sing together now. Our next hymn is ‘Thanks Be For These’ – it’s on your hymn sheet, if you’re in the building, and the words will be up on screen in a moment – it’s not one we sing often so I’ll ask Peter to play it through before we sing. Please note that there are five verses (three under the music and the last two at the bottom). Feel free to stand or sit as you prefer.

Thanks be for these, life’s holy times,
moments of grief, days of delight;
triumph and failure intertwine,
shaping our vision of the right.

Thanks be for these, for birth and death,
life in between with meaning full;
holy becomes the quickened breath;
we celebrate life’s interval.

Thanks be for these, ennobling art,
images welcome to our sight,
music caressing ear and heart,
inviting us to loftier height.

Thanks be for these, who question why,
who noble motives do obey,
those who know how to live and die,
comrades who share this holy way.

Thanks be for these, we celebrate,
sing and rejoice, our trust declare;
press all our faith into our fate;
bless now the destiny we share.

Reading: ‘The Perfect Prayer’ by Vanessa Rush Southern (read by Sonya)

What is the best way to pray? I do not mean what is the best way to appease God, but how do we put our hearts in the right place? Because, to my mind, that is the primary and best purpose of prayer.

Of course, the perfect prayer should probably be one of gratitude, at least partly, and maybe mostly. It has to be a re-grounding in all that is good, which we inevitably overlook when we get used to having it around. I read years ago that the average American now lives better than how 99.6 percent of human beings have lived in all recorded history. And the wine sold in any corner shop today is better than the wine French kings drank. For such lucky folks, though, we sure do whine a lot. So, gratitude has to be part of the praying.

If there is more to prayer than gratitude, then for me it would have to include the request that you and I be put to good use. It cannot be right to simply hand back to the world only what was handed to us, like the person in the biblical story who buries his talents rather than risking them in the world. Still, if you are like me, maybe you aren’t always sure just what would be the best use of your gifts. So a good prayer might ask for whatever hints the universe is inclined to dole out.

I would also pray that the people I love are kept safe. I suppose that sounds selfish, but I don’t believe that the One Who Listens is doing more to keep my team safe just because I ask for it. It is just that loving these people as much as I do makes me vulnerable. I imagine it does the same for most of us. And it seems only fair to ask for help in holding what could break us.

Finally, the perfect prayer, it seems, would have all kinds of surrender in it. It would ask that we find a way to be in each day without reservation, to use it up and delight in the embarrassment of beauty and riches cast before us by luck or chance or some lavish, numinous hand. I think for most of us it would ask for the chance to press forward, just a little, the arc of human wisdom and compassion and to recognise those chances when they come. Finally, exhausted and joyful for what that particular day has offered up, the perfect prayer, for most of us, would likely end with whispered hope for the chance to wake up and face it all again.

Meditation: ‘A Prayer of Not Knowing’ by Regina Sara Ryan

Thanks Sonya. We’re moving into a time of meditation now. I’m going to share some words from Regina Sara Ryan, a piece called ‘A Prayer of Not Knowing’, which speaks of praying when we don’t know how, expanding our sense of what prayer might be. We’ll take those words into a few minutes of silence which will end with the sound of a bell. And then we’ll hear some music for meditation from Holly and Andrew. So let’s each do what we need to do to get comfortable – adjust your position if you need to – perhaps put your feet flat on the floor to ground and steady yourself – or close your eyes. As we always say, the words and music are just an offering, feel free to use this time to meditate in your own way.

O God, I do not know how to pray.
Because I do not know what it means to pray properly,
to pray in such a way as to serve or worship,
I must offer what I have, and can do, as my prayer. And here it is.

Let this posture be the prayer
Let this intention be the prayer
Let this very not-knowing be the prayer
Let this breath be the prayer
Let this resistance and discomfort be the prayer
Let this distraction be the prayer
Let this drinking of tea be the prayer
Let this eating of breakfast be the prayer
Let this hectic schedule be the prayer
Let this attempt at Remembrance be the prayer
Let the steps walked in silence across the car park be the prayer
Let the birdsong noted be the prayer
Let this poor journal-writing be the prayer
Let the vastness of the night sky be the prayer
Let worrying, and then dropping the worry, be the prayer
Let chanting and dancing and reading be the prayer
Let dressing and undressing be the prayer
Let sleeping and rising and sleeping and rising be the prayer
Let missing someone be the prayer
Let memories and whispered calls for help for others be the prayer
Let opening the door and putting on and taking off shoes be the prayer
Let the keeping of simple order be the prayer
Let the celebration of light and darkness be the prayer
Let warmth and cold be the prayer

All of it, not bad, not good, just as it is and wondrous all of it… be the prayer.

O God, in my helplessness, from nowhere, with nothing,
let these poor prayers, as flowers, draw You
to the garden from which their fragrance arises.

Period of Silence and Stillness (~3 minutes) – end with a bell

Musical Interlude: ‘Miniature for piano trio No. 7’ by Frank Bridge (played by Abby Lorimier, Sydney Mariano and Peter Crockford)

Reading: ‘Simply Pray’ by Erik Walker Wikstrom (excerpts, adapted) (Brian)

Why do people pray? What does it bring to spirituality? Is there a ‘someone’ or ‘something’ out there that we encounter in our times of prayer, a ‘sacred something’ that is yearning for connection with us? Is prayer the building of a relationship with God or simply an internal monologue with one’s own subconscious mind?

The Buddha’s response – ‘that is a question which does not tend toward edification’ – is only a partial answer. The reason it does not ‘tend toward edification’ is that it distracts our concentrated energy from the truly important task before us. We want to know with whom we are engaging – or whether or not there is a ‘whom’ at all – before we will engage… yet you cannot engage the sacred and then commit; commitment is the one and only way of engaging the sacred. You can’t find out what ‘wet’ means unless you get into the water. There’s simply no way to talk about it. There is only getting wet.

If you long to connect with the Sacred, if you desire to live a life that is more in touch with the Holy, stop listening out for something in particular and start simply listening. If you have given up on an anthropomorphic deity – the old man with the long white beard or any of his stand-ins – yet can’t figure out what to put in its place, stop looking for a substitute and start simply looking around you. Notice those places in your life where you have felt yourself in the presence of the Holy, remember those experiences in which you have sensed your connectedness. Seek in your own life – your own feelings, your own moments – those places where something deep is going on – those times where you have encountered, or are encountering, the Sacred. In other words, simply pray. Pray without any preconceived notion of what you’re doing or why. Simply do it, and see what happens.

After you pray, then begin to think. Think about what your experiences tell you about the holy. Think about what those experiences tell you about the way the world works and the spirit moves. Build your theology on your experience, rather than the other way round. We often can’t see where the sacred is moving in our lives because of what we’ve been taught to expect. So many people have given up on religion – on God – because they look and look where they’ve been told to look but always end up feeling disappointed. And that is why I know of no more important activity than prayer. It is not just something to do in times of desperation. In order to get the most out of a spiritual practice you must practice it regularly, until it becomes a habit, a constant in your life.

Connecting and reconnecting to the source of our lives, to that sacred mystery ‘in which we live and move and have our being’, is essential if we are to live full and rich lives.

Reflection: ‘Pray All Ways’ by Rev. Dr. Jane Blackall

Prayer is, as I mentioned at the start of the service, a perennial topic of exploration at church. It’s a topic we keep coming back to, and rightly so, because the practice of prayer is central, foundational, in pretty much every spiritual tradition you care to name, which indicates it is something we ought to be paying attention to and engaging with, even if our collective relationship to prayer as Unitarians can be… a bit complicated. Prayer is something I’ve given a lot of thought to over the years – and a lot of shelf-space too! – I’ve got all my books about prayer lined up on a shelf over my bed and even if I only count the ones that have got ‘prayer’ in the title we’re looking at a stack of forty-nine books. This is not me trying to show off! Just an indication that (a) there’s a lot been written about the subject from a variety of perspectives and (b) prayer is something I am fascinated by and continue to wrestle with.

Of course we Unitarians do pray, collectively, in our services – especially those of us who attend our regular ‘Heart and Soul’ spiritual gatherings which are essentially a Unitarian prayer group in disguise – and I know that plenty of us do have our own personal prayer practices too – but it’s not something we seem to talk about all that much – not something we tend to foreground as a vital part of our shared religious life. It seems that sometimes our – laudable – commitment to reason leaves us reluctant to wholeheartedly enter into prayer when we’re not sure who it is we’re praying to, or what it is we’re even doing, or why. It can leave us praying-with-the-handbrake-on, emotionally speaking, and not fully engaged. If this sort of reservation resonates with your experience, you might appreciate the following words from Anne Lamott, taken from her slim volume on prayer, ‘Help! Thanks! Wow!’

She writes: ‘You may be wondering what I even mean when I use the word “prayer”. Prayer is communication from the heart to that which surpasses understanding. Let’s say it is communication from one’s heart to God. Or… to the Good, the force that is beyond our comprehension but that in our pain or supplication or relief we don’t need to define or have proof of or any established contact with. Let’s say it is what the Greeks called the Really Real, what lies within us, beyond the scrim of our values, positions, convictions and wounds. Or let’s say it is a cry from deep within to Life or Love, with capital L’s… let’s not get bogged down in whom or what we pray to… Prayer is us reaching out to something having to do with the eternal, with vitality, intelligence, kindness, even when we are at our most utterly doomed and sceptical. God – however we understand ‘God’ – can handle honesty, and prayer begins an honest conversation… It is us reaching out to be heard, hoping to be found by a light and warmth in the world, instead of darkness and cold.’

Words from Anne Lamott. Or perhaps we can understand prayer in the sense that we heard about in the piece that Sonya read for us earlier by UU minister Vanessa Rush Southern. The purpose of prayer, on this account, is to ‘put our hearts in the right place’. And what does prayer look like? Well, the different ways we might pray are almost limitless – we can be silent – or speak or chant – or write or draw – or pray with our whole body – we can pray alone or together – with rituals, like candle-lighting – spontaneously or rote – using formal and traditional language or expressing ourselves directly and from the heart in our own voice. We can ‘Pray All Ways’ as Edward Hays said. Sometimes we can get snagged on one particular idea of what prayer is ‘supposed’ to look like, but there can be a liberating joy in experimenting, being playful, challenging ourselves to mix it up a bit.

Whatever form it takes, perhaps there’s a common thread of helping to shift our perspective – you could think of it as getting in touch with a ‘God’s Eye View’ of your life and the life of the world – tuning in to some kind of Universal Consciousness – or connecting with your own inner wisdom. Prayer is a practice that can help us shift ourselves out of everyday autopilot mode, and into a way of being that’s a bit more intentional, re-aligned with our deeper purpose and values. When we’re feeling a bit lost, or adrift, or stuck – all of which can happen quite often, I find – prayer might just remind us who we are, and whose we are, and what matters most of all in this life.

I especially appreciate the angle taken by the UU minister Erik Walker Wikstrom in his book ‘Simply Pray’ (the reading we just heard from Brian only gives the briefest introduction to Wikstrom’s ideas but that book is one I’d count as a huge influence in my own spiritual journey; it got me over some of my own hesitation around prayer and in turn it’s shaped the way I lead our prayers in church). I want to acknowledge that this influence also touched my best friend Jef Jones, former leader of the Brighton congregation, who died just last month; I know Jef did a lot over many years to pass on this way of thinking about prayer, to introduce prayer practices, and to cultivate a prayerful spirit in the congregation; so knowing that Brighton would be joining us today, I chose this topic in Jef’s honour.

Erik Walker Wikstrom encourages us to put aside those thorny questions of ‘who or what are we praying to?’ – that’s why his book is called ‘Simply Pray’ – his is very much a ‘just do it’ approach. If we waited until we were certain about our theological interpretation of prayer then we’d never do it at all. His understanding is that the practice of prayer has value even if it ultimately turns out that the only person who hears our prayers is us (or, in the case of communal prayers, there is worth in the acknowledgement of our shared human condition). Having carried out a comparative study of prayer practices in a number of the major faith traditions Wikstrom concluded that there are four main strands of prayer that are pretty much common to all. He calls them ‘Naming, Knowing, Listening, and Loving’ – these are terms that will be familiar to anyone who’s ever been to Heart and Soul – it’s the simple structure we’ve been using for many years now to pray together as a group.

To unpack it a bit: Naming prayer is simply a gratitude practice – a mixture of ‘Thanks!’ and ‘Wow!’ – reviewing your day and noticing what’s been good – whether that’s simply appreciating humble everyday pleasures or standing gobsmacked in awe at the cosmos and the wonder of creation. Knowing prayer is a practice of honest self-reflection – reviewing your own actions and attitudes – noticing where you did well, where you made mistakes – seeking guidance to put things right. Listening prayer is simply contemplative stillness – ‘a silence into which another voice may speak’. Loving prayer is bringing our awareness to the needs of others who are struggling and suffering, both close to home and around the globe, and expressing our compassion and hopes for them. Naming, Knowing, Listening, and Loving. There are many ways to pray but that’s not a bad start.

If you’re anything like me, you might find prayer comes most easily when you’re struggling, and that it’s more likely to bubble up spontaneously as a cry for help when life seems especially tough (and crying ‘Help!’ is also a form of loving prayer, by the way; it’s a form of healthy self-love and self-compassion to recognise when we’re pushed beyond our limits and we need help from beyond). But there is something to be said for intentionally cultivating a regular prayer practice, and making it an integrated part of our everyday life, instead of something we only turn to as a last resort when things are desperate. So why not try sitting in bed last thing at night, or first thing in the morning, any quiet moment you can claim really, and giving yourself ten minutes to go through the four strands of prayer – naming, knowing, listening, loving – in your mind, in your journal, or spoken out loud. You don’t have to do this alone – you could make this a daily ritual you do with someone you live with – you could exchange prayers-via-text with a friend – or come to Heart and Soul! As Wikstrom says, in the end, there is no substitute for getting your feet wet, so just do it: Simply Pray.

To close I want to offer just a few words from another Unitarian thinker, Jack Mendelsohn, by way of encouragement to find your own way with prayer. He writes: ‘Prayer is an effort to reach deep and to reach out and to become what we would like to be and need to be and ought to be. Proper prayer is not a petition to escape realities. It is an effort to understand them, to deal with them… to grow in courage, strength and in faith. The purpose of prayer is to transform those doing the prayer, to lift them out of fear and selfishness, into serenity, patience, determination, belonging.’

And doesn’t that sound like something we could all do with a bit more of in our lives? Amen.

Hymn 249 (green): ‘Life’s Great Gifts’

Time for our last hymn and it’s one I always find uplifting: ‘Life’s Great Gifts’. Perhaps we can sing it in the spirit of a prayer of thanksgiving for all that is good in our lives. It’s number 249 in the green book and the words will be on screen. Again feel free to sit or stand; ‘Life’s Great Gifts’.

Life is the greatest gift of all
The riches on this earth;
Life and its creatures, great and small,
Of high and lowly birth:
So treasure it and measure it
With deeds of shining worth.

We are of life, its shining gift,
The measure of all things;
Up from the dust our temples lift,
Our vision soars on wings;
For seed and root, for flower and fruit,
Our grateful spirit sings.

Mind is the brightest gift of all,
Its thought no barrier mars;
Seeking creation’s hidden plan,
Its quest surmounts all bars;
It reins the wind, it chains the storm,
It weighs the outmost stars

Love is the highest gift of life,
Our glory and our good;
Kindred and friend, husband and wife,
It flows in golden flood;
So, hand in hand, from land to land,
Spread sister-brotherhood.

Sharing of News, Announcements, Introductions

Thanks to Ramona for tech-hosting and Charlotte for co-hosting. Thanks to Sonya and Brian for reading. Thanks to Abby, Sydney, and Peter for today’s lovely music. For those of you who are at church in-person, Liz will be serving coffee, tea and biscuits in the hall after the service (plus caramel cake), if you want to stay for refreshments – thanks Liz – thanks Marianne for greeting.

We have various small group activities for you to meet up. There are still spaces left for our online Heart and Soul contemplative spiritual gatherings (Sunday/Friday at 7pm) and this week’s theme is ‘Commitment’. This Wednesday evening the in-person poetry group will be meeting; do have a word with Brian if you’d like to know more about that and send him your poetry choices.

I want to draw your attention to a very long-range ‘save the date’: it is customary to mark the official start of a new ministry with an Induction Service and, although I’ve been here for quite a long time in various capacities, now that I’m officially appointed as Minister we’re planning to have a special service marking this mutual commitment. It won’t be until the autumn but please do get the date in your diary now: it’ll be on Saturday 14th October at 2pm. It will be hybrid as usual and we are hoping that friends from near and far will join us. If you can get here in-person the service will be followed by afternoon tea so I’ll try to make it worth your while cake-wise.

We’ll be back next Sunday will another hybrid service which will be our flower communion. I haven’t totally worked out the logistics of how we’re going to do this hybrid-ly but whether you’re going to be here in-person or online do bring a flower with you to church next week if you can. Details of our various activities are on the back of the order of service and also in the Friday email.

The congregation very much has a life beyond Sunday mornings; we encourage you to keep in touch, look out for each other, and do what you can to nurture supportive connections.

I think that’s everything. Just time for our closing words and closing music now.

Benediction: based on words by Chris Rothbauer

Our time together draws to a close, but our
worship does not cease; in the days to come,

May our lives be reflections of the beauty,
peace, and joy that is possible in the world;

May we notice and appreciate all the
quiet goodness that we encounter everyday;

May we each tend and nurture the little
patch of earth on which we find ourselves;

And may the love we have found in this gathering
sustain us as we go our separate ways.

May it be so, for the greater good of all. Amen.

Closing Music: ‘Miniature for piano trio No. 2’ by Frank Bridge (played by Abby Lorimier, Sydney Mariano and Peter Crockford)

Rev. Dr. Jane Blackall

4th June 2023