Unitarian Sunday Reflections

(Hull and Lincoln Unitarians)

28 May 2023

Lincoln Service

11 am

Musician: Jennifer Young

Worship Leader: John Pavey

Hull Service

4 pm

Musician: Andrew Palfreman

Worship Leader: John Carter

Theme

“Spiritual Explorations:

Everyday Prayer”

PRELUDE

         Improvisations on German folk tunes Andrew Palfreman

WORDS OF WELCOME

Welcome to each and to all:

seekers, journeyers, questing, and content.

May our time of reflection and worship,

fill our desire for wholeness and belonging.

In this time together we are made worthy…..

REFLECTIVE QUOTE

“Christian life is not a life divided between times for action and times for contemplation. No. Real social action is a way of contemplation, and real contemplation is the core of social action.”

~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

CHALICE LIGHTING

by John Carter

We light our chalice

         As we open ourselves to our spiritual journey

We light our chalice

         as a sign of our willingness to become

                                    persons of life and energy

                                    co-creators of passionate life

                                    and of a world of justice, love and peace.

GATHERING EXAMEN (OPENING PRAYER)

Once again we gather, and we take time to reflect on our lives and living….

• Is all right within myself?
• Is all right between me and others?
• In this past week, when did I feel connected, a sense of deep belonging, to another, to myself, to nature, to the transcendent, life, God?

May our reflections continue in this time together, as we join to reflect on the deep things of the divine, and so we pray…

“May the spirit of life, guide us today” AMEN

HYMN SYF184  We are here in stillness words by Andrew McKean Hill

READING

INTRODUCTION:

Today’s service is following up on the reflection I wrote for last Sunday. The first three readings are cultural, and notice how prayer is woven into two of them, and one is simply a playful rendering of classic hymnody. All relate to music, folk music, and musicals.

“Right Field”

by Willy Welch, sung by Peter, Paul, and Mary

Saturday summers, when I was a kid

We’d run to the schoolyard and here’s what we did

We’d pick out the captains and we’d choose up the teams

It was always a measure of my self esteem

Cuz the fastest, the strongest, played shortstop and first

The last ones they picked were the worst

I never needed to ask, it was sealed,

I just took up my place in right field.

Playing…

Right field, it’s easy, you know.

You can be awkward and you can be slow

That’s why I’m here in right field

Just watching the dandelions grow

Playing right field can be lonely and dull

Little Leagues never have lefties that pull

I’d dream of the day they’d hit one my way

They never did, but still I would pray

That I’d make a fantastic catch on the run

And not lose the ball in the sun

And then I’d awake from this long reverie

And pray that the ball never came out to me

Here in…

Right field, it’s easy, you know.

You can be awkward and you can be slow

That’s why I’m here in right field

Just watching the dandelions grow

Off in the distance, the game’s dragging on,

There’s strikes on the batter, some runners are on.

I don’t know the inning, I’ve forgotten the score.

The whole team is yelling and I don’t know what for.

Then suddenly everyone’s looking at me

My mind has been wandering; what could it be?

They point at the sky and I look up above

And a baseball falls into my glove!

Here in right field, it’s important you know.

You gotta know how to catch, you gotta know how to throw,

That’s why I’m here in right field, just watching the dandelions grow!

We Beseech Thee

by Stephen Schwartz, from Godspell

Father, hear thy children’s call

Humbly at thy feet we fall

Prodigals confessing all

We beseech thee, hear us!

We thy call have disobeyed

Into paths of sin have strayed

And repentance have delayed

We beseech thee, hear us!

Come sing about Love!

That made us first to be

Come sing about Love!

That made the stone and tree

Come sing about Love!

That draws us lovingly

We beseech thee, hear us!

Sick! We come come to thee for cure

Guilty! We seek thy mercy sure

Evil! We long to be made pure

We beseech thee, hear us!

Blind! We pray that we may see

Bound! We pray to be made free

Stained! We pray for sanctity

We beseech thee, hear us!

Come sing about Love!

That made us first to be

Come sing about Love!

That made the stone and tree

Come sing about Love!

That draws us lovingly

We beseech thee, hear us!

By the gracious saving call

Spoken tenderly to all

Who have shared man’s guilt and fall

We beseech thee, hear us!

By the love that longs to bless

Pitying our sore distress

Leading us to holiness

We beseech thee, hear us!

Grant us all from earth to rise

And to strain with eager eyes

Towards the promised Heavenly prize

We beseech thee, hear us!

Come sing about Love!

That made us first to be

Come sing about Love!

That made the stone and tree

Come sing about Love!

That draws us lovingly

We beseech thee, hear us!

The Sidestep

by Carol Hall, from Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

Fellow Texans,

I am proudly

Standing Here to Humbly see,

I assure you and I mean it,

Now says I don’t speak out as plain as day

Now fellow Texans I’m for progress

And the flag long may it fly,

I’m a poor boy

Come to greatness

So it follows that I cannot tell a lie.

Ohhhh I love to dance a little side step,

Now they see me now they don’t I’ve come and gone

And Ohhhh I love to sweep around the wide Step

Cut a little swath and lead the people on.

Now my good friends it behooves me

To be solemn and declare,

I’m for goodness and for profit,

And for living clean and saying daily pray and now my good friends

You can sleep nights

I’ll continue to stand tall

You can trust me

For I promise I shall

Keep a watchful eye upon you all.

Ohhhh I love to dance a little side step,

Now they see me now they don’t I’ve come and gone

And Ohhhh I love to sweep around the wide Step

Cut a little swath and lead the people on.

Now miss Mona,

I don’t know her,

Though I’ve heard an evil yes,

But a course eyes no close contact so what she is

Doing I can only guess and now miss Mona she’s a blemish

On the face of that good town.

I’m taken certain steps here Someone

Somewhere is gonna have to close her down.

Ohhhh I love to dance a little side step,

Now they see me now they don’t I’ve come and gone

And Ohhhh I love to sweep around the wide Step

Cut a little swath and lead the people on.

Ohhhh I love to dance a little side step,

And ohhhhh I love to sweep around the wide Step.

Cut a little swath and lead the people on.

HYMN SYF71  If all the prophets were silent words by Tom McCready

READINGS

Eagle Poem

by Joy Harjo

To pray you open your whole self

To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon

To one whole voice that is you.

And know there is more

That you can’t see, can’t hear;

Can’t know except in moments

Steadily growing, and in languages

That aren’t always sound but other

Circles of motion.

Like eagle that Sunday morning

Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky

In wind, swept our hearts clean

With sacred wings.

We see you, see ourselves and know

That we must take the utmost care

And kindness in all things.

Breathe in, knowing we are made of

All this, and breathe, knowing

We are truly blessed because we

Were born, and die soon within a

True circle of motion,

Like eagle rounding out the morning

Inside us.

We pray that it will be done

In beauty.

In beauty.

Laissez Prayer

by Marcus Bales

Has some natural disaster left you barely hanging on, 

Has a sewer filled your basement, or a drought destroyed your lawn?

Did the weatherproofing turn out not to be so weather-proof,

Are the helicopters coming now to lift you from your roof?

Don’t worry — you can fix it through your online friends out there

               With laissez prayer.

              Laissez prayer, laissez prayer,

              Laissez prayer, laissez prayer —

         Your Senators denied your help to Sandy’s victims there, 

         But almost everyone you know will post a lazy prayer.   

 Is your sister in the hospital, your brother in Iraq,

 Your spouse out on a toot from which you fear they may be back?

 Is a cousin going through divorce, a nephew flunking class,

 A niece made pregnant way too young by some appalling ass?

 Don’t worry — you can fix it with your online friends out there

              With laissez prayer.

              Laissez prayer, laissez prayer,

              Laissez prayer, laissez prayer —

      They won’t send cash, or clean your house, or bring food over there

      But almost everyone you know will post a lazy prayer.

 Do the Shia kill the Sunnis or vice versa still today?

 Are the Turks expanding eastward while the Kurds are in the way?

 Do the Hutus still think Tutsis only good for the machete?

 Do the French still think the English should be used apres escreti?

 Don’t worry — you can fix it with your online friends out there

                With laissez prayer.

                Laissez prayer, laissez prayer, 

                Laissez prayer, laissez prayer — 

       They won’t send medicine, cash, or clothes, or join the Peace Corps there,

       But almost everyone you know will post a lazy prayer.

 Are cops still killing people for the colour of their skin

 Are Christians getting rich without believing it’s a sin

 The rich avoid their taxes with the Caymans or the Swiss

 And kill their foreign workers without feeling too remiss?

 Don’t worry — you can fix it with your online friends out there

                With laissez prayer.

               Laissez prayer, laissez prayer,    

               Laissez prayer, laissez prayer —  

        They will not buy American or vote for those who care,

        But almost everyone you know will post a lazy prayer.

 Our selfish short-term interests have commodified our schools,

 Our play, our work, and made us into bargain-hunting fools.

 We’re burning down the planet’s lungs to feed McDonald’s beef

 And heating up the climate so there’ll soon be no relief.

 Don’t worry, though, we’ll fix it with your online friends out there

                With laissez prayer.

                Laissez prayer, laissez prayer,             

                Laissez prayer, laissez prayer —   

        There’s more to life than buying t-shirts cheaper here than there

        But almost everyone you know will post a lazy prayer.

Has some psycho-pated zealot bought a black AR-15

With a flash-suppressant muzzle and a 30-round magazine?

He doesn’t need insurance, training, license, background checks,

 To murder folks because he doesn’t like the way they’re doing sex.

 Republicans, the NRA, and Christians cheer him there

                with laissez prayer.

                Laissez prayer, laissez prayer,

                Laissez prayer, laissez prayer —   

         He’s safely out of ammo now, so the cops can say a prayer  

                 And kill him there.

HYMN SYF53  God, the All-Holy words by Brian Wren

ADDRESS

“Action=Lived Prayer”

Last week I asked these questions

So what does thoughts and prayers mean?

What does prayer mean to you?

What does prayer change?

And I used readings that questioned some basic assumptions about prayer, and also that pointed to the perspective that prayer helps a person change, we hope for the better, and from there to do good in the world.

It stemmed from the conversations around the reactions, especially in the US, to unbelievable violence, in the US that is of course the lack of will to do minimal gun safety legislation.  Mostly it is the conservative politicians of all parties, who don’t want to have any form of gun control there, be it for what ever reason, the outcome is still the same.

Violence, with a gun user, happens….

Then

They simply offer condolences to the family of the victims of this latest gun related violence, with the phrase Thoughts and prayers.

The other comment almost in tandem with thoughts and prayers, is don’t politicise this tragedy by talking about gun control. So in essence thoughts are prayers are lazy superficial mumbo jumbo that mean nothing and definitely do nothing.

The traditions which fed we unitarians see this differently.

Prayer is not the formal words spoken in church, or in front of the media, it is a living breathing thing.

We in prayer are seeking ways to be moved, to find courage, to map out a plan of action. As individuals and as a community.

In the prayer attributed to Jesus we hear the words…

“Thy will be done, here on earth as it is in heaven….”

We have, historically I believe, understood this to be, in prayer we are seeking to align our mind with the divine mind…. So it could be prayed this way..

May I be of the same thought as are you

In the various traditions of Jesus that focus on him as teacher, rabbi, friend… this is key to their theology and their way of living…. It’s called discipleship, or the deliberate choosing to live the life example and teachings of our rabbi, our theological master…

Prayer is our way of checking ourselves to see where and why we respond as we do, and how we may change it for the better. Plan out how we will make Shalom on earth a reality. It begins with us, and honestly if we won’t do it, then who will.

All the narratives around Jesus, are not calls to belief, they are calls to action.

To living your life in a way that brings justice, shalom, and compassion to our world.

We pray not to the great Santa Claus in the sky, that the give me give me type of prayer….

We pray to be moved to compassion and to act to make life better….

Prayer for us, is not simply a thought or a mumbled rote prayer, but action….

We show our faith, our prayers, through our action, be they grand or minute….

And when we are alone, with our thoughts in prayer, we are seeking the compassionate mind, so we may continue to act for the good, and if we are lucky, we may be better at it today than we were yesterday.

Prayer changes us, and our actions live that change out in our world.

MUSICAL INTERLUDE “Come Home, Father” by Henry Clay Work

REFLECTION AND PRAYER

Reflection:

Bright Star

words by John Carter

Bright star of Love,

          never-ending

          always expanding

          activating

                     empowerment,

                     rising growth of spirit

                               grace of Full-Filling

Quickening Star of Love

          spiritual leaven of the soul

O yeast of Love

          making all things whole

          Life is filled with knocks, bruises, celebration and despair

Minor and major deflations of the ego

Rough bark of the tree within long wittered

Bring us to life

Bring us to love

Temper us

So we may grow,

Knitting,

Rising,

Expanding to fill the shape of our pan of life.

Filling the whole of me.

As we become

          a fresh embodiment

                     of that bright stared inspired Love

                     singing us into being

Portraits of Creation.

PRAYER

NAVAJO BEAUTY WAY PRAYER:

SHORT VERSION:

“Today may I walk out in beauty.

With beauty may I walk.

With beauty before me, may I walk.

With beauty behind me, may I walk.

With beauty above me, may I walk.

With beauty below me, may I walk.

With beauty around me, may I walk.

All things shall be beautiful.

It is finished in beauty.

It is finished in beauty.”

NOTICES

HYMN SYF187  We ask that we live…in peace words by Donald Swann

BLESSING

words by John Carter

Today, tomorrow, and for the whole of our life

          May our prayers move a change within us

          so that our thoughts can move and create change within our world.

 Amen

postlude (accordion)  “Le Long de la Seine” by George A