Unitarian Sunday Reflections

(Hull and Lincoln Unitarians)

21 May 2023

 

Lincoln Service

11 am

Musician: Jennifer Young

Worship Leader: John Carter

 

 

Hull Service

4 pm

Musician: Graziana Presicce

Worship Leader: Chris Carr

 

Theme

“Spiritual Explorations:

What is Prayer”

 

PRELUDE

        

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

 

1. 756

“When you are searching for the perfect venue

     For evil in the world to be decreased

You turn to thoughts and prayers, of course. That’s when you

     Care enough to do the very least.”

 

~ Marcus Bales

 

CHALICE LIGHTING

by John Carter

 

We light our chalice

         to open ourselves as we continue our spiritual journeys

        

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 HFL 30 “Immortal Love, for Ever Full”

                                                              words by John Greenleaf Whittier

 

 

INTRODUCTION

Ever since Columbine, with each school shooting, one refrain passed piously from conservative lips: that is Thoughts and Prayers….. Follow always by don’t politicise this  tragedy with talk of gun laws…..

 

So what does thoughts and prayers mean?

What does prayer mean to you?

What does prayer change?

 

As we reflect today, how do the readings speak to you of prayer.

 

READINGS

This Morning I Pray for My Enemies

Joy Harjo

 

And whom do I call my enemy?
An enemy must be worthy of engagement.
I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking.
It’s the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind.
The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun.
It sees and knows everything.
It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing.
The door to the mind should only open from the heart.
An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.

 

 

Make my life a prayer

by Keith Green

 

Make my life a prayer to you
I want to do what you want me to
No empty words and no white lies
No token prayers no compromise

I want to shine the light you gave
Thru your son you sent to save us
From ourselves and our despair
It comforts me to know you’re really there

Well I want to thank you now
For being patient with me
Oh it’s so hard to see
When my eyes are on me
I guess I’ll have to trust
And just believe what you say
Oh you’re coming again
Coming to take me away

I want to die and let you give
Your life to me so I might live
And share the hope you gave me
The love that set me free

I want to tell the world out there
You’re not some fable or fairy tale
That I’ve made up inside my head
You’re God the son and you’ve risen from the dead

I want to die and let you give
Your life to me so I might live
And share the hope you gave me
The love that set me free.

 

1. 817

by Marcus Bales

 

“Prayer won’t change a thing,” the vicar said.

     “If changing things is what you want to do

Get up and change things. What prayer does, instead,

     Is show you all the ways of changing you.”

 

 

HYMN HFL 190 To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love words by William Blake

 

READINGS

 

The Street is for Celebration

by Thomas Merton

 

“Celebration is when we let joy make itself out of our love. 

 

We like to be together.  We like to dance together. We like to make pretty and amusing things.  We like to laugh at what we have made.   We like to put bright colours on the walls—more bright colours on ourselves. We like our pictures, they are crazy.

 

Celebration is crazy:

the craziness of not submitting even though “they,” “the others,” the ones who make life impossible, seem to have all the power.

 

Celebration is the beginning of confidence, therefore of power. 

 

When we laugh (at them), when we celebrate, when we make our lives beautiful, when we give one another joy by loving, by sharing, then we manifest a power they cannot touch.

 

We can be the artisans of a joy they never imagined.”

 

 

 

If We Just Talk of Thoughts and Prayers
Biblical references: Isaiah 58; Matthew 7:21, 24-27; 1 Corinthians 13:1; James 2:14-26; 1 John 3:18-24

Text: by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. Copyright © 2017

 

If we just talk of thoughts and prayers
And don’t live out a faith that dares,
And don’t take on the ways of death,
Our thoughts and prayers are fleeting breath.

 

If we just dream of what could be
And do not build community,
And do not seek to change our ways,
Our dreams of change are false displays.

 

If we just sing of doing good
And don’t walk through our neighborhood
To learn its hope, to ease its pain,
Our talk of good is simply vain.

 

God, may our prayers and dreams and songs
Lead to a faith that takes on wrongs—
That works for peace and justice, too.
Then will our prayers bring joy to you.

 

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 color 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 HFL 51 Inward Peace and Inward Living words by Bruce Findlow

 

CONVERSATION

 

My life and spiritual development has often centred on what is prayer?

 

In the readings for today, no words from Jesus, or any other spiritual giant. Basically contemporary voices, poets, and thinkers.

 

But Jesus did talk about prayer, and very relational style to it, but that figures, Hebraic faith was relational, early Christians saw their faith as relational, mystical faith does as well.

 

It is to connect us to each other, just not a formal membership style connection but a sense of belonging and of the importance of the other, and other can mean more than a singular person, and it goes beyond the human species.

 

Currently one statement gets played in the US, Thoughts and Prayers, and if you haven’t notice much of the rhetoric that is heard from the US political system, is in fact appearing here.

 

And how do we as inheritors of a liberal, progressive, dissenting, non conformist Christian traditions respond to these political uses of prayer?

 

Is thought and prayer enough?

 

Why is prayer important, or is it?

 

What is prayer really for?

 

 

REFLECTION

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.

 

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.

It is finished in beauty.

It is finished in beauty.”

 

HYMN HFL 200 Courage shall conquer words by John Andrew Storey

 

BLESSING

 

Today as we leave

May our prayers move a change within us

          May our thoughts move and create change within our world.

 

 Amen