Time For Healing - 23 October 2022 - Rev John Carter's Sunday Reflections

Welcome To The Yorkshire Unitarian Union

Unitarian Sunday Reflections

(Hull and Lincoln Unitarians)

Sunday 23 October 2022

Lincoln Service ~ 11 am

Led by Jennifer Young

(Minister in recovery from Covid-19)

Hull Service ~ 4 pm

Led by Chris Carr

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Theme

“Time for Healing”

We continue to Pray for the Ukraine, Yemen, and all places of war and destruction and all people, creatures and the environment effected by these wars.

May Peace come

“No more war, please”

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…..

OPENING/REFLECTIVE QUOTE

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change”

~ Albert Einstein.

CHALICE LIGHTING

from the ICUU words by Dorothea Kaufmann

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said:

“If not the eye was like the sun,
It could not see the sun’s majestic shine
If not God’s magic was in everyone,
Who could rejoice ov‘r anything divine?”

And we say….

“From the bottom of my very existence
I am pervaded with light energy,
shining colours to my eye,
warmth to my skin,
inspiration to my soul.
In this unity
of creative sparks
and sparkling creation
life unfolds.

Let us open our senses to the light within and around us
and send it out with shining examples
into the world!”

OPENING PRAYER

By Sweethome Teacup

May we recognize and abandon the familiar attitudes and practices that do not serve the whole. We are who we are
and
we have the opportunity to be who we want to be,
to create a new inheritance for the future.
May our thoughts, words, and actions in our daily lives
assist in dismantling paradigms of oppression and suffering.
May we give thanks for our individual place in time and space,
to our families and our relationships that touch and change us.
May we give thanks to the wise teachers who help us remember how to be
and the chance to make it so.
Underneath and within these stories and histories is our humanity.
Being human means we are of this earth,
we are these waters, we are fire, and atmosphere, we are the Sun and the moon and the stars.
We are all that we see and the wisdom is revealed by looking in between.

OPENING HYMN (suggested)

SYF 42 (CD SYF 2/TRACK 1)

“from the light of days remembered”

by Jason Shelton & Mary Katherine Morn

From the light of days remembered burns a beacon bright and clear,

guiding hands and hearts and spirits into faith set free from fear.

When the fire of commitment sets our mind and soul ablaze;

when our hunger and our passion meet to call us on our way;

when we live with deep assurance of the flame that burns within,

then our promise finds fulfilment and our future can begin.

From the stories of our living rings a song both brave and free,

calling pilgrims still to witness to the life of liberty.

When the fire of commitment sets our mind and soul ablaze;

when our hunger and our passion meet to call us on our way;

when we live with deep assurance of the flame that burns within,

then our promise finds fulfilment and our future can begin.

From the dreams of youthful vision comes a new, prophetic voice,

which demands a deeper justice built by our courageous choice.

When the fire of commitment sets our mind and soul ablaze;

when our hunger and our passion meet to call us on our way;

when we live with deep assurance of the flame that burns within,

then our promise finds fulfilment and our future can begin.

READINGS

Ecclesiastes 3

Priests for Equality. The Inclusive Bible. Sheed & Ward.

There is a time for everything,

a season for every purpose under heaven:

a season to be born and a season to die;

a season to plant and a season to harvest;

a season to hurt and a season to heal;

a season to tear down and a season to build up;

a season to cry and a season to laugh;

a season to mourn and a season to dance;

a season to scatter stones and a season gather them;

a season for holding close and a season for holding back;

a season to seek and a season to lose;

a season to keep and a season throw away;

a season to tear and a season to mend;

a season to be silent and a season to speak;

a season to love and a season to hate;

a season for hostilities and a season for peace.

Cosmic Sense by Teilhard de Chardin

Matter and Spirit: These were no longer two things but two states or two aspects of one and the same cosmic Stuff, according to whether it was looked at or carried further in the direction in which it is becoming itself or in the direction in which it is disintegrating. Matter is the Matrix of Spirit. Spirit is the higher state of Matter.

Matter was not ultra materialised as I would at first have believed, but was instead metamorphosed into Psyche. Spirit was by no means the enemy on the opposite pole of the Tangibility which it was seeking to attain: rather it was its very heart.

I give the name of cosmic sense to the more or less confused affinity that binds us psychologically to the All which envelops us. In order that the sense of humanity might emerge, it was necessary for civilisation to begin to encircle the Earth. The cosmic sense must have been born as soon as humanity found itself facing the frost, the sea and the stars. And since then we find evidence of it in all our experience of the great and unbounded: in art, in poetry, and in religion.

“A Theology of Change”

by Octavia Butler, from her novel Parable of the Sower. Headline.

EARTH-SEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING

All that you touch

You Change.

All that you Change

Changes you.

The only lasting truth

Is Change.

God Is Change.

We do not worship God.

We perceive and attend God.

We learn from God.

With forethought and work,

We shape God.

In the end, we yield to God.

We adapt and endure,

For we are Earthseed

And God is Change.

Belief

Initiates and guides action—

Or it does nothing.

To get along with God,

Consider the consequences of your behavior.

10)

When apparent stability disintegrates,

As it must—

God is Change—

People tend to give in

To fear and depression,

To need and greed.

When no influence is strong enough

To unify people

They divide.

They struggle,

One against one,

Group against group,

For survival, position, power.

They remember old hates and generate new ones,

They create chaos and nurture it.

They kill and kill and kill,

Until they are exhausted and destroyed,

Until they are conquered by outside forces,

Or until one of them becomes

A leader

Most will follow,

Or a tyrant

Most fear.

11)

Any Change may bear seeds of benefit.

Seek them out.

Any Change may bear seeds of harm.

Beware.

God is infinitely malleable.

God is Change.

15)

Kindness eases Change

25)

Create no images of God.

Accept the images that

God has provided.

They are everywhere, in everything.

God is Change—

Seed to tree, tree to forest;

Rain to river, river to sea;

Grubs to bees, bees to swarm.

From one, many; from many, one;

Forever uniting, growing, dissolving— forever Changing.

The universe is God’s self-portrait.

A Litany for Survival

by Andre Lorde, from 100 Queer Poems. Random House.

For those of us who live at the shoreline

standing upon the constant edges of decision

crucial and alone

for those of us who cannot indulge

the passing dreams of choice

who love in doorways coming and going

in the hours between dawns

looking inward and outward

at once before and after

seeking a now that can breed

futures

like bread in our children’s mouths

so their dreams will not reflect

the death of ours;

For those of us

who were imprinted with fear

like a faint line in the center of our foreheads

learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk

for by this weapon

this illusion of some safety to be found

the heavy-footed hoped to silence us

For all of us

this instant and this triumph

We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid

it might not remain

when the sun sets we are afraid

it might not rise in the morning

when our stomachs are full we are afraid

of indigestion

when our stomachs are empty we are afraid

we may never eat again

when we are loved we are afraid

love will vanish

when we are alone we are afraid

love will never return

and when we speak we are afraid

our words will not be heard

nor welcomed

but when we are silent

we are still afraid

So it is better to speak

remembering

we were never meant to survive.

Listening

by Madeleine L’Engle,

from her work Walking on Water . The Crown Publishing Group.

When the artist is truly the servant of the work, the work is better than the artist; Shakespeare knew how to listen to his work, and so he often wrote better than he could write; Bach composed more deeply, more truly, than he knew; Rembrandt’s brush put more of the human spirit on canvas than Rembrandt could comprehend.

When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens.

But before he can listen, paradoxically, he must work. Getting out of the way and listening is not something that comes easily, either in art or in prayer.

Before I can listen to God in prayer, I must fumble through the prayers of words, of wilful demands, the prayers of childish “Gimmes,” of “Help mes,” of “I want…” Until I tell God what I want, I have no way of knowing whether or not I truly want it. Unless I ask God for something, I do not know whether or not it is something for which I ought to ask, and I cannot add, “But if this is not your will for me, then your will is what I want, not mine.” The prayers of words cannot be eliminated. And I must pray them daily, whether I feel like praying or not. Otherwise, when God has something to say to me, I will not know how to listen. Until I have worked through self, I will not be enabled to get out of the way.

Someone wrote, “The principal part of faith is patience,” and this applies, too, to art of all disciplines. We must work every day, whether we feel like it or not; otherwise when it comes time to get out of the way and listen to the work, we will not be able to heed it.

HYMN (suggested)

SFY 75 (CD SYF 4/TRACK 11)

“In quickening streams”

In quickening streams and warming earth,

in buds and rootlets groping blind,

the world awakens and brings to birth

eternal hopes to humankind.

The aeons pass in cadence slow,

ideas through the centuries roam,

but all life forces blend and flow

we harvest thoughts by others sown.

Each generation tries anew

and people venture to explore

old wisdom clad in raiment new,

fresh insight found in ancient lore.

A beacon from a far-off star

may touch a light-year distant soul.

A deed unmarked can travel far

and work to make a stranger whole.

Great good was wrought in ages past

when love and faith at wrongs were hurled:

so dare to change while life shall last,

take hold and shake a dormant world.

CONVERSATION

PRAYER

A Prayer for Lovers in a Dangerous Time by Rev John Carter

Yet another week of political intrigue.

Winners demanding respect, honour and our acquiescence to the idol of false democracy.

We have watched politicians act the buffoon in order to get what they want. Midnight tweet storms of petulance and demagoguery.

We have despaired as they would rather keep their cushy employment than to risk standing for decency and justice, to speak out against majority bias.

we live in a dangerous time

these men and women have at the finger tips the ability to destroy, literal destruction,

they already do so with their words, attitudes and pontifications.

and we wonder if they cannot control their tongue, what is to stop them from pressing the button?

does the moral universe truly bend toward justice?

(silence)

I cannot and will not deny my fears

I cannot and will not deny the humanity of my opposite

I cannot and will not deny the need to speak out, to protest, to act in some way.

Life is too important to risk passive silence,

Life is too important to risk.

So to begin today, at this moment is to take time and pray….

Let me be an instrument of your justice…

not to condemn and imprison

but to communicate and release

Help me to see the long view

beyond my narrow concerns

beyond the span of my years….

So that I may be an instrument of your justice.

to welcome and care

to feed and clothe

to walk alongside those who need my presence.

to give hand, heart and mind to the shape of justice, of peace, of compassion

for all creation.

so say we all,

amen.

HYMN (suggested)

SYF 144 (SYF CD1/TK 21)

“Sing, sing for joy”

words by Peter Sampson