Prelude Melodia Africana I by Ludovico Einaudi
Opening Words Constellations of our Lives by Karen G. Johnston
Humans make maps of stars,
choosing some stars, ignoring others,
to project our imaginations onto the heavens.
These maps shift over time, across cultures.
Names change for the same assemblage of bright points:
Drinking Gourd, Big Dipper, Plough, Lost Hunters
Humans make constellations by connecting stars.
Humans make meaning by connecting stories:
story to story to narrative to story.
Some blaze bright, some are faint.
Most are backdrop to the great and mundane human unfolding.
Let us imagine the stories of our lives
as a starry universe above our heads.
May the stories we connect
draw constellations
that reflect a shared ministry
that calls out the best in us.
Chalice Lighting (you may wish to light a candle in your own home at this point). (words by Jane Blackall)
May the light of this chalice be a reminder of the
shared values and principles around which we gather:
upholding the inherent worth and dignity of every person;
cherishing all those diverse creatures and habitats
with whom we share this Earth, our home;
seeking human liberation and flourishing;
serving the common good of all.
May this little light, and all it represents, make a home in our hearts;
where it will ever guide us back to our highest aspirations,
and help us be responsive, creative, just, and loving,
in this complex and ever-changing world.
Opening Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love,
be with us as we gather for worship,
each in our own place.
Help us to feel a sense of community,
even though we are physically apart.
Help us to care for each other,
in this world in which the clouds
of war, poverty, and climate change hover.
And help us to make a difference,
starting where we are, with what we have.
May we keep in touch however we can,
and help each other, however we may.
Help us to be grateful for the freedoms we have
and to respect the wishes of others.
May we hold in our hearts all those
who are grieving, lost, alone,
victims of violence and war,
suffering in any way,
Amen
Reading from A constellation of connections: contemplative relationships. By Vanessa F. Hurst
Upon our life canvas we paint a glorious night sky that is unique to each of us. In the array of stars, we are Polaris, the North Star of our sky. Each person, each part of creation is a star twinkling against the indigo backdrop. Here, in the inky darkness of our night sky, we connect to others in relationship. These connections create a vibrant, dynamic constellation. Each interaction, no matter the duration, impacts and influences our constellation of connections….
When we live intentionally in this constellation of community, we live in awareness of the vibrant, organic nature of life. We recognise that life is not static. It may appear that we choose to connect in seemingly random ways, but there is little that is random in our life. Everything and everyone stimulate growth. Through these connections, we empower others to live in the wonder and meet the challenges in our lives.
Each star in our constellation represents a person, the Sacred, or a part of creation with which we connect. The Sacred is present in each component of the sky. It is present in the indigo blue of the night sky and in the twinkling light of each star. … A relationship may be as brief as a thirty-second conversation or as long as a life time. Most fall somewhere in between. We choose both consciously and unconsciously with whom to connect and, in doing so, create a dynamic, intricate, ever-evolving constellation.
Alternative Lord’s Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love, here and everywhere,
may we be aware of your presence in our lives.
May our world be blessed.
May our daily needs be met,
and may our shortcomings be forgiven,
as we forgive those of others.
Give us the strength to resist wrong-doing,
the inspiration and guidance to do right,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
We are your hands in the world; help us to grow.
May we have compassion for all living beings,
and receive whatever life brings,
with courage and trust.
Amen
Reading from We affirm and promote acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations by Carolyn Owen-Towle
Our faith acknowledges that no two people think, believe, taste, feel, hear, or encounter life in the same way. Those who are disinclined, for whatever reason, to conform to a single commonly held creed seek their own truthful and compassionate ways to live. We give our approval and acceptance because it is validating…
Living in a pluralistic society, we cannot help but pay daily attention to just what is meant by acceptance. It is within our capability to accept someone for their intrinsic worth without necessarily accepting what they believe or how they act. But it does take a certain amount of maturity to separate being from behaviour. It is a learned discipline that takes both mind and heart, looking into the person him- or herself beyond fixed categories. It means attuning to their hearts and recognising the common humanity you share. Our empathy tells us that people are tender, fragile beings with feelings, yearnings, aspirations and fears that are similar to our own.
We know when we are accepted. We don’t earn it. We do not even find it by looking. But when it comes to us, through a remark, or an attitude, we stand a little taller and bloom a little brighter.
Prayer by Rhys Williams
Spirit of life, come to us to break down barriers; to widen horizons; to make us less judgmental. Help us to see the larger picture and the kinder conclusion; to love and let live; to embrace and forgive; to sustain and care.
Help us to reach out to our better selves, that we may love more and hate less, care more and reject less, that bound together by understanding we may sustain each other through trial and tribulation, through joy and happiness, through sickness and health.
Help us, O God, to be joined in a common purpose of hope and fulfilment. Renew and revive us. We seek a common, holy ground for one and all. Amen.
Reading from We affirm and promote acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations by Carolyn Owen-Towle
The second part of the third UUA principle is “encouragement to spiritual growth.” Ours is a hopeful faith. It holds out the promise that we can become as full, rich contributors to life as our imaginations and our efforts can take us. We have to work at it, however. Spiritual development takes effort. Every time we come from a personal rather than intellectual place, we express ourselves spiritually. As UU minister, Mark Belletini wrote, “we sing our faith as well as argue it, we love silence as well as our words, we act in concert to bring justice to the world even as we guard our individual spirits.”
If acceptance affirms us as we are, encouragement pushes us toward whom we might become. As crucial as acceptance is to our spiritual and emotional health, we need frequent nudges by others to grow, lest we stagnate. Our religious community helps us grow beyond ourselves, both personally and communally.
Our… faith requires us to make a vow of commitment to support and encourage one another. We realise that we cannot make it alone in life. We need to invest in one another’s humanity. … The word “encourage” literally means to put courage or heart into another. All of us need reassuring as we face the travails of life. Sometimes that lift comes in the form of a hug or a supportive comment. It might be heard in a sermon, a piece of music, or a poem. At other times, it comes as a nudge to get going, to turn around, or to buck up. Whatever it is, when it comes from someone with whom we share a common quest for spiritual growth, it helps.
Time of Stillness and Reflection by Maureen Killoran (adapted)
Holy grandparents of the Universe…energies of creation…endless mysteries of life:
You are the music that sounded before our world was born,
sound and silence woven throughout the ages,
far beyond the most profound wisdom humanity has been able to touch.
Be with us, deepen our willingness to live without certainty;
to take the risks of living on the edges of our creativity;
to step beyond the boundaries of possibility and hope.
Help us always to remember that we are in our essence the magic of star stuff:
that we are kin to all that is and was and may yet come to be.
Teach us to temper our impatience, to retain our conviction that what we do makes a difference;
that even our smallest act can contribute to the good of a greater whole.
Be with us in our uncertainties. Rejoice with our small triumphs.
Comfort our losses. Remind us we are never alone, not in our joys or in our tears.
In the blessing of our silence, may we feel your presence, something greater than we have yet been able to comprehend.
[silence]
May it be so, Amen
Musical Interlude I Due Fiumi by Ludovico Einaudi
Address Third Principle: Encouragement and Acceptance
You may have noticed a somewhat cosmic theme to my readings and prayers today. I love Vanessa Hurst’s beautiful idea that we are all part of a constellation of connections, with each of us being our own North Star. She writes: “Each star in our constellation represents a person, the Sacred, or a part of creation with which we connect. The Sacred is present in each component of the sky. It is present in the indigo blue of the night sky and in the twinkling light of each star. … A relationship may be as brief as a thirty-second conversation or as long as a life time. Most fall somewhere in between. We choose both consciously and unconsciously with whom to connect and, in doing so, create a dynamic, intricate, ever-evolving constellation.”
And let me repeat Karen Johnston’s beautiful words which I used to open this service: “Humans make constellations by connecting stars. Humans make meaning by connecting stories… Some blaze bright, some are faint. Most are backdrop to the great and mundane human unfolding.”
And yet, making meaning by connecting stories can be a vulnerable process. When we share the stories of our lives, we are being brave, allowing our true selves, those twinkling stars, to be clearly seen. Perhaps our Unitarian communities are one sacred space in which we can be this vulnerable, knowing (or at least hoping) that we will be accepted as we are.
The third of the eight Principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association is “We affirm and promote acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth.” My second and third readings were about the two parts of this Principle – acceptance of one another, and encouraging one another to grow spiritually. Because they are not the same thing.
As Carolyn Owen-Towle writes, it is possible to accept another human being “for their intrinsic worth without necessarily accepting what they believe or how they act.” But it surely isn’t easy. It is very difficult to separate human being from human doing. To love the first, while feeling critical of the second. But if we truly want to build “constellations of connection”, this is what we must attempt to do.
And I wonder whether this is more difficult in the context of a Unitarian community, rather than less. Okay, we all believe that we do not have to conform to a particular creed, a particular belief system, in order to call ourselves “Unitarians”. And we proclaim that we are all on a spiritual journey, and that each individual’s journey might be different. Which we respect. But there is a primitive, lizard-brain part of each person which distrusts people who are “different” to us, whatever way that difference manifests itself. So we need to make an extra effort to accept people whose beliefs (whether religious or political) are different from our own, if we are to recognise their common humanity. If we are to salute them as fellow members of the human race.
Perhaps that is what the word “compassion” truly means. Karen Armstrong, founder of the Charter for Compassion, wrote in her second volume of autobiography, The Spiral Staircase, “Compassion does not of course mean to feel pity or condescension, but to feel with. … It is not enough to understand other people’s beliefs, rituals and ethical practices intellectually. You have to feel them too and make an imaginative though disciplined identification.” And that is hard, spiritual work.
A few years ago, I attended a conference in London, run by the Charter for Compassion. It was addressed by Karen Armstrong herself, and she had a lot to say about this. She spoke of the urgent need to implement the Golden Rule globally, because conflicts the world over are not just “their” problems; they are “our” problems too. The whole of humankind is inter-connected in a very real way, and we need somehow to make a difference in the world. To go back to my cosmic metaphor, we are all stars, sharing the same sky.
She explained that compassion isn’t a feeling – because feelings come and go. Compassion demands a “principled effort, all day, every day” to dethrone the ego from the centre of our worlds, and to see things from another’s perspective. Being compassionate is about what we do in our daily lives; in our interactions with our families, our neighbours, our work colleagues, and with the chance-met stranger. How our constellation of connections works in reality.
She also said that we need a sense of disquiet. There is currently a huge imbalance of wealth and power in our world, which leads to alienation and poverty. Compassion means taking responsibility for the pain of the world and trying to do something about it. In the West, we live in a world of privilege and safety and power. We are in denial about suffering around the world. I’m sure you’ve all heard the term “compassion fatigue” – when we turn away from the distressing charity advert or news item on the television, because we cannot bear to see any more suffering. Instead of turning away, we should be asking “what can we do to alleviate this?” “how can we help?” She spoke of the need for empathy – about the importance of learning about others’ cultures, fears and traditions. She said that it requires “deep, anguished thought” if we are to avoid harming others, through lack of empathy.
She also suggested that it might be possible to see distressing events as spiritual opportunities – which create a seed of discomfort in your mind. In much the same way as the sand in the oyster creates the pearl. She stressed that there is *always* something to be done. We cannot confine our benevolence to our own group – we need to have concern for all humankind, for all living beings. So not just “of one another” as the UUA principle suggests, but of all humankind, all living beings. It’s a tough call.
Which brings me to the second half of the third UUA principle – affirming and promoting encouragement to spiritual growth. In our third reading, Carolyn Owen-Towle suggests that “If acceptance affirms us as we are, encouragement pushes us toward whom we might become. As crucial as acceptance is to our spiritual and emotional health, we need frequent nudges by others to grow, lest we stagnate. Our religious community helps us grow beyond ourselves, both personally and communally.”
And this is where I think that Unitarian communities can shine. Many of the congregations in the Midlands hold regular events apart from Sunday worship, in which participants are encouraged on their own spiritual journeys. And the worship service on a Sunday can also touch the minds and hearts of the people in the pews – whether it is a reading, a prayer, the testimonies during candles of joy and concern, part of the address, the music, or the conversation during coffee hour afterwards. There are so many opportunities for us to encourage each other – to put heart into each other.
Every time we reach out to one another in this way, we are making new constellations of connection. Truly listening to one another, with full attention, rather than mentally rehearsing our responses in our heads, lights up little twinkle lights of connection between us, had we the eyes to see them. As Vanessa Hurst explains, “When we live intentionally in this constellation of community, we live in awareness of the vibrant, organic nature of life. We recognise that life is not static. It may appear that we choose to connect in seemingly random ways, but there is little that is random in our life. Everything and everyone stimulate growth. Through these connections, we empower others to live in the wonder and meet the challenges in our lives.”
I would like to finish by sharing her understanding of true relationship. She writes: “I see relationships not as two individuals flowing in and out of connection in unaware ways, but as a way of interacting and connecting intimately with others on our life path. These connections… have… three components: silence, compassion, and communion. I began to visualise relationships as a constellation of connections against the backdrop of a dark night sky. Silence creates the inky darkness of the canvas. Within silence we create and sustain relationship. Each of our essences is represented by a twinkle in the night sky. Each spark is fuelled by compassion given and received. Thriving relationships connect us to others through communication that transcends the ordinary. Communion connects us to others in our constellation of connections.”
May we all twinkle brightly together, reaching out to each other with compassion, accepting each other as we are, and encouraging each other to grow. And then reach out to the wider community around us, and do the same.
Closing Words
Spirit of Life and Love,
Our time together is drawing to a close.
May we make true, deep connections
with each other, and with all of humankind.
May we return to our everyday world refreshed,
may we share the love we feel,
may we look out for each other,
and may we keep up our hearts,
now and in the days to come.
Amen
Postlude Stella del Mattino by Ludovico Einaudi