Worship Services
The theme for April is Interdependence.
April 7 “Living in Balance with Life These Days” with Rev. Dr. Pippin Whitaker
Where are you finding balance these days, and where are you out of balance? Living in balance has become a moving target. Perhaps it feels out of reach. Join in this worship service that explores finding balance in this time of your life and all lives.
April 14 “Nothing Can Harm Our Love” with Tret Fure Famed UU singer/songwriter, Tret Fure, will lead this Sunday morning worship service, which will feature Tret’s sermon infused with her original songs.
April 21 “Flip Out for Earth Day: Flipped Service Sunday” with Rev. Dr. Pippin Whitaker
We who love the Earth must learn to live in cooperation with Earth ecosystems. Yet to do so will require significant changes to our habits that draw us into deeper empathy. In this service we are invited to embody new worship habits as we honor Earth: Children and Youth will remain in the sanctuary after we sing the adults out to Religious Exploration classes. NOTICE: Children and youth are invited to bring an object representing their hopes or anxieties about the environment from home to build an altar for Earth Day.
Reflection Ideas and Questions
Are you seeking more ways to explore the theme of Interdependence? Consider reflecting on these quotes:
And if it’s true we are alone,
we are alone together,
the way blades of grass
are alone, but exist as a field.
Sometimes I feel it,
the green fuse that ignites us,
the wild thrum that unites us… – Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Each experience of love nudges us toward the Story of Interbeing, because it only fits into that story and defies the logic of Separation. – Charles Eisenstein
Much as I enjoy popular New Age commentary on love, I am often struck by the dangerous narcissism fostered by spiritual rhetoric that pays so much attention to individual self-improvement and so little to the practice of love within the context of community. Packaged as a commodity, spirituality becomes no different from an exercise program. While it may lead to the consumer feeling better about his or her life, its power to enhance our communion with ourselves and others in a sustained way is inhibited. – bell hooks
If you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together. – African Proverb
Here is the question we must at last confront: Is land merely a source of belongings, or is it the source of our most profound sense of belonging? We can choose… You, right now, can choose to set aside the mindset of the colonizer and become native to place, you can choose to belong. – Robin Wall Kimmerer
Here are some questions you may use as a prompt for conversation or for a journal entry.
- Has a young person ever altered the way you think about your relationship with nature or the planet?
- Where do you feel your connection to nature in your body? What happens to you when that place of connection is stirred?
- When was the last time you became thoroughly absorbed in the curiosity of understanding another creature’s life?
- Has a tree ever spoken to you? How about a river? Or the ocean? Or the moon? What about a weed?
- Has your commitment to community been tripped up by the trap of self-improvement?
