We celebrate the certainty of returning spring with praise on our lips and thanks in our hearts. The greening earth calls us to move forward. We need no death to convince us of new life. Our redemption comes as we, again and again, choose to embrace the new life that is so evident around us and emergent within us.
How do we identify our gifts? And how do we live them out? How can we be sure that we are on the right path in life? St. Paul talks of a variety of gifts, but one Spirit. Is there a “place just right” for us where all will be well?
We have come a long way from a naive and confident vision of “The City on the Hill.” There is no manifest destiny justifying any of our lives or our practices of community. Yet we do hope, or pray, that a Beloved Community can be built. There is a giving up as well as fulfillment for us as we hold a vision that is always in formation.
Most religious traditions have something to say about brokenness (which we could also call pain, suffering, or injustice), and Unitarian Universalism is no exception. Today we’ll explore what makes our UU response to pain uniquely compelling, and how that response shapes our prayers of lamentation — as well as the ways we make one another whole again.
Often when a tragedy occurs, we hear people in power, politicians and faith leaders alike, offer thoughts and prayers. What effect do these offerings produce? What is the measure of the effectiveness of prayer? How is our beseeching made manifest through action?
We welcome the presence of love in our lives and work to help love move in our world. Our theology is not to wait for love and justice, complaining of their absence, but to seek them and nurture love where we find it. We pray “with our feet” as well as on our knees.
Prayer is many things and takes many forms. From the ecstatic circling dances of Sufi dervishes to the still sitting of some Buddhist traditions, the practice of “prayer” varies greatly. Even the western traditions of spoken prayer and silent meditation seem to resist standardization. This variety suits the UU culture of individualism so well. In our sanctuary, we name and share our sorrows and our joys. We do this together. Our collective prayer is an act of relationship in which we hold ourselves and each other with care.
