Sunday, March 04, 2012
Friday, March 02, 2012
Coming up in March!
midweek service
Spring Equinox: Like the Grasses
Like the grasses, through the dark and the soil to the sunlight, we shall rise again. We are thirsty, for the waters of life we are reaching, we shall live again. Come to share our strengths and renew hope. Have there been fallow periods in your life? Times when you were sure that you were a failure? Times when Winter felt like it would never end? Perhaps you are in a low period now... Every Spring the earth wakes up to new life and reminds us that hope is possible. What sustains us through the painful periods in life? 7 PM Buchan 101-102 Wednesday Mar 21. For more information, contact intern minister Amy Beltaine at abeltaine@firstunitarianportland.org
midweek sharing and healing circle
As the earth renews life we turn to the times in our own lives when we weathered a Winter and sought a Spring. Come for a sharing and healing circle. Come to share your stories of walking through the valley of the shadow, or share readings which have helped you to renew your hope. Some may be invited to share their offerings again at the worship service the following week. Wednesday Mar 14 7 PM Buchan 202-203.
For more information, contact intern minister Amy Beltaine at abeltaine@firstunitarianportland.org
Spring Equinox: Like the Grasses
Like the grasses, through the dark and the soil to the sunlight, we shall rise again. We are thirsty, for the waters of life we are reaching, we shall live again. Come to share our strengths and renew hope. Have there been fallow periods in your life? Times when you were sure that you were a failure? Times when Winter felt like it would never end? Perhaps you are in a low period now... Every Spring the earth wakes up to new life and reminds us that hope is possible. What sustains us through the painful periods in life? 7 PM Buchan 101-102 Wednesday Mar 21. For more information, contact intern minister Amy Beltaine at abeltaine@firstunitarianportland.org
midweek sharing and healing circle
As the earth renews life we turn to the times in our own lives when we weathered a Winter and sought a Spring. Come for a sharing and healing circle. Come to share your stories of walking through the valley of the shadow, or share readings which have helped you to renew your hope. Some may be invited to share their offerings again at the worship service the following week. Wednesday Mar 14 7 PM Buchan 202-203.
For more information, contact intern minister Amy Beltaine at abeltaine@firstunitarianportland.org
Midweek service for February
Imbolc: Redivining the Body
“Imbolc” or “Brigid” is the Celtic festival of early spring, also celebrated as Candlemas, and in the U.S. as Groundhogs day. (All of these related holidays are usually observed on February 2nd.) As we emerge from our winter coats, what do we see? Is the shadow we cast whole or are we looking at all the ways in which we are not perfect? Let us gather to divine our miraculous bodies, our beautiful souls. If you have ever thought that your body is too fat or thin or your hearing aid is a flaw... If you have ever run into an inaccessible doorway or airplane seat or experienced disrespect for your service dog... Join us to re-member, to re-divine our sacred selves. Let us stand together on the side of love for every-body!
7PM Buchan 101/102 Wednesday Feb 15
midweek sharing and healing circle
If you have ever thought that your body is too fat or thin or your hearing aid is a flaw... If you have ever run into an inaccessible doorway or airplane seat or experienced disrespect for your service dog... If you have ever been treated as “less than” because of your complexion or gender... Come for a sharing and healing circle. Come to share your stories, or readings which have helped you to remember your sacred self. Some may be invited to share their offerings again at the worship service the following week. Come to remember that we are whole and sacred and have worth. Wednesday Feb. 8 7PM Buchan 202.
For more information, contact intern minister Amy Beltaine at abeltaine@firstunitarianportland.org
Wednesday Service Feb. 15
First Unitarian Church of Portland Oregon
Imbolc: Redivining the Body
--------------------------
No-one is immune from messages about your body. 5 years ago, American men spent: $4 billion on exercise equipment and health club memberships, $3 billion on grooming aids and fragrances, and $800 million on hair transplants. Americans spent over $59.7-billion on diet products last year. Hair straighteners and bleaching cream are used to change hair and skin color and texture. Ten years ago there were at least 43 million Americans living with disabilities that had some significant impact on one or more major life activities. Yet we rarely see them portrayed in movies and even have special ‘sheltered’ workplaces which keep people with disabilities segregated from the rest of society. Each one of you here today may have something that you feel is imperfect, or challenging about your body. There are many ways that we are taught to hate our bodies, all different, and all based on expectations that we conform to a norm that, was never, and will never be, normal. We are here to day to stand on the side of love for every body. No matter how thin, how fat, how able-bodied, no matter what color or gender or orientation. No matter how your brain functions. You are lovable and have inherent worth and dignity. We are here to ask our bodies for forgiveness for all the harsh things we have said and thought about them, and to accept the blessing of forgiveness and celebrate our precious and miraculous bodies, together. We are here to stand on the side of love for EVERY body.
Call to Worship “Let Us Worship” by Kenneth Patton (adapted)
Let us worship with our eyes and ears and fingertips
Let us love the world through heart and mind and body.
We feed our selves with the mystery and revelation in the stories of our brothers and sisters.
We seek to know the wistfulness of the very young and the very old, the wistfulness of people in all times of life.
Let us worship with the opening of all the windows of our beings, with the full outstretching of our spirits.
Life comes with singing, and laughter, with tears and confiding, with a rising wave too great to be held in the mind and heart and body, to those who have falen in love with life.
Let us worship, and let us learn to love.
“Imbolc” or “Brigid” is the Celtic festival of early spring, also celebrated as Candlemas, and in the U.S. as Groundhogs day. (All of these related holidays are usually observed on February 2nd.) As we emerge from our winter coats, what do we see? Is the shadow we cast whole or are we looking at all the ways in which we are not perfect? Let us gather to divine our miraculous bodies, our beautiful souls. If you have ever thought that your body is too fat or thin or your hearing aid is a flaw... If you have ever run into an inaccessible doorway or airplane seat or experienced disrespect for your service dog... Join us to re-member, to re-divine our sacred selves. Let us stand together on the side of love for every-body!
7PM Buchan 101/102 Wednesday Feb 15
midweek sharing and healing circle
If you have ever thought that your body is too fat or thin or your hearing aid is a flaw... If you have ever run into an inaccessible doorway or airplane seat or experienced disrespect for your service dog... If you have ever been treated as “less than” because of your complexion or gender... Come for a sharing and healing circle. Come to share your stories, or readings which have helped you to remember your sacred self. Some may be invited to share their offerings again at the worship service the following week. Come to remember that we are whole and sacred and have worth. Wednesday Feb. 8 7PM Buchan 202.
For more information, contact intern minister Amy Beltaine at abeltaine@firstunitarianportland.org
Wednesday Service Feb. 15
First Unitarian Church of Portland Oregon
Imbolc: Redivining the Body
--------------------------
No-one is immune from messages about your body. 5 years ago, American men spent: $4 billion on exercise equipment and health club memberships, $3 billion on grooming aids and fragrances, and $800 million on hair transplants. Americans spent over $59.7-billion on diet products last year. Hair straighteners and bleaching cream are used to change hair and skin color and texture. Ten years ago there were at least 43 million Americans living with disabilities that had some significant impact on one or more major life activities. Yet we rarely see them portrayed in movies and even have special ‘sheltered’ workplaces which keep people with disabilities segregated from the rest of society. Each one of you here today may have something that you feel is imperfect, or challenging about your body. There are many ways that we are taught to hate our bodies, all different, and all based on expectations that we conform to a norm that, was never, and will never be, normal. We are here to day to stand on the side of love for every body. No matter how thin, how fat, how able-bodied, no matter what color or gender or orientation. No matter how your brain functions. You are lovable and have inherent worth and dignity. We are here to ask our bodies for forgiveness for all the harsh things we have said and thought about them, and to accept the blessing of forgiveness and celebrate our precious and miraculous bodies, together. We are here to stand on the side of love for EVERY body.
Call to Worship “Let Us Worship” by Kenneth Patton (adapted)
Let us worship with our eyes and ears and fingertips
Let us love the world through heart and mind and body.
We feed our selves with the mystery and revelation in the stories of our brothers and sisters.
We seek to know the wistfulness of the very young and the very old, the wistfulness of people in all times of life.
Let us worship with the opening of all the windows of our beings, with the full outstretching of our spirits.
Life comes with singing, and laughter, with tears and confiding, with a rising wave too great to be held in the mind and heart and body, to those who have falen in love with life.
Let us worship, and let us learn to love.
Homily from January midweek service
As I read the news, study our history, and hear from victims of violence and oppression. As I struggle to retain health insurance and watch friends face death without health insurance. As I worry about my cousin serving in Iraq. I am Angry. I am afraid for my niece, what sort of planet am I leaving for her? And I feel the weight of my personal responsibility with every piece of plastic I toss or mile I drive. Grief, Anger, Fear. Not fun emotions. I could retreat, but I’ve learned that hiding is a lonely business, and it doesn’t work for long.
The work is vast. The problems are enormous. Often it feels that there just aren’t enough people pitching in.
Often it seems like the fabric of our world has been torn asunder and the weaving, mending, and stitching it will take to put that beautiful tapestry back together again is well beyond my puny skill and strength.
But.
From Alice Walker
"It has become a common feeling, as we have watched our heroes falling over the years, that our own small stone of activism, which might not seem to measure up to the rugged boulders of heroism that we have so admired, is a paltry offering toward building the edifice of hope. Many who believe this choose to withhold their offerings out of shame.
This is the tragedy of our world.
For we can do nothing substantial toward changing our course on the planet, a destructive one, without rousing ourselves, individual by individual, and bringing our small, imperfect stones to the pile.
Sometimes our stones seem mis-shapen, odd. Their color seems off. Presenting them, we perceive our own imperfect nakedness. But also, paradoxically, the wholeness, the rightness, of it. In the collective vulnerability of presence, we learn not to be afraid about the bright moments one can experience at the pile of stones. Of how even the smallest stone glistens with tears, yes, but also from the light of being seen, and loved for simply being there.”
Thank you Alice Walker for remembering that we are all imperfect and that we are all important.
If you try to do something constructive you will make a solution more likely. If you recruit companions to work toward a solution you will achieve even more and you may be amazed years later to hear how much you have empowered others.
And, at the very least, you will feel much less like you are a part of the problem.
Question-How do you drink a lake? Answer-One sip at a time.
Question - How do you drink a lake? Answer-With lots of help.
Question - How do you drink a lake? Answer-You don’t. You love it and take care of it and it will provide you with water when you need it.
Almost any problem can be viewed in bit-sized pieces, and almost every time it can be dealt with better that way.
We need each other. This is our great heritage of Unitarianism and Universalism. A faith that calls us to pray with our hands. To join hands with our brothers and sisters. To join hearts and to be faithful to the work that must be done.
We human beings are capable of great evil, but we are capable of equally great good. We can build community, build love, and heal the world by joining hearts in our homes, in this congregation, in our city, and in our country.
Question- How do you save the world? Answer - one act at a time.
Question- How do you save the world? Answer - with lots of help.
Question- how do you save the world? Answer - with love.
As Alice Walker said:
"Because whatever the consequences, people, standing side by side, have expressed who they really are, and that ultimately they believe in the love of the world and each other enough *to be that* - which is the foundation of activism."
Gandhi asks you to “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” How are you doing that?
The work is vast. The problems are enormous. Often it feels that there just aren’t enough people pitching in.
Often it seems like the fabric of our world has been torn asunder and the weaving, mending, and stitching it will take to put that beautiful tapestry back together again is well beyond my puny skill and strength.
But.
From Alice Walker
"It has become a common feeling, as we have watched our heroes falling over the years, that our own small stone of activism, which might not seem to measure up to the rugged boulders of heroism that we have so admired, is a paltry offering toward building the edifice of hope. Many who believe this choose to withhold their offerings out of shame.
This is the tragedy of our world.
For we can do nothing substantial toward changing our course on the planet, a destructive one, without rousing ourselves, individual by individual, and bringing our small, imperfect stones to the pile.
Sometimes our stones seem mis-shapen, odd. Their color seems off. Presenting them, we perceive our own imperfect nakedness. But also, paradoxically, the wholeness, the rightness, of it. In the collective vulnerability of presence, we learn not to be afraid about the bright moments one can experience at the pile of stones. Of how even the smallest stone glistens with tears, yes, but also from the light of being seen, and loved for simply being there.”
Thank you Alice Walker for remembering that we are all imperfect and that we are all important.
If you try to do something constructive you will make a solution more likely. If you recruit companions to work toward a solution you will achieve even more and you may be amazed years later to hear how much you have empowered others.
And, at the very least, you will feel much less like you are a part of the problem.
Question-How do you drink a lake? Answer-One sip at a time.
Question - How do you drink a lake? Answer-With lots of help.
Question - How do you drink a lake? Answer-You don’t. You love it and take care of it and it will provide you with water when you need it.
Almost any problem can be viewed in bit-sized pieces, and almost every time it can be dealt with better that way.
We need each other. This is our great heritage of Unitarianism and Universalism. A faith that calls us to pray with our hands. To join hands with our brothers and sisters. To join hearts and to be faithful to the work that must be done.
We human beings are capable of great evil, but we are capable of equally great good. We can build community, build love, and heal the world by joining hearts in our homes, in this congregation, in our city, and in our country.
Question- How do you save the world? Answer - one act at a time.
Question- How do you save the world? Answer - with lots of help.
Question- how do you save the world? Answer - with love.
As Alice Walker said:
"Because whatever the consequences, people, standing side by side, have expressed who they really are, and that ultimately they believe in the love of the world and each other enough *to be that* - which is the foundation of activism."
Gandhi asks you to “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” How are you doing that?
Sermon: Each New Day Your Heart May Pray
A Christmas Morning sermon
The Dance
The Dance
Sunday October 9, 2011, First Unitarian Church of Portland Oregon
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