With issues of stem cell research, teaching creationism in the schools and more, the intersection of science and religion seems like a very current topic. We thought it would be interesting to pair a sermon on the subject by our minister, Jane Rzepka, with an excerpt from a sermon by one of the great Unitarian ministers of modern history, A. Powell Davies, that was written over 50 years ago. The more things change....
BY A. POWELL DAVIES, GIVEN MARCH 16, 1947, WHEN HE WAS MINISTER OF ALL SOULS' CHURCH (UNITARIAN), WASHINGTON, DC
To those who are accustomed to the liberal viewpoint in religion, it may seem surprising that anyone should wish to discuss the rather elementary question as to whether science and religion can get together. In liberal churches, it has been taken for granted for almost a generation that nothing substantial has ever kept them apart. Even in more traditional churches, thousands of sermons have been preached, all of them undertaking to demonstrate that scientific knowledge and religious faith can be harmonious: that there is no necessary opposition between them.
My fear is not that religion and science are failing to get together, but that they are getting together—on a very dubious, shaky, and unsound basis.
If we wish to know what happens, in one degree or another, when unscientific institutions try to adopt science, the world has recently afforded us some instructive examples. Hitler's Germany was an unscientific institution, based upon tribal prejudice, and the myth of blood and soil. It adopted science, as we know, very energetically, but being itself unscientific, was forced to dominate and deflect it. And whenever a scientist discovered something that conflicted with Hitler's policies, he was told to renounce it and discover the opposite. If, for instance, he discovered that the racial elements in Nazi doctrine were unscientific—which, of course, they most emphatically were—he had to make room for a scientist (or should we say a pseudo-scientist?) who found reasons to confirm prevailing prejudices. All that I want to show by this example, for the moment, however, is what happens when an unscientific institution "gets together" with science.
If science in the United States ever became dominated by a reactionary government, or by a reactionary church, or by both together, the result could be just as unfortunate. Indeed, it could be disastrous. That is one of my reasons for advocating—as I have several times lately—that a scientific and civilian-minded regulation of science be set up while there is still time. Recent scientific discoveries have become so dangerous, and further discoveries are so certain to be more so, that it is inconceivable that public regulation can be long delayed. If it is not accomplished by scientists themselves, on a civilian basis of unconcealed and open regulation, it will surely be imposed tyrannically as soon as an emergency provides the opportunity.
It is true, just as many scientists are now saying, that humankind needs spiritual and moral reinforcement as never before. Or, in shorter words, it is true that we need religion. But unless the religion we find can really meet our need; unless it is free from false beliefs, from escapism, from trust in the miraculous and supernatural; unless it is a religion that fosters the utmost moral effort of which we are capable; unless it is an honest, clear-sighted, open-eyed religion, then we should be a good deal better off without it. So that scientists are only right in turning to religion, if they remain scientific in the process.
This kind of religion—liberal religion—also maintains the open mind to future discovery. It is not restricted by a creed. When new knowledge comes, it entertains it sincerely and takes the consequences of it. It follows advancing truth, and sifts out all wisdom, both new and old, trying always to know what experience vindicates. It is only with this kind of religion that science can get together and remain scientific. It is only this kind of religion that keeps the door open for the scientific future.
BY JANE RZEPKA, SENIOR MINISTER, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP
The problem with talking about religion and science is that there is no problem. We're Unitarian Universalists. We're pro-religion, and we're pro-science. That's been true for generations. Nothing's changed since 1947 when A. Powell Davies wrote, "To those who are accustomed to the liberal viewpoint in religion, it may seem surprising that anyone should wish to discuss the rather elementary question as to whether science and religion can get together. In liberal churches, it has been taken for granted for almost a generation that nothing substantial has ever kept them apart."
But the topic persists, even today. "Creation science." "Intelligent design." Sometimes it seems as though science and religion really do need to duke it out. Take the subject of smallpox, now eliminated from the planet. In the 1960's, science believed it could vaccinate against smallpox; indeed, it knew that it could eradicate smallpox. But religion believed in the local smallpox gods. In India it was the goddess Shitala; in Africa it was the god Shapona. Smallpox vaccinations would elicit the wrath of the smallpox gods, causing unbridled outbreaks; indeed, religion knew this to be true. And there you have the problem—a direct conflict between science and religion.
Historically, who loses in the conflict between traditional religion and science? Religion loses. Hardly anyone believes in the Greek gods anymore, or the Roman pantheon. Increasingly, across the globe populations abandon rain dances, exorcisms in the face of mental illness, sacrifices of animals to insure the harvest. Religion loses—slowly, surely.
Yet whenever science wins, Unitarian Universalism somehow wins as well. We are, in a word, an oddball religion—not the only one, but still unusual—a religion prone to the search for a truth that includes scientific truth, and not at all inclined toward adherence to a doctrine frozen in time. When science scores a point, so do we.
Science discovers new fossils of primitive humans? We think that's amazing. Possible organisms on Mars? Cool. Let's do more research. Evolution embraces the impact of random cataclysmic events. Wow!
You say you want to feel uplifted and science is too dull and rationalistic? Not at all. As the Oxford professor Richard Dawkins says, "Uplift is where science really comes into its own...this feeling of spine-shivering, breath-catching awe...this flooding of the chest with ecstatic wonder.... [It's] beyond the wildest dreams of saints and mystics.... The merest glance through a microscope at the brain of an ant or through a telescope at a long-ago galaxy of a billion worlds is enough to render poky and parochial the very psalms of praise."
Carl Sagan goes even further and claims, as so many of us might, that science is "a profound source of spirituality." "When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual."
The marriage of science and religion. No problem for us. We're in awe, we're respectful of the evidence, we're in touch with our ability to reason. It all works fine, but it only works fine until your baby dies, until you want to find a sense of meaning in your life, until you feel anxious or confused, until you feel so good about life that you just want to explode. When you want to have a wedding, what help is science? When you want to celebrate the season or feel at home in the universe, who needs empirical observation? When you want your children to learn to do the right thing, who cares what's verifiable? When you need a hug, or a metaphorical swift kick, or a little advice or reassurance; when you wonder what's valuable, really, and if your priorities are where you want them; when you want help living in a world that offers up some pretty tough days; or you want somebody to hear about the incredible feeling you had when you made it to the mountaintop; when you're looking for any of that, you're not going to turn to your high school chemistry book or the PBS science show on how lasers really work. You've got a religion to come to that's more than scientific; you've got a religion that's going to be there for you.
Religion has a big assignment. Comfort. Compassion. Fun. Nurturing the life of the spirit. Quiet. Inspiration. Motivation. Support for the children. Friendship.
And along with all of that, science and reason are wonderful things. No question about it. Add them to the wonderful mix of religion. Add them to the friendly faces you need, and the poetry, and the music. Bring your reason along with your love and your hope and your humility. Bring it along with your questions about right and wrong and how to live your life. Bring it on in with your sense of humor and your wonderment at the connections you feel. Bring it on in. Bring that reason in with your children and your altar decorations and your shyness and your hungers and your happiness. Bring it all on in.
Science and religion? No problem.
BY MAX COOTS, MINISTER EMERITUS, UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH OF CANTON, NEW YORK
I am finished with my garden for the year—almost. Oh, I'm still playing that game of hide-and-seek with the inevitable frost. Every night, when the temperature counts down to begin the game, I do run out to help the last tomatoes hide.
It was a good year, more or less—more for the snow peas than for the corn, less for the spinach, more for the rest. The turnips were immense, like spheres of opulence, though the radishes went more to maggots than to me. My potatoes remind me of that old country quip: "How'd your padadas do?" "So-so. I got some the size a beans, I got some the size a peas, and then I got a lotta little ones."
But it was a good year, more or less. Most everything that missed the drought, overcame the weeds, and survived the bugs got home safe enough. From time to time I can go to the freezer and the shelf of jars in my cellar and count my canned contentment. The harvest will be an attitude, not a time of year. And maybe I'll be wise enough to feel a sort of litany of gratitude:
For seeds—that, like memories and minds, keep in themselves the recollection of what they were and the power to become something more than they are…. For soil—that accumulation of lives piled up by death that gives new life…. For the justice of the earth—that gave me about as many weeds and wilt and scab and bugs as vegetables but, in the end, gave me enough for what I need…. For hands—those miracles on the ends of my arms that let me tend my vegetables and pull my weeds, and for mind enough to know the difference between the two…. For calluses—life's defense against that softness that makes survival difficult…. For the ability to work and the will to work and the work to do, and the time to do it in…. And, finally, for that sense of kinship to it all, that singleness, that unity that is the basis of faith….
For seeds—that, like memories and minds, keep in themselves the recollection of what they were and the power to become something more than they are….
For soil—that accumulation of lives piled up by death that gives new life….
For the justice of the earth—that gave me about as many weeds and wilt and scab and bugs as vegetables but, in the end, gave me enough for what I need….
For hands—those miracles on the ends of my arms that let me tend my vegetables and pull my weeds, and for mind enough to know the difference between the two….
For calluses—life's defense against that softness that makes survival difficult….
For the ability to work and the will to work and the work to do, and the time to do it in….
And, finally, for that sense of kinship to it all, that singleness, that unity that is the basis of faith….
If I do that, my litany will be something like a prayer.
BY HAROLD BABCOCK, CLF NOMINATING COMMITTEE
The Church of the Larger Fellowship Nominating Committee seeks nominations of CLF members to fill these positions on the Board of Directors for the year beginning June 2006:
Board members set CLF policy and approve the budget. Board Members meet in Boston twice annually, at General Assembly, and periodically by conference calls.
CLF also seeks to fill this position on the Nominating Committee:
The Nominating Committee nominates new board members and most meetings are conducted by telephone and email.
You may nominate yourself or another CLF member for any of these positions. Please contact the CLF office at clf@clfuu.org or 617-948-6166 with your nomination.
BY VICTORIA SAFFORD, MINISTER, WHITE BEAR UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH, SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA
One morning, on my way to a monthly professional meeting, I was companioned on the southbound highway by a man in a pickup truck who was brushing his teeth as he drove. He was in the fast lane, I was in the other one, and we both were traveling at about sixty-five miles an hour.
During "sharing time" with my colleagues, I confessed that this metaphor is an apt one for me in the fall: compared with the real (or imagined) lethargy of summer, September is the fast lane. Suddenly there are deadlines again, lots of them, and appointments and events. School starts, students leave for college, and for some reason every major road and artery downtown is being repaved at once. It's a time of year when, if you want your teeth brushed at all, you'd better do it while doing something else of equal import; it's a time of year when the sound of typing fills the background of telephone calls because the person on the other end is writing letters or answering mail while we talk.
I understand the impulse and I deeply sympathize (after all, I was finishing a muffin in my lap when my hygienic fellow traveler passed me on the highway), but I know that brushing while you drive is bad religion. Doing almost any two things at once, in the same moment, is bad religion. Rushing is bad religion.
And so, as the leaves turn and the apples ripen, I resolve again to notice, and bid you notice, too.
There are hawks to see now on the southbound side, and sumac flaming red; there are skunks, porcupines, the shadows of deer and the tender fog that hugs our mountains, just off the exit heading west.
I will brush my teeth some other time.
From Walking Toward Morning, published by Skinner House and available through the CLF library (www.clfuu.org/library).
Like many CLFers, Dr. Lloyd Ryan, a retired educator living on the northeast coast of the island of Newfoundland, off the east coast of Canada, is a Unitarian loner. He is one of a very few Unitarians within this vast region. However, he has made a significant contribution to a greater awareness of the Unitarians in that remote area. Dr. Ryan is a member of the Church of the Larger Fellowship and an independent member of the Canadian Unitarian Council. (Canadians, like most others outside the United States, identify as Unitarians, rather than Unitarian Universalists.)
The Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador recently ruled that denial of same-sex marriages in Newfoundland and Labrador was unconstitutional, leading to a decision by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador recognizing the legality and constitutionality of same-sex marriages. Almost immediately, the churches of the province declared that same-sex marriages would not take place in "their" churches, and clergy were threatened with defrocking and expulsion if they dared to defy the dictates of their church hierarchies. Moreover, the mayors of the principal towns in the central and northeast region of the island, all of them associated with more-or-less fundamentalist churches, and all having "marriage commissioner" status—appointments from the provincial government authorizing them to conduct civil marriages—all announced that they would not officiate at same-sex marriages and promptly resigned their commissions, with the exception of one mayor who is petitioning the government to permit him the right to discriminate as he sees fit.
Dr. Ryan was troubled that rights recognized by law were now being denied to most couples who wished civil marriage ceremonies. Ryan promptly announced that he had applied to the provincial government for appointment as a marriage commissioner. If he is so appointed, he is prepared to provide ceremonies to any couple with the requisite marriage license.
Dr. Ryan was interviewed on radio and TV about his decision to step forward, and stories about his decision were also carried in several of the province's newspapers. In every case, mention was made of the fact that Dr. Ryan is of the Unitarian faith. Dr. Ryan says that, aside from immediate family and the few Unitarians in the area, he has received almost no support for his decision and that the commentary directed to him has been almost completely negative.
However, Dr. Ryan says he is not intimidated. If and when he receives the marriage commissioner appointment, he will advertise his services and will officiate at marriage services without discrimination. When interviewed, Dr. Ryan is quoted as saying: "Marriage Commissioners, like civil servants and police, are servants of the law and have no public opinion of the law. In particular, as servants of the law, they do not have the right to discriminate…. The clergy have chosen to forget the rights of gays and lesbians; the mayors have also chosen to forget them. I choose not to forget them…. I have always believed that the responsibility to do something about a problem rests with the person who perceives the problem. One can't always hand a problem on to somebody else. I see a problem. I believe that I have an obligation to do something about it."
We are proud that Lloyd Ryan is one of us.
BY PAUL SPRECHER, MINISTERIAL INTERN, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP
Greetings! My name is Paul Sprecher. I'm very excited to be joining the Church of the Larger Fellowship in Boston as your intern for the coming year. I'm taking early retirement from my current job doing computer technology on Wall Street to start a new phase of my life as a minister. I'm particularly thrilled to be working with the Rev. Jane Rzepka and the staff of the CLF, because I believe we have real opportunities to spread our religion by combining old ways of communicating with each other with new ways that are becoming available all the time. This is a critical time for us to let the light of Unitarian Universalism shine and to promote the loving spirit of our faith.
It's a wonderful challenge for me to think about using what I've learned from my current career and combining it with what I've learned attending New York Theological Seminary for the last seven years. Prior to working on Wall Street, I taught U.S. History and English to 7th and 8th grade boys at a private school in New York. I'm really looking forward to getting back to the more nurturing relationships it's possible to have in teaching and in ministry.
My wife, Deedee, and I are excited to be starting off on a whole new phase of our lives together in a new city. Our son David will be a senior at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore next year, specializing in print making, and our son Sean will be close at hand (but living on his own), continuing his education at the Berklee School of Music in Boston as a jazz bass player.
I want to get acquainted with as many members of the CLF as possible, whether by print, e-mail, phone—or maybe even in person. I'll hope to reach you by online course or Quest, and I'd love to have you drop me a line at psprecher@uua.org. We may never actually see each other, but it's great to be with you!
BY LINDA BEREZ, FORMER MINISTERIAL INTERN, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP
It's hard to believe that I have completed my internship at the CLF and returned to Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago, Illinois. I will miss living in Boston and working with the dedicated and talented CLF staff, particularly your exceptional senior minister, Jane Rzepka.
I am grateful that the CLF board and staff commit each year to serving the Unitarian Universalist Association as a teaching congregation. Only about 50 congregations within the Unitarian Universalist Association are willing or able to support an intern each year. The opportunity this internship provides is invaluable to the student, the congregation and the wider association.
Throughout my internship I focused my attention on helping young adults connect to, or stay connected with, Unitarian Universalism. Many youth, when they graduate from high school and leave our Young Religious Unitarian Universalist (YRUU) groups, leave the church. For all too many of our young people, bridging—going from youth to young adult—means leaving their spiritual home. Some young adults contacted the CLF asking us to help them find a home they could call their own. I'm very pleased and proud to have been part of the process of bringing in the Church of the Younger Fellowship to fill that gap. Find out more about CYF in our accompanying sidebar, and don't forget to check out this new and exciting community at http://www.uucyf.org.
My time as CLF's intern may be over, but I know I will continue to feel connected as I watch the CYF—and the CLF as a whole—continue to grow and change. Thanks again for the great experience.
With great joy and celebration, we announced the formation of the Church of the Younger Fellowship at General Assembly in Fort Worth, Texas this past June.
The Church of the Younger Fellowship, CYF, was created to meet the spiritual and social needs of the Unitarian Universalist young adult (18-35 years old) movement. As an organization within the Church of the Larger Fellowship, the CYF will work with the CLF to build an interdependent community characterized by mutual support, respect, and action.
The CYF, an almost exclusively on-line community, invites young adult members all over the world to access interactive features, worship services and resources at http://www.uucyf.org. If you are not a young adult, you are still welcome to go to the Website to view some of the exciting aspects of this new community and find out how to donate to the future of the CLF and Unitarian Universalism. Check it out!
The end is near. At least that's the talk among end-time fundamentalists. What with the best-selling Left Behind series of books and talk of the rapture on the Internet, religious liberals, once again, are out of the loop.
If I were focused on popularity, I, too, might dwell more on endings. Maybe not the Big Ending, but the little ones: the end of summer, love relationships gone by, friendships ebbing away, paychecks stopped, or good health or home life declining to nothing. Ended. Surely we do live with endings and loss and certain death, and were I the minister at another kind of church, I might make "endings" my focus. But that's not our way as Unitarian Universalists.
We are known as optimists. We are the people who say, this life, being alive right now, has value. The beginnings are the thing, not the endings. Armageddon is not the crowning glory for us. Heaven's a little unreliable in our view, and death is no reward. Other religions can have their endings, their prophecies, their rapture, their Apocalypse; we're in it for the present tense. We're going to cast our vote for life, capital "L" life, right here and now.
So then. What sense does it make to title a Unitarian Universalist column "The End is Near"? It all hinges on this small reality: the word "end" has two meanings. The first, of course, is "the end, it's over, finis." But think about the second meaning, the word "end" as "meaning," or "goal," or "purpose," the way we use it in the phrase "the means to an end," or in the case of the Oxford English Dictionary's example, "to eat and sleep supinely is the end [the goal, the purpose] of human blessing." Or the famous quote by one of Unitarianism's founders, William Ellery Channing, who said, "The great end in religious instruction is not to stamp our minds upon the young, but to stir up their own." Now that's the kind of "end" Unitarian Universalists can relate to.
We choose our "great end." As Unitarian Universalists, we take the bull by the horns and create meaning for ourselves, and purpose. The psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, who died nearly a decade ago, made this very point his claim to fame. Trying to cope with life in the concentration camps, Frankl, as many of you remember, came to the conclusion that above all, one must create meaning in life, no matter how dismal the circumstances. His most famous book, Man's Search for Meaning, is still in print in 26 languages.
We each have the chance to create meaning for ourselves, in some small way, right now. The ends, we hope, are near. What do we want our lives to look like? What's important? Maybe we plant bulbs for beauty down the road. Maybe this is the season to re-establish regular ties with relatives or, on the other hand, to sever those connections that are destructive. It might be the time to take ballroom dancing lessons, or take on the local manifestations of the Religious Right, or help out with the textile drive. Maybe this is the month to create the wise and wacky website, or to take a quiet bath once a week without fail for a little re-grouping, or to finally join the Peace Corps. We create meaningful lives, or if not meaningful lives, then meaningful moments. We choose. That is our way as Unitarian Universalists. We draw the ends near.
But creating meaning, choosing the courses of our lives, is not the whole story of Unitarian Universalism. To construct a purposeful life, a liberal religious life, a life of great ends, encompasses more than a to-do list of meaningful acts and spiritual disciplines.
We have hearts, too. We have human spirits, and as religious people, we tend those spirits. Those ends are near, too. You could call it your matter of perspective, an attitude, an approach. Your way of being in the world, your way of the spirit.
Astonishment is one such way, explained by my friend and colleague Mark Belletini. He says:
Astonishment has been my daily portion since long before I began to write. I am always astonished. If I am happy, I am astonished that I am happy. If I am depressed, I am astonished that I am depressed. If I am suspended between bliss and dullness, I am astonished to be suspended. If I see a liquidambar tree in the fall, hear a mockingbird in the spring, make love on a summer night, cry in inconsolable grief in the midst of winter, I am astonished. Whence those tears, whence the love and the pleasure, the ears that hear, the thousand tiny cones in the eye? I am astonished to be here at all, here on this earth at the edge of the abyss.
Astonishment is Mark's way. Yours may be gratitude, or joy, or perplexity, or "what good luck!" or fondness. Not so much that we're always in that mode, but we hold an awareness of a great spiritual end in the general neighborhood.
I've always heard it said that "end is near" talk is for other peoples' religions. Not so fast. Unitarian Universalists have ends in sight too, purposeful ends, ends that are worthy and just, ends that lift us up. And, I hope, those ends are near.
BY LYNN UNGAR, MINISTER FOR LIFESPAN LEARNING, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP
September is a time of endings. In the northern hemisphere it brings the end of summer, the time of saying goodbye to playing outside on long, warm evenings. Dark comes earlier, the leaves on the trees start to turn color and fall, and the earth starts to hunker down for winter. September is also a time of beginnings. Most of us start the new school year in September, moving into a new grade, very likely meeting a new teacher and making some new friends.
September is getting down to work time, starting new projects time, time for getting serious about the things we've imagined doing. September also leads us into the fall season of letting go, shedding the things that don't work for us, whether they are outgrown clothes or outworn habits.
Coming into fall is the time of recognizing that summer's abundance is closing down, that the farmer's market will no longer be filled with plums and peaches and cherries and all the delicious gifts of the summer season. But fall is also the time of the second harvest, the time of bringing in grain and apples and pumpkins.
Beginning and ending, welcoming and saying goodbye, scarcity and abundance, September is a time of contradictions. Or a time of balance.
The autumn equinox, which happens on September 22nd this year, is the time in the fall when the day and night are of exactly the same length. It is the balance point between summer and winter.
This year, perhaps you and your family and/or a small group of fellow UUs or friends and neighbors would like to celebrate this balance point. There are, of course, as many ways to celebrate this holiday as any other—which is to say as many ways as there are people! But here are a few suggestions:
Go for a nature walk. Remember that nature exists in the city as well as the country—you can have a nature walk in your own neighborhood, or you could visit a park or nature preserve. Use this walk as a time of harvest. Look for brightly colored fallen leaves, for seedpods and acorns and pine cones and horse chestnuts and other autumn goodies. Bring along a basket that you can use for gathering up what you find. (Just make sure you're not in a park where taking anything out is against the rules.)
Once you get home with your goodies, make a fall harvest altar. A table under a tree outside makes an especially good base. You might want to put on your altar not only the leaves and seeds that you have gathered, but also fall fruits and vegetables like squash, apples, and root vegetables like turnips or beets. You can create your own cornucopia, or "horn of plenty," by decorating a sheet of construction paper (fall colors such as brown, red, gold or orange are good). Then roll the paper into a cone, staple it, and you're ready to fill it with the treasures of fall. You can make your altar as simple or as fancy as you like, but ask each person participating in your celebration to keep one thing with them that they'd like to put on the altar.
Gather together around your altar. Now ask each person to bring something special up to the table. Fall is a time of thanksgiving, so as each person places his or her gift on the altar, invite them to share something in their lives that they are thankful for. Make sure you thank the earth, which has given us the harvest. This would be a good time to sing "From you I receive, To you I give, Together we share, And by this we live," which is song #402 in our Unitarian Universalist hymnbook, Singing the Living Tradition.
If you are able to have your celebration outside, take a few minutes in silence to notice as much as you can of the natural world around you. Do you hear birds, or have they flown south for the winter? Does the air feel warm? hot? chilly? Can you smell the difference between fall and spring? Are the leaves still green or are they turning colors? If the leaves are green, is it the same green as spring or different? Breathe slowly and deeply. Did you know that the word "spirit" and the word "breath" are the same in some languages? As you breathe in and out you are moving the spirit of the world through your body. After a few minutes people may want to share what they have noticed about the world as it moves into fall.
The equinox is a time of balance. Celebrating the equinox is a good time to find your own balance. You can balance yourself on one leg, or balance an apple on your head or forehead. After you've had a chance to try physically balancing, think about how things are balanced in your life. Are you too busy or bored from not enough to do? Do you spend too much time by yourself or not have enough quiet time without people around? Are the things you spend your time on so hard you're always frustrated, or so easy that you're not learning anything? Have each person balance on one foot (or balance an apple) while they share what they'd like to balance in their life.
After everyone has shared, you can close with the words:
For root and grain and flower and seed, For earth, which grants us all we need, For rain and sun, for wind and snow, For times to wither or to grow, We offer up a thankful heart And use our hands to do our part.
Of course, the best way to finish off a celebration is with a feast! Some great seasonal foods are baked apples, roasted root vegetables or zucchini bread. For ideas and inspiration go to www.clfuu.org/kidtalk and see what recipes our KidTalk page has to offer.
BY KENDRA FORD, MINISTER, FIRST UNITARIAN SOCIETY OF EXETER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
run deep run clear fill any space to its own dimensions respond to the moon, to gravity change colors with the light hold your temperature longer than the surrounding air take the coast by storm go under ground bend light be the one thing people need, even when they're fasting eat boulders, quietly be a universal solvent
Last updated August 13, 2005
Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF), 25 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108-2823 Phone: (617) 948-6166 · Fax: (617) 523-4123 · E-mail: clf@clfuu.org
