Interfaith Services of the Lowcountry

Because so many present day seekers have come from other, more conservative and conventional churches when they were young, many of us have been exposed to the season of Lent as having a historical and theological significance. In our Western religious culture, one cannot escape at least a superficial acquaintance with its meaning and purpose.
Lent is a time often described as a time for increased piety, extra prayer and worship services, and self sacrifice. Historically, Christians and particularly those Catholics, Episcopalians and Lutherans who were required to abstain from certain practices, habits, or activities and most often were instructed to fast or abstain from eating certain foods.
Now, the ideal or best practices associated with the Lenten season can be summarized as attitudes that encouraged retreat from the world’s fast pace and demands. Then to take that freed up time, and focus it on becoming more contemplative, looking at those areas of your life that might need improvement or reform, and to focus of new insights that can help to release you from habits and fears. The noble ideal behind the food restrictions was to help us to break our attachments, addictions, and pleasures- any tie we had to external material rewards and egotistical routines. The goal of these Lenten disciplines was to make the Christian more properly ascetic: that is, more able to give up their problems, in order to receive or claim more freedom, becoming more willing to release ego preoccupations and spend time in discerning their next steps and what sources of inspiration and guidance were available to them in their lives.
Classically, it is from our souls being more disciplined or aligned with God that we are freed to practice more loving self acceptance and more intelligent self control. …
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Now, among those of you who were made to observe Lent when you were growing up, did anyone ever satisfactorily explain it to you in that way? Is there any lasting value in Lenten observance for you now, as U-U’s? I will venture my own interpretation, and I will offer to try to provide you with a viable alternative.
First, a little religious background for all of you who were ever curious about what your Catholic and other high school friends were going through… Originally, Lent was a brief and intense time that prepared a person for Baptism. It was that soul-searching time before someone declared themselves a Christian in the early, and often persecuted Church. Considered to be a time for deep reflection and profound decision-making, it was a momentous step in a person’s life. This time of Lent was originally only 40 hours long, to reflect the time period between Good Friday and Easter morning. However, then it was a time of complete fasting, and a rigorous mental discipline.
This practice went through many historical changes. The principal one happening during the Middle Ages, when the time period for Lent was increased or prolonged to reflect a correspondence to Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness. This extended time period was accompanied by a selected fast from meat and dairy products for all healthy people between the ages of 12 to 60; the only exceptions being nursing mothers. Unfortunately, or shall I say, predictably, this eclesial rule of a selected fast was dolefully interpreted as being a time for self-sacrifice and deprivation, rather than as a time associated with grateful remembrance and devotion.
The attitude of self deprivation, especially when enforced by a particularly dogmatic clergy and inflexible church structure has yielded some interesting and contradictory results. The most appealing begin the creation of of many preLenten revels, all-out parties, and celebrations… The most famous of these are French “Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras” or the Portuguese Rio Carnivale. … For you see, the words carnivore and carnival relate to the same kind of fleshly cravings and indulgences! Therefore, Mardi Gras and Carnavales were the reluctantly condoned revels or church-related orgies just before the days and weeks of required self-sacrifice. (Remember, the restriction of one’s diet is a common religious occurrence; for example, there are Kosher food laws, Islamic fasts during the month of Ramaden. Tragically, part of our misunderstanding of food practices has contributed sociological and psychologically in the development of dietary imbalances and psychological illnesses- from our society’s chronic pre-occupation over weight to the tragedies of bulimia and anorexia that are now affecting 20% of all young women (1 in 5) and is currently growing in older women (and in some men) being seen in increasing amounts in women of mid life Or ages 35-55…

I can remember meatless Wednesdays and Fridays all through my Catholic youth. At that time, I considered it quite a hardship, and its rationale was a perplexing, obtuse mystery. ( It was much later, when reading anecdotes in church history that I discovered that the Pope, in the 1800′s, instituted the eat fish laws in order to help out the Italian fishing industry!
These eating restrictions were was told to me as something we all have to do! I really did not like the idea at all, and I wasn’t a member of the Big Mac/Whopper generation of today! After all, my traditional fare of lentil beans, cornmeal, and some fish, no matter how nutritious, got a little boring, and even I could get tired of pasta! (When I was 10, My Father & Mother went off to an FBI school, so my Aunt Frances had to care for me feed me. Every Wednesday and Friday night she said that I could have my choice: I can have pasta and beans or beans and pasta! Story about the Statues around her home; St. Anthony; ; dialogues; turning him around! Also I have included a more serious and somber reflection on Ash Wednesday and Lent on my webpage)
So you see, the idea of Lent was related to me as a time to be endured, not understood. An almost morose pallor engulfed my family during the week. We all looked forward to the big Sunday meal, our weekly indulgence.
That was a big feast with all the chicken, sausage, and meatballs you could stuff in! Some quality religious observance that was!
One time, my family held a ravioli eating contest… I came in second, or first in the junior division, having eaten 48 raviolis (big squares!) Of course, there was a lot of Pepto Bismal in my future, as I could not eat another thing for the next two days!
When I look back on the prevalent family attitude, it was far from holy or reverent. Now, I find that it is all too ironic,that as an adult, I have sharply reduced my eating of any meat without any overtones of religious persuasion … but that would involve another sermon on world hunger, ecology, and proper nutrition…
Needless to say, much of the original intent, the symbolic and spiritually based reasoning behind Lent was never adequately explained, and that has resulted in generations of people playing out empty, self-defeating rituals. So I have had to ask myself, if there is any lasting value in Lenten remembrance for us today, if so, what might it be?

As I see it, the lasting principle found in a sincere Lenten observance is the time when each of us can reflect on having more personal motives and consequences, and the human need to learn greater objectivity and self control. Stripped of its pious baggage, Lent can become a time, for setting new priorities for one’s life, and for cultivating purposeful actions that free us from any negativity, and that assist us in accomplishing our higher goals.
Many of us who shared a similar dutiful childhood, and as a consequence, later, as adults, we have become religious liberals because we balk at the imposition of sanctions and limits, especially when enforced by some restrictive irrational and unexplainable moral code. However, when these disciplines are of your own devising, we can use them to focus our willpower and to develop greater inner peace and self-control. Rather than just going the way of all of our inner cravings, Lent can be a time to remedy or reduce these faulty inclinations all of us have, and we can apply ourselves to the task of greater self understanding.

I believe that every one of us has some demon or habit or character trait that is unflattering, that has to be faced and overcome. Therefore, because it is human and universal, there can be no judgment nor room for arrogance; no need for any lasting remorse or endless regret. Instead, Lent can be that personally bestowed gift of time and focus we give to ourselves to help us clarify and release the emotional or personal struggles any of us, and all of us might have.
In truth, we must, in some measure, agree or be willing to accept the consequences of some behavior in order to continue it. Even if that conduct is self-defeating, risky or unhealthy, we have to agree to it or else it would soon disappear. In that way, Lent is a time to reacquaint yourself with your own limits and to energize your own potentials and to begin positive steps towards growth, freedom, and greater awareness.
And yes, sometimes what we are faced with are issues and problems in our lives that are unsettling, awkward, and often damn difficult! Yet, that self admission is no grounds for being severe, hateful, or unkind toward yourself or any one else. These steps toward greater responsibility and freedom for one’s mind, body and spirit, for one’s health, relationships, and ideals, bringing us to of humility and to the advocacy of compassion. As Jesus put it, “Only those who are without sin can cast stones.”

As I see it, to live, is to be involved in a continual, evolutionary and ethical process, for each person has to deal honestly with their personal banes and come to know and be grateful for their individual blessings. Each of us has to understand how, or in what ways they might need to explore, change, or transform their lives.
I would propose two healthful measures that have been useful to me. They come from two diverse sources: from training in Gestalt therapy, and from training in Buddhist philosophy. The Gestalt or psychological format asks us to appraise our behavior patterns without censure. It simply states that we are to evaluate our feelings and actions by whether they are nourishing or toxic to us.
When behavior is nourishing, it give us dignity, awareness, understanding and self-respect. When because is toxic, then it is harmful to our self-esteem, our health, our families, to our well-being. I find that to be a simple and effective measure or standard to apply for greater self-awareness that is free of punitive conclusions and self righteous moral judgments.
The second guideline I would recommend is from Buddhist teachings. It emphasizes justice and sobriety, balance and the avoidance of excess; be it dietary, financial, relational, mental or physical. It states that we are to act without any feelings of self-denial nor act in ways that are self-indulgent. We are simply, to think ethically, act soberly, and speak broadmindedly. It emphasizes justice over judgment, equity over imbalance, moderation in thought, feeling and behavior. In this way, our tendencies and habits, problems and pressures, do not or will not control or victimize us. It can be summarized as this: That it our shared human need to establish inner personal guidelines so that we can overcome our actions that can lead to addiction- which is simply defined as the human tendency to try to get too much of what we don’t truly do not need.
This Lenten season, try to take some time each day to reflect on various virtues and principles you would like to see manifest in your lives. Then look at your lifestyle, your choices, your patterns for living and then try to notice if there is anything that could use some improvement, some further balance, some greater empathy and understanding.
Be willing to examine your goals- decide for a more positive, creative, and inspired approach to living. Maybe you can begin to keep a dream log, start a journal, or an exercise program, attend a class, or be aware of how your sacred intentions or prayers can bring new insights and empowerment to you with persistent progress.
And remember to begin soon, because according to the consensus of opinion in psychological circles, it takes at least three weeks to break a negative habit, establish new learning, or develop a lasting initiative that can span this Lenten season.

Lent can become a holy time- a gift your give to yourself as a time when you can discover who and what you are, and with inner guidance and grace, all that you can truly be.
Amen, So Be it!

Towards A New View of Lent:
Giving up what… to get… What?
Chalice Lighting:
There is a tale for Lent that comes from a far-off place… One day, the Devil decided to close up shop in a certain part of the world, and so he decided to hold a fire sale and an attitude auction. Some evil people were pleased to get his tools like fear, ignorance and prejudice and be able to play his infernal games at half price…
But one person seeking to be more spiritual and caring, wandered into the shop. Intensely curious, he looked around at all the tricks of deception and the tools of malice, until he spotted the quality on the highest shelf that had the highest price. Boldly, he asked the devil what that quality was, and why was it so expensive. The devil replied, “That is discouragement. Why is it so expensive? That’s simple. It’s my favorite. With the tool of discouragement, I can pry into any person or any group and cause all kinds of havoc and damage.”

Let us light the chalice this morning for hope, for compassion, for the courage to look deeply at ourselves. By not being discouraged by life’s challenges, we uncover the diamonds among the dust, to find new insights and opportunities, and learn how best to accept ourselves as being love-worthy, just, and kind.

Invocation/Opening Words:
Our religious world seems to governed by two kinds of people with two different attitudes; there are those who love only themselves, and then have a disdain for God or goodness, and there are those who love God or goodness, but depreciate themselves. In truth, we can only truly love and appreciate ourselves as we love and as we appreciate God or what is good. St. Augustine -adapted

Children’s presentation: Believe it, Achieve it!
How many of you know about Star Wars?
Here is a lesson from Luke Skywalker to each of you… In the Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back, Luke flies his X-wing star-fighter to a swampy planet on a personal quest. He landed safely, but his jet got stuck in the swamp and soon it started to sink. There he seeks out a Jedi master named Yoda to teach him all the secrets in becoming a Jedi warrior. Luke wants to free the galaxy from the oppression of the evil tyrant, Darth Vader.
Yoda reluctantly agreed to begin to train Luke and started by teaching him how to lift small rocks with his mind, just by thinking about them. Then, one day, Yoda instructed Luke to lift his space jet out of the swamp, where it had sunk. Luke complained that lifting rocks is one thing, but lifting his star-fighter is quite another matter! But Yoda insisted. Luke makes a quick valiant attempt, but fails in his attempt.
Yoda then focuses his mind, and lifts the star-fighter up out of the swamp with ease! Luke, being discouraged, exclaimed, ” How did you do that?” I don’t believe it!”
Yoda replied, “exactly. That’s why you couldn’t lift it yourself. You didn’t believe that you could.”

A Personal Lenten Remembrance : Ash Wednesday 1959
It was a damp, dreary and cold afternoon as I recall. Like many others, I knew we were dutifully on our way to church. It was a gray, late February day that was to begin another long Lenten season. It was Ash Wednesday, a somber day. We, the fearful and the faithful, assembled in the church, sitting in the foreboding shadows. Together, one could almost hear a dull, aching sigh come from our collective hearts. It was Lent; the time for inward sadness, a time when our spirits could become sullen and cold.
As I watched the others awaiting their turn to receive their mortal mark, I could feel the awkward tension, a deep desire among the people not to be there, yet there was this equally strong compulsion, a feeling of being riveted to this necessity and it s tradition.
Soon it was my family’s turn to kneel before the priest. Slowly, ever so reluctantly, each shuffled obediently up to the altar rail. People, feeling ever so small, wearing the lines of remorse and regret across their faces, knelt with apprehension. I began to hear the ominous words pronounced over each person as their foreheads were blackened with the charred ash of last year’s palms, to seal our human fate.

“Thou are dust,” The crucifix, the terse look on the priest’s face, the smell of ash in the damp chilly air, assaulted my senses and make my mind spin with questions. What was I to do? My indecision decided for me- an insistent nudge and I was before the priest.
Our eyes lock briefly in a severe stare. He stood over me and pronounced those awful words that hurt my ears. With a hard, cold imprint, he left a black smudge on my forehead- as a symbolic death mark within this time of self scrutiny and mourning. This was our mark of Cain, the imprint of our fleshly curse, all from a pessimistic church doctrine of control that enforced the belief that life must achieve death to allow the soul to be released from this all too weary world.

For a long while in my life, and before I sought to redeem and resolve those life experiences into the wisdom that would free me, because each Lenten season, I could easily recall those times of early anguish and negative emotional intensity. As I have worked to release myself in adulthood and provide others with new rituals that affirm positive meanings, I can begin to gain insight and value from the 40 days known as Lent. I am glad to be freed from any mandatory observances, and can welcome its arrival more each year as a time for thoughtful reflection, and a precious time when I could add to and deepen my self-understanding, personal growth and emotional healing.
Lent, this year, ends the wintry days of my soul. It begins to speak to me of new hopes, not far off. It is a time for preparing new beginnings, as surely as the Spring will soon emerge with its greening energy around me.
Yes, it is the time of Lent. …
May I continue to learn, ripen, deepen and discover more from it each year. May our collective hearts no longer groan, but become renewed through the message of becoming more soulful, compassionate and loving toward ourselves and others. Through reflection on our lives, Lent will help to make us ready for the next days of Spring, and living more fully in an increasing light.

Benediction/Closing Words:
Self-control- against which there is no law; for through having empathy and understanding of our needs and desires, and through a more calm, objective and invincible caring for ourselves and others, that which is best in us, that is truly good for us, can be attained and realized.
Meditations on being a Parish Priest

Being A Drum Major

“Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major. Say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. Say that I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things in life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that’s all I want to say. If I can help somebody as I pass along, if I can cheer somebody with a word or song, if I can show somebody he is traveling wrong, then my living will not be in vain.”

Triple Evils

The Triple Evils of POVERTY, RACISM and WAR are forms of violence that exist in a vicious cycle. They are interrelated, all-inclusive, and stand as barriers to our living in the Beloved Community. When we work to remedy one evil, we affect all evils. The issues change in accordance with the political and social climate of our nation and world. Some contemporary manifestations are in italics below.

POVERTY – materialism, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, malnutrition, illiteracy, infant mortality, slums…

“There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we now have the resources to get rid of it. The time has come for an all-out world war against poverty … The well off and the secure have too often become indifferent and oblivious to the poverty and deprivation in their midst. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for ‘the least of these.” *

RACISM – prejudice, apartheid, anti-Semitism, sexism, colonialism, homophobia, ageism, discrimination against differently abled, stereotypes…

“Racism is a philosophy based on a contempt for life. It is the arrogant assertion that one race is the center of value and object of devotion, before which other races must kneel in submission. It is the absurd dogma that one race is responsible for all the progress of history and alone can assure the progress of the future. Racism is total estrangement. It separates not only bodies, but minds and spirits. Inevitably it descends to inflicting spiritual and physical homicide upon the out-group.” *

WAR – militarism, imperialism, domestic violence, rape, terrorism, media violence, drugs, child abuse…

A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war- ‘This way of settling differences is not just.’ This way of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” *

To work against the Triple Evils, you need to: develop a nonviolent frame of mind as described in the “Six Principles of Nonviolence”; and use the Kingian model for social action outlined in the “Six Steps for Nonviolent Social Change.”

Source: “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boston: Beacon Press, 1967.

In a column of reflection on the American people and their politcal culture, journalist and political author, Thurston Clarke made this observation about our society… He said:

The last politican to risk a discourging word about our thin-skinned culture, about our behavior and our character as a nation was Robert F. Kennedy, forty years ago…
Writing in the New York Times ,condemning the Vietnam War he said this: ” Once we thought, with Jefferson, that we were the “best hope” for all mankind. But now we seem to have become something else.”
In California, he echoed these words when he said:
America had once stood for decency and for justice, for confidence and hope, but now we have become something else. Kennedy continued his cultural critique with this observation: There is a failing of national generousity and compassion, there is an unwillingness to sacrifice.”

Barak Obama (2008) picked up this theme of political and social introspection when he observed this:
” part of the reason (for our economic crisis) occurred because we have been living through an era of profound irresponsibility. We all bear some responsibility for where we are now, as a country… And we bear our shared responsibilites for where we want to be in the future…

Homily/Reflection: Leadership and the Capacity for Hope 2009-

When addressing the young people of South Africa in 1966, Robert F. Kennedy made this observation about leadership and hope. It was the same passge that Ted Kennedy used at his funeral… It goes like this:

Some believe that there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the array of the world’s ills. Yet many of the world’s great movements of thought and action have flowed from the work of a single person…

These individuals moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each person can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.

It is from numerous diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he or she sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.

… Those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mighiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

In part, one of the foundational reasons for a church community to exist is to be an active witness for justice; to be a compassionate alternative to inequality ; to be a voice proclaiming liberty and dignity, as birthrights; and to be a vigilant and insistent beacon of hope in an otherwise ethically dim, grimy, and often callous world.

As Time reporter Nancy Gibbs recently wrote about Obama, leadership, and the promising shift in political consciousness:

“Some princes are born in palaces. Some are born in mangers. But a few are born in the imagination, out of scraps of history and hope…..

We get the leaders we deserve. And if we lift them up and then cut them off, refuse to follow unless they are taking us to Disneyland, then no President, however eloquent, however historic his mandate or piercing his sense of what needs to be done, can take us where we refuse to go.

Scanning through all the media headlines, searching through various
political pundits, the only reality we can surmise is that he will give our nation a new, optimistic, and uplifitng new sense of direction… How do I know? I will take it from the President elect himself, when on the campaign trail in NH, last summer:
” We have been told that we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. They will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks to come. We been asked to pause for a reality check; we’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about having hope.”

There is nothing false about having hope! There is nothing weak about having a strong vision, and there is nothing timid about the necessity to lead by live up to one’s own values or sense of right…

Dr. King was far less concilliatory, far more strident, more insistent what his example does cogently life up for us is the dynamism of leadership, and the source and the force that authenticity gives to being a leader…

Reflection: MLK and The Qualities of Leadership

When a reporter once asked Dr. King about when he will stop in his war protests, or when he would stop standin gup for the poor, his response was this:

Sir, I am sorry that you do not know me. I am not a consensus leader. I do not determine what is right and what is wrong by looking at the budget… Or taking a Gallop poll.. Ultimately, a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus…

There comes a time when we must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but we must do it because conscience tells us it is right. …”

A Reflection of Your Image

I am your church, your congregation, your community , your family… Make of me what you will; I shall reflect you as clearly as a mirror. If outwardly, my appearance is pleasing and inviting, it is because you have made me so. If within my spiritual atmosphere is kindly, yet earnest; reverent, yet friendly; worshipful, yet sympathetic; it is but the manifestation of the spirit, outlook, and attituides of those whom belong to me.

But if you should, by chance, find me a bit cold, or dull, I beg of you not to condemn me, for I imitate the kind of life I receive from you. Of this you may be assured, I will respond instantly to your every wish that is practically and humanly expressed, for I reflect the image of your own soul. Make of me what you will.

On Life’s Purpose by Henry David Thoreau

I wish to begin this [year] well; to do something in it that is worthy of it and me; to transcend my daily routine; to have my immortality now; in the quality of my daily life. May I dare as I have never done. May I attain to a youth never attained. I am eager to report the glory of the universe; may I be worthy of it, for it is [only] reasonable that we should be more worthy [of life] at the end of each year, than at its beginning.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

[Nobody ever finds a life worth living. One has to make it worth living. All the people to whom life has been abundantly worth living have made it so by [making] an interior, creative, and spiritual contribution of their own back to life and to others.
Is life worth living? Most people seem to think that is a question about the Cosmos, or about God. No, my friends, that is a question about the inside attitude of you and me.]

It’s Time

It’s time that we understand our role as stewards of this planet,
That we respect and honor the delicate balance of our world

It’s time that we realize, “We are all one people”,
That separateness is an illusion and that, in truth, we are all connected.

It’s time that we see past the veil of illusion called separateness,
and understand just how connected we really are,

That we are all made from the same substance of the universe,
and by harming another we are only harming ourselves.

It’s time that we see past the color of one’s skin or the name of one’s God,
That we realize we are merely traveling parallel paths leading up the same mountain.

It’s time that we stop searching for happiness outside ourselves,
That we turn our attention inward and tune into the calm peace of our soul.

It’s time that we take responsibility for making the world a better place,
That we strengthen the foundation of our communities by being of good character.

It’s time that we ask, “how can I make a difference?”,
That we leave this world in a little better shape than when we arrived

It’s time that we listen to each other with empathy and compassion,
That we overcome the fear in our mind so that we can experience the love in our heart.

It’s time that we get past our ego and discover our innate spiritual essence,
That we realize our selfish desires and serve humankind unconditionally, with love.

It’s time that we “Love all, serve all”,
That we be at peace.

ITS TIME

Some Guidelines for Making New year Resolutions:

The basic ground rules for making effective and hope-filled resolutions is to avoid the extremes- to avoid making them too easy or too difficult. The first extreme asks too little or almost nothing more from us than going through the motions and being willing to receive a small satisfaction from their accomplishments. The other extreme of difficulty programs in failure, encourages disappointment, or excuse-making when most of us are in need of affirmation, more self knowledge, and a greater ability to empathize with what we most need to do for ourselves and our world. The best approach to resolution making is to choose ones that make us stretch, but that will not break us, resolutions that assist our growth and learning without intimidation or being too easy.
Some years, the tasks and resolutions we choose have a different theme or intensity to them. As a part of change, growth, and the cycles of our human experience, some years our resolutions will be intensely personal. Other times in our lives, our resolutions will be more community based or motivated by larger aims and goals. Some years will focus on personal behavior, relational shifts and changes, or career objectives. However you choose them or will choose to express them to yourself and to others, there can become an indication of what will be happening in your life this year.

As an exercise in fulfilling our hopes and dreams, be sure to choose no more than 3 things you wish to focus on in the coming months… Be sure to make your goals workable, and with sincere effort, attainable so that you can avoid unnecessary discouragement or failure…

Enlist the support of role models and trusted advisors… While receiving support and guidance from your family and friends, that choice is not without its hazards! In some of the latest studies, as just one example, having fat friends or chubby family members, helps you to gain weight! Unless you choose a “buddy” system, where both family members or friends commit equally to the goals, it could derail your best personal plans!

Choose people you truly admire, or people whose accomplishments are in the area you are trying to achieve, let them inspire you! Consult experts in the designated area, be they organizational people who help you with clutter or work routines, or nutritionists, or family therapists, or clergy and other spiritual guides… The best guidelines is this: If they have been able to do it for themselves, they will be better coaches or guides than if they only have the right words…

Lastly, no matter how you decide on change, growth, awareness, etc., in the final appraisal or result, its up to you- your perceptions, discipline, understanding, strength, etc…… Please remember, change or improvement is no an easy journey… there are often some side steps or fall backs along the way…. Don’t quit! rest and relax… take some time off if you need to, but stay with your vision of yourself, and the goals your heart wishes to attain! Blessings!

Readings And Reflections for Christmas Eve

Opening Words/Chalice Lighting/Advent Wreath Candles

As this sacred night approaches, we are warmed by the kindling of our Community chalice… Where a gathering of strangers can become transformed into the company of friends… Where seekers can unite, despite any differences they might hold, and become an inclusive community, that this is a place where a congregation of caring illuminates the personal path and willingly shares the found light with one another.

We light the Advent candles that form a star ….
First we light the candle of a bright faith, a sustaining courage to face questions honestly, and that preservers during adversity- a faith for seekers who are willing to grow beyond safe expectations…
Second, we light the candle of peace… Knowing full well that our world contains only smatterings of peace, shards of justice, and so we gather to affirm the value of peace in our world, and know that it begins this evening, with greater peace in our own hearts, and can radiate outward to all others…
Third, we light the candle of love…. The great remedy to loneliness, the antidote to fear, and that love is our affirmation that caring for one another as offering and being the greatest of gifts we share among us…
Fourth, the candle of hope, knowing that we can see and seek out a better tomorrow, that a hopeful church is a healing place, that hope gives each of us inspiration for this night, and every new day….
Lastly, we light the center candle of the beloved community… That the church is an ideal greater than oneself; that the journey together is more important than the personal odyssey alone, and that having a sense of belonging and acceptance is a most precious gift that we can actively nurture and support Its glowing presence among us. … Welcome, to our Christmas Eve Service!
Readings & Reflections:

1) Angels We Can Hear
One of the most charming and enduring images of Christmas is that of angels… most agree that they add to the “magic” of the season.
When the Unitarian minister, Edward Hamilton Sears first wrote “It came Upon A Midnight Clear,” just what do you suppose he felt when he penned those words, To hear the angels sing!”
We receive one of the best definitions of angels from the father of Universalism, Origen of Alexandria, some 1600 years ago. He stated that angels were “those servants and messengers of God’s grace, given to all humanity, for the purpose of our salvation.”
In more inclusive religious terms, we can restate this definition by saying that angels are those inspired thoughts, feelings, and experiences that draw us closer to love; that assist us in transforming the ordinary into the sacred, and angels are those thoughts, feelings, and experiences that create greater opportunities for inspiration, wisdom, awareness, and inner peace.
The angels of the Christmas story point us towards revelation and fulfillment. Their message to us recognizes the creative and spiritual potential in every child, in each and every one of us. Now it is true that the glorious message they delivered that night was met with wonder, awe, surprise and fear… Quite understandably! Yet, every time we read or listen to this timeless story, on this holy night, we can lay aside those fears, and allow ourselves to become enchanted by the fact that this story, and the angels message is for each of us, each day, and every night… The angels we have heard on high remind us perpetually that the gifts of life and love, of potential and possibilities are freely given to us all, and when taken into our hearts, will serve as agents of inspiration, and servants of truth, hope, and promise in us all. PEL

2) The Gifts We Give
Howard Thurman was one of the leading African-American ministers of the last century. As mystic and prophet, to the People’s Church in San Francisco, his messages are among the most timely and enduring for us…. He wrote:

I place my gifts on my altar this Christmas:
Gifts that are mine, as the years are mine.

The quiet hopes that flood the earnest cargo of my dreams
The best of all good things for those I love.

A fresh new trust for all whose faith is dim.
The love of life, a most precious gift in reach of us all:
Seeing in the acts of each day, the seeds of tomorrow.

Finding in the struggle, the strength for renewal,
Seeking in each person, the face of kinship.

I place these gifts on my altar this Christmas
Gifts that are mine, as the years are mine….

Amidst all of its whirl and activity, may this Christmas bring you To your heart’s altar; there to receive a sustaining grace; the gifts of renewal and healing, the gift of stillness, and peace …
Before you set out again to follow your star….

3) A Special Starlight
The Unitarian poet and biographer, Carl Sandburg, gave us this reflection on the meaning of starlight, on this night….

The Creator of night and of birth was also the Maker of the stars.
Shall we look now at the stars in winter, and call them sweeter friends, because of the story of a mother and a child is never told with the stars being left out?
It is a Holy Night now descending, when a child issues out of the darkness, and emerges into the unknown, into starlight?

Down the winter evening sky, when a woman hovers between two great doorways, between entry and exit, between pain and laughter, joy and weeping, do those silver white lines that form on face and heart, come from those holy stars? …

Shall all the wanderers over all the earth, all the homeless ones, all against whom, the doors are shut and words are spoken- Shall these people find the earth less strange tonight?

Shall they hear the news, a whisper on the night wind? ” A child is born…. The meek shall inherit the earth” … .

Shall this quiet dome of stars high over, make signs, and offer a friendly language among the nations? Shall nations gather with no clenched fists at all, and look into one another’s faces , and see eye to eye, and find ever new testaments of [humanity] as sojourners who toil toward new understanding?

Shall there be more believers, and more believers of sunset and moonrise, of noon set and dawn, of wheeling galaxies of stars, wheels within wheels of revelation?

Shall people’s tumult, grandeur, fanfare, panoply, prepared loud noises now stand equal to the quiet heart, gentle thoughts, and vast dreams of humankind’s ability to conquer the earth by first conquering themselves?

Is there time, time for ancient genius to be set in comparison with modern generations? Is there time for stripping the adult wrappings of life
Down to simple, profound, childlike questions?

On a Holy Night we may say: The Creator of the night and of birth, is also the Maker of the stars.

4) A Christmas Prayer

Our Father/Mother God, that which is the source of all good, all gifts, and all graces in our lives; On this Holy Night, may we, at least for a moment, turn aside from this unquiet world, and seek a restful affirmation for our spirits…
Tonight, we find ourselves separated from others, living in a sorely divided country, where both the wages of war and the cost of our worldly cares hold us captive, and we are held to its selfish ambitions and outcomes…
In this sacred darkness, we bring our wounds to be healed, our hopes to be renewed, and through the timeless message of Christmas, we bring our desire to live more inspired, meaningful and peaceful lives;
This is a night of noble and gracious remembrance, we can recall all that is good , all that is holy in our lives. It is a night of renewal, of hope and
For the recognition of the promise of lives well lived, and its outcomes…
We gather here and together, to restore our hopes, and to renew our joy…. On this night of nights, we can begin to mend our broken parts, and live with a more trusting spirit and a more grateful heart for all the blessings we have received, and will receive by first caring about others…

With faith in one another, with hope for the infinite possibilities that lie within and among us, we come together this night, knowing full well
That we cry, we laugh, we love as one. That our hope for our world is not separate from our hopes for ourselves, and for one another, that peace begins with each of us, and that the love and caring for one another and our world, that love heals our doubts and calms our fears, is being born within and among us…. AMen…So Be It

Homily: The Bethlehem Within
…The town of Bethlehem, during Biblical times, was a meager place- somewhat desolate and forlorn, more of a decrepit village, a modest and almost barren place for one’s home address. By all accounts, it seemed to be a place that lacked luster, or the promise of any new life. Yet, it is essential to our human understanding of life and its mysteries, that this unassuming spot would be a highly unlikely place for a Jewish Messiah to be born!

Yet, prophecy and divine wisdom have often confounded common sense. The gracious is often hidden in the most ordinary of places. You see, faith, at its core, is a fearless leap into the unknown, into mystery, and across the chasm of doubt. Such faith impels us to jump, in search of inner answers and deeper meanings than mere logic bestows.

The Christmas story is just such an occasion. We are asked to accept the irrational and the unexplainable and hold these things in a holy paradox; to keep its mysteries, and let its meaning reveal itself through a deeper comprehension of its inner story- that is, by allowing yourselves to find a childlike hope, and to give it a place in your heart.

At this holy time of the year, we can rediscover Bethlehem as a special birthplace for our hearts. At Christmas, the essential and inclusive message is that the love that is symbolized in the birth of the Christ-child is renewed in you every year… That we are given this timeless opportunity to rebirth ourselves in heart and soul.

When Christmas and Bethlehem are perceived in this way, its truth goes beyond historical facts: It becomes a holiday for our humanity- It becomes a time that restores hope, peace and joy to its rightful place- the center of our lives, and the place where our motives give birth to our feelings of compassion.

Through this historical event, and throughout the birth story, and its legends and lessons, we can often feel emotionally impelled to revisit those formative places in our hearts: neighborhoods, memories, family ties, and then through our reflections, find and rekindle our faith and our gratitude.

In that way, we relive and embody the Christmas story more personally, and can find places in our own story that can help us to bear its meaning, and to connect to its trials, its seeming impossibilities, and to its evident graces, and thereby give birth to greater hope and joy in your lives..
Christmas lives on as more than a sentimental ritual, whenever we see and discover that there is a Bethlehem with each of us. With our own childlike openness, we capture the promises and possibilities of our lives, at any age!

May this Christmas be experienced as the renewal of hope and the recalling of the blessing you have received as part of your own family and as a part of this church community. May it become a renewal of the birthright of caring for oneself and for our world in better and larger ways; giving vitality to humility, conscience to our character, and greater purpose to our mission.

Lastly, may the inspiration of candles and carols, of music and meaning, Allow you to recall that your spiritual home is first found by your willingness to accept and to create a Bethlehem in your hearts….

Closing Words:
Whatever faith we have, Christmas confirms it;
Whatever hope there is in us, Christmas exalts it;
Whatever love abides or is shared among us, Christmas makes it
more tender, and more deep.
Merry Christmas! Blessed Be! So be It!