Liturgy Script for UUUC Worship Service:
True Love
United Unitarian
Universalist Congregation
Waukesha, Wisconsin
Dr. Jennifer
Thomson
September 21, 2014
10:30
Reminder to
Silence phones
Words to
reflect on printed in OOS
May I be an
instrument of peace—
Where there
is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there
is injury, pardon;
Where there
is discord, harmony;
Where there
is error, truth;
Where there
is doubt, faith;
Where there
is despair, hope;
Where there
is darkness, light;
And where
there is sadness, joy.
May I not
so much seek
To be
consoled as to console;
To be
understood as to understand;
To be loved
as to love.
The Prayer
of Saint Francis is a Catholic Christian
prayer.
Widely but erroneously attributed to the thirteenth-century saint Francis of Assisi, the prayer in its present form
cannot be traced back further than 1912, when it was printed in Paris in French,
in a small spiritual magazine called La
Clochette (The Little Bell), published by La Ligue de la
Sainte-Messe (The Holy Mass League). The author's name was not given,
although it may have been the founder of La Ligue, Fr. Esther Bouquerel. (Wikipedia)
This version adapted by Jennifer Thomson.
Gathering
(Please greet our
neighbors, friends and guests before the service begins.)
Welcome and
Announcements John W
Prelude
Dan C
OPENING WORDS
“To Love the Hell Out of the World” (excerpts)
by UU Rev. Joanna
Fontaine Crawford
(from her blog Boots and Blessings)
To love the hell out of the
world means to love it extravagantly, wastefully, with an overpouring abandon
and fervor that sometimes surprises even yourself.
. . .
But just to live, just to exist, swells your heart with
enough gratitude and love that you must release it or burst. And so you love,
love the hell out of the world again.
To love the hell out of the
world means to see with our hearts, fragile and unprotected. To accept that
life is shattering and excruciating. To see the hell in a world, in a group, in
a person, in a tear.
Our job, our mission, is to
take all of that love, all that overflowing, passionate, undying agape
and train it on the hell that exists in this world.
We are Unitarian
Universalists—from one source, to one destiny—here to love the hell out of the
world.
Chalice Lighting Congregation
“May this flame kindle within us the warmth of compassion, the glow of
love, the fire of commitment and the light of truth.
Here together, we scatter and nurture seeds of spirit, service and
community.”
*Hymn #131 “Love Will Guide Us”
From Singing the Living Tradition (UU grey
hymnal)
Connecting
*Greeting One Another Congregation
Time For All Ages
Sending Forth the Children #1057 Go Lifted Up
In Singing the Journey (UU
teal hymnal)
Children leave for religious education as the congregation sings.
“Go lifted
up, love bless your way,
moon light,
star light guide your journey
into peace
and the brightness of day.”
Sharing of Joys and Sorrows John W
Centering
Meditations
Spoken (Prayer) Jennifer Thomson
Silent
Musical Dan C
Congregation: Hymn # 1009 “Meditation on Breathing”
in
three part harmony
from Singing the Journey
PRAYER:
We hold in our hearts the joys, such as [REPEAT JOYS]
and sorrows, such as
[REPEAT SORROWS]
shared here today in this place of love.
We honor also
those joys and sorrows that remain unspoken.
May we be moved—by of our own fears and fragility,
our own personal brokenness—to reach out in love toward each other.
May we be moved by our own hopes and amazement, our
own powerful strength, to reach out in love toward all who yearn for connection,
compassion and healing. Amen.
Reading More from Rev.
Joanna Crawford’s
“To Love the Hell Out of the
World”
You love because you must. .
. . it's the air you breathe in, the water you swim in . .
. ; it's seeing the amazing, amazing, amazing gifts of the people all around
you. . . .
We love emphatically,
actively, with our hands and feet; pushing the wreckage aside, reaching down,
stretching until we fear our arms can go no further, but they do, we touch
fingers with others, then grab on for dear life, pulling them out to safety,
then going back in to remove the hell itself, before it traps someone else. We
round a corner only to find hands waiting for us, to pull us to safety,
to warmth, for we are both the savior and the saved.
The hell is all around, and we work,
in great passionate swoops and in slow, plodding
routines,
to put that extravagant love into action and remove . . . [the] Misery, ill health, disease,
viciousness of greed in the face of want,
voices that shout hate or whisper meanness,
soul-eating addiction, humiliation, despair,
injustice that curls up nastily, poisoning [us all] . . .
... we do not flee. Bone-chillingly afraid we may be, but
we step forward. We are the only form love will take and the work is ours to
do.
SERMON
“True Love”
Closing
Sharing of the Offering
John W
CLOSING
HYMN # 1008 “When the Heart is in a
Holy Place”
from Singing the Journey
from Singing the Journey
Closing
Words Jennifer Thomson
#683 by
Unitarian minister Rev. Theodore Parker
From Singing the Living Tradition
Be ours
a religion which, like sunshine, goes everywhere;
its
temple, all space;
its
shrine, the good heart;
its
creed, all truth;
its
ritual, works of love;
its
profession of faith, divine living.
*Extinguishing
the Flame
Postlude Dan C
We are Unitarian Universalists
here to love the hell out of the world.
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