A UU Service on UU Service

Today was a beautiful Sunday, the kind I like best.  I started the day with my boy, led church services, took a long walk with my dog in the wind and sun, listened to some great music, and started a new painting. Not much else to say about any of that, other than I am truly thankful for so much in my life.

It has been awhile since I posted one of my services on line, so I'll do that today. I have searched the web many times for service ideas and sermons, so I should return the favor as often as I remember! It isn't the complete service, but it is something! I hope someone finds it helpful. (and sorry about the crappy formatting but I don't really have the inclination to try and fix it!)

Today's topic was Unitarian Universalism and Service.

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Order of Service:  March 1^, 2009

 

Opening Music:           

Something to Live For     Billy Strayhorn 

Welcome & Introductions 

Fellowship Mission Statement:

   

Embracing Diversity, Welcoming Everyone,

We, the members of this fellowship, agree to affirm and promote the seven principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association,

and to strive to:

•       enable spiritual, intellectual, ethical, and emotional growth for all ages,

•       work for compassionate justice, and

•       respect the interdependence of all existence

Introduction:

Today’s topic is meant to be a simple overview of Unitarian Universalism’s commitment to social justice. Though I have personally come to love the religion of Unitarian Universalism for many reasons, it was its reputation for social justice work which first attracted me.

During this morning’s service we are talking about some of the specific actions our fellowship is taking within the local community, and

what UUs are doing as a whole via organizations like Unitarian Universalist Service Committee to improve the quality of our world.

In my own personal life, I have begin to view service not through a lens of all that is wrong in the world, or  the overwhelming nature of all that there is to be done, but what we may get out of such work as individuals and as a congregation. When we put the emphasis of our work not on the heaviness of the issues at hand, but on how we are living our lives as each day passes and how we interact with the world around us in the moment of

each day. 

Choosing to serve each and everyday becomes a lifestyle, a value, a habit of daily living, rather than a series of isolated acts of giving.

In the book Caravan by Stephen Gaskin someone asks him 

“What can each one of us do to help alleviate the suffering of the world?”

His reply:

"the first thing is that you be aware of it and

recognize it unsentimentally ... that you just be

really aware of what its like. Then the next thing is

that you don't be bummed by it, because that makes you

contribute to it. What you do is take care of the

first thing at hand, which is right between your ears.

Fix your head. When you fix your head, folks will notice. And if you just be honest and down home, communicate with folks about where your at, you’ll transmit your magic to them.

Total responsibility ... right, that if you look out

and you don't like the shape of the world, go inside

and start cleaning house and it'll get better out

there. That’s the miracle of it… the only reason I am doing what I am doing now is because the changes that I have made in myself have made people look at me in a way that has let my sphere of influence get larger.  Other people say, “that’s a good direction of change, I’ll help it go.”  

 

In light of these words we light the chalice, the symbol of our faith and living tradition.

 

Opening Words & Kindling the Chalice

#419 Look to this Day

 

Look to this day!

For it is life, the very life of life.

In its brief course lie all the verities

and realities of your existence:

    the bliss of growth,

    the glory of action,

    the splendor of beauty;

For yesterday is but a dream,

and tomorrow is only a vision;

But today, well lived, makes every yesterday

A dream of happiness

and every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day.

 

 

Selected Readings from Singing the Living Tradition

 

# 580 The Task of the Religious Community

# 560 Commitment

#705 If we agree in love

 

Joys, Sorrows, & the Gifts of Service

 

Responsive Reading # 568

Connections Are Made Slowly

 

Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.

 

You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.

 

More than half a tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.

 

Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.

 

Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.

 

Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.

 

Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.

 

Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.

 

Live a life you can endure, make love that is loving.

 

Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in, a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.

 

Live as if you like yourself, and it may happen:

 

Reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.

 

This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,

 

For every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting, after the long season of tending and growth,

the harvest comes.

 

Music:               Heal this World by Pato Banton

 

Overview Unitarian Universalism & Service

The UUSC (Unitarian Universalist Service Committee): Civil Liberties, Rights in Humanitarian Crises, Economic Justice, Environmental Justice

 

From The UUA Website:

Social Justice

Believing in our inherent worth and mutual interdependency, Unitarian Universalism (UUism) is deeply rooted in social justice as a direct expression of our faith. Help us build the Beloved Community together.

Each month, we highlight one social justice issue for sustained congregational engagement. The Action of the Month for February is Speak Up for BGLT Equality.

Participating in our action of the month can be as simple as having a conversation with your friends and neighbors and as fulfilling as visiting your members of congress to lobby for Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender (BGLT) equality.

 

 

About UUSC

The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) is a nonsectarian organization that advances human rights and social justice in the United States and around the world. We envision a world free from oppression and injustice, where all can realize their full human rights.

(Read excerpts from UUSC Social Justice Sunday Handouts)

 

 

Our own congregation:

 

Our fellowship has engaged in social justice work within the community from very early on in our existence. We have organized back pack drives for local students, joined with other community members in city wide clean ups which is right around the corner again! May 2^nd I believe), raised supplies and funds for local animal shelters, held a letter writing service to help alleviate world poverty, supported the local work of big brother big sisters, and are going through the process of becoming a Welcoming Congregation within and for the LGBT community.

 

For over a year now we have also served as a collection point for the first United Methodists Angels on Assignment program.  Today, we are fortunate enough to have Nancy Gibbs on hand to share with us a little more in detail about what Angels on Assignment does within our community.

 

Angels on Assignment    Nancy Gibbs, Representative

 

Hymn: 121 We’ll Build a Land

 

Closing Readings #704 & #713

 

Closing Music:  Hey World, Don’t Give Up by Michael Franti

 

Stand and bless those near you with the greeting, “Be who you are and may you be blessed in all that you are.”