God as love, in love, backdrop and reality of all essence- source of comfort, quest and quandary - we come seeking to be grounded in certain assurances; we come wanting to be freed from all that feels confining and phoney. In our very words and thoughts we find our way between feeling connected with the cosmic dance and our brothers and sisters and wondering how far off we are in the ways we’ve been conditioned and ask those old questions once again: Is it all worth it? Church...planning, budget? To do what we do....to say what we say...in these weeks and months when so much is challenged with religion, politics, foreign policy? Can we reconcile how certain systems, expectations, dogmas and assumptions die and incorporate new insights, symbols, metaphors and practices in meaningful ways? Can we be a people that feels confirmed, dynamic and even insecure at the same time? Might we be oceans that refuse no rivers - people who refuse no possibilities, but rather welcome them?

God and spirit of cycles and seasons, during this Autumn we gaze upon the emerging and full-colored beauty and the amazing shades of amber richness. Colorful and blowing leaves mark our days. As creation reverences the mystery of life and death, may we know that our lives, too, follow this pattern of growing and giving up. May we, like flowers losing bloom and trees losing leaves, scream no cries of terror over change and temporary death. We strive to be at peace...but it is difficult. Not often, Spirit of motion, do we understand that hidden in autumn loss and winter’s death grip is spring’s open-handed full-brimmed breath of life. We affirm full life now; we affirm coming out in all our capacities, all our abilities, all our possibilities - today, this season. And we know we will someday become like leaves that fall, the stuff of earth’s dark flesh -returning to our source, the presence and grace of Life itself.

God of our heads, our hearts, our projections....within and without - we are an awakening, coming out people...aware of so much more...so much emerging and evolving. In our questioning the forms, functions, writings and institutions that have sustained us for so long, may we find our home and center with each other and with the guidance, grace, justice and freedom which is at the center of life. In our attempts at making meaning, may we sense and celebrate that which is deep within - the yearning to be at peace with each other and with our co-sojourners of this life - to be people of hope, people with keen minds, people of compassionate heart, tears and hands. A people who question and also confirm that which is truthful, decent, faithful.

We want to see more clearly the things that have meaning. Simplicity, contentment, deep-down satisfaction with life, work and family; we want to love more dearly those close to us -to commit as well to neighbor near and far...to look outside ourselves - to love as others need to be loved; we want to follow more nearlythe ways of reason, common sense and the wisdom of mythologies and traditions; the ways of Jesus, prophets, ordinary ones who inspire us, ones who show us how to live rightly with, for and against the powers, principalities and institutions of the day. This day, we re-commit our minds and our thinking, our hearts and our devotion, our hands and our acting. As we sit and reflect - we re-commit to being a family that cares for those in need, those recovering, those dying...those needing encouragement.....and we do this to honor life, to honor God in all our understandings, and to honor each other and all of life. Amen.

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