Ingenious spirit, God of all our understandings and Process of Life. As life, as love, as experience and the ground of all being there is a coaxing and goading of life throughout the universe for all to become what we can be. What a season to take in. Ripening, red-tinged days and sights. With warm days surprising us (perhaps behind us!), we now prepare for darker mornings and evenings; we avoid squirrels on roads busily preparing for a tough winter; we enjoy multi-colored mums that defy frost-filled mornings – sharing the last of autumn flower splendor. In mystery, silence, reverence and in the everyday, we sense the essential: The daylight, the opportunities to share, to love, to risk, to parent, to appreciate, to touch cheek to cheek, to see eye to eye, to reconcile, to heal. Whether it be in the packing of lunches for children much loved or packing to move from a relationship or home…we honor the flow, the movement and process of life; that which yields small successes along the way. Amen. Let it be.

We honor the ones of our history, those familiar examples, leaders, revolutionaries, saviors of our past and present. The likes of Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi and others who have lived the ways of unconditional love, non-violence resistance, compassion and justice. We honor the process of our lives to make sense of all things, all movements, all people and personalities; to take into account where we come from and where we are going; what we have let go and taken on in life, faith, belief and values. What a time to be alive – through tarnished times into new modes and possibilities. May all be and feel welcome here in the kaleidoscope of beliefs, histories, hurts and joys. And in the flow and process of this community, may we remember that we celebrate diversity without divisiveness and unity without uniformity.

We expose now the capriciousness of our memories, the force of our fears, any smugness in our status or intelligence, our indifference to the plights and passions of people across the globe, any dis-ease over grandiosities and busy self-importance, any over-confidence that we really have things figured out as momentary stardust in the grand scheme and processes and paths of life and creation. We confess our limitations, our arrogance, our resistance to change, the isms that lurk latently or overtly in our thinking and acting. We admit and release anything that limits the wonder of living and relating this day so that we can truly be the changes we wish to see in the world.

As we release ourselves more fully to life and love, we recall now all those in our minds and thoughts: Those recovering, those dying, the recently deceased, friends and family in the midst of cares and crises. Those anticipating surgical procedures. The divorcing, the campaigners, the passionate ones, the prophets in churches, on street corners. All those in the midst of life needing fairness, clarity, healing, hopes, laughter – a gesture that conveys they are worth something in this world. We are one together in this world.

May the water of our words be turned into the wine of new taste and risk; may the tentativeness of our actions be turned into the bold being and doing we were meant to express and live in this life so as to be a blessing for the whole human family. Amen.

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