“English” language resources
Joseph Priestley
Any 76 76 76 76 tune will fit
I am a Unitarian.
Joe Priestley is my name.
I am a strict one-Godder,
who from West Riding came.
I preached the Word at Nantwich,
in Leeds and Birmingham;
but now I live in exile,
American, I am.
For wanting human freedom
they burned my
A prayer of concerns and joys
Spirit of Life, you who animate the Universe
Help us to remember the gift that is a human life.
With our consciousness and senses, we can touch, taste, see and feel
So much that is good, and alluring, and enticing.
Spirit of Life, some of us here today may be thinking of concerns more than joys,
The ongoing quest
We gather this morning to share a particular kind of community – a community of faith in which each of us is free to quest for our own ways of being spiritual and religious.
We gather this morning to think about how we have done this until now, and how we might do this from now.
We
A prayer to the cosmic christ
O you who animate the universe
You who are mother and father to us all
You who give us the blessing of life
You who live inside us and without
May we learn to see You in creation
And may we find in this a comfort
And a celebration.
May we find a name for you
An alphabet of life and living
A is accepting that there are other points of view to be considered.
B is recognising what is beautiful in ourselves as well as in others.
C is nurturing curiosity in all and everything around us,
D is daring to be brave and speaking out against injustice, not easy to do.
E is enjoying what
Death
Death is an unbearable shock. It can hurt us to the very core of our being.
It can steal a parent; child; partner; lover; family member; dear friend at any time it chooses, often without warning.
It can visit someone whom we only know from a distance or someone we don’t know at all. The news is
Draw near
This is a holy place –
enter by the true and living Way,
draw near with true hearts
to consider one another
and the works of love.
What is Christmas?
Candles herald the advent of the child of sorrows.
Twinkling lights challenge winter’s darkness and our own.
Green trees, red berries, tell of nature’s endurance.
Carols evoke praise and celebration and sweet nostalgia.
Old tales speak of magic and miracle and human redemption.
The sugared story of a teenager, pregnant out of wedlock,
of a family