Readings
Autumn Equinox can you help me?
Before me is this darkness
Before me is this light
And after me too
Autumn Equinox can you help me
decide what to do?
I can be beside myself in darkness
And beside myself in light
Yet somehow joyful too
Autumn Equinox can you help me
decide which is right?
This breath tastes a day of equal
Lammas, Lughnasadh
Here’s a harvest hope
That this thankful thing
For food and Earth and life;
Becomes a gratitude thing
Not for now, or for us
But for everybody and everything.
May Lammas Blessings be the wish
May Lughnasadh be truly fresh
In gratitude for what we are given
And attitude of what we can give
Of loving
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
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
Snowflakes – nature’s hidden beauty
“The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper” (Eden Phillpots)
A week before Christmas I wake to snow. There has been a light sprinkling for several days, but today the ground is carpeted in white. I resist the urge to launch into tasks and reflect on the scene unfolding