Readings
Deep within you
There is a place of peace,
A place of wisdom,
A place of love.
May this sacred centre be your guide,
May it be your strength for the journey,
May it fill you with hope when all seems hopeless,
And may it lead you to know the sacredness in all.
The pearl
I stand here before the ancestors,
Empty and hollow
And open to the waves.
I am a shell awaiting the bright
Sunlight to warm me,
The black sea to fill me.
Deep within, a grain of sand so sharp
And fine comes to rest,
While each day, on this shore,
The sun kindles the
Lost
Think of a time when you were lost,
A time, as a child, when you wandered away from your parents,
When you took the wrong turn and your surroundings were no longer familiar,
Or when you were in a wilderness without a well-worn path,
Or in a deep dense fog without a horizon or landmark.
The sacred in the everyday
This space is sacred because of the faith, hopes, and dreams of those who went before us…
This time is sacred because we have set it apart for worship…
And we are sacred because we all bear the imprint of the divine.
Divine Spirit, who turns the ordinary into the sacred, be
Inner peace
Let us be quiet in our hearts as is…
The still cormorant watching from the sunlit rock,
The tranquil sea fret stealing over the water,
The gentle wave caressing the shingle,
The sea campion motionless in her gown of white.
For these are the mute harbingers of a loving God…
And the promise of
Christmas
Bethlehem is wherever a baby is born and wonder-filled parents enjoy the moment.
Bethlehem is wherever new lives are birthed and nurtured towards independent being.
Bethlehem is wherever renewed spirit and fresh perspective emerge from out the human shadows.
Bethlehem is wherever human imagination unfolds into stories and sculptures and symphonies.
Bethlehem is wherever seeds
Easter
We look, this Easter, to rise above tombs of unreasonableness:
From the tomb which confines God to supernatural orders,
Let God rise respecting nature’s universal laws.
From the tomb of literalism and exclusivism and fanaticism,
Let rise imagination and inclusiveness and co-operation.
From the tomb where we hear nothing but our own
Golden threads
We gather the golden threads of life and weave from them a rich tapestry:
The golden thread of common, everyday human life, speckled with small, unidentifiable little decencies;
The golden thread of human pain, and human pleasure, from which together each human biography is writ;
The golden thread of vision, and example set by known