Readings
Bible verses relating to migration
These appear as suggested readings in the 2023 Migration Worship and Resource Pack
The Bible on Welcoming Strangers (New International Version)
Leviticus 19:34:
“You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your
Our sons
This appears as a suggested reading in the 2023 Migration Worship and Resource Pack
Our sons, our grandsons, our nephews, our cousins
Are from Surrey, England, Eritrea, Kurdistan, Sudan, Afghanistan
Want to be plumbers, doctors, cricketers, barbers, engineers, nurses, mechanics, actors
Worry about exams
Leave clothes on the floor
Love rap
Hate getting up in
Earth blessings
The Earth –
Soil feels in your hands
As life itself
Blessed Earth thank you
May we remember Earth
Commit to our connection
Today and every day.
The Air –
This breath in your lungs
As life itself
Blessed Air thank you
May we remember Air
Commit to our connection
Today and every day.
The Sun –
This heat and light
As
Solstice blessings
May this moment hold you in gratitude
May your breath be an expression of thanks
May the risen sun be a guidance
May a togetherness take root as the core of your being
May a lovingness be everything you are finally seeing
May Solstice Blessings be the forever opening heart we are all invited to be.
Winter solstice blessing
Solstice, thank you
For providing goodness
Respecting pain
Oh humanity oh Earth!
Solstice rebirth
And ecstatic unity
Humanity and planet together
At solstice.
The light stretching
Open your mind to the light lengthening before you now
Prepare for guidance and gift
Form where the wind blows, caresses and ceases
As the rains dampen and sustain
Where the sun revolves allowing our evolution
Beyond every horizon
Of soil and ocean
I am in the light that stretches my journey from here
Into
The longest darkness
The longest darkness holds the shortest day
In the clasp of our future illumination
A necessary settling into the winter of becoming
Into a time of remembering
We welcome you into our winter heart
With the mist of your breath
And any snow soon to begin
Even the storms
We rest here on the shortest
These lengthening days of darkness
A lengthening darkness eases us towards the perfection of the shortest day
Lengthening darkness for some brings agitation – almost dismay
Lengthening darkness is everywhere preparation
The lengthening darkness is the adornment of All That Is
The shedded leaf
The burrowed hole
The future relief
For each humbled soul
Be humble as each day shortens and darkness broadens across