My soul nudged me from a hiding place to confess and to seek forgiveness, and only through the grace of the Great Mystery of Life unfolding around us did I receive the blessing of journeying with a beloved, grieving friend.

It’s been said that it’s easier to untangle a string of lights if you plug them in; it’s no different for people. Humans, just like strings of lights, are wired for connection.

This is a ritual of caring for one another, couched in terms of struggle and hope.

if we show them at all most of us who write our secrets down and call it poetry prefer to slip it under the door and run, and if we must be present at the reading, disguise ourselves in sotto voice and pale monotone but here was one who could take us into his personal life and show us around as i...

I stretch forth my hand Knowing not what I shall touch... A tender spot, An open wound, Warmth, Pulsing life, Fragile blossoms, A rock, Ice. I am tentative, trembling... Wishing to avoid hurt, Wanting to link my life with Life. Lonely, I desire companions Naked, I long for defenders....

Spirit of my longing and lonely heart, help me travel through the barren borderlands that separate me from others. Teach me to willingly explore relationships with those who frighten or threaten me, grant me the courage to risk confidently my own comforts, that I might make others more comfortable.

Gracious One: Keep watch on the innovators, the trailblazers, the takers of risk. Invite us to be persons of vision and integrity. Help us to remember the mystery from which possibility is born. Lead us to honor the sacred space where ministries, idealists, and realists meet....

Out of our separate lives we come, to walk this path together for an hour or a day, for a week or a month or a series of months and years. For this space of time we travel together, making much or little or nothing at all of the fact that another walks beside us. We can keep our eyes cast down...

Holy Spirit of Life and Love, You who are our source and our ultimate destiny, Lead us this day on a crooked path. So often we are in so much of a hurry Taking the direct route to our goal, Not allowing ourselves to be distracted, Sometimes being too direct with one another in all that we seek to...

Invite the congregation to join hands. The hand in yours belongs to a person whose heart is sometimes tender, whose skin is sometimes thin, whose eyes sometimes fill with tears, and whose laughter is a beautiful sound....

May we open ourselves ever more fully to that Eternal Mystery which lures us onward toward life and creativity. May we find the courage to live our faith, to speak our truth, and to strive together for a world where freedom abounds and justice truly does roll down like water. May we know the...

The church is a body. May this body breathe and be together in the spirit of hope May it feel held by comfort. Those who seek consolation, may they find it in the solace of this moment. The church is a body. It is as strong as all the people who have ever gathered within its walls....