Today, we are charged to remember. To know that as we live together in community, we are also in community with the silently singing lives in the vast congregation of the earth as well... Let us remember, and then act.

Tip if you are video recording this story: you can have a clip of an adult stretching out their arm in one direction, then another clip of a different adult stretching out their arm in the other direction, so that when you edit it, it looks like they are stretching towards each other. It would be...

A seed knows how to wait. Most seeds wait for several years before starting to grow; a cherry seed can wait for a hundred years with no problem. What exactly each seed is waiting for is known only to that seed. Some unique trigger-combination of temperature-moisture-light and many other things is...

In my chapel, redwing blackbird unravels her liquid song in the cattails.

There are so many spiritual lessons from the natural world and—in a season filled with Ingatherings and Water Communions—this is one for me: oxbow lakes as a beautiful combination of resiliency, strength, and flexibility.

Love our Earth. Take action to consume less, use less energy, respect water; And be cooperative, collaborative and creative community – like the moss and the mushrooms. Our children’s lives depend on us.

Those of us who call ourselves religious Humanists have a strong reverence for life. Many of us experience a deep sense of awe before the mystery of life and death, those powers greater than ourselves. We share a respect for science and reason, and we are willing to live with ambiguity to live...

EARTH, clay from which we are made and to which we will return. Soil, rich and aromatic, crumbling in my fingers, dark under my nails. This, cleansing dirt, the natural filter for aquifers, holds life....

What if when I light the chalice, you hear an invitation to welcome gratitude for the earth? This week, as I got ready to light the chalice, my family talked about blessings from this planet. Here is my list: [list 3-7 things] And now, with this flame of hope shedding light in your heart: what is...

Wondrous Gift of Life, thanks for this day and this gathering in our beautiful diversity and devoted generosity! We revel in our blessings for and from this holy life! Washed and refreshed in such grace, we celebrate the joys of this life....

Regardless of our differences, there are a host of affirmations that we embrace as the basis for our faith. Whatever we think the holy may be, Creation itself is holy. We make no distinctions between the natural and the supernatural, the secular and the sacred. We simply cherish the earth and all...

Every once in a while in my life, I have a human conversation that so stuns or startles me that it proves impossible to ever forget. It wasn’t long ago that I had such a troubling and transforming interaction, and I want to tell you about it. But first, I have to set the stage. Twenty years ago,...

Recorded music (e.g., Mozart's Requiem; Arvo Pårt's Lamentate) will be playing as the background. Spoken introduction as people prepare to walk in silence: Let us open our minds and hearts to the power of healing that is in us and in the world around us....

Spirit of Life, hold us in our pain and comfort us in our grief. Our grief feels boundless; our rage eats at us. We feel pain for all the wild creatures of the Gulf and the wetlands....

Ode to Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea. There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea. There’s a hole. There’s a hole. There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea. There is oil from the hole in the bottom of the sea. There’s crude oil from the hole in the bottom of...

Order of Service Welcome Chalice Lighting : "In our time of grief:" (#454, SLT) Opening Song: “We are a Gentle Angry People” vs. 1,2,6 (#170, SLT) Prayer: "A Prayer of Sorrow" (#478, SLT) Reflection A Silent Witnessing Song: “Comfort Me” (#1002, STJ) Sharing The Congregation Song: “Blue...

Earth’s blood, product of ancient deaths, source and flowing stream for civilizations, protector of many human lives, still spurts but barely abated into Gulf waters, host to countless lives of every kind, geo-bio-hazard threatening all lives of every kind for many miles and for months or years t...

Setting ourselves to the task of Greening our Congregation, together we promise these things: Most simply, we will each do our small part to care for the earth around us. We will start with one step forward toward the thriving world that we envision....

It’s really complicated honey. I’m only now understanding it myself. We weren’t really thinking about it like you and your friends do. It’s not that we didn’t care about how it would impact you; we weren’t really thinking about you at all. Oh that’s sounds terrible, I’ll say. I...

There I was, at the "Big Question:" What is my relationship to the creatures on this earth, and to the earth itself? Are they, is it, here for me, or am I a part of it? How far does the interdependent web extend, and do I really believe that all of us are intimately connected with all of existence?