We proclaim with Love on our side: Our bodies are sacred. Our minds are blessed. Our spirits are beloved.

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.

There in the deep sack of night, a tiny Hope was born. 

The oldest stories tell us we came from the dust, and to dust we will return. But dirt? That’s different. Dust is fine, often even sterile. Dirt, on the other hand, is made up of messier stuff.

Advent encourages us to be present in each moment of waiting.

May this chalice light guide us toward the courageous and openhearted apology, toward repair of relationships in our lives.

We light this chalice, the symbol of our faith, knowing that this morning many others across this land and around the world are doing the same. For us and for our far-flung kin it is a light of peace, of justice, and of love....

We feel the season turning. The early sunset glancing through the red-tinged leaves. The newspaper arriving in the cool morning air. The flock of migrating swallows. A feeling of being on the edge of something new. These are the Days of Awe. A time to welcome a new year and a time to make the old...