CHALICE CIRCLES

Unitarian Universalist
Church of Berkeley

Your One Wild 
and Precious Life

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do 
with your one wild and precious life?”

                 - Mary Oliver

	
Opening/ Chalice Lighting
Adapted from Thich Nhat Hanh

Check-in

Reading
“The Summer Day”  by Mary Oliver

Sitting in Silence
	As we gather around this flame, let us come together to find life in this present moment.  The past is gone, the future is not yet here.  Let us come back to ourselves and be in touch with life.

In a minute or two describe how you find yourself at this moment and mention what you need to put aside to be fully present in this Circle.  

Who made the world?
Who made the dawn, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean – 
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up
     and down – 
who is gazing around with her enormous and
     complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly
     washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do not know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the
     fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Take a few minutes to center and reflect on how you experience your life.

 

		Sharing/ Deep Listening

Second Sharing

Reading
“Fully Alive” by Dawna Markova

Check-out

Closing Reading
Adapted from Mother Teresa 

Extinguishing the Chalice	As the spirit moves you, please share what you have prepared.

This is an opportunity say what has been brought up for you or to acknowledge the experience of another.

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear 
of  falling down or catching fire.
I want to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me, 
to make me less afraid, more accessible; 
to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, 
a torch, a promise.
I choose  to risk my significance, 
to live so that which came to me as seed 
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom, 
goes on as fruit.

Briefly say what you liked about this meeting and then what you would wish for future meetings.

Let us remember that life is an opportunity.  Let us admire the beauty of life; realize the dream of life; meet the challenge of life; fulfill the promise of life; accept the struggle of life; and sing the song of life.

Stand and link arms to extinguish the Chalice and bid each other farewell.