The Winter Solstice is a time to journey inward and reflect on the lessons, joys, and sorrows from the past year. It is also a time to celebrate the light and darkness that is in each of us. Join us for a time of readings, reflection, songs, stillness, and ritual in honor of the Solstice.
Mr. Rogers famously taught that play is the work of childhood, but what about later in life? This week in worship we will leave work behind and tap into the power that play has to offer us at all ages.
So much of our lives are spent working and sleeping, so how we spend our time apart from work and home is important both for our well-being and to the fabric of our wider communities. On this day when many of our members will be representing our church at Albany and Berkeley’s Solano Stroll, we will reflect on our role and impact as a “third place” in the lives of our members, friends, and beyond.
This week in worship we will consider what our liberal faith’s Universalist roots can teach us about justice and grace.
While the way we measure beauty varies across time, culture, and individuals, human beings seem to instincutally try to protect things they think are beautiful. This week in worship we will explore this instinct and the role beauty can play in growing our compassion and moral sensibility.
Life is so full of change and transition, and that’s part of what makes it so precious and beautiful. Join us for our annual “Tree of Life” service where we recognize and reflect on life’s transitions. This Sunday is also the last Sunday of RE, so we will thank all of the volunteers who have helped us offer incredible religious education for our children and youth over the last church year!
As Martin Luther King Jr. often said, we can’t get to the triumph of Easter except through the pain and loss of Good Friday. Join us in the Fireside Room for a tender service of song, word, and silence as we remember the crucifixion of Jesus and those put to death in our own time for their refusal to keep silent about injustice. A simple Universalist communion will be served.
Throughout our lives our relationships with our bodies evolve and change as we age. This week in worship we consider what our faith has to teach us about the preciousness of all bodies. (Greg and Alice Lemieux)
The Worship Service on Sunday, February 24 has been named “Freedom Sunday.” There will be a wonderful tribute to the African American Spiritual — highlighting the hidden messages within the spirituals — which were songs of freedom and codes for escaping to Freedom. The music, readings and sharing will focus on Freedom — both for a peoples who were enslaved but also what does Freedom mean for all of us in our lives, in the lives of our immigrant brothers and sisters? In the lives of our LGBTQ community? Come, sing, dance and honor the music that kept African Americans hopeful and listen to the stories of Freedom from our Worship Team. After the service, lunch will be served in the Social Hall and we’ll continue with dancing and singing together!
Church is one of the last places in our society where people don’t have to be segregated by age, yet so many of our experiences in this congregation are still divided according to how old we are. This week in worship we will consider how worshipping and learning together as a whole community more often could open us up to the possibilities already right here among us.
