Mabon 2012

What follows is the script from the Mabon ritual performed September 21, 2012 in Second Life.  The script can be easily adapted and used elsewhere.  

Sky dancing during the Mabon Ritual.

Props:  Bonfire
dance ring /42 show or /42 hide
seating
Apple
fruit and nuts
wine glasses w/ red wine

(music cue)

Ritual For Mabon, the Autumnal Equinox
created by Stephanie Mesler

(Music:  “Casting the Circle” composed and performed by Llewellyn and Juliana)

OPENING WORDS

Celebrant 1:  In order to better appreciate the ritual, please set your viewer to midnight.  You will need to be able to hear music and voice, though you will not be required to speak in voice yourself.  Please adjust your settings so that you can hear sounds and ambient noises.  The script for the ritual will be running in local so that you can read along if you like.  

Mabon is the harvest, time of waning light.  The days grow shorter and the temperatures cooler as we approach the coming winter.  This is the time of year for gathering what has been planted and grown, a time for celebrating the literal and figurative fruits of the earth and our lives.  

As a symbol of Earth’s produce, I offer you an apple.  Please accept it in the spirit of friendship.  In a moment, we will cast our circle by laying our apples out as thanksgivings for all that the previous seasons have brought us.  

(Apples are passed to each person gathered.)

Has anyone not received an apple?  


CASTING THE CIRCLE


Celebrant 1:  We cast our circle with the apple, ancient symbol of the Goddess and of knowledge.  

(music cue)

Celebrant 2:  Please rez your apple now on the ground at the edge of this plateau, creating a circle around us all.  

Now, please say the following together:  

All:  As above, so below, we form our circle with nature’s bounty.  

Celebrant 2:  We have created sacred space with the riches of the earth.  


CALLING THE QUARTERS

(Music:  “Ritual,” followed by “Sacred Space,” and “Release”, all composed and performed by Llewellyn and Juliana.)

Celebrant 1:  As we call the quarters, keep your apples handy in inventory as we will be using them four more times.  

The apple is a symbol of our connectedness with all that is and ever was, to all that lives now or has lived before, to what will live when we are gone.  

Celebrant 1:  Let us all now turn to the north, toward Desiree.  Place an apple now in the north where Desiree is standing.  

Celebrant 3:  Spirits of the North, spirits of the Earth,  We thank you for your gifts and hope for a winter of ease and comfort, a time for rest and introspection.  Join us in our circle tonight.  
ALL:  Join us this night.  

Celebrant 1:  Let us all now turn to the east, toward Etaoin.  Place an apple now in the east where Etaoin is standing.  

Celebrant 2:  Spirits of the East, spirits of the air, summer breezes turn now to chiller autumn winds.  We thank you for your gifts of color and temperate climate.  We hope for your comfort as the wheel turns slowly toward winter.  Join us in our circle tonight.  

ALL:  Join us this night.  

Celebrant 1:  Let us all now turn to the south, toward Desiree.  Place an apple now in the north where Desiree is standing.  

Celebrant 3:  Spirits of the south, spirits of fire, we thank you for the summer sun that brought forth earth’s bounty and hope you will continue to light our path as the days continue passing.  Join us in our circle tonight.  

ALL:  Join us this night.  

Celebrant 1:  Let us all now turn to the west, toward Etaoine.  Place an apple now in the north where Etaoine is standing.  

Celebrant 2:  Spirits of the west, spirits of water, thank you for the rains that wash the nearly empty fields.  May we also receive the blessings of your cleansing showers.  Join us in our circle tonight.  

ALL:  Join us this night.  

Celebrant 2:  Sun King, Corn King, God of the Harvest, Planet Earth, you have provided a bounty that has greened the meadows and filled the fields.  As the high heat and light of summer fade to darkness and cold, bestow your blessings on this circle.  

ALL:  Join us this night.  

Celebrant 1:  Great Mother, Goddess, Brigid, Demeter, Queen of the Harvest, Planet Earth, your body has provided abundance and beauty.  As you begin your change from motherhead to crone, bless us with wisdom.  

ALL:  Join us this night.  

Celebrant 3:  Lord and Lady of the Harvest, Planet Earth, as this year wanes, come to us one last time as Queen and Consort.  Join us in this circle tonight.  

ALL:  Join us this night.  

AT THE CORE OF THINGS

Celebrant 1:  In autumn, we start down a path away from summer, headed toward winter.   The Earth has just provided us with most of the food we will need to get through the coming winter and with the easy summer weather that allowed us opportunities for relaxation and renewal.  It seems fitting and appropriate to express our gratitude for all we have received.  

It is appropriate also to acknowledge the coming winter with its myriad challenges and opportunities for introspection.  We look ahead through autumn to winter and hope for the best of what the Earth and humanity have to give us and for the wisdom to be good stewards of these gifts by putting them to good use.  

Now, I invite you to share in local text your hopes for what is to come and thanksgivings for what has passed.  

(Those gathered share their hopes and thanksgivings in local chat.)

Celebrant 2: Lord and Lady of the Harvest, Gods and Goddesses of the Turning Wheel, and Planet Earth, we thank you for all the blessings we have received and look forward with joy to what the future holds.  In the coming seasons, we offer ourselves as caretakers of this world and all its creatures.  In gratitude for this great honor, we join in a dance of celebration.  

(music cue)

(Those gathered join in dancing,)

(Music:  “Gleanntaein Glas Ghaoth Dobhair” and “Dulaman”  traditional, performed by Altan.)

Celebrant 3:  There are 24 places in the dance circle.  If those are filled, I can rez another.   Join us in this show of our joy and gratitude for what the previous season has offered us and what the coming season will bring.  

(As the dancing ends, those gathered take their seats on the ground.)

(Music: “Stardancing” composed and performed by LLewellyn and Juliana.)

Celebrant 1:   Please return to your seats on the ground now.  Take a moment to quiet yourself, to settle into your place in this virtual world and into your seat in your solid world at home.  Take deep breaths, inhaling smoothly and blowing the air back out slowly with a gentle whoosh.  Take the time now to let your energy flow down through your body to the ground beneath your feet.  Let that solid ground beneath you bring balance to your center.  

We now pass from summer into the dark of the year.  On this equinox day, Mabon, this day of balance between the light seasons and the dark, we pause at the threshold of the time ahead.  Light begins to fade and the nights grow longer, we take this opportunity to reflect on our lives and celebrate inner wisdom.  


Celbrant 2:  Hazel is  a symbol of wisdom.  We hope that we hear that inner voice that whispers to each of us, keeping us focused on goodness, pragmatism, and hope.  

Celebrant 3:  Blackberries are a sweet reminder of the joys of summer.  

Celebrant 1:  In the ancient traditions, wine is shared as a symbol linking the members of a community to one another.  We offer you now a glass of wine.  Please accept it in friendship.  In a moment,  we will drink the wine together, strengthening the bonds of community and commitment to Earth.  

(Celebrants 2, and 3  pass wine to those gathered.  When everyone has received wine, the ritual continues.)

Celebrant 1:

That which has been created returns to its maker.

The Great Goddess transforms into the powerful crone.  

We follow them into darkness.

The seasons change.  The Wheel of the Year turns.   

Celebrant 2:  Mother, bless this wine and food and bless the people gathered here.  

Celebrant 3:  Father, bless this wine and food and bless the people gathered here.  

Celebrant 1:  Bless this wine and food and bless the people gathered here.  
‘
ALL:  Bless this wine and food and bless the people gathered here.  

Celebrant 2:  May we never hunger.  

Celebrant 3:  May we never thirst.  

Celebrant 1:  We look ahead to the darkness for rest and renewal.  

(Drink the wine and return it to inventory.)

CLOSING

Celebrant 3:  Great Mother, as you enter your most powerful aspect as crone, favor us with your wisdom.  Guide us through the coming dark.  We bid you farewell.  

ALL:  We bid you farewell.  Blessed be!  

(The fire grows dimmer. Flame to standard.)

Celebrant 2:  Warrior of Light, Mabon, go to your rest and dream of rebirth.  Endings are beginnings.  We will await your return.  We bid you farewell.  

ALL:  We bid you farewell.  Blessed be!  

(The fire grows dimmer.  Glow off.)

Celebrant 2:  Spirits of the west, spirits of water, thank you for your presence this night.  Stay if you will; go  if you must.  We bid you farewell.  

ALL:  We bid you farewell.  Blessed be!  

Celebrant 3:  Spirits of the south, spirits of fire, thank you for your presence this night.  Stay if you will; go  if you must.  We bid you farewell.  

ALL:  We bid you farewell.  Blessed be!  

(music cue)

Celebrant 2:  Spirits of the East, spirits of the air, thank you for your presence this night.  Stay if you will; go if you must.  We bid you farewell.  

ALL:  We bid you farewell.  Blessed be!  

Celebrant 3:  Spirits of the North, spirits of the Earth, thank you for your presence this night.  Stay if you will; go  if you must.  We bid you farewell.  

ALL:  We bid you farewell.  Blessed be!  

(The Fire is extinguished.  Smoke On. Sounds off.)

Celebrant 1:  The Lord has gone to his rest and the Lady gathers strength.  We witness their parting as the Wheel of the Year continues to turn.  

ALL:  Merry meet and merry part, merry meet again!  Blessed be!  

(Music: “Silver Wheel” composed and performed by LLewellyn and Juliana.)

Celebrant 1: And now we continue our celebration of the turning wheel with a party on the sim to our east in the dance club, Jobuu’s.  I will be happy to TP you once I am there.  Please join us for dancing, trivia, door prizes, good conversation, great music, and lots of fun!  

(This ritual is created by Stephanie Mesler.  Most of the words are hers though the images are ancient.  A select few of the words in this ritual are used with permission of the author, Sandra Kynes, and come from her book, A Year of Ritual.)



Props for Jobuu’s:  Trivia ball, new dances to dance system, door prize giver with new prizes

Playlist and Stream from Steph

NEW Sunrise Meditation 2O12

This new Sunrise Meditation was debuted at The Second Life Spirit Fair on September 23, 2012.
Spirit fair is an annual festival promoting the many, many opportunities to celebrate life that can be found in SL.  
Photo credit to Tee Auster.  

Sunrise Meditation 2O12
created by Stephanie Mesler

Here Comes The Sun
Composed by George Harrison, Performed by The Beatles

(at the bridge)
Thank you for joining us for this guided meditation with music.  

I am Freda Frostbite in Second Life, Stephanie Mesler in the solid world.  

In SL, I am a member of The First Unitarian Universalist Church in UUtopia; In the solid world I am an aspirant to ordained ministry.  

I will be leading the meditation in voice and music will be playing.  Please adjust your settings so that you can hear both voice and music.  

The script for the meditation will also be running in local chat, so that you can read along if you like.  

Enjoy the music and allow yourself to relax as we prepare to begin the guided meditation.  

The Sunwise Path
Composed and Performed by Medwyn Goodall

Sitting comfortably or lying down with your eyes closed, let's begin the meditation by becoming aware of our breathing.

Take a deep breath, inhaling slowly to a count of four -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath for a few -- and, then, exhale 1 - 2 - 3 - 4

Feel your breath as it enters with a cool feeling.  It warms as it gently travels down into your  lungs.  

Fill your lungs with a deep inhalation of air, bringing in energy and vitality.

As you exhale, feel your body releasing tensions, stress and negativity.

Now inhale again, slowly -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

Your abdomen should expand as you inhale, your lungs pushing your diaphragm up and out of the way so that they can expand.

And as you exhale your belly should flatten out, sort of like a balloon deflating.  

Breath in again, slowly and smoothly.  Hold the breath just long enough to feel a small amount of tension and, then, blow the air out gently with a nearly silent whoosh.  

Stay with this way of breathing, focused on the simple sensations of air in and air out, for five deep inhalations and exhalations.

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

There is an energy that runs through your body as you breathe.

You can feel it in every cell

Imagine that energy flowing infinitely out into the cosmos and flowing back to you with each breath you take.  

As you inhale, feel the energy that is in world around you.  

Exhale your life force, sharing it with every living thing.

Focus now on the sensations of sharing and receiving energy.  

Let your body do what comes naturally as it prepares your mind to become a pallet on which we will paint the images of the guided meditation.

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

We start this day in the light before sunrise, at dawn.  You are standing at the top of a cliff beside the sea, a narrow stretch of white sand separating the cliff from the ocean.  

You wear a sarong tied loosely at your waist.    

There is lush grass beneath your bare feet and the wind blows gently toward you from the west.  It cools and caresses your back.

The sky is wide before you.  Whispy clouds float in the pinks and lavenders, oranges and blues of a tropical sunrise.  

The sun itself is still below the horizon.  It will be a few moments before you can bathe in its rays.  

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

Stand before the sea with your legs slightly parted.  

Stretch your arms above your head, spreading your fingers wide.  

Lift your chin and tilt your head back as your extended arms float gracefully down to your sides.  

Inhale again as you repeat this movement.  Arms up, hands spread, head tilted.  

Exhale as your arms fall gently to your sides.  

As you raise your arms once more, you open yourself to breath, to energy, to life.  

As you lower them, you give that breath back to the universe, giving it life.  

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

In the east, you see the first ray of sun reaching across the sky.  The sun herself is still hidden beneath the ocean.  

That first ray tells you it is time to meet your morning.  

With one hand, you reach for the knot at your waist and loosen the sarong.  In one smooth motion, you cast it to the wind.  

What color is your sarong?  See how it floats on the breeze.  See it rise and fall with the currents of air.  

Keep breathing as you watch it descend to the beach beneath you.  It lands gently below.  

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

You walk a few yards to your left, where the cliff juts out against the sea.  

Here, there is no beach beneath you, only the water lapping gently against the moss covered rock at the bottom of the cliff.  

You look to the east once more and see the sun’s forehead peeking over the horizon.  

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

You raise your arms again, taking in air and vitality.  

This time, you step forward, off the cliff’s edge.  

Outward first and forward you move before your body starts to slide down through the cool morning air.  

As you slip beneath the sea, the sun is halfway risen, a semicircle of golden light at the edge of the earth.  

Breathless, you float beneath the waves.  

Your arms and legs free, at first you allow them to be instructed by the power of the water around you.  You drift in its currents.  

It is warm here and clear.  You can see all around you in the brine:  

fish that scattered as you disrupted their feeding, kelp bending in the waves, shells, rocks, the sandy bottom of the sea where you landed.  

Ready now for breath, you pull your arms to your sides and kick your feet.

It is only a few feet to the surface.  When you emerge there, inhaling clean morning air, face the east and see the sun.  

He has risen fully over the sea and her rays shine down on you.  

Let your feet float to the surface and your arms float to your sides.  The back of your head is cradled in the water.  

Float free on this sea, naked but warmed by the sun’s light.  

Feel her heat seep through your skin, warming you through and through.  

Float here for a while, unhurried by the oncoming day.  

Take this time to bask in the sea and the sun, the breeze and all of nature that surrounds you.  

Be reminded that you are part of all that is and always has been.  You and the universe are one of a piece.

(Pause for as long as feels right and good.)

Now, take a deep breath.

Exhale through your mouth, blowing out slowly.  

The Sun soars against the eastern sky, now fully blue, cushioned by white cotton clouds.

Swim slowly toward shore; walk out of the water and onto the clean sand;

You retrieve your sarong, knotting it again at your waist.  Stand in the sunlight and breathe.

Cherokee Morning Song
Traditional, performed by Robbie Robertson

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

inhale  -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- hold the breath and exhale -- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 --

Slowly stretch your muscles now.... and open your eyes.  Enjoy the feeling of calm and peace that remains with you.

Thank you for joining us for this guided meditation..  I invite you to visit us any time in UUtopia, Second Life’s Unitarian Universalist region.  

IM me if you would like an invitation to be a member of my group, Freda’s Place, or the group for UUs in SL, FUUCSL.   

Feel free to visit me in the solid world at http://apoetsprogrogress.blogspot.com/
You can learn more about UUopia and events there by visiting http://www.fuucsl.org/wp/

Insomnia

This poem, hot off the presses, will get its first performance October 21 at Stories Unlimited's BooFest in Second Life.


Insomnia
by Stephanie Mesler


Still awake come morning,
its a quarter to one.
I’d count the bloody sheep
if sheep would only come
to aid me in my hour
of wakeful, turning angst,
but the sheep have left me sweating;
my mind keeps playing pranks.  

I lay here in the darkness,
listening to the wind
that whips across the meadow
and up the hill again.
It howls like Lon Chaney
when the wolfbane is in bloom.
It causes me to quiver
anticipating doom.

Still awake at two,
I tiptoe ‘cross the floor.
I hear my faint heart knocking
like demons at the door.
Standing at the cupboard,
reaching for the gin,
wondering if the witching hour
is time to wake the kin.


Down the hall they wheeze and snore
like hundred year old bellows;
Spouse and children safely dream
of naught but smiling fellows,
dancing at their bedsides,
cap and bells on head,
telling bawdy tales
to a court of sleeping dead.

In my mind panic reigns,
pits are soaking wet,
rational thought has come and gone,
replaced with boding threat.
It’s three a.m. beside the sea;
the dawn is nowhere near.
The jester in my own head now
curtsies with a sneer.

Alone again? my toothsome pet
Alone again by dark?
Me starts to think you come to me
enchanted on a lark.
I look into his bloodshot eyes,
intend to turn my gaze;
he has me in his thrall again
despite my gin soaked haze.

By four, I’m lost to specters’ claim,
wretched writhing pet
of him who stalks the darkened hearts
of sleepless who forget
that silence is the friend of one
who haunts the hush of night
trolls for victims in their homes
in the age old rite.  

Sun still hid at five o’clock;
Tide still not come in.
Not a cat’s brief doze had I
watching o’er my men,
sleeping fools to a one
not knowing of the peril
lurking round their bedsides now
slumber sucking, feral.

At the dawn my name they call
rising as they stretch
Mama where’s our breakfast?
Feed a starving wretch!
No answer comes to those who slept
while wakeful I was scourged
by a chortling dancing menace
who sang my sepulture dirge.  

Sleep has come at long and last
to me who was in exile.
I’ll miss the morn and most the day
in bland vampiric rest style.
Night will fall and I will rise
to love my needsome progeny,
protect them like a bulwark
'tween them and jester’s sovereignty.

UUtopia Service 9/13/2O12: Hearing and Heeding That Still Small Voice

**Pre-Service Music**

Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful?
written and performed by Paloma Faith

Watershed
Composed by Emily Ann Saliers, performed by The Indigo Girls

Still Small Voice
Composed by Wendy Liepman,  performed by Bob and Wendy

Gallileo
Composed by Emily Ann Saliers, performed by The Indigo Girls

Defying Gravity
Composed by Stephen Schwartz, performed by Indina Menzel and teh original Broadway cast of Wicked.  

Touch the Sky
Composed and Performed by Julie Fowlis for the motion picture, Brave.  

When the cold wind is calling
and the sky is clear and bright
Musty mountains sang and beckoned
lead me out into the light

I will ride, I will fly
Chase the wind and touch the sky
I will fly
Chase the wind and touch the sky

Where darkness hides secrets
and mountains are fierce and bold
Deep waters hold reflections
of times lost long ago

I will hear their every story
take hold of my own dream
Be as strong as the seas are stormy
and proud as an eagle's scream

I will ride, I will fly
Chase the wind and touch the sky
I will fly
Chase the wind and touch the sky

And touch the sky
Chase the wind, chase the wind
Touch the sky

(A bell is rung, calling this far-flung community together.)

** Announcements **

An order of service is available in notecard form by saying “oos” in local chat.  You can get a notecard or you can just follow along in local.  

Hello everyone.  I am Freda Frostbite in Second Life, Stephanie Mesler in the solid world.  I will be your guide and preacher this evening.  

Tonight’s service will be streamed in audio, spoken in voice and scrolled out in text.  

You will need to have audio  and voice enabled in your SL browser and on your computer in order to hear what is going on.   

If you are unable to hear audio in SL, the spoken portions of the service will continue to appear before you in local, as they are now.  

Welcome to the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Second Life, FUUCSL.

To visitors, an especially warm welcome!   

Please feel free to IM any of the congregants in attendance here, if you are in need of assistance in following the service or if you would like more information about UUtopia, Unitarian Universalism, or Second Life.  

If you are not familiar with Unitarian Universalism ("UU"), a single service will not show the full picture of Unitarian Universalism, here in SL or in the solid world.   Please come again.

Alo know that there is a map on the back of the big building in our plaza area just outside this sanctuary.  This map shows what congregations some of us belong to.  

This might help you in finding a first life congregation or fellowship to visit.  

You might also wish to look at UUA.org. or consider joining the group
Unitarian Universalists of SL to receive regular announcements.

Also please check out fuucsl.org, our web site.

We are always looking for members of our community who wish to get more involved.
If you would like to try your hand at leading a service, please contact
a member of the Leadership Group – their names are available in the notecard dispenser
in the welcome area.

Please join us after the service for coffee, conversation, and dancing – a venerable UU tradition!  I will be only too happy to TP you after the service.  

Are there any other announcements?

** Lighting the Chalice  and Opening words**

(the chalice is lighted and we join in saying the following)

Come to us all who are broken...
Come to us all who are laden...
Find strength here in safe and supportive community...
Know that this place can be your home...

Come to us in joy and in anguish...
Come to us in peace and in turmoil...
Let this light warm your heart and guide your mind...
Know that this place can be your home...


** Joys and Concerns **

Now let us prepare our hearts to receive the joys and concerns,
hopes and sorrows, fears and dreams of those present here tonight.

If there is something that has recently happened to you, happy or sad,
and you would like to share it with us, now is the time.

We invite you to share your joys and concerns in local chat, when you are ready.

** Offering **

A freewill offering is a sacrament of a free Church.
This fellowship is supported by the voluntary generosity of all who join with us.

There is an offering plate in the pool in front of us.
Please be generous in support of this UU fellowship.

** Musical Interlude **
Skybird
Composed and performed by Neil Diamond, from the motion Picture Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Skybird
Make your sail
And every heart
Will know of the tale

[Spoken:]
And head for the farthest shore

Songbird
Make your tune
For none may sing it just as you do

[Spoken:]
And make your song be heard

Look at the way I glide
Caught on the winds lazy tide
Sweetly how it sings
Rally each heart
At the sight of your silver wings

Skybird
Skybird
Night bird
Find your way
For none may know it just as you may

[Spoken:]
Seek out your harbor of light
Let your song be heard
Rally each heart
To the sight of your silver wings
Skybird

** The Word**

“I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you.”
Annie Dillard

“Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess.

Vocation does not come from a voice out there calling me to be something I am not.

It comes from a voice in here calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.”
Thomas Merton

**The Sermon**

Let me preface this sermon by saying I am a deist.  I believe in God.  

Later in the sermon, I will talk more about that belief and what it means to me, but I want you to realize up front that I am a believer.  

I hope you will hear me all the way to the end of this sermon because I hope you will respect my belief as I respect your religious views.  

One author recently quoted in the New York Times likened his vocation to that of a spider.  This author said, “I am like a spider and words are my silk.”

In the the Bible, in 1 Kings, there is a story of Elisha hearing and responding to the call of God.  

Elisha became a prophet, not because of the gale force winds, the earthquake or the fire God sent to get his attention.  

Elisha responded not to a bombastic demonstration of Godly authority but to a “still small voice,” a whisper he heard in the silence after the storm.  

That whisper got the man’s attention and he walked away from all he knew and loved to become his God’s mouthpiece on Earth.

In 1843, Isabella Baumfree changed her name.  Having been cheated by a white man who had promised to free her, she ran away to New York City.

There, she had what she called a revelation.

Baumfree said at the time that she knew she saw things others did not and that it was her duty, her calling, to speak these truths.  

Baumfree believed that God wanted her to do God’s work on Earth in much the same way Elisha had thousands of years earlier.  

To make the point clearer, she changed her name as many prophets have.  Isabella Baumfree became Sojourner Truth.  

Siddhārtha Gautama was born to the life of royalty.  

He lived a protected youth and young adulthood blissfully unaware of the realities that face all people eventually, sickness, aging, and death.  

His father, who wanted Siddhārtha to be a great king, shielded him from all religious teachings and any knowledge of human suffering.  

When he was 29, after having married and become a father, Siddhārtha decided to leave his palace and meet his subjects.  

Outside the palace walls, he saw reality for the first time and it frightened him.  

He spent the next years trying to find ways to avoid illness and prolong life.  

This is what led him to the teachers that molded him.  He became an ascetic.  

Realizing that meditative jhana was the right path to awakening, but that extreme asceticism didn't work,

Gautama discovered what Buddhists call the Middle Way—a path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification.  

It took half of a long lifetime, but Siddhārtha Gautama eventually heard his call.  He became a great teacher, an awakened one, a Buddha.  

I have a friend who is a successful novelist.  Interestingly, she is a resident of Second Life, though that is not where I met her.  

She writes under the same name she gave her SL avatar, Meilin Miranda.  Meilin used to be a professional web maven.  

She is a wife and mom who, in recent years, has experienced some very serious health problems, coming close to death on a couple of occasions.  

After one such near miss, Meilin came home from the hospital and started writing her first novel.  

She dumped all her other professional responsibilities to do so.  She said later that this novel was born whole in her mind and,

when she left the hospital, she really felt she had no choice but to write her book.  One book lead to another and now she is the mother of a trilogy.

Not all calls are as clear as Meilin’s.  Not all who hear that still small voice are quick to respond to it.  

Many are downright resistant.  Not all callings are glamorous.  

Ask anyone who is motivated to teach by more than just the summers off or anyone who serves the poor in any sort of hands on way.  

Recently, I made the decision to answer my own call.  I have been hearing that still small voice for many, many years, 27 to be precise.  

I have, for the most part ignored it because I was a little embarrassed to admit that I felt called in the traditional sense by something larger than myself to do work I really did not feel qualified to do.  

It feels presumptuous to say it but I am now sure that I have something to offer the world, that I am called to service by God as I see God (more about that in a moment)

and that the time has come to get off myhind end and do what God has been asking of me for most of my adult life.  

I have decided to attend seminary and ask the UUA to ordain me as a minister.  

Though my path has been revealing itself to me over a number of decades and

although it has been clear to me for a few years that what I am is a UU minister and preacher,

I have been very hesitant to tell anyone I am called to ministry.  What if they thought I was delusional?

But a few week’s back I told three people who know me well:  my life partner, my daughter’s father, and my closest online friend.  

It came out first, almost by accident, in conversation with my partner whose response was so supportive and sure that I quickly told my daughter’s father and my friend.  

All three indicated that they believed ministry was the right course for me and the right name for what I already do.  

My daughter’s father said, “I wondered when you would get around to thinking about ordination.”  

Well, I have thought about it.  I’ve thought about it a lot.  

I started thinking about my calling a lifetime ago when I was an Episcopalian in the diocese of Michigan and, later,  Southern Ohio.  

The priest with whom I spoke at the time asked me two questions I could not answer in a way that made ordination seem a necessary path.  

Was there anything I could do ordained that I could not do without benefit of ordination?  Was I not in fact already doing the work I was called to?  

The answer to those questions were, at the time, No and Yes.  To tell the truth, I would answer those same questions the same way today, even more fervently.  

I DO already do the work I feel called to do.  One need not be an ordained minister to do this work.  

But I now realize that one does gain authority that makes the work easier to do if one is ordained.  One gains credibility and community support for her work.  

Back then I had another reason for choosing other paths even though I heard the call to ordained ministry loud and clear.

I could not sign on to a lifetime of preaching the gospel and offering my flock transformation in the form of bread and wine,

not because I did not believe in the core truths of the gospels or the transformative power of communion (I do believe in both of those things.)

but because I could not say that I saw them as the only righteous paths to God and because, even back then,

when I still called myself Christian with a capitol C, I could not box God in by defining her so narrowly as to make him inaccessible to most people, including myself.  

I did not know it back then, but I am a Universalist, one who believes God belongs to everyone.  

Recently a friend of a friend asked me to explain how I could believe we all get into heaven, even those of us who make immoral choices.  

He asked me to explain how I could believe, as Universalists do, that everyone is on the path to God.  

I pointed out to him that all humans make immoral choices; it is part of the human condition.  

I also explained that the God in whom I believe has enough power to accept and love us all, even those of us who are not perfect, which is to say all of us.

Then, I explained that I do not believe we are on a path to God.  I do not believe that path even exists or that it is necessary.  

As I define God, she is at all times in us and around us, above us and below us.  God is us and we are him.  

I told this friend I believe what  Jesus said in Luke 17:  The realm of God is now.”  

That being the case, there is no need to think about heaven or hell, only to focus on living here and now,

making the best choices we can and accepting that the world we are in is not fully black or white,

but painted in the many colors of the rainbow and a whole bunch of variations in between.  

What I did not say to this friend is that I define God very broadly.   

I use the term God as shorthand for that which is and always has been, that of which we are all a part.  

I could call it nature or humanness or just life.  I choose the term, God, because it is the one I am comfortable using.  

My mother was an atheist who rather liked ritual and church music.  

My father was a Methodist minister before my birth, a minister of music throughout my childhood, and became an Episcopal priest in his fifties.  

I was baptized in a Methodist church as an infant and confirmed by an Episcopal bishop as a young adult.  

In 1996, I started attending a Unitarian Universalist church in Columbus, Ohio.  

It is in the UU church that I finally found enough breadth and openness to explore my own beliefs more closely and to begin to act on them.  

Three years or so ago, I joined the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Second Life, this congregation.  

It is here, in an online and somewhat anonymous environment, that my real life was transformed in a way that made my calling clear to me.  

In Second Life, hidden for a while behind an avatar, I explored my own desires, needs, and beliefs.  

As I started to know the members of FUUCSL and as I started to be sure of who I am,

I began living an authentic life that connected me, through a virtual medium, to the real people behind their SL avatars.

After a while, I connected my virtual presence to my real self, openly revealing who I am to those I meet in Second Life.  

A couple years ago, still living in Columbus, OH and attending 1st UU there,

I began preaching in SL, leading rituals and meditations here, and serving inworld as a nontraditional pastoral counselor.  

Then, I moved to Florida and started attending a fellowship in Cocoa.  I decided it was time to start doing ministry in the solid world too.  

So now I preach about once a month for my fellowship and once a month in Second Life.  

I am called to ministry as a preacher, liturgist  and pastoral counselor.  

I see myself further exploring ways that spirituality, religion, ritual, and community can be nurtured, discovered, and expanded online.  

We all know the world has been transformed by the internet.  

Religion and churches really must begin to make dynamic use of the internet in order to meet people where they are, which is, for better or for worse, online.  

This is not to say that online community and spirituality can or should fully replace brick and mortar congregations and in-the-flesh rituals.  

But Online congregations and ministry can touch some people who, for a variety of reasons, cannot be touched in other ways.  

The UUA recently took a step in this direction by voting that communities of UUs that exist outside of brick and mortar churches can apply for status as full congregations and fellowships.  

This step toward embracing nontraditional congregations spoke very loudly to me.  

The voice I heard was no longer still and small, not a nagging whisper in the back of my mind

but the banging of a gong demanding that I wake up and pay attention to what my God asked of me.  

As many of you know, I am a working poet and author.  I have been a professional musician, actor, and teacher.  

I see the skills and talents I have nurtured in those fields as essential components in the ministry to which I am called.  

In fact, I believe that they will always be a part of the work I want to do (and am already doing without benefit of ordination).  

In fact it is my experience in the arts and in education that brought me to this place and time when I can finally say yes to the question proffered by that still small voice...  “Will you?”

I have begun the long process of guided discernment by contacting the UUA and my district, submitting my own ministerial vision statement and history.  

I have made contact with the two fellowshipped ministers closest to me, who are both more than 1OO miles away, and have arranged to meet with them in the next six weeks.  

I’ve also enrolled to take some religion classes through The University of South Florida starting in January

and will soon begin the process of applying to Starr King seminary in California and seeking financial support to pay for my degree.  

I am learning to drive this Fall because it is clear that the district I am in could stand to have another minister on call for emergencies and hospital requests.  

So that is my call and how I am responding to it.  Finally.  

I find myself wondering now if you have a calling.  Have you heard that still small voice?  

Is there something you have done in your life because you felt compelled to do so?  In a good way, I mean.  

Not forced by circumstances into a situation that would not be good for you, but drawn to a course of action that allows you to use all your talents and be your truest self?  

Is there something you have considered doing but never acted?  

I open the floor now for your questions and comments, asking you especially to talk about your own calling.  

Have you heard that still small voice?  Did it spur you to action?  


**Discussion, if there is to be any**

**Extinguishing the chalice**

Please join me in saying the following:

We extinguish this light, but do not darken the world.
We extinguish this light so that we may return to the world, carrying with us the light of this loving fellowship wherever we go and in all we do.  
Let us bring a light of hope, clarity, and love to the world beyond this virtual one.

**The Benediction**
Go, now,  in peace to love and serve the world.  

**Music and Dancing!!**

Closer to Fine
Composed by Emily Ann Saliers, performed by The Indigo Girls