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Quotation in Bulletin

"The United States was not born in harmony, much less unanimity, but with the full, exciting play of free thought and free speech. In the greatness of our heritage, we must be able disagree without malice or hatred or ugly distortion."

(Oveta Culp Hobby, excerpt from speech, Women's Club, Houston, Texas, November 2, 1972)

Call to Worship

Holy and beautiful is the custom by which we gather on this Sunday morning.
Here we come to give our thanks, to face our ideals, to remember our loved ones, to seek that which is permanent, and to serve goodness and beauty and the qualities of life that make it rich and whole.
Through this hour breathes the worship of all ages, the cathedral music of all history, and blessed are the ears that hear that eternal sound.

Congregational Covenant Statement (spoken in unison)

We are travelers. We meet for a moment in this sacred place to love, to share, to serve. Let us use compassion, curiosity, reverence, and respect while seeking our truths. In this way we will support a just and joyful community, and this moment shall endure.

Responsive Reading

MINISTER: From the fragmented world of our everyday lives we gather together in search of wholeness.

CONGREGATION: By many cares and preoccupations, by diverse and selfish aims are we separated from one another and divided within ourselves.

MINISTER: Yet we know that no branch is utterly severed from the Tree of Life that sustains us all.

CONGREGATION: We cherish our oneness with those around us and the countless generations that have gone before us.

MINISTER: We would hold fast to all of good we inherit even as we would leave behind us the outworn and false.

CONGREGATION: We would escape from bondage to the ideas of our own day and from the delusions of our own fancy.

MINISTER: Let us labor in hope for the dawning of a new day without hatred, violence, and injustice.

CONGREGATION: Let us nurture the growth in our own lives of the love that has shone in the lives of the greatest of men and women, the rays of whose lamps still illumine our way.

MINISTER: In this spirit we gather.

CONGREGATION: In this spirit we pray.

(Phillip Hewitt)

"THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS FOLLOWING THE ELECTION:
A CONGREGATIONAL CONVERSATION"

Introduction to shared reflection

Last Thursday evening at an orientation session for individuals considering membership in this Fellowship, a long-time member of this congregation, Maitland Hardyman, spoke for a few minutes about the construction of this building and, in particular, this sanctuary. He spoke about the concern, the care, and the creativity that went into the construction of this place.

The construction of this building and sanctuary was highly unusual because of the fact that it was not something hired out to be built by others, but rather it was literally built by the hands of many of the persons who would be using this space.

Maitland commented almost casually, though it wasn't casual, "It seemed right that we should build our own building."

I take that to mean that this religion of ours, this response we make to life's deepest questions and ultimate concerns, is not something that is simply handed to us, but rather it is something that we ourselves build anew from the ground up, and it is something that we own.

This is not to say that we are not connected or grateful to all those who have gone before us - those who have given us our life, who have taught us our skills, and who have shown us their ways. But now it is our time, our life. It is our privilege and responsibility to engage this world and to discover and develop our own powers.

Constructing one's own building and sanctuary is a symbolic expression of this kind of personal and ground-rooted religion. But it strikes me that it is even more than a symbolic expression of such an approach in religion, important as that is; it is a literal, actual expression of religious value and belief.

Having the faith and the courage to build your own building is a religious act itself in the original meaning of the word "religion." "Religion," from the Latin, religio, has to do with re-linking, re-joining, re-connecting - bringing together heart and mind and body and soul and spirit so that work and worship is of one piece.

Why undertake the building of this room? Why put such care into such a room?

Because this is the meeting room of the community of individual souls. This is the place where the community gathers: to ponder, to reflect, to question, to discuss, to debate, to celebrate, to give thanks, to rejoice, to grieve, to find a center, to come to ourselves.

This room is called a "sanctuary," that is, a sacred place, a holy place, a place built to give visible expression to an invisible interior holy place, which is the sanctuary of the "individual soul," the soul being one's "essential self," one's "inviolate center."

This sanctuary is built as a visible expression of our most essential selves. It is built to recognize that essential self, to protect it, to honor it, to call it forth, and to develop it.

Thus, this sanctuary is located at the center of the world, the center of the universe, the center of all reality… in the sense that it frames a space for that Invisible Center out of which each of our lives emerge and of which each of our lives is an individual expression.

And so this morning as we gather in this center, this sanctuary of the spirit that has been so lovingly and courageously built by hands that continue to use it, I would ask that we make an attempt to speak out of our deepest personal center and most essential self - to try to discard the chaff and seek the kernel.

We gather this Sunday following a national election that has seemed more polarizing than most, an election that no doubt will have an impact on our lives in the years to come. We don't know exactly what that impact will be for the future is the future and has not yet been lived.

It seemed right to me on this occasion that more than one voice be heard, that an opportunity be given for many voices in this congregation to speak and to be heard. Thus, I invite you into a time of congregational reflection and sharing, an opportunity to speak your truth, to hear others speak their truths, to have your truth attentively listened to, and to listen attentively to the truth of others.

My role will be to facilitate this time of reflection and sharing, watching the time, protecting the process, and providing an opportunity for those of you wish to say a few words to express thoughts, feelings, insights, hopes, dreams, and fears.

I request that those of you who do wish to speak do not state your name or stand to speak, but rather remain seated so that the voices heard arise, as it were, anonymously, out of the congregation as a whole.

Before we begin this time of shared reflection, let us spend a few moments in silence to order our spirits and gather our thoughts. Let us be together in a brief time of silent mediation and prayer.

NOTE: A time of congregational sharing followed this introduction.

Benediction

In the time of your life, live - so that in that good time
There shall be no ugliness or death
For yourself or for any life that your life touches.
Seek goodness everywhere; when it is found
Bring it out of its hiding-place
And let it be free and unashamed.
Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption.
Encourage virtue into whatever heart
It may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow
By the shame and terror of the world.
In the time of your life, live - so that in that wondrous time
You shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world,
But shall smile instead to the infinite delight and mystery of it.

(William Saroyan, from the Preface of "The Time of Your Life," adapted)

Extinguishing of Chalice

We extinguish this chalice
But not the light of truth,
Or the fire of commitment.
These we carry in our hearts
Until we are together again.

(NOTE: This is a manuscript version of the words of The Reverend Bruce A. Bode at the Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on the Sunday following the national election, November 7, 2004. The spoken words, as well as the spoken reflections of the congregation, are available on audio cassette at the Fellowship.)