January 10th, 2016                                                                                                                       Heart & Soul Service

Gathering                                                                                                                              Music by Karen Hsu Patterson

 

Welcome                                                                                                                                                             Bettye Barclay

 

Chalice Lighting

Honesty is not the revealing of some foundational truth that gives us power over life or another or even the self, but a robust incarnation into the unknown unfolding vulnerability of existence, where we acknowledge how powerless we feel, how little we actually know, how afraid we are of not knowing and how astonished we are by the generous measure of loss that is conferred upon even the most average life.

~ David Whyte

 

First reading                                                                                                                                                       Andrea Steffan

And so life pulls us and we swing from Truth to truths, from cosmos to self, from mystery to clarity, from out to in. It is our state to swing and to be drawn ever into another swing. This is the motion that makes ours a human life. May the great gravity of life which pulls us along an unknown, holy axis never let the pendulums we are cease swinging until the Truth we seek and the truths we are one.

~ Don W. Vaughn-Foerster

 

Silence

 

Second Reading                                                                                                                                        Paice Van Ooyen

My head knocks against the stars. My feet are on the hilltops. My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life. Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny. I have been to hell and back many times. I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God. I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible. I know the passionate seizure of beauty and the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading "Keep Off." My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive

in the universe.

~ Carl Sandburg

 

Silence

 

Reflection on Truth                                                                                                                       Rev. Kikanza Nuri Robins

 

Truth in your Heart and Soul

What have you learned about the truths in your life?

Share from own experience. Share from your heart, not your head.

Leave space for others to share.

 

Ritual

On the back of this program, write something you would like to remember about the truth in your life.

For example: Write a truth that guides your life. Write a truth that is a secret known only to you. Write a truth that holds you prisoner. Write a truth that sets you free.

 

Silence

What will you do with the truths of your life?

 

Silence -- Light candle on altar

 

Benediction                                                                                                                                                        Bettye Barclay

Tell all the truth but tell it slant, success in circuit lies,

Too bright for our infirm delight the truth's superb surprise;

As lightning to the children eased with explanation kind,

The truth must dazzle gradually or every one be blind.

~ Emily Dickenson