Order of Service: Oct. 15, 2017 "Growing Up & Liking It"

Date of Service: 
October 15, 2017
 
         15 October 2017                                                                                                     Growing Up & Liking It
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
*Gathering Hymn                                  #163 For the Earth Forever Turning
 
Call to Worship                                     Rev. Kikanza Nuri-Robins, worship associate
 
Chalice Lighting                                    Everything must change; nothing stays the same.
                                                              The young become the old, and mysteries unfold.
                                                              Winter turns to spring; a wounded heart will heal.
                                                              There are not many things in life you can be sure of,
                                                              Except rain comes from the clouds,
                                                              Sun lights up the sky, and hummingbirds fly.
                                                              That's the way of time;
                                                              nothing and no one goes unchanged.                                 (Bernard Ighner)
 
Music for the Morning                           Change the World (9am)                                Kennedy, Sims & Kirkpatrick
                                                              Mood Indigo (11am)                                                 by Ellington, arr. Swift
 
Welcome
 
*Opening Hymn                                     #210 Wade in the Water
 
*Covenant                                              Love is the doctrine of this church.
                                                               The quest for truth is its sacrament,
                                                               And service is its prayer.
                                                               To dwell together in peace,
                                                               To seek knowledge in freedom,
                                                               To serve humankind in fellowship,
                                                               Thus do we covenant with each other.
 
*Hymn of Praise
 
Offering for the Westside Food Bank
 
Time for All Ages                                     The Giving Tree                                                                Shel Silverstein
 
Song of Blessing                                      #118 This Little Light of Mine
                                                                 This little light of mine...
                                                                  Everywhere I go...
                                                                  All around the world...
 
Life Together
 
Pulpit Message
 
Offering
 
Offertory Anthem                                     Everything Must Change (9am)                                         Quincy Jones
                                                                Don’t You Let Nobody (11am)                                         arr. Lena McLin
 
Devotional Time
 
Responsive Reading                                A Litany for Survival                                                               Audre Lorde
 
Pastoral Prayer                                        Hebrew Scriptures                                                       Ecclesiastes 3:1-11
                                                                 A message from The Teacher
 
Silence
 
Sung Response
 
Sermon                                                   Growing Up and Liking It                                 Rev. Kikanza Nuri-Robins
 
Going Deeper                                         Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart
                                                               and try to love the questions themselves...
                                                               Don’t search for the answers,
                                                               they could not be given to you now,
                                                               because you would not be able to live them.
                                                               And the point is, to live everything.
                                                               Live the questions now.
                                                               Perhaps then, someday in the future,
                                                               you will gradually, without even noticing it,
                                                               live your way into the answer.                                      (Rainer Maria Rilke)
 
*Closing Hymn                                        Lean on Me
 
*Benediction
 
Musical or Choral Benediction
 
Invitation to Fellowship
 
*Please stand in body or in spirit
 
❦ ❦ ❦ ❦
 
Greeters:                  [9am: Audrey Lyness] [11am: Roberta Frye, Wendi Gladstone & David Olson]
Ushers:                     [9am: Bonnie Brae & Peggy Kharraz] [11am: Nina Emerson & Michael Young]
Coffee:                      [9am: Alice Hall & Kit Shaw] [11am: Sheila Cummins & Pam Teplitz]
Welcome Table:        [9am & 11am: Wendi Gladstone]
Bookstore:                [9am & 11am: Sarah Harper]
 
Service Notes
 
Today, 40% of our offering will go to the Napa and Santa Rosa UU Congregation’s Ministerial Discretionary fund to go directly to immediate relief of those most affected by the fires.
 
 
A Litany for Survival
     ~ Audre Lorde
 
For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
            for those of us who cannot indulge
            the passing dreams of choice
who live in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
             looking inward and outward
             at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children's mouths
                so their dreams will not reflect
                the death of ours:
For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother's milk
                 for by this weapon
                 this illusion of some safety to be found
                 the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
                  We were never meant to survive.
And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
                   when the sun sets we are afraid
                   it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
                    when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
                    we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
                      when we are alone we are afraid
                      love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
                      but when we are silent
                      we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
                        we were never meant to survive.
                                                                                                            ~ (Responsive Reading, October 15, 2017)
 
 
Pastoral Prayer from the Hebrew Scriptures
A message from The Teacher, (Ecclesiastes 3:1-11)
 
     There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
          a time to be born and a time to die,
          a time to plant and a time to uproot,
          a time to kill and a time to heal,
          a time to tear down and a time to build,
          a time to weep and a time to laugh,
          a time to mourn and a time to dance,
          a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
          a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
          a time to search and a time to give up,
          a time to keep and a time to throw away,
          a time to tear and a time to mend,
          a time to be silent and a time to speak,
          a time to love and a time to hate,
          a time for war and a time for peace.
     I have seen the burden laid on the human race. Everything is made beautiful in its time.
                                                                               
                                                                                                                      ~ (Pastoral Prayer, October 15, 2017)