Theme of the service: introversion and community

* Opening Words - author unknown:

May we be reminded here of our highest aspirations,
And inspired to bring our gifts of love and service to the altar of humanity.
May we know once again that we are not isolated beings,
But connected, in mystery and miracle,
To the universe, to this community, and to each other.

* Chalice Lighting - by Lene Lund Shoemaker, a member of the Danish Unitarian Church:

When life seems heavy and dark, and you feel very sad – Light a candle!
When life seems light and wonderful, and you feel like hugging the world – Light a candle!
Let this flame represent precisely the candle you need to light at this very moment.

* Story for All Ages - Sharon selected three poems from Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends (the kid who talked with his mouth full of food, Noah and the unicorn, and the title poem)

* A prayer by Unitarian minister Vivian Pomeroy:

God, we thank thee that so often we have been happily mistaken in our estimate of other people; that so many times we have been startled by a flash of beauty where we looked only for dullness, and a glow of fire where we expected to find nothing but ashes. May we be delivered from the folly of demanding that others shall always be at their best, while we forget that we ourselves are not always at our best. Save us from the false judgment of feeling that others are always as mean as they appeared to be in some perverse moment. May we be ready to forgive people for what they are, as well as for what they do, since in thy great Being they have as much right to be as we have. May we not feel too bad about the ways in which others have their good times. If we put ourselves in the seat of the scornful, may we find it very uncomfortable. May we never forget that every man is fighting a secret battle. As for our own lives, may we grow more like what we seem to our best friends and less like what we seem to our worst enemies. And may we not defraud ourselves by too little giving and forgiving. Amen.

* Responsive Reading - Eusebius:

Reader: May I be no one's enemy and may I be the friend of that which is eternal and abides.

Congregation: May I wish for every person's happiness and envy none.

Reader: May I never rejoice in the ill fortune of one who has wronged me.

Congregation: May I, to the extent of my power, give needful help to all who are in want.

Reader: May I never fail a friend.

Congregation: May I respect myself.

Reader: May I always keep tame that which rages within me.

Congregation: May I accustom myself to be gentle and never be angry with others because of circumstances.

Reader: May I know good people and follow in their footsteps.

* Meditation text (from Emerson's "Self-Reliance") - SLT's adaptation):

These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.