Teresa’s Note: May 17, 2024

Teresa's Note

May 17

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Dear friends and members of University UMC:

A shout-out to all the educators, parents, and students! The end of the school year is in sight. Congratulations to all. I look forward to worship on Sunday morning, where we will celebrate our high school graduates. Be prepared for the adorableness as each senior’s photo is included in the bulletin along with a picture from their childhood. We’ll also observe Pentecost when we remember the power of the Holy Spirit that inspired the early followers of Jesus and birthed the early church. It is a rich, high holy day in the life of the church, and in the last few weeks, I’ve come across a great number of pieces in my reading I share with you below.

Pentecost is a time of both looking to the past and looking forward. We remember those who have gone before us and recall that the so-called “first” Pentecost in the Book of Acts is rooted in an ancient tradition. It is one of the great Jewish Festivals, and those gathered in the Acts story would include practicing Jews who were coming to celebrate this great festival - also called the Feast of Weeks. It was at this festival that people joyfully gathered to offer to God the first fruits from their harvest. The Pentecost story from the book of Acts is also filled with dramatic elements and our Sunday morning worship will have a few surprises. Hope to see you there! Above all, may we look ahead with dreams and visions for what could be. And may our prayers join together for our wonderful UUMC community and for our graduating seniors as we all look to the future with great hope.

What a joy to be your pastor!

Teresa

A Blessing for the Seekers

by Sarah Speed

Blessed are you who turn your face up to the sky,

Who open your arms to feel the wind,

Who notice all the things that we should notice.

Blessed are you who are fluent in wonder

And familiar with awe.

Blessed are you who, even now, dream dreams, who have not lost hope,

Who swear the glass is still half-full.

Blessed are you who plant trees and sing the harmony,

Who tell the children who this world can be magic.

Blessed are you who walk and seek

And turn over every stone,

Pointing out all the corners and colors that God lives in.

Blessed are you.

“It has seemed to me sometimes as though the Lord breathes on this poor gray ember of Creation and it turns to radiance – for a moment or a year or the span of a life. And then it sinks back into itself again, and to look at it no one would know it had anything to do with fire, or light. This is what I said in the Pentecost sermon. I have reflected on that sermon, and there is some truth in it. But the Lord is more constant and far more extravagant than it seems to imply. Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don’t have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see. Only, who could have the courage to see it?”

– Marilynne Robinson in her book, Gilead

O Shekinah,
yours is the feminine face of the Holy,
the luminous moon who lights up the night
as we travel from captivity to liberation,
the pillar of fire who guides our way home,
the cloud hovering over the mountain peaks,
living sign that the drought is over.

You are the indwelling presence of the Divine.
Whenever we gather to praise the One
you are here in our midst.
When we cry out for justice
you make our hearts tender.
When we stand with those on the margins
you make our legs strong.
When we create works of art
and parent our children
and harvest our gardens
you guide and sustain us.

You are the Sabbath Bride, the Beloved,
returned from exile.
You restore balance in our relationships
and wholeness to our fragmented souls.
You infuse our lovemaking with honey.
You fill the cup of our hearts,
which tremble with longing,
with the wine of your answering love.
You are the song of our homecoming.

You are the Sabbath Queen, the Great Mother,
who sits at the heart of the table
tearing off hunks of the secret bread
that contains the exact flavor each of us loves best.
You feed us all,
the proud and the repentant,
the believer and the skeptic,
from your own hands.
Your unconditional forgiveness dissolves otherness.

O Shekinah,
we are the vessel for your inflowing.
Your radiance requires the clay of our embodiment.
Your flame burns at the core of the earth.
Your warmth penetrates the seedbed and animates the seedlings.
You bless the head of every animal
and kiss the tear-streaked face of humanity.
You are the vision that builds community,
and you are our refuge
when the fabric of community unravels.

Be with us now
as we navigate the landscape of mystery
where your most cherished attributes —
wild mercy and boundless compassion,
righteousness and wisdom —
seem to be cast aside and trampled
by imperious world powers
and we are paralyzed by helplessness.
Help us.
May we remember you and lift you up.
May we recognize your face and celebrate your beauty
in everything and everyone,
everywhere, always.
AMEN.

– by Mirabai Starr

(The word Shekinah is the Hebrew word for God meaning “Dwelling.” It is a word for God often used in the Jewish Kabbalist tradition)

In Praise of Fire

by John O’Donohue

Let us praise the grace and risk of Fire.

In the beginning,

The Word was red,

And the sound was thunder,

And the wound in the unseen 

Spilled forth the red weather of being. 

In the name of the Fire,

The Flame

And the Light:

Praise the pure presence of fire 

That burns from within

Without thought of time. 

The hunger of Fire has no need

For the reliquary of the future;

It adores the eros of now, 

Where the memory of the earth

In flames that lick and drink the air 

Is made to release

Its long-enduring forms 

In a powder of ashes

Left for the wind to decipher.

As air intensifies the hunger of fire,

May the thought of death

Breathe new urgency

Into our love of life.

As fire cleanses dross,

May the flame of passion

Burn away what is false.

As short as the time

From spark to flame,

So brief may the distance be

Between heart and being.

May we discover

Beneath our fear

Embers of anger

To kindle justice.

May courage

Cause our lives to flame,

In the name of the Fire,

And the Flame

And the Light.

"Pentecost arrives to remind us that ashes do not have the final word, and that fire does not come only to consume. It comes also to bless, to call, to inspire, to give to us what we could never begin to imagine on our own.”

– Jan Richardson

Pentecost Benediction/Blessing

by Maren Tirabassi

May your tongue tingle with the good news. May your heart open

to all the people of the street.

And, when you are bent over by sorrow, walking masked in a lonely

or dangerous

or over-busy day

may you find the Spirit’s feather on the ground waiting there to give you hope.

Amen