Religious Education Sunday Multigenerational Service.

“RE Sunday” is filled with ritual. The little ones come forward – eager or timid – to receive giant erasers which represent the community’s acceptance of their mistakes.

Eighth-grade students are recognized for the commitment to exploring their lives as values-consistent, whole human beings in relationship with others.

Our high school seniors step to the podium to speak their truths and allow us to bear witness. We reach out with our hands and hearts to remind them that they are loved as we send them out into the world as young adults.

Join us for the annual First Church Flower Communion service, where we will consider the blessings we give and receive in community.

Remember to bring a flower to share your unique blessing in our ritual of giving and receiving flowers. Flowers will also be available if you forget.

This year we will include a ritual of gratitude for Lu Krug’s enormous financial gift to First Church, and a ritual of gratitude for Beryl Aschenberg’s enormous gift of service to First Church. Our community overflows with blessings!

How do we survive in this changing world? What gives us the strength to keep going, no matter the struggle? We will honor those who have served in the military during this service on Memorial Day weekend.

The process of coming alive is ongoing. We are physically born, and then we are reborn again and again in the process of creativity as we are inspired by and shape each other throughout our lives. There are no creators without companions – whether known or unknown. Parenting is a process of creation ongoing.

When was the last time you created (or helped create) something that you hope will outlive you?

Coloring outside the lines means that there are lines within which we can stay or go beyond. In worship and community life, those lines are tradition. Today we’ll explore the creative tension between tradition and innovation as it influences our practice of creativity.

There is a relationship between who you are now, and who you are becoming. In the process of visioning our future as a community, we are calling ourselves into our hoped-for becoming, even as we live together today. How can knowing who we are helping us become who we long to be? What must we know about ourselves in order to unfold towards our hope?

Michaelis and Kaleka, who came together over their deep need to understand the power of compassion over hatred. These two joined together, co-authored a book on compassion and formed “Serve2Unite”, an organization that works to create inclusive compassionate nonviolent climates in schools and communities. The lecture: “Hurt People Hurt People: The Responsibility of Compassion” is followed with a workshop, “Feeling Past Fear: Understanding Self and Others Through Stories”.

Photo by Jayrol Photography.

The climate crisis we are in now has been emerging for a long time. The urgency of now was created by decades of ignoring warnings, but even more, by centuries of centering individual experience and profit while ignoring the broader context of life. What would it be like to expand our understanding to include the wideness of the whole earth and broader humanity? What emerges from the fullness of being, and the whole of life?

Parker Palmer says the soul is a shy thing and requires time and space to emerge. Allowing may be as much a part of the soul’s emergence as pushing. How might you let go and let your soul come forth in its own time? What space will it take in your own life for your soul to unfold?

A sudden realization may seem surprising and special, but it emerges from what is already there. Epiphanies can be scientific breakthroughs, philosophical discoveries, or a realization in which we understand something more deeply or from an enlightening perspective. It’s the sudden emergence of clarity from something we’ve been thinking about for a long time. The “aha!” moment that can never be taken back. If you have a personal story of a significant “aha!” moment you’d like to share, please send it to me by April 11.

The Reverend Dena McPhetres