(With guest musician Pamela Schenk) Introduction to Our New Joys and Cares Ritual One of the things I’ve always found kind of sad about the candles we light on Sundays to make manifest our joys and cares is that at the end of the service, we just kind of blow them out. When I do it, I try to do it reverentially,…

Monthly Theme: Being Mortal Call to Worship Rev. Denis Letourneau Paul You’ve got a lot going on in your life.Your days are filled with challenges that feel like they will drag you down into a deep dark pit of despairYour days are filled with tasks Soaked with obligation Like homework and deskwork and emails and billsThat seem to keep getting put on top of…

Reflection “Letting Go,” Rev Denis Paul When I was little, my siblings and I didn’t get candy for Easter. Oh, we got an Easter basket, complete with plastic grass and even some dyed hardboiled eggs, but no candy. The basket was mostly filled with little toys, things like Silly Putty, yo-yos, magnetic board games for long car rides, that kind of thing.…

Reading “And a side of fried okra, please…” by Patricia Smith How’s this for poetic inspiration? At about 3 a.m., when I should have been snoozing contentedly, dreaming stanzas, I was in the back seat of a cab hurtling toward Gladys Knight’s Chicken & Waffles because- I’m in Atlanta, where they fry everything but chairs. I’ve always been fascinated by the pairings-hot,…

Centering Thought: The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love. – Margaret Atwood Reading “Love Poem,” by Andrzej Luckwitz My mind is conflicted with thoughts and feelings that come all of a sudden. I stop right where I was walking as a shiver runs along my spine. Color blooms on my…