Click right here Sunday shortly before 10:00 AM to join our online service.
Join us to enjoy Alice Charkes, educator, bicyclist, and award-winning advocate for active transportation
“Restoring Your Spirit in the Great Outdoors”
Click right here Sunday shortly before 10:00 AM to join our online service.
Order of Service
Sunday, July 18, 2021
Board Greeting & Announcements Catie G. Berg
Prelude: “On a Clear Day” music by Burton Lane
Eva Greene, piano
Chalice Lighting by Rev. Nancy Shaffer Diana Clark
“Blessing for Bodies”
May we creatures of bone and tissue
know our bodies well:
the fourth rib, and how it rises
higher than third, not so high as fifth;
how it feels to the thumb, slowly traced,
and under it, how the heart rests.
May we know that space where
no ribs lie, and unshielded, we bend
May we know the bottom of each toe, and that tender arch where
no skin touches ground;
also skin smoothed soft by clothing
May we know the quick curve of the head
before it sits on the spine,
and the tiny hollow just behind the ear;
May we know the bottom of each
length of the forearm,
lifting food to lips, and how lips become
a circle, waiting—and knowing this,
cease our study of war.
Opening Words Karen Tyler
Opening Hymn #44: “We Sing of Golden Mornings”
poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson; music: from Southern Harmony
Catie Berg, soprano
Poem: “I thank you god for most this amazing” ee Cummings
Hymn #291: “Die Gedanken Sind Frei” (Alsatian folk song)
transl. by Arthur Kevess & Elizabeth Bennett
Bob Wyckoff, tenor
Story For All Ages: “Go Bikes Go”
By Addie Boswell, Illustrator Alexander Mostov
read by Maisie Crowther
Guest Speaker: Alice Charkes
Offering shared with Windham County NAACP
Offertory: “End of the Line” The Traveling Wilburys
(excerpt from youtube recording)
Roy Orbison, George Harrison, Tom Petty and Bob Dylan
Candles of Joys and Concerns Karen Tyler
Closing Hymn #301: “Touch the Earth, Reach the Sky!”
by Grace Lewis-McLaren
Christina Gibbons, soprano
Extinguishing the Chalice by Rev. Susan Manka-Seale Diana Clark
“To pay attention to our physical health is a spiritual practice in that we make of our bodies a temple and all that we do an act of worship, of thankfulness, of mindfulness that we are a part of the All.”
Closing Circle: “Carry the Flame of Peace and Love” (sung two times)
Benediction by Edward Galeano Karen Tyler
“The Church says: The body is a sin.
Science says: The body is a machine.
Advertising says: The body is a business.
The body says: I am a fiesta”