Planting Seeds of Possibility

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Religious Education for children and youth will experience and explore on summer Sundays at East Shore in June, July, and August. We take a break from our classroom activities and dive into creativity; you’ll explore the arts and outdoor activities designed just for kids. Learn more here!

If you don’t have a chalice, but want to light one, check out our Making a Chalice at Home page.

In person services are followed by coffee hour.

Children’s Story

Sermon Audio

Sermon Text

INVOCATION

I love this Sufi tale of the stream meeting the desert. Why? Because I can relate to the stream! Change is hard. Especially when it comes to our changing identities. In fact, sometimes the change we long for most is the very change we fear and resist the most. Sounds contradictory, right? I didn’t understand the true complexity around change – until I encountered it first hand. 

EMBODIED SPIRITUAL PRACTICES

This summer in early August, I flew to San Diego, California for a week-long retreat. A Unitarian Universalist silent retreat called SpiritRest. I discovered how minimizing verbal expression through words amplified my other senses. 

My body felt alive through the spiritual practice of Qi gong and daily labyrinth walks.

My ears delighted in the contemplative Taize-style chants and singing bowls, along with the simple joy of song birds.

My eyes were enchanted by witnessing a regal peacock parading around the garden, along with the beautiful tropical flowers like the orange and purple Bird of Paradise. I also enjoyed participating in the visual arts including collage work, painting and drawing.

FEAR OF CHANGE

So how could these many sensory delights unsettle my soul? Like the stream meeting the desert, I found myself at a crossroads. A threshold. The stream knew how to flow. But she wasn’t sure how to change form in the face of the desert’s arid terrain. 

In my case, I grew up in an academic family on a university campus. I learned to navigate my way in the world using language, words, and verbal expression. But I wasn’t sure how to embrace silence – no matter how much I longed to.

HIBISCUS BLOSSOM/ IMPERMANENCE/ GRIEF

This inner tension served as my soul work during this week-long silent retreat. One morning along my walking meditation in the garden, I noticed an exquisite, yellow hibiscus blossom. The sunlight made her look radiant and translucent. Pure gold. I greeted her each morning feeling grateful for her presence. She sparked joy in me. 

A few days into my retreat, I walked with anticipation and joy eager to welcome my blossom friend into this new day. But my hibiscus blossom had fallen. She was gone. My joy was met with surprise and grief. My palms, which had grown accustomed to its posture of openness, instinctively closed. 

This sensory moment brought kinesthetic awareness to the fleeting nature of life. The open-handed posture of gratitude and grace and the close-fisted posture of grasping and possessing differ only a few degrees in the palm of one’s hand. Yet they make a world of difference in how we treat one another on an individual and collective level. 

LABYRINTH: RELEASING

I took this embodied awareness to my daily labyrinth walk to live out my questions for greater discernment. The Reverend Dr. Lauren Artress is Canon Emeritus of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and the author of Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Practice. She invites modern day pilgrims to walk the labyrinth guided by the three R’s: Releasing (the path inward), Receiving (the path at the center) and Returning (the path outward). The question I posed on my journey to the center was this: “How do I live with impermanence? How do I hold both love and loss, beauty and grief?” 

As I released my question into the center, I found myself forming a simple breath prayer. In breath: beholding. In this case, beholding the beauty of my yellow hibiscus blossom. Out breath: being held. In this case, letting go of my grasping so that I can be held in a greater love beyond myself. Step by step, breath by breath, I recited this prayer: “Beholding (in breath), being held (out breath). Beholding (in breath), being held (out breath). Beholding (in breath), being held (out breath).”

LABYRINTH: RECEIVING

In time, I reached the center of the labyrinth. This exquisite labyrinth was modeled after the 11-circuit Chartres Cathedral in France. At the center, I witnessed a floral pattern with six semi-circles referred to as “petals.” The architectural design reflected ancient sacred geometry with the center symbolizing the point of perfect balance, also called the “still point.” 

I meditated in the center of that still point. Once again, I reflected on the Sufi tale of the stream meeting the desert. At the still point of the stream’s quiet contemplation, she recalled certain distant echoes of herself being held in the arms of the wind. Although she was scared and feared losing her identity and unique form, she found the courage to release herself to the wind and undergo transformation. Could I be so brave?

In that contemplative space of quietude and reflection, I, too, recalled echoes of myself being held in the beauty of sacred silence. 

This feeling of sacred silence is best expressed by the Chickasaw poet, novelist and essayist Linda Hogan. In being asked about her work as a writer, here is how she responded:

When words go straight into the body, the inexplicable happens to a person. You know those moments you have when you enter a silence that’s still and complete and peaceful? That’s the source, the place where everything comes from. In that space, you know everything is connected, that there’s an ecology of everything. In that place it is possible for people to have a change of heart, a change of thinking, a change in their way of being and living in the world.

PERSONAL HEALTH HISTORY OF SILENCE

For me, that embodied sensation of stillness and silence grew out of a traumatic moment in my life. As I have shared with many of you before, I survived a life-threatening brain hemorrhage as a six years old child. This injury directly impacted the left hemisphere of my brain around speech and language. In the months leading up to my brain surgery, I had no access to verbal expression. No words. I inhabited a period of silence.  

During my recovery in the hospital, I embraced the sensory world of the visual arts for self-advocacy and self-expression. I communicated through drawing, writing, and painting. After I regained my speech, I embraced the sensory world of embodied movement grounded in nature. 

I eventually attended seminary where I became a Unitarian Universalist minister specializing in ecology and theology. That sacred silence of my childhood formed me into the minister I am today. Like the stream, I, too, experienced fear around letting go. After all, I had worked all my life to regain my voice after a traumatic illness. What if I lost my voice forever – carried on the wind – never to return again? 

Then again, what if sacred silence is the deepest source of truth and wisdom beyond language? After all, how do we express the ineffable in the face of great beauty, wonder and awe? The same is true when we encounter unspeakable pain and suffering. Perhaps sacred silence is the most appropriate response in dignifying and honoring life through a posture of humility and reverence. 

At the center of the labyrinth, in that still point of discernment and receiving, I gathered my courage to surrender. Let go. Trust. Be open to transformation. Become part of what Linda Hogan called, “an ecology of everything.” 

LABYRINTH: RETURNING

As I navigated my way outward on my return from the center of the labyrinth, my eyes and mind contemplated one particular image. The image of the six petals. How might a modern day pilgrim like me make sense of this ancient symbol that feels relevant and accessible to my daily life? 

Rev. Artress spoke directly to this question in her 2006 updated version of her book, Walking a Sacred Path. 

Interreligious work is an important focus for the future of the Labyrinth Movement. Since labyrinth walking is usually a nonverbal activity that can be shared by many people at the same time, it allows people to connect through the activity of walking rather than talking. This builds relationships before words can tear them apart. Labyrinth walking supports flow, not force; cooperation, not competition. The symbolic takes precedence over the literal and the web of relationships is strengthened. Labyrinth walking offers a vision for how people can live together in harmony and provides an experience of it as well.

Her words beautifully affirmed the non-verbal, embodied form of silence that I longed for in my own healing work of ministry. In another part of her book, she describes how the labyrinth today is being used as a universal symbol of inclusion within many diverse communities. These communities include prisons, hospitals, schools, places of worship, and organizations seeking team building practices of trust building across differences. 

In addition to these invaluable forms of advocacy, I was especially delighted to witness a miniature labyrinth replica called a “finger labyrinth.” It enables greater accessibility and inclusion for people with vision, mobility and other health challenges to trace this engraved path with their fingers for embodied spiritual contemplation. 

ARTICLE II & ROSE PETALS

As I continued to follow my path outward in the larger world, the image of the six petals resurfaced in my mind’s eye. It aligned beautifully with the six shared Unitarian Universalist values in the shape of a flower with love at the center. Perfect timing with the passing of Article II during our 2024 General Assembly. In addition, it affirms the celebratory Blessing of the Bags that Amanda and LeAnne lovingly modeled for us in embracing people of all ages and life stages. Amen to Interdependence, Pluralism, Justice, Transformation, Generosity, Equity and Love at the center!

With the image of a rose and six petals grounding my theology, I experienced renewed energy and hope from my week-long silent retreat. I hummed my way out of the labyrinth with our UU hymn #396, I Know This Rose Will Open. As fellow UU congregants and modern day pilgrims, will you please join me in singing this hymn in a call and response? I will recite each verse. Then I will invite you to join Guy in responding through song. Let’s give this a try.

I know this rose will open.
I know my fear will burn away.
I know my soul will unfurl its wings.
I know this rose will open.

BENEDICTION

Change is hard. But change is necessary to spark vitality and relevance in meeting people’s daily needs for spiritual sustenance. With love at the center, transformation is possible. It calls forth a collective effort around interdependence, collaboration and co-creation. It invites us into the difficult soul work of surrendering and letting go. Yet in doing so, we embrace a more just, equitable society. One filled with a spirit of generosity and respect for the world’s rich, pluralistic wisdom. Together, let us plant seeds of possibility to cultivate greater flourishing for all. May it be so.

Amen, Ashe and Blessed Be.

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