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Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
January 4, 2026
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
Annual Burning Bowl Service – As we enter a new year, we enter a liminal space. A time in which we are between the known and the unknown. All the joys and sorrows that we faced in 2025 have changed us. Sometimes those changes have been good or enriching, and sometimes they have not. During our burning bowl service, we contemplate what we would like to let go of so that we may more easily find our center as we move into the new year.
Chalice Lighting
This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.
Call to Worship
My friend talked to me today about liminal spaces. She told me they are the in-between stages, when one era of your life is over, but the next hasn’t yet begun.
It’s a place of change, of uncertainty, of questions, of waiting. I thought of God for some reason. Maybe the absence of God is actually the presence of them.
Maybe it’s the spaces between words that matter the most. Maybe it’s the way the piano sounds when it’s not being played. Maybe truth only makes itself known in the absence of answers.
After all, plants do grow in sidewalk cracks.
– from a poet that goes by NB.
Affirming Our Mission
Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.
Reading
NEW YEAR’S DAY
by Kathleen McTigueThe first of January is another day dawning, the sun rising as the sun always rises, the earth moving in its rhythms. With or without our calendars, to name a certain day as the day of new beginning, separating the old from the new.
So, it is, everything is the same, bound into its history as we ourselves are bound. Yet also, we stand at a threshold. The new year is something truly new, still unformed, leaving a stunning power in our hands.
What shall we do with this great gift of time this year? Let us begin by remembering that whatever justice, whatever peace and wholeness might bloom in our world this year, we are the hearts and minds, the hands and feet, the embodiment of all the best visions of our people. The new year can be new ground for the seeds of our dreams.
Let us take the step forward together onto new ground, planting our dreams well, faithfully, and in joy.
Sermon
NOTE: This is an edited ai generated transcript.
Please forgive any omissions or errors.
Today is our annual Burning Bull service. It’s a ritual of contemplation, of intention, of release. And if you are doing this from home with your piece of paper, you can use fire. If you’d like to, I’d like to encourage you to do that with safety. You can also dissolve your water in water or you can bury it. The point is to let the elements take from us what no longer serves us.
This ritual feels particularly important this year, because 2025, what a year. Am I right? Started out pretty awful.
And then, but like any old year, there were probably a mix of joys, personal joys too. It might have even been a pretty good year for you personally. That’s how I experienced it. I had some amazing experiences.
I get to be y’all’s minister. That was an amazing experience.
And I had challenging experiences. I had to learn how to live with long COVID. And I bet just like you, it came in the good and the bad.
But whatever we were experiencing it, our personal life could not be divorced from what we were experiencing out there in the world. We were doing all of that with the backdrop of some of the most awful atrocities. It’s been a lot.
I saw a bumper sticker the other day and it captured exactly how I was feeling. It says, “It is what it is. And it ain’t great.”
It ain’t great. It wasn’t great. I feel like I slid into 2026 all bruised up with a real raw heart.
And now we’re entering another year. And one that’s already started out pretty bumpy. If you’re feeling hesitation, if you are feeling trepidation, me too.
We are in a liminal space. We are right in the doorway of what was and what we do not know yet – and what we cannot predict. Liminal spaces are uncomfortable for that very reason.
We don’t know what will happen. Sometimes it’s easier to just start predicting what might happen, to project into the future by dragging along the past. But the truth is that not a word of the future has been written.
We write it. All of us, billions and billions of all of us on this planet, for better or worse, we’re co-creating the future. And that co-creation can be beautiful and it can be powerful.
I’ve seen that here. I’ve seen beautiful, powerful co-creation here in this community, especially with the last legislative session. But the thing about co-creation is that it reminds us that we actually don’t have that much control.
In fact, the control we have is pretty minuscule in the big scheme of things.
And so here we are, in a new unwritten chapter, stuck in what might feel like a lifetime group project. And who likes group projects? But here we are.
It is what it is. And our control is limited. But it’s not nothing.
We are limited to the actions we take, to how we spend our energy, to where we put our focus. It’s limited to how we want to show up in the world, in spite of the chaos and the storms around us. We get to choose how we will show up.
And we can choose to show up grounded. We can choose to slow down to the speed of our wisdom. That’s the control we have.
And so many things can get in the way and make us feel like we don’t have control to even do that. Making it so that instead of coming from a centered place, we move at the pace of our stress and our fear. Feeling pulled around from stressful situation to stressful situation, or from one awful headline to the next.
So as we enter this Burning Bowl Ritual, I want to take some time to think about what gets in our way. What makes it hard for you to choose to move through the world the way you like” What are those things that you have control over?
The habits or the thoughts that prevent you from showing up as you want to show up? What do you want to make a break from?What no longer serves you? What would be good to ritually release?
Maybe it’s old resentments or old hurts. Maybe it’s a pattern of self-sabotage, old stories that get in our way. Maybe it’s people who have hurt us over and over again without any hope of forgiveness or accountability.
Maybe it’s chronic and constant worry, outdated beliefs, lack of self-care. Maybe it’s something else entirely. Whatever it is, let’s take some deep breaths together and contemplate that.
You may wish to hold your flash paper to your heart, or you may whisper into it if you feel comfortable doing so.
In a moment, I will light the burning bowl, and I’ll invite you to please come down one line. This is my first year in Parish ministry, please don’t make me have a memorable burning bowl. And then if you will, please exit to your left.
And now, with deep breaths, with the ground underneath us, with the air above us. Let’s move with intention, as we whisper with what we no longer want into our paper, so that we can release it to the fire.
That was so beautiful. So liminal space. The time between what was and what we don’t know yet.
It’s uncomfortable. It’s uncomfortable because we don’t know what we’re headed for. But that’s every day, not just when the calendar tells us that 365 days have gone by.
Every day we face the unknown.
The only thing that we have is how we show up. I hope that what you released has made you feel lighter. I hope that it’s made you feel more grounded and more prepared for whatever it is that will come.
As we wind down our service today, I want us to pull to our mind that image or word or memory from our time in meditation, the one that made us feel strong or connected or grounded. Let’s take just two deep breaths together to fix that in our mind.
But what strengthens you may light a flame in the center of you, a flame to hold you, a flame to motivate you, and a flame to bring you to your deeper and higher self, even in the storm.
Extinguishing the Chalice
We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we hold in our hearts until we are together again.
Benediction
As we leave this sacred time, as what is no longer yours has been transformed by the fire, as what strength in you is held in your heart, may you feel lighter and more grounded, and most importantly, may you feel held by this community and by love.
Go in peace.
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