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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
April 18, 2021
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
We, and all that is, are changing, at least ever so slightly, in every moment. We are always becoming something new. Our ever-unfolding, ever-changing nature is inevitable. Our agency lies in the choices we make as to what direction, what path, our becoming will follow. We’ll explore the creative, life-giving, life-saving possibilities to which the spirit of love and life, the greater good, call us.
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
Everything is in process, even the seemingly solid bed rock of earth has gone through enormous changes since it was star stuff, then magma. Nor was reality quite like the ancients saw it, changing combinations of earth, fire, water and air or spirit. Nor is it made up chiefly of mass and space as in Newtonian physics. What seems to us to be things are just packets of energy related for a time. There events actual occasions. So are we.
– Rev. John Buehrens
Affirming Our Mission
Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.
Learn more about Beloved Community at this link. – The King Center
Meditation Reading
To become is a life long process. Nothing is constant, not even the self. We evolve in the midst of narratives meant only for some and ways of being made narrow by fear and power. We must, then, have the courage to listen to the truth of our own lives, to the wisdom that comes from within – responding without resistance or need to control, but with welcome and curiosity. This is what ensures our becoming is an unfolding of our truest self. This lifelong labor cannot be carried out alone. It requires help from friends, and lovers, family, and creaturely companions who bear witness to what makes us come alive. And say to us, “Listen. Look. Feel. Pay attention to that.”
This is loving and being loved.
Telling the stories. Sharing in the memories. Giving thanks for the relationships, understandings, and experiences past that have shaped us to this day.
This is loving and being loved.
Celebrating new beginnings that excite. Holding risks together. Leaning into unknowns with the promises of support and companionship.
This is loving and being loved.
Like listening to the future calling uniquely to each of us in the midst of all of life’s noise. Helping one another find our place in the shared labor of collective life. Supporting each other in what it is the world’s ache is asking from us.
This is loving and being loved.
To say, for the first time, “This is who I am. This is the truth of my body. This is what I know about myself. This is my name and this is where my path is leading me.” And to have it heard. Have it received. Have it affirmed. And then, to say it again, and again, as we change and as the world changes, and to have each proclamation greeted with an open-armed embrace:
This is loving and being loved.
There is no me without you. We shape one another. The Sacred that birthed us weaves our lives together so that we can only find ourselves through shared becoming. For my journey and all its winding ways. For yours. For all the saints who labored for what is, all the kin whose lives made ours possible. For all those yet to come for whom living our truths today will mean breaking possibilities open for them tomorrow: We pause. We give thanks. We acknowledge.
This is loving and being loved
– Enfleshed
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