Rev. Barnaby create an online-only service featuring lots of CVUUS kids and families, in place of the usual kids-led service.

Order of Service

Prelude: Chuck Miller

Come Wash Your Hands: The Singhs

Welcome & Pathways: Poppy Rees, Director of Religious Exploration

Call to Worship: Poppy Rees

Chalice Lighting: Wren Colwell

Time for All Ages: Milo Rees, Elizabeth Sylvia and kids, Jennings children

Honoring the Children in Song: Woyoya – Meg Young and Jake Murray

Offering

Time for All Ages: Sugaring – Raishart and Harrington families

Milestones and Passages: Rev. Barnaby

Prayer/Meditation

Homily: Rev. Barnaby Closing: Rev. Barnaby

Playing for Change: Teach Your Children. Used by permission To hear the entire song, please go to Playing for Change’s current website version

Hymn #123 Spirit of Life

Benediction & Extinguishing the Chalice Barnaby

Postlude: Chuck Miller

Videos

Playing for Change: To hear the current version of the song, go to the Playing for Change website.

Spirit of Life: Created in dedication to the Dominican Sisters of Hope 2013 Jubilarians. Music: Spirit of Life is written by Carolyn McDade and sung by the Ogrange County Unitarian Universalist Choir. Pictures can be found on Google Images. Here is the Spirit of Life video on YouTube.

Homily

Someone dropping in on CVUUS for the first time might conclude this has been a very disjointed service. Yes, underneath what we have been sharing is awareness that this is a scary, different time in our lives than anyone expected.

But we are saying almost nothing about that. We are celebrating. We are celebrating that this is also a time when we will be using all of the skills we have learned in this congregation about making the world a better place.

Yes, there is a virus still hiding its dangerous power from us in many ways, but we know that the end of all peek-a-boo experiences is the chance to show the world who we really are, as Rory did. We know we can keep learning in any circumstance, the way is brother Declan is. We know the world has good things and bad things in it, as Elizabeth Sylvia and her kids read in their story, but that’s how we learn what we really think of as good. And as Meg and Jake sang, “heaven knows when we will get” to where we are going, but we know we will.

I put out a general invitation to all our families to share things their children were doing to make something good of this time away from school and shut off from their friends. The reasons many families chose not to participate are diverse reflections of the intense pressures on parents and kids today, not to mention the grandparents worrying about both of the upcoming generations and everyone worrying about the grandparents. And about the people who have little or no family to turn to for support. But I was struck that two families end up sharing experiences with sugaring as part of their struggle to stay healthy in every way, including spiritually.

Say whatever bad you want to about this virus, it reached us at what may be the best possible time – the very beginning of spring. Things indifferent to the virus are happening all around us – the first phases of countless beautiful, fruitful things – and nothing sends that message more sweetly in Vermont than the sap flowing in our maple trees.

We’re about to share a song many of us know. It speaks of all of you who are on a road to somewhere – in other words, everyone – and our need for a code to live by. For UU’s, that code is summarized in our Seven Principles. And as the song advises, parents seek to impart that code they never fully know to their children, and they learn something in return from that effort even when tears are shed. They learn that we can know we are loved, and that is enough. Enough to face any disaster. Enough to give us the strength to serve the Spirit of Life-Giving Love and Love-Giving Life.