From The Center for Spiritual Growth

Prelude Jacqueline Rose Fisher
Sixth Sonata Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy

Welcome and news of the community Bob Kleinheksel
Musical inspiration Garrett Borns
Gathered in community
Community awaits and is created by the likes of us! It is re-created and sustained
and enjoyed by all who come to be comforted, challenged and unleashed into the
world. Visions and values come alive; identified, clarified! Come, all of you. You
are welcome no matter where you have been and what you have done. Welcome
home to a place that is yours to benefit from, to support and enjoy. We are not
islands, insulated from each other. Rather, we are connected in our unity and
variety.
One: We all share in this community together; we are members and
supporters, benefactors of so much more that is valuable, essential,
beautiful and real.
All: We are one in spirit.
One: We drink from one water, breathe from one air. We live under one
sky, sharing in the joys and challenges of life, community and learning
together.
All: We are one in community.
One: We are all shareholders, living and loving. Together we live, together
we die.
All: We are one in Life and all things.
One: We are a people of memory and tradition; we are a maverick people
embracing visions of hope, prophetic justice and vital spiritual growth.
All: We are one in our laughter, our tears and our love.
One: We all share in this community together, whether you have been here
often or not, you are welcome here!


*Congregational song
ONE IN LOVE, WE MEET TOGETHER
One in love, we meet together, one in time, and never apart.
We in flesh as brother, sister makes us one in mind and heart.
All incarnate, we would offer, all we most sincerely prize,
Learning though traditions differ how they join to make us wise.
One in outlook, always searching not to bind in common creed,
As a people, be more ready to respond to other’s need.
Here we are so finely fashioned, understanding, here to serve,
Never narrow in compassion, empathy without reserve.
As in Christ, may we discover that to give is to receive
That in God the good is present, ever, always we perceive.
Not by chance the world’s creation, not by chance was life begun,
God is love and our vocation is to love ‘til love has won.
Text adapted by Betty Van Till, tune Hyfrydol

Children’s message Garrett Borns
The children are invited forward at this time for their children’s message. All children
are welcome to participate.

Readings Carla Flanders
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the
Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said, “Rabbi, we know you
are a teacher from God, for no one can do what you are doing unless God
is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is
born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said, “How
can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his
mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly I say to you,
unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of
God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which born of spirit
is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew.’ The
wind blows where it will, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know
whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of
the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can this be?” Jesus answered,
“Are you a teacher of Israel and yet do not understand this?”
— John 3: 1-10


Say, I Am You
I am the dust particles in the sunlight.
I am the round sun.
To bits of dust I say, Stay.
To the sun, I say Keep moving.
I am the morning mist,
and the breathing evening.
I am the wind in the top of the grove,
and surf on the cliff.
Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,
I am also the coral reef they founder on.
I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches.
Silence, thought and voice.
The musical air coming through the flute,
a spark of stone, a flickering in metal.
Both candle,
and the moth crazy around it.
Rose, and the nightingale
lost in the fragrance.
I am all order of being, the circling galaxy,
the evolutionary intelligence, the lift,
and falling away. What is,
and what isn’t. You who know
Jelaluddin (Rumi), You the One
In all, say who
I am. Say, I am You.
— Jelaluddin Rumi, The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

Musical inspiration Garrett Borns
Prayer Bob Kleinheksel
Sermon Fred Plumer
Why Are We Here?

Offertory Jacqueline Rose Fisher
Chorale Variation Dietrich Buxtehude

*Blessing
Go out as individuals,
Celebrating your rightful and important presence and voice...
Go out as community,
Connected in unity and variety with and for each other;
Go with both pride and humility,
Go out with lightness of heart and deep respect...
For life is not as serious as you suppose,
Yet more precious than to take it for granted even for a moment.

*Postlude Jacqueline Rose Fisher

Recessional in G Major John Stanley