Summer Solstice
Order of Service - Script
for Sunday:
June 19, 2022
Summer Solstice
On Earth we can mark time by observing our position in relation to our day star, also known as the sun.
NIUU, Jeanie Donaldson, Pastor Fred
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Fred - Welcome and Announcements:
Come into this circle of love and compassion,
Come into this community where we can dream and
Believe in those dreams—
Welcome to North Idaho Unitarian Universalists where we accept, we support, we transform: Ourselves, Our Community. Our world.
Fred - Offering Information
Charity of the Month:
International Eye Institute
"At its origin, our mission is both medical and ethical. We strive to create unity among communities through charity and healing.
By providing adult and pediatric eye care to people of impoverished regions around the world we are restoring their health and empowering them to be self-sustaining."
NIUU
P.O. Box 221
CDA ID 83816
Sue - Lighting the Chalice:
Faith in Summer
By Ellen Hamilton
In faith, together, we light this small scrap of light,
symbol of Grandfather Sun's enormous power,
whose energy burns so brightly In these days of deep Summer,
catapulting the leaves and vines,
vegetables, flowers and fruits to astonishing size, lengths and heights,
spilling over the tops of cages, walls and trellises,
delighting and nourishing all beings.
We bask in the warmth and the heat of these days,
with lightened hearts and quickened senses,
in gratitude and in faith.
Shaaron - Opening Words:
Call from Beyond
By Susan Maginn
From beyond the playful summer clouds,
beyond the earth's thin blue line,
from beyond the bright moon and meteor showers,
we hear the call to look and listen carefully,
to turn away from a world that buys and sells happiness,
to fully experience the luring whisper of your heart's truth.
Why not today, why not now?
We are here and together at home in this evolving place,
home in this ever changing breath and body,
home in this dewy morning even as it reaches toward a hot high noon.
We hear the call from far beyond and deep within and we do not hear it alone.
Come, let us worship together.
Shaaron - Introduce - Hymn #66: “When the Summer Sun is Shining”
When the Summer Sun Is Shining
1. When the summer sun is shining
Over golden land and sea,
And the flowers in the hedgerow
Welcome butterfly and bee;
Then my open heart is glowing,
Full of warmth for everyone,
And I feel an inner beauty
Which reflects the summer sun.
2. When the summer clouds of thunder
Bring the long-awaited rain,
And the thirsty soil is moistened
And the grass is green again;
Then I long for summer sunshine,
But I know that clouds and tears
Are a part of life’s refreshment
Like the rainbow’s hopes and fears.
3. In the cool of summer evening,
When the dancing insects play,
And in garden, street, and meadow
Linger echoes of the day;
Then my heart is full of yearning;
Hopes and mem’ries flood the whole
Of my being, reaching inwards
To the corners of my soul.
Fred - Covenant:
Love is the spirit of this church, and service its law
This is our great covenant:
To dwell together in peace,
To seek truth in love,
And to help one another.
Fred - Greeting each other (Those present in person can leave our seats for this, if we wish.)
Fred - Joys and Concerns (with lighting of candles of caring)
Fred - Story:
What the Turtle Taught Theodore
By Gary Kowalski
In his autobiography, Theodore Parker relates that as a child, four or five years old, living on a farm in Roxbury, he was walking through the fields one day absent-mindedly swinging a stick through the tall grass. This was many years ago, in the days before the Civil War. It was summertime. He stopped to watch the water bubble along a creek. Then he noticed a turtle sunning itself on a rock.
He’d seen other boys use their sticks to strike a turtles and other animals. It was part of what children thought was fun, just as some children still like to bully and hit those who are weaker than themselves. Often children and grown-ups too are copycats — mimicking the behavior of others who seem bigger or stronger than themselves. Young Theodore wanted to be like the other, older boys he’d seen, so he raised his stick into the air, taking aim and preparing to knock the turtle into the water.
Then something stopped him. Something seemed wrong about the situation. He looked again at the turtle, quiet, peaceful, enjoying the summer day just as he liked to feel the warmth and light of the sun. Had the turtle ever done him any harm? Was the turtle so different than himself? Slowly he lowered his stick and walked home, thinking about what had happened.
When he arrived home, his mother was there to greet him, and he told her about the incident. She listened carefully to Theodore, and listened especially carefully when he related how some strange force inside had stopped him from hitting the little animal. “Theodore,” she said, “that force inside you was the voice of conscience. Always pay attention to it. Always follow what your conscience tells you. It’s your moral compass that points you in the right direction. And if you honor your conscience, you’ll never go wrong in this world.”
Theodore Parker grew up to become a Unitarian minister, in fact one of the greatest leaders our faith has ever known. He became a champion of the defenseless who needed defending. He was a hero in the fight to end slavery in our country. He prayed to “Father and Mother God” and fought for women’s equality and their right to vote. He and wife never had children of their own — but he felt a sense of kinship with the whole family of creation, people of all sexes and races who had been made in the image of the holy. And it all started one summer day when he was just a child — a child who saw a turtle and decided to do what was right.
Cindy - Meditation:
As we begin our time of meditation, please be comfortable. Be aware of breathing in and out. On this holy day of Mother Nature, we remember that we ourselves are part of nature. We affect and we are affected by the world around us: our planet, our daystar, our whole solar system, the stars and galaxies, and the multiverse itself. We sit near the center of the scale from the smallest to the largest. We are a part of it all.
The passage of time as we move through it can well be measured by the equinoxes and the solstices. The light and warmth of this present Season can give us all a powerful feeling of being part of it all.
Our place in the world is no less than the greatest and no more than the least and the smallest. From the quarks and other subatomic particles to the superstructures of galactic groupings, we are a part of it all.
Please take a deep breath, let it out, and remember that you and I are ourselves an indispensible part of the whole.
So let it be ... and ... Blessed be!
Sue - Solstice Fire Ceremony
Words From Our Sources - Fire Ceremony
As a young child, I did not know anything about the science of the solstice. I was not aware of the Earth’s tilt, or its affect on our seasons. Who were the sun gods and what were the solstice rituals? I didn’t know. But I knew the power of the sun. Shivering at my bus stop on Wyoming winter days, I longed for the summer sun’s warmth when the cold seeped deep in my bones.
In the summer - lying on the ground after a cold dip in the creek near our home, I would soak up the sun’s heat from the earth under me. I can still feel that warmth.
Walking through a dry field of grain stubble in August, I would curse the heat, wishing for shade, and longing for sunset.
And those sunsets - filling the wide Wyoming sky with color - brilliant hues of red, pink, orange and yellow. I would stare at the sky until it went dark - filling my head with the beauty of it all.
Fire Ceremony
Summer solstice, when the sun is at its strongest, is also the time when daylight begins to shorten and we start the slow decline into darkness of winter again. For Wiccan’s the summer solstice is called Midsummer and focuses on this cycle of life. Midsummer for modern Wiccans means the death of the Sun God or Oak King, so the Holly King may reign for the next six months. Large bonfires are lit for Fire Ceremonies or large wheels of fire are rolled downhill into water to illustrate the quenching of the sun’s power. Later in the year at winter solstice, the Sun God or Oak King is reborn again, completing the cycle of life and marking the end of winter’s power and the return of light and hope.
UU’s believe in the power of “direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life.” Today we are going to have a fire ceremony to attune us to the gifts of this time of year.
We hold our Fire Ceremony to invite in fire’s cleansing power. It is a good time of year to clean out the cobwebs, get rid of things we no longer need and stories and thoughts that hold us back. In order to move forward, it is helpful to make room for new ideas by letting go of the old. Let’s take a few moments to think of those patterns or habits in our life that hold us back from reaching our goals; those patterns or habits that we no longer want in our lives. Write them down on the papers provided in the baskets near your seat. Today let the death of the Sun God represent an end to these habits thus making room for a more positive path. As you think of what you would like to release, I invite you to come up in silence and burn your paper in the burning bowl, letting the fire burn away the old making room for the new. Take a few deep slow breaths to sweep out your cobwebs.
After everyone has burned their paper, say:
These fires have burned away the old.
Fred - Sermon:
The day after tomorrow,
Tuesday June 21 at 2:13 a.m.,
the Summer Solstice will be upon us.
The Summer Solstice is
a wonderful nature-based holy day,
and in my mind, it's a wonder
because it marks the middle
of the year's time of warmth.
In our part of the world,
it's not generally too hot yet,
but the warmth is about to be dependable.
There may still be rain and coolness,
but in the Season of Solstice
we often experience them as a relief.
I like to speak of the Solstice Season,
whether at the start of Summer or Winter,
because the Solstice really is a Season,
a period of time,
rather than a single day.
The Season begins when the Sun appears
to stand still in the sky,
still appearing to move from East to West,
but hardly if at all from South to North
or North to South.
Of course, the appearance of movement
by the Sun in our skies
is an illusion,
based on the fact
that the Earth herself is moving.
The change in the Sun's position
through the days (E-W)
and through the weeks (N-S)
from our point of view
offers us a wonderful way to observe time,
available equally to us and to the ancients.
If we think about it, those observations of time
offer us a link across the times of our human family.
The Solstice Season appears to me to last
about four weeks,
two weeks before and two weeks after
the Day of the Solstice itself.
In that period, the sun hardly seems to change at all
in the positions of sunrise and sunset.
Around the Summer Solstice,
the Sun appears to be more in the north
at those times.
There are two more occasions converging today,
along with our proximity to the Summer Solstice.
Today is Father's Day.
As we think of our own fathers
in our hearts
whether they are still in this world or not,
we remember the importance
of nurturing care regardless of gender.
The Sun as the Day Star is often thought of
as having masculine gender.
Since it is the source of the energy
that has enabled life to form and survive
on our little planet,
we can think of the Sun as our father.
So it is appropriate to celebrate Father's Day
close to the Solstice.
Today is also Juneteenth.
Since I was born and grew up in Texas,
Juneteenth, also known as June 19th,
is at least familiar to me.
It is the day on which
the Emancipation Proclamation was finally read
in Texas.
Although the Emancipation Proclamation itself
was implemented on January 1, 1863,
it did not take effect in States
still under Confederate control.
The arrival of 2,000 Federal (U.S.) troops
in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865
finally brought freedom to the 250,000
enslaved Americans in Texas.
So our Solstice celebration this year
occurs along with two other traditional, meaningful
opportunities to remember.
Surely Father's Day and Juneteenth
are both worthwhile occasions.
At the same time, only the Solstice
is a nature based holy day.
The Solstices have long been
an important part of my life.
I have to warn you:
I'm about to get autobiographical on you again.
In my younger years,
on the Winter Solstice of 1972,
Karen and Kevin's mother and I were married.
I remember one year in my parents' back yard
in San Antonio, Texas,
I actually poured out a small libation of wine
as a celebration of a nature festival
that was meaningful for me.
Many years later
in 2006 I was helping prepare
for another Winter Solstice
at the UUCP in Moscow, ID.
During those preparations
I met someone dear to many of our hearts,
our dear Beth, known at that time as Beth Miller.
About a year later, she and I were married,
and she came to be known as Beth Toerne.
As you can tell, and as I’ve said before,
the equinoxes and solstices
are not only high holy days
for nature based spirituality,
they are also among
the most important observances
for me personally
and for my own spiritual life.
Likewise they are deeply important
for our UU and NIUU communities.
In truth, these nature based celebrations
are important for the whole human family.
The spiritual celebrations based in nature
can be a powerful tool
for us children of nature to care for our Mother,
including such difficult matters
as climate change.
We who keep those celebrations
are honoring a heritage that belongs to us all,
and we are helping us all maintain
a view of our lives in this world
that will hold all our needs in our hearts
and just maybe enable
the survival of us all.
In my not so humble opinion,
the celebration of nature
as an important part of our spirituality
is near the heart of our congregation's mission
for the sake of our part of the world.
Amen
So let it be
Blessed Be!
Congregational Response
Sue - Extinguishing the Chalice :
We extinguish our chalice and take into ourselves the light of our Daystar, the sun, whose light is at its apex this week. So we mark our time, our warmth, and our hope of good productive days for ourselves, our congregation, our community, our nation, and our world.
Shaaron - Closing words:
Closing Words for Seasonal Transitions
By Andrew Pakula
May you know fully and deeply the blessings of each of your heart's seasons
The inward turning of Winter
Springtime's lush renewal
The effortless, steady growth of summer
And autumn's rich harvest
May your passage from season to season be blessed—
Eased by hands to hold, and by the light of love to guide you on.
posted by pastorfred at 1:50 PM
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