Winter Solstice Service, December 21, 2022, Rev. Karen Hollis

Winter Solstice Service,  December 21, 2022, Rev. Karen Hollis

Musicians: Dorothy Dittrich & Jacqui Parker-Snedker

Whoever you are and wherever you are on life’s journey,

you are welcome here!

Prelude: Song For a Winter’s Night                            by Gordon Lightfoot

Welcome & Land Acknowledgement

We acknowledge these lands upon which we worship are the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation.

Exquisite Darkness

Opening Words

One:  The earth turns in its orbit from the point of greatest light and 

          surrenders to the coming darkness . . . exquisite darkness.

All:    In response, shadows begin to lengthen, leaves blaze with colour; 

One:  rainy days and frosty nights break down plants until they become one with soil;

All:    cool winds blow and birds migrate from here to there;

One:  nights grow longer, days shorter; 

All:    leaves fall and trees stand bare while bulbs sit in the ground, waiting, and the world is still . . . resting . . . listening . . . incubating.

All:    Living beings conserve energy in the growing cold and turn toward the north, toward the ancestors, toward the earth, and look inward.

Hymn: Come and Fill Our Hearts                                                MV #16

Come and fill our hearts with your peace. 

You alone, O Lord, are holy. 

Come and fill our hearts with your peace, alleluia!

Centering Stillness

Music: Still                                                                         by Dorothy Dittrich   

Lectio Divina (Divine Reading)

The text will be read three times – after each reading,

you’re invited to reflect on the questions below.

I want to listen deeply enough to hear everything and nothing at the same time and am made more by the enduring quality of my silence. I want to question deeply enough that I am made more not by the answers so much as my desire to continue asking questions. I want to speak deeply enough that I am made more by the articulation of my truth shifting into the day’s shape. in this way, listening, pondering and sharing become my connection to the oneness of life, and there is no longer any part of me in exile.                                                  ~ Richard Wagamese (Embers, p. 23)       

First Reading:       Listen for a word or phrase that speaks to you.

Second Reading:  Connect with an image or emotion that is evoked in 

                              the reading.

Third Reading:      What is the invitation for you?

Song: Sound of Silence                                              by Simon & Garfunkel

Hello darkness, my old friend

I've come to talk with you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone

Narrow streets of cobblestone

'Neath the halo of a street lamp

I turned my collar to the cold and damp

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light

That split the night

And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never share

No one dared

Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools" said I, "You do not know

Silence like a cancer grows

Hear my words that I might teach you

Take my arms that I might reach you"

But my words like silent raindrops fell

And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made

And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming

And the sign said, "The words of the prophets

Are written on the subway walls

And tenement halls

And whispered in the sounds of silence"

                       

Psalm 139                                                         Translation by Lynn C. Bauman

O God you have come searching for me.

            You know me inside and out.

You know where I rise up and where I fall.

            Before I think them, my thoughts are already clear to you.

The track of my journey you discern ahead of me.

            All the pathways my life shall take are known to you.

Indeed before I speak them

            the meaning of every word is understood by you.

I am encircled by your presence,

            embraced by your hands.

These things I can hardly grasp, O my God,

            they transport me to heights beyond myself.

Is it possible, then, to be absent from your presence?

            Is there anywhere I could escape your Spirit?

Say I traveled to the limits of space,

            or passed beyond this world into death,

in both cases

            you would already be there ahead of me.

Suppose I lifted up on wings through the morning’s light

            and flew to the edges of some distant land or sea,

Even there your hands would be holding mine,

            guiding me.

Or if I were to say to myself,

            the light around me has turned to night,

            surely this darkness will hide me.

Darkness never exists for you.

            The night shines as brightly as the day.

            Darkness and light to you are both alike.

You have brought together the constellation of my being.

            Before I was born your presence was there forming me.

I am grateful to you for the artistry of my own creation.

            I realize that I have been carefully crafted by you.

Nothing about me has been hidden from your presence.

While I was quietly being woven together from my own ancient sources,

Knowingly you have shaped the unfinished product even in the womb.

Step by step you have been guiding all the stages of my contemplation, from their beginning to their end.

Your awareness of me is infinite, O my God.

            It is limitless.

            It transcends everything I know.

Trying to calculate the sum total of your awareness is useless.

            It would take an eternal life-span as long as yours.

 

Time of Reflection

Questions for reflection

Where is your ache for the presence of God?

What does God speak to you in the darkness?

How might God’s presence nourish you in this winter season?

Praying with rocks: select a rock and write a word or phrase that represents perhaps your need for rest or a prayer for an aspect of your life that needs composting/renewal, or something else. You're invited to place your rock on the candle table, or take it with you and place it somewhere outdoors or carry it in your pocket through the winter . . . 

 

or. . . 

 

Write prayers and place them in the basket to be read during the Prayers of the People

Light candles on the candle table

Hymn: Take O Take Me As I Am                                                 MV #85 

Take, O take me as I am;

summon out what I shall be;

set up your seal upon my heart

and live in me.

Prayers of the People

 

Lord’s Prayer                                                                              VU #959

Our Father in heaven, 

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come, 

your will be done

on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins

as we forgive those who sin against us.

Save us from the time of trial

and deliver us from evil,

for the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours,

now and for ever. Amen                                                                                      

Welcoming the Light

Blessing for the Longest Night                                     

All throughout these months

as the shadows

have lengthened,

this blessing has been

gathering itself,

making ready,

preparing for

this night.

 

It has practiced

walking in the dark,

traveling with

its eyes closed,

feeling its way

by memory

by touch

by the pull of the moon

even as it wanes.

 

So believe me

when I tell you

this blessing will

reach you

even if you

have not light enough

to read it;

it will find you

even though you cannot

see it coming.

 

You will know

the moment of its

arriving

by your release

of the breath

you have held

so long;

~Jan Richardson

from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief

a loosening

of the clenching

in your hands,

of the clutch

around your heart;

a thinning

of the darkness

that had drawn itself

around you.

This blessing

does not mean

to take the night away

but it knows

its hidden roads,

knows the resting spots

along the path,

knows what it means

to travel

in the company

of a friend.

So when

this blessing comes,

take its hand.

Get up.

Set out on the road

you cannot see.

This is the night

when you can trust

that any direction

you go,

you will be walking

toward the dawn.

 

Rise Up O Flame                                                        by Christoph Praetorius

Rise up O flame, 

by thy light glowing. 

Show to us beauty, vision and joy. 

Blessing                                                                             by Jan Richardson

May you abide

the places in between:

the thresholds, the passages,

the spaces of waiting

and patience and preparing.

May you give yourself

to the mysteries

that move us from what was

toward what is yet to be.

May you know

the company of the angels

who come only

to those betwixt

and who love

the liminal places

and the treasures

that they hold.

Postlude