September: Attention

“Pay attention!” parents and teachers admonish kids. Yet adults also need to be encouraged to pay attention to the world around us. It has been said that “attention is love”: the things and people we give our attention to are the things we really care about.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will come out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping, we are becoming.”

How do we square that with how much time we spend looking at phones, screens, traffic, and work emails? Rev. Claire will reflect on the power of mindfulness, meditation, and prioritizing our values in real and active ways.

October: Chaos

“In the beginning …the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, and a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” And then — “let there be light!”

Out of chaos, as the ancient stories go, came all order and manner of beings and things. Chaos can be fun and energizing, like a dance floor, or stressful and damaging, like a hurricane. Humans have tried to manage chaos in all kinds of ways, tried to make meaning out of madness. What lessons does chaos hold for us?

November: Proverbs

A proverb is a traditional saying that offers life advice or attempts to describe a universal truth. The Bible has a whole book of Proverbs! But sometimes proverbs can veer into cliché territory, when they are repeated so often they lose their originality, impact, or meaning.

What is true — and what has been repeated so often we think it is true, but actually we need to dig deeper and do our own thinking? What proverbs have guided your life? And what clichés have you discarded?

December: Hope

The 4 Sundays of Advent have historically been paired with 4 gifts of the Spirit: Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. We’ll explore the first all month, as we practice hopefulness.

The Advent candle of Hope is also called the candle of Prophecy. What are ways that we can live our hopes into being — make our hopes not just dreams, but reality?

January: Currency

Currency is a medium of exchange. It can be money, of course, but other things flow in currents: electricity, water, and even relationships have a give-and-take that travels between people. The old prayer of St. Francis says, depending on the translation, “Lord, make me a channel for your peace.”

How might we be a channel through which the current of peace can flow? And what other power does currency have in our lives?

February: Remember

To remember is to gather the scattered pieces of ourselves. In remembering, we honor those who came before, we reclaim forgotten wisdom, and we resist the forces that would have us live disconnected from one another and our history.

This month, we ask: What stories deserve to be carried forward? What truths must not be forgotten? And how might remembering help us imagine a more faithful future?

March: Water

Before it was in our cups, it was in clouds. Before it was in rivers, it was in oceans. Before it was in us, it was somewhere else entirely. The same water that sustained our ancestors flows through us today.

This month, we reflect on the many meanings and metaphors of water: blessing and necessity, joy and grief, abundance and scarcity. What does this elemental companion teach us about our responsibility to one another and to the living world?

April: Air

Air is another classical element, and of course it is all around us! We’ll explore atmospheres — social, political, cultural, climate, and more. We can’t see the air, and when we do, we are really seeing other things caught or flying in the air, such as pollen or pollutants, birds and airplanes, and clouds.

Air is invisible, yet it is a constant part of us, necessary to our lives. How might we learn from our breath?

May: Creativity

Art gives us a vision of the world we live in or a world we imagine. Sometimes our creativity inspires us with dreams of utopia — the world perfected; often, artists get a kick out of imagining the world made worse, as in dystopian fiction and films. We see images of God and heaven on sacred ceilings and musicians sing about and to the Holy.

Where does your creativity lead? What visions fill your heart, mind, and soul?

June: Connections

We’ll celebrate the connections that brought us together and keep us together in community, as we send our bridging youth out into the wider world!