One evening a blind man was visiting a friend and got ready to go home. His friend had an idea and offered the blind man a lantern to take with him. "I do not need a lantern to go home with, I am blind," replied the blind man.

I know you don't need a lantern, but if you carry one home, other people can see you on the road," replied his friend. So the blind man took the lantern and went on his way home.

He hadn't gotten very far when he ran smack into someone. "Look out where you are going!" cried the blind man. "Can't you see my lantern?" "Your candle has burned out brother," came the reply.

Spirit of the South, spirit of fire, of noontime and summer: Be with us through the heat of the day/ and help us to be ever growing. Warm us with strength/ and energy for the work that awaits us.

Let the fire of commitment stay with us to light our paths and show us wisdom.

Interlude

Water is the element of the West. It is the time of the setting sun. It is the element of friends, of lovers. It is the element of passion, of merging with the divine.

It is about experience, not counting the cost, no boundaries, the opposite of the warrior. In the pagan calendar, this is the time of Beltane, the last of three fertility festivals.

This is the time of planting, of hoping for a good harvest, for celebrating light returned to the world after so much darkness of winter.

This is the time of fresh grass, the time of getting in shape for the summer, the time of the beginning of sun tans, of outdoor recreation, of returning to the great outdoors again.

The chalice and the cup have long been a symbol of love and friendship. In some traditions the chalice of water or the chalice of blood has healing qualities.

On December 7, 1988, a massive earthquake hit Soviet Armenia. In its aftermath there were many tales and pictures of horror coming out of that region. But there were also remarkable stories of love and bravery. Among these were the heroic acts of Susanna Petroysan.

Susanna and her 4-year-old daughter survived the initial quake only to find themselves entombed in the remains of an apartment building. Trapped flat on her back in the pitch darkness, Susanna managed to make a small nest for her little girl to lie on out of pieces of clothing within her reach.

Miraculously, her searching fingers encountered a jar of blackberry jam still intact. Over two days she fed the whole jar to her daughter, taking none for herself. But still they were trapped. No help came.

Numbed by the bitter cold, weak from lack of food and water, unable even to move, Susanna began to lose all hope for herself. Yet, her determination that her daughter would survive remained strong. Fading in and out of consciousness, Susanna was repeatedly roused by her daughter's plaintive cry, "Mommy, I'm so thirsty." Her child's need kept Susanna going.

Finally, Susanna recalled a survival story told by some Arctic explorers telling how they had slashed their hands and given their own blood to an injured member of their party dying of thirst. Reaching around in the darkness,

Susanna found a shard of glass. She then cut her cold-numbed finger and gave the precious drops of liquid to her suffering daughter. It was an act she repeated again, and again, and again over the next few days, using her own blood to keep her daughter alive.

She kept herself alive so that she could perform this act of love for her daughter and ensure her survival.

On the eighth day of entombment, they were found and rescued. The daughter was fine. The mother - barely alive - had survived only because of her love for her child (Max Lucado, Applause of Heaven [Dallas, Tex.: Word, 1990], 91-95).

She literally poured out her blood to help her child survive. This is the supreme kind of love there is- to pour out one's life for another- whether slowly or quickly. We may pour out our lives for our loved ones- maybe not by drops of blood, but hopefully by drops of kindness & patience & witness.

Spirit of the West, spirit of water, of evening and autumn: Be with us as the sun sets/ and help us to enjoy a rich harvest./ Flow through us with a cooling,/ healing quietness and bring us peace.

Let's sing Spirit of Life, #123 twice through, the 2nd time we will sing it a capella, without accompaniment.

Offering

Now for the offering-

Jesus was having dinner with his disciples one time, and as they gathered reverentially about him, more or less in the attitudes since immortalized by Leonardo da Vinci, he looked about at them.

There, in one direction, he saw Judas Iscariot, who he well knew would betray him to the authorities before three hours had passed. On the other side was Peter, the prince of the disciples, who, as he well knew, would deny him thrice ere the cock crowed.

And almost immediately opposite him was Thomas, who, on a crucial occasion, would express doubts. There seemed only one thing to do.

Jesus called over the headwaiter. "Max," he said, "separate checks."

At Eliot Chapel, there are no separate checks. We all chip in on the check together. We chip in according to our means, and according to our wishes to support liberal religion in our area.

We are about done with our pledge campaign, so if you have not made a pledge, you might think about grabbing a pledge card from Visitor's Corner, and supporting this Chapel and its many, many ministries.

I would ask those in the front rows to pass the baskets back, and if you're a 1st time visitor, please let the basket go on by.

Time of Greeting

May the warmth of community be with us in this house.

In the spirit of the west, of cooling autumn, the spirit of friendship, I invite you to turn to your neighbor and greet one another in this house of worship.

Choral Anthem

EARTH [FACE NORTH]

I invite you to turn to the insert in your Sunday bulletin. I will take the regular type and I invite you all to speak aloud the bold parts.

<<The Green Man (insert)>>

Earth is where we come from and where we return: ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Spirit of the North is the time of darkness, of going deep into the earth, a time of reflection. The earth is our mother and father energy. It is about peace & stability and orderly growth.

There is the Arabic story of "Seventeen Camels" that tells of a man who died and left his seventeen camels to be divided among his three sons.

The youngest son was to receive one ninth of the estate. The middle son one was to get one third; and the oldest son was to inherit one half of the camels.

Seventeen camels, however, are not evenly divisible by three. Hence the three sons argued long and loud about what to do.

In desperation they agreed to let a certain wise man decide for them. He was seated in front of his tent with his own camel staked out back. After hearing the case, the wise man took his own camel and added it to the other seventeen.

He then took one ninth of the eighteen, or two camels, and gave them to the youngest son. To the middle son he gave one third, or six camels. To the oldest son he gave one half, or nine camels. So he gave away two + six, which is 8, plus another nine, which is seventeen.

Seeing that there was still one left of the eighteen, the wise man noted that he still had his own camel left.

The wise woman or man often has to divide scarce resources. The Spirit of the North reminds us of this.

We have made our way from air to fire to water to earth. What does this have to do with Unitarian Universalism? The six sources of our religion is printed in your order of service.

Today we have been looking at the sixth source, the "spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life & instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature."

Earth centered religions are known as pagan, wiccan, indigenous, and a variety of other names. What used to be called witchcraft is now called science. But there are still some things which seem like or are "magic."

Paganism came before Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and it is still practiced by a variety of people. "Earth-centered traditions" was added as a source to UU-ism about 9 ago.

It reflects a change in the spiritual culture of Unitarian Universalism as more and more people have adopted a transcendentalist or pagan view that divinity is to be found in nature.

The writer Starhawk has a good definition of earth-centered traditions: "It is not based on dogma or a set of beliefs, nor on scriptures or a sacred book revealed by a great man. [Our religion] takes its teachings from nature, & reads inspiration in the movement of the sun, moon, & stars, the flight of birds, the slow growth of trees, & the cycles of the seasons."

The cycles we see around us are so orderly: the waxing and waning of the moon, the movement of the stars across the sky, the seasons of the earth. All of these things are still quite a mystery, despite our scientific understandings.

Think about a seed, buried in the ground in winter. It contains life but frozen in the snow, it is not alive. It is Mystery. Or magic.

Calling on gods & goddesses or calling on the Spirits of the Four Directions- as we have done this morning- is a metaphor.

People who find sustenance in the earth centered traditions, whether they be of Gaelic or African or some other origin, invoke not supernatural powers, but metaphors of the qualities they seek.

Starhawk says: "Witchcraft has always been a religion of poetry, not theology. The myths, legends, & teachings are recognized as metaphors for that which cannot be told, the absolute reality our limited minds can never completely know.

The mysteries of the absolute can never be explained, only felt or intuited. Symbols & ritual acts are used to trigger altered states of awareness, in which insights that go beyond words are revealed.

When we speak of the secrets that cannot be told, we do not mean merely that rules prevent us from speaking freely. We mean that the inner knowledge literally cannot be expressed in words; it can only be conveyed by experience, & no one can legislate what insight another person may draw from any given experience."

This is one of the reasons ritual is so important to any consideration of "spirituality" and why it is especially important to the earth-centered traditions which comprise the sixth source of Unitarian Universalism.

Ritual touches the creative self. We do not abandon reason; a healthy dose of skepticism is welcome. Ritual instead is complimentary. Instead of only relying on left-brained, intellectual, analytical reasoning, we can keep that and we can add right-brained, affective, intuitive thinking and feeling in order to have a more whole and balanced approach to the religious life.

We can use ritual to give thanks for the mystery that continues, to symbolize loss, to reconnect with our dreams. Many of us do our own rituals. Sometimes without even thinking about it.

Earth-centered traditions can be "make-believe" in the best sense of that phrase. We are encouraged to make time to play & to dream. We are encouraged to let go of our adult dignity, embrace the willingness to look foolish, to laugh at nothing.

It does not mean we deny reality: "reality is that when you jump off a roof, you break your leg." But it does mean we can create meaningful ritual. We've cast the circle, we can make sacred space. We can call on the four directions, we can summon the green man. We invoke good energies to be with us.

Such ritual feeds the trans-rational self. This is the self that imagines the pulse of life thru the ages, echoing in our heartbeat. But it is more than just us.

Earth-centered spirituality may not be for everyone but it does provide some needed balance. It keeps us- literally- grounded.

We are reminded we are thinking animals, but animals nonetheless, subject to the same physical laws of nature, part of the great cosmic chain of being, creatures who are born, who live for a brief while, and who die. This is an important thing to remember.

Spirit of the North, spirit of earth, of nighttime and winter: Be with us in the darkness, in the time of gestation. Ground us in the wisdom of the changing seasons as we celebrate the spiraling journey of our lives.

So mote it be. Amen.

Let's sing this all the way through, and let's sing the last verse a capella.

Benediction

I invite you to remain standing for our benediction. When we get to the end, I am going to say: "1, 2, 3, Ho!" and when I say "Ho!" I invite you to stomp your foot and clap your hand at the same time as you say "Ho!" It would be like this [DEMONSTRATE]. Okay?

We extinguish this flame,
but not the light of truth
the warmth of community
or the fire of commitment.

These we carry in our hearts
until we are together again.

1, 2, 3, Ho!