Gratitude Sermon

Posted on November 26, 2013 by bobjanisdillon

“Grounded in Gratitude”

Rev. Bob Janis-Dillon

First Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Hunterdon County

November 24, 2013

 

To recap: we are on a spinning ball, in the middle of space, surrounded by fiery stars and humongous rocks and millions of miles of emptiness. We are here on this planet crammed from one end to the other with all kinds of life: teeming with plants and insects and animals big and small. Including us. We live these lives that are too short, far too short, and yet are long enough for thousands of days of activity and experience and connection. As it happens we have enough food to eat – today at least, and we are not in hospital – today at least. And today, one of those several thousand days of our lives, all too few, we have an opportunity to make the most of our time, to find any one of so many countless ways to fall in love with the world and one another.

 

I don’t know about you, but for me the only sensible response to all this, other than bewilderment, is to be completely and utterly grateful. Continue reading →

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Sermons I Like: Rev. David Bumbaugh, “A Meditation for the Season”

Posted on November 26, 2013 by bobjanisdillon

Every year I read this wonderful sermon by Rev. David Bumbaugh to myself. A beautiful meditation about the beauty of the darkness and the silence of this time.

A Meditation for the Season

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Sermon on Moderation (text and audio)

Posted on November 18, 2013 by bobjanisdillon

(preceded by a few beautiful bars of music from Matt Gordeuk)

 

“Moderation: A Little of What You Like”

Rev. Bob Janis-Dillon

First Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Hunterdon County

11/17/2013

 

 

The journey to see the Oracle at Delphi, in Ancient Greece, went along a steep road up the hillside known as the Sacred Way. To get to see the oracle, you had to travel up this path. Complimenting the beauty of the mountain were hundreds and hundreds of statues, on either side of the sacred way, donated by people who had seen the Oracle, in gratitude for their success in battles or in fortune. And then at last, walking up the mountain, you’d see Delphi, the temple complex. It was multiple magnificent buildings: you can still see the ruins today, 2,500 years later. And at the heart of them all was Apollo’s Temple where the oracle sat and gave her pronouncements on the future. Waiting in line there with everyone else waiting to see the oracle – and it was always a long line – your eyes might hit upon an inscription on the Temple: meden agan, “nothing in excess.” Continue reading →

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Sermon for All Souls Day (audio and text)

Posted on November 12, 2013 by bobjanisdillon

 

“All Souls Day”

Rev. Bob Janis-Dillon

First Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Hunterdon County

11/3/2013

“The are not gone who pass beyond the clasp of hand, out from the stone embrace. They are but come so close we need not grope with hands, nor look to see, nor try to catch the sound of feet.”

 

Thus wrote the poet Hugh Robert Orr, and we feel the dead still with us here today, here amongst these photographs and candles, but more than that, we feel the presence of the dead as close to us as our own hearts, if not even closer. If there is a gap, a vast gap, between the dead and the living, it is also true that at times we cross that gap as easily as the leaves fall from the tree. We cross that gap, and visit the dead, and they come to us.

 

I was in Rome a few weeks ago. We stopped off there on the way to the wedding of my brother, in Tuscany. I dearly, dearly wanted to go to Rome before I die, for all the reasons everyone always wants to go to Rome, the Eternal City, and most of all I wanted to go to Rome to walk amongst the spirits of the dead. On the streets I walked, the emperors and slaves of Ancient Rome walked, too, as did the early Christians and the pagans; Catullus and Michelangelo and Donatello and Keats and Shelley and Fellini had walked these streets, not together, maybe, but bound together by the links of genius. Continue reading →

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Call to Presence (2013-2014)

Posted on October 28, 2013 by bobjanisdillon

(New opening words for this year – just to change things up…)

 

You have come

to be with others who care about

what it means to live on this beautiful blue-green world

You have come to be with your innermost self,

to feel the deep wells within you

brimming with courage and vision.

 

You have come to rest, and to be quiet,

to be renewed by not having to be anyone other than

who you are right now.

You have come to cry out, to rattle the walls

that contain all the prisoners of injustice and

greed and isolation, and when the time comes,

to tear the walls down.

 

You are well come.

 

The world needs a few people

who are honest, even to the point of accepting their imperfection;

the world needs a few people who are brave enough to risk

individual comfort for the sake of a larger love,

the world needs a few people who honor their own pain

as well as their ability to somehow transform pain into compassion,

the world needs a few people who step into the unknown

carrying enough love to make things interesting.

 

The world needs a few people who are ready to come alive.

The sign-up sheets are not on any wall,

but wait eternally within the human heart.

 

Let us gather in peace,

and let us make room for the infinite possibilities

of the spirit.

 

Welcome, friends, to this hour.

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Call to Presence (2012-2013)

Posted on October 28, 2013 by bobjanisdillon

(Often I would open Sunday Service with these words)

 

Here within these old stone walls,

here in this community of love and justice,

we pause in our busy lives,

to consider what is worthy of our

deepest yearnings.

 

In the time we are given here,

may we pay attention to wonder of each moment,

may we grieve what is lost,

and may we be grateful

for our life on this beautiful earth

 

and may we prepare ourselves

for the work love calls us to do.

Just as we are,

may we be the beloved community.

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Halloween Transformation Sermon (audio and text)

Posted on October 28, 2013 by bobjanisdillon

A sermon for Halloween: “Trying on a New Face”. Fiction: any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Happy Halloween!

(First 5 minutes is a gorgeous original musical meditation by Andy von Aulock)

“Transformation: Trying on a New Face”

Sermon by rev. Bob Janis-Dillon

Delivered at First Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Hunterdon County

10/27/2013

Cassandra Leahy wants to be a witch this Halloween. No, scratch that: Cassandra Leahy wants to be a witch all year long.

She puts on her dark, dark lipstick in the mirror. Her eyes, beneath her eye shadow, are deep caves of mystery. She is no eight-year-old wearing a hat fashioned from her mother’s strips of black felt. Nor is she one of the gangs of sorority girls roaming the streets tonight in their identical sexy-fill-in-the-blank “costumes.” No, Cassandra is a woman and a witch of a woman. She has thighs, hips, secrets and regrets. And is ashamed of none of it. And is ready to chant incantations into the night. 
Continue reading →

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Daily Prayer

Posted on October 28, 2013 by bobjanisdillon

Power of the universe,

Power of the human heart,

I might not have gotten up today,

But here I am.

If I had died last night, I would have lived a wonderful life already.

It would have been enough.

But here I am, ready for the gift of one more day.

Ready for the grace of something instead of nothing.

I give thanks for my breath.

I give thanks for the life in my bones, for the movement in my body.

Today is a bonus.

 

Spirit of life and love, there will be a chance today

To fall in love with the world all over again.

There will be a chance today

To speak up for someone who needs a voice.

There will be a chance today

To be there for someone who needs my presence.

Let the spirit of love overpower hesitation in such chances.

Maybe today I’ll surprise myself.

Maybe today I’ll have some fun.

Maybe today I’ll grow as a person.

Maybe today I’ll redeem the world.

Maybe today I’ll do something they’ll speak of at my funeral someday.

And may I enjoy myself, faced with the simple majesty

Of being alive.

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Sermon on Courage (audio and text)

Posted on October 28, 2013 by bobjanisdillon

Here’s a sermon on “Courage: Letting Your Light Shine” delivered  by me on October 20, 2013, at the First Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Hunterdon county. Where do you find the courage to be your true self?

EE Cummings, a famous poet and Unitarian, is reported to have written in his diary, “may I be I is the only prayer – not may I be great or good or beautiful or strong”

“The glory of God is a human being fully alive” wrote the second century Christian theologian Ireneaus. One doesn’t need to be a Christian – or even a theist – to appreciate the beauty of this phrase. Have you ever seen someone fully alive? Is there someone in your life who you just look at, and you think, they are living to the fullest – they are the most them that they can possibly be? And what would it look like if you were fully alive? It may seem an odd question. You are, of course, completely alive in this very moment. But I suspect that in most spiritual people there is a perennial yearning to be fully ourselves. At moments in our lives we feel like we’ve achieved it – we are in a blissed, blessed state of being exactly who we are meant to be. At other times, we feel a yearning to be more. Or maybe to be less – to shed the parts of our lives that are extraneous, unnecessary – or maybe all too necessary but they don’t feel real. We want to live a real life – not anyone else’s life but our own. And so we seek courage – the courage to be who we really are.

Malala Yousafzai is a sixteen year-old-girl who grew up in the beautiful Swat Valley in Pakistan. The elder sister to two younger brothers, Malala was a bright child who loved going to school, a social girl with many friends. She stayed up late to talk about politics and education with her father, who ran several small schools in the region. Continue reading →

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Sermon on Compassion (audio)

Posted on October 28, 2013 by bobjanisdillon

Sermon from October 20, 2013: “Compassion: Living the Golden Rule”

With an opening song from our choir: “There is a Balm in Gilead” (African-American spiritual)

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