I'm participating in a creative service that was the inspiration of one of the artist members of the congregation in which, instead of a sermon, we will all be challenged to make a statement in the medium of our choice expressing our reaction to the Occupy Movement. Below is my part of the service, the Call to Community. Gilly will recognize her contribution.


We are called, this morning, into Community. Into a community always and earnestly struggling to live by the seven principles you heard a few minutes ago. These principles embody the spirit and practice of Love, the love that flows from the bottom up, that begins between persons before growing outward and upward into the greater structures of our society.
At the beginning of the American experiment many religious groups, Unitarians and Universalists among them, sought this freedom that grows first from the individual then out into the culture. They worked to create a society that was not governed by structures in which power had corrupted all those throughout the system. Men and women practiced democracy within their church communities, before it was practiced in the governing of the country.
These small groups were the seedbeds of the embryonic United States. I can imagine John Adams in his Unitarian congregation thinking, “This works. Let’s run a country this way.”
These hothouses of freedom were where people of good will struggled, first amongst themselves, to incubate many of the advances we enjoy; the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, civil and LGBT rights, peace. It was often and still is a messy struggle, dividing congregations as well as the nation. They were heretics and a minority even in their own congregations, those who first dared for change.
The Occupy movement is the expression of these same hopes; that democracy be made personal again, that individuals can again feel a part of the process and not just on the receiving end of policies of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy, that love and authority flow from the bottom up, that power not corrupt everyone in the system.
We bring to this on-going struggle both the love and the fear that shape our actions. We try to adhere to the seven principles so that love may most often be our motivator. When we express our response to the Occupy movement in the workshop that Steve Nutt is guiding later we bring the frightening intensity of our feelings about our place in this culture; our anger, our exuberant hope, our frustration and our gratitude. Together, in Community, we make a safe place to express any and all of them.
Here is an example. I was speaking to one of my daughters about the idea that the corporations that we each work for are now considered people. I said, ”I suppose that makes us the gut bacteria in the digestive tract, breaking things down, giving the company gas.” I was feeling cynical, fearful. She reminded me of the idealism of youth and the resilience of love when she said, “No, daddy, we are the embryos.”

For reference, the Seven Principles:

The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

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Slideshow! It didn't seem like 90 pix when I was winnowing them. These were all taken with either my or Susan's cell phone, which accounts for the quality or lack thereof. They are roughly in chronological order, but only roughly. And they are especially disordered toward the end. You'll have to guess where some of them were taken.