The 12 Gifts of Birth Welcome Good morning and welcome to Cedarhurst Unitarian Universalists!

I'm Keara Smith and I'm excited to be here this morning. If this is your first visit you are especially welcome. Please stay for coffee and conversation after the service. If you have questions about Unitarian Universalism or CUU we would love to answer any questions. If you feel we can be your spiritual home and are ready to commit to being a member, any board member would be pleased to talk with you. Announcements And no UU service is complete without announcements Jodi Davidson will be leading next weeks service on Your Personal Life Quotient Gain greater clarity on your current & desired state of work / life balance and develop an action plan that can be immediately put into practice Chalice Lighting 448 We gather this hour as a people of faith With joys and sorrows, gifts and needs. We light this beacon of hope, Sign of our quest For truth and meaning, In celebration of the life we share together Opening Words Intro to the book Candles At this time in our service, we pause to reflect on our week. We recall the milestones, the joys, concerns, and sorrows, the changes in our lives; those who need our healing thoughts. Community is deepened by sharing with each other what is in our hearts. Anyone, including our youth, visitors or guests, may participate in Candles of Sharing. Come up and light a candle or I can light one for you. Tell us your name and briefly say what personal joy or concern or milestone has touched you this week." Offering 674 Let there be an offering to sustain and strengthen this place which is sacred to so many of us, a community of memory and of hope, for we are now the keepers of the dream Presentation I would like to try something a little bit different today. There is much that we say about each of the 12 gifts. So instead of waiting until the end for discussion, I will present each gift and we can discuss them as we go. I would like us to share our

interpretation of the gifts, how you may have seen the gifts in your own lives. The first gift is Strength May you remember to call upon it whenever you need it Strength comes in many forms; the obvious physical but more important more impressive strength of character moral strength endurance love. Commitment, persistance My Dad personifies strength to me. As a little girl, I saw his physical strength. He was one the could swing an ax, swing a hammer, open ever jar, build anything. As I got older I began to see his true strength, the strength of his character. He did the right thing simply because it was the right thing. He worked hard to support his family. He loved and respected his mother and was always there for her. When she suffered from a devastating stroke, he was strong for her and for us. He visited her almost daily, often being the one to feed her. He brought her home as often as he could. He took care of her house. And when she passed on, he took care of the estate. He has always taken care of what ever needed to be done, never objecting, just doing because it needs done. He has endured many health trials of his own as well. He has had several heart attacks, open heart surgery, angioplasty, and a stroke that took the right half of his field of vision. It is a testament to his strength, my mother's strength and the strength of their love that he is still with us today. Nothing is so strong as gentleness and nothing is so gentle as real strength Ralph Sockman May your deeds reflect its depth The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched but are felt in the heart Helen Keller and difficult to put into words Beauty is what moves us in some way... People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.-- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

2nd Beauty

3rd Courage
May you speak with confidence and use courage to follow your own path I am often very thankful for my parents and how they raised me. They encouraged me to find my own voice. To be myself and to speak up for myself. I didn't have the

best experiences in school. I thought differently. My ideas and voice didn't always fit in to their blanks. My answers weren't wrong. They just weren't the ones on the answer key. My parents encouraged me to speak up when I felt I was right. To give reasons for my answers. As a family, we ushered in some major changes in my elementary school. We met with the principal. My parents didn't fight for me. They helped me to find my voice and speak for myself, always there to back me up if I faltered. These were amazing lessons at such a formative time. It hasn't always been easy. There have been times where I struggled to speak, where the my own path was hard to find. But I can always pull from childhood to find the courage I need. Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. Winston Churchill

4th Compassion
May you be gentle with yourself and others. May you forgive those who hurt you and yourself when you make mistakes. I found compassion defined as the humane quality of understanding the suffering of others and wanting to do something about it. We live in a world where we could look anywhere and find suffering from small personal hurts to entire peoples struggling for survival. It is easy to get overwhelmed. To look around and feel the problems and the issues are too big. I can't make a difference. I don't know where to start. I know that as a one person I can't end the riots. I can't end famine, or genocide. But I can make a difference. Individuals can make differences and together we can make big differences. Letter writing campaigns, food drives, a building crew, volunteering. Working together We can make a small difference on the larger world. But we can make a huge difference in each other's lives with simple day to day actions. Sincerely asking someone if everything is okay and realy listening, a genuine offer of help, a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold, your presence. Can be an act of compassion that helps someone make it through the day, that they carry with them, that fills a need greater than you imagine. Reading 457 I am only one But still I am one. I cannot do everything, But still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do --Edward Everett Hale

5th Hope
Through each passage and season, may you trust the goodness of life

 Definition: the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best: word used so often but what do we really mean? In this sense I think it means trust trust the goodness of life trust that good outweighs the bad trust in the world, in each other, in ourselves putting the positive out into the world hope for the best, do what you can to make it happen/to work towards it

6th Joy
May it keep your heart open and filled with light I have a constant reminder to find joy in the everyday with Zack (my 2 year old bundle of energy). He loves life. The joy of each new discovery, his smile in the face of the everyday simple things like watching a butterfly float by, giggling when the dog's tail tickles him. Every day he makes me laugh out loud. We share uncontrollable giggles. And he makes my heart sing with every hug. He helps me to see and appreciate joy in all its forms from the warmth of simple contentment to the feeling you have after the round of belly laughs where everything just looks a little brighter a little better, a little easier

7th Talent
May you discover your own special abilities and contribute them toward a better world We all have talents and abilities to offer our world Find it in yourself recognize it in others Ultimately I think it when tied to your passion it will have the biggest impact on your self and on your world

8th Imagination
May it nourish your visions and dreams. Use your imagination We say that to kids so often. They use their imaginations so naturally Fades as we grow up? Why? We should continue to encourage Nothing can be achieved that isn't first imagined Imagine a better world and then work towards making it a reality As adults, we may need to direct or redirect our imaginations... too often we mange to imagine the worst case scenario we need to free imaginations to flights of fancy and to the positive to imagine that better world I am imagination. I can see what the eyes cannot see. I can hear what the ears cannot hear. I can feel what the heart cannot feel. Peter Nivio Zarlenga I believe in the imagination. What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see. Duane Michals

9th Reverence

 May you appreciate the wonder that you are and the miracle of all creation Moments of true reverence for me have always been connected to nature. Just sitting under a tree, walking along a lake. Moments in time where I am able to put aside my day to day concerns and just see, just experience the holy in nature. Growing up my parents took my brother and I all over the country, camping, touring national parks. I've seen Old Faithful. I've come face to face with a bison. I've experienced the desolate beauty of Arches National Park, White Sands that rise and fall and seemingly flow on for ever. I've stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon. I swam in the Colorado. I saw waterfalls nearly frozen over. I've seen sunrises and sunsets from the Great Rocky Mountains to the beach in Puerto Vallarta. I've had my breath taken away, moments that taught me to breath deeper, moments that have stood in silence, others graced with music only mother nature can provide. These moments have not been limited to these magestic settings. They've also been in my own backyard. They are all around us if we just take the time to look. If we open ourselves to the holy in nature. "The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. " John Muir

10th Wisdom
Guiding your way, wisdom will lead you through knowledge to understanding. May you hear its soft voice. Hard to define More than knowledge, maybe more instinct the person who knows when to act to push to support to walk away knows who to ask knows how to get the best from people Emotional IQ knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; Wise people generally share an optimism that life's problems can be solved and experience a certain amount of calm in facing difficult decisions. Intelligenceif only anyone could figure out exactly what it ismay be necessary for wisdom, but it definitely isn't sufficient; an ability to see the big picture, a sense of proportion, and considerable introspection also contribute to its development.

11th Love
It will grow each time you give it away I am so blessed by love in so many forms. I've experienced love as a daughter, a sister, a friend, a pet owner, a lover, a wife, a

mother. I've been lucky enough to see the amazing love between my parents, the every day acts of love and the grand gestures. I've been humbled and awed by acts of love of strangers such as the elderly couple holdings hands through out life, witnessing the glow of love in a look shared, or watching a father help his son across the finish line when he fell in the Olympics. I know new levels of love everyday as parent. Yes. When you open your heart to love, you also open it hurt. It is harder to loose someone you love, to be betrayed, easier to be hurt, and the hurt can run deeper. But the joy, the easy contentment, the friendships, the companionship, the good also runs deeper and is so worth it.

12th Faith
May you believe word with so many connotations-- many that make UU's uncomfortble or defensive I focus on Believe believe in something humanity Balance God, Spirit, Peace, Good, the thin thread that connects us all May you have the comfort of belief. It can be a foundation. Unitarian Universalism is about the journey to discover what it is you truly believe "Faith is a commitment to live as if certain things are true, and thereby help to make them so. Faith is a commitment to live as if life is a wondrous mystery, as if life is good, as if love is divine, as if we are responsible for the well-being of those around us.... Faith is a leap of the moral imagination that connects the world as it is to the world as it might become." - Galen Guengrich Closing Conclusion of book Chalice Extinguishing 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