Welcome to a new year at First Unitarian Portland! We are so looking forward to hosting you in person and online for Homecoming, including a community breakfast (pancakes served from 9am – 10am), multigenerational worship at 10:15am, and our Learning Community Open House following the service. Here is a prayer I wrote for us for this season of re-opening:
Spirit of Life,
May we feel the blessings of our spiritual ancestors
Who opened the doors to our current location 100 years ago.
May their stories ground us and lift us up –
We are the inheritors of the people who built our Eliot Sanctuary –
And rebuilt it after a fire – with their love, dedication, and perseverance.
May we feel the blessings of our community and its people today –
The collective ‘WE’ who open doors and minds and hearts to
The transformative possibilities contained in:
Acts of hospitality and welcome,
Words and music that makes spirits soar,
Moments of mentoring of children and being mentored by them,
Caring for one another’s hurts and hopes,
And joining movements of justice for our earth and her inhabitants.
May we open the door to this new year –
The 158th year in our story
Knowing that each of us is fully a part of this community
And yet it is each of ours only for a time.
May we be ready once again
To serve and to lead with love at the center
Offering our gifts to one another and our city
in ways that ground and lift us
for the people of today and also the people of tomorrow.
Amen. Blessed Be. May it be so.
In faith,
Rev. Alison