Transcript for March 7, 2010 by Bob Kleinheksel

In this ebbing winter stretch, the earth continues its tilt back toward new blue-sky horizons and radiant sunshine. We hurtle through frozen space, attended by vigilant stars. This pearly blue planet is ours to share in all its beauty, majesty and timeless cycles. Let us be comforted that together we find our strength, that together we create a fairer, gentler world, that together we form an including, open space for all to enter.


Gathering together, we humbly acknowledge that from the womb of mystery and through eons of creation emerging, we are the expressions of the universe: Co-creators of love, understanding, comfort, challenge and now inquisitive, caring community. We are justice seekers and makers, insistent friends, wide-eyed and cock-eared for peace and beauty. We join the chorus of all beings with our varied understandings of God and divine presence deep within us, in our deep-eyed looks in relating between us and beyond us in all that is seen and unseen. We are not alone; we are part of something greater than ourselves; we are united in common history, story and legacy.

As eyes, ears, hands and voice of Life, we commit to creating message of grace, acceptance or love – whether it be in the ballet of beauty or in the cramp of struggle. May our fears be sharpened until we name them and release their power; may our confusion be accentuated until we shed any arrogant grandiosity keeping us from small, glad gifts and experiences in the here and now; may our timid shame be exposed till it shivers so we can laugh at last through our frailties and foibles toward becoming more whole and alive.

We commit again this day to recognizing and responding to our neighbor’s beauty and needs. May we be wide-hearted in order to realize justice, to bring about compassionate responses toward those hardest to touch and who need it most; may we be wide-willed for peace-making and for confronting power. We expose our own appetite for privilege and convenience and invite a new stomach for sacrifice and service. We overturn and become healed of our hypocrisies so that we face each other and this dazzling world with new eyes, softened hearts, open hands, full-armed embrace.

May justice be served; may our spiritual activism be enlivened again and again…for we are agents of action, vessels and voices of change, conduits of care and radical inclusion. Let us be as spokespersons proclaiming a declaration of independence and justice to all. May we serve our neighbors in joy and selflessness. Whether we are laborers, poets or painters, unemployed, parents, children, young or aged – may we be people of daring, just ways as to allow irrepressible possibilities for all people to live healthier, happier lives in equity, fairness and balance. Let it be.