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OPENING WORDS (choose one):

By Tom Atlee, author of The Tao of Democracy: "Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, worn out and proclaiming, 'Wow! What a ride!'"

By evolutionary biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy, "Life spirals laboriously upward to higher and even higher levels, paying for every step. Death was the price of the multi-cellular condition. Pain was the price of nervous integration. Anxiety was the price of consciousness."

CHALICE LIGHTING

By Australian deep ecologist John Seed, "We call upon the power which sustains the planets in their orbits, that wheels our Milky Way in its 200 million year spiral. We call upon this power to imbue our personalities and our relationships with harmony, endurance, and joy. Fill us with a sense of immense time so that our brief, flickering lives may truly reflect the work of vast ages past and also the millions of years of evolution whose potential lies in our trembling hands."

HYMNS for Congregational Singing (choose any of these)

#6  Just As Long As I Have Breath

#331 Life Is the Greatest Gift of All

#17  Every Night and Every Morn

#301 Touch the Earth, Reach the Sky

Note: Hymn #6 is the simplest and thus most child-friendly if children are in the first part of the service. It may also be used to sing the children out after a Story for All Ages, so long as the congregation stays seated.

ORIGINAL HYMNS by Connie Barlow for Congregational Singing (each uses a familiar hymn melody, with lyrics written by Connie specifically for the death theme). Please create an order of service in which lyrics for both of these are printed on an Order of Service insert:

Death Has Lifted Us

Praise Birth and Death Amid the Stars

Note: "Praise Birth and Death Amid the Stars" is recommended as the Closing Hymn. "Death Has Lifted Us" is used by Connie as the structure for presenting her sermon, so you can list it either immediately after the sermon as a hymn for congregational singing or not at all (she will simply include the singing as elements in her sermon time). She uses an easel she brings with her with a poster of each verse as a prop onstage during her sermon (she does not speak at the pulpit). She sings a line or two, then explains the science behind it. She asks the congregation to join her in singing each verse as it is presented, or she simply has the congregation sing all 5 verses with her to conclude her sermon. (She used this approach at the UU of Cherry Hill NJ in March 2009, and it worked very well.)

Note to Music Director: Connie prefers to lead the congregation in singing "Death Has Lifted Us" and to do it with no piano accompaniment. For "Praise Birth and Death Amid the Stars", the piano is essential. The music director at UU Raleigh NC created a lovely piano accompaniment for it, which you can download HERE.

MUSICAL SUGGESTIONS FOR CHORAL OR SOLO ANTHEM OR OFFERTORY OR POSTULUDE

In March 2009, the music director at the UU of Cherry Hill NJ chose these 2 selections for offertory and postlude, respectively, using a male soloist for the first and a male/female pair to sing the second, both with piano accompaniment:

"Cycle Song of Life" (The River Song) by James Durst, 1974 PhoeniXongs, arr. Jim Scott

"Blessing" by Donna Hebert, arr. Sandi Peaslee

STORY FOR ALL AGES: If the children will attend the first part of the service, I will be happy to do a Story for All Ages for them. Title it "We are made of stardust!", and it gently brings in the notion that death is a vital element of the universe: without the death of ancestor stars, there would have been no atoms for planets and life to come into existence.

Note: Connie uses an easel she brings with her and 2 posters for this children's story. And she segues into a song she sings a cappella while pointing to the poster. It is called "In the beginning", and you can read the lyrics or hear her sing it HERE.

READING

If you usually have a Reading in your program, please list it as immediately before the sermon and Connie will select something, often a shortened version of her own litany, Is This a Universe We Say 'Yes' To?".

SERMON: "Death Through Deep-Time Eyes" (or, alternative title, "Death in the Heavens for Life on Earth")

CLOSING WORDS: Connie Barlow (I recite from memory, these lines from a poem by Joy Harjo, "I can hear the sizzle of a newborn star, and know that anything of meaning, of fierce magic, is emerging here. I am witness to flexible eternity, the evolving past, and I know I will live forever, as dust or breath in the face of stars, in the shifting pattern of winds.")

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Click here for brief biographies in PDF that can be used to introduce Connie Barlow and Michael Dowd at UU events.

Click to RETURN TO UU Programs Main Page or Detailed descriptions of UU programs.

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