Gathering Our Spirit with God's Spirit

The Living Room: prayer flags are to still up high in the rafters/pipes. The archway from the last worship unit is still just inside the Servants’ Entrance. There are four stations with clay, paper, markers, beads, yarn, pipe cleaners, glue. The room is dark, quiet.

• "Show" by Andy Hunter plays LOUDLY
• A Journeyer steps up to light the lamp and another rings the bell
• A Journeyer makes announcements

Worshiping with Our Children

• A Journeyer leads our children in talking about how sometimes we don't want to stop what we are doing and take a rest, but sometimes that is what is needed. How does it feel when you stay up too late?

Welcome and Breathe

• Readers for the two poems come up together
• A Journeyer reads poem "Doing/Not-Doing" (Poem is NOT on screen. Instead, show image of a garden or field)

Gardening requires doing
And not-doing.
The earth is the source.
From this comes all gardening.

• Another Journeyer reads poem "No Control" (Again, not on screen. Leave image/s up.)

In the garden
you may learn about God.
When there is too much control,
there may be resistance.
The harder you try,
the less control you have.
The more you relax,
the greater the rewards.

The master gardener know this:
I trust the process
And the plants grow on their own.
I stop worrying about the weather
And the weather happens on its own.
I forget about my garden
And there is a surprise each day.

Remembering that much
Is beyond my control,
I enjoy the unfolding
Of the daily mysteries.

• Rick welcomes, has us breathe
• Rick introduces series

God’s Spirit and Our Spirit

• A Journeyer reads from Exodus, from the Ten Commandments God gave to the Israelites after they left Egypt:

I am God. I freed you from your enslavement in the great empire.

Therefore, do not worship anything other than Me.

Don’t create things and worship them -- nothing that you can see, nothing that you can mold, nothing that you can imagine. Don’t give your allegiance to these other things. I want you to honor and serve Me only. Otherwise, the unhealthy cycle you're creating will not only infect you, but your children, and your whole culture.

Do not use Me, your names for Me, or your understanding of Me, for your own purposes.

And – stop. Take a break. Breathe. Regularly. Every week. You can work for six days. That’s enough. Do your work. But then, on the seventh day of each week, stop. See that time as holy. It’s sacred. And everyone should stop -- your children, your household, the animals that serve you, the people who watch over your business.

Do you really think you're going to accomplish so much? I created the entire universe, top to bottom, and then I stopped and rested. I rested. Now you rest.

• Video clip from Andy Goldsworthy's Rivers & Tides: Working with Time plays
• Another Journeyer reads from Ecclesiastes, from the Jewish Scripture book called The Preacher

There's an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth:
A right time for birth and another for death;
A right time to plant and another to harvest;
A right time to kill and another to heal;
A right time to destroy and another to build;
A right time to cry and another to laugh;
A right time to be sad and another to celebrate;
A right time to embrace and another to part;
A right time to search and another to count your losses;
A right time to hold on and another to let go.

Giving -- To Help God Do God's Work in This World

• A Journeyer has everyone plant their feet, open their palms; then Reader reads poem "Doing/Not Doing" (again and not on screen)

Gardening requires doing
And not-doing.
The earth is the source.
From this comes all gardening.

• Same person leads offertory prayer
• Judi S. sings "Geodes" by Carrie Newcomer as the ushers pass the baskets and set them at the foot of the cross

Telling The Story and Our Story

• All 3 readers – 2 for reading Three and 1 for reading Four – all come up together
• Two Journeyers read "Intention vs. To-Do List"

Reader 1: Living life by a to-do list is closed
Reader 2: Living life by intention is open

R1: To-do list is controlled
R2: Intention is creative

R1: To-do list is unresponsive
R2: Intention is responsive

R1: To-do list is impacted by outside events
R2: Intention is centered from within

R1: To-do list is energy-draining
R2: Intention is energy-giving

R1: Intention invites mystery
R2: To-do list wants a result

R1: Intention works and hopes
R2: To-do list works and worries

• Another Journeyer reads from Jesus’ teachings in the book of Matthew:

Why do you worry about whether you'll have anything to wear, or look beautiful? Look at how wildflowers grow. They don’t work; they don’t buy things to wear; they don’t spin cloth. And yet -- listen to me -- not even the greatest kings in all the world, with all their gold and palaces and luxury, have ever been as gorgeous as any one flower. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, do you think God doesn’t care about you? Where is your trust? Where is your tiny faith? Stop worrying. Hush.

• Rick talks
• Rick explains activity: GO to stations and create nothing. (QUIET music plays.)

Go Out to Serve with Courage and Grace

• Yet another Journeyer reads poem "Doing/Not Doing" (NOTHING on screen.)

Gardening requires doing
And not-doing.
The earth is the source.
From this comes all gardening.

• Final reader dismisses with “Go and do nothing. See what happens. Pay attention to the Garden that is entrusted to you.”
• “Show” plays again LOUDLY as folks depart