An Excerpt from Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali, or song offerings

first published in 1913

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

Is it beyond thee to be glad with the gladness of this rhythm? To be tossed and lost and broken in the whirl of this fearful joy?

All things rush on, they stop not, they look not behind, no power can hold them back, they rush on.

Keeping steps with that restless, rapid music, seasons come dancing and pass away - colours, tunes, and perfumes pour in endless cascades in the abounding joy that scatters and gives up and dies every moment.

Winter Solstice

By Rebecca Parkerbr/> Unitarian Universalist Minister and President of Starr King School for the Ministry

Perhaps
for a moment...
the wheels stop rolling,
the computers desist from computing,
and a hush will fall over the city.
For an instant, in the stillness,
the chiming of celestial spheres will be heard
as earth hangs poised
in the crystalline darkness, and then
tilts.

Let there be a season
when holiness is heard, and
the splendor of living is revealed.
Stunned to stillness by beauty
we remember who we are and why we are here.
There are inexplicable mysteries.
We are not alone.

In the universe there moves a Wild One
whose gestures alter earth's axis
toward love.

In the immense darkness
Everything spins with joy.
The cosmos enfolds us.
We are caught in a web of stars,
cradled in a swaying embrace,
rocked by the holy night,
babes of the universe.

Let this be the time
we wake to life,
like spring wakes in the moment
of winter solstice.

Readings of December 31, 2006