“English” language resources
Opening Words
Written to open the NELUM District Meeting 2024.
Let’s take a moment to bring ourselves present to our selves, one another and the work we are about to share in together on behalf of our communities.
Let us be grateful for the fellowship and companionship provided by this group and the knowledge that we do not work
Presentation
PRESENTATION
“They brought him up to Jerusalem
to be presented to the Lord.”
Luke 2: 22
Take your newborn child to your sacred place, your temple,
to be presented to the Holy One.
Give thanks for the light that has come into your lives as
this new life opens.
Give thanks for the incarnate promise in this new birth;
The music pulls me back
On hearing of the death of Marianne Faithfull
30th January 2025
It’s the music that pulls me back:
back to places where life happened,
back to days and nights of tenderness and joy,
back to good friends and sweet lovers;
back to coffee in stained mugs,
back to long evenings in hazy, smoke-filled rooms;
back to
Living and dying
You are invited to join in with the words of this responsive reading in bold.
Spirit of Life, God of All Love, help us to face our human predicament,
and come to terms with the knowledge that our lives will end someday.
To deny death is to deny life; may we live honestly, courageously, and wholeheartedly, knowing
Letting the story speak
This Christmas, let us open our hearts, and extend an invitation to those familiar figures, allowing the old story of the nativity to speak to us anew.
Mary and Joseph, poor and weary travellers, speak to us:
Show us the way of acceptance and love;
of saying ‘yes’ and embracing the mystery.
Shepherds, steadfast and humble
Where is the God of love?
This reading first appeared in The Inquirer, Issue 8054, March 2023
https://www.inquirer.org.uk/pages/
I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these
things. (Isaiah 45: 6-7)
I am all-powerful Time which destroys all things. (Bhagavad Gita 11: 32)
A prayer of willing well-being
For all those suffering illness and loss
For those unable to say goodbye
For all those left with too much, even everything, unsaid.
I pray to will your well-being.
For those with whom we disagree sometimes strongly
For those who offend me often wrongly
For leaders even as they appear not
Easter 2020
This reading first appeared in The Inquirer, Issue 7984, Easter 2020
https://www.inquirer.org.uk/pages/
“From midday a darkness fell over the whole land…” – Matthew 27: 45
“The angel spoke to the women: ‘You have nothing to fear. He has been raised.’ They hurried away in awe and great joy.” – Matthew 28: 5-6, 8
“There