(Let the Community stand and sing first two verses of the song "Creation")

Creation

ENTRY (Verses 1 and 2)

A time to set forth a new demand,

A time to look into the past,

For without "what has been"

There is no "yet to be;"

Nothing that we do, then could last.

Refrain

We stand beyond our life and see,

We stand beyond our death and really see

What's required of those who give their death to history;

And it is now that we must do

What other ones have always longed to see,

To discover what's required to set all people free

No more must we live with poverty

No more in strife and disarray

For when those who care create all the earth,

That shall be the new day.

Leader: Let us stand before life as those who care for the world.

Community: Be it so.

ACT I:

(Let the community be seated)

Reading for the Day

(Let the community stand)

L: Life is never the way we want it.

C: We refuse to accept its promise.

L: Nevertheless we are free to live.

C: Be it so.

ACT II:

L: This is the day we have on our hands.

C: We give thanks for the life we have.

L: This is our decision.

C: Be it so.

L: Let all the joy mingle in my last song.

Community Left: The joy that makes the earth flow over in riotous excess.

Community Right: The joy that sets the twin brothers, life and death dancing, Community Left: The joy that sweeps in the tempest, waking all life with laughter,

Community Right: The joy that throws everything it has upon the dust.

(Let the community be seated)

Address for the Day

(Let the community stand)

ACT III:

L: We stand before the world and its need.

C: Let us give ourselves to the task.

L: It is to build the Earth.

C: Be it so.

L: Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,

C: But to be fearless in facing them.

L: Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain,

C: But for the heart to conquer it.

L: Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield,

C: But to my own strength.

L: Let me not crave, in anxious fear to be saved,

C: But hope for the patience to win my freedom.

Leader: Let us go forth to enact our care for the world.

Community: Be it so.

(Let the community sing last two verses of the song, "Creation")

EXIT (Verses 3 and 4)

In those who choose to be all there is Pain and misery are past;

Transformed because they bring forth human life;

New life never comes but through a death.

Refrain

The global task now has claimed our lives,

Who knows where our bodies they shall find.

But with us, anew, now the Mystery appears,

The meaning of the life of all Mankind.

Refrain

READINGS FOR THE DAILY RITUAL

Monday:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever­widening thought and anion;

­ Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.

Tuesday:

Each individual has his self­love.

Therefore his brute instinn leads him to fight

with others in the sole pursuit of his self­interest.

But Man has also his higher instincts of sympathy and mutual help.

The people who are lacking higher moral power

and who therefore cannot combine in fellowship with one another

must perish or live in a state of degradation.

Only those peoples have survived and achieved civilization

who have this spirit of cooperation in them.

So we find that from the beginning of history men had to chose

between fighting against one another or of combining,

between serving their own interest

or the common interest of all.

Wednesday:

Hold thy faith firm, my heart, the day will dawn.

The seed of promise is deep in the soil, it will sprout.

Sleep, like a bud, will open its heart to the light, and the silence will find its voice.

The day is near when thy burden will become thy gift, and thy sufferings will light up thy path.

Thursday:

Put a new heart into the people so that they can build for themselves;

Teach them the value of cooperative action

so they may put forward their united strength.

Do not expect fame or praise in the undertaking.

It will need patience, love and silent striving,

but let one single minded resolution sustain you in all your work:

the resolve that you will make it your life's mission

to share in the sufferings of those who are the most afflicted in the land,

and through participation in their sorrows,

find remedies that will destroy the very roots of their misery.

Friday:

When I sit by the roadside, tired and panting,

When I spread my bed low in the dust,

Let me ever feel that the long journey is still before me,

Let me not forget for a moment,

Let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams and in my wakeful hours.

Saturday:

8e ready to launch forth,

my heart And let those linger who must.

For your name has been called in the morning sky.

Wait for none.