Sharing Joys and Sorrows

Sources

• Bullet One
• Bullet Two
• Bullet Three

What is the ritual?

About every two weeks, at some point in the service an invitation is extended for those who have a joy or concern to come forward, light a candle on the altar or place a stone in a chalice of water, and speak briefly into the microphone describing the joy or concern.

Origins

In the 1960s-70s, was one of the first steps to bringing more ritual & symbols back into services.

Perhaps partially a response to humanist services

Candles of Compassion (current)

Here we strive to create a model of Beloved Community. We do this in part through the care and support of one another. We each arrive here holding joys and sorrows, triumphs and disappointments.

Ritual template at UUCG now

We set aside time in this communal space to honor that which we each carry on our hearts, to celebrate together, and to grieve together.

If you would like your joy or sorrow shared aloud in the service, please share it in the Chat space on Zoom and [name], our Pastoral Care Associate, will read them aloud as I light a candle of compassion to lift your joy or sorrow into the collective consciousness.

Ritual template at UUCG now

I invite us now to enter into a time of silent reflection as we create a container of compassion to hold our joys and our sorrows.

[A MOMENT OF SILENCE]

Into this container we offer that which is most on our hearts to share with this beloved and supportive community.

[Then the associate reads names and brief messages and I light a candle for each joy or concern. After the last one:]

We light one more candle for those joys and sorrows that remain held in the sanctuary of the heart.

May we hold one another with compassion and loving-kindness.

Amen.

Stones of Joy and Concern

At my home congregation, Northwest UUC, we moved away from candles and place stones in a chalice of water.

For our in-gathering at the start of each program year in the fall, members bring water which is commingled in a Community Bowl then some of it is used for this ritual.

Pre-pandemic Ritual at Northwest

Now is the time in our service for stones of joys and sorrows. Those who are so moved are now invited to come forward to put a stone in the bowl, expressing a joy or concern in their lives.  As you do, you may briefly share what it is.  

We ask that people coming forward tell us your name, and speak for no more than a sentence or two, and speak from the heart about issues in their lives.

[After last one:]

I add this final stone for those thoughts that may be held in silence among us. May all of our prayers today be held in this loving community.

What is Feminist about

Joys and Sorrows?

Ritualizes relationships of care

Mary Collins: "Because rituals are about relationships, the foundational principle of any feminist liturgy is the ritualizing of relationships that emancipate and empower women."

What is Feminist about

Joys and Sorrows?

Communal Interaction/Multivocal

Mary Collins: "A second principle for feminist liturgy, reflecting the feminist challenge to patriarchal, is that feminist liturgy is effected not through elites but through the communal interaction of all the members of intentional groups."

What is Feminist about

Joys and Sorrows?

Alternative symbolic forms

Mary Collins: "Feminists have begun to develop a repertoire of alternative symbolic forms or relational schemes. In feminist ritualizing the actor strategically shapes polycentric forms rather than hierarchical ones, organizing ritual interaction to acknowledge that spiritual power can be found in many places... often deliberately 'headless.'"

What is Feminist about

Joys and Sorrows?

Not fully scripted

Mary Collins: "Feminist liturgies are generated at the level of practice; feminists ritualize together. They seldom produce texts that fully script an event or record it."

What is Feminist about

Joys and Sorrows?

Creative disruption

Lorena Parrish: ​"Undistorted stories, reflections, and transcendent encounters that redeem as valid those sacred human experiences that are often pathologized... ushers gathered worshippers toward a new mode of awareness."

What is Feminist about

Joys and Sorrows?

Redemptive Reconstruction

Lorena Parrish: ​"Conceiving new visions of the self and the community while taking action for implementing new norms, values, and options."

What is Feminist about

Joys and Sorrows?

Acknowledgment, Thanksgiving, & Commemoration

Lorena Parrish: ​"Communal... recognizes and honors human transcendence present in radically loving and just engagements. It fortifies and emboldens the community to continue the collective work."

Other reasons to continue

this ritual

- Opportunity for people to speak in their own voices about their own lives invites engagement with the worship experience unlike any other.

- Members of the congregation come to know one another better.

- Pastoral concerns are held up, and follow-up occurs not only through formal ministries of the church, but informally, simply because people know and care about a concern that has been expressed.

Other reasons to continue

this ritual

- Visitors to the congregation get the feeling that this is an open, warm, and caring congregation as they hear members sharing difficult life issues or positive milestones.

- The life issues expressed remind us that joy and woe are woven throughout our lives, and that religious living involves engagement with the whole of life in community.

Other reasons to continue

this ritual

- The ritual brings multiple voices into the service and creates opportunity for movement, shifts in pace and voices, that can make the flow of a service more interesting or powerful.

Problems

- The opportunity is more attractive to extroverts, and hard to resist for people with boundary issues who enjoy an audience, so it can become dominated by a small number of difficult people.

- Unpredictability of open-microphone sharing can affect the message, timing, and emotional content of the service.

- Will inevitably feel in-house to new visitors -- names, stories, and unstated assumptions about what everyone knows will make some visitors feel left out.

Problems

- It's hard to make the ritual flow briskly and smoothly.

- Risk of boundaries being breached, perhaps disclosing confidential information, too much detail being shared, or time limits exceeded.

- Line between announcements or commenting on news items and sharing of personal joys and sorrows can be hard to draw and harder to enforce among strong personalities.

Problems

- A particularly difficult concern may be immediately followed by a light and celebratory joy that will be hard to honor as the impact of the previously expressed concern still resonates.

- Some people will inevitably take the opportunity to respond to the sermon in ways that are not helpful.