An Alternative to singing songs for worship

In our group we have people from many points of view, some are not even theistic.  This makes worship time a bit difficult, but we have tried to be creative.  When seeking for a common ground we have found that appreciation, awareness and thankfulness are all ways that we can take part in an activity that is meaningful for everyone.

As is our tradition everyone takes turns with things.  So each night we have a dinner, and a discussion around the scriptures.  We all take turns with this.  But then we have four traditions that we do monthly, one per week.  Those are confession, prayer, worship and communion.  Since we take turns these can turn out to be very different from one week to the next.  This week one of our members, Ted, wanted us to focus our understanding of worship on being present in the now, of seeing the wonder of God's good creation.  So we wrote haiku and shared.  This exercise was a great way to allow everyone to participate, and is not exclusive.

Here are a few of the them:

Eclipse

Blinding afternoon
Dark moon slides quietly in
Corona extreme

Dean

bye bye, Hi, bye bye
Joy and innocence and fun
run for the kitchen

Untitled
Days swarm the sweet sage
life is trapped sun energy
they store and prosper

Papyrus

Papyrus for us
hidden treasure fierwork top
beneath your green skin

Church
With love all around
laughter sits at the center
acceptance abounds

Community
easy, hard, noisy
exhausting and wonderful
love becomes alive

rev