Liturgies of the Earth

Rev. Dr. Richard E. Kuykendall

Description

Because of the nature of the environmental crisis, Kuykendall has designed and number of Liturgies to be done in the Church or outdoors--by congregations or just interested people who would like to celebrate the Earth's "holy days"--the Solstices, Equinoxes, and the Celtic "quarter days" which fall between the Solstices and Equinoxes. The purpose of this book is to instill a sense of the sacredness of the Earth, and thereby help us not to abuse the Earth.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Religión
• Liturgy
• Spirituality
• Religion
• Earth

Informations

• Publié par: Trafford Publishing
• Date de parution: 04 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781698713007
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Litur gies of the Earth
 
 
 
 
 
 
BY
REV. DR. RICHARD E. KUYKEN DALL
FOREWOR D BY
REV. DR. SIDNEY G. HALL, III
PHOTOGRAPH Y BY
ANDREW KUYKEN DALL
 
© Copyright 2022 Rev. Dr. Richard E. Kuykendall.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.
 
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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only. Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.
ISBN: 978-1-6987-1299-4 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6987-1300-7 (e)
 
Trafford rev.  09/24/2022

Other Books By Kuykendall from Trafford

Even Witches Have Names
A Dishwasher’s Diary
The Dream Life of Jesus
A Curmudgeon’s Commentary on the Book of Revelation
Two Ways to Lose Your Faith
If You Really Knew the God of the Bible
You Wouldn’t Like Him
The Forgotten Witches of Ancient Israel
Buddhism for Beginners
The Way of the Earth
The Dreamer and the Two Men She Loved
Spiritwind: A Study Book for Spiritual Adventurers
The Wisdom of Solomon
Liturgies of the Earth
Sexuality and the Catholic Church
In honor of Matthew Fox
Mystic-Prophet of Creation Spirituality

Contents

Foreword
Acknowledgments
How To Use This Book
Introduction
The Winter Solstice
February 1-2
The Spring Equinox
May Day
The Summer Solstice
August 1
The Autumn Equinox
All Saint’s Eve
Afterward
Captions For Altar Arrangements
Bibliography
End Notes

Foreword

 
I t is an honor to write this Forward for the 30 th anniversary of Richard Kuykendall’s Liturgies of the Earth . This book was a primary resource for me and my own community of Trinity Church of Austin in Austin, Texas, where I served as lead minister from 1988 to 2021. Rick’s ability to draw from indigenous and Celtic rites and incorporate them into the language and mythology of the church is invaluable for people seeking to infuse mainstream Christianity with nature-based and Earth-centered ritual, not just for the sake of reconnecting spirituality with our common Cosmic story, but to de-objectify and celebrate the Earth itself.
The rituals in this book and the message they convey bring to mind the words of Ronald L. Grimes, Canadian professor of ritual, mythology, and rites of passage:
Ritual interludes offer a break from the grind. There are the breaks that punctuate lives uninvited, and there are those that we court. For those that we invite we build ceremonial bridges: weddings, funerals, initiations, birthdays. A rite is a rope bridge of knotted symbols strung across an abyss. We make crossings hoping the chasm will echo our festive sounds for a moment, as the bridge begins to sway from the rhythms of the dance.
…A rite is not only the bridge over which folks pass; it is also the troll beneath, its stomach growling to devour all who dare cross. Rites bridge; rites threaten to consume. We don’t get to cross without paying the troll. There is a good reason to weep at funerals and weddings—having passed through a phase, we can’t return. (Ronald. L. Grimes, Marrying & Burying: Rites of a Man’s Life , 1995, p. 196)
Rites bridge; rites threaten to consume. They are sacred vessels to help us cross over a threshold to make meaning from the real transitions that punctuate our lives. Perhaps the depth of ritual’s sacredness, their venture into the thin place of holiness, comes from the fact that they can both bridge or consume, and sometimes both simultaneously.
After attending a national gathering for Creation Spirituality led by Matthew Fox in 1991 on Black Mountain, North Carolina, I felt inspired to return to Austin to initiate an ongoing creative and meaningful celebration for worship based upon the precepts of Creation Spirituality. I wanted the liturgy to be grounded in mysticism in a way that led to courageous prophetic action in the community and world. I knew that it needed to be gender-inclusive and Earth-centered, and structured around Matthew Fox and Meister Eckhart’s Four Paths of the Via Positiva , the Via Negativa , the Via Creativa , and the Via Transformativa . I had also just started experimenting with using rituals adapted from Wiccan priestess Starhawk, Celtic Christian David Adam, and Native American writer Paula Gunn Allen—incorporating them into Christian worship to re-ground Christian liturgy in the Earth. Then I happened upon Liturgies of the Earth . I was stunned at the beauty of his rituals, and I was humbled by the fact that someone else out there was already doing what I yearned to do within my community. Liturgies of the Earth became my companion volume for creating Earth-centered ritual.
As Rick suggests in the section How to Use this Book, I sometimes used his rituals as personal meditations and sometimes used them for rituals in the church. I often adapted them for new liturgies, and they became the inspiration for creating—with my co-collaborator Christine Kraemer for ritual writing—new nature-based rituals focused on communion, baptism, coming of age, memorials and special calendar days like MLK Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and even a special Calling of Directions following September 11, 2001. Sometimes I used Rick’s rituals verbatim for Wheel of the Year rituals that correspond with the Christian liturgical seasons, and drew from them as a springboard for designing new seasonal rituals and unique rites of passage that fit the context of my particular community.
I am thrilled Rick had the vision and took the initiative to reissue this important book on nature-based liturgies. Now more than ever, we need this kind of resource that dares to infuse nature-based and Creation-centered ritual with Christianity.
Rick’s quote in the Introduction from Nietzsche that “the Christian resolve to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad” reminds me of another Nietzsche quote that is relevant to the importance of this book. In Thus Spake Zarathustra , Nietzsche writes “If they want me to believe in their god, they’ll have to sing me better songs..... I could only believe in a god who dances.”
Liturgies of the Earth gives us better songs. It also provides a marvelous template to dance with the divine, a divinity who infuses the whole Earth with her beauty and blessing. I know you will enjoy and benefit from Liturgies of the Earth as much as I have.
Blessings,
Sid Hall
August 2022

Acknowledgments

 
I n preparing this book I am in debt to a number of groups and individuals who have helped me shape and refine the liturgies recorded herein through a process of trial and error—discussion and creative imagining.
First of all I must thank the Community Congregational Church (United Church of Christ) of Tehachapi, California for giving me the freedom to experiment with the expression of our faith in an unorthodox fashion. We have poured “new wine into new wine skins” and have watched them ferment and expand together.
These things I was allowed to do within the contest of our innovative second service which we call “”Spiritwind”--whose name derives from the fact that the word for both ‘spirit” and ‘wind’ are the same in Hebrew as well as in the Greek. 1 Spiritwind has sought to truly be “a house of prayer for all people.” I say this because from its beginning, Spiritwind has been committed to “deep ecumenism” 2 --that is, the recognition of the unity within the diversity of all faiths. We have referred to Spiritwind as “A Worship Experience for the Spiritual Adventurous”--and it has kept its word.
How the present volume actually came to be was through a commitment I made to preach from the gospel selecti