This Week at UPC

Bless the Water: This week our creation theme is Water. As an introduction to the theme, we will be looking at the beginning of the second creation story in Genesis. Genesis 2:4b–14 In the first story (Genesis 1:1––2:3), water is there from the beginning, and creation is an act of separating everything else from the waters, and then bringing life to the land—after light and darkness and planets and the sun and moon are brought forth.      In the second story, the land has already been created, and there is a stream that waters all of the land. God creates the human from the land, and we can’t grasp the pun in English, but adam (human or man) is made from adamah (humus or earth). We’re probably most familiar with verses 8 & 9 in this text, when God creates a garden and puts adam into the garden with the green and growing things, including the tree of life and the tree of good and evil. But then the author describes the four rivers that surround the garden, a...

Season of Creation: For the next six weeks, we will observing a season of Creation. Each week there will be special activities that are designed to deepen our connection to the particular focus of the day, including centers where you can light a candle and pray, pick up a coloring picture, design and color a rock, and other activities that are suitable to the theme. September 10: We will celebrate the connections of all creation to our Creator, using one of the psalms of celebration that invites all things and beings to join the hymn of praise. September 17: We’ll focus on growing things and on the human relationship to crops and forests, fields and trees. September 24, “Water” Sunday: We will consider the water cycle and the ways in which water is life. October 1, World Communion Sunday: We will be thinking and praying about the nations and generations of humanity, created in God’s image and beloved by God, as we celebrate the sacrament and commit to the healing ...