Blessing It All: Rituals for Transition and Transformation - Softcover

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Heather Concannon serves as the settled minister of the Theodore Parker Unitarian Universalist Church in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. Previously she served as the Minister of Faith Formation at the Unitarian Universalist Area Church in Sherborn, Massachusetts. She is a lifelong Unitarian Universalist and lives in Boston with her family.

Allison Palm serves as the settled minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashua, New Hampshire. Previously, she worked for the UU Ministers Association and served congregations on Long Island and in the Boston area. She is a lifelong Unitarian Universalist from Minnesota and lives in Nashua with her family.

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Introduction

Our personal lives and the lives of our communities are marked by moments of transition and transformation. As individuals, we grow up, we move, we start new schools and new jobs, we begin and end relationships, we have children and if we are lucky we get to watch them grow, we discover more about who we are, we lose people and pets. As communities, we honor people entering new life stages, we acknowledge harm and seek repair, we reckon with natural disasters and national traumas, and year after year we mark the cycles of the seasons. As humans, we grow and we change, we grieve and we celebrate.

Often we mark only the big moments—birth and death, becoming an adult and committing to a partner. And yet, these are not the only moments that touch our lives and shape who we are. In this book, you will find rituals for those other moments, for the moments that come around again and again—in the cycle of the year, in the cycle of life, in the cycle of the universe. With this book, we invite you to bless it all—the big and the small, the happy and the sad, and everything in between.

The rituals in this book are for moments that are ordinary and profound, tender and heartbreaking, joyful and celebratory, and often a little bit of each. They are for moments of transition and loss, transformation and growth. They are for communities, congregations, friends, small groups, families, and individuals. They are meant to be done in church sanctuaries and basements, in living rooms, in the woods, in the streets, in hospital rooms, in backyards and online, because we know that the moments that we need to ground ourselves, to connect with something larger than ourselves, and to mark a loss or a joy happen anywhere. These rituals happen where our lives happen, wherever people or families or communities gather, because we know that is where we encounter the holy.

What you’ll find in these pages ranges from standalone blessings to full liturgies. The rituals in this book were written by a wide variety of Unitarian Universalists—ministers, religious professionals, and laypeople. The vast majority of our contributors have lived experiences of the circumstances for which they wrote the rituals to offer depth and authenticity, and have generously shared their experiences in hopes that they may speak to others in similar circumstances.

This book is for you: for worship leaders and religious professionals, for families and loved ones, for parents and children, for all who have rejoiced in new life, who have mourned a loss, who have struggled to find the words to name what transformation was taking place in your hearts. May you find in these pages connection and commitment, inspiration and invitation, a blessing and a balm.