I knew from the start that I did not want to go it alone,
that I wanted to be rooted in religious community...
to savor the world and to save it,
in the company of like-minded others--
in worship, celebration, fellowship, study,
service, spiritual discipline, and social action.
I found this in the Unitarian Universalist movement
and in each of the congregations it has been my privilege to serve.

-Jack Mendelsohn

Prelude
"Mamacita"

Call to Worship

The Reverend Dr. Diane Miller

Processional Hymn "Rank by Rank, Again We Stand" Congregation rises

John Huntley Skrine Recast by Carl G. Seaburg, 1990

Rank by rank, again we stand,
From the four winds gathered hither.
Loud the hallowed walls demand
Whence we come, and how, and whither.
From their stillness breaking clear,
Echoes wake to warn or cheer;
Higher truth from saint and seer
Call to us assembled here.

Ours the years' memorial store,
Honored days and names we reckon,
Days of comrades gone before,
Lives that speak and deeds that beckon.
From the dreaming of the night
To the labors of the day,
Shines their everlasting light,
Guiding us upon our way.

Though the path be hard and long,
Still we strive in expectation;
Join we now their ageless song
One with them in aspiration.
One in name, in honor one,
Guard we well the crown they won;
What they dreamed be ours to do,
Hope their hopes and seal them true.

Lighting of the Chalice

Mrs. Harold Patterson

A Litany of Remembrance Adapted from Ralph Norman Helverson

The Reverend Beverly A. Bumbaugh The Reverend Dr. David E. Bumbaugh, Jr.

Minister: We are gathered in remembrance of all ministers who sought the light of understanding, who extended the fellowship of freedom, and whose words and deeds remain as a living memorial.

Congregation: We lift up thankful hearts for all ministers who dealt out to others their lives passed through the fire of thought.

We remember ministers who sought wisdom and reached across barriers of belief and doctrine, who affirmed in the spirit of truth the healing hand of argument, who served the needs of others - lifted the fallen, upheld the weak, established community, and preached the living word.

We lift up thankful hearts for all who carried on the tradition of asking questions, who went beyond false stopping places that stifled growth and weakened faith.

We remember ministers who embodied goodness, embraced the love of all people, encompassed differences of color and creed, age and sex, and surmounted every circumstance of hobbling tradition, to push back ignorance and declare the glory of God and the human spirit.

We lift up thankful hearts for the ministry of beauty, for all who have quickened our love of nature and of ourselves, who by line and color, music and ceremony, and the spoken word, helped us to rejoice in life.

We remember every minister who taught living religion, who helped us to see the limits of unexamined orthodoxies, and while standing in a particular tradition declared the religion universal, and who led us in the dedication of ourselves to the church of all souls.

We lift up thankful hearts for the ministers who have set before us examples to follow. May the work and the purpose of our calling show forth in the living and those yet to come, the ministry they proclaimed.

Welcoming the New Ministers

Ms. Tamara Payne-Alex

The congregation is asked to hold all applause until the end of the service.

Recognition of Those Ministers Who Have Entered into Preliminary Fellowship	The Reverend Ellen Brandenburg

Recognition of Those Ministers Who Have Attained Final Fellowship

The Reverend Dr. Diane Miller

Extending the Hand of Fellowship

The Reverend Dr. John A. Buehrens The Reverend Gary E. Smith Ms. Tamara Payne-Alex

Recognition of Those Completing Service in Ministry	The Reverend Dr. John H. Weston

Presentation of Certificates of Appreciation	The Reverend Dr. John A. Buehrens Ms. Tamara Payne-Alex The Reverend Gary E. Smith The Reverend William A. DeWolfe

Offering for the Living Tradition Fund

The Reverend Dr. Ralph Mero

Offertory
"Naima"

Readings

Selection from T'hillim - Psalm 139, c.700 BCE "Poppies" by Mary Oliver, 1992 from Dao De Jing, c.500 BCE

Sermon "Other Pulpits, Other Ministries"

The Reverend Dr. Mark Belletini

Musical Response

Roll Call and Prayer Congregation rises

The Reverend Dr. John A. Buehrens

Recessional Hymn "For All the Saints" (Adapted) Congregation remains standing

William Walsham How

For all the saints who from their labors rest,
Who thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy name, most holy, be forever blest: Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their rock, their shelter, and their might;
Their strength and solace in the well-fought fight;
Thou in the darkness deep their one true light: Alleluia, Alleluia!

And when the strife is fierce, the conflict long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph-song,
And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong: Alleluia, Alleluia!

Benediction	The Reverend David R. Hubner

Postlude
"Well You Needn't"

Notes on the Service

This is the fifty-fourth annual Service of the Living Tradition of the Unitarian Universalist Ministry, which recognizes those ministers who have been granted preliminary fellowship, achieved final fellowship, or completed fulltime service and commemorates those ministers who died between May 20, 1998 and May 24, 1999.

The offering received today supports the Living Tradition Fund, which provides UU ministry students and ministers with scholarships, grants, and financial assistance in times of need.

The preacher for the service is the Reverend Dr. Mark Belletini Senior Parish Minister at First Unitarian Universalist Church in Columbus, Ohio. He has served our congregations in San Francisco and Hayward, California, the latter for 18 years. He chaired the Hymnbook Resources Commission which produced Singing the Living Tradition.

Other participants in the service are:

The Reverend Beverly A. Bumbaugh, Minister Emerita of The Unitarian Church in Summit, NJ
The Reverend Dr. David E. Bumbaugh, Associate Professor of Ministry and Director of Field Education, Meadville/Lombard Theological School
The Reverend Dr. John A. Buehrens, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association
The Reverend Gary E. Smith, President of the UU Ministers Association and Senior Minister of the First Parish in Concord, MA
The Reverend William A. DeWolfe, President of the UU Retired Ministers and Partners Association
Ms. Tamara Payne-Alex, member of the First Unitarian Church of San Jose, California, who serves on the Executive Committee of the Ministerial Fellowship Committee

The staff of the Department of Ministry participating in the service are:

The Reverend Ellen Brandenburg, Ministerial Education Director
The Reverend David P Hubner, Ministerial Development Director
The Reverend Dr. Ralph Mero, Church Staff Finances Director
The Reverend Dr. Diane M. W Miller, Director of Ministry
The Reverend Dr. John H. Weston, Ministerial Settlement Director

Representing the surviving families of ministers who have died during the past year is Sally Patterson, widow of the Reverend Harold Patterson.

The organist for the service is Stephen Smith, music director of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock, Manhasset, NY.

Music for the service is provided by Ricardo Romero, Carlos Arroyo, Pat Terry, Chris Braymen, Alan Michael, Scott Terry, and Jose Luis Reyes, playing together as Mambo jumbo.

Music in the lobby prior to the service was provided by the South Valley UU Church Handbell Choir, a three-octave ten-member choir under the direction of Cynthia Davis.

The flaming chalice was crafted by Robert Duprey, a member of the Universalist Unitarian Church of Brockton, Massachusetts.

Interpreting at today's service is Kathryn Deal of Santa Monica, California. Ushers for the service are ministers who received Preliminary Fellowship in 1998.

We are grateful to the Reverend Douglas Morgan Strong of Plano, Texas for hall arrangements and the flaming chalice "stained glass" window used in this service and to Patricia Frevert for her cover illustration.

Readings

The First Reading is part of the 139th selection in the Book of Praisesongs, called T'hillim in Hebrew, and Psalms in English. This dates probably from 700 years before the beginning of our era.

You search me, 0 Eternal, you sound my depths.
Standing or sitting, you know me.
You read my inner life like a scroll.
Whether I am awake or asleep
you study me, an open book.
You surround me, enclose me,
enfold me and embrace me.
Such intimacy stuns me;
it is far, far beyond my comprehension.
Where indeed could I go to escape your breath
soft upon my neck?
Where could I flee your glance?
Shall I climb up into the sky?
Ah no, you are there before me.
Shall I burrow into the earth which shall
one day claim me?
No, for you are already there.
If I say "I will hide among the shadows,
and ask night to hide me in its dark deep folds,"
the dark will not hide me,
for night and noon are as the same to you.
Oh what mysteries! How vast it all is!
Look! I now awaken from these my reveries
and here you are again!

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The Second Reading is a 1992 poem by the American poet, Mary Oliver. It's called Poppies.

The poppies send up their orange flares; swaying in the wind, their congregations are a levitation of bright dust, of thin, lacy leaves.

There isn't one place in this world that doesn't drown sooner or later in those indigoes of darkness, but now, for a while, the roughage shines like a miracle as it floats about everything with its yellow hair.

Of course, nothing stops the cold, black curved blade from hooking forward. Of course, loss is the great lesson.

But I also say this: that light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness, when it's done right, is a kind of holiness, palpable and redemptive,

Inside the bright fields, touched by their rough and spongy gold, I am washed and washed in the river of earthly delight --- and what are you going to do, ---what can you do about it, deep, blue night?

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The third and last reading, from the Dao De Jing, traditionally attributed to a man name Laozi, but probably written by several poets and later edited around the same time as the Torah was undergoing its final revisions about 500 BCE. This is part of number 25.

Before there was the sky and the earth,
there was a Whole not split into sky and earth.
So still! So silent!
Solitary, immeasurable,
unchanging yet tirelessly in motion,
you could think of it as the mother of all things.
I don't know its Name.
If pressed, I would call it simply, "The Way It Is."
And if pressed further to describe it,
I might stammer, "It's wonderful."
By calling it wonderful, I suppose I am saying
it is going somewhere.
And if it is going somewhere, it will go far and away.
And if it goes far and away, it will come back home again.

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