Rev. Frank Hall Services Archive

PREFACE: Many thoughtful people in our culture are turned off from religion for a variety of rather persuasive reasons: Biblical literalists and fundamentalists who insist that the Bible was not written by mere mortals but was dictated, word for word, by a god who, if we do take the Bible literally, said and did some […]

  We are into the High Holy Days of Judaism, ‘the days of awe,’ as they are called: Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, or literally, the head of the year, and Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. The Jewish New Year is agricultural: in the northern hemisphere the crops have been, or are being harvested-the […]

The attack on America came as a complete surprise-though in retrospect we might have expected it. The planes, flown by pilots prepared to commit suicide by flying their planes into their unsuspecting targets, came in two horrendously destructive waves hitting the first target at 7:53 a.m. and the second at 8:55. By 10 a.m. it […]

Reading: The Summer Day, Mary Oliver Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead […]

Opening Reading: Morning Poem, by Mary Oliver Every morning the world is created. Under the orange sticks of the sun the heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again and fasten themselves to the high branches –and the ponds appear like black cloth on which are painted islands of summer lilies. If it is […]

 Opening words from May Sarton’s Well:  “If one looks long enough at almost anything, looks with absolute attention at a flower, a stone, the bark of a  tree, grass, snow, a cloud, something like revelation takes place. Something is ‘given,’ and perhaps that something is always a reality outside the self.  We are aware of […]

Morning Poem, Mary Oliver Every morning the world is created. Under the orange sticks of the sun the heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again and fasten themselves to the high branches –and the ponds appear like black cloth on which are painted islands of summer lilies. If it is your nature to […]

Mothers always feel like their child is a reflection of them so they worry about what the little ones will say.  For example, they often reveal things to teachers about what’s going on at home. Children generally come into the sanctuary on the first Sunday of the month for the first part of the service.  […]

(Minister’s note:  The following is the sermon I prepared to deliver on May 4.  The actual sermon, delivered from the pulpit, is available on tape and may be purchased or borrowed.) Revelation The Roman poet Lucan asks rhetorically, “Is the dwelling place of God anywhere but in the earth and sea, the air and sky, […]

The sermon begins with silence: simply connecting, person to person. We’re here in this special place, this house of worship, to be reminded that we are part of a community; to be reminded that we are capable of making meaningful connections; to be encouraged to take the risk of caring, of loving.  We need one […]