Rev. Frank Hall Services Archive

First, let’s look again at the words to the old Shaker hymn. In Shaker worship there were no written prayers, no liturgy-it was characterized by spontaneity. Everything about the Shakers was distinctively simple, unornamented, functional. Shaker furniture is known for its finely crafted style of simplicity. Shakers took a vow of celibacy-a simple answer to […]

We recently looked at one of the important persons–prophet, if you will–on the Universalist side of our Unitarian Universalist heritage: John Murray. He preached a doctrine of universal salvation, saying, “Give them not hell but hope and courage.” Murray fled his native England after his house was burned to the ground by religious terrorists who […]

Opening Reading THE ROAD NOT TAKEN, Robert Frost Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other as just as fair, And having […]

Opening Words: “Lost” David Wagoner Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here. And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, Must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you, If […]

Opening Words, from William Wordsworth’s ‘The World is Too Much With Us‘, and Robert Frost’s ‘Birches.’ The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is our; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon. I’d like to get […]

THE SILENCE OF GRIEF The events of this past week are, as they say, “Of Biblical proportions.” Many stories that are a collection of legends and myths, mixed with history, come to mind. One that came to my mind is the story of Job. You know the story. Or do you? God and Satan devise […]

I’ve never actually panned for gold, but I like the metaphor. There are gold nuggets in the river and those who are panning for gold kneel at the edge of the stream and scoop up a pan full of rocks and sand. Then they swish it around, dumping out the rocks and sand, hoping to […]

“The test of a man or woman’s breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.” –G. B. Shaw The Pope visited Greece this week in an attempt to heal some of the old wounds that date to the year 1204 when Crusaders from Rome sacked Constantinople. He was not well-received by the majority of Greek […]

Reading: Opening words to service A GIRL’S GARDEN, Robert Frost A neighbor of mine in the village Likes to tell how one spring When she was a girl on the farm, she did A childlike thing. One day she asked her father To give her a garden plot To plant and tend and reap herself, […]

Opening reading: Lament, by Edna St. Vincent Millay Listen, children: Your father is dead. From his old coats I’ll make you little jackets; I’ll make you little trousers From his old pants. There’ll be in his pockets Things he used to put there, Keys and pennies Covered with tobacco; Dan shall have the pennies To […]