Imagining People Complexly

by Luna Hamburg

Moment of Perspective – Flower Communion

The opening words, “Constellations of Our Lives”, are from the Rev. Karen G Johnston.

Humans make maps of stars,
choosing some stars, ignoring others,
to project our imaginations onto the heavens.
These maps shift over time, across cultures.
Names change for the same assemblage of bright points:
Drinking Gourd, Big Dipper, Plough, Lost Hunters, Saptarishi.
Humans make constellations by connecting stars.
Humans make meaning by connecting stories:
story to story to narrative to story.
Some blaze bright, some are faint.
Most are backdrop to the great and mundane human unfolding.
Let us imagine the stories of our lives
as a starry universe above our heads.
May the stories we connect
draw constellations
that reflect a shared ministry
that calls out the best in us.

The Stars and Stripes Forever
by Phillip Sousa
performed by Colleen Appel and Rebecca Holt

Gonna Lay Down My Sword and Shield
Traditional African American Spiritual
performed by Rebecca Holt, Janet Hitson, Paul Phariss, and Eva Riebold

Sarabande from the French Suite No. 1
by Johann Sebastian Bach
performed by John Prescott and Eva Riebold

March Militaire, Op. 51, No. 1
by Franz Schubert
performed by Rebecca Holt and Colleen Appel

The closing words are “Let Us Sing the Magic of Imagination”, by Susan L Van Dreser.

Let us sing the magic of imagination by which we know one another and learn the lives of eras gone by.
Let us sing the magic of creation by which we build the world of our soul and teach its wisdom to others, young and old.
Let us sing the magic of our lives together, holding and shaping by the movement of breath from heart to lung all new life that is to come.
Go now with singing. Go now with magic in your fingertips. Touch this world with life.