The Burning Bowl: A Ritual for the New Year

Worship Leader: Karen Fothergill

The ‘New Year’ is an artificial ‘beginning,’ but a useful way to reflect on the year past and an opportunity to release ourselves from things we said or did that we wish we hadn’t, or what we didn’t say and didn’t do and wish we had. The ritual of the Burning Bowl is a timeless invitation to “begin again.” This will be a simple service of music, meditation and sharing.

During our service this morning, MVUUF member Karen Fothergill will lead us in our Burning Bowl ceremony to provide space to release fears, sorrows, and regrets and put them behind us in order to make way for new beginnings and resolutions.

As we continue to seek out the stories of hope in our world in the New Year, there are also some things we would very much like to put behind us from the old year. Scraps of paper on which to inscribe those things from which we would seek to unburden ourselves will be distributed (you may also inscribe these things prior to coming to our fellowship in the privacy of your own homes).

These scraps of paper will then be placed in the Burning Bowl and consign them to the purifying flames.

A discussion will immediately follow our service.