At the service I led this past Sunday honoring the New Year, we at DUUF read this Responsive Reading by Mohan Embar. I chose it mostly for the laugh, which I value in our services, because I actually do very much like responsive readings at our services. It’s like a song; there is something comforting to me about joining a community-wide song or recitation or poem that expresses our common values.

However, Mohan Embar reminded me that we do value individuality as well in our community as UUs. As a small, tight-knit organization, I decided that we could try not reading all the same words, but responding as individuals to a prompt to re-create a community-wide expression of our individualism– an “responsive invention.”

All responsive readings have some structure, and it is easier to invent something within a structure. So I used inspiration from Reverend Sunshine Wolfe’s Blessing of the Land/Honoring Our Ancestors given at General Assembly in 2019, where he uses the refrains “Here We Are” and “We Are Here” to provide cadence and rhythm to his words. I suggested that our folks finish the thought as they felt moved, or they can just say one of those two sentences with gravitas. Also, to minimize anxiety, I gave our folks a heads up about the task at the beginning of the service, and we tried this activity at the end. That way, no one was caught by surprise or put on the spot.

Here is the DUUF Responsive Invention “We Are Here/ Here We Are,” produced on January 5, 2020. Each line was contributed by a different participant, the youngest being age 7. I think it will be meaningful to bring this back as our responsive reading for our new year service next year, so that is how I formatted it.

I am so proud of our first effort, and I plan to try it again in a future service.

We are here
together on a new day of a new year.

We are here
for hopefully a better year.

(all together) WE ARE HERE!

We are here
in the cosmic moment of time and space.

We are here
attempting to make sense of life and giving it purpose.

We are here
healthy and alive.

We are here
where hate must be substituted with love.

We are here
to love and support each other.

We are here
and we are ready for a profound change in our relationship with nature.

Here we are
in fellowship at the turning of the wheel.

Here we are
together again, with our DUUF family.

We are here
united in our love of the natural world.

(all together) HERE WE ARE!