Celebrant:  Nancy Nelson

Tracy Simmons, an award-winning journalist specializing in religion reporting, started covering religion because she grew up experiencing its darker side, but what kept her at it — for more than 20 years — is what she keeps witnessing: people of radically different beliefs finding common ground in their commitment to love and justice.

Bio:  Tracy Simmons is an award winning journalist specializing in religion reporting and media entrepreneurship. In her 20-plus years on the religion beat, Simmons has tucked a notepad in her pocket and found some of her favorite stories aboard cargo ships in New Jersey, on a police chase in Albuquerque, in dusty Texas church bell towers, on the streets of New York and in tent cities in Haiti. Simmons has worked as a multimedia journalist for newspapers across New Mexico, Texas and Connecticut. Currently she is a Scholarly Associate Professor at Washington State University’s Murrow College and serves as the executive director of FāVS News. She also writes nationally and is a reporter and columnist for the Spokesman-Review.

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Welcome
Greeting and Announcements
Territorial Acknowledgement
Chalice Lighting and Sung Affirmation
Opening Words:  Still I Rise, by Maya Angelou
Opening Hymn:  #131, Love Will Guide Us
Time for All Ages:  Something, Someday, by Amanda Gorman and Christian Robinson
Reeb Benediction
Offertory
Candles of Joys and Sorrows
Meditation
Readings:
Human Family, by Maya Angelou
From The Book of Micah, chapter 6, verse 8
Homily
Closing Hymn:  #95, There is More Love Somewhere
Closing Reading:  A responsive reading based on the writing of Vaclav Havel
Musical Benediction:  There Is a Love
Embodying the Flame
Spoken Benediction

Topics: Balance