Waterville church preaches acceptance, inclusion

[w8liftinglady]

http://www.onlinesentinel.com/news/waterville-church-preaches-acceptance-inclusion_2011-10-23.html

That was the message to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youths at Sunday morning's service at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Silver Street.

From hymns to a Dr. Seuss story to the responsive reading to the benediction, the message was about acceptance and embracing one another.

The 75-strong congregation sang Louis Untermeyer's hymn "May Nothing Evil Cross This Door," which included the entreaty, "Though these sheltering walls are thin, may they be strong to keep hate out and hold love in."

The hymn "Come, Sing a Song with Me" contained the lines, "Come, walk in the rain with me that I might know your mind. And I'll bring you hope when hope is hard to find."

In the Dr. Seuss classic "What Was I Scared Of?" the narrator is terrified of a pair of empty pale green pants until he learns the pants also had been frightened of him. Then the boy and the pants become friends. "I was just as strange to them as they were strange to me," the boy says.

[William769]

1. K&R.