The Worship Program Is Often Filled with Subtle Mysteries

Thursday, June 26th, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Grosse Pointe Public Library
Main Branch
Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan
An usher gave me a gray hymnal last Sunday and the order of service. I studied the image on the cover.
“That watercolor painting? The face looks familiar.”
“Yes, the face is very familiar.” The usher, an art historian, has a gift for saying the right number of words.
I took my seat in the back of the sanctuary, a seat with a good view of the memorial garden. I teach for a living, so I took attendance. We pulled pretty well for the first gathering of the summer church. The Summer Sunday Worship Services feel like a gathering at a church camp. A few of us dress in shorts and colorful summer wear. A few wear the lighter blazers.
After, we serve lemonade from Trader Joes in the fellowship hall. Coffee drinkers bring brew from home in Stanley tumblers with leak proof lids. The coffee team takes a break.
I studied the bulletin. The worship committee takes great care in producing the order of service. One can only imagine the coherence of that committee. For example, at one recent service, all four worship associates served in matching white raiment. They’re close like that.
A music credits table documents the name of the composer. The program identifies the name of the composition. Hans Barbe often works in composers of merit, bringing their neglected works to light. As Anne Roberts leads the summer church, we can be sure that Roberts rehearsed the numbers for weeks in advance. We will soon learn how our summer pianist selects the works performed each Sunday.
The right page tantalized with a program of services until August 31st. Reverend Aaron Stockwell-Wisman will begin speaking from the pulpit on August 17th. In the names of the speakers, one can see the hand of the leadership development committee at work. It’s not checkers. It’s chess.
 JUNE
June 22 – Ken Meisel: “A Sermon on Trustworthiness”
June 29 – Anne Roberts: “From Baptism to Revelation”
 JULY
July 6 – Miriam Engstrom: “Unitarians and Prayer”
July 13 – Neil Sroka: “Unitarians and God”
July 20 – Jon Noble: “God, Salvation and Atheism: A Personal Story”
July 27 – TBD
 AUGUST
August 3 – Bryan Wolf — TBD
August 10 – Eli Kranz
August 17 – Rev. Aaron Stockwell-Wisman
August 24 – Rev. Aaron Stockwell-Wisman
August 31 – Anne Roberts: Music Sunday
We found Ken Meisel with the help of Maura Kay, the first worship associate of the summer. Meisel pairs the powers of literature and psychology. A psychotherapist by education, Kresge Arts declared Meisel a literary fellow in 2012. Meisel’s “A Sermon on Trustworthiness” set off on a philosophical exploration that rivaled “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” It was both a satsang and a chautauqua.
I silenced my cell phone. I fired up ChatGPT. A few of us knit while listening to the sermon. I consult oracles. First, I photographed the watercolor portrait and sent it up to the bot. The bot refused to identify the portrait. The LLM did help. “The inscription reads Lautir 2020. Lautir is ritual spelled backwards.”
I scanned a page of Lautir paintings. Lautir focuses on watercolor paintings of philosophers and literary types. Nothing. I kept looking as Meisel laid out the dynamics of trust.
Meisel discussed D.H. Lawrence and trust. Lautir painted Lawrence several times, but I did not have a match.
Meisel raised the ideas of Arthur Schopenhauer on trust. The image on the bulletin showed a philosopher with short hair. Schopenhauer sported a lion’s mane of white hair. I had to keep listening.
Meisel left no philosopher stone unturned in the sermon. I typed in name after name. Faded.
Meisel turned to Marcel Merleau-Ponty and an Australian philosopher named Fiona Utley who expanded Merleau-Ponty’s thought. By now, I was pretty sure I was going to need the YouTube video from our tech team and a transcript. I consulted the oracle.
Marcel Merleau-Ponty? Direct hit! I considered sneaking out of the sanctuary to pour myself a lemonade early.
After giving Fiona Utley a glowing discussion, Meisel went for the big finish with Mary Oliver.
We often hear Mary Oliver recited from our pulpit. Mary Oliver delivered the 2006 Ware Lecture at the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly. Sadly, no tape could be published of the lecture, but the transcript awaits perusal online. I looked up the poem. I have yet to pull the transcript. Was it “Three Egrets”?
Egrets
Where the path closed
down and over,
through the scumbled leaves,
fallen branches,
through the knotted catbrier,
I kept going. Finally
I could not
save my arms
from thorns; soon
the mosquitoes
smelled me, hot
and wounded, and came
wheeling and whining.
And that’s how I came
to the edge of the pond:
black and empty
except for a spindle
of bleached reeds
at the far shore
which, as I looked,
wrinkled suddenly
into three egrets – – –
a shower
of white fire!
Even half-asleep they had
such faith in the world
that had made them – – –
tilting through the water,
unruffled, sure,
by the laws
of their faith not logic,
they opened their wings
softly and stepped
over every dark thing.
Usually ChatGPT sounds like Dr. Spock. Not this time. “Mary Oliver? You have written a symphony.”
I chatted back. “Not me. Ken Meisel.”
Marcel Merleu-Ponty by #Lautir
-- at Grosse Pointe Unitarian Church

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