This week we come to end of another Christian year. It is right and fitting that we hear from the almost final book of the Revelation to John—almost because we heard chapter 21 instead of 22 so that the precious foundation stones of the New Jerusalem would once more resound here in our sanctuary—almost one year after we looked at them as our Christmas theme over the 12 Holy Nights. If you weren't there—don't worry—just imagine the glorious light of the sun shining through all the colors of the rainbow—these gemstones each bearing precious aspects of the whole spectrum, the zodiac of constellations and the luminous variety of the soul's experience.

This fall we also mark 12 years since the building and consecration of this church. Under our altar there is also a foundation stone—a copper cube filled with the many hopes and intentions of this congregation. We have enlivened this space and even filled it to bursting at times. May we continue to fill, enjoy and even outgrow this most beautiful space as it serves as a gathering place for all those who stream to commune with God at this altar.

For as the Scripture indicates: we build churches to practice building the New Jerusalem—a truly spiritualized earth. We build outer dwellings for our relationship to God so that an inner dwelling can arise within us—a dwelling for the Divine within each human being—and between us! It is the Divine in us that heals that which divides us—that is able to make all things new—that is able to transform every ending into a new beginning. When in doubt: PRAY!

To build THIS temple we practice faithfully aligning ourselves with the one who quenches our thirst with the Water of Life Everlasting. Together, at least here at the altar, we can pray and offer ourselves for transformation into the bride. This is who we mean when describe our goal of becoming a Community of Christians. To become a community of human beings who allow the true revelation of every human being to unfold among us without preventing the unfolding of any other.

We have yet many fires of purification still to walk through to get there. For this we have each other, our fellow human beings, and the wisdom of our karma and our destinies. But as we close this Christian year and begin another next Sunday in Advent—I'd like to leave you with the words of the Emily Brontë, her poem: No Coward Soul Is Mine.

No Coward Soul Is Mine
BY EMILY BRONTË
No coward soul is mine
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere
I see Heaven's glories shine
And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear

O God within my breast
Almighty ever-present Deity
Life, that in me hast rest,
As I Undying Life, have power in Thee

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts, unutterably vain,
Worthless as withered weeds
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by thy infinity,
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of Immortality.

With wide-embracing love
Thy spirit animates eternal years
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears

Though earth and moon were gone
And suns and universes ceased to be
And Thou wert left alone
Every Existence would exist in thee

There is not room for Death
Nor atom that his might could render void
Since thou art Being and Breath
And what thou art may never be destroyed.