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All in Good Faith
Introduction to the theme of the ceremony - Speaker 3
Flowers are a symbol of the beauty of the world, but they also remind us of its easy deterioration. It is for this reason that we have, here in the centre of the room, a model of the world, decorated in petals. These petals have been collected from our grounds, they have fallen from the plants, and will soon return to the ground as compost. Flowers naturally die and deteriorate, without doing so new life would not be possible. Although this process is natural in nature, human beings have brought about the early death of much of the world's wildlife and plant life, and we have not replaced it. We have created technology to 'control' nature and serve human greed, we have polluted our life-sustaining air, we have poisoned our water, we have devastated forests, not only is the beauty of the natural environment being destroyed, but its capacity to sustain life is under threat. We have come together because we recognise the fact that we need to reassess some of the values in Western society, and draw upon our religious traditions to help us once again value our world.
As a sign of our dedication to the future we have brought flower related symbols from our respective religions which show our admiration of the natural world and our dedication to caring for it. These objects are all items that will last the test of time, being living plants or made from durable materials. We hope that these signs will become reminders for us of our covenant here today. In order that they remain a constant symbol, after the service, they shall all be taken back to our places of worship.
Presenting of symbols from the various religious communities
Speaker 4 - We come together now to present our offerings as a sign of our alliance and unity in caring for our world. As each bring their offering, they may say a few words of explanation, and a reading or prayer of some sort. After the prayer or reading the representative will say, 'This is our offering', and we shall all respond with:
'This is our offering, we are united in caring for the world in which we live, as each petal takes its perfect form, we shall cradle it.'
We begin with the Baha'i faith - The Baha'i House of Worship in India is in the shape of a Lotus, representing something pure which rises out of the dross of the world. The building has nine entrances which are equally spaced around the perimeter, representing an open door to all peoples, a place of common worship. Today we have brought a photograph of the Baha'i House of worship in India. It illustrates how the Lotus is an extremely important symbol for the Baha'i faith.
The photo is placed on the table in the middle of the room
We have brought a reading which expresses the perfection of nature, which we should not bring into chaos:
This nature is subjected to an absolute organisation, to determined laws, to a complete order and to a finished design, from which it will never depart - to such a degree, indeed, that if you look carefully and with keen sight, from the smallest invisible atom up to such large bodies of the world of existence as the globe of the sun or other great stars and luminous spheres, whether you regard their arrangement, their composition, their form or their movement, you will find that all are in the highest degree of
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