In a house which becomes a home, one hands down and another take up the heritage of mind and heart, laughter and tears, musings and deeds.
Love, like a carefully loaded ship, crosses the gulf between the generations.
Therefore we do not neglect the ceremonies of our passage….
Let us bring up our children. It is not the place of some official to hand to them their heritage.
If others import to our children our knowledge and ideals, they will lose all of us that is wordless and full of wonder.
Let us build memories in our children, lest they drag out joyless lives, lest they allow treasures to be lost because they have not been given the keys.
We live, not by things, but by the meanings of things. It is needful to transmit the passwords from generation to generation.

— Antoine de St. Exupéry

The great end in religious instruction is not to stamp our minds upon the young, but to stir up their own;
Not to make them see with our eyes, but to look inquiringly and steadily with their own;
Not to give them a definite amount of knowledge, but to inspire a fervent love of truth;
Not to form an outward regularity, but to touch inward springs;
Not to bind them by ineradicable prejudices to our particular sect or peculiar notions;
But to prepare them for impartial, conscientious judging of whatever subjects may be offered to their decision;
Not to burden the memory, but to quicken and strengthen the power of thought;
Not to impose religion upon them in the form of arbitrary rules, but to awaken the conscience, the moral discernment.
In a word, the great end is to awaken the soul, to excite and cherish spiritual life.

— William Ellery Channing

This light unites us.
This light unites us with our neighbors,
Our friends and our enemies.
Most importantly,
This light unites us within ourselves.
Our hearts,
Our souls,
Our spirits.
This light unites us.

— Rebecca Pankhurst

The best music for this ceremony will be music chosen by the young person him or herself, contemporary music which he or she finds a meaningful expression of important personal values. Some examples might be “I Hope You Dance” by Lee Ann Womack or “You Learn” by Alanis Morisette.

Believe nothing merely because you have been told it, or it has been traditional, or because you yourselves have imagine it. Believe whatsoever you find to be conducive to the good, to benefit the welfare of all things.

— Buddha

Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men….re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.

— Walt Whitman, from the 1855 preface to Leaves of Grass

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again; you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson 

A statement of beliefs, written and read by the person coming of age, is the center of this ceremony. Some questions which the person writing the statement might consider would include:

• Do you believe in God? If so, what is this God like? If not, what is the largest thing that you believe in?
• Do you think there are absolute rules about right and wrong behavior, or does it change depending on the situation?
• Who is/are your most important religious teacher(s)?
• Do you feel hopeful about the future of the world? Do you feel hopeful about your ability to make the world a better place?
• Do you think that people, at heart, are mostly loving and generous or mostly greedy and self-serving?
• Who do you think people are obliged to help and support: Themselves? Their family? Their community? Their nation? All people? All living beings?
• Do you believe there is something inside you that will lead you to make good choices if you learn to listen to it?
• What brings you a sense of peace and well-being?
  

[Name of Person], you are the child of our hearts, but you are also the child of your own dreams, your own insights and efforts and vision. We hope that we may continue to guide you, but we also hope that you will guide us with your own clear insights, your own inspired choices. We honor the person you are, and the person you are becoming, and the world you will shape through the years to come.

Your children are not your children,
They are the sons and the daughters of life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
for they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you….
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

— Kahlil Gibran

Like the cosmic dust following after the great Perseus Meteor, we are the living remnants of time and all that has come to pass in its wake—briefly shining lights on the way to eternity. We are only visible to the naked eye for an instant. Take this moment to shine like the star dust you are. May the light of our time on earth shine to bless the world and each other. Shine. Shine. Shine.

— Mary Edes

We are never complete. We are never finished. We are always yet to be. May we always allow others to be, and help and enable each other to grow toward all that we are capable of becoming.

— Unknown Unitarian Universalist Youth

We are never complete. We are never finished. We are always yet to be. May we always allow others to be, and help and enable each other to grow toward all that we are capable of becoming.