 My name is Kelly Aspruth Jackson, and I am one of the ministers here. Today, I am joined by the worship team of Linda Warren and Drew Collins, and by our special guest worship leader. The vision of FUS is growing souls, connecting with one another, and embodying our UU values in our lives, our community, and in our world. For those worshiping with us in person, it is a joy to be with you in time and space. We ask that, while you're here in the building, you keep your mask on, especially while singing. For those joining us virtually today, we are also very glad to be with you. We hope you will be able to join us for our virtual coffee hour immediately following our service. The information for joining can be found on the home page of our website, fussmedicine.org. The guest in our pulpit today is the Reverend Monica Kling Garcia. They currently serve as a chaplain resident at Unity Point Meritor Hospital here in Madison. As a chaplain, Reverend Monica's theology is one which emphasizes relationships and storytelling with their patients. We are glad to have them with us to share a message for the new year this morning. Reverend Monica, thank you for being with us. And I invite you now to join me in a moment of silence, to center yourself and bring yourself fully into this time as we join together once again in community. Perfect. Thank you for your patience, everyone here and at home. We're now ready to go. Let us call ourselves into worship, into this sacred time together with our opening words written by Susan Mankerseel. Out of our busyness, we are called back into balance, back into ourselves and the silence of present being. But it is not just back into ourselves to which we are called. It is also to the awareness of the continuous presence of the environment around us and within us. We are called to remember our relationships and our dependencies. We are called to once again feel the oneness which sustains our being in balance with creation and to do so with wonder and appreciation. I now invite you to join me in reading our chalice lighting which will appear on your screen. We light this chalice in honor of this new year and new beginnings. May this time together in worship open our minds and our hearts to the endless possibilities of relationship and community. I'd like to share with you a folktale from Germany that it happened one day that there were four animals who came together in a common barnyard and the first of the animals was a cat who said, I am old, my teeth are not as sharp as they were, my claws not quite as pointed as once they were. My desire to hunt mice is a great deal less than it was in my youth and I have heard my mistress say that since I am no longer useful as a hunter of mice, she is going to do away with me. What am I to do with myself? The next of the animals was a dog and the dog said once when I was younger I hunted and caught many rabbits and other animals for my master but now that I am older and not quite as fast he has said that I no longer have a use for him and so there is no point to me anymore. What am I to do? And there was another animal there, a donkey who said when I was a young donkey I used to carry great bushels of corn and wheat here and there to and fro for my master but now I am older, more tired, cannot carry as much and he has said that I am of no use to him anymore. What am I to do? And finally there was a rooster, the rooster said I used to get up at dawn every morning and cry out cockadoodle doo, but look I can't get up that early every day and my master has said that if I don't rise to greet the sun every morning then what is the point of me? What am I to do? So the four animals thinking together about it decided that it would be better to set out on their own than to stay where they were and accept that eventually something bad was going to happen to them because they couldn't be of use to the humans who kept them. So they decided to make their way in the world and perhaps to travel to the town of Bremen and there to seek work as musicians because the whole farm lifestyle just wasn't going well for them at all. So they headed out down the road towards the town of Bremen and they traveled all day into the night and it was well after dark when they came upon a house with just a few lights in the windows and needing a place to stay for the night they thought that they might knock on the door and ask for some hospitality but they heard some loud sort of raucous noises from inside so they decided to peek at the windows first before they went inside. What they saw was quite disturbing to them you see the house was filled with robbers men who lived rough in the countryside who attacked people passing by on the road and taking from them their possessions in order to enrich themselves and they were arguing over a game of dice that they were having with some of the loot that they had gotten off of some very unfortunate travelers. The animals thought for a moment well they could keep going but they had nowhere to stay for the night but the people here were not very likely to show them any hospitality. So they decided that they would take a little experiment right they were going to go to Bremen to be musicians so why not strike up a band outside and see even if these were very rough chaps maybe they would come outside and listen to their music and perhaps give them a few coins even if they were ill-gotten they needed something to survive so they started playing their music. If I'm honest they weren't very good I mean a cat a dog a donkey and a rooster I'm not trying to stereotype barn animals but they're not known for their musical abilities friends. So they were making a noise that is true and eventually all the folks the robbers who were living in that house they came out to hear what was going on but it was after dark there was no light to see by and among all of that noise and that din they started stumbling around in the darkness looking for what could be the cause of it what could be the cause of this strange and terrible noise and one of them stepped on the cat's tail and look you know you step on a cat's tail you get the claws that's just what happens it's not the cat's fault and one of them tripped over the dog and the dog wasn't sure what was going on and he nipped it his leg a little bit one of them just stumbled right into the donkey and donkeys kick I mean that's just how it goes and one of them basically stepped right on the rooster and the rooster didn't like that at all and let out a terrible cry and so amid all that noise and that violence and the commotion the robbers were quite afraid they thought that maybe someone was attacking the building they were living in like some of you know their robbers they steal from people maybe someone else was gonna come steal from them in fact they met up a way down the road flying you know just just trying to get as far away as possible they met up again and they tried to exchange their understanding about what had happened and one of them thought that there was there was a witch a witch with terrible claws who would attack him another one said that there was there was a man with a knife we'd stabbed him in the leg a third one said that a monster with a great club had struck him right in the gut the last one said that there was a judge who had come to arrest all of them who had called out to bring the prisoners forth so whatever the case they were just glad that they got away and they headed down the road and who knows whatever became of them but those animals well they were a little roughed up after that whole commotion with the robbers but here was this nice house and had all that lovely treasure inside of it and a warm fire they thought it was quite lovely so they decided to stay and there they stayed for the rest of their days and you know what they never actually made it to Bremen and they never became musicians so I have to tell you quite honestly I don't know why we tell this story and call it the Bremen town musicians if they never got to Bremen and they never actually became musicians but they did remain friends for the rest of their natural lives I invite you now into a time of giving and receiving where we give freely and generously to this offering which sustains our community here and also supports the work of our Outreach through our offering recipient. Our gifts throughout this holiday season provide a great deal of the funding that runs just Dane's eviction prevention program sometimes the difference between a family being out on the street or staying in their home can be a little help with the rent with your help just Dane and joining forces for families are helping people to prevent evictions and homelessness you'll see on the screen that you can donate directly from our website fussmattison.org you'll also see there the text to give information as well there are in addition baskets just outside the hall where you can leave any cash for checks you may wish to this is by the way the final opportunity of this season to contribute to this cause we thank you for your generosity and your faith in this life that we create together of a new year's resolution was when I was eight years old right after our return from winter break we were assigned the task of coloring in a picture and finishing the sentence my new year's resolution is now it's important to note here in the story that I was a very literal child and I was told to write down something I wanted to achieve in the new year so while some kids wrote be nicer to my sister or get better at sports I wrote the simple but memorable grow taller not totally wrong but I also think was not what the teacher had in mind each January many of us take the practice of setting our own intentions for what we wish to achieve in the new year as most of us know new years resolutions often tend to be self-improvement focused and rather short-lived a quick Google search will show you several articles titled things like top 10 best new year's resolutions for 2022 and will list things like exercise more make a budget drink more water and so on these are all good goals to have but I feel like the heart of the resolution is missing if the point is to set an intention for the new year are these truly the most important things about our year and why do we do this practice I think that resolutions are more than just goal-setting but are a way for us to have something to hold on to in the thick of the unknown as a general rule we humans like to predict the future as much as we can I mean even our weather apps can foretell the weather up to 10 days in advance however the reality of our lives is that there are there's just so much that we don't know the idea of an ambiguous world filled with unknown and uncertainties in our life it's a difficult concept for us to embrace it's just much easier for us to put the world in categories for us to try to plan the future or have definitive answers as much as possible rather than realizing that there are just some things in this world that we simply don't know and won't ever know in this age of COVID we all know we've experienced this heightened sense of discomfort with ambiguity when will this pandemic end is this gathering workplace restaurants safe or not we are constantly making decisions with this feeling of not totally knowing the answers as to what is best but in reality we never actually knew these answers before COVID either the certainty we have about the world and everything in it the way it has been or always been in a way has kind of been an illusion to make us comfortable we simply don't know what the weather will actually be even with our apps I know the best late plans for the day might never actually happen no religion including ours has definitely figured out all the answers about spirituality and we don't know how long we have here on this earth or what the time we spend here is going to be like we just know this moment and make our best guesses plans and goals for the rest I bring all this up because I've been reflecting on the reasons for my resolutions that I set am I setting them in the name of self-improvement or to feel a sense of control in a world that feels so out of control to me for example I have some chronic health conditions in my life that bring a certain amount of unknowns and ambiguity and so I am setting goals to exercise I make sense and it's something I enjoy but I realize it also gives me a sense of control over my health now when the inevitable happens and I get sick and can't exercise I lose that sense of control and it's about that time that I usually realize that I didn't have as much control as I thought I did over the universe the habits and practices that were to be my protection in the unpredictable times are in fact more like my security blanket in those times now we are when we are in periods of unknown these liminal spaces I think what we need is not actually control but hope and while we may think we can only find hope and places of joy in our lives I think that some of the greatest examples of hope are in the places where we face adversity and this is why I personally learn so much about hope in my job as a hospital chaplain at work I have the privilege of hearing different people's stories every day when people are in the hospital it's often isolating or scary or sad the small bit of control that they did feel in their lives is completely gone so in these difficult times I like to ask my patients some questions specifically what brings you hope in your life and what is important to you over these past few months I've noticed that my patients who are sick in our in the hospital for a short time will answer with the things that they do traveling concerts photography or reading reading is a big one in the hospital you can still do that the answer with the is with these activities right that bring them comfort and joy so this was pretty consistent in my first few months at the hospital until one day I asked this question to a patient who we will call Janet Janet was in her 80s sick with cancer and recently made the decision to focus on comfort for the rest of her life she was petite in stature but big in personality and she had this short white hair that she'd have her daughter come in and comb every morning and so when I had this visit I sat in bed and sat not in bed goodness she was in bed I was sitting next to the bed and the two of us had a visit of light-hearted conversations and also deep reflection and so during one lull in the conversation I asked Janet these same questions I had asked other patients what brings you hope in your life what feels important to you right now and without hesitation she turned to me and said my children and my grandchildren I've just been so lucky in my life to have them so she then told me all about her family the good times the bad times the times she forgave and the times she was forgiven I was struck by the fact that Janet's answers were focused on the people in her life more than what she did in her life and the months since then I've continued to ask this question to patients I meet who are gravely ill or dying and they all get their hope from their relationships their kids their partner their grandkids their friends they will tell me stories about the concerts that they went to with their friends or their favorite trips abroad with their spouse or the books that they read to their children while they were growing up but the focus is never on what they did with their lives it's on what or on who they did those things with and so friends as we enter 2022 I ask us can we do the same this year instead of our new year's resolutions being about what we want to do this year can we make them about who we want to spend this year with there are many unknowns in this life things we don't know about ourselves the world or even the day ahead and yet in the face of arguably one of the greatest unknowns death and what does or doesn't come after Janet and others like her found hope in the people that they loved and so I believe that the greatest antidote to the fear of unknowns in life is just to not go down those paths alone take the story of Megan for example a young woman in St. Louis who is diagnosed with Crohn's disease in 2016 this diagnosis propelled Megan into a scary time in her life one where she didn't know what the future would bring for her or how to navigate this new illness in her day-to-day life her doctor recommended that she try hot yoga and so she got a job at a local studio and that is where she met Dale an older man who was the custodian for the building and clean the studio at night when her shifts ended a kind soul and a great listener Dale started doing research in his free time about Crohn's disease and brought Megan homemade juices from home to help her when speaking to the podcast kind world later in 2020 Megan said turning such a hard and confusing time in my life where I was relearning my body and health Dale small act of kindness meant everything to me the story of Megan and Dale shows how we can find relationships in so many places in our lives for some our web of relationships connects us to family members and friends others may find connection in online communities and spaces like all of our folks online who are joining us today co-workers neighbors even strangers at the grocery store are all opportunities to make connections big or small to enrich our lives and help us face that unknown in our world now I want to take a moment in honor that there are some relationships in our lives that may feel wounded for one reason or another that when we think about prioritizing those relationships we might feel a sense of loss and so I am by no means suggesting that we try to mend relationships that are unsafe to do so or suggesting that the typical nuclear family relationships are the only ones to be cherished let this new year help us focus on nurturing the connections that feed us and sustain us of all kinds so I encourage us all this year if after the sermon new year's resolutions are indeed your practice to make ones that align with those relationships in your life that are your source of hope one of the benefits of living into relationship is that it doesn't just make our own lives better but it ripples out into our own communities hope is not experienced in a vacuum it is a light that spills over and illuminates the path for those that we know and those that we don't when we are feeling hopeful or even joyful we are more likely to smile at others to laugh to compliment someone or do any small act of kindness for others and in turn acts of kindness spark hope even in the most uncertain of times our community expands further than the people that we even personally know so let us measure this year not by our achievements but by the love we give and receive this world will always be filled with twists and turns and unknowns ambiguity is here to stay but there are there will always be big questions that we can't answer in this lifetime but through this journey of life through the ambiguity and the uncertainty that it brings it's all not so daunting when we do it with others when we know that we are not alone last weekend humankind lost a voice for humanity and the earth lost a friend in the passing from life of Desmond Tutu formerly Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town South Africa he was a champion of the truth and reconciliation process by which his nation navigated its way out of the endless racist violence of apartheid as we rest on the threshold of a new year a time of new beginnings if we have courage enough to open ourselves to them it seems fitting to remember him with these words that he co-authored with his daughter full the prayer before the prayer I want to be willing to let go to forgive but dare not ask for the will to forgive in case you give it to me and I am not yet ready I am not yet ready for my heart to soften I am not yet ready to be vulnerable again not yet ready to see that there is humanity in my tormentors eyes or that the one who hurt me may also have cried I am not yet ready for the journey I am not yet interested in the path I am at the prayer before the prayer of forgiveness grant me the will to want to forgive granted to me not yet but soon can I even form the words forgive me dare I even look I dare do I dare to see the hurt I have caused I can glimpse all the shattered pieces of the fragile thing that soul trying to rise on the broken wings of hope but only out of the corner of my eye I am afraid of it and if I am afraid to see how can I not be afraid to say forgive me is there a place where we can meet you and me the place in the middle where we straddle the lines where you are right and I am right to and both of us are wrong and wronged can we meet there and look for the place where the path begins the path that lead that ends when we forgive efficiency with our intentions set towards fostering relationships new and old may our hearts be anchored by the hope only we can share with each other through those tumultuous unknown waves of life we may not know what 2022 has in store for us but what we do know is that we will have this community through it all our worship has now ended but our service begins go forth and be a blessing