 We're going to bring ourselves fully into this time and this place. Here is our shelter, freedom, our protection from the storms of injustice and hate. In this place may we find comfort and courage. Here may our sight become vision to the unseen, to glimpse the good that is yet to be. And if you will rise now in body or spirit for the lighting of our chalice. Thank you, Cindy. We light our flaming chalice to illuminate the world we seek. In the search for truth may we be just. In the search for justice may we be loving. And in loving may we find peace. And before we join together in song, if you'll take a moment to turn and greet your neighbor. And I'd like to invite anyone for the story to come on up. Yes, my teenagers, I'm looking at you. Okay, my own kid has to come up. So come on. Come now. Okay. We got Nicole Duncan telling our story today. And this book has great pictures. So we're going to put them up there so that everybody sitting out there can see. When I look through my window, I see a brick wall. There's trash in the courtyard and a broken bottle that looks like fallen stars. There's writing in the halls of my building. On this front door, someone put the word die. Where I walk, I pass a lady whose home is a big cardboard carton. She sleeps on the sidewalk, wrapped in plastic. I run past a dark alley where mommy told me I must never stop. Behind a fence, there's a garden without any flowers. Mommy said that everyone should have something beautiful in their life. Where is my something beautiful? The teacher taught me that word in school. I wrote it in my book, B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L, beautiful. I think it means something that when you have it, your heart is happy. I go to Ms. Delphine's diner. Hi there, sugar pie. She says, what are you up to? I'm looking for something beautiful, I tell her. Sit down for a minute, she says as she goes to the grill. She puts on a fish. The fish sizzles. Ms. Delphine makes it into a sandwich. There's nothing more beautiful tasting than my fried fish sandwiches, she tells me. My teeth sink in, this is good. When I go back outside, I see some of my friends. Do you have something beautiful, I ask them. I have my jump rope, says Sybil. I have my bead, says Rebecca. Check out my new shoes, says Jamal. My fruit store is a beautiful store, says Mr. Lee. You do have nice apples, I say. Thank you, says Mr. Lee, take one. Watch my moves, says Mark playing ball in the playground. Hear my sound, says Georgina dancing on the sidewalk. Touch this smooth stone, says old Mr. Sim, sitting on his front steps. All these years I've carried it in my pocket. Through the big window in the laundromat, I see Aunt Carolyn holding baby Carl, where you off to, little miss. I'm looking for something beautiful, I say. She hands me Carl and folds up the clothes. I tickle Carl and he giggles. There's Carl right there. He makes me giggle too. My baby's laugh is something beautiful, says Aunt Carolyn. I go back home and I sit down on my stoop. I look at the trash in the courtyard. I see the word die on the door. I go upstairs and I get a broom and sponge and some water. I pick up the trash. I sweep up the glass. I scrub the door very hard. When the word disappears, I feel powerful. Someday I'll plant flowers in my courtyard. I'll invite all my friends to see. I will give a real home and a real bed to the lady who sleeps in the cardboard carton. She will sing and I will hear her song. Mommy comes home from work. She gives me a great big hug. Do you have something beautiful, I ask her. Of course, she says, I have you. I love that story because it reminds me that we all have something beautiful. We all have something beautiful inside. And when we get in touch with that and remember how beautiful we all are, then we can do things like plant flowers and help people who don't have beds because we know that we can use our beautiful to make the world better. Thanks for coming up and listening. You can all return to your seats. The Psalms 133, verses 133, King James Version. The whole of how good and how pleasant it is from growing to well together in the team. It is like the precious link upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, that went down to the skirts of his garments, as to do of command and as to do that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessings, even life, but evermore. From the Zohar, the Jewish mystical tradition. When Noah came out of the ark, he opened his eyes and saw the whole world completely destroyed. He began crying for the world and said, Master of the world, if you destroyed your world because of human sin or human fools, then why did you create them? One of the other you should do. Either do not create the human being or do not destroy the world. How did the blessed one, Holy One, respond? Full is shepherd. Before the flood, I lingered with you and spoke to you at length so that you would ask for mercy for the world. But as soon as you heard that you would be safe in the ark, the evil of the world did not touch your heart. You built the ark and saved yourself. Now that the world has been destroyed, you open your mouth to utter questions and pleas. This week marks the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Most of us remember the horrific events unfold before our eyes, the rising water, the people crying for help, for water, for food, for medical care, for evacuation. We listened to our elected officials' response and we could hear their silence and their lack of response. We could read the accounts of people battered in Hungary, displaced and bitter, betrayed by a government they thought would provide them with relief. We cannot say we did not know. Unlike Noah, the evil of the world did touch our hearts. We were horrified, appalled, outraged that a catastrophe of this magnitude could occur in our country. We stared at each other in disbelief and we asked each other how, in the richest country in the world, the emergency response could be so slow, so pathetically inadequate. We shuddered in the face of such desperation and suffering. We were also struck by incredible acts of bravery, of human courage and compassion that defied cynicism, of local community members who carried out the sick, elderly and disabled, who prepared communal meals for hundreds of stranded people, who organized rescue missions on boats and in cars, of relief workers and medical care providers who traveled down to New Orleans from all over the country and even from all over the world to help. In Judaism, we call these people who helped Sadi Kim, righteous ones. They were there, they showed up, they did what they could and they walked the path of compassion and justice. But back to Noah. The Torah also describes Noah as a Tzadik, a righteous man. But how righteous could he be if he watches the destruction of the entire generation in silence, without a word of protest? As the Zohar states, as soon as you heard that you would be safe in the ark, the evil of the world did not touch your heart. You built the ark and saved yourself. A great rabbi, Rabbi Yohanan, points out that Noah may have been righteous in his generation, but had he lived at a less corrupt period, he would not have been considered righteous at all. In the Hasidic tradition, Noah is accused of being a Tzadik in peltz, a righteous man in a fur coat. Surrounded by others who are freezing, he warms himself without thought to their needs. What could Noah have done? A rabbinic story imagines that it took Noah 120 years to build the ark so that the people surrounding him would see what he was doing and change their ways. But at all that time, not one person does so. And Noah just boards the ark with his family and the chosen animals. Perhaps the people didn't change their ways because Noah never spoke up. He never challenged the injustice around him. Even in the last moments when Noah boards the ark, he is silent. What if instead Noah, like Abraham, had argued with God or asked God for mercy or even refused to board the ark? As we look around our world and at our community right here in Madison, we see so much suffering. We witness poverty and racism and environmental devastation. We witness political leaders privatizing our resources and widening the gap between the rich and the poor. We witness the unraveling of the safety net designed to support the neediest in our society. If there is anything we can learn from Noah, it is that our silence will not protect us. Noah may have been saved by the flood, but he, along with his family, witnessed the destruction of the entire world. When Noah emerged from the ark, he immediately planted a vineyard, turned the grapes into wine, and got himself drunk. Maybe he couldn't handle the barrenness of a destroyed world. Maybe he couldn't handle knowing that he was complicit in its destruction. So many of us feel the need to speak out against the injustices of our world, but we think to ourselves, how dare we look at our world and think that we can make a difference? But that's exactly the wrong question. Instead, we should ask, how dare we look at our world and think that we can't make a difference? Time and time again, people have come together throughout history against enormous odds and have made change. We don't know where our actions will lead, who they will touch, how they will tip the balance. It's true that projects and initiatives and programs and organizations come and go, but it's also true that the work adds up, creates energy and momentum, and that at just the right moment, these efforts can push people and institutions to do the right thing. Look around this room, look at your neighbors, at your community members, look at all these people in this room who have such extraordinary talents, passion, and commitments. All of you, you are all here today for a reason. You are here to make a dent in this crazy, unfair world we live in, one built on injustice after injustice. You are here to lift your voices and to make a difference, however small. We can make change, we can raise our voices, we can work for a more just world. Where we are now is not where we must remain. The most troubling aspect of the story of Noah is that he was not powerless, he was obedient, he remained silent. We too are not powerless. We have the tremendous capacity to create change. When we mix the right amount of hope, courage, indignation, persistence, strength, anger, inspiration, ingenuity, and patience together, we can do extraordinary things. I'm going to read for our meditation the art of blessing the day by Marge Piercy. This is the blessing for rain after drought. Come down, wash the air, sew it shimmers, a perfumed shawl of lavender chiffon. Let the parched leaves suckle and swell. Enter my skin, wash me for the little chrysalis of sleep, rocked in your plashing. In the morning the world is peeled to shining. This is the blessing for sun after long rain. Now everything shakes itself free and rises. The trees are bright as push cart to ices. Every last lily opens its satin thighs. The bees dance and roll in pollen and the cardinal at the top of the pine sings at full throttle, fountaining. This is the blessing for a ripe peach. This is luck made round. Frost can nip the blossom, kill the bee. It can drop a hard green useless nut. Brown fungus, the burrowing worm that coils and rot can blemish it and wind can crush it on the ground. Yet this peach fills my mouth with a juicy sun. This is the blessing for the first garden tomato. Those green boxes of tasteless acid, the store sells in January. Those red things with the savor of wet chalk, they mock your fragrant name. How fat and sweet you are weighing down my palm. Warm as the flank of a cow in the sun. You are the savor of summer in a thin red skin. This is the blessing for a political victory. Although I shall not forget that things work in increments and epicycles and sometimes leap that half the time fall back down. Let's not relinquish dancing while the music fits into our hips and bounces our heels. We must never forget, pleasure is as real as pain. The blessing for the return of a favorite cat. The blessing for love returned, for friends return, for money received and expected, for the blessing for the rising of the bread, for the sun, the oppressed. I am not sentimental about old men mumbling the Hebrew by rote with no more feeling than one says guzantite. But the discipline of blessings is to taste each moment, the bitter, the sour, the sweet and the salty, and be glad for what does not hurt. The art is in compressing attention to each little and big blossom of the tree of life, to let this tongue sing each fruit, its savor, its aroma and its use. Attention is love. What we must give children, mothers, fathers, pets, our friends, the news, the woes of others. What we want to change, we curse, and then we pick up a tool. Bless whatever you can with eyes and hand and tongue. If you can't bless it, get ready to make it new. And if you will rise now and body your spirit for our closing hymn, this little light of mine and the words are printed in your order of service. Freedom, take it with you into the world. If you have found comfort, go and share it with others. If you have dreamed dreams, help one another, that they may come true. And if you have known love, go and give some back to a bruised and hurting world. Blessed be an amen. Please be seated for the announcements. Good morning. I want to thank all of you for being here today, including those folks who have signed up for projects, those folks who are ready to leap in where help is needed and those folks who just showed up as guests and are along with us for the ride today. Welcome. I want to invite you to join me in a special thank you first. We have three people who formed the Service Sunday team and these volunteers, the work isn't starting today. These women have been working for weeks to get ready for today. So I want to mention that the Service Sunday team consists of two folks who are here today keeping everything running smooth, Rene Uhardy and Anne Smiley. And then the, but I don't want to forget the woman who has worked really, really, really hard and then had to leave to go be with an ill family member. And so hopefully who is also seeing us live today or later taped, we want to thank Lisa West for all her work as well. So a little housekeeping. We also want to thank our communications coordinator, Eliza Cousin, who is here and has been working on all the signup work as well with the team and she has asked in return only that you take pictures and share them with her after as you go along your work today. There's going to be a survey that's going to be emailed to you or if you are only, if you're not an email and you gave a phone number, it's going to be phoned to you. So if you haven't signed up and you're with us today, please make sure that before you are done with all your work today that we get an email or a phone number from you that we know that you're here with us today. I also want to point out that there's a very special project for anyone to participate at any moment when you have time today going on in the comments to that direction if you're new. We have a couple of tables, we're calling our take action tables where you can take a moment and learn about a couple of issues and do some work that way by letter writing or contacting someone. So that also brings me to another thing. One of your biggest jobs today is to come back here for lunch. We have people working hard to feed you and they'll be serving from the tables in front of the kitchen and then we'll have tables here because we have wonderful folks who are gonna transform this room to share the meal and share and come back and share what we've done in our projects. That lunch will be served a little bit before noon. If you find yourself back here earlier or you and your children need something to do earlier than that, please hang tight so we can share a meal together and instead stop by those take action tables and there's some places where you can make cards for veterans. So something for everybody in the comments. So even if you're back here early, go do some of that first and then we'll all have lunch together. Again, a little bit before noon and then serving all the way till 1230. So now, I'm so thankful for the weather because I've got the announcing of the canceled projects if it rained and look, it's gorgeous. So I am thankful. Rene and Ann are outside in the comments for anybody who doesn't know where they're going. If you've forgotten what you signed up for if you've not signed up, I'd like to do a little bit of a staggered dismissal. So first of all, another set of people I wanna thank are our project leaders. If you've got a project off site that you were the leader for, please go ahead and start heading out because they're gonna be in the parking lot in a minute. If you haven't signed out, I wanna give you a list of a few projects. If you haven't signed up for a project and you want to go off site today, you wanna leave this building and go do some work, even if you haven't signed up, you are welcome. Here's the projects that need you. Storm drain labeling, you even get a T-shirt. I think it's ages 10 and up. The Salvation Army, all ages can go to Alice Community Garden and do some gardening. And all ages, we need a few more people to help set up for the Road Home Week at Midvale Community Church. So now, if you've signed up for an off site, something, and that doesn't include the veterans, okay? So not that one, we're gonna call that an onsite because it's here. If you've signed up to travel from here to a project, or if you just heard a project you wanna jump into, go now and we'll see you back for lunch. Have a great morning. Again, your project leaders are in the parking lot. They've got signs so you can carpool. Okay, if you've either signed up or you're ready to join into a project that's here, I'm gonna tell you where you're going. If you are making cards for veterans and or visiting veterans today, or you wanna jump into that project, all ages, you're gonna meet Roz in the comments. Right in front of the ramp, well, a little bit past, so walking down this way, you'll see there's Roz in the red, you're going with her. And you're starting where they're making cards for veterans. If you're gonna be making benches today, you're over in front of the landmark. If you're working on the mailing for Worker Justice, you're in courtyard rooms B and C. If you are signed up or you would like to join in on the listening session with groundwork, they're working with folks to listen about your experiences with racism and working against racism or understanding racism. It's a listening session. You are welcome, courtyard A. If you're baking with Dan Bradley, you're by the kitchen. And if you wanna join in those take action tables, that's in the common. If you have any questions, you don't know where to go, Rene and Anne are right here, directly out of here, and they will help you. I think that's everybody. Have a great morning.