 So, would you like to come up? Do you need to talk to me? Yeah, I would. Of course. So, we would have to go. We would have nothing there. I do push stuff. You know what I'm saying? It's just a coffee. You see, you know what I'm saying? So, what we're gonna do is we're gonna have to do what we can to stay. I think that that will be enough for me to know what it will be. So, I'll please join in a few moments of centering silence, being seated as we sing our in-gathering hymn, which is number 1031, and the words also appear in your order of service. Good morning. Welcome to the First Unitarian Society of Madison. This is a community where curious seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical, and social issues in an accepting and nurturing environment. Unitarian universalism supports the freedom of conscience for individuals. As together, we seek to be a force for good in the world. My name is Karen Rose Gredler, and on behalf of the entire congregation, I'd like to extend a special welcome to any visitors who are with us this morning. We are a welcoming community, so whomever you are and wherever you are in your life's journey, we celebrate your presence among us. Visitors are encouraged to stay for our fellowship hour after the service and to look for people carrying teal-colored stoneware coffee mugs. These are FUS members knowledgeable about our program and community life, and they look forward to the chance of speaking with you this morning. You can stop by our information table outside of the library, where you can find more information about our upcoming events and programs. In this lively, acoustical environment, it can be difficult for those in attendance to hear what is happening in our service, so we remind you that our child haven back in that corner and the commons area behind the auditorium are excellent places to go when someone needs to talk, move around, sing, dance, whatever joyful thing a young person or any of us might want to do, so you can still see and hear well from those areas. We also have hearing assistance devices available, and please see one of our ushers if you think that would be helpful to you. This would also be a great time to turn off any electronic devices and noise makers that might disrupt the service. Experienced guides are frequently available to give building tours after each service. Now, I didn't see anyone listed. Anybody here who's ready to give a tour after this service? Well, I didn't mean I am. Anyway, please meet over in what's your left side of the auditorium in that corner by the glass windows. If you'd like a tour, and maybe there's someone who will be coming in later who could do that for you, and if not, one of the rest of us will notice you just hanging out there and we'll try to help, okay? And then you would get a tour of this environmentally sound building and our older, original meeting house across the parking lot. Now, I'd like to acknowledge the people who helped to make this service work. Mark Schultz is our sound guy for this service. Anne Smiley is our lay minister. Patti Whitty is our greeter. And our ushers are Karen Jagger, Ron Cook, Anne Smiley, and Dale Carter. Back-making coffee and welcoming folks at the kitchen are Richard DeVita and Jeannie Hills. Additional, no, one additional announcement. It's my fault that within your Red Force News, within your order service, there is not an announcement of the caregivers group, which will occur on this coming Saturday at 10 a.m., probably in one of the classrooms because of our art fair being that day. I need to remember to do this since I'm now facilitating that group, so I apologize. There is lots of other good information in here, but primarily, come to the art fair. It's wonderful. Again, welcome. We hope today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart, and stir your spirit. Thank you very much. We're in the refuge of this Sabbath home. We turn our busy minds toward silence and our full hearts toward one another. We move together through the mysteries, the bright sunshine of birth and the shadowed questions of death. In our slow walk between the two, we will be wounded and we will be showered with grace, amazing and unending. Even in our sorrows, we feel our lives cradled in a holiness we cannot comprehend. And though we each walk within a vast loneliness, the promise we offer here is that we do not walk alone. This is a holy place in which we gather, the light of the earth brought in and held, touched by our answering light, the flame of a chalice, the flicker of a candle, the lamps of our open faces brought near. In this place of silence and celebration, we make a sanctuary and name our home. Into this home we bring our hunger for awakening, we bring compassionate hearts and a will toward justice. Into this home we bring the courage to walk on after hard losses, and we bring our joy and gratitude for ordinary blessings. By our gathering we bless this place. In its shelter may we know ourselves to be blessed. And if you will rise now and body your spirit to join together in our affirmation for our chalice-lighting. Community is the spirit, the guiding light of the tribe, whereby people come together in order to fulfill a specific purpose, to help others fulfill their purpose, and to take care of one another. And before we join together in song, if you will take a moment to greet those around you. Please be seated. And I invite anyone who'd like to come closer for the story to come on up. That was a good slide in. Good morning Lula. How's everybody doing this morning? Good. You can come on up closer on the rug if you want. Hi, Winnie. How's my rosy pose this morning? Good. Hi, guys. I am wondering if any of you have ever had trouble sleeping? You have? Why? Why? Can you tell me one reason why you've had? Yeah, Winnie, you forget? You just knew you couldn't sleep? Yeah, Owen. What gives you trouble sleeping? Noises, yep. Him. Okay, that's right. Are you one of the noises? What wakes you up? Thunder. Like on Christmas Eve. Exactly. I can't sleep, I can't sleep, I can't sleep. Playing video games. You know what, that is not just a kid thing. I know some grownups who would say the same exact thing. Henry thought there was a monster in his room. Now, our story today is about somebody who is scared. Have you ever been scared? Yeah. Yeah, Lula, what scares you? The dark. Yeah, my Owen's got the same thing. Is anybody else scared of the dark? Yeah, Winnie. Okay, Rose. A nightlight? Uh-huh. On one side of Winnie's brain, she thinks there's monsters, but on the other side, she knows there's not. That's a really good way to think about it. Well, our story today is a little boy named Mark, who the book is called Mark Just Couldn't Sleep. Do you see him up there? Mark wanted to go to sleep. Really, he did, but he couldn't. He just couldn't sleep. He called out for his mom, I'm afraid a giant mosquito will fly in and bite me, he said. Don't worry, little one, his mom answered, I'll fix that and soon you'll be sound asleep. She made him a special pair of mosquito-proof pajamas, complete with a helmet, a sword for protecting himself, and a buzz-repellent teddy bear. And then she left. Soon Mark called out for his mom again, I'm afraid I'll fall out of bed. Don't worry, my love, I'll fix that and soon you'll drift off to sleep. She gave him a mountain climbing rope, secured it to his pillow with an anchor, and slipped a parachute over his back. And then she left. Shortly after Mark called out once more, what if the moon melts and the world goes dark? Don't worry, honey, I'll fix that and soon you'll fall fast asleep. She gave him a pair of glasses with glow in the dark lenses and sent a letter to the moon. The letter said, moon, don't even think about doing anything silly like melting or something. And then she left. A few minutes later, Mark called out yet again, I'm afraid a mean wind will blow in my face and I'll catch cold, he told his mom. Don't worry, darling, I'll fix that and you'll fall asleep so easily. She hung a sign on the front door of the house that said, mean wind you took the wrong road, get yourself a map. She covered Mark with ten goose feathers and a real live duck. And then she left. Finally, Mark called to his mom one last time. I think I'm afraid of everything, he said. Don't worry, sweetheart, I'll fix all of that and you'll sleep soundly through the night. She began running around the house. She closed doors, windows, suitcases and notebooks. She scared away all the monsters. She even scared away the dentist and all the relatives. She invented a special stick for fighting off nightmares and an invisible trap for catching ghosts. And even though it wasn't really necessary, she went up to the roof to keep watch just in case. How does she look sitting up there on the roof? She looks silly. Parents, how do you think she looks? Super curious. But suddenly she heard Mark's voice. What do you think he said? I'm still scared. Mark's mom, exhausted from trying to find the right solution, came down from the roof. She took off Mark's mosquito-proof armor. She unfastened his mountain climbing equipment. She ripped up the letters to the moon in the mean wind. She sent the duck off to have a bath. She took away the traps and the sticks, and then finally she sat down on her son's bed. She ruffled his hair and said, my dear, I really don't know what else I can do to help you stop feeling so afraid. I think I'll just have to sit here next to you and you can tell me everything. Smiling and yawning at the same time, Mark took his mom's hands and whispered, I'll tell you later, I'm much too tired now. Mark wanted to stay awake. Really he did. But he couldn't. He just couldn't stay awake. So what helped Mark in the end? His mother. That's right. Yeah, it was his mother, right? Yeah, that's good thinking. His mom was so annoyed, he thought I'd better fall asleep before I get in trouble. So what do you guys do if you're really, really scared of something? You owe and watch his TV when he's really scared of something. What do you do when you're scared? He calls for his mom and dad, which that's what I want you to remember from all this silliness. Other than, I want you to do, can you guys promise to do me a favor? Tonight if you can't sleep, where's Atticus? Atticus and Lula especially. If you can't sleep tonight, guys, here's what I want you to do. I want you to ask for a real live duck. Do you think you could promise me that? Henry, will you do it, bud? I want a real live duck. And then let me know how that turns out, okay? You guys are my neighbors. If you get a real live duck, I want to see it. Okay, just walk down the street. Green house on the right, I want to see the duck. But when we're really, really scared, what Mark tells me to do this silly story is to talk about it and to think about all the things we're scared and we try to figure out what it really is and then we find those trusted folks like our grown-ups who love us so much and sometimes just sitting there with them helps. Final thought, Miss Winnie, you snuggle your dad or mom. Whoever's in the bed, you will snuggle. All right, thank you guys for listening to our story today. We're going to rise and body your spirit and sing you out to your classes. Hey, Lula, please be seated. These thoughts from Vanessa Southern. I was in Northern California on my college campus in 1989 when an earthquake shook our world. It registered 6.9 on the Richter scale, no small event. We all walked around in a daze after we're blinking in disbelief. People returned home to find that their dorms had been condemned or closed down until they could be inspected. At the time, my roommates and I lived in a trailer park which had been erected as temporary housing on campus 20 years earlier. It turned out to be one of the safer places to be. The aluminum sides shook, but rarely broke. So once the gas connections were checked for leaks, we were cleared to return, and soon our floors were covered with homeless friends and their belongings in one big post-disaster sleepover that lasted for weeks. Immediately after the quake, we had no idea what would follow, and we could do nothing but wait and see how things settled out. We had to wait to hear what the experts ruled about what had been ruined, what needed repair but would survive, and what miraculously remained unscathed. Moreover, in the midst of this waiting, an unsettling number of aftershocks continued for days. Mild and unpredictable bouts of quaking would send us looking for some place to stand until they stopped. These aftershocks were not serious, but they made the world feel like a perpetually uncertain and unsafe place. It is hard to live a life amidst that. Ready to dash to safety, living and sleeping even as if on your toes, and harder still when you have no clear place to run where you know you will be safe. We were told at the time to stand in the doorways. This, they said, was the best and safest place to ride out the shaking. When you think about it, it is such a great metaphor, the commandment to stand in the threshold. In our lives, we often stand in just that place. In the aftermath of some massive personal or collective upheaval, we stand at the doorway to who knows what, hanging on to the frame of that threshold until the world stops shaking. There we stand uncertain, waiting, hoping, and wondering what we will find when the dust settles. Priest and writer Henry Nowan compare such places to the flight of the trapeze artist between two rings. Having let one go, the acrobat sails through the void for a little while, suspended there unmoored until another ring swings out of the darkness. The truth is that the shaking will always end and a new world with a new normal will greet us. That world is just beyond the threshold of what we know and have known. Like the trapeze artist, we too always have a ring heading toward us to give us a handhold, even as we launch ourselves blind into the wide open stretches of uncertainty. Yet it will forever feel scary to be in those waiting places or to be flying temporarily without a net, standing in the quivering doorways, watching whenever it is that the world decides to shift the ground on which we stand. We have the talent of this amazing meeting house chorus, but that wonderful man who just stood is our very own Frank Feriano, who arranged that piece for the chorus. And we're so glad he's here today to hear it. Thank you, Frank. This past Monday, I embarked on a new adventure. As I prepared myself that morning, making sure I had everything I would need to make it through this adventure alive and whole, I noticed a sense of unease within me. It was small and gnawing at first, but it seemed to grow before my very eyes. Would I be able to do this? Who was I to think I could do this? Someone else, heck, anyone else, to be honest, could do this better. This was going to end in failure, and then what would people think of me? The fear was almost overwhelming. Now, I must say that I was taken aback by this reaction and looking back on it now, it does seem dramatic for the kind of adventure I was beginning. Mountain climbing, no. Long distance running, never going to happen. Skydiving, no way. I was going on the adventure of teaching mindfulness to kindergartners. So, yes, my sense of dread and outright fear was over the top. It did go extremely well, and the kids asked if I would come back again next week. My own kid asked if I would come back, so mama's putting it in the win column. I had emailed the mindfulness-based kindness curriculum created here at the Center for Healthy Minds to Owen's teacher in September. I sent it along with an email that simply said, hi, Holly, I don't know if you've seen this resource, but I'm just passing it along in case you're interested. Owen's teachers used it last year at the Weisman Center, and they were really impressed. Hope it's a great day, Kelly. And less than an hour later, I had a reply that said, hi, Kelly, I love this. It's something I've been wanting to incorporate into the classroom, but I don't have any personal experience with it. Any chance you'd be willing to lead it on Mondays? We can have mindful Mondays. Let me know what to think. Thanks, Holly. What do I think? I think I never should have sent it to her. I think I am nowhere near qualified enough to do this. Sure, I teach mindfulness to adults, but kindergarteners? I think I would need training, some kind of certification, something, anything more than what I have now. So it took me a few days to respond, and during those days I wrestled with this growing fear that I was not good enough, smart enough, qualified enough, definitely do not meditate enough to do this, and that the five- and six-year-olds would see right through me. I would lie awake at night with worst-case scenarios of classroom chaos running through my mind and the principal asking me not to return to school for a little while. So much for being mindful. During those days I was reminded of the words of Parker Palmer who has said that he would like to write a book on the spiritual teaching of be not afraid. He says he has struggled with this passage because it seems too unrealistic. We all have fear. It's natural. It's with us from birth, so what do you mean be not afraid? How is that even possible? Parker writes, fear is so fundamental to the human condition that all the great spiritual traditions originate in an effort to overcome its effect on our lives. With different words, they all proclaim the same core message, be not afraid. Though the traditions vary widely in the ways they propose to take us beyond fear, they all hold out the same hope. We can escape fear's paralysis and enter a state of grace where encounters with otherness will not threaten us but will enrich our work and our lives. It is important to note, he says, with great care what that core teaching does and does not say. Be not afraid does not say that we should not have fears. And if it did, we could dismiss it as an impossible counsel of perfection. Instead, it says that we do not need to be our fears. Quite a different proposition. When I was asked to teach those kids, I was at what Vanessa Southern calls a threshold place. This was a positive threshold for me, a doorway into an unknown experience, uncertain as to the outcome, but opening up a new possibility just slightly outside my comfort zone. We all have these places. We've all been to a threshold. There are much more difficult thresholds that we all face as well. Think of a time when the world as you knew it changed. Most likely in a way that you didn't expect or in a way that you didn't want. And you were filled with uncertainty or dread. This is where fear comes in strong and ready to freeze us in our tracks. What we are talking about here is not the healthy kind of fear. The fear that makes us jump out of the way of a speeding car. The fear that arises when a doctor says the news isn't good. The very real fear of too many adults and children in our country who don't know where the next meal is coming from or where they would sleep at night. I recognize with deep reverence the very real fears that many experience in our world today. Deep rooted fears for safety and survival. And if we have a desire to help those living with those kinds of fears, if we wish to begin reaching out more to those right here in our own communities who walk with these fears, then we need to work on what is immediate to us all the time. We need to work on ourselves. We need to come to terms with the fears that are living within us so that they do not stop us from the very important work that we are each called to do. The Buddhist monk Pema Chodron says that the news we hear is mostly bad. And that makes us afraid. It can be quite discouraging. Yet we could actually derive inspiration for our warrior ship from these dire circumstances. We could recognize the fact and proclaim the fact that we are needed. We are needed in this world today. For those of us with privilege, we need to know how to pass through the threshold places, holding and recognizing the fear and discovering how to go to those scary places anyway, because we are needed. This asks us to face the fear that keeps us from being fully ourselves, that stops us in our tracks when we think about taking a risk, that whispers in our ear that the world is too dangerous of a place and we are not brave enough to make any kind of change. This is the fear that Elizabeth Gilbert spoke of when she wrote, Around the age of 15, I somehow figured out that my fear had no variety to it. No depth, no substance, no texture. I noticed that my fear never changed, never delighted, never offered a surprise twist or an unexpected ending. My fear was a song with only one note, only one word actually, and that was stop. My fear never had anything more interesting or subtle to offer than that one emphatic word repeated at full volume on an endless loop. Stop, stop, stop. Which means that my fear always made predictably boring decisions. Like a choose your own ending book that always had the same ending, nothingness. Our fear has the power to make us stop, to convince us to never venture out into the unknown, to stay in our very comfortable places. But there's so much we miss when we stay tucked away inside and comfortable. My colleague the late Reverend Marnie Harmony wrote about it beautifully when she said, if on a starlit night with the moon brightly shimmering, we stay inside and do not venture out, the evening universe remains a part of life we will never know. If on a cloudy day with greyness infusing all and rain dancing rivers in the grass, we stay inside and do not venture out, the stormy threatening energy of the universe remains a part of life we will never know. If on a frosty morning dreading the chilling air before the sunrise, we stay inside and do not venture out, the awesome cold quiet and stillness of the dawn universe remains a part of life we will never know. If throughout these grace given days of ours surrounded as we are by green life and brown death, hot pink joy and cold gray pain and miracles, always miracles. If we stay inside ourselves and do not venture out, then the fullness of the universe shall be unknown to us and our locked hearts shall never feel the rush and power of life. Now Martin Luther King once wrote a sermon on four steps for dealing with fear and I think he is a pretty reliable source. This was someone who preached what he knew, who lived with death threats, who walked through angry mobs, who spent his life telling ordinary people like you and me how to face our fears and walk calmly into, through and out of them. His first step is to face our fears, to see them and to ask, what are we really afraid of? You can't fight an enemy, he says, that you don't understand. Pema Chodron tells the story of a student warrior who was told that she needed to do battle with fear. She didn't want to do that, fear was aggressive, fear is scary, it seemed unfriendly, but the teacher said she had to do it and gave her the instructions for the battle. And when the day arrived the student warrior stood on one side and fear stood on the other, the warrior was feeling very small because fear was looking big and wrathful. They both had their weapons. The young warrior roused herself and went toward fear, prostrated three times and said, may I have permission to go into battle with you. Fear said, thank you for showing me so much respect that you ask permission. Then the young warrior said, how can I defeat you? Fear said, my weapons are that I talk fast and I get very close to your face. You get completely unnerved and you will do whatever I tell you to do. If you don't do what I tell you, I have no power. You can listen to me, you can have respect for me, you can even be convinced by me. But if you do not do what I tell you to do, then I have no power. In that way, she tells us the student warrior learned how to defeat fear. When we're afraid, we can become curious. Look at it. Pema says, smile at your fear. You can listen to it, you can try to understand it, you can even see where it is coming from, but you don't have to let it stop you. And this is King's second step. He says, see your fears and go on anyway. King started his sermon that day with the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, one who is not every day conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life. Can your fears mean go instead of stop? Can you see them, acknowledge that they are there and instead of seeing them as a signal to freeze, see them as something telling you that you are in a threshold place and you can muster as much courage as you can and go forward anyway. For if we stay inside and do not venture out, we miss the fullness of the universe and the miracles, always miracles. Third is to remember that fear is mastered through love. When we recognize our deep connection with all life, when we see those we are afraid of as fellow travelers on this journey with needs and vulnerability, strengths and fears of their own, then we work from a place of connection. King wrote, only love, understanding and organized good will can cast out fear. Love, understanding and organized good will. And finally he tells us to confront fear with faith. Faith he says in the larger goodness of things. Faith I would add in ourselves and each other. Last week eight of our staff traveled to Unity Temple in Oak Park for a large church regional staff gathering. The keynote speaker was Rashida Graham Washington, Executive Director of Communities First Association in Chicago. She began her presentation by saying that she loves to go out into places with people she's never met to work with groups that she didn't know before because she believes that we all have gifts inside of us. Our own gifts and the gifts of others. We each hold each other's gifts. So this work, this living, this being human, only works when you and I are together because I have some of your gifts to give you and you have some of mine to give me. We grow together when we do this work together. That's the only time when we are our fullest and most whole selves. We help each other shine. Or maybe it's as Marianne Williamson always said, our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light that most frightens us. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. I have your gifts and you have mine. For all those who are living with daily fear, we must figure out how to step over the threshold of our own fears, to go into the uncomfortable places to do the work that is ours to do. For me right now, I'm working with kids who have difficulty controlling strong emotions. And I'm teaching them how to use their breath to calm, to soothe, to heal. That's my work. What is your work in this world? Is it scary? Does the thought of it keep you up at night? Can you feel that and think, this is telling me something. Could it be that now is the time to move forward, now is the time to go? The world is too beautiful to be praised by only one voice. May you have the courage to sing your part. The world is too broken to be healed by only one set of hands. May you have the courage to use your gifts. The world needs you. Your bravery, your beauty, your message, your light. May you be brave enough to step over your thresholds and shine. And our offering today is shared with veterans for peace. You can find out more about their good work in your order of service or at the table outside in the Commons after service. And we thank you for your generosity. We gather each week a community of memory and hope. We come together here bringing our celebrations and our joys, our struggles and our losses. And we seek a time to be together in a spirit of support, connection and love. This week we hold in our hearts Karen, a member of our society choir and her husband Paul who was in a serious bike accident last week. He remains in the hospital and we send them our thoughts of strength and healing. And now I would like to offer a prayer today, a prayer for our times, a prayer from our hearts. And I would also like to invite you into a practice. This is a practice that comes from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and it is called Tonglin. Tonglin is also known as giving and receiving because in this practice we take into ourselves the suffering of the world and we breathe out compassion, our own clear light of loving kindness. So for just one minute today, I invite you to join together in prayer and then sit with the suffering of the world. Our own, those we love, for those who live in daily fear and breathe out of our own goodness, our kindness, our wish for all to be well. Spirit of life, one who holds us all, help us. Following another week of brutality, we continue to be a nation in mourning, a nation full of anger and fear filled with pain and grief, confused and at risk of becoming numb to hatred. Help us to find our way through the turmoil that turns people against each other instead of turning toward each other in love. Help us to see that little good ever comes out of viewing each other as the other. Only when we find our common humanity can we live in peace, as exasperated as we may become, we go on. The future beckons us to come to it, bearing a faith and a resolve that brings hope and healing. Like the birds of the air that can't help but sing their songs, we too have a song. We sing of love, forgiveness, mercy, compassion. We believe in the power of love to repair us, not the same as before but stronger in some places, living out our lives potential in the warmth of one another, in the light of what restored we may become. And now in the next minute, if you will join me in simply breathing, taking in the suffering and transforming it through the power of your own hearts into love. We ask this prayer and offer this practice in the name of all persons present and absent, remembered and forgotten, known and unknown. Amen. Blessed be. May it be so. And if you will rise now in body or spirit for our closing hymn, we'll build a land. Please be seated. We have been separately in all that we will become together as stretched out before and behind us, like stars scattered across a canvas of sky. We stand at the precipice, arms locked together like tandem skydivers working up the courage to jump. Tell me, friends, what have we got to lose? Our fear of failure? Our mistrust of our own talents? What have we got to lose? A poverty of the spirit? The lie that we are alone? What wonders await us in the space between the first leap and the moment our feet, our wheels, however we move our bodies across this precious earth, touched down softly on unknown soil? What have we got to lose that we can't replace with some previously unimaginable joy? Blessed are you, spirit of life who has sustained us, enlivened us and enabled us to reach this moment. Give us courage in our leaping and gratitude in our landing. And share with us in the joy of a long and courageous life together. Blessed be and go in peace.