 Please join in a moment of centering silence so we can be fully present with each other this morning and Now let's get musically present with each other by turning to the words for our in-gathering hymn Which you'll find inside your order of service and with that musical introduction I'll say good morning and welcome to another Sunday here at First Unitarian Society Where independent thinkers gather in a safe nurturing environment to explore issues of social Spiritual and ethical significance as we try to make a difference in this world Speaking of different. I'm Steve Goldberg proud and very entertaining member of this congregation and I'd like to extend a special welcome first of all to those of you Watching or listening at home. You look great today and to any guests visitors and newcomers Special welcome to our guest speaker today from whom you will hear in a little while But if this is your first visit to First Unitarian Society You'll find that it's a special place and we offer a guided tour today after the service Just gather over here by the windows and we'll take care of you Speaking of taking care of each other This is the perfect time to silence those pesky electronic devices that you simply will not need during the service And that goes for those of you watching at home because we can hear your ringtones If you are accompanied today by a youngster and you think that youngster might prefer to Enjoy the service from a more private space. We offer a couple alternatives for you one is our child Haven in the back corner of the auditorium and We also have some comfortable seating outside the doorway in the commons as Is the case every Sunday our service is brought to us by a wonderful group of people whom we have labeled Volunteers we want to thank them and announce their names and as you listen to their names being Melodiously announced from this microphone remember that if you volunteer your name will be announced as well someday Our lay minister today is Anne Smiley. Thank you Anne Special thanks to Elizabeth Barrett for greeting us upstairs. Elizabeth Barrett our ushers today to handle this large unruly crowd Patricia Becker Wally Brinkman and Doug Hill Our hospitality is hosted today by Jean Hills and Ellison Brooks Make sure you thank them as you're enjoying coffee and tea after the service and Speaking of after the service if you're interested in a tour your tour guide will be Rose Detmer The only other announcement is that in 61 days. We've got cabaret planned two months from From today on April 22nd Wait for more news and details later sure to be coming pretty soon Meanwhile for speaking of coming pretty soon Sit back or lean forward to enjoy today's service. I heard the nine o'clock and you are in for a real treat I know that this service will touch your heart Stir your spirit and trigger one or two new thoughts. We're glad you're here Wind that whispers through the willow sustains us Water that washes over the willing earth and weathered stones a Smile shared and savored a child's squeal of delight as she dances in the daisies and daffodils The quiet joy of gathered community This This is the spirit of life and love that we call forth now into this gathering May this spirit infuse our hearts fill our souls and carry us forward like a wave on the ocean as We enter now into this sacred time and space Come Let us worship together And today we will worship. I have to say You know church happens every Sunday, but I was here this morning and church happened So I'm real excited to hear it again And for that we have to thank our guest preacher Reverend Anthony McCarr Reverend Anthony grew up in Alberta, Canada and moved to Texas when he was 12 He's a former college professor of philosophy and his lifelong passion is figure skating Ordained in 2004 Reverend McCarr's first ministry involved planting a new kind of Unitarian Universalist Church in Dallas, Fort Worth called pathways and Since 2007 he's been the senior minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Atlanta, and we are really excited and honored to have him here today So should we show him how we light a chalice here at First Unitarian Society everybody stand up Please stand and join me in the words of the chalice lighting which are printed in your order of service Each one of us is a stanza We make up a poem We light this chalice in the hope that the poem is profound in meeting and full of beauty And I'd like you to see the beauty in each other by greeting one another this morning with friendly greetings Good morning everyone It's time for our message for all ages and I'd like to invite the young people Among us to join me up here in the front and of course all those were young at heart are welcome To join us up here as well Hi guys. Good morning. Hi How are you scared of the scary man? Hey, come on see right there. Come on. You're gonna sit right there Good morning to you. Come on in come on in closer. Come on in closer Come on in closer. Hey, hi. I like your jacket. That's great Good morning Good morning So I want to start out with a little bit of fun with you this morning What I'd like you to do is I'd like you to play follow the leader I'm gonna be the leader and I'm gonna clap my hands and I want you to clap the way I clap Okay, so watch Okay, gotta follow the leader. So here we go again ready Yeah, good job guys you're following so here's what I want to do with with us today What is this? What do you think this is? It's an envelope. But what do you think can be an envelopes? It's a male, right? And what's an envelope sir? male, what do you find sometimes a Letter absolutely we have a letter in here. We're gonna look at the letter in a moment But I want to talk about letters and letter writing with you guys this morning How many of you have written a letter before a? Ladder you're written to tell me about your letter. Who'd you write it to something come to mind? She's saying to people. Do you have to have you written a letter before? Yeah You've never like type written. Have you written one with your hand? Huh? Well, tell me about your letter Who was it to just tell me about one you wrote one to your friend Bryn and what did you say? Do you remember what you talk about? Okay, it's okay, but so you talked to brand you wrote a letter to your friend You know we can do all sorts of things with letters We can write like I was talking to one of the kids this earlier this morning and she said she wrote a letter to her Grandmother to describe her first day of school. That's a great letter. She said that she also wrote lots of letters to Santa Claus Right here. I would like this and this and this and all that stuff and that's kind of letters that we write What are the reasons are there for writing letters, huh? Do you write letters to Donovan tell me what do you write like letters to Santa Claus to write letters to your mom dad? Do you remember? Yeah That's great to abuela. Ah good good and the mailman sent some letters to who? To your granny. Oh, that's good to your Franny Francis Franny. Did you say Franny? Yeah, okay, great. I want to write. I want us to write a letter together Let's write a letter together and and and how do you start out a letter? Hello, actually there's something else before that there's a but even before that That date what is today's date? I like the way you were just really boom. That's it I like that here. Come on give it to me right here. I found it You can't you can't give the date. Does anybody know what the date is today? What's the day February? 2016 okay, so that's how we're gonna start our letter So we tend to grow intelligent children in our congregations So that's great. Yeah, so to 21 16 or February 24 2016 however, so we start with the date and then it's what? Dear and who are we gonna? Dear Santa Okay, so dear so we'll do dear Santa so dear everybody dear well How are you gonna send a letter to everybody, but Santa Claus is so dear Santa? Okay, so what happens next? February 21st 2016 dear Santa. I'm a couple months late to send you the letter, but but what or Ten months early, but yeah, that's right So I have an issue planning, but that's beside the point. So what happens next what's what happens next? What do you say next? Would you say next to Santa Claus you're writing a letter to Santa Claus? I? Want Hey something something that's very flexible. That's like and then okay And so so I want this and you're thinking about that and okay. Let's close up the letter. How do we close up letters? What do you say? Sincerely and then your name right okay, so so I have a letter that I wrote to you guys and I would like someone to open it up and then I'll read it to you So I want to I want to give it to someone who hasn't said anything You are the one who came up with a great idea to write Santa Claus Will you open that up for me? Thank you very much here. Will you open this letter up for me? Just unfold it because I need your help Can you do that? Can you unfold it for me? You know we only have one letter, but you can open it up for it. Thank you very much Here's my letter to you guys February 21st 2016 Here's my letter to you February 21st 2016 dear one dear one. How are you? I am so glad you are in church today. I'm glad you're here Here are some words that I love It is good to be It is good to be here together I hope you like them sincerely Reverend Anthony I Hope you do like those words and I'd like to suggest something to you when you go out from the space and you go Into your week, I'd like to suggest to you that that you think about writing a letter To someone that you know get yourself an envelope get yourself a piece of paper and write a letter to maybe your mom or You know your dad or your abuelo? Or or or your sisters or a teacher or your granny Just a letter to someone and and and tell them tell them something Or your friends and you tell them a story about like Tell them a story about what happened at school or tell them about something that you really like about them or your grandpa So that's what I'd like to suggest to you guys for for for this week when you go up Let's sing you guys out. Thanks for coming up guys Thanks for coming up. So let's sing. Let's sing these wonderful kids out to their classes. Let's do that now Bye guys. Good to see you. Bye I know see you Unfold in real time So this is a signed copy of Maya to lose In our very shape on on the pulse of morning This is most likely the form in the word that she's most vulnerable A rock or river of food Hosts to species long since departed mark the master gun The dinosaur who left God talking about their soldiering here on our planet She really uses poetic metaphor to talk about the strength of this nation The ability to learn about its mistakes to grow out of Struggle in order to set a steady course forward to appear in bright future Here on the pulse of this new day You may have a grace from above and out and into your sister's eye And into your brother's face Your country and say simply Very simply Good morning Dear Maya How strange it will seem to my hearers that I am writing a letter to one who can never literally receive it You died almost two years ago And yet you seem very much alive to me Once you said we delight in the beauty of the butterfly But rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty Of course that might be true of others, but not of you You've always been frank about your changes across a span of almost 90 years And I have loved reading about them so powerful and poignant how deeply and frequently You have moved me to laughter and to tears I do believe your spirit lives on I do believe that the death of anyone's body is best compared to a fatally damaged tv set Which can no longer transmit the vital sign anymore Even though the vital sign is still around and in the air Others in my beloved community will see things differently But one thing we can all agree on is how the influence of your seven Autobiographies and books of essays and poetry and plays and movies And television shows in addition to everything else has been nothing less than part of the world's endless creation Your immortality is at the very least in your influence And that is no small thing It goes on and on like it has reached straight into my heart in ways small and large and here's one of those small ways In your amazing book, I know why the caged bird sings you remember the reverend howard thomas Who was the presiding church elder over an area of arkansas, which included the town that you grew up in stamps He'd come to stamps every three months to stay in your home And when your paternal grandmother whom you called mama because she raised you Opened the door to him. He would spread his arms out wide He would say he'd call out to you and to your brother bailey saying Suffer the little children to come unto me for of such Is the kingdom of heaven He wanted to hug But you thought he was ugly And fat And that he laughed like a hog with the colic You thought his arms were awful. You didn't want to hug but your mama made you Just like my baba made me my baba His name was evan and I had no clue what he did what his purpose in life was just that he was A dear friend of the family from a long way back He'd always come over when he'd heard that my family had made the long trek from northern alberta all the way to edmonton to visit relatives His breath smelled like onions His face was shiny and flabby And strangest to all on his forehead just near the scalp. It featured a quarter sized caved in part That no one ever mentioned not even once but it was so obvious that something was wrong that I just wanted to stand up and shout He'd look at me With those bug eyes He'd hold out his octopus arm for a hug and I just wanted to run but baba made me go to him So I'd have to sit in his lap he'd his onion breath That feels onion breath on me He'd squeeze me he'd go And I would laugh out of embarrassment And finally it was over and he'd release me from his tentacles and I would book it out of there to everybody's vast amusement Adults think children are simpletons tabula raza But maya You remind us that it is completely otherwise children have their own thoughts to think they are already Complicated little worlds their motives the motives and behaviors of adults to them at times can seem incomprehensible But the main point is that you have brought me back to that memory It feels like something long lost in me has been found and that Feels so good even if it was but a small memory about a particularly weird Moment in my life you have you've returned me To myself and if there is any triumph to art It is that And it is also in enabling people to see through each other's eyes through others eyes Your art does this for me too You tell stories that find no echo in my personal experience and they just break my heart wide open Many of these stories are about the harshness of southern life and the experience of blackness From the inside And as told from the inside and you were one of the first to ever share like this Another day was over you said In the dark soft day In the dark in the soft dark the cotton truck slipped the pickers out and roared out of the yard With a sound like a giant's fart The workers they stepped around in circles for a few seconds as if they found themselves unexpectedly in an unfamiliar place Their minds sagged In my mama's merchandise store the men's faces were the most painful to watch But I seemed to have no choice when they tried to smile to carry off their tiredness as if it was nothing the body Told a different story Their shoulders drooped Even as they laughed and when they put their hands on their hips in a show of jauntiness the palm slipped the thighs As as as if the pants were waxed The women's feet had swollen the discarded men's shoes they wore and they washed their arms at the well To dislodge dirt and splinters that had accrued to them as a part of the day's pickings I thought them all hateful To have allowed themselves to be worked like oxen And even more shameful to try to pretend that things were not as bad as they really were Maya you tell this story And and then you tell another how your mama on pain of punishment had taught you and your brother Bailey to be impeccable In the way you addressed your elders and your betters show respect Don't don't bring shame onto your family But as for what you have called po white trash They call your mama by her first name despite the fact that she owned the very land that they lived on If there was any justice in the world you say and I know why the caged birds saying god should strike them dumb at once But god never did God just watched When one time a group of these po white trash girls came to your front door and your strong proud mama She was there and they surrounded her with mocking laughter and they stuck tongues out at her and they crossed their eyes At her and all your mama did was hum. She hummed church hymns. She never even looked at those girls She just kept humming tunes to jesus You were watching all of this from inside the house and you say I wanted to throw a handful of black pepper in their faces I wanted to throw lie on them to scream that they were dirty scummy peckerwoods but I knew I knew I was as clearly imprisoned behind the scene as the actors outside were confined to their roles You tell these stories maya that break my heart wide open And this one too Which is not so much about black southern life as it is about the kind of personal tragedy that could happen to Anybody black or white rich or poor does not matter It happened when you were eight years old Your biological mother who had sent you to live with your grandmother. She wanted you back So you went to live with her in st. Louis But it lasted only a short time because your mom's boyfriend raped you And when word got out he was killed I thought I had caused his death You say because I told his name to the family Out of guilt. I stopped talking to everybody except my brother bailey I decided my voice was so powerful that it could kill people But it could not harm my brother because we loved each other so much Oh you oh my Oh my you stayed mute for almost five years Several years ago one of my colleagues reverend wane robinson was lucky enough to have met you at a writer's conference in santa barbara He says you were a powerful presence six feet tall Strong deep voice a force to be reckoned with And there at the conference you were sharing some of the same stories that i'm bringing up here stories of abuse and poverty And racism and sexism and when you finished you opened the floor to questions and my colleague asked Miss angelo How did you go through all of that without becoming angry and bitter? And you answered oh young man You have confused two very different things I'm still angry Very angry at all the kinds of things that happened to me and still happening to too many people in this world But my anger is part of the drive i have to change things But i'm not bitter no no bitterness is corrosive Bitterness doesn't motivate you to try to do something to make this world a better place It causes you to sit it causes you to stew And let the bitterness eat away At your soul I am not bitter you said But i'm angry Yes My mission in life You once said is not merely to survive but to thrive and to do so with some passion Some compassion some humor and some style in a poem You sing Pretty women wonder where my secret lies I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model size But when I start to tell them they think I am telling lies I say it is in the reach of my arms the span of my hips the stride Of my step the curl of my lips. I'm a woman phenomenally Phenomenal woman that is Me how did you learn to be phenomenal like this? When the harshness of your life constantly threatened to crush you What gave you the reach in your arms the span of your step the curl of your lips Tell me about the changes that made you into a butterfly Perhaps we are back to the ancient nature versus nurture question How much of your resilience is something you were simply born with And how much of it came from aspects of your environment Definitely in caged bird you make the ubuntu principle very plain that I am because We are You could have grown so bitter But here's something your mama would do for you at least twice a year She would see a known whiner and complainer in the community Coming straight for the store once she knew that you were in a place to witness things She would ask that known whiner and complainer how you feel today Ah sister Henderson I tell you I just hate the winter makes my face crack. It makes my shins burn And mama just say Uh-huh, and then she'd look at you Maya. She'd look at you and as soon as that person would leave Mama would say sister come here You'd stand right in front of her she'd say There are people all over this world who went to sleep last night who did not wake again Their beds have become their cooling boards their their blankets have become their winding sheets They would give anything for just five minutes Of what she was complaining about Maya you could have grown so bitter but but people like your mama They did not want your soul to get lost you were a phenomenal woman because they were phenomenal for you Same goes for your biological mom now You would agree heartily that she was a terrible mother for young children She had abandoned you and your brother simple as that but you distinguish between two kinds of parents There is the person who can be a great parent of small children you say They dress the children in these sweet little things with bows in their hair and beads on their shoe strings And nice lovely little socks But when those same children get to be 14 or 15 the parents don't know what to say to them as they grow breasts And testosterone hits the boy They don't know what to do That's exactly when your biological mother stepped up when you became a young adult and she was phenomenal for you then You tell the time that she found out that you were pregnant You were just 17 I can't imagine a more vulnerable moment when everything depends on what is said next And what she said next was All right Run me a bath, please Now in your family that was a really very nice thing for someone to ask you to do and in all your life She had asked for this only one or two or three times So You ran her a bath and then she invited you into the bathroom. She sat down in that bathtub. She asked you Do you love the boy? No, you said Does he love you? No Well, there's no point in ruining three lives We're gonna have us a baby That's what she said Phenomenal woman And so you were phenomenal yourself beautiful butterfly Maya in the life of many high points Perhaps the highest was in 1980 and 1993 when you recited your poem on the pulse of morning At the inauguration of president bill clinton becoming the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since robert frost at president john f kennedy's inauguration in 1961 and and this is part of what you said History despite its wrenching pain cannot be unlived and if faced with courage Need not be lived again Lift up your eyes upon the day breaking for you give birth again to the dream women children men Take it into the palms of your hands mold it into the shape of your most private Need sculpt it into the image of your most private self lift up your hearts Each new hour holds new chances for new beginnings. Do not be wedded forever to fear Yoked eternally to brutishness the horizon leans Forward offering you space to place new steps of change Maya we need these words right now so much going on around us to make us a bit of the harshness of life The racism the sexism the poverty the abuse it still goes on today just Yesterday just yesterday the latest incidents of gun violence in kalamazoo, michigan We live in a day in which we must stand up and say black lives matter because those lives are brutalized political election insanity Unfolding right around us unfolding right before our very eyes Maya fill us With your courage help us be angry in a way that burns for a better world for all Clean anger not dirty with resentment clean anger. Help us to be angry like that Lift up our eyes upon the day Breaking for us give birth again to the dream history despite its wrenching pain cannot be unlived And if faced with courage need not be lived again Let our unitarian universalist mission in life be yours. Maya Not merely to survive But to thrive And to do so with some passion some compassion some humor And some style for myself. I know that I cannot be a phenomenal woman But let me be a phenomenal man Let us be phenomenal for each other Because through family and friendship and community We are supported and strengthened as we go through our own messy changes on the way to becoming butterflies ourselves Here on the pulse of this new day You write You may have the grace To look up and out and into your sister's eyes into your brother's face your country and say simply very simply with hope Good morning Good morning to you. Maya Good morning beautiful butterfly Good morning Good morning You're sincerely Anthony Is that one of the ways that we try to become phenomenal for each other is that we give of our Time and treasure and we share our plate today with the lacer center, which is on the west side of madison It's a facility that is green and welcoming where people come together To learn and grow so please give generously as you are able I just wanted you to know before I sing That there is a way that we can frame these songs that i've been singing from the time of slavery the slaves Had code words in these songs for instance instance jesus meant freedom and moses was a conductor on the underground railroad And in my last song you'll hear about the wicked and the wicked were the plantation owners and those who kept Black people in slavery. So I just want to do that Have that frame of reference It's annual campaign time Which is one of my favorite times of year because this Congregation has been so welcoming to me and I can name a million reasons why I love it And now I get to hear your reasons why you love it and you think it's worth sustaining and giving your time and treasure And the handsome man behind me is kurt staggy and he's going to tell you why he agrees with what I just said I did not ask her to say that just so you know As they say in australia good day I'm I am kurt staggy Last october michael schuler called me and asked that I serve as the interim church business administrator Um, that was uh, andi's position formerly Asked that I serve in that interim capacity while f us conducted a search to fill a position on a permanent basis michael justified his request in part by referencing the relatively broad knowledge That I had gained in various volunteer capacities since my wife and I joined here in 1981 I am currently a teacher of the bible voting class fourth and fifth graders and am on the board of directors for the foundation And I've been on it was on the building committee during the addition and I've done a lot of other stuff too But let's not go into that um So michael asked me it's not easy to say no to your minister Um, and having been retired for a couple years Uh, and me as a humanist Um, trying to avoid divine retribution I said yes Well, my 35 years of experience here As a member volunteer and financial contributor Uh, they were helpful But once I started on the job It immediately became apparent to me that the scope of f us was way more extensive than I had recognized What I thought I had known Turned out to be really just the tip of the iceberg First I concluded that the f us campus is more extensive and a lot more active than I'd realized something like 800 events during the course of the year All kinds of programs and interrelationships with lots of other organizations and suppliers of goods This is a complex place And it's a complex organization Secondly, I was struck by how those of us sitting in this auditorium on sunday can be unaware of how much work Is going on by staff behind the scenes We have a very dedicated employees here you might call them phenomenal These are people who really care about our mission They're absolutely necessary to keep this building member services And our programs all operating Coordinating all the components of f us is much more complicated And much more extensive than I'd realized But we really don't see many of the staff unless we look around Consciously or really think about it Now I find it to be a real privilege to work here and a great experience It made me even more proud of what we do here And of those who do it Early in january My employment here ended and I'm very pleased that Monica Nolan is now in the capacity of church business administrator And I'm back in that retired status But I learned a lot during my brief stint here My message today place case is not obvious I hadn't understood what goes on here day to day When just sitting in the position of those chairs out there I hadn't realized about the dedicated staff and I hadn't realized how many of our staff work outside of our field division Keeping it all together So when you think of f us and certainly When you make your pledge this year Remember that you are only seeing the tip of the iceberg Just for your information, there are easier ways than working here for a couple months To get a good idea or a better idea of what's go goes on here Check out the website book market There's a photo on the first page And above it and a little to the right you'll see site map It happens to be just To the left of Donate to f us Spend a little time and and explore that site It really does give you a helpful and quick perspective So I think you'll find it will Be easy and you'll be impressed with a lot of what you had not realized previously Enjoy that exploration I hope you gain a fuller appreciation for each one of the staff here And for everything that goes on behind the scenes Or as part of the iceberg or the part of the iceberg that is under the waterline Thank you Be good I want to thank you so much for your hospitality your warm greetings your congregation's wonderful the space is wonderful I'd like to invite you to do something that I do in my home congregation For the benediction and that is we stand and we hold hands Well, that's just a little bit aerobic exercise for you this morning if you wish to do so I invite you to do that Once again to our visitors We're so glad that you were here today And we hope that you got some good soul food that's going to feed you today and all week long And of course, I wish that for all of us that soul food that feeds our hungers so many hungers deep hungers And my wish is that in this place love stirs My hope is that in your heart love stirs In your relationships at your workplace in this city In this state in this nation in this world love stirs because we need this Love this transformative love because so much is broken So much is broken and needs healing This love which puts to flight all fears this love which reconciles all who are separated this love Which makes life worth living? Unitarian Universalists Affirm Love is our one source Love our one destiny no one left out. I wish that for you for all of us today and always The worship is over and now our service in the world begins and now let's listen to our prelude. Yeah, please be seated