 Hey, Sean, could you run for seats quicker so we can see what's on here? I could run for seats, they're not, they're not really awful. Okay, so the Interim Ministry is a shooter. You can begin. Press, S-U-S. Press, that is over. And then it's being done. Okay. Okay. So yeah, you can run for seats. So we have physicians that are, um, maybe have no, like, like, no one will go for seats. Oh, that's good to hear. What else is there? You can run for seats. Yeah, we can. So, you can run for seats. Okay. You can run for seats. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, you can run for seats. You can run for seats. Okay. Okay. So, you can run for seats. Oh, thank you. And then we can run for seats. So, yeah, just so, so, what are you up to? Oh, the contemplative diameter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's your... Probably the... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, how does it answer your... I mean, guys, it's not so far. I still have 20, 20, to start with. We didn't have 20, 20, to start with, 15 years ago. I was going to the culture, you know. I thought you mentioned it on the cusine. So, I mean, probably the strata, especially the strata, is probably to start with 20 more. Oh, that's right. I just, that's it. I don't know, I don't think you're going to be able to... You don't know, it's all just... Right. I mean, it's like a hypo to the soul. I can see it on the space, and being able to hear it, and being able to read it, it's more about your life. Right, so thank you. Well, you can see what I got right here. And then, I'm going to look at this. Yeah. It's a lot of fun, because I take a lot of it and it's a lot of fun. I think my last one was really cool. So it's really cool, right? Yeah. And they're always there to try to get something. Yeah. Is that your main goal? Well, yeah. No, not my main goal. Okay, that's cool. I think I'm still in the house. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. It's cool. I'm a little strong on this chair though. Why is it in the room this way? I don't know. It's in the room. Yeah, I was like, where are you? I saw you. I was like, where are you? I was just thinking of a walk-in house. I said, oh, you can be drunk. I'm sure it's going to slow it down. You want me to go back to the house? Yeah, I was like, great. Let's join in a moment of centering silence. Our centering hymn is number three eight nine printed in the 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 of each individual as together we seek to be a force for good in the world. My name is Dorrit Bergen and on behalf of the congregation I would like to extend a special welcome to visitors. We are a welcoming congregation so whoever you are and wherever you are on your life's journey we celebrate your presence among us. Visitors are encouraged to stay for our fellowship hour after the service and look for people carrying teal stoneware mugs. These are FUS members knowledgeable about our programs and community life and they look forward to the chance to speak with you. You can also 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 become difficult for those in attendance to hear what is happening in our service so we remind you that our Child Haven and Commons area are excellent places to go when anyone needs to talk or move around. The service can still be seen and heard from those areas. We do have hearing assistance devices available. Please see one of our ushers if that would be helpful for you. This would be a good time to turn off all electronic devices that might disrupt the service and I would also request that you leave your hymnals on the chairs after the service. Experience guides are generally available to give a building tour after each service so if you would like to learn more about this sustainably designed addition or our national landmark meeting house please meet near the large glass window on the left side of the auditorium after the service. I'd now like to acknowledge those individuals who help our services run smoothly. On sound this morning we have Peter Daly. Our lay minister is John McGevna. Your greeter was Claire Box. Usher's this morning are Lisa Monroe, Dick Goldberg, Nancy Daly, and Ken Gage. And making coffee this morning for us Helena McGevna and Karen Updike. And I will add that we could really use a third person to help with coffee after the service. So if you're so inclined if you could just duck into the kitchen they would be most appreciative. Please note the announcements at the red floors in your order of service which describe upcoming events at the society and provide more information about today's activities. We hope you took note of all the special announcements that were up on the screen. Again welcome. We hope that today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart, and stir your spirit. This is a song by the late great Chihuahua Niso Marare from Zimbabwe. And each lesson here that shines beyond this world be the one to steer you on. Doctor of the sun's wash away. Doctor of the sun. Together again in this place made sacred by our presence to share our hopes, to find our courage, to create good in this world. The prophets of all traditions and times have taught that we are called to mercy, generosity, mutual care. That to be great is to serve. We know that there can be no enduring for humanity so long as suffering and want go unreleaved. Until all may be sheltered no one is truly at home. As we gather this morning may the power of our vision sustain us in this work that we may be the hands of holy creativity and justice. And together if you will rise now in body or spirit as we join together in the affirmation of our chalice lighting. All that we have ever loved and all that we have ever been stands with us on the brink of all that we aspire to create. A deeper peace, a larger love, a more embracing hope, a deeper joy in this life we share. And I invite you to turn and wave at your neighbor or say good morning. No touching. Please be seated. If you woke this morning with a sorrow so heavy that you need the help of this community to carry it, or if you woke with a joy so great that it simply must be shared, now is that time. The sharing of joys and sorrows is our time in the spirit of acceptance and support to share with one another some special event or circumstance that has affected your life for the life of a loved one in recent days or weeks. As you share please remember that our services are broadcast on the web. So for the next few minutes anyone who wishes is invited to step to the front of the auditorium lighting a candle. John McEvna, RLA minister has a microphone for you to use. You may also come forward and wordlessly light a candle and if you cannot come forward for any reason raise your hand and John will bring the microphone to you. And John I would like to begin if you would please light a candle for all those impacted by the tragedy of the past week in Florida. If you will join me in a moment of prayer. Spirit of life and love. Our hearts break open once again and we turn to you with an ache and a loss and a deep and abiding love for all those hurting this day. Today we grieve for more loss of life. We grieve for a country and a planet where violence is all too common and all too familiar. I pray that each of us commits to be a little more humane, a little more compassionate, a little more willing to come together to be a part of a solution. I pray that today we decide to support one another. I pray that we never forget. We ask for a blessing on this nation in the names of those who have come before and those who are yet to be in the names of all the helpers of humankind. Blessed be and amen. And I now invite you into a time of the sharing of your sorrows and your joys. I have a sorrow and a joy. I lost my husband recently and the joy is that this community came together. They brought breakfast for me. They brought all sorts of things and they brought joy to me and to all of the family and I can't tell you how much this has meant to everyone. Thank you. I want to share a joy about this wonderful community. Last weekend, 51 of us went together up north and it wasn't religious at all but it was community when we went skiing. The kids went sledding and snowshoeing. It was just a wonderful weekend thanks to everybody that came and to the people that made it happen. I wanted to light a candle for our dear friend Phil Stark who lost her bout with cancer a week ago today. So a joy and a sorrow. My dear friend Dale died of Alzheimer's on Friday afternoon and I have a friend that is 88 and she had a very bad accident but she's now in rehab and recovering and it looks like she'll go home. I don't know if it's a joy or a sorrow but I got my tooth pulled on Thursday. I have a joy that my papa came over yesterday and I don't see him very often. We went out for dinner. Well I have sort of a joy and a sorrow in that, pardon me for being a little vague. It was a decision I had to make, a choice I was presented with and like the either result I took would bring me joy but both would come at a cost to me and so I'm still in the middle of deciding which to choose and it's just caused me a lot of stress and made me question a lot about what I believe and how I should act around people and who I should be. So I have a joy because the issue is resolving itself and this community has always helped me to figure out who I am and realize that even in a world as confused and as muddled as we are there are thinkers, people who are just trying to be better. So this community actually solved this problem for me. Thank you. I have a joy that every four years a lot of the countries get together at this time for the Winter Olympics. I'm just lighting a candle. I have a cousin who's going through some serious cancer treatment right now and in her two-week time span she can't be with her little one-year-old and so my candle is for her and her family but also for her mother my aunt who this is her second daughter to be going through cancer treatment and they lost she lost her first daughter. Mommy has a friend and she's in the hospital and her name is Carol. I've enjoyed a share. Last Friday I just celebrated two years of full sobriety. I have a bit of a sorrow. My dad lost his cat last night. She was about 20 years old and I just it's a big deal for him and I know it's just a cat but he lives in Kentucky and I don't know why I'm crying but thank you Eddie. I'm lighting a candle for my friend Chris who had a very bad fall and broke her femur and had major surgery with pins yesterday and is over at the UW hospital. Hold her in your thoughts and prayers please. And John I feel like one last candle for all the joys and all the tender sorrows that live in the fullness of our hearts and as we rise in body or spirit for our next hymn number 134 our children and teachers may leave for classes. Please be seated our reading today from MJ Ryan. My friend Kathleen is an elementary school principal in California which is rated 47th out of 50 states in funding per student. I've known her for 15 years and have watched her gracefully ride all kinds of change in public education. When I asked her how she's managed to adapt so well she immediately started talking about her networks. Well she said I regularly call a dinner meeting with other principals in the district. I call it the print din. We talk over ideas brainstorm responses to things coming from above offer resources to one another and I rely heavily on my parent council at school to provide guidance to me in areas that I don't know as much about. For instance one dad who's in finance looked at where our emergency fund was and had me break it up into smaller pieces at various banks to keep it safer. And that was before the banks started crashing. I've created a network of support staff at school. Those of us there's only one of the librarian the janitor the secretary and me. We regularly meet to deal with the issues that we have in common. They see things I don't. And finally I've created a network of learning foreign with my teachers by gathering people I know in the private sector to do leadership development invite guest speakers learn educational theory so we can keep up. I have always thought of network as a dirty word as it seemed to involve talking to random strangers at cocktail parties those things never did a thing for me but Kathleen helped me see that we are all embedded in various networks already and that when we're going through change tapping those networks for guidance for ideas on what you need to be learning for their take on coming trends among many other things is crucial. I have always liked to think of myself as a lone wolf but if I really think about it I have several networks friends trainers parents clients don't just network in time of need we all need to stay connected to others as much as possible we need folks we can rely on advocates out there advocates out there in the world call it a clan call it a network call it a tribe call it a family whatever you call it whoever you are you need one she was in solitary confinement there was no such thing as any contact with the outside world and she there was no heat in the winter very poor nutrition and her only social outings so to speak were when she was taken to be interrogated once in a while and sometimes even tortured and once in a while sometimes she would get so low she would actually instigate like a little rebellion and she would demand to be released in a prison guard would come get her take her to an isolated place and they would argue and she'd get yelled at usually kicked and punched and then she'd be returned to herself and that actually gave her energy so she would sometimes have to do that so she threw it all this she kept her integrity and her dignity and her discipline and even expressed compassion for her prison guards and one of the things she did to get through was whenever she noticed anything in her environment that was positive she would focus on it so she saw a little spider coming to herself was making a web and she became fascinated with it and attached and she would look for it in the morning when she woke up during the day and when she went to bed and I just found that so moving ahead to write a song about it which we're going to play I'll just give you a quick up a lot of the first which is eventually they released her from prison she was in her 60s at the time and she you know became very ill understandably and they were afraid she was going to die so they let her out they thought she you know lived a few more months she went on to live eight more years in China and she was able to come to the US and she stayed here and became a citizen her friends recommended that she write her memoirs she did they were published were astonishment and became a best-seller so she ended up going all over the place lecturing and she did this until her late 80s and I happened to read her book randomly and wrote the song and I wanted to get permission to release it on a CD so I wrote to her publisher it got a letter back from her and she said gave me her blessing and then invited me to meet her so I went to Washington D.C. to meet her and later the song she took me out for Chinese food as you can imagine she had a word or Chinese food we became friends with Penn Pals and she at the time was in her early 90s sharpest attack living on her own driving reading three newspapers a day and she lives to her mid 90s quite a story of perseverance in the guards thank you both for being here this weekend there's a story about a monastery somewhere in Europe that is perched high on a cliff hundreds of feet in the air the only way to reach the monastery is in a basket and that basket is pulled to the top by monks who hand over hand real in the basket by muscle power alone now the ride up the steep cliff is absolutely terrifying once a visitor became exceedingly nervous about halfway up when he noticed that the rope the only thing holding him at the moment was somewhat old and frayed with a trembling and clearly anxious voice he asked the monk who was riding with him how often they changed the rope the monk simply shrugged thought for a moment and answered whenever it breaks I think of this story when I am having one of those moments where I cannot stand another moment of change I am going to keep everything exactly the way it is now thank you very much and I will worry about it when the rope breaks yet I know in the back of my mind that the rope is always breaking change is a constant and it's happening in more complex and shifting ways at faster rates all of the time so I've been trying to prepare myself as best I can for the changes about to happen here at First Unitarian Society I am taking the pro interim training offered by our Unitarian Universalist Association as a way to prepare myself to work with our interim minister next year I've been reading as many books on the subject of change and change within organizations as I can books such as how to survive the change you didn't ask for emergent strategy how we shape change and change worlds reinventing organizations and one that I never thought would be on my nightstand team of teams new rules of engagement for a complex world now this last one was written by General Stanley McChrystal who is perhaps best known as the commander of the US and coalition forces in Iraq during the war against al Qaeda the lessons he learned during those years as well as a long study of organizational history was the beginning of team of teams the challenges he and others faced were unlike those of earlier wars McChrystal wrote on paper the confrontation should have been no contest we had a large well trained superbly equipped force while they were recruiting locals and smuggling in foreign fighters one by one through dangerous and unreliable methods we enjoyed robust communication technology while they were often dependent on face-to-face meetings and letters delivered by courier to minimize the risk of detection our fighters had persevered through the most demanding training in the history of special operations theirs had attended a smattering of various kinds of training scattered across the arabian peninsula we could at will tap into an unmatched well of firepower armored vehicles cutting-edge surveillance their technology consisted of IEDs assembled in safe house basements from propane tanks and expired soviet mortars we were exemplary in our discipline yet despite our pedigree our gadgets and our commitment things were slipping away from us we had to ask ourselves a deeply troubling question if we were the best of the best why were the surprise attacks not only continuing but increasing why were we unable to defeat an under resourced insurgency why were we losing now what he and others discovered in answer to those questions was that they had to unlearn a great deal of what they thought they knew about how this fight and the world works they needed to tear down familiar organizational structures and rebuild them along completely different lines swapping their sturdy comfortable architecture for organic fluidity because it was the only way to confront a rising tide of complex threats they restructured from the ground up on principles of extremely transparent information sharing and decentralized decision making authority they dissolved the barriers what he calls the walls of our silos and the floors of our hierarchies the ones they believed had made them efficient they became what he likes to call a team of teams a large command that captured at scale the traits of agility flexibility and adaptability normally found only in small teams almost everything they did ran against the grain of military tradition and general organizational practice they abandoned many of the precepts that had held throughout the 20th century because he says the 21st century is a different game and it has different rules so personally i love visuals so i made some visuals to help you see what he's talking about this is as high tech as we're going to get today i assured the saturday people that this wasn't just because they didn't have a projector that you guys were getting the same visuals that they were getting so first is the traditional structure that we all know look familiar he calls this the command hierarchy micristal says the issue here is that when we stack teams into silos we become unwieldy with no information sharing and people compete for resources so they moved to a second structure what he calls a command of teams the teams here can bring a measure of adaptability to previously rigid organizations but your teams are still not communicating with one another as the world grows faster and more complex we need to figure out ways to scale the fluidity of teams across entire organizations which brings us to his team of teams approach now in this model you enable people to operate in an interdependent environment understanding the butterfly effect ramifications of their work making them aware of the other teams with whom they'd have to cooperate in order to achieve success this model creates an organization within which the relationships between the teams resembled those between individuals on a single team teams that had traditionally been in separate silos would now have to become fused to one another by trust and shared purpose now when i look at this visual i don't know about you but i see a web perhaps an interdependent web of all existence sound familiar and i begin to wonder how an image like that can change how we live and move and be with one another and how we can be in our organizations in order to open us to change because knowing that you need to change or even wanting to change isn't enough without rewiring our thinking and looking at new models for ourselves and our organizations and the systems that support us all we get is wishing and wanting and not a lot of movement and growth so this image reminded me of the ancient tale of indra's web that goes something like this imagine if you will a great web spun with delicate intricacy adorned with lovely jewels stretching out in all directions this is the magnificent web of the great god indra indra's web is like that of a spider in intricacy and loveliness but this is no ordinary weaving for it spans the infinity of time and space at each place where the threads of the web connect to one another a single glittering jewel has been hung and since the web is infinite in dimension there are an infinite number of jewels that stretch out across the vastness of existence suspended in and supported by the web catching the light and twinkling like the stars when you look at one of the jewels you notice that in its surface you see reflected all the other jewels of this web it is an infinite process of reflection now each sparkling jewel is a being a human plant animal each of us connected to every other in an interdependent web each of us is there reflecting and influencing one another a change in one jewel in one being in one person will result in change however slight in every other everything affects everything else think about what you might be sending out across this web whenever one strand is harmed whenever there is a tear in the fabric the entire web feels the hurt in the same way every act of love of repair sends ripples throughout the infinite web touching every jewel every being every life this image helps me grasp what thorough called the infinite extent of our relations this is interdependence mutual dependence between beings we know that this is a reality we know that this is biology this is a fact of our existence yet most of us are socialized toward independence pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps working on our own to develop to survive to win at life competition is the way we hone our skill and learn to feel proud about how much we achieve as individuals and sometimes to actively work to bring others down in order to get ahead and it just doesn't work anymore this is what mccrystal learned and how that huge organization figured out how to work interdependently to embrace the complexity within us and within this web that we share and here's perhaps the biggest takeaway of the morning so if I have lost you if you are currently thinking about the errands you need to run as soon as she stops talking come back for just one moment building community is to the collective as spiritual practice is to the individual building community is to the collective as spiritual practice is to the individual as adrian marie brown writes do you already know that your existence who and how you are is in and of itself a contribution to the people around you not because you do some particular thing but simply the miracle of your life and that the people around you have contributions as well do you understand that your quality of life and your survival are tied to how authentic and generous the connections are between you and the people you live with are you actively practicing generosity and vulnerability in order to make those connections strong generosity here means giving of what you have without strings or expectations attached and vulnerability means being able to name what you need now if you can do this if you can build community as spiritual practice you will feel yourself in this web you will feel yourself woven into the world and when we are woven into the world we will not want to sever any of the connecting fabric between ourselves and all the beautiful sparkling jewels that are here with us we will want to repair the web knowing that we are surrounded and held up by others who are also working on repair and we will find possibility and courage and hope now in one month's time we will be joined by the UU minister and theologian and author Tandeka so I encourage all of you to come to the public lecture to register for the weekend workshop she's going to help us look at this brokenness in our web and help us begin to think about how we can heal the broken places within us so that we can move forward in the work of repair in an article that she wrote for the UU world on healing community she says the buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh invented the word interbeing to describe the structure of this binding principle of our lives in any and every human experience everything is present think of a piece of paper really look at it and you will see that everything is in there your mind is in there and mine is also you can't point to anything that's not there time space the earth the rain the soil the sun everything coexists with a simple sheet of paper this is why I think the word inter be should be in the dictionary to be is to inter be you can't be by yourself alone a sheet of paper is he says because everything else is interbeing is our reality the work begins when we listen and notice that all these beings here with us our fellow jewels on the web shining with a radiance and a brilliance that we barely notice it begins when we wake up from the illusion of separateness and independence and notice more deeply something is terribly wrong with our web the model of being in the world that we have used for so many years this one one it just doesn't work anymore we need this one or as my children said mom is that a picture of chaos I said it could be we need to try we need to repair our web and that's our collective spiritual work to ask what we are helping to create to ask what vision we are living into who are our people how do we make our web larger and larger if our structures were built on this model if our leaders and lawmakers were living into a deep practice of inter being then we would not have prayers and heartfelt wishes being sent to grieving families we would have policies and laws enacted that protect the most vulnerable among us our web is in desperate need of repair and it will take time it will take new ways of being together it will take each and every one of us can we break out of the old model of individual silos to realize that our well-being is dependent on the well-being of the whole and that the hurting and the damage has gone on far too long now just before he died at the age of 96 studs circle who'd written an oral history of the great depression was asked what wisdom he had for our time and his reply was turn to others take part in community the big boys are not that bright so i invite you to turn toward one another after our service today get some coffee or tea or hot cocoa whatever your pleasure and find someone that you don't know talk to them about how they have dealt with change in the past what excites them about the future meet someone that you didn't know when you arrived here this morning make your web larger we live within the preciousness of time it is limited and it is sacred everything we do every action we take is practice ground practice building the collective practice building community practice openness embrace change and practice love so in honor of our web i leave you today with a poem from joice sidmar that is called the night spiders advice build a frame and stick to it i always say life is a circle keep going around do your work eat your triumphs and eat your mistakes that way your belly will always be full use what you have rest when you need dawn will come soon enough someone has to remake the world each night it might as well be you and i now invite you into the giving and receiving of our offering you'll see that it is shared with wisconsin faith voices for justice they are our partners in the sanctuary work you can read more about them in your order of service and we thank you for your generosity there's larry johnson my wife pamela and i have been members of f us for about 15 years prior coming to coming to madison i participated in other spiritual communities for many years but often stayed home on sundays when i came to f us i immediately felt at home this was the place for me yes it was the inclusiveness the social justice activism the embrace of spiritual exploration and welcoming that resonated with me uh now i'm involved with the monday night men's group and sing in the society choir pamela has been a participant in quest co-facilitates the tuesday afternoon centering prayer group and has been active in committee work there's much more about this unique community that makes it home for me you already know about the great music program the very special re curriculum the many educational adult educational opportunities and the thoughtful messages from our ministers some of my favorite things about this community include the professional and caring staff and yes the book sales rack in the comments back there i've read some thought provoking books that i would not have otherwise encountered or considered i like the songs we sing during the services sometimes they hum in my heart for weeks and especially powerful song for me is number 346 come sing a song with me when you or your partner are losing sleep at night because of life's fears and pains and changes try singing or saying the words of that song especially the opening line of the chorus i'll bring a hope when i'll bring you hope when hope is hard to find i believe in the hope and support of supportive work of the first unitarian society both within ourselves and the larger community f us is a priority for us we gladly give our time and money for the current and future needs of f us we have always pledged in the past and upon retirement considered reducing the amount of our pledge but we easily agree to maintain the level of financial giving because the importance of our commitment to f us we pledge to make our support steady and consistent we plan on and f us plans for our regular donation to enable the work of this community it's a partnership that sustains our future now if you can pledge an amount with several numbers after zero great but know that any amount that you pledge and give any reliable steady way assures that f us will be here with and for you and our community if you already donate without pledging please consider formalizing your generosity to facilitate financial planning thank you for your thoughtful consideration