 Welcome to First Unitarians. This is a community where curious seekers gather on 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 Alyssa Ryan Joy and on behalf of our congregation I would like to extend a special welcome to visitors both here in this room and those joining us on radio or live stream. We are a welcoming congregation so whoever you are and wherever you are on your life's journey we celebrate your presence among us. This would be a wonderful time to silence your cell phones as we join together in a few moments of silence for contemplation, meditation, and prayer as we become fully present with ourselves and with one another. I now invite you into a minute of quiet. I bring us out of this moment of centering silence with the words of the Reverend Gretchen Haley in a world that feeds on moral outrage. We are here to cultivate moral courage. In a time that prizes picking sides we gather to draw the circle wide and in a culture that teaches us to get for what we give and to ask what's in it for me. We come to practice generosity and to remember we are all in this together and we embody that by being in song together. I invite you into our gathering hymn 212 we are dancing Sarah's circle. You will notice some pretty gendered language in this and so if you don't want to sing sisters brothers all you are welcome to sing siblings one and all. Let us rise in all the ways that we do to sing him number 212 and sing Sarah's circle. We are dancing Sarah's circle. We are dancing sisters brothers all we seek and find our history and find siblings one. Remaining up for our chalice lighting is printed in your order of service. Again the words of the Gretchen the Reverend Gretchen Haley as together we say in the midst of life's bitterness we choose to sing and give thanks to laugh together and to be keepers of beauty to offer a place of belonging for all who come in gladness and in pain to resist the push to the next moment and the next to slow down to breathe more deeply to feel a part of something greater for this hour in this space. Let us be the change we wish to see come. Let us worship. We will begin our worship by greeting one another. So turn toward your neighbor and offer a welcome. The young and young at heart can come forward for a message for all ages. Yes, skip skip skip. Come on down. Room on the carpet. We have plenty of room today. Good morning. Good to see you all. Good morning. Good morning. I am seeing you with my eyes because we have circles in our eyes and today we are talking about circles. Yeah, isn't that funny? But before we read this storybook about circles, I want us to do some body things about circles. So can you make a circle with your hands? Can you make a circle with your hands? The audience is welcome to make a circle. Do you see it? Look through and fingers down a little bit and we see a heart and that's why I remember that circles remind me of love and I'm going to teach you a few more body things. I don't you don't know how to make a circle of circle with. Well, let's work on that. A heart. Oh, it's the heart part that is hard. That is true, too, right? Love is hard. Love is hard. Thank you. Well, let's make a circle with our hands. Let's give ourselves a hug. Very small. That's the smallest circle I can imagine of really small hug. And now let's pretend we are hugging someone we love like the legs of our favorite grown up or our best friend, but they are really big. So you have to make a really big circle. Do you see it? Now let's imagine we are trying to hug the moon. The moon is round. So we have to make it a round circle up here. And that is a really big circle. And these are the movements that we're going to do with the song that Drew is going to teach us after we read the story. So let's start with this story. It's called All Around Us. All Around Us. Grandpa says circles are all around us. We just have to look for them. He points to the rainbow that rests high in the sky after a thunder cloud has come. He traces the colorful arc with his hands and says, can you see? That's only half the circle. The rest of the circle is down below in the earth where water and light feed new life. That's the part we cannot see. But in my mind, I try. She's using her imagination to imagine a circle. Grandpa and I work side by side in the garden planting flowers and pulling vegetables. Raise your hand if you've ever been in a garden. We, you have a backyard garden? Uh-huh. Yeah. Can I read this? It says we eat what we have grown. Crunchy lettuce, sweet carrots, and spicy chilies. Look at this. Look at this. Grandpa says save the stems and leaves and seeds to bury back in the ground. He says here is another circle. What we take from the earth, we return. Oh my gosh. He draws a circle on his belly with his hand. Can you do that? And a little circle on my belly. And he says we even have circles inside. This makes me laugh. Our belly buttons are circles. Then grandpa and I go for a walk in the neighborhood and we see circles everywhere. There's the sun that they see and bicycle wheels. Do you see circles in this room? Where? Where are the circles? Yeah, let's hear. The gong. Yeah. The lights. Yeah. There, there was a drum. Our hands are circles. I have earrings at our circles. The chalice feels. I'm talking into a circle right now. She says the glasses are kind of circles. True that. Speaking of glasses, look at this picture. She says we stare at the green and brown rings in each other's eyes for a long time and then we laugh. He's right. Circles are everywhere. I'll show you one more important circle before the big round moon comes out says grandpa. We walk back in our yard and it is under a tall pecan tree. Grandpa seems sad when he says when he sits here because this is where we bury the ashes of our ancestors. I don't remember them, but he does. Even our bodies return to the earth, he says, and he pats the ground with his big hands. Can you pat the ground? This is a kind of circle you have to imagine. But that's only half the circle. That's the part we cannot see. Finally, we go to the front yard and water our smallest tree. Grandpa planted that tree the day I was born and everything that fed me while I grew in my mother's belly is buried at the roots. I love bringing water to the apple tree. It is already taller than I am. Grandpa pats my head. A head is kind of like a circle. Can you pat your heads? Do you see my grandchild? We have new life with you. I am part of the circle, the part we can see, just like a rainbow. Our heads are kind of circles and so we're going to sing that song with Drew and while he's singing we're going to do the body movements, okay? I suggest an image, a table, expensive China and chandeliers hanging above. In fact, it's better to be less imposing table, outdoors. When I was growing up in central Illinois, we often had summer dinners outside. It gets hot in that part of the country and we didn't have air conditioning. By the approach of evening, the day's heat was still trapped inside the house but outside cooling breezes began to set in. My mother and father, sister and I and my grandmother who lived upstairs, gathered at the picnic table outside for dinner. Dinners outside were different. The air was fresher. You could breathe deeply. Conversation came more easily and it often continued after the food was gone. We could relax, be ourselves. Usually it was just the five of us at the picnic table for dinner but sometimes there were visitors, relatives, a friend, someone new to town who my parents thought to invite. To accommodate them we brought out more tables and set them in a row. On one such occasion, a visiting relative from Germany had his first encounter with watermelon. He exclaimed in surprise, I have never tasted anything so wet. What I'm envisioning for this imaginary meal is a table with plenty of room. We'll set places for each person we expect to join us and we'll put out a few extra place settings for others who might arrive unannounced without an invitation whose names might not appear on the guest list. Isn't that a little frightening to include strangers who might be disruptive or dangerous or might not share our social graces? Well, yes, it can be uncomfortable. Strangers at our table. In our lives today we are taught to fear strangers. Turning on the TV or the online news or reading the paper, strangers blow up airplanes, compete with us for jobs, steal our money and our identities. We devote considerable energy to protecting ourselves from those who aren't like us. So here we are, welcoming them to our table. But this is radical hospitality. Hospitality that returns us to the roots. And the roots of hospitality involve not just inviting friends and family, not just those who share our outlook and value, but also strangers, outcasts. In the Christian story, Jesus was accused of inviting people from the margins to his table, sinners, tax collectors, those who would normally not be welcome at a dinner party. In radical hospitality, we greet the stranger. We invite them into our lives even though it can be uncomfortable. We honor that person's worth and dignity and our own as we open ourselves to who they are, what their stories are, how life looks through their eyes. We stretch ourselves to accommodate this stranger's view of the world. As leaders, we offer hospitality even to strangers we do not fully understand. Even the stranger deserves to be heard, has value, receives welcome. Thank you for that beautiful music on this cloudy day. There is something special about saying circle round. For me, it conjures up images of campfires with marshmallows, complete with tall tails and laughter spewing forth. Or maybe circle round brings up images of a raucous family reunion with the storyteller at the center, captivating the imaginations and memories of the listeners gathered round. In either scenario, there's a real sense of belonging. Today, we gather around the warm glow of our chalice to hear stories about belonging and expanding and love, and so that we may consider the impact of these stories on our lives. And remember that everything is held in love. Belonging is our theme for the month of October, and it's not much of a stretch to see how circles represent belonging. Social circles, political circles, journey circles here at FUS allow for small spiritual group deepening. Someone told me that there are supper circles starting up again that allow people to gather together around a table. People in singing circles get to make beautiful music together, or when we were dancing Sarah's circle with the hymn this morning, yet another circle. And there are listening circles, which are part of a method for restorative justice. All of these circles are examples of belonging in our various communities and subgroups. It sure feels good to belong, doesn't it? I recently came across a post on Facebook that takes that idea, that feeling of belonging and augments it. Unitarian Universalist Minister Reverend Scott Taylor notes that the true blessing of belonging isn't that you get to come inside the circle, it's that you get to participate in expanding it. The truly healing question is not just where can I find belonging, but also how can I become belonging for others. That's a wonderful and curious question. How can I become belonging for others? How can we, here at FUS and elsewhere in our lives, become belonging for others? Well maybe that's what UU minister Bruce Marshall was talking about in the reading that Alyssa offered up earlier. Radical hospitality is about becoming belonging for others. It means putting out a few extra place settings for others who might have arrived unannounced. And it even means being uncomfortable with strangers at our table, so to speak. And literally, even just last night, we had our, we began again the second Saturday potlucks that will continue through the rest of the program year. And as it has been for other times when I have joined in community meals, there's a little bit of awkwardness when you approach a table or when someone approaches yours. When we engage in radical hospitality, we might feel uncomfortable with the folks at our table and the folks who have circled round. But that's okay. Marshall reminds us that radical hospitality is in the roots of our Unitarian Universalist faith. He referenced how Jesus was accused of inviting people from the margins to his table, the sinners, the tax collectors, and those who would normally not be welcome at a dinner party. Jesus was becoming belonging for the social outcasts of his day. In many ways, that was his theological statement. You, too, belong here. You, too, are saved by love. We Unitarian Universalists follow in that tradition when we honor each other's worth and dignity, as well as our own. We open ourselves to the strangers who are among us. We open ourselves to their stories, to how their life looks through their eyes. We stretch ourselves to accommodate this person's view of the world. We are expanding the circle to become belonging for our neighbors. We also see this expansion of a circle when we fast forward 18 centuries, from the days of the early Jesus movement to the days of Edwin Markham. Born in 1852, Markham was poet laureate of Oregon from 1923 to 1931. In Unitarian Universalist circles, we know Markham for the short poem he wrote, the one that gets recited as an example of universalist beliefs about love, salvation, acceptance, and belonging. Complete with the original male pronouns, it goes like this. He drew a circle that shut me out. Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win. We drew a circle that took him in. This redrawing of the circle, this redefinition of boundaries of who is in and who is out. This is powerful work indeed. Our Universalist ancestors offer us a radical understanding of belonging, a belief that there is a love large enough to include everyone. Let me muddy the waters though. While there may indeed be a love that is big enough to include everyone, that does not mean it is easy or simple. In fact, I have some hard questions to ask about circles and belonging. What about, for example, when we are the ones about which the campfire's tall tales are being told, when the funny stories told by the powerful are actually harmful lies about the powerless? Or what if family reunions are not just uncomfortable but harmful to our health? Or perhaps we're not even invited, for we have been disowned. These sorts of circles are not about belonging, they're about not belonging. For some of us, we aren't even in the circle. And that can be painful. Similarly, there are experiences about boundaries and belonging that go beyond the personal to the political, the historical. It is, after all, the weekend before Indigenous people's day, which is tomorrow. What does it mean to belong given the historical context of colonization in which we live? Who belongs here? Back in June of this year, officials of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and elected leaders and citizens of the Ho-Chunk nation, they dedicated a new heritage marker that was placed on campus, on Bascom Hill. This plaque was a joint effort, and it reads as follows. The University of Wisconsin-Madison occupies ancestral Ho-Chunk land, a place their nation has called Dejope since time immemorial. In an 1832 treaty, the Ho-Chunk were forced to cede this territory. Decades of ethnic cleansing followed, when both the federal and state government repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, sought to forcibly remove the Ho-Chunk from Wisconsin. The history of colonization informs our shared future of collaboration and innovation. Today, UW Madison respects the inherent sovereignty of the Ho-Chunk nation, along with the 11 other First Nations of Wisconsin. Let me repeat that year, 1832. That was a year that the Ho-Chunk people were forced to cede this territory, including this land on which we are worshiping today. 1832. That was just 20 years before the poet, Edwin Markham, was born. So the question is, who is drawing the circle? Who is in power? Who is deciding who is in and who is out? The Reverend Alicia Ford is a contemporary Unitarian Universalist who gets at some of these same questions in her piece entitled, We Are Not Guests. Though lengthy, it's worth sharing in its entirety. She writes, am I a guest here, here in this house? Are you? Are we guests here, here in this house, and whose house do we inhabit? In this small world of our lives, the borders between us, the easements, the fences, the gates, and hedges, they serve to delineate, to separate us, to remind us of where my property begins and ends, where your property begins and ends. If you cross over, you are a trespasser or a guest in my house. You've worked to own this small plot of land and the house erected on it. You've claimed it. It is now part of yourself, your definition of self, your identity. If I cross over your fences, I am a trespasser or a guest in your house. What does it mean then that in 1845, the United States crossed over into Mexico and took half of that country, took land, resources, labor? Was the US trespasser guest? She continues, are there to be no consequences for taking what does not belong to you? Should we simply forget whose house we inhabit? To speak of hospitality in immigration often erases historical context, the actions of the past that have led us step by step into this current predicament. Professor Miguel de Latores writes, perhaps it might be more accurate to speak of the responsibility of restitution rather than the virtue of hospitality. Hospitality in this case implies that the house belongs to us, that the land, the resources that are part of this house is ours. And we who now live here are being virtuous in our willingness to share. It erases the history that would have us remember that those who crossed the border today, those who are choosing to brave the harsh conditions of the desert, those who face the possibility of death, imprisonment, deportation, criminalization, they are doing so because the US once crossed their borders to extract their resources and labor. It is for them a matter of survival. It is for the US a matter of restitution. Reverend Ford's continues, the prospect of restitution is scary. Where do we begin? With Mexico? With Native Americans? With territories? With the descendants of those who were enslaved? How do we acknowledge and address the complexities of our history present and, if we're not conscious, future of dominance? What would right relationship look like? What conditions and considerations would make restitution possible? And for us Unitarian Universalists, what would it mean for us to shake off the idea of hospitality as a central principle that is often attached to immigration and delve into the concept of restitution? Whose house do we inhabit? For we are not hosts. We are not owners. Nor are we guests. What then is our responsibility? So we have some Unitarian Universalists who are advocating for radical hospitality for the expansion of the circle. This call implies an inner circle identity or positionality. Other you use are calling to draw the circle wider even if it means we are drawing the circle from outside its original location. And still other Unitarian Universalists acknowledge the limits of a version of hospitality which is attached to immigration, one in which we hosts are being virtuous in our willingness to share. This acknowledges power dynamics and advocates for a larger justice, one grounded in taking responsibility, one based on restitution. Because we belong to a faith tradition that values the inherent worth and dignity of every person and that believes in a circle big enough for everyone, a love large enough to hold us all, then it seems to me that it is possible to listen to all of these calls at the same time. Yes, we absolutely should offer radical hospitality when we are in a position to do so. And yes, we should absolutely draw the circle wide enough to include even those who have done us wrong without condoning their actions. And yes, we should absolutely take responsibility by offering restitution and in doing so help to repair the circle. There is a love large enough for everything to belong. I am held by this love. You are held by this love. All that we love is held by this love. Indeed everything, even that which is beyond our comprehension is held by this love. Now, if you remember the last part of the song goes, we rest in this love. And as we rest in this love, I hope that we may be renewed, renewed by this rest. For there are circles to expand. And together we are called to do the work of this world, ensuring that everyone knows belonging. Blessed be and amen. One of the ways we ensure belonging and expand our circle is by having an outreach offering every week. You will see in your red floors that our outreach offering is going to native vote. Wisconsin native vote works to combat historic voter disenfranchisement and contemporary vote barriers to voting by educating voters, registering people to vote and working to improve policies that impact native communities access to polls. In a spirit of generosity, I invite you now into a time of giving and receiving or the giving and receiving of today's offering. And we also appreciate the many gifts of those who helped our service this morning. Our lay ministers today are Karen Rose Gredler and John McDonough. Our greeter this morning was Dorrit Bergen. Our ushers today are Thomas Dolmage, Sue Hogg and Gail Bliss, providing hospitality after service for Genie Hills. And at our welcome table is Tom Hiney. We also have two additional opportunities to let you know of today. First, registration continues for our journey circles. Our theme based small groups meet monthly and we have openings for you. Find information and register in the commons following worship. Also today at 1230 after the service, we will be celebrating our new solar panels with a ribbon cutting ceremony here in the atrium. All welcome to join the festivities. Part of being a community in a circle is bringing our cares to one another. We offer up a book to be written in and we bring the gratitude from Gail Bliss for electricity. Just thinking of our friends in California who are going without. We also give gratitude for the new solar generating system that Alyssa just mentioned. We will be celebrating after worship today. And we are grateful also that after lightning strikes we are able to have an automatic door. We have a generator or something. A generator, yes. That helps us when lightning does strike our facilities to be able to have what we need to be welcoming really. We know that there are many, many joys and sorrows not written in the book. The ones that remain written on our hearts and in our minds as we hold ourselves and those close to us. Our larger community, our state, our country, our world, and all of its beauty and horror. We take time each week to remember and hold dear among us all the complexity of our lives together. Let's just take a minute to be with our thoughts and feelings being held by love beyond our comprehension. May we remember that we are part of a web of life that makes us one with all humanity, one with all the universe. May we be grateful for the miracle of life that we share in the hope that gives us the power to care, to remember and to love. And we share our love by singing together. Our closing hymn is number 155, Circle Round for Freedom. We invite you to stand in body and or spirit. The melody line is printed in the middle. It's the middle of the three lines. That's what I'll be singing. You may sing whatever you wish, of course. For the tune. Let's sing that one more time together. We prepare to move back out into the wider circle of the larger world. May we remember that we circle round for freedom so that we can keep the circle whole for everyone. We extinguish our chalice remembering in the words of John Donahue that to be human is to belong until we circle round together again. Go in peace, blessed friends. Go in peace. I invite you to be seated for one final gift of music today.