 That first Unitarian Society, that's how we say good morning and welcome to another Sunday here at First Unitarian Society, where independent thinkers gather in a safe nurturing environment, that would be this environment right here, to explore issues of social, spiritual and ethical significance as we try to make a difference in this world. I'm Steve Goldberg, a very proud, multi-talented member of this congregation, and I'd like to extend a special welcome to any guests, visitors, or newcomers. If this is your first time at First Unitarian Society, I think you'll find it's a very special place, and if you'd like to learn more about our special buildings, we'll be offering a guided tour right after the service. Just gather over here by the windows, and we'll take good care of you. And speaking of taking good care of each other, this is a perfect time to silence your electronic devices, because you won't need them for the next hour. Instead, during the next hour, you'll be enjoying today's service, which I know will touch your heart, stir your spirits, and trigger one or two new thoughts. We're glad you're here, and we invite you to sit back and join in a moment of centering silence so we can be fully present with each other this morning. And that's enough silence, now for our un-gathering hymn. I invite us to rise in the ways that we do. We'll be singing together 295, sing out praises for the journey. Pilgrims we who carry on, searchers in the soul's deep yearnings, like a forebears in their time. We seek out the Spirit's wholeness in the endless human quest. Inside your souls the kindling of the hearthfire pilgrims knew. Find the Spirit, always restless, find each mind and heart. Touch and hold that ancient hold, facing futures yet on us. Wayside hostile, built by those who wear their savers here. Remaining standing for our opening words and the lighting of our chalice, Marni Harmony suggests, if we stay inside of 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 of worship. Will you join me in our chalice-lighting words printed in the Order of Service as we spark the flame? Together we say, we light this chalice in honor of first steps, for beginnings even when the path ahead is unclear, for the courage it takes to trust that the way will reveal itself, that light will come to clarify our vision, that friends will be by our side. I invite you to turn towards each other and offer a friendly greeting now. Good morning. No, you're fine. You're fine. Glad you're here. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Glad you're here. Hello. Oops. Good morning. So we invite anyone who'd like to come forward now to share a story together. Well, hello. Good morning. Hello. Good morning. Glad you're here. Good morning. Good morning. Hello. You look nice and warm today. It's a good day for that. Oh, yeah, it's beautiful. I like that. Well, good morning, everyone. It's so good to see you all. So you know this book? I have that book. You have it. Excellent. Well, so your third time reading it, well, you maybe can help me with it. So we are continuing to explore the idea of journey. This is the last Sunday in the month where we'll be exploring that theme. And so the theme of journey reminds us that every day we take part in a lot of different journeys together. And so we explore together here Sunday after Sunday how we can be in journey together. So there are many ways that we journey. Sometimes we journey in the way that we go to school, in the way that we go out together for vacation, in the way that we shop together, all sorts of ways. And this is one story about a journey and people discovering things perhaps that they don't expect. It's called The Last Stop on Market Street. Words by Matt De La Pena and Christian Robinson does the pictures. CJ pushed through the church doors, skipped down the steps. The outside air smelled like freedom, but it also smelled like rain with freckled shirt and dripping down his nose. CJ ducked under his nana's umbrella saying, how come we got away for the bus in all this wet? Trees get thirsty too, his nana told him. Don't you see that big one drinking through a straw? CJ looked a long time, but he never saw a straw. Do you see a straw? I don't see it. You do. Excellent. From the bus stop, he watched water pool on flower petals, watched the rain patter against the windshield of a nearby car. His friend Colby climbed in and gave CJ a wave and drove away. How come we don't have a car? CJ asked. Boy, what do we need a car for? We've got a bus that breathes fire. And old Mr. Dennis, well, he always has a trick for you. The bus creaked to a stop in front of them. It sighed and sagged and the doors swung open. It's a city bus. Why do you think it breathes fire? Do you know what that means? It is really cool. I think that this is set in San Francisco, so it's an electric bus. So it's hooked up to electric wires and you see sparks. It doesn't actually breathe fire, but it looks like it. Exactly. So what I see, said Mr. Dennis, what is that I see? Mr. Dennis asked and he pulled a coin from behind CJ's ear and placed it in his palm. Nana laughed, the deep laugh, and pushed CJ along. They sat right up front. The man across the way was tuning a guitar. An old woman with curlers had butterflies in a jar. Nana gave everyone a great big smile and a good afternoon and she made sure that CJ did the same. The bus lurched forward and stopped. Lurched forward and stopped. Nana hummed as she knit. How come we always got to go here after church, CJ said? Miguel and Colby never have to go anywhere. I feel sorry for those boys, she told him. They'll never get a chance to meet Bobo or the sunglasses man. And I hear Trixie's got herself a brand new hat. CJ stared out the window feeling sorry for himself and he watched as the cars zip by on either side and watched a group of boys hop curbs on bikes. A man climbed aboard with a spotted dog. CJ gave up his seat. How come that man can't see? Boy, what do you know about seeing? Nana asked him. Some people watch the world with their ears. That's a fact. Their noses too, the man said, sniffing the air. That's a mighty fine perfume you're wearing today, ma'am. Nana squeezed the man's hand and laughed. Her deep laugh. Two older boys got on next. CJ watched as they moved on by and stood in the back. Sure wish I had one of those, he said. They have their headphones in. What for? Nana said, setting down her knitting. You've got the real thing sitting across from you. Why don't you ask that man if he'll play you a song? CJ didn't even have to. The guitar player was already plucking strings and began to sing. To feel the magic of music, the blind man whispered, I'd like to close my eyes. Nana closed her eyes too. So did CJ and the spotted dog. And in the darkness, the rhythm filled CJ and lifted him out of the bus, out of the busy city. He saw sunset colors swirling over the crashing waves. He saw a family of hawks slicing through the sky. He saw the old woman's butterflies dancing free in the light of the moon. CJ's chest grew full and he was lost in the sound. And the sound gave him the feeling of magic. The song ended and CJ opened his eyes. And everyone on the bus clapped, even the boys in back. Nana glanced at the coins in CJ's palm and CJ dropped it in the man's hat. Last stop on Market Street, Mr. Dennis called. CJ looked around as he stepped off the bus, crumbling sidewalks and broken down doors, graffiti tagged windows and boarded up stores. He reached for his Nana's hand. How come it's always so dirty over here? She smiled and pointed to the sky. Sometimes when you're surrounded by dirt, CJ, you are a better witness for what is really beautiful. CJ saw the perfect rainbow arching over their soup kitchen. He wondered how his Nana always found beautiful things where he never even thought to look. He looked around them again as the bus rounded the corner out of sight and the broken street lamp still lit up bright and the stray cat's shadows moved across the wall. When he spotted their familiar faces in the window, he said, I'm glad we came. These familiar faces. He thought his Nana might laugh, her deep laugh, but she didn't. She patted him gently on the head and told him, me too, CJ, now, come on. So where do you think their destination was at the end of the bus ride? Where did they go? The soup kitchen ride. And so on their journey, I wonder what do you remember that they saw or the people that they met? What are some of the things that happened on their bus ride that maybe they didn't expect? What did they see or do? Yeah, they didn't expect music to be on the bus and so that was a surprise. What else did they see that at least you remember? Yeah. Yes, what else? The blind man, yes, exactly. And then when they got off the bus, as they were walking, what else did they see? I have an idea. Yeah. A rainbow. A rainbow, right, exactly. And the story doesn't really say why they go to the soup kitchen. What makes them go and help out there? I wonder, why do you think they do that? There's no right or wrong answer, but why do you think they would go help at a soup kitchen? Yeah, what? Because they're what? I'm sorry? Right, they might be hungry themselves, exactly. Why else might they be helping at the soup kitchen? Right, so people might not be able to afford food and so this is a place for them to get that. Yeah, what are you thinking? So they need more people to help because so many people need to go to the soup kitchen, yeah. So a lot of times when we go on journeys, there are all sorts of things that we discover and so many different reasons why we do that. And so when you come here, what we hope is that you think more and more about what's important in your life and we help each other notice more about what's beautiful and wonderful and things that are worth thinking about and about connecting with each other. So yeah, please. Yes, sure. The last last page or the this one? Yes. Yeah, let's see why people in the soup kitchen. Yeah, it's interesting that there's, but it's kind of hard to tell just from the illustrations. Like it kind of suggests the kinds of people that might be at the soup kitchen, but that's an interesting thing to notice. So I hope that as you come here, you have the chance more and more to think about how you make your way through your day and what sorts of opportunities for kindness as well as just noticing and being curious about life. So we will sing you out with hymn number 356, Will You Seek In Far Off Places? Thank you for sharing the story with me. I'll see you at the end of the service. May we rise in all the ways that we do as we sing together. Will You Seek In Far Off Places? Surely you come home at last. In familiar forms and faces, things best known you who find the best. Joy and peace are in this hour. Dear Nadia's, here in this beloved flower, now in this beloved fair. You may be seated in preparation for our time of reflection. Two short readings. The first is taken from the writing of Claire North and her novel, The Sudden Appearance of Hope. It begins with some simple definitions. Pilgrim, pilgrimage to journey to a sacred place. Pilgrim, a traveler or wanderer, a stranger in a foreign land. Hajj, the journey to Mecca, one of the five pillars of Islam. Pleasant perhaps to say that I am a pilgrim, looking at it, counting the swirl of white as the devout move among the sacred stones in Mecca, watching the fans scream at the movie premiere, listening to old men sitting on their benches by the sea who report that everything changes, and that's okay. Forgive me, but who isn't a pilgrim? The second reading is from the theologian Richard R. Niebuhr. Pilgrims are persons in motion, passing through territories not their own, seeking something we might call completion, or perhaps the word clarity will do as well, a goal to which only the spirit's compass points the way. Here ends the readings. As we move into our time of reflection, it is my great joy that for the next couple of weeks, which is an ongoing tradition here, we will be inviting into worship some of the participants in the Odyssey project, and we'll say a little more about that project later, but we are deeply honored to have the creative sharing as part of our reflection today, and so we begin our reflection time with a poem by Kina Atkinson. Welcome, Kina. Good morning. My poem is titled Journey to the Journey. I am a woman in motion, always on the go, picking up new hats to stack on top of my wild and curly fro. I have lived so many lives in my life, and as I grow, I better my best. Shofur to my teenager, snap goddess to my tot, two thumbs that can develop an entire company from just a thought. From journey to journey, start to start, I've walked my path to where I am standing, with the lifetime of experiences carried in my heart. I was a little black girl who sobbed after school every day because my skin wasn't fair enough for my peers to find me to play. I began to hate myself, my hair, my skin. I wished my skin wasn't brown. I'm sorry, my little black girl light started to dim. I wished my skin wasn't brown with all my might. I even asked God when I was nine to just make me white. I begged, I pleaded, I didn't want to exist. If being black and a girl meant hurting like this, even though it was dim, I carried my light. A tiny bit shined on my path, and I walked it despite being physically abused, mentally misused, a teen mother confused, a foster kid refused. Single parents suddenly I applied to UW Odyssey reluctantly. Homeless and depressed, my entire life was a mess. Yet still one day, I took that tiny, huge step and applied to the program in 2009. Little did I know my Odyssey would feed my brain. When I asked God to make me stronger, I didn't know he'd take, when I asked God to make me stronger and to take away my pain, I didn't know that I'd have to fight harder or that I'd have so much to gain. I didn't know that I'd have to confront the things that kept me locked in my own cave. I didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't even know me, but slowly I was budding. I was becoming free. I didn't know how small steps become leaps and how leaps become bounds. I didn't know about art history or word compounds. I didn't know that my Wednesday night Odyssey would introduce me to me. I didn't know that five years later, I'd have a small business, a new baby, and a bachelor's degree. I didn't know... Thank you. I didn't know that in 10 years I would go from being homeless to providing housing, from carrying a dim little light to shining bright, walking a path, getting lost, and even flooded to creating a path of my own in my city where the prison at the end of the pipe is fully funded. I've found liberation in the power of words and language, how beautiful it is the way education sets you free, how representation means that you can see you inside of me, how empowering me to empower myself means empowering groups of people to find power in themselves, how having real support and a ton of will can move someone to pursue their dreams instead of a dollar bill, journeying forward, pressing on, learning to love my beautiful black self, handling business and being a mom, teaching yoga, serving my community, and dancing all day long. I've learned to grow what serves my purpose and let the rest go because in order for this journey to start, I had to learn a complete sentence, the word no. No, I won't be broken. No, I won't defer my dreams. No, it won't be easy and I won't let fear drive me. No, I won't wait to start living. No, I won't shrink. No, I won't neglect my own health and I won't apologize for being me. No, I won't stop putting in the word daily to be a better me. No, I won't stop this journey. This is my Odyssey. Thank you. Well, that concludes our service for today. What more could I say after that? But I'll try. In many ways, what we just experienced together reminds me, whether we call it an Odyssey or a soulful journey, or as I want to explore today the word pilgrimage, why it is so important to us as Unitarian Universalists to explore something that in many ways, in many forms is a component of almost every major religion. Whether it is the pilgrimage that takes place in Buddhism that's known as the Bodh Gaya to India, or the way of Saint James to the Camino de Santiago, which people from all over the world every year participate in in Spain, or people of faith in Islam who are called to the Hajj, one of the five essential pillars of their faith in every Muslim adult is expected to undertake it if they are physically and financially able. These literal kinds of pilgrimages have the common thread of inviting people to journey and to search in places that are spiritual or religious or in some way deeply meaningful. And in those journeys, often still in as simple a form as possible, either on foot or in the very basic kind of wheeled conveyance, still people all over the world again and again find powerful transformative meaning by undertaking those journeys. And we Unitarian Universalists in a very real sense have our own sort of pilgrimages that we have taken when we want to know more deeply about who we are as people of faith. We often travel to some of the villages and places in Boston to learn about some of our earliest roots here in the United States. Many of us repeatedly have gone to Selma to remind ourselves of a time in our history where many of us felt called by our deepening relationships with African American communities to stand up and be present in important time in history. And we return to that place to remind ourselves of the essence that still we wish to be alive within our souls. And many of us travel to Europe, especially congregations that participate in the Partner Church program to visit our Partner Church congregations in Transylvania to learn about the very old form of our tradition and the ways maybe that it lives on and who we are as well. But as is also in keeping with our Unitarian Universalist way of doing things, there is such a broad set of ways that we can understand journey and pilgrimage and odyssey to speak to the deeper part of who we are. We may understand that it is in its very form a metaphor for our lives and we may see our lives as an ongoing pilgrimage. We may find a variety of ways to journey into, in the midst of, into the heart of the sacred. And so it seems important to us as Unitarian Universalists to think a little bit about what that word sacred might mean as I use it today. And I will borrow from UU minister Patrick O'Neill and he speaks of the sacred in this way. There is something innate in human nature, something basic to our civilized sensibility that recognizes certain distinctions of worth in reality. And the name we have traditionally given to the highest of these is the holy or the sacred. O'Neill is suggesting that there is a part of human existence that evokes an attitude of reverence, of awe, of ultimate respect, a category of transcendence. And we lend to those experiences the name sacred. He concludes that his own sense of the sacred in the days when he wrote this is most concerned with all of the relatedness of life and our recognition of it, our participation in it and our own place within the web of existence. For me he says finally the sacred is that place which binds us to all living things and to the earth which is our home. Perhaps it means to see the world as journey, as pilgrimage, to see in that understanding how again and again that deep sense of relationship might come alive in our spirits and in the very way that we live day to day. Robin Drana Tagore wrote, I traveled an old road every day and one morning suddenly there was a trimmer in the air and the sky seemed to kiss me on my forehead. My mind started up like the morning out of mist. My everyday wisdom was ashamed. It was the best luck of my life that I lost my path that morning and found my eternal childhood. What journeys happen in your life, whether extraordinary or ordinary, that invite you back to that sense of wonder. It is a pilgrimage in our lives when we experience the fatigue of the hard work of travel, whether it is to our job or around the world. It is pilgrimage when we relax and feel satisfied at the feeling of arrival. It is pilgrimage and journey when the curiosity of exploration sets our minds and imaginations on fire. It is journey when enthusiasm, mixed with the bitter sweet, is experienced at times of parting. In every way that we are committed to and work towards something that is meaningful in all of the ways that we as human beings desire some sense of place, a fullness of our life, some connection with a meaningful and sustaining peace. Every time that we see the sacred in that which binds us to each other and to all things and makes the earth feel more our home. It is important, I think, as we explore in our own lives what it might mean to more often see our day-to-day life or any time that we travel is an opportunity for deeper growth. By looking at a couple of examples of what pilgrims, those who wander have embodied over and over again in their journey that has helped them connect more with the sacred as they travel. One of the things that is most essential is that they again and again remind themselves that journey always offers us the opportunity to encounter something of deep importance in our life if we will remain open to it. And in particular, if we are willing to let that journey change us, move us in ways sometimes that we don't expect or pull us out of what is comfortable, that we allow every journey the possibility of being our teacher. Wendell Berry reminds us the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet and learn to be at home. Whether it is in our intentional journeys to places far or near, in just our most daily journeys, in our largest understanding of our life's journey, it can even be the way that we as community hear day into week into year journey together how by bringing an intention that our journey has deep importance to us and to all of us, by bringing the intention that we, when we can, open ourselves to being transformed by the truth of that importance. When we practice that alone and together, we do powerful, life-changing work. It reminds us that we need all that is part of that journey. The times of joy and celebration and we need the times of pain and testing as well. We need the grief and anxiety because all of those things are what really make our life sacred. It is often the case as we journey that we are something like a voyager in a very small boat and we have floated out into a great lake and we have gotten just far enough from the shore that we have just left that we can no longer see that shore behind us but we are not far enough over the lake that we can see where it is that we think we are going next. And when we are in that situation in our journeys day to day or beyond, any slight rocking of the boat can fill us with incredible anxiety and panic about our lives. We are so unsure in those moments. But in those moments especially, if we find ways to be really present to what is true, we experience incredible possibility and in its own way, life-giving freedom. The snow was dancing eerily around her as she got into the car and drove away from the retreat center. And while it had not been exactly the meditation retreat that she had hoped for, it was at least enough to make her feel more relaxed as she began a several-hour drive back home. And she realized that she had carried some very intense expectations to this retreat because so much in her life, from her work to her personal life to even her own meditation practice had begun to feel deeply unsettling and challenging. And because this had been a new retreat setting and new facilitators, she realized that perhaps the expectations that this single meditation retreat would do such heavy lifting was an unrealistic expectation. But as she drove along this road, she began to think about her life. And before she knew it, she had made her way several miles from the retreat center and she noticed, actually, that the snow was no longer eerily dancing around her. As a matter of fact, it was pummeling down rather hard and beginning to cover the road in front of her. And on her dashboard, there were warning lights indicating that the temperature outside was conducive to icy conditions and that her wheels were already doing a lot of work to keep traction on the road. Now, under the best of circumstances, driving was for her a very difficult experience and one that often caused her anxiety. And as a matter of fact, many times in driving, sometimes just in heavy traffic, she would have panic attacks. And as she was making her way on this unfamiliar road, knowing how many miles it was before she was even to a major highway, she found herself feeling within her that growing and mounting sense of panic. She looked for something within her that would allow her both to be calmer but also to continue to focus on the path ahead. She remembered that all during the retreat, the songwriter part of her mind had been mulling over these scraps of melody that often were just intervals or little bits and pieces of melody. And so as she drove, she began to use it as a sort of practice to weave them together. And she very naturally found some of the words that they had just used as part of the end of their meditation time, the loving-kindness meditation, as words that just naturally, organically, found their way into these scraps of melody. And as she held the steering wheel tightly, she found herself thinking and then voicing this simple melody. May I be at peace and he's and no the joy of my true nature know the joy of my true nature. And as she just began to sing that one phrase, she felt something shifting within her. And as the loving-kindness meditation invited, she found herself just naturally thinking about the other travelers who were also leaving from the retreat center and making their way home in this weather and imagining in each of them and wishing something for them and thinking about the people that she loved all over the country in their homes and reaching out to them in that moment and weaving into her own song. May you be at one and well within a sea of loving-kindness in a sea of loving-kindness. As she kept repeating those phrases again and again, she just found naturally that her breathing began to ease and her mind was called both fully present into that car but also into something larger. And she found herself offering a blessing to everything around her. May all be free from suffering. May all be safe from harm. May all be sheltered in deep compassion. She blessed the trees around her, the snowy road in front of her, her little car that was still somehow magically on that road. But most of all, she blessed that she had journeyed forth looking for some deeper answers about her life. And now as she was driving home, she felt more powerfully how deeply she over and over again let fear stop her or hold her back from risking the most important things in her life. In that moment, in that car, in that expression of love, she felt something holy and sacred and it was a blessing. Elizabeth Gilbert wrote this, I have come to believe that there exists in the universe something I call the physics of the quest, a force of nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity or momentum, and it goes something like this. If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting, which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments, if you can set out on a truth seeking journey either externally or internally, and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some difficult realities about yourself, then the truth will not be withheld from you. This, I believe. Amen. And blessed be. As we think about the way that we journey and we move into our time of offering, it is my honor to invite Shar Braxton to come join me up here. As we move into our time of offering in a moment after our reading, we are grateful for the sharing of the Odyssey project that invites folks that might not otherwise have the experience to encounter the transformation of the humanities and see how it speaks their life into power. So we are deeply grateful for the sharing of some of the fruits of that journey. Welcome, Shar. Thank you so much for having us here and also for the support to the Odyssey program. It does really help out with education and also the many journeys of the Odyssey participants. So my poetry is called Crossing the Ocean. My guidance counselor said, you are not college material. You're not college material. You are not college material. Those words bounced off the walls and ceiling before each word shot straight at my heart and ripped it open. Dreams shredded into thin sheets of paper. The white kids rejoicing Harvard, Georgetown, UW Madison. Darkness, non void. I did not matter. Years of doubt and rock bottom pain. Please, please help me to live again. A colorful arch of enrichment appears. The storm is over and the blue sky is clear. Odyssey created a passion in me. Learn, read, write. Be strong. Humanities, English, James Baldwin, I am transformed. Climbing, reaching, making positive choices. Wu, sheng zai, shang, Zheng Wen, Da Shui, Ke Cheng. I am taking Chinese college courses. Encouragement, faith and laughter are my friends. One day I will travel to China and teach in Beijing. Dear Mr. Guidance Counselor, I invite you to come with me. Set sail, release anger, the fortunes of forgiveness. Let's journey together. Thank you. Knowing that 50% of our offering will go to benefit the ongoing work of Odyssey Project, may a spirit of generosity and of sharing inhabit our offering as it is now gratefully given and received. So thank you for your generosity and support of the UW Odyssey Project. I know a few things about this project and I can tell you it makes a huge, huge difference. Something else that makes a difference is the volunteer support that we get every weekend to make sure that these services run smoothly. Special thanks to David Bryles for operating the sound system. To Anne Smiley for serving as our lay minister. To Claire Box and Leslie Bartlett for serving as our greeters this morning. And our ushers, Jed Downs, Robin Downs, Anne Ostrom, Marty Hollis and Brian Channis. In the kitchen making sure that the coffee is hot. Bistnitschke and Sandra Plisch, thank them during the hospitality hour if you will. Our tour guide is John Powell. The flowers that you see behind me were donated by Tim Phillips in honor of Gabrielle Rochester. John Tues took care of the watering of the foliage up here to make sure it's green and healthy. And our information table is staffed by Rob Savage. And those are all examples of stewardship here at First Unitarian Society. Another example of stewardship is our campaign where we are generating resources for First Unitarian Society because of your stewardship. And that campaign is going well. A lot of you and fellow members have increased pledges above last year's level. A lot of us have made multi-year commitments, making us sustaining stewards. And we have a lot of new donors, new pledgers who haven't pledged before or who are recently joined as members, so we appreciate that new gesture of stewardship. So because of you, because of that stewardship, we are able to offer all the programs and services that we enjoy here at FUS. Starting with our religious education and youth programming. And you saw the response of the kids this morning to the message for all ages. I had a front row seat so I could see their faces and their body language and their noises and their sounds and everything else. And I just tell that they're going to grow up feeling valued here because of you. And because of you, families can thrive here because of you, we are able to be a spiritual home across all generations in the congregation. And because of you, we are going to be able to increase our capacity to host meaningful community events in this welcoming space, thus deepening our connection to the community and providing an ongoing revenue stream to help fund the programs and services and operating costs of this organization. And because of you, we have a louder voice in social justice, including our connection with programs such as the UW Odyssey Project. And because of you, we're going to be able to leverage our world-class music program as a community outreach tool. All of that because of you. And because of you, we're going to have a special celebration on Friday, this week, April 5th, from 6 to 8 p.m. right here celebrating your stewardship. Whether it's financial or volunteer or in kind, we want to celebrate all forms of stewardship that make this organization what it is. So if you haven't responded yet and reserved your spot at the... because of you celebration, you and your family are invited and you'll see the RSVP instructions in today's Red Floor's Bulletin. So please take a look at that. Let us know you're going to be there so that we have enough food for everybody. And speaking of food, every week we provide a food fight restaurant gift certificate, gift card for somebody who's been participating in our stewardship effort here at First Unitarian Society. And today's gift card goes to Emily Kuzik and Bill Putnam. Are we here? Thank you. Would you tell us, before I give this to you, tell us why you and Bill are participating in our stewardship effort? Should have gotten my husband to come up and collect it. This has been our spiritual home here for quite some time. It's helped me through a lot of rough times and given me the first place I could bring my son that was an open and welcoming community and it helped us lend our family in a very, I guess, just way full of grace and found lots of wonderful friends here of all different walks of life. So I really enriched our lives in many ways. Thank you, Emily, and I'm sure Bill has nothing to add because I think you said it all and I know how active you and your family have been in First Unitarian Society. Well, a chance for all of you to continue being active as stewards. Thanks for everything you do. Because of you, this campaign is going really well and because of you, we're going to celebrate a wonderful bit of stewardship this Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. If you have questions about your own pledge, please see Cheryl and or Florence. If you're standing at the back of the room, they'll be in the comments to answer any questions you have about your pledge in our stewardship campaign. Thanks for your stewardship. May we know that today, after the service, our pre-K childless children will be culminating Teddy Bear Month with a Teddy Bear Parade. You'll get to see it during the fellowship time. They'll entertain us with musical instruments and their levies. Teddy Bears are something else adorable and their glowing faces. Please be sure to give them your appreciation and attention for their efforts. They will come through in a few minutes. And starting this weekend, board members will be available here in the atrium auditorium after the service for about 20 minutes to explore with you any questions or thoughts you have about the interim process and make sure that you stay in the loop about what it's all about. As we move towards our closing hymn, we use it as an opportunity, appropriate for this hymn, to think about our connections with each other and remember the ways that we are together in our joys and in our struggles and how powerful that connection is. May we rise in all the ways that we do as we join in number 1064 Blue Boat Home. Oh, below me I feel no motion Standing on these mountains and plains Far away from the ocean Still my dry land heart can say I've been sailing o'er life now Never harbor or port have I known The wide universe is the ocean I traveled And the earth is my blue boat Sun, my sail and moon by the starry sea Leaning over the edge in wonder Casting questions into the deep Drifting here with my ship's companions All we kindred pilgrim souls Making away by the lights of the heavens And a beautiful blue boat home I give thanks to the waves upholding me Hail the great winds urging me on Greet the infinite sea before me Sing the sky my sailor song I was born upon atoms Never harbor or port have I known Earth is the ocean I traveled And the earth is my blue boat home And now as we prepare to leave this place In all of our journeys far and wide May we practice the pathway of seeing the importance of our lives Recognizing the teachers always around us May we feel deeply connected to each other And to the earth as our home We extinguish this chalice but not the light of wisdom The warmth of care and community The fire of our commitment to what matters most in our living These remain until we gather in this place again Before we move on into our day I invite you to take your seat And take in one more gift of music together in worship