 I want to say your mom here, it's very cool. Yeah, we're going to have to work. Look, W, awesome. Yeah, if you can scare anybody, try thinking of it. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm almost there. We're on that screen. No. Well, yeah. I think we're going to have these discussions. This is just what this is all about. This is just what this is all about. I said, yeah. This is not awesome. Yeah. This is just awesome. This is awesome. This is awesome. This is awesome. Yeah. I think they're probably going to get over it. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yeah, I think they're probably going to get over it. Please join in a moment of centering silence so we can be fully present with each other this morning. Even if you're not, please turn to the words for our in-gathering hymn, which you'll find inside your order of service. Welcome to another Sunday service here at First Unitarian Society, where independent thinkers gather in a safe, nurturing, and very musical environment to explore issues of social, spiritual, and ethical significance as we try to make a difference in this world. I'm Steve Goldberg, a proud member of this congregation, and many of you, I am basking in the joy of one extra hour of sleep from last night, but that does not mean that the service will be an hour longer than usual. For those of you who are visitors, guests, or newcomers, I'd like to extend a very special welcome. And if you're interested in learning more about our special buildings, we offer guided tours after most of the services. Just meet over here by the windows. We'll take care of you after the service. We have a tour guide, and things are pretty busy these days right now. We invite you to enjoy our fellowship hour again right after the service. This would be a great time, now that I think of it, to silence all those pesky electronic devices that you just will not need for the next hour. And while you're taking care of that simple but important task, let me remind you that if you're accompanied by a youngster today, that young person would prefer to experience the service from a more private space. We offer a couple options for you, including our child haven in the back corner of the auditorium and some comfortable seating just outside the doorway in the commons from which you and your youngster can hear and see the service. One reason that we are all able to see and hear the service today is because it is brought to us by a wonderful team of volunteers, and I'm talking about Mark Schultz on the sound system and Smiley as our lay minister. Elizabeth Barrett as our friendly smiling greeter upstairs. Doug Hill, Dorrit Bergen and Karen Hill handling the ushering duties to manage this unruly crowd, and hosting the hospitality and coffee after the service. You'll have a chance to thank Trudy Carlson and Chip Quadi. Just a couple announcements before we get on with today's service. They're both about our religious education program, our child's or children's religious education program. We have kids on a waiting list, which is almost as bad as snakes on a plane. Do you have four hours a month and now that you got an extra hour from last night, you just need three more to help nurture our children's social and ethical development. The children's religious education program is so popular, as I said we do have a waiting list, and we're interested in providing an additional session for preschool or kindergarten first grade. If you'd like to help out with this, we'd be more than happy to talk to you about the details. You would be team teaching, so as I said it would only be about four hours a month, and Leslie Ross, our director of children's religious education, would love to talk to you about that. The second announcement also relates to children's religious education. You may have noticed that we have art in the right place today over in the landmark building, also known as shortage of parking places. 47 artists are displaying their art, a chance to purchase a variety of artwork, including woodwork, glass and fiber art, pottery, and all kinds of other artwork. And the proceeds of course will benefit the children's religious education program. On your way over to the bake sale after the service, feel free to purchase a yummy treat for yourself. Proceeds from both the art fair and the bake sale go to children's religious education. The art fair will end at four o'clock today, after which there will be plenty of parking. So, so I think, so end of the announcements, please sit back or lean forward to enjoy today's service. I heard the nine o'clock service, and I can guarantee you that today's service will touch your heart, stir your spirit and trigger one or two new thoughts. We're glad you're here. We're broken hearted. Who woke today with the winds of despair whistling through your mind, come in. You who are brave but wounded, limping through life and hurting with every step, come in. You who are fearful, who lie with shadows hovering over your shoulders, come in. This place is sanctuary and it is for you. You who are filled with happiness, whose abundance overflows, come in. You who walk through your world with lightness and grace, who awoke this morning with strength and hope, you who have everything to give, come in. This place is your calling, a river bank to channel the sweet waters of your life, the place where you are called by the world's deep need. Here we offer in love. Here we receive in gratitude. Here we make a circle from the great gifts of breath, attention and purpose. Come in. You are welcome here. And if you will rise now and body your spirit to join in the words of affirmation for our chalice lighting, they're printed in your order of service. We light our chalice with these hopes that the other side inspires us to build bridges, that a dream inside keeps us awake to our passions, that grief opens us and makes us human and that we risk all to heal and be healed. And before we join together in song, if you'll take a moment to turn and greet those around you. Please be seated. If you arrived here today with a sorrow so heavy that you need the help of this community to carry it, or you woke with a joy so great that it simply must be shared, now is the time for you to share. This time of joys and sorrows is our time in the spirit of acceptance and support to share with one another a special event or circumstance that has affected your life or the life of a loved one in recent days or weeks. This is not a time for general announcements or political opinion, as tempting as that may be. As you share, please remember that our listeners are not limited to the people in this room, as our service is live on the internet as well. So for the next few minutes, anyone who wishes is invited to step to the front of the auditorium, light a candle using the microphone provided by Anne, briefly share with us your message. You may also come forward to wordlessly light a candle, and if you cannot come forward, raise your hand and Anne will bring the microphone to you. I now open the floor for the sharing of our sorrows and our joys. I'm Judy Troyer, and I'm lighting this for my sister-in-law, Sue Eaton, the sister of my late husband, Bruce Griffin. She died in May, and my daughter and I went to her memorial in North Carolina a couple of weeks ago, and it was really wonderful to be with that family again. Also, my cousin Peg, who's battled Parkinson for years, died on October 6th and had her memorial just this past week. She's in Arizona, and I'll be with her family later in the year. May they rest in peace and their families be comforted. Hi, my name is Jackie Scott Papke, and I have two big joys today. The first is that it is my spouse, my partner in crime, my partner in life, Don Scott Papke's 50th birthday today, even though she doesn't look a day over 25, and she's here today. Also, a lot of people know me as an only child, but I actually have a half-sister who's 15 years younger than me, and we were not in each other's lives for 18 years, and I'm happy to say that she and I have been reunited, and she and her boyfriend are here today, and they came to celebrate Don's birthday with us, and I'm just so thrilled that they are both in our lives, and I'm just really grateful, so that's all. Also, my stepdaughter is here today too, and I'm just really happy to expand our family and our love. Thank you. Oh, sure. My name's Theresa Kaufman. I'd just like to ask for everybody's prayers and wishes for a good friend of mine who's in a writers' group I belong to that was abrupt. I suppose cancer diagnoses are usually abrupt, but it seemed particularly abrupt that she, three days after our last meeting, was diagnosed with stage three head and neck cancer. She's had some very serious surgery which may be disfiguring and is recovering now before starting a course of chemotherapy. Hello, good morning. I'm Heather. I have a great joy and gratitude for Dan and the chorus inviting us to sing together for you all today. Thank you for your warm welcome. I'm Morris Wexler, and I'd like to share a great joy. I've had an old friend, well, we're both old now, but Andy Yarrow, who was here with us a few days, visiting with us, and I got the great pleasure of going up to Hurricane Marsh with him yesterday. His father, Curly Radke, started the Hurricane Marsh. So it was grandfather, right, grandfather. His father was much too young to do that. His grandfather, Curly Radke, did that, which was wonderful. So it's been a pleasure. We'll have one more day with him, which is really great. My name is Alyssa Ryan Joy. I'm lighting a candle for Lisa Teet, whose husband, Randy Teet, passed away from pancreatic cancer a couple weeks ago. They had two little kids. Two, so keeping my family at a pulse. Hi, my name's Linda, and I'm lighting a candle in memory of Patricia Leonardi, who passed away on this date one year ago. Hi, I'm Kathy Berge, and I'd just like to ask you to keep my husband, Paul, in your thoughts. He was admitted to the hospital yesterday with an unknown infection, so we're working through that right now. Thank you. And if you will light one last candle for this prayer. Spirit of love help us never to forget. We are your voice, hands, eyes, ears, and heart upon this one precious earth. Help us to live in peace together, serve one another, and see the holy light in everyone, even when those holy lights are especially hard to see. Help us to accept difference and even delight in it. Most of all, no matter how things go, help us to be compassionate today and in all the days to come. And now as we rise in body or spirit for our next hymn, our children and teachers may leave for classes. Please be seated. Our reading this morning from Omid Safi, who is a columnist for On Being. This week we had an interesting situation related to the visit of an international guest, unexpectedly the situation led to a powerful mystical insight that continues to both haunt and inspire me. Our visitor came to us from Turkey, where he is one of the leading musicians. He traveled with his musical instruments, a treasury of a thousand years of sacred music in his heart and his beloved cell phone. He loves to show off pictures of beautiful natural scenes on his phone, especially majestically colorful birds, animals living together in peace and harmony, and scenes of nature's splendor. A masterful artist himself, he pauses periodically after a picture to praise the divine as the ultimate artist. There is a grace about how he relates to his technology. He always makes his human companions still feel like the most important person on earth, only welcoming us inside his own world of beauty and art. The technology somehow amplifies, rather than distracts from his inner world of beauty and sacredness. So graceful, so kind, so lovely. One small problem. Turkish cell phones like many European models use a different electrical outlet. My friend's phone runs not on the 110 volts American outlets, but on the European 220. He had a charging cable, but we couldn't plug it into the wall. This was the way that he reflected on his work of the eternal and also how he keeps up with his wife back home. So with much sadness, we watched the charge on the phone going down and down. So I promised to help. I called the usual big box stores to see if they had an electrical converter. Sadly, they all said the same thing. They sell converters to help Americans travel in Europe, but not the ones for Europeans traveling in the U.S. But at long last, I found a humble store. I described the problem to the person answering the phone, and he confidently said that they had the desired adapter. I asked him if he could hold one for me. He said he would, and I rushed over. As promised, he was holding the item. With a mischievous smile, he said, this will do exactly what you need. I was somewhat surprised by the smile, but went ahead and paid for the item. It wasn't expensive, some $7. Sure enough, it worked. I could plug the European plug into the adapter and the adapter into our electrical outlets. I tested it at the store, and it worked perfectly. The phone came on and started to charge. Hallelujah! I thanked him profusely and began to leave. He still had the mischievous smile on. As I was gathering my belongings, he said to me, you already had the solution within you. Somehow that statement hit me like a Zen Cohen, like the words of a sage who walks around disguising his wisdom inside ordinary everyday situations. I turned around slowly and asked him to repeat what he had said. So again, he said slowly, you already had the solution within you. The world went quiet, and all I could hear was this phrase, already solution with you. Baffled, I looked at him. He asked if he could borrow my friend's European charging cable. I handed it over to him low and behold. He pulled off the cable from the charging unit that attached to the electrical outlet. One end of the cable attached to the phone, the other end was actually a normal, humble USB plug. He said with a smile, you already had the solution. And then explained that while he was happy to sell me the adapter, I didn't need it. I could have charged that phone in any phone with a similar cable almost anywhere. He asked if my friend traveled with a laptop. I said no. He asked if he was staying with me or in a hotel. I was rather puzzled by the relevance of that question, but answered truthfully that he was staying in a hotel. The living sage, disguised as a humble electrical store employee, took the cable, holding it by the USB port, and said, every hotel room has a TV. In the back of all these modern TVs, there's a USB port. You already had the solution for charging. All you have to do is plug this cable into the phone and this cable into the TV's USB port and turn the TV on. The TV will charge the phone. Walking to my car and eventually to my Turkish friend who was so joyous, I kept marveling at the beautiful truth of this statement. How often we, not our phones, but we beings of cosmic dust, mingled with spirit, run low. Low on energy, on breath, on spirit. How often we are dangerously close to running out of power, except that we don't know how to recharge. We run here and there, trying this and that, sometimes a medicine, sometimes an adventurous journey to stimulate ourselves. Do we know ourselves well enough to know that the means of recharging is already hidden within us? We are not machines. No machine can match the subtlety of the human soul. But the one analogy is that like those machines, when the red battery light comes on, we too need to be recharged. And the very means of recharging is already hidden within us. Do we know? Do we know our own selves well enough to know how to do this? Do we know our beloveds well enough to know how to do this with them? Do we realize that different people run on different methods of being charged? For some it is prayer, some meditation, some the gentle touch of a loving soul, some a stroll in the woods. Can we remain humble enough to know that one method that works for one may not recharge another? Each of us needs to recharge in the means that are right or best for us, and that may change from day to day. Whatever it is, let us be aware of the truth, and if we know how to access it, the solution is already within us. And say to those who blame us for the way we chose to fight, that sometimes there are battles that are more right, make them here. For we do them in our struggle, we were not the only ones, make them here. A star can be a star. Thank you. And if you didn't notice in your order of service that it says Meeting House Chorus and James Reeb Choir, thank you to the members of James Reeb who came over here this morning to do two services. This is a collaboration between Heather and Dan, and our choir will be traveling to Reeb next weekend. So thank you all for this wonderful collaboration. Wait until you hear the postlude. The author Anne Lamotte posted the following words a few days ago, which she titled The Chaos of Now. There have been small roving bands of fretful, freaked out liberals in my neighborhood all weekend, gathered in agonies of hopelessness. They're dogs who really have to go, wait patiently at their feet. Then I lumber up the most tightly wound person we know, and they look at me hoping I will say the exact right thing. When I am distressed as I am now, I go to my groups of friends, hoping someone will say the exact right thing to pull me out of the pinball game in my mind. The exact right thing would break the swirling trance of catastrophic thought, hit my heart's reset button and remind me that love and grace bat last. The pond inside me would settle, and I would see through the water that most of my reactive terror and held breath are the survival tools of childhood. The tools did not work very well when I was six, nor do they work well at 62, but I always fished them out first from the battered old toolbox. Remembering this means I can now move on to what may help today, a worried mercy, a vulnerability, wonder. Here is the exact right thing I need to hear. The randomness and racism and brutality are what is, but so are decency, sacrificial love, and goodness. Sometimes the scary sickening voices seem louder than truth and beauty, but they aren't, really. Democracy, the great good thing. One person, one vote is the loudest voice in the land. Maybe God or goodness or good orderly direction or gift of desperation is in whom we move, live, and have our being, but the world is a chaotic place and humanity is a chaotic place, and I am a chaotic place most days. So I take the right action. I get my own emotional acre in order through radical self-care, serving the poor, sharing my M&M's and flirting with the very, very old. Then the insight follows, the one I share with my Sunday school kids every single week that despite all evidence to the contrary, we are loved. We stick together. We share. We listen. Wendell Berry tweeted today, love someone who doesn't deserve it. I'm going to begin with my dog who accidentally ate a pound of butter and the bagels. Then I will work my way up to James Comey and then myself. It's good to be afraid when it mobilizes us to fight tooth and nail for what is right, when it pricks the balloon of our complacency, when it gets us back on our feet. A lot of us are both afraid and devoutly faithful at the exact same time. But what is true and the exact right thing I need to hear today is that courage is fear that has set its prayers. So I too have found myself in the past few weeks among those who might consider themselves gathered in agonies of hopelessness. As I have seen familiar faces in the grocery store or oddly enough at the pool or in the pickup line at school, I have been asked for those magic right words. The words that will make the anxiety go away and give some semblance of hope and peace. I must admit to being uncharacteristically quiet as the only words that pop into my head is this is all so broken. I'm sure we each have our own story of when we realize that there are times when things fall apart, when it can't be put back together, it can't be fixed, that there's brokenness in this world. For me it was the spring of 1980 when at five years old my grandfather passed away suddenly at the age of 64. On that day and in the days shortly after I experienced my first taste of grief, loss, confusion and the realization that part of life is learning how to live amid the brokenness. I also discovered during that time and in reflection looking back with grown-up eyes that there is a power to be found there as well. As Ernest Hemingway once said, the world breaks everyone and afterward some are strong at the broken places. Reading or hearing recent news we can come to the conclusion that our world is indeed broken. There is murder and violence, hatred and terror, abuse and pain. Recent days have been an expose of all that is broken. Our media, racism, misogyny and so much more. We are all so damaged by the process that many of us find it hard to catch a breath. We do not live in a wonderland of peace and joy. We live in the challenging here and now with so much in pieces all around us. So I've been holding tightly to the words of Roshani Ray in a poem she wrote titled Unbroken. There is a brokenness out of which comes the unbroken. A shatteredness out of which blooms the unshatterable. There is a sorrow beyond all grief which leads to joy and a fragility out of whose depth emerges strength. There is a hollow space too vast for words through which we pass with each loss out of whose darkness we are sanctioned into being. There is a cry deeper than all sound whose serrated edges cut the heart as we break open to the place inside which is unbreakable and whole while learning to sing. Brokenness is not the end of our story. As much as we might want to throw up our hands and declare that all is most definitely lost. We know it doesn't end here. We are called to live our lives in the face of brokenness and pain with our hearts wide open. In that openness is strength, hope where we find compassion and courage and the ability to stay awake. Joanna Macy once said, do not be afraid of the anguish you feel or the anger or fear these responses arise from the depth of your caring and the truth of your interconnectedness with all beings. If we can feel all of this we have the capacity and the ability to stay awake during the difficult times. This is a piece of our power that we have witnessed in recent months. People waking up to the disconnection, the dehumanization, the anger, rage, loss, fear and grief. Waking up to this and saying maybe for the first time ever how can I help? What can I do? How do I learn more? Who can I talk to, work with, join? There's an increased awareness and an uptick of action signing petitions, calling legislators, marching in protests, talking with those friends and family members you may have never talked to about this before. Staying awake and getting involved. This strength, this action is the byproduct of hearts that have been broken. Broken down and broken open. Now as a whole, let's just call it like it is. We Unitarian Universalists are not great with that spiritual tenet of detachment. The one that tells us to have a calm acceptance of the way things are. We tend to be the ones who are committed to fixing problems. We want to make things better for our communities, our children, our world. We proclaim that people of good will working together can change the course for the better. This is one of our strengths. We are not generally a humble people. We are a go get em, make it better, fix it today kind of people. Yet what I have seen is a growing humility. A sense that things may be so broken that we can't rush to fix them. We can't rush to the answer without sitting down and sitting with the brokenness. Of listening to the pain of another. Of sharing our own stories. Of being able to say, I don't know as scary as that is. And the only thing I do know is that we are not alone in this struggle. Let's admit it. It may not be fine. We may be in for a long struggle and there may be things we can't fix. With great humility, we turn to each other and say, I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm scared. And in that we find hands willing to hold ours, eyes willing to face our fears with us, and in that connection comes our strength. And together with great humility, we work toward this last piece, the piece that brings healing, and this is the work of forgiveness. Let's be clear on what forgiveness is not. Forgiveness is not about forgiven, forget. Not letting another off the hook for injuries and damage that cannot be repaired. Forgiveness is not allowing the person who harmed you to walk away with no responsibility for their actions. Doesn't mean that we put ourselves in harm's way, time and again, and allow abuse or bad behavior, harm to continue. It doesn't guarantee that relationships will be repaired. At times the damage is too great and reconciliation may not be an option. Forgiveness is about our own salvation, our healing, transforming our relationship with what has hurt us so that it cannot continue to hurt us. Without it we can live the violation over and over again, living in resentment and pain with no chance of release. Forgiveness is freedom. It is the extending of compassion. It is humbling. It is hard work, work that brings healing. The Stanford Forgiveness Project claims forgiveness is the feeling of peace that emerges as you take your hurt less personally, take responsibility for how you feel and become a hero instead of a victim in the story you tell. It means that even though you are wounded, you choose to hurt and suffer less. Forgiveness means you become a part of the solution. Forgiveness is the understanding that hurt is a part of life. It is for you and no one else. And forgiveness is for ourselves. When we too are unable to live up to our values and ideals, when we hurt others with our words, actions, inaction, when the brokenness is overwhelming and we lash out in fear or anger. Only when we forgive, when we forgive ourselves and then others, can we keep our hearts open, keep hold of what we cherish, find power in brokenness and find the place of unbroken wholeness deep inside. Omit Safi, author of our reading today said, We live in an age of bluster. We have presidential candidates praised for speaking their mind instead of inquiring about what is on their mind and how much wisdom and compassion is in their heart. How do we preserve sanity, compassion, humility, empathy? It's a good question, especially as we move toward Tuesday and then to January and then beyond. How are we going to go forward as a nation, as a people, no matter the outcome, be indivisible with no one tossed aside? Already vast numbers of our people are disregarded, disrespected, forgotten, in prison, in poverty, and the past months have torn the fabric of our community more and more. In the 19th century, our universalist forebears named their congregations all souls, all souls, all human souls together, no one ever forgotten. This faith of ours is difficult work, but a faith such as this can be healing. I think of the loved ones of those killed at the Emmanuel AME church in Charleston. I hear their words when they spoke to Dylan Roof at his court appearance, and those were not words filled with anger. They were filled with loss, with pain, with an unending grief, but they were words that offered forgiveness. Wanda Simmons' granddaughter of Daniel Simmons said, although my grandfather and the other victims died at the hands of hate, this is proof. Everyone's plea for your soul and everyone's forgiveness. This is proof that they lived in love and their legacies will live in love so hate won't win. The sister of DePayne Middleton doctor said, that was my sister, and I'd like to thank you on behalf of my family for not allowing hate to win. For myself, I'm a work in progress, but one thing that DePayne always told our family, one thing she taught is that we are the family that love built. We have no room for hating, so we forgive. Hate can't win when we forgive. This was not a sudden change in heart for these people. This was a lifetime of work, a lifetime of prayer, practice, practicing forgiveness and the choice to love, the choice to heal, the lifetime of stumbling and failing and trying again, a lifetime of seeing beneath the ills of racism and violence into the soul, into the humanity of someone who caused so much pain. They were able to see into that soul and believe in their hearts that the holy resides there as well. These family members who lost so much are choosing forgiveness as a path to love, a brave, courageous love that leaves no one behind. This love shows the healing power, healing of grief and anger, healing that refuses to allow this tragic loss and a building of hate to take over their lives. This is our work as well. This is who we are. Universalists who say everyone is loved and Unitarians who know that we must be the ones to do the loving. We are the ones here on the ground. The work of love is our work. So if I could go back to my five-year-old self sitting in that funeral home watching my family trying to make sense of loss, I would tell her this, stay awake to the preciousness of each day. See the joy as well as the pain. Feel all the feels and know that they are keeping you awake to what truly matters. I would tell her that it's okay to admit it when you don't know, that you can't fix everything. And when you feel broken, reach out to those you love to help you put it all together again to admit when you need help and to learn how to accept it with gratitude and grace. And I would ask her to forgive. To do that work of healing by finding the compassion that holy light within each of us. Let go for her own sake and for those she loves. To create a house of love where there's no room for hate. I'd ask her to love for its own sake, to leave no one behind, to love the world in all its truth and all its sorrow, its cruelty and glory. For it is in this all-encompassing love that we find our unbreakable wholeness. We find it together. And we can love ourselves and this beautiful, wounded, imperfect world into healing. And I now invite you into the giving and receiving of today's offering. You'll see in your Order of Service the outreach offering is shared with dry hooch. You can find out more about them and their good work in the Order of Service. Also at the table out in the commons. And we thank you for your generosity. And if you will rise now and body your spirit for our closing hymn number 100. I love this choir. Please be seated. These words are from Rabbi Rami Shapiro. We are loved by an unending love. We are embraced by arms that find us even when we are hidden from ourselves. We are touched by fingers that soothe us even when we are too proud for soothing. We are counseled by voices that guide us even when we are too embittered to hear. We are loved by an unending love. We are supported by hands that uplift us even in the midst of a fall. We are urged on by eyes that meet us even when we are too weak for meeting. Embrace touched soothed and counseled. Ours are the arms, the fingers, the voices. Ours are the hands, the eyes, the smiles. We are loved by an unending love. May we work to make it so. Blessed be and go in peace. The beat of my heart, the questions I have. It's all very simple. Be what we need. Hear our song. The beat of my dear questions, our future.