 Welcome to First Unitarian Society. My name is Kelly Aspruth Jackson, and I am one of the ministers here. Today I am joined by my colleague, the Reverend Kelly Crocker, and the worship team of Heather Thorpe, Linda Warren, Stephen Gregorius, Daniel Carnes, and our cherub, choir, and choristers, the real stars of the show this morning. Absolutely. Our flowers today are in memory of Karen Jaeger, whose memorial service was held here yesterday. The vision of FUS is growing souls, connecting with one another, and embodying our UU values in our lives, our community, and our world. If you are visiting us today, welcome. We are so glad that you are with us. If you would like more information about First Unitarian Society, please stop by the welcome table, which is located in the commons, just through those doors. We hope you'll be able to stay and join us for coffee hour, immediately following the service also in the commons. For those connecting with us virtually today, we are glad that you are with us as well, and we encourage you to watch the announcement slides that will be seen again after the postlude to learn more about our upcoming programs and activities. And now I invite you to join me in a moment of silence to center ourselves and bring ourselves fully into this time. As we join together once again in community. Come in, all who long to know how to love this world, how to keep eyes open, hands unclenched, arms wide. Breathing deeply, in and out. This is a time to practice because there is still so much good and beauty and joy. But it can be hard to keep telling this tale with all the news and the wind and the rain and the trembling earth, who wants to love this life anyway? Come in, all who teeter on the edge of cynicism, broken hearted and trying still to remember laughter and kindness and the chance to be alive in these days. When so much is at stake, in this place, we remind each other why we persist, giving each other courage to take this path that is not always easy. To keep practicing this love that cannot, will not let us go and still calls us on. Come, let us worship together. And I invite you to rise in all the ways we do for our words of affirmation as we light our chalice. We light this chalice in memory of the courage of those who have struggled for freedom, the persistence of those who've struggled for justice and the love of those who've built beloved communities to carry on the light of hope. Please be seated. And I invite anyone who would like to come on up to the carpet to get closer for our story to come on up. Good morning. Our story today is about a wire walker a long, long time ago. Do you know what a high wire walker is? What do you think? You're right, you're right. Have you ever seen this in a circus? What is it also called? Tightrope walker, right? Where they're go, oh, anybody, would anybody like to actually try that someday? No, that was quick. Lucy was like, no, no, I'm good, I'm good. Would you wanna try it? Well, this was a long time ago, 100 years ago in Paris when the theater halls drew traveling players from all over the world. Now, back then the best place to stay if you were a traveling performer was the Widow Gatoes boarding house on English Street. Acrobats, jugglers, actors, mimes from as far away as Moscow and New York would recline on the Widow's feather mattresses and they devoured her kidney stews. What do you think? I might wanna walk on a high wire before I ate a kidney stew. Kidney stew, what do you think? Anybody wanna eat that? No. Oh, I want toast. I'll just have toast, thanks. Madam Gatoe worked hard to make her guests comfortable and so did her daughter, Morett. The girl was an expert at washing linens, chopping leeks, paring potatoes and mopping floors. She was a good listener too. Nothing pleased her more than to overhear all the players tell of their adventures in town after town along the road. Now, one evening a tall sad face stranger arrived. He told Madam Gatoe he was Bellini, a retired high wire walker. I'm here for a rest, he said. I have just the room for you. It is in the back, it is quiet, but it's on the ground floor and it has no view. Perfect, he said, I will take my meals alone. So how do you think he's feeling? If he wants to take his meals alone, he's good with the room at the back that has no view. He just wants to be all by himself. How do you think he's feeling? He's kinda sad. All right, we'll see if we can find out why. The next afternoon when Morett came for the sheets, there was the stranger crossing the courtyard on air. Can you see it? Well, you can barely kinda sorta see it. Can somebody turn down the sun? Anybody? Okay, trust me, I know you can't really see it, but Bellini is going across the courtyard on the air. Morett was enchanted. Of all the things a person could do, this had to be the most magical. Her feet tingled as if they wanted to jump on the wire with Bellini. Morett worked up the courage to speak. Excuse me, Mr. Bellini, I want to learn how to do that. Bellini sighed, that would not be a good idea. Once you start, your feet are never happy again on the ground. Oh, please, teach me, she begged. My feet are already unhappy on the ground. He just shook his head. Morett would watch him every day. He would slide his feet onto the wire, cast his eyes straight ahead, and cross without ever looking down as if in a trance. And finally, she couldn't resist it any longer. When he was gone, she jumped on the wire to try it herself. What do you think happened? Yep, her arms flailed like windmills. In a moment, she was back on the ground. Bellini made it look so easy. Surely she could do it if she kept trying. In 10 tries, she balanced on one foot for a few seconds. In a day, she managed three steps without wavering. And after a week of many, many falls, she walked the length of the wire. She couldn't wait to show Bellini. When she showed him he was silent for a long time, then he said, in the beginning, everyone falls. Right, I mean, gravity works, right, we know this. Everybody's gonna fall. Most of them give up, but you kept trying. Perhaps you have some talent. Thank you, said Morett. She got up two hours earlier every day to finish her chores before the sun shone in the courtyard. The rest of the day was for lessons and practice. Bellini was a strict master. Never let your eyes stray. He told her day after day after day, think only of the wire and crossing to the end. Now, when she could cross dozens of times without falling, he taught her the wire walker salute. I have no idea what that is. What do you think that could be? A wire walker salute. It's like that, that's a good salute. Then she learned how to run, how to lie down, how to do a somersault on the wire. I will never fall again, she shouted. Do not boast, Bellini said sharply, and she lost her balance and had to jump down. Now, one night, an agent from Astley's hippodrome in London rented a room. He noticed Bellini on his way to dinner. What a shock to see him here, he said. See who? asked a mime. Don't you know? That is the great Bellini. Didn't you know he was in the room at the back? Bellini said the mime. He's the one who crossed Niagara Falls on a thousand foot wire in 10 minutes. And on the way back, he stopped in the middle to cook an omelet on a stove full of live cold. Then he opened a bottle of champagne and toasted the crowd. My uncle used to talk about that one all the time, said a juggler. Bellini crossed the Alps with baskets tied to his feet. Then he fired a cannon over the bull ring in Barcelona. He walked a flaming wire wearing a blindfold in Naples. The man had the nerves of an iceberg. What do you think that means if you have the nerves of an iceberg? Yeah, his nerves worked really well, right? What do you think? Nerves of an iceberg, you're not afraid of anything. What do you think about walking a wire that's on fire while wearing a blindfold? I think that's a hard no. Would you want to try that? Oh, no, you guys over there, do you want to try that one? No, there were some yeses over there, did you hear that? Yes, you're a yes. Well, Meret heard all of this and she raced to Bellini's room. Is it true? Did you do all those things? Why didn't you tell me I want to do all those things too? I want to go with you. I can't take you, Bellini said. Why not? Asked Meret. Bellini hesitated a long time because I am afraid, he said. Meret was astonished. You? Afraid? Why? Once you have fear on the wire, it never leaves, he said. But you have to make it leave, Meret insisted. I can't, said Bellini. Meret turned and ran to the kitchen as tears sprang to her eyes. She had felt such joy on the wire. Now Bellini's fear was like a cloud casting its black shadow on all she had learned from him. Now Bellini was back in his room and he was pacing for hours and hours. He didn't want to disappoint Meret. By dawn, he knew that he had to face his fear. If he didn't face his fear, he couldn't face Meret. He knew what he had to do. The question was, could he do it? That night when the agent returned, Bellini was waiting for him. The agent listened to Bellini's plan and he was so excited. I'll take care of everything he promised. Now the next evening, Meret heard a commotion out in the street. Go and see what it is, her mother said. Maybe it will cheer you up. Now in the square was a hubbub. The crowd was so thick that she couldn't see it first until a spotlight shone in the sky. Return of the great Bellini, the agent yelled. Could it be? Bellini stepped out onto the wire and he saluted the crowd. He took one step and then he froze. The crowd was cheering wildly, but something was wrong. Bellini couldn't move. Meret knew at once what it was and she was as frozen as Bellini. Then she threw herself at the door behind her, ran inside, up flight after flight of stairs and crawled out a skylight onto the roof. She stretched out her hands to Bellini. He smiled and began to walk toward her. She stepped onto the wire and with the most intense pleasure as she had always imagined it might be, she started to cross the sky. Bravo roared the crowd. It's the protege of the great Bellini. The agent was so happy. He was already planning the world tour of Bellini and Meret. As for the master and his pupil, they were thinking only of the wire and crossing to the end. So what happened when Bellini stepped out on the wire? What happened? What happened? He got frozen. Why did he get frozen? Yeah. He was scared, right? And what helped him overcome his fear? Meret, you're exactly right. So here's what I want you to take from this big long story about a high wire walker. Sometimes we all get scared. It happens to all of us. And a lot of time you know what we need? Somebody on the other end of the wire. So next time you're scared, reach out to someone near you and ask for help, okay? We're gonna stay right here together and we're gonna listen to the kids' choir. Go into this time of giving and receiving where we give freely and generously to this offering which sustains and strengthens our community here and also our outreach offering recipient, who this week is the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice. WNPJ was founded in 1991 as a coalition of activist groups and citizens of conscience within Wisconsin. It works to advance a sustainable world free from violence and injustice by connecting, engaging, and strengthening member groups and serving as a catalyst for community organizing and education. There are multiple ways to share your gifts this morning. There are baskets at the exits to this room in which you can place cash or checks now or on your way out. Or you can also see on the screen that you can donate directly from our website, fussmedicine.org and see the text to give information there as well. We thank you for your generosity and your faith in this life we create together. That's right. The thing is, the thing is to love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it and everything you've held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands, your throat filled with the silt of it. When grief sits with you, it's tropical heat thickening the air, heavy as water more fit for gills than lungs. When grief waits you like your own flesh, only more of it and obesity of grief, you think how can a body withstand this? Then you hold life like a face, no charming smile, no violet eyes and you say yes, I will take you. I will love you again. Every time I read this poem, I want to find a way to contact Ellen Bass. I would like to invite her over. I'd like to offer her some coffee or some tea and simply say to her, how? I suppose my longer question is, how do you do this? How do you take life? On days when grief weighs you down, when everything is crumbled, how do you say yes, I will take you, I will love you again? Because friends, I will admit, these have been some hard weeks. There's the relentless political advertising everywhere you look. The new cycle of continued violence here and around the globe and here in our congregation in a very short period of time. We have lost beloveds that some of you have known for 40 years or more. Eva Wright, Karen Jager, Al Sentie, and now Michael May. These have been days filled with memory and gratitude and also deep and abiding loss. I don't know about you, but my heart is mighty tired. I would love to ask Ellen, when the grief is too much to bear, when you feel like you can't hold the loss of one more that you love, how do you love this life again? Now, since I wasn't able to figure out how to do that this week, to sit down with Ellen Bass and have a coffee, I did the next best thing. I turned to the Googles. I found an interview Ellen did where she was asked a somewhat similar question. In a world where everything seems to be going wrong, how do you hold on to the hope that something could actually go right? Her answer was to quote the Buddhist teacher, Shogram Trimpe Rinpoche, who said, if you can learn how to hold the sadness and the pain of the world in your heart and at the same time, still see the power and the beauty of the great eastern sun, then only then are you ready to make a proper cup of tea. This she said is the work of a lifetime, learning to hold the balance, hold the tension between all that is painful, the destruction, and yet still see all that is beautiful, all that is possible, all that could be. This, this holding between the two, she says, this is where hope lives. It's this in-between space and being able to remain there for any amount of time is a revolutionary act of courage. Choosing hope is an act of courage. The spiritual teacher Sri Chimnoi held a somewhat similar sentiment. He said to speak ill of the world needs courage, but fortunately or unfortunately, everybody has that courage. To love the world as one's own, one's very own needs courage. Unfortunately, most of us are wanting in that courage. To love the world again and again requires courage and on the hardest of days, on days when we are weary of the news or grief or the pain of it all, many of us find that courage is in short supply. What do we find instead? We quite often find a corrosive cynicism, that habit of mind and orientation of spirit in which out of a feeling of hopelessness for our own situation or hopelessness over the state of the world, we grow embittered about how things are and we can no longer see what's possible. In a commencement address to the Annenberg School of Communication, the author and essayist, Maria Popova said it this way. Today, the soul is in dire need of stewardship and protection from cynicism. The best defense against it is a vigorous, intelligent, sincere hope. Not a blind optimism because that's a form of resignation to believe that everything's gonna work out just fine and we don't need to apply ourselves. I mean a hope that's bolstered by critical thinking that is clear headed, identifies what is lacking in ourselves or in the world and then envisions ways to create it and endeavors to do just that. In its passivity and its resignation, cynicism is a hardening, a calcification of the soul. Hope is a stretching of its ligaments, a limber reaching for something greater. Our culture has created a reward system in which you get points for tearing down rather than building up. For besieging with criticism and derision, those who dare to live and work from a place of hope. Popova ended her talk by saying, do not just resist cynicism. We need you to fight it actively in yourself and in those you love and in the communication with which you shape culture. Cynicism, like all destruction, is easy. There's nothing more difficult yet more gratifying in our society than learning how to live with a sincere, active hope for the human spirit. This is the most potent antidote to cynicism. It is an act of courage and resistance. It is also the most vitalizing sustenance for your soul. Hope as the vitalizing sustenance for your soul. How many times have we done what Popova said and conflated hope with optimism, believing that if we just turn away, if we don't take in the pain, if we don't engage with the loss, everything's gonna be okay. We will be okay. Somehow it's all gonna work out. But that isn't a courageous hope. Courageous hope requires something else, a movement and engagement and action, perhaps a facing of fear, a leap of faith and a great deal of trust. The poet and the author David White said this about courage. Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another person, with a community, with a work. To be courageous is to seat ourselves deeply in the feelings of the body and the world, to live up to and into the necessities of relationships that often already exist, with those things we care deeply about, a person, a future, a possibility. The French philosopher Camus used to tell himself quietly, live to the point of tears. Not as a call for model and sentimentality, but as an invitation to the deep privilege of belonging and the way that belonging affects us, shapes us and breaks our heart at a fundamental level. It is being moved by what we feel as if being surprised that love is actually there and the privilege of love and affection and knowing its possible loss. Courage is what love looks like when tested by the simple everyday necessities of being alive. Now, October is LGBTQIA plus history month. And every year, on October 11th, we are invited to celebrate National Coming Out Day. It's this coming Tuesday. National Coming Out Day was officially established in 1988 by the activists Robert Eichberg and Gino Leary. They felt that increased visibility was vital for the queer community to survive and ultimately thrive. A viewpoint upheld by many of their predecessors and ancestors within the movement for LGBTQIA rights. They chose the 11th of October to honor the date of the 1987 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Robert Eichberg, speaking in 1993, said it is imperative that we come out and let people know who we are and disabuse them of their fears and stereotypes. We continue to celebrate this day each year because we know that homophobia thrives in silence. Violence counts on silence and shame and fear. Coming Out Day recognizes every person who has taken the step of coming out as well as all those who may be wondering how they will find the courage to do such a thing someday, who are digging deep to find the hope that their life can change when they decide how they will do this hard thing. Coming Out Day reminds us that courage is what love looks like when tested by the simple everyday necessities of being alive. In a world where our LGBTQIA folks still live in fear of where it is safe for them to go or not go, where it is safe for them to simply be alive. When 40% of LGBTQ youth consider ending their own lives, we take a moment to celebrate who they are, to acknowledge the gift and the blessing they are to this world, to lift up their courage, to help them hold on to the hope of change. The UCC minister, Heather McDuffie, wrote this story of her coming out. I don't quite understand why queer folks have to come out. Straight people just bring a person home and introduce them to their parents. What I want people to know about coming out is that it is deeply spiritual. Hetero people should try it. It is vulnerable, intimate, and holy. There were a few moments when I felt the holy safety of coming out to trusted friends. God makes holy what humans have distorted. Like when I told my pastoral relations committee and a gay man told me, I know that it doesn't feel like it yet, but I'm so happy for you. Your life is about to be amazing. In coming out, I lost a lot. My husband, my job, my sense of self, but thank God I also gained a lot and thank you, John, from the Pastoral Relations Committee. I have an amazing life. A new girlfriend, a new definition of family, a new definition of ministry. Coming out has been a long process, but it's mine. I think of it as my be coming out and it taught me about being human and about being spiritual. Becoming out shows all people that we can adapt, grow, and emerge victorious. Courageous hope requires something else. A movement, an action, perhaps a facing of fear or a leap of faith or a great deal of trust. Within Heather's story, I find another piece of what is often required, someone else on the other end of the wire. Hope showed up for Heather through the words, the eyes, the love and support of trusted friends and of John on that Pastoral Relations Committee, the one who gave her the hope that her life, the one that was crumbling like burnt paper in her hands, could be amazing. So if I were to meet Ellen Bath today after service for brunch and somehow the tables turned and she asked me after all of what I just said to you, what I knew now about holding on to hope and loving life again and again. I think I would have to tell her that for me, it comes down to the space between us, to this tiny space where one of us ends and the other begins. That's where hope lives. I have found it in the grief we carry over the ones who have died, the connection, love and memories that remain. I find it in the daily moments with one another, the privilege of love and affection and the knowing of its painful loss. I find it in the stories of those who have found the courage to live their truth, break their silence, be who they are in their wholeness and their beauty. I would tell her that I believe we need someone else on the end of the wire to remind us where hope lives and to help each other hold it all in balance. And then after all that, if we still had a minute, I would tell her this story from the UU theologian, Rebecca Parker. Now, years and years ago, Rebecca was noting to herself how people struggle with disappointment and they lose their source of hope. And then she told the story of this terrible moment when she herself had come to that place. Now much in Rebecca's life had gone wrong. So in despair, she decided that it was time to be done. She told of leaving her apartment with determined steps, her face wet with tears, walking toward a lake in a park near her home with a plan of walking into it. Entering the park, she was surprised to see all of these dark objects blocking her way. She didn't remember them being there before. And as she got closer, she noticed something else. There were people moving among the dark objects. And suddenly she realized what she was seeing. Telescopes. It was a meeting of the Seattle Astronomy Club. Its members just happened to have set up their equipment that night because those unpredictable Seattle skies were actually clear. So a little disoriented but still determined, Parker made her way through the group until one enthusiast who assumed that of course she had come out with them to see the stars said here, let me show you. And began explaining what he had focused his telescope on. Brushing her tears away, she peered in. And there it was, she said, I could see it. A red, orange spiral galaxy. And that was it. I could not bring myself to continue my journey, she said. I couldn't leave a world where people get up in the middle of the night to look at the stars. Life is in here. Between you and me in this tiny space where I end and you begin, that's where hope lives. The truth of courageous hope is that it is inside each of us and we can be each other's agents of awakening. Hope is the lifeline we carry. The possibility that we see in ourselves and each other, the grace that we extend and receive. We can learn to take life in our hands, holding it all in the tension between what is and what can be and we can learn to breathe in that space. We can live to the point of tears when tested by the simple necessity of being alive. Then living into that hope inside of us, we can find the courage to be the ones who sit with those whose grief is so strong it thickens the air, heavy as water, more fit for gills than lungs and say, hold on, it can still be amazing. Or here, let me show you and a whole new galaxy can open before our eyes. The world needs this hope. Our marginalized folks need people willing to be brave enough to say, we are here. No more silence. We are here to listen, we see you. And we say, yes, I will take you. I will love you again. May we have the courage to be those people. Come together each week here in this place made holy. We bring with us the cares of recent days, the celebrations and the losses. We share these knowing that we are held in love. We light a candle of deep sorrow and grief for Michael May who passed away on Monday. Michael has been a foundational part of this community. It is hard to imagine FUS without him. Having served as president of the congregation, serving on many committees, including the facilities committee that built this building, the preservation committee for the meeting house and also serving on the board and as president of the friends of the meeting house. A memorial service is being planned. Details will follow. We send our love to his wife, Brian E. Foy. His children and grandchildren and the many who love him all throughout this city that held his heart. There will be a visitation on Friday, October 14th from 3 to 7 p.m. at Crest Funeral Home on Speedway Road. We light a candle in solidarity with the people of Ukraine both in their suffering and in their struggle. Together we yearn for peace, for them and for all people and for an end to all wars of conquest, anywhere and everywhere on earth. I invite you now to turn with me both inward and outward as we join together in an attitude of meditation and of prayer. What a week it has been. Looking backwards upon the seven days now past, we might rightly ask if they were an instant or an aeon. Seven days which held the stirrings of hope and hard, hard loss. Catastrophe for some, the new birth of possibility for others, the plotting rhythm of the everyday for most of us and behind it all, the clanging machine work of history grinding away. It has been a mundane and a majestic one. Just another week and yet seven days, the likes of which will never, can never be seen again. So let us give thanks for the gifts that the ever-flowing river of time has graced us and our world with this week. The flavor of food shared with the people we love, fresh dew on a chill October morning, life-saving medicines and warm socks, stories that inspire or at least entertain us and examples that stir in us the courage for what must be done. Let us lament too all that has been lost and cannot be regained. Everything that is broken beyond our ability to repair. Bonds of friendship severed, homes which are homes no longer, beloved socks that will never be found again. And death, too much of it, too fast and too soon. Finally, balancing on the meeting point between our gratitude and our grieving, let us look to these next seven days, time enough to transform the world and to wash the dishes, time in which to become who our hearts demand we become or at least to make the first small move in the direction of that blessed possibility. A time for sharing joy, offering solace, making amends, finding peace within ourselves. The next seven days are no more and no less precious than the last seven were, but they are different in this respect. They lie before us rather than behind. Let us take them up in the same way we might reach out to a beloved friend with openness and a gentle determination. Amen. For the courage to be humble in the face of inequity and pain, to know that the power has been given us to make a difference. Although not to end all suffering or finally end all the ills of our days, we pray for the courage to hope, to keep acting in the midst of despair, to keep trying in the aftermath of failure, to keep hoping in the emptiness that follows loss or change. May courage give us patience and may we ever know love's healing presence at the heart and center of our days. Blessed be, go in peace and please be seated for the postlude.