 Please join me for a moment of centering silence. We sing our in-gathering hymn, which is number 17. And the words appear in your order of service. This is a community where curious seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical, and social issues in an accepting and nurturing environment. Unitarian universalism supports the freedom of potions of each individual as together we seek to be a force for good in the world. My name is Karen Rose Gribbler, and on behalf of the entire congregation, I want to extend a special welcome to any visitors who are with us this morning. We are a welcoming congregation, so whoever you are and wherever you are in your life's journey, we celebrate your presence among us. Visitors are encouraged to stay for our fellowship hour after the service, and to look for people carrying teal-colored stoneware coffee mugs. These are FUS members knowledgeable about our programs and community life, and they look forward to the chance to speak with you this morning. You can also stop by our information table outside the library, where you can find more information about our upcoming events and programs. In this lively, acoustical environment, it can be difficult for those in attendance to hear what's happening in our service. So we remind you that our child, Haven, back in that corner, and the commons behind this auditorium are excellent places to go when anyone needs to talk or move around. The service can still be seen and heard from those areas. We do have hearing assistance devices available as well, so please see one of our ushers if you feel that would be helpful to you. In fact, this would be a good time to turn off all other noise-making devices that might disrupt the service, especially cell phone ringers. Experienced guides are generally available to provide tours after the service, and I do know that we have Pamela McMullen available as a volunteer tour guide today. She will meet you after the service up to your left side of the auditorium near those big glass windows if you would like to take a tour of this sustainably designed addition or our National Landmark Meeting House. Please meet her there right after the service. Now, I'd like to acknowledge other volunteers who helped to make the service run smoothly. David Burials is our sound operator. John McEvna is our lay minister. Claire Box is the greeter. Our ushers are Nancy Daly, Gail Bliss, Paula Alt, and Marty Hollis. Our hospitality folks, Fixing Coffee and Water and Tea for us are Sandy Plish and Nancy Koss. I mentioned that Pam McMullen will be the tour guide. And now I draw your attention to the announcements in the red floor insert to our order of service, which contains information about today's service and things that are going on this coming week and in the future. I do have a couple of additional announcements. The men's group will be meeting. All men are invited to join them on Monday, October 23rd. That's this Monday at 7 PM in the Gabler living room. The topic is preparedness with many national and man-made disasters in the news. How well prepared are we? Also, I'd like to remind those of you folks in the 9 o'clock service to please leave your hymnals on your seats after the service. Thank you. And again, welcome. We hope that today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart, and stir your spirit. The morning words today are from The Promise and the Practice by Kimberly Quinn Johnson. Hush, somebody is calling your name. Can you hear it? Calling you to a past not quite forgotten. Calling us to a future not quite imagined. Hush, hush. Somebody is calling our name. What shall we do? Now have the lighting of the chalice. If you can please rise. This is a responsive reading in your order of service. You will read the bolded sections. Grandparent, look at our brokenness. We know that in all creation, only the human family has strayed from the sacred way. We know that we are the ones who are divided. We are the ones who must come back together to walk in the sacred way. Grandparent, sacred one. Teach us to love, compassion, and honor. That we may heal the earth and heal each other. We're about to sing opening hymn number 54. Now light is less, but first we're going to exchange a friendly greeting with our neighbors. Time for the children's moment. We're all going to come up here. We're going to do a little dancing today. So anybody that wants to dance, whether you're a kid or you're not, and if there's a lot of us, some can come up on the stage and we'll do a little dancing up here, too. We'll see how much room we need. You want to come up? OK. Yeah, why don't we all just, everybody come up. Everybody come up. You don't have to. You can just sit and watch. It's fine, too. Somebody's got to, though. Somebody's got to come up and dance. You know, he can come up. All right. And you can also stand and dance from down there, too, if you want. All right. So yeah, that's the big ding dong, or don't do it. Yeah. All right. So we're going to do a dance that's about getting older. We're going to start off. Let's practice what we're going to do first. First, we're going to start off those babies. Can everyone lay down like a baby? And then we're going to start crawling. And then we're going to be toddlers and walk real slow and dance real slow. And then we're going to be teenagers and dance a little bit faster. And then we'll go to college and dance even faster. And then we start getting to be grown ups and having responsibilities. Who can tell me what responsibilities are? Go ahead. Like taking out the compost. Yeah. Good to hear you answer. What do you got? But you have to get a job in something, yeah. Or you can do like that. That's great. With your baby. I had a baby in college, so. Let's see. And then so we start slowing down. Our dancing starts slowing down. And then we get so busy, we don't have time to dance anymore, and we just look at our watches. That's OK. I just pretend you have a watch. And then we have a midlife crisis. Who can tell me what a midlife crisis is? Anybody? A midlife crisis is when you start looking at your life and you say, oh, I kind of wish things would be different. But then you realize you don't really want things to be different. You just want things to be more fun. So you start dancing again. We'll start dancing slow and then fast. And then we'll slow down again as we start to get older. And our lives start to slow down again. OK. Almost there. Almost there. Everyone who's not dancing also has a part. In your order of service, there's a line to sing. It comes at the very end. Keisha says it once, sings it once, and then we repeat after her when she sings it for the second time. I'll point you when it's that time. All right, you ready? Anybody else want to come up and dance before we get started? Any other volunteers? All right, let's do it. All right, babies. All right, now we're going to start crawling. All right, now we're toddlers. We can kind of walk. And then we start, we're getting a little bit older. We can dance pretty good now. All right, now we're going to really get going, OK? All right, I've got a dance move to show you. It's the U-U. You go U, U, U, U, U. Now we're going to college and it's getting really crazy. Now it's slowing down. We're getting responsibilities. We're taking out the compost. Can everyone take out the compost? Everyone look at their watches. No more time to dance. Now everyone look in the mirror and say, why don't I have fun anymore? OK, now we're going to start dancing again slowly. We don't really remember how to dance anymore. Now if we have kids, our kids are getting older. And now they're gone to college so we can really start dancing. All right, this one's the chalice. Put your hands up above your head. All right, now we're starting to slow down again. Our bodies are just getting tired. And then we take a seat. And then we all lay down. Now let's do it back again. We're getting younger now. Our kids are back in college. The chalice. And then now we're getting responsibilities again. Running out of time. Now we're going back to college. You, you, you, you, you, you. Oh, now we're babies again. All right, this is the grown-ups part. It's the first time. You can go find your grown-ups. A lot of fun. Thanks for dancing. As you head to class, we are going to sing him number 205 Amazing Grace. Number 205. I wonder if it was Christiane now. All right, I know where she is. Stay here, Grace. Stay right there. You can see this. Reading today, or the reading today, is by Lisa Siccarello. A water woman has no body. Reptiness is a blessing if it doesn't exist. My father said to Bloom, but never to fruit. A small trickle casting its way through stone. I am one kind of alive. I see everything that the water sees. I told you a turn was going to come and turn the tower dead. What are the master's tools but a way to dismantle him? Who will replace the blood of my mother and me? A cold spring rising. She told me a woman made of water can never crack. I've heard a feat, she said, this is nothing. We'll now have the dance fellowship performing their piece, A Hawk's Well. This story takes place on a desolate mountain side where a seemingly dried up well is guarded by a hawk. An old man is waiting to drink miraculous waters, which occasionally rise up from the well. It is said that when the waters rise up, the old man is thwarted by a sudden urge to sleep. He has kept camp here waiting for the waters to rise up for 50 years. Rock paths bear heights of wind across the mountain. This is no country for old men. An aged man is but a paltry thing, tattered coat upon a stick, decrepit age hanging on as a dog's tail. He has shot eyes, shot heart, is that a lie. In his right hand, the wind sucks across the mountain. There's no more. There is no more. The watchman takes his stand. How long, watchman? How long is it now? Is it here? Is it now? Is it here? Is it now? Is it here? How long, watchman? How long? Who's talking? What is the hour of the night? Someday that some new moon will learn that sleeping is not death. The hawk rises from the bottomless pit, turning and turning in a widening jar. The center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. It has the power to shut the sky, strike the earth. For still the mountain lies before the thirsting soul. Oh, living waters rise, rise upon the brimming waters. Among the stones within, evermore, under the twilight, a mirror of still sky. And wing around encloses walls, continuous clothes, a holy room, a little floor. This columned wall in silence. I cry and sing and curse and shout of what is past, passing or to come. Let's give the dance fellowship a hand, preaching from a new spot today. Let's see how it goes. April Fool's Day, 1997. I'm 12. Did you realize you've hired an interim minister that was 12 in 1997? We were hiking in one of my family's favorite spots, Waterfall Canyon in Ogden, Utah. For several miles, you follow a large stream up into the mountains. And when after a few stream crossings and a tricky shale section, you arrive at the waterfall and you agree with the beautiful scene of the waterfall up in the mountains. And this was actually the day I tried meditation for the very first time. And the then very early days of the internet, I'd found a website on my favorite topic, Star Wars, that taught you how to be a Jedi. And one of those steps was meditation. So with a simple breath meditation, I dropped behind my family a few times and seated on a log next to the stream, tried out a new spiritual practice. This new spiritual discipline for this 12-year-old woman, me, made me feel especially in tune with nature that day and my body. That probably contributed to my eagerness to, after completing the hike, the waterfall, splitting off from my family and trying to scale down a 30-foot cliff. I remember the moment very clearly when my hand slipped from the rocks, only a few feet down the face of the cliff. The fall was one of those very clear moments in my life when I knew, without a doubt, that I had made a very bad choice. I woke to find myself screaming for help and able to move. My neighbor, who just happened to be on the same hike that day as us, found me. And between him and my dad carried me down the 2.5-mile trail with a compound fracture in my arm and a collapsed lung and a very bad knock on my head. Now, two of my favorite cousins had died incredibly tragic deaths at the age of 11. And I had always thought that once I made it past that age, death wouldn't knock on my door again until my 70s, at least. But it had just knocked pretty loud. My mom always loved to say that God had preserved me that day for some special task. When she realized that special task had turned out to be you, you, ministry, she stopped talking about it. Sorry, mom. Actually, I don't really know what to make of that event now. I'm very grateful that I didn't die, certainly. I learned that I love staying in hospitals. But I wish I hadn't failed biology. I'd be working at one now. But does coming close to death really teach us anything about death? Certainly has made me very anxious for answers. Still, I don't think that there was any part of me when I chose this topic of aging and dying for this sermon that had any hope of finding some kind of all-encompassing answer, or even an original answer that would bring real healing to this topic. But I knew it was a question I had to confront, if I ever wanted to see if I had what it took to be a you, you minister. I'm going to be honest. Modern American culture has kind of been a letdown in helping me find answers to this question. Apparently, when it comes to death, we just play and hate the stuff. Death has become the ultimate enemy in our society. We built an entire way of being around denying the reality of our death. And our value is most often tied to our ability to productively and indefinitely consume. And our progress is measured by our ability to upgrade the amount and quality of stuff that we can consume on and on. We do everything we can to prolong life when it seems threatened, but are woefully unequipped for expanding the quality of life when aging moves us out of the realm of peak productivity. Of course, there might be some gifted individuals among us here today that have fully reconciled with the idea of their own death and the death of everyone they love. And they will be able to greet their deaths calmly and then go on about their day. But here's a little tidbit for those of you in this situation. You are excruciatingly boring, and no one believes you. For those of us more interesting and prone to heartbreak, death is the wound that will never heal. Now would be a good time to do a deep examination of the practices of other cultures and religions that allow them to integrate death more fully and holistically into their lives. But I've done the homework, and because this test isn't being graded, I can just give you the answer. Pretty much everyone else is doing better than we are. But here's the other trick I found. No one is actually good at death. We just, as far as I can tell, haven't evolved enough or reached a level of enlightenment that even as we get better at finding healing around the subject of death and aging, we will never make death okay. And I'm no better. I'm doing just as much as the next guy to pretend that my life has no expiration date, but worrying signs are popping up. My knee after many years of hard running is starting to get grumpy. Doesn't seem like it'll ever get better. My skin is getting these weird little spots. My eyesight is getting a little inconsistent, and I've noticed that if I don't stay mildly active, even with my grumpy knee, my slowing metabolism puts a pouch, little pouch right here. At least my hairline is still fantastic. A few more years. The thing about the illusion of permanence upon which so many aspects of American culture are built is that it's a very difficult illusion to maintain. Even if I am able to ignore my knee and my beer belly, two especially poignant examples always push through. Truth decay and scratches on my phone screen. The worst. And just the other day, and this is a true story, I walked out of the dentist where I had not one, but two cavities filled to find not one, but two new scratches on my phone screen. Basically, life was as close to over as it's ever been. But then I went to H&M and bought this new suit and everything was okay. Listen, I know that hearing an early 30-something pontificate about aging is probably the last thing you wanted this Sunday morning. So I brought in an expert. Everyone say hello to 72-year-old me from 40 years in the future. We've been having some really in-depth discussions about the whole process. He's gone on for hours and hours imparting all sorts of knowledge and wisdom. Unfortunately, I could hear absolutely nothing he said over my anger at him for not being 30 years old anymore. How dare you future me? But one thing I did hear from him was that he's still a little bit angry and still feels a little bit guilty about the whole process of getting older. And that's kind of what, and I think I've projected that because that's kind of what I've found as I've done this work of thinking about death and dying is that I'm mad at myself for getting older. And I feel like I'm doing something wrong just for going through the process. Because there are moments that I cannot run away from or bind my way out of. Those moments late at night after a day where I've disappointed myself again and let down my beloved ones again in any of a million different ways. And I recommit myself to doing things better, to making more time, living with more presence, being kinder, but I can't shake the feeling that I've been here before. Yes, tomorrow might be a little different with my new found, again found commitment. But what about the day after that and the day after that? And just how many days after that do I really have? And I don't want to die and that's just a fact. After the service, our youth from the Compass Points class which I helped teach on Saturday afternoons are going to be asking you what you think about death, about life after death. Now my ideas are pretty nebulous but I'm pretty sure that there is no religion that teaches that whoever ignores death best wins. I don't have any great answers today. I really hope you didn't come here for answers because honestly a lot of a ministerial intern's job is just figuring out what the job of a minister is. The Christian ministry is a lot simpler on this point. Try to be Jesus for folks. It's super easy. And who are we Unitarian Universalist ministers supposed to be for people? Ourselves? Black. A metaphor that's been on my mind lately as I've been thinking about the role of the minister is that of a whole digger. Imagine our culture, our great human community as a wide open field. Our emotions, our joys and sorrows fall down like rain on this landscape and aging along with its unfortunate end result death make the rainfall as consistently as any other aspect of our lives. And too much of Western society has modeled around denying these emotions a place in our lives. We build up mountains of consuming so that the rain will run down and pool in other people's lives. Anywhere but our own. And at the top of those hills we've put little money filters that will collect all of our wealth and none of our humanity. And I feel like we you you use we Unitarian Universalists have some of our own special hills. One of our hills is just our obvious levels of privilege. But I think we also have a hill that is called thinking away our problems. That if we just get the right liberal mindset trained in a watered down version of Eastern religion we can disconnect fully from our emotions and become fully rational beings. Because rational beings, something inside us believes can rationalize their way out of getting old and dying. Which if we stop to think about it is just absurd. What I've learned or what I'm beginning to learn is that all these hills we've built up to avoid our emotions to give us the illusion of permanence is that they are incredibly dry places where nothing decent will grow. And this church, if this church, this society is to be anything good. It cannot be a place where we build our hills higher. But it must continue to be and increasingly be a low place where our joys and sorrows can gather, pool and where we can take that water and share it in our community. Or we can take a little bit home with us and water our own lives and the lives of those in need. And grow things that truly sustain our lives. I'm young and I'm inexperienced but the fragility of life, the tragedy of impermanence, of loss, is a burden that begins to press on my heart and mind that began to press on my heart and mind at a very young age. And it is, I deeply believe, not something we have to deal with in order to get to the real life of productivity and efficiency. It's not our weakness. In fact, it is exactly the opposite. It's where I get stuff. As I watched my Facebook news feed flood this week with women's stories of sexual violence they have experienced. I felt a great many things. Lots of guilt, lots of anger. But it also brought to my heart this lesson. Our strength and our fragility are one and the same. Now, men are particularly awful at this. We get this idea that to be strong we have to hide all possible evidence of our vulnerability. And then a little rain comes and our topsoil all washes away and we lash out in destructive and immoral ways. Our instinct is to be stronger, build our hills higher and higher. But it only makes it worse when we fall. So what I'm trying to learn is to stop building, piling onto my ego and instead to dig, use my own emotions, my own experiences as the tools that I can use to make our little hole called First Unitarian Society, a little deeper to hold a little bit more of the happy and the sad together. I know you're not gonna remember anything I said today. Not in a day from now, certainly not in those deep days when death lurks nearby. But if I can give you a little permission to right now open your hearts up a little more to a little more of the good and the bad that life rains down on our plane, then I will be satisfied. And maybe I can start forgiving myself a little for getting old. We get one shot at this folks. Maybe we open our hearts while we still can. We were quite literally born for this. Our offering today is gonna be shared with the Healing House, a project of the Madison area Urban Ministry. Healing House is a place, homeless child or family member can heal after surgery. If you have a booth outside, I welcome you to talk with them and please give generously. Two folks, something is in my head. Two folks, something is in my head. You can please rise and body your skin comes from Nancy Wood. My help is in the mountain. My help is in the mountain where I take myself to heal. The earthly wounds that people give me. I find a rock with sun on it and a stream where the water runs gently and the trees, which one by one give me company. So I must stay for a long time until I have grown from the rock and the stream is running through me and I cannot tell myself from one tall tree. Then I know that nothing touches me nor makes me run away. My help is in the mountain, that I take away with me. Please be seated for the postage.