 It's been interesting to live in Madison for a year after living in Appleton for 25 years. This probably doesn't come as a shock to you, but in places like Appleton, an I-roll often accompanies any mention of Madison. There's a sense that Madisonians sometimes see themselves as living in a superior place. You know, amazing lakes, lots of culture, wonderful restaurants seen and lightened views, sometimes the perception is reinforced when we outstate folks meet Madisonians and they give us a look like, oof, Appleton. So sorry, you have to live there. So no doubt much of this dynamic says something about Appleton and other outstate folks as well as Madison folks. There's kind of an inferiority complex that's likely part of the equation too because actually this is an amazing place. The lakes are beautiful. Haven't had much chance to do the restaurants or the culture, but I'm sure they're great and there certainly are a lot of enlightened folks here. Well, that's Madison shifting our attention to Unitarian Universalism in the United States. I have long thought that the primary sin of American UUs is hubris, along with hubris's close cousin, self-righteousness. In UU congregations, there's kind of a sense sometimes that we are superior to other people and that's sort of just below the surface or above the surface. I call this spiritual Darwinism. Like social Darwinists, we misuse Darwin's theories to assert that because we have banished superstitions, we are the more fit people spiritually. I saw a variation of this work in my partner church work, so a variation of this in my partner church work. So many American UUs have a sense of superiority in approaching Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists partners in places like Transylvania and the Philippines. Once they get more educated, we seem to think they'll know better. They'll get rid of some of those sort of superstitious viewpoints. Hubris is a good label for this. And the truth is, we are not superior spiritually. We and our overseas partners are beautiful, flawed people, doing our best to develop and live our beliefs. We stumble. We make mistakes. Sometimes we learn. We do wonderful things. We are whole people made in the image of the divine, but also prone to making mistakes. So what I have to say to you today, FUS community, is that as Madisonians, as Unitarian Universalists, as members of one of the five largest UU congregations in the country, housed in an extraordinary landmark building with a beautiful addition, Hubris might be something you have to deal with every now and then. It feels like you have learned a lot about your congregation during these past three years. You have been in a liminal period, betwixt and between what you were and what you will become. Ministerial transition, especially after a long stable successful impactful ministry, is a liminal space. Lemon, the Latin root for liminal means threshold. In a liminal space, you travel from familiar space across a threshold into space that is other. You have experiences and then you return to your old space across the threshold. But you, and often your old space, or at least how you experience it, have changed. You cross that threshold when you leave the familiar, you cross the threshold when you return and you're back in your old place, but it's different. The picture I have in mind of liminal space is a pilgrimage that I observed many years ago in one of the most sacred Hindu sites in Sri Lanka, the island nation off the southeast coast of India. The temple that I saw is a shrine to the deity Katharagama, a guardian deity in Sri Lanka, probably the most important Hindu deity there. For those who have an interest in the Hindu pantheon, Katharagama is a manifestation of the God Skanda, one of Shiva's sons along with Ganesh. Like many pilgrimage sites, the Katharagama temple is surrounded by water. Pilgrims need to cross a narrow body of water to enter the temple. This can be done by walking over a bridge or as is the custom for most pilgrims bathing in the water and walking through it. This passage over or through water symbolizes leaving the everyday life and moving into this liminal space. While I was there, I observed a pilgrim go into a trance during a ceremony venerating Katharagama. She started dancing wildly, speaking ecstatically. I've never seen anything like it before or since. Through a translator, we talked to her brother who explained that she was temporarily possessed by the God. For her, it was a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to this temple, and for her likely the only time in her life where she would have an experience of possession. Her brother had no doubt that when she crossed that water out of the temple site and returned to her home, she would be forever changed. Her ecstatic experience in that liminal space of the temple would immediately impact and shape her for the rest of her life. Another example of that kind of liminal space in a sense of pilgrimage is the first movie in the Star Wars epic. In that movie, Luke Skywalker leaves the familiar. He travels into this liminal space that is full of danger and opportunity and possibility and he returns changed forever. So we learn a lot about ourselves in liminal space. As I saw this pilgrimage in Sri Lanka, as I saw in that in the Luke Skywalker story, liminal space is full of possibility, opportunity, and also danger. First Unitarian Society has been in liminal space for these past three years. Of course it looks pretty different from the pilgrimage I witnessed in Sri Lanka. I'm guessing no one here has been possessed by a deity. But structurally there are similarities. What was before ended? You've been in this unfamiliar territory that has had moments of possibility, opportunity, and danger. It has been hard. Some of the folks who were here at the beginning have left and are not coming back and let me say they're adults and they can make that decision. I'm sorry about it, but they can make it. Others have stepped back but are planning to come back at least to check out things, get the new layer of the land at FUS this fall. Some of you stepped into deeper, more significant roles during this time and some new folks joined even during these pandemic months. Now no doubt the pandemic exacerbated all these dynamics of this liminal period. The pandemic of course upended just about everything in our lives. Already in different territory, suddenly you as a congregation lost so much that has been a continuity for FUS for so many years, most notably your access to this building. The danger in the tumult of ministerial transition was greatly magnified by the pandemic. Not only did you lose a part of your identity that has centered for 60 plus years on strong senior ministries, first Max Gabler's and then Michael Shuler's, you also lost for an extended period of time the identity that this landmark building has given you for the last 70 years. A lot has been stripped away during these three years. My guess is that some of you have been disappointed in at least some of what's happened during these three years. I'm guessing a fair amount of you felt at times disappointed in one another in this faith community. Some I'm sure have felt disappointed in yourselves. In short, I'm guessing this has been a humbling experience for many of you and for this congregation as a whole. And that's not a bad thing. As Unitarian Universalists in a flagship UU congregation in a city prone to hubris, experiencing a little humility can be helpful to a congregation's spiritual and emotional health. I think in many ways it's a gift. I want to share about another gift this time of liminal space has given you. So you have a reputation in the UU Association of being somewhat cold and aloof. And honestly, this is how I experienced FUS when I occasionally preached here during my years in Appleton. I also had a sense from afar that staff here sometimes felt treated in a cold and consumerist way that the congregation's relationship with staff was characterized more by expectation and entitlement than gratitude. All of this was the biggest point of hesitation I had about coming to FUS as your interim minister. And so I braced myself when I got ready to come here last summer. And I did not need to. My experience with you has been completely the opposite of what I expected and feared. My experience has been exponentially more characterized by gratitude and warmth than coldness and aloofness. Gratitude has been deep. It's been palpable. It's been everywhere. You have been incredibly hospitable and welcoming to me. You have been forgiving and gracious about my shortcomings, my mistakes, my learning curve as a new interim minister. Nowhere was your gratitude and warmth more evident than in that incredible celebration we had of Reverend Kelly's 20th anniversary. So what happened? Perhaps your reputation was overstated. But more significantly, I would guess the humility of this liminal experience as well as the gratitude you felt to staff in each other when FUS continued in spite of physically being closed somehow changed and opened your hearts. A huge lesson of the pandemic for many of us has been to take things a little less for granted. Most of us could not even imagine 18 months ago how challenging it could be just to go to the grocery store, we could not imagine having our church building closed for months and months and months. So here's the challenge for all of you as FUS crosses the threshold from ministerial transition and a closed building in these coming months to a new ministry team and a reopened building. You got to hang on to this humility and this gratitude that you've experienced and expressed so generously over these months. It will be so easy for all of us to fall back into the old negative habits that the pandemic stripped away. Nothing in my view will be more important as you journey back into your old changed life together than to hang on to that humility and that gratitude. Nothing will be more important. And one more thing, make space for joy and for having fun together. What most struck me in this whole process we just went through of creating a relational covenant was the hunger that so many of you have to have this be a joyful space. No doubt congregational life is serious business. We come together to make sense of life, including and maybe especially the difficult parts of life. We come together to grieve, to be supported in grief. We come together for solace when we are struggling. We come together to be reminded of important learnings and values that we momentarily forget. But we also need a place where we can come and celebrate and laugh and play and have fun. We need a place where joy can pop up at any moment. This is a great thing that many of us who are white have learned from black and indigenous and people of color that bringing joy to the struggle is necessary. It is a tool for survival. So FUS friends, stay humble, cultivate an attitude of gratitude, make space for joy and related to these things. Stay open, keep learning and growing. Bring curiosity to FUS with you. Build on the rich, rich legacy of the past and move forward into your next beautiful chapter. You are ready. You are ready. Go!