 Welcome to the First Unitarian Society of Madison. 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 conscience for each individual. As together, we seek to be a force for good in the world. My name is Karen Rose Gredler, and on behalf of the congregation, I would like to extend a special welcome to visitors, both here in this room and those joining us on the radio or video. We're very happy to have you with us this morning. We are welcoming congregations, so whoever you are and wherever you are on your life's journey, we celebrate your presence among us. This would be an excellent time to silence cell phones as we join together in a few moments of silence for contemplation, meditation, prayer as we become fully present with ourselves and with one another. As we breathe together into the silence, may our hearts fill with gratitude for this time, this time together, and for all the deep gifts of community. Here are opening words this morning from Kimberly Tomcheck Carlson. It is not by chance that you arrived here today. You have been looking for something larger than yourself. Inside of you, there is a yearning, a calling, a hope for more, a desire for a place of belonging and caring. Through your struggles, someone nurtured you into being, instilling a belief in a shared purpose, a common yet precious resource that belongs to all of us, and so you began seeking a beloved community, a people that do not put fences around love, a community that holds its arms open to new possibilities, a heart home to nourish your soul and share your gifts. Welcome home, welcome to worship. And I invite you now to rise in all the ways we do and join together in the words of affirmation as we light our chalice. May the flame we now kindle light the path back to our center, back to that place of belonging again to our deepest self. And may our chalice remind us that we are held and welcomed whole without the need to hide a single piece or part of who we are. This remains standing for our opening hymn, number 188 in the gray hymnal, come come whoever you are. We will sing it once through all together, and then we will break out into a round with those on my left going first and those on my right going second. It's a good team spirit, part one. Thank you. All right. This is no kept despair. Sitting back down, please take a moment to turn and greet those around you. You kids know where to come before I even announce it, huh? Yay. Kelly, did we get any pictures or not? Okay. Thank you. I'm going to tell you a story about balloons. I think that's kind of funny. A story about balloons. I'll try to, so you can see the book for you guys that are too close and can't see the pictures. This is called the memory balloons. So this older brother has a lot more balloons. He has a lot more balloons than his younger brother. And that's because he has more memories. Just like I probably have a lot more balloons than you have because I'm older than you, right? I am. I'm like a grandma or great grandma. You have a lot of memories too, I know. This one's my favorite. He tells his little brother pointing to the balloon filled with my last birthday party. So that's his last birthday party. When I look at it, I can see the pony that came to his birthday party. He had a pony at his birthday party, and he can still taste the chocolate frosting. So good. Can you taste the chocolate frosting in your mouth? Yeah, good for you. So mom and dad have more balloons than I do, the little boy says. That's because they're older, so they have more memories. Grandpa has lived so long. Grandpa, he has lived so long. He has more balloons than all the family put together. He has just almost a ton of balloons, and he has stories inside the balloons. They're better than ponies and chocolate frosting. His stories are wonderful. What's in your yellow balloon, I ask him. What's in your yellow balloon? Well, it was in the other slide, so it's right there. This is the yellow balloon. So now the picture there is grandpa's eyes light up. When we just come back, this is a memory, it was he and his wife, we've just come back from picking blackberries along the muddy banks of the creek, and they just didn't pick blackberries, they ate them, so they had blackberries all over their face. And they were spattered with dark purple. So our black-buried faces gave Aunt Nellie's cow such a fright, she didn't make milk for a whole week. What about the blue one, grandpa? Well, that's when I lost my favorite dog. Do any of you have dogs? Ah, right. Well, but then grandpa laughed. I found him chasing butterflies next to the schoolhouse. And the only way that my dog, Jack, could get me to go to school on a Saturday was for me to go there to catch him. But he found him and he was, Jack was safe, Jack the dog was safe. And that one, that one he points to a purple balloon above his head. Grandpa looks up at a purple balloon and he smiles. This must be a special memory. Yeah, that's the day I married your grandma. That was a very special day in the little church on Cedar Lane. We danced that night under the stars and oh, how I loved her. I loved her. He had a memory of his wedding. No, it was a happy memory. That's a very astute remark. And what that means is that grandma died. Thank you. So I don't have to ask him about the silver balloon because that's a balloon that I have too. We both have a silver balloon. So we both have a memory in a silver balloon. That was the day that we stood together on the dock till the sun went down, feeling tug after tug on our lines. Grandpa and I must have caught a thousand fish, a thousand fish. No way, maybe 10,000. Grandpa ruffles my hair like he always does. He ruffles my hair. That's one of my favorite balloons, Grandpa says, and I say me too. Maybe they caught 10,000. But Grandpa has been having problems with his balloons recently. One will get caught in a tree. He's very sad and he'll tell me the same story over and over again. Let me tell you about the Christmas I went to Aunt Nelly's farm, Grandpa said, even though he had just finished telling me about it. So Grandpa keeps telling the same story over and over again. Sometimes, other times, what will happen is a balloon will float right out of his hand and he won't even notice that he's lost a balloon and it might be a really pretty green balloon and he won't know it. It's okay, Grandpa, I'll run after it. Every time I almost reach it, I almost catch it, but it always slips away. Something's wrong with Grandpa, I tell my parents. He can't hold on to his balloons anymore. Mom looks at me with sad eyes. That happens sometimes when people get older. They may lose some of their memory, their memory balloons. Grandpa's balloons start floating away faster and faster, running down streets, up hills. I watch the balloons growing smaller as they float away and I feel kind of sad and you know what? He finally loses the silver balloon, the one about us going fishing together. I watch it float away, way into the sky until I can't see it anymore. Grandpa's losing some of his balloon memories. Why did you let it go? That was our balloon. I feel Grandpa pat my back, but he doesn't ruffle my hair like he used to. Why are you crying, child? There's nothing to cry about. One day I go to see him and he doesn't have any balloons anymore, no balloons. Grandpa, I say, but he doesn't look at me. He doesn't look at me. I feel so sad. It'll be okay, Dad says. Look up. I have new balloons now, a yellow one filled with blackberries and a cow, a blue one filled with grandpa and his favorite dog, and a purple one filled with a wedding day. So the grandson now has all the balloon memories of his grandpa. See, Mom says, now you can share your grandpa's balloon memories. So I climb into grandpa's lap and begin telling him about all my new balloons. So he's telling his grandpa the stories that grandpa's forgotten. Yes, sir. No, it didn't mean that he died, but it meant that he couldn't remember things. So some things, but a lot less memory, and that happens to people sometimes when they get old. Okay, kids, if you have more questions, talk about in class, okay? Or talk to me after class. Let us sing the children out by standing and singing hymn number 1053 in the Teal hymnal. How could anyone let us rise in all the ways that we do? We'll sing it twice together. You are something less than beautiful. How could anyone ever tell that your loving is a miracle? How deep? How could anyone please be seated? In a poem titled Red Brocade, Naomi Shihab Nye writes, The Arabs used to say, when a stranger appears at your door, feed him for three days before asking who he is, where he's come from, where he's headed. That way he'll have strength enough to answer. Or by then, you'll be such good friends that you don't care. Let's go back to that. Rice, pine nuts? Here take the red brocade pillow. My child will serve water to your horse. No, I was not busy when you came. I was not preparing to be busy. That's the armor everyone puts on to pretend they have a purpose in the world. I refuse to be claimed. Your plate is waiting. We will snip fresh mint into your tea. This poem has always spoken to me of radical hospitality. Usually we think of radical as extreme, yet it also means returning to one's foundation. Radical hospitality is about returning to this ancient practice of welcoming strangers into your home with no questions asked and taking extreme care of them. Rather than asking why are you here, radical hospitality asks, how can I serve you? Religious communities often speak of themselves as being places of radical hospitality, where all are truly welcomed in, where space is made for anyone who wishes to enter, where whoever you are and wherever you are on your life's journey, we will make a place for you here among us. Yet studies show that congregations trying to be open in this way, to find ways to bridge divisions have a very tough job. Paul Lichterman in his book Elusive Togetherness says that congregations attempting to bridge strong social differences mean well, but are most often not successful. He says when those in his studies try to do outreach work with marginalized communities, practices in social customs and in styles of relating made it nearly impossible for faith-based efforts to close the gaps. He said that the single group in his study that did succeed constantly evaluated and reevaluated what they were doing and why they were doing it. They did this in order to understand their own cultural underpinnings and those of others. In other words, they paid close attention to how they were talking, interacting and engaging on a daily level. They learned to approach others as partners rather than as people they were helping. As Lichterman said, depended not so much on their ideology or even less on their organizational structure, but most importantly in the depth of their conversations. And so today we are inviting you into a conversation in which we hear from two others on how we can increase our awareness, our openness in the hopes of moving closer to that welcome of which we speak. This is indeed difficult work, it is spiritual work. Radical hospitality means seeing through the eyes of the guest. To become aware of when we talk in code or mention people's names as if everyone knows them or form up in clicks during fellowship hour like middle schoolers at uncomfortable after school dances or when we enforce unspoken rules. Guests are keen observers of these things. This is spiritual work because we become more welcoming and open to others when that happens it will most definitely cause a holy disruption in who we think we are, who we believe this community to be and how willing we are to grow and be changed in the process. Remember we all arrive here with a desire for a place of belonging and caring. We arrive seeking beloved community, a radically welcoming place that does not put fences around love. A community holding its arms and its hearts open to new possibilities. May we be about making that community here, now, together. Fell over anyway. So it's lovely to see all your faces this morning. I love coming to FUS and being a part of this community whether it's greeting, being here at the pulpit or in the seats where you're sitting. So I've been given the opportunity today to talk a little bit about dementia. So some of us know that I have a diagnosis of early stages of dementia. It's been kind of a long journey like it is for many people because diagnoses can take a very long time and then sometimes it's still unclear and all that change can be stressful. So I started out with mild cognitive impairment then I moved to Alzheimer's and I'm now diagnosed with maybe Lewy body dementia. So dementia is a complex topic and my journey is certainly one that many with dementia take. In this process of diagnosis, it is really a critical and important time to reach out to the loved ones and the person facing this process. Sadly, we are often outside, not even aware that something is going on. And I'm not sure why, why is that? I think one of the reasons that families and people with dementia are feeling our fear and shame, fear and shame. One heartfelt I believe I have about community of caring and belonging is that we can both accept the vulnerabilities in our self and be safe enough to share them with each other. Sometimes it's sharing in our small groups like journey circles, chalice groups, classes, perhaps during joys and sorrows. When we do this sharing, we open our tender hearts so that we can feel compassion not just for ourselves but for others and for the universal suffering in this very troubled world. If we close down, turn away, we can become numb with a frozen heart and we may just isolate physically or emotionally, which happens to a lot of families and people with dementia. Sharing our vulnerabilities is a sacred giving and receiving. If we open our hearts and listen, it's an act of generosity. We become sacred witnesses for each other. So some of us are a little older in this audience, so you may wonder, what is the difference between normal aging and dementia? And there's some handouts in the back from myself and Denise that you might want to pick up, but typical age-related changes, making a bad decision once in a while, missing a monthly payment, forgetting what day it is and remembering later, sometimes forgetting what word to use, losing things from time to time, that's my favorite. I'm always going back someplace to pick up the things I've left. So when does that change and become more serious and when someone might consider going in for a diagnostic evaluation? When you start to see poor judgment and decision-making, the inability to manage a budget, losing track of totally of the date or the season, and particularly the season, difficulty having a conversation, a back and forth, misplacing things and being unable to retrace steps to find them. When we think of dementia, we just kind of think of it as dementia, but there are many, many, many types of dementia, and I'm just going to mention the three most common. Probably Alzheimer's disease accounts for approximately 60% of the people with dementia. Vascular dementia accounts for about 25% of the people who have dementia, and dementia with Lewy body is about 15%. So this is, and there's probably 10 other kinds of dementia that you can get, and you can also get dementia from particular diseases, but those are probably the most common that you run across, but you know, when you think of dementia, most people think about somebody that's, that's the end stages of dementia. Dementia is a spectrum, it's a journey, and everyone's journey is different, and a lot of the journey depends on sometimes family history, age of onset, the younger you're diagnosed with dementia, the quicker it usually advances. And it also is helpful when you can get identified as having dementia early on. If you go in for assessment when you're in the early stages, it's very helpful, not only in terms of medical treatment, but also in terms of being able to learn new ways to cope. So you know, as I said, when we often think of dementia, we think of the end stages, and somebody unable to communicate. However, even in the end stages, people can communicate. Sometimes it's just with a brief look in the eye, or a touch on the hand. And there are many that can continue to live a productive life for years before the illness and confusion makes life more challenging. At each stage, the inevitable progress of dementia, there are different needs, concerns and ways of coping. But one thing remains a constant need and intervention. And that is the person is treated with dignity, compassion, and love. And I think that's what we all believe we want within ourselves and with others. In the early, or sometimes called mild dementia, people are faced with a lot of fear. What's going to happen? Fear of loss of control, fear of growing, you know, losing your mind. In the middle of stages, they still know they have memory loss. However, the loss of independence becomes more frightening. And also, it's often a time when they need to have more supervision, whether in home or in a facility. And in the late stages, person does not really remember that they don't remember. And the Alzheimer's Association calls that crossing over, a very good course, by the way that they teach. One of my favorite and most heartfelt books about dementia, among dozens and online resources, is My Two Elanes. It's by Martin Schreiber. He was our Lieutenant Governor. Older people will remember. Younger people might not. He speaks all over the country to share his story and trouble with words, donates all income from his book to research. A story I heard last year when he spoke in Madison was powerful. His wife is now in memory care with advanced dementia. It has been a very long journey for both of them. They were having lunch. And she said to him, I think I love you as much as I love my husband, his response. I love you too. So simple and true. And while Elaine was still in her journey and knowing things, she writes in this book, I'm so lucky he's a good cook and seems to enjoy making healthy and delicious meals. It's a good thing as my Alzheimer's isn't getting any better. So cooking and baking with steps that need to work are no longer easy for me. I hate to think I'm getting worse, but I must be. Marty is still a very good husband. And I can't blame him for getting a little short sometimes. It has to be a problem for him. It puts more responsibility than he can handle sometimes. But he knows I'm trying my best and he tries hard to help me. And I know it's no easier for him than for me. Most importantly, we must never forget in dementia, there is also joy and humor. I've learned a lot about forgetting things and making myself laugh instead of saying, oh my God, you're really losing it. The joy of holding a baby, the joy of being with those you love, the joy of a sunrise, the joy of a favorite meal, the laughter of an old joke or funny memory. So bringing joy as well as compassion, love and dignity for all involved. And I'll close with a poem called A Dementia Friend by Sarah Mary Mountain. Who do you see when you look at me? I'm not the person I used to be. At times I may not know your name, but really I am not to blame. Dementia has changed a part of me. A part of me you can't even see. It's had an effect on my brain. But deep, deep down I'm still the same. I can feel and laugh and cry. So when you see me, don't pass by without a word, a wave, a smile, or I might add a hug. Please just stop and chat a while. You'll cheer me up and make my day. Maybe we'll laugh at things I say. For there's still humor to be found. It's not doom and gloom all around. So please, please treat me just the same. The word dementia is only a name for a condition that I've got. But I can still do such a lot. I may need a lot more time, so be patient when in line. I'm struggling at the shopping till I'll get there in the end, I will. So take a moment. Pause a while. Then give me a nod, a smile. And maybe then your hand you'll lend for your now my dementia friend. I'll let Claire's lesson be my lesson. Good morning. I am absolutely delighted and honored to be here this morning. My name is Denise Jess. I'm the CEO, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired, where a nonprofit organization based here in Madison and serving people who are blind and visually impaired in the wider community throughout the state. Our fundamental mission is to promote the dignity and empowerment of the people of Wisconsin who are blind and visually impaired through three primary activities. One is advocacy, often on the state and municipal level through policy and legislative work. Education, both of folks in the community to better understand visual impairment and to create bridges of empathy, open hearts, and open minds. And with people who are experiencing vision loss on the acceptance journey. And the last thing that we do is provide vision services, vision rehabilitation services, both in home and in our offices here in Madison. And I'll say a little bit more about that as I close. In addition to being the CEO of the Wisconsin Council, I am visually impaired myself. I am legally blind and have been since birth. Some of you will know me from my years of teaching at Wingra School and it's been lovely to get hugs from parents of some of those kids who are now 30-something-year-old adults, still wrapping my mind around that. Some of you will also know me as the consultant who worked closely with Claire and Kelly and ministerial team on the development, the second development of the Quest program. And for others of you, I'm new to you. I'm a mom of two adolescents. Well, actually, no, they're not adolescents anymore. One of them is, yeah, correction. They're both young adults, college-age students. How did that happen? And I have been in a loving relationship with my female partner for nearly 30 years. It's going to be a great party in August. Kelly was our minister when we were finally able to legally marry just short of five years ago. I'm an avid knitter, dabbler in other fiber arts, some successfully, some not so much, and have a strong belief in sustainability and practice that belief by preserving a lot of our family's food. Now, why the devil? Oh, by the way, I'm white. I'm short. Last night I had a stool when I was in the other because I couldn't see over the podium. So why in the world would I take that time to share with you those aspects of myself beyond my visual impairment and my title? So frequently when we encounter people with disabilities, whether those disabilities are visible and easily understood or whether they become known over the course of time, the focus becomes on the disability and that sense of who that person is, the fullness of them, the fullness of their being can get lost. And this happens to me whether I'm in Progressive Madison, whether I'm in La Crosse, whether I'm in Green Bay, whether I'm on Washington Island, the place of my birth, or anywhere else as I travel. And that experience is common among people with disabilities. So as we're talking today and as you go forward from today, I want to invite you to remember that disability is one aspect of our identity and that there are so, so many others. So let me tell you a little bit about who are people with disabilities and people with vision impairment in particular in the state of Wisconsin. We are more than 100,000 strong. We guess that those numbers are higher and I'll talk about that in just a moment. Used to be that the majority population of people with vision impairment were folks like me who were born with a congenital birth defect or who experienced vision loss early on in our lives. That's changing. As we know more and more about genetic causes of vision loss, we continue to see young adults, sometimes adolescents, young adults, middle-aged adults losing sight from things like retinitis, pigmentosa, stargards, and other genetic diseases. And there's outstanding research being done here, particularly in other places around the world to look at those genetic disorders and search for cure. Our fastest-rising population of people with disabilities are elders. And so it ties powerfully to the words that Claire shared with you this morning. By the time 10 to 15 more years pass, we expect that the population of elders experiencing life-changing vision loss will double as that silver tsunami continues to push its way across our beautiful state. Diseases like macular degeneration, glaucoma, and retinopathy as a result of type II diabetes and type I diabetes are usually the leading cause. This population of folks have experienced a lifetime of more typical vision. So the transition to vision loss is a journey. And sometimes it's a journey that's very bumpy. One of the things that we like to always encourage is that as soon as you get that diagnosis and those words leave your practitioner's mouth, that's the time to come and reach out to organizations like ours for support, support along the emotional journey, support along the physical journey. There's often a five-year lag between someone receiving the diagnosis of macular degeneration or other age-related vision loss and when they reach out for vision rehabilitation services. That's astounding to me because a lot happens in five years. So the sooner we can start doing the work together, the more you can learn strategies for continuing the activities of daily living, cooking safely, continuing crafts and things that you love, maintaining your relationship with people at work if you're still in the workforce and figuring out how to live using the site you still have and how to use other senses to really support you. Part of the silence around visual impairment is that it's still such a stigma in our society. Couple years ago, the New York Times did an outstanding series of articles on disability and they were not from the perspective of people with disabilities, which is often the case. They were from the perspective of people without, who are currently not disabled about their perspective on disabilities. And when those respondents were asked the question, how would you feel if you became blind or significantly visually impaired? The majority of the respondents, nearly 50%, said they would much rather have cancer than lose their sight. That's powerful. So those of us who have visual impairment often try to hide. We don't come out of the closet with a lot of ease because of our fear that we'll be seen as the person, the blind person only or that folks will begin interacting with us in different ways, not treating us with the same dignity that we might have had if they didn't think we were visually impaired. And we're here, our older adults say things in code that are giving us significant messages about where they're at. They'll say things like, you know, I just don't see as well as I used to. Age-related vision changes are normal, but there's things outside that spectrum of normal. They'll say things like, why is it so dark in here? Don't you have the lights on? And the lighting hasn't really significantly changed, but as vision changes, we are far more dependent on really good, consistent lighting and task lighting. Some of you might see that I have a magnifier in front of me, and it has a light inside which allows me to see in this space with so much more ease than if I took this away and had my shadow cast on it. You'll also hear them say things like, I'll grab your arm. Could you give me your arm? I just don't want to fall. It's not necessarily that they're unstable on their feet, but it may be that losing depth perception stairs uneven surfaces become much more complicated to deal with. There's still a whole lot of what I call cane shame in our culture, so while we encourage many of our folks who come see us to adopt a white cane and we give those away for free because we know there's such an important tool for mobility, it's like, I don't want to carry a cane. I don't want people to stare at me. And so people will sacrifice their safety over the fear of being stared at or looked down upon. So as congregations that are welcoming, one of the two of the things that we can think about for how do we create radical hospitality is to create physical hospitality and emotional hospitality. Physical hospitality, I'll just say a few things about. Most of us inherit the spaces that we're in. We weren't around when Frank Lloyd Wright commissioned and had this building built. Maybe some of you were, but I certainly wasn't. And some of you were around when this addition was created. But most of us inherit the spaces. We can come into those spaces with fresh eyes. I loved the opening poem because it was about the, and Kelly's words around the guests are powerfully attuned to what is going on. So I wanna ask you to walk through these beautiful halls in open areas, through the eyes of the guest and the guest who may not see well, how's the lighting? Where might we put some rail or where might we use edging to show where stairs begin and end? How might we make it known that there are large print additions of your order of service? There are, by the way. If you didn't know that, here's one. And I don't think this was made especially for me. I think that they are a regular part of your worship. How do we make it known that we have large print hymnals? How do we create and invite folks to come to the front if they wanna sit towards the front and can see better? So as you go through your life here, start the conversations. What are some of the simple things we could do that would create more physical welcome for anyone with disabilities? The emotional welcome, I think, is actually in some ways the heavier lift. The physical stuff, sure, it takes time, it takes money, it takes resources, it takes commitment, but it's doable. And there's a bazillion, no exaggeration, of course, resources online on how to make spaces accessible, really inexpensively. So that's really, the heavier lift is that openness of the heart. And I think most of us have really good intentions. I know very few people that have cloudy intentions. So we have good intentions to create welcome and then all of those layers of what we've been taught about disability can kinda mess with our good intentions. And so we can get scared. Will I say the right thing? Will I say the wrong thing? If I say to her, can you see this? Will she freak out because I use the word see in my conversation? Or hey, would you like to look at this? Or here's how I see it. I can't believe how many people get worried about using the word see in their sentence around me. I'm like, eh, don't worry about it, it's fine. Will I offend in some way, shape, or form? So folks manage that by politely ignoring. And that manifests itself in so many different ways. Sometimes when I go places, and I'm with a sighted companion, my wife or a friend or anyone else, and we are greeted by someone, the focus of that interaction goes to my sighted companion. The eye contact is made to my sighted companion, the conversation is directed to my sighted companion, and I'm like, oh gosh, I must have forgotten I put on my invisibility cloak this morning before I left the house. So that I'm sharing, my heart opens and sings when someone includes me mindfully with relative equity in the welcome conversation. They look at me, they address me, I'm an active part of what's happening. It's not uncommon for folks to do things, also like handing something that's for me to my sighted companion. I'm like, I can take that from you. That's a pretty regular occurrence. Let me hand it to my sighted companion and my sighted companion can hand it to me because they must have some special skill in being able to hand things off. When you've got something for someone to hand it to them, just say, hey, I've got this for you, I'm holding it out to you. And then I know that I can take it and you can move it towards my hand. Very simple thing to do. The last thing I think that I will say around creating inclusive welcome and emotional welcome is to just simply greet and ask the question, how might we create space for you here? What might you need? So whether you're in the greeter role or you see someone new who's coming into your space or maybe someone old who's coming in in a different way than they have in the past. It's so wonderful when I hear, thank you for being here today. How can we help you? How can we make this a really good experience for you? Then I'm empowered to be able to say to you, it would be awesome if you had large print programs. Do you have those? Yeah, here you go. It would be awesome if I could sit near the front so I could see, is that a possibility? Yes, absolutely. So you don't have to worry and fret about, am I offering the right thing? If I said the right thing? It's that statement of welcome, then asking the question and being prepared and open-hearted about whatever the response might be. I wanna invite you to come visit us at the Wisconsin Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired. Sometimes simply coming through those doors is exactly what folks need to help shed any continued fear or hesitancy about interacting with folks who are blind and visually impaired. We have a parking lot on Willy Street, that's always a plus. And we have a small little retail store that sells adaptive devices that just create the bridge between this is what I wanna do and this is how I need to do it now. And often we have folks who are fully sighted come in and go, gosh, I could use that, I could use that, I could use that, including a little special tool that helps people tie their flies for fly fishing. It's awesome. We often have folks who are like, oh, I could use a decent magnifier. I'm just gonna say the magnifiers you can buy at CVS, Walgreens, junkie. So really, and we can help you find the right magnifier that's actually not gonna become just a dead one that sits in the drawer at home. We have long oven mitts that are great for not burning your arms. We have several chefs in the Madison area that buy those from us because they value their workers. And when you're with us, you can also visit our art installation. So currently we participate annually in the Madison Museum of Contemporary Arts Gallery Night. And this year we were voted by Isthmus as the number one gallery in the city to visit. And we had a lovely Cap Times piece done on our exhibit as well that ran that morning. We seek out artists from around the state who have significant visual impairment, who find healing and finding their own sense of self within creating art. So a ceramics mask maker, a woman who works with inks and dies, photographers, yeah, really incredible stuff. Painter, oil painter. And our current gallery is open through November 15th right before the Thanksgiving holiday. So please come visit us if you're in the building, let my staff know. I would love to come down and say hello and tour you through the art if I'm available. The exhibit is also done with large print, braille and audio so that it's fully accessible for anyone who comes to visit it. There's a couple handouts in the back that I would love to invite you to take. One is a booklet on creating welcoming main streets and how to, for businesses and congregations to create welcome both physically and attitudinally. And then one on creating a connection between you and someone who is visually impaired, basically an etiquette guide. So please help yourself to those as well. So again, I am so touched to be here and would love to be able to connect with you between service so please feel free to ask me any questions or connect with me at that time and thank you again for this marvelous opportunity. The offertory we will sing just needs a word of introduction, this was not selected because it had anything to do with the worship theme today but because Halloween is coming. And this is a, this poem is a Halloween nightmare set to music by Brahms and the translation goes like this. At night the deranged deceitful specters awake and perplex your mind. At night in the flower garden, whore frost has fallen so that you would wait in vain for the blossoms. At night grief and sorrow entrenched themselves in your heart and the morning looks upon tears. So we're gonna try to sing this with a smile. It's gonna be a super creepy jack-o'-lantern smile and happy Halloween, 11 days in advance. And we do invite you into the giving and receiving of our offering, our outreach offering recipient is the community support network and you can find out more about their good work in your order of service. We thank you for your generosity. I invite you now to rise in all the ways we do for our closing hymn, number 151. We're going to sing verses two and three. I wish I knew how to call the love in my hearts apart. I wish what it means to be, then you'd see everyone should be free, then you'd see should be. I wish I could do all the things I can do. When I say go in peace, I don't mean go in mindless oblivion. When I say go in peace, I don't mean go without challenging yourself or others. When I say go in peace, I don't mean go in utter ease and comfort. When I say go in peace, I mean go in peace seeking justice. I mean go in peace committed to equal rights and opportunities for all. I mean go in the peace that is created when together we build communities of true solidarity, deep compassion, and fierce, unrelenting love. We extinguish our chalice, knowing its light lives on in the minds and the hearts and the souls of each of us. And I now say and I do mean go in peace. Please be seated for the postlude.