 I get those. I get those. Yeah, please. Please. I come. I come. I come. I come. Okay. He comes on Sunday. He comes on Sunday. Great. I'm going to tag him there. I'm going to see him. He's got his son's body. I'm going to get those. I'm the future geographer. I know. I'm the future geographer. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. Check, check, Dusty, one, two, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check哎, we have these exercise classes. That's part of the microphone. It plays music obviously. And I think currently maybe third of the choice could also be spent. I think that's part of the camera itself. How do you think it will work? I think it will work. I really saw a good side of it. I'm back for it. Oh, he's just kidding. Oh, he's just kidding. Yeah. You guys go off. I'll give you a little bit of a break. I'll just leave it there. I'll give you a little break. I'll leave it there. I'll leave it there. I'll leave it there. I'll leave it there. I'll leave it there. Please join in a moment of centering silence so we can be fully present with each other this morning. Okay, that's enough silence. Now let's get musically present with each other. And turn to the words for our in-gathering hymn, which you'll find inside your order of service. Welcome to Sunday of Promise here at First Unitarian Society, a safe, nurturing environment to explore issues of social, spiritual, and ethical significance as we try to make a difference in this world. I'm Steve Goldberg, a proud, pledging member of this congregation. And I'd like to, first of all, extend a special welcome back to Michael, who returns from Isobatical. We're glad to have you back here, Michael. As visitors and newcomers, if this is your first time at First Unitarian Society, I think you'll find that this is a special place. And if you'd like to learn more about our special buildings, we'll be conducting a guided tour after today's service. Just meet over here by the windows and we will take good care of you. Another way to take good care of each other is to silence those pesky electronic devices that we just will not need for the next hour, and that goes for those of you watching at home. So while you're taking care of that simple task, let me remind you that if you are accompanied today by a youngster, we welcome children at the services. But if you think that your companion, your young companion, would rather enjoy the service from a more private spot, we offer a couple options for you, including our child haven in the back corner of the auditorium, as well as some seating just outside the doorway in the commons, so that our child can see and hear the service. And one of the reasons we are able to see and hear the service is that we have a wonderful team of volunteers who are bringing the service to us and making sure it runs smoothly. Let me announce their names so that you can thank them a little bit later, give them a hug or a high five. I'm talking about Mary Manoring, who's operating the sound system. Thank you, Mary. Thank you to Tom Boykoff, who is our lay minister today. Who greeted us as we entered this morning. Liza Munro, Dick Goldberg, Nancy Daly, and Tom Dolmage are the ushers for us today. The all important coffee hour is hosted and prepared by Biss Nitschke and Sandra Plisch. Celia Boliard took care of the foliage up here. And our tour guide after the service is John Powell. Let me set the record straight. Dan Broner wants to make sure I let you know that it is the society choir that is singing today and not the Meeting House Chorus. So if you came here expecting to hear the Meeting House Chorus, well, you'll have to wait for another weekend for that. Just a couple announcements. Are you hungry? Okay. So if you're hungry, you'll have to wait. Because after the service, our free to believe class is providing yummy baked goods for sale. And they're raising money to support the education of UU high school students in the Philippines and Romania. Second announcement is that on Sunday, March 19, that's two weeks from today, we'll have our parish meeting after the 11 o'clock service. And members will have an opportunity to discuss and vote on the question of whether FUS becomes a sanctuary congregation. So the sanctuary congregation topic will be the featured item at the parish meeting here on Sunday, March 19, after the 11 o'clock service. Just a couple other announcements. As we were acknowledging our volunteers, it made me think about an upcoming event for which we need volunteers. It's in 68 days. On May 12, Friday, that's when this place gets turned into an entire party venue called Cabaret. We need some volunteers for that. We wouldn't want you to miss out on the opportunity to volunteer and help put that program together. You can talk to Molly Kelly and look for more information in your Red Flores bulletin. The last announcement is that in the theme of Promise Sunday, I'd like to make a promise to you. I promise that if you sit back or lean forward, you will enjoy today's service because it will touch your heart, stir your spirit, and trigger one or two new thoughts. We're glad you're here. We bid you welcome those of you who come with hope in your heart with anticipation and courage in your step. We bid you welcome who are seekers after a new faith, who come to probe, who come to explore, who come to learn. We bid you welcome you who enter this hall as a homecoming who have found here ample room for your growing spirit and who experience these people as your boon companions. We bid you welcome whoever you are, whatever you are, wherever you are on your life journey. In this hour may we create a community that embraces each and all that we might celebrate the one precious life that is ours today. I invite you to rise and body your spirit for the lighting of our chalice. Our words of affirmation are responsive in nature today. Would you please join your voices in reading the bolded, italicized sections. This spiritual community is not a fortress of truth or an impregnable bastion of faith. It is where the strands of our convictions, our hopes, and our courage form a cable strong enough to bear us across the valleys of pain, grief, and disillusionment. That is why we come to this special place, harboring old doubts, hungering for new insight. Now I invite you to turn to your neighbor on this early March Sunday in exchange with them a warm and friendly greeting. I would invite any children to come forward at this time for our message for all ages who have ever said these two important words to someone. They're really important words. Thank you. How many people have ever said thank you? You said thank you? How many of you out there have said thank you? So why do you say thank you? To show people that you care for them? So when someone does something nice for you, and then you say thank you? And then what do they say back? You're welcome, or more commonly these days, no problem. But I like your welcome a lot better. Do you think you say thank you enough and for enough things? You think you can say thank you more? There are a lot of things to say thank you for and this is a little story about Jamile the cat and how he learns about the importance of thank you. At the end of the lane stand two trees side by side as their branches touch and reach out wide. As each day ends Jamile walks down the lane toward his tree friends and he hears them murmuring thank you rain. Thank you son. Thank you they whisper in harmony for the ring around the moon at night for the western sky and the northern lights. Thank you for the air we breathe for the wild garden and the flowered wreath for the salty scent of the ocean deep for the open spaces where the flowers open. Thank you for this place of peace a place of dreams a place of sleep. Thank you for the ancient stones for sand and sea and a place called home. Thank you for the color of joy for the shape of love for the shadows at dusk for the morning dove who coos in hours of gray when life is sad and we've lost our way. And thank you for life and death and life again for the seed of hope born of a sad end. Thank you for the smallest gifts sleeping cat, dog running free for toes and clothes and sweet memories. And thank you too for our friend Jamile. And Jamile smiled when he heard his name. He hugged the trees and walked back down the lane. Now one day it rained very very hard. And Jamile tried to walk down the lane to see his tree friends but the wind and the water floated him all the way back to his blue room. He shivered, he shook and he couldn't get worn. He felt lonely and forlorn for the voices of the trees and sadness came and sat by him as he rested in bed and listened to the rain. Then the words of the trees came back to him for once they had whispered we will be your friends even if you feel that you have no friends. And if you can't find us because the road is dark remember to thank yourself that you have traveled this far along your path and in your heart. So he rested in bed tired and cold and he looked around his blue room and within that blue he saw many many different blues dancing together in harmony and he thought to himself thank you eyes that let me see all the blues in the nighttime sky. Thank you ear that lets me hear the sound of the rain upon the lane. Thank you hands for reaching out over sadness over doubt toward all that is wonderful. And thank you voice that lets me say love and peace to you today who have walked down the lane and sat by the trees and who know the secret that makes us free. The gift of you and the gift of me. For believing loving feeling seeing the gift of earth and the miracle of being we say thank you. So that gives you a lot of different things to think about that you might be thankful for right say thank you about. So we can never really say thank you enough and perhaps this little story will help you to remember to say thank you when you might otherwise forget. So we're going to send you off to your classes right now and we hope you appreciate those classes and we're going to sing you out with him number 135. Please be seated. So we continue our service this morning with two selections the first from a man named Manish Nandi and this was a short story an experience of his that he shared in The Sun magazine. Something about him really put me off. He was tall, thin unkempt even for a college student. His shirt always seemed to need ironing. His hair combing. And he had this impudent air about him as if he didn't care what the world thought about him. In class he didn't participate sharing witty remarks with those sitting next to him instead. Now I was a social guy involved in student politics who talked with everyone except him. I was certain I would not like him although we were in the same class we never exchanged a single word but I did find out his name. His name was Bose. In the fourth month of the semester I helped lead a public discussion of an issue that the student union wanted to take up with the administration. It was a noisy and acrimonious debate until one person changed the tenor by posing three simple questions and that person was Bose. His questions were pertinent, incisive, but he tossed them out as if he was not a bit interested in the answers. After the meeting had ended I complimented Bose on his contribution asked if he wanted to get coffee at the cafeteria. We talked for at least three hours and by the end of the conversation I wanted to stay in touch with him. We remained friends throughout college. I found a job immediately after graduation while Bose, well he survived tutoring. His great love was mathematics and so I was delighted when after four years he met the chief researcher of a mathematical analytics company and he joined their staff as an intern. He rose steadily until he was the principal researcher for his group. Now Bose's new affluence had very little effect on him. He continued to live a modest life in a middling apartment and to spend his time with friends. He dressed better though one of the directors of the company was a friend of mine. He told me that Bose was a brilliant inventive man who could easily have been at the head of that company, but Bose just didn't seem to want that. When I mentioned his remark to Bose he replied I'm already the head of an enterprise, my own life. The second reading comes from the Harvard psychiatrist Robert Coles from his book The Call of Service. Dion Diamond. Dion Diamond had taken leave from the University of Wisconsin to work in Louisiana where he had relatives. I first met Dion at the home of a black New Orleans lawyer who was the NAACP legal defense funds representative in that state. Later I saw him again in a Baton Rouge prison where he had been jailed on grounds of disturbing the peace. You see, Dion had attempted to have lunch at a restaurant that wanted no part of black customers. And so as a psychiatrist I had been asked to testify on Dion's behalf. The local prosecutor well he had decided to call him unstable, possessed of an anti-social personality and hence his lawyer's decision to ask me to interview him and to tell the court what I thought about his personality. So as I sat in the prisoner's visiting room I heard this tall, thoughtful, sensitive, hardworking man tell me of the extreme danger he'd been facing voluntarily in hopes of seeing an end to segregation in Louisiana. I wondered. I wondered first to myself and then out loud what gave Dion the strength to go on. He was in constant danger and back in 1962 there wasn't the national backing and attention that coalesced behind the Mississippi project of 1964. Often Dion was working alone and there was the distinct possibility one day that he would be found alone and dead. So in our interview I asked him Dion, your values, your ideals apart. I wonder why you keep up with this given all the dangers, all the obstacles. And I was stopped in my well-meaning tracks by the young man's three-word reply, the satisfaction man. I'm afraid my imagination back then was rather limited. I could think of few possible satisfactions for it. He'd been telling me how tough his work was, how lonely at times, how frightening at other times, and worst of all how discouraging. So I asked him about this satisfaction and he replied, well you know I'm meeting some really fine people. I'm listening to them tell me a lot about their own lives. I'm hearing them stop and think about what they might be willing to do to change the world down here in Louisiana. Isn't that enough? Isn't that a good reason to feel satisfied? If you can spend some part of your life doing work like this then I think you're lucky. There may be a sheriff out there a sheriff out there waiting with a gun and if he gets me I will die thinking, Deon, you actually did something. You were part of something that was bigger than yourself and you saw people beginning to change right before your eyes. That, that's a real achievement. That's what I mean when I say satisfaction. Desire to be free from suffering and speaking of happiness. Sometime last summer I'm not exactly sure of the date. I was contacted by an individual from a psychology department at a major university. And this individual asked whether I might have some time to talk to him about a project that he and some colleagues were embarking upon. And they were concerned, he said, about the overall decline in the state of happiness among Americans. And they believed that they had come up with at least a partial solution. And intrigued, I set a date for a follow up telephone conversation. When we spoke again, this gentleman began by outlining his concern. He said, too many people today are feeling stressed out. Feeling isolated, lonely. And that's led to some rather serious health issues and substance abuse and depression and a decline in overall productivity. And as a response to this emerging epidemic that already affects according to him about a third of the adult population launched a for profit start up simply called and the objective of this enterprise is to connect sufferers with compassionate, confidential listeners with whom they can open up and freely share their troubles. And this is designed, he said, as an on demand service that clients can access at all times of day and for talk sessions of indeterminate length. Happiest sharing economy creates conversations between people who need support and people who are naturally good at providing that support, he said. And rates are very affordable. $25 an hour. Now after this explanation of happy's mission and purpose, their representative cut to the chase. As a minister, I might know of individuals who would be well equipped to serve as happiness providers. And these he described as sensitive, caring men and women with a little extra time on their hands. Social work students, retirees, empty nesters, stay at home parents, unemployed millennials. I said I'd think about it. But happiness as this story indicates has become a major concern in today's society. We are told, of course, that we have a right to be happy that happiness should be one of our prime objectives in life. And yet at this moment in history, we seem to be experiencing a happiness deficit. Surely it is a problem that is simply begging for a solution. But the problem, another problem immediately arises when we pause to ask the obvious question, what constitutes happiness? What are its sources? How is it maintained? The poet Amy Lowell explained the difficulty with just two evocative lines. Happiness to some elation is to others mere stagnation. Is there a one size fits all definition of happiness? I don't think so. We look at people who seem to have everything going for them. All their ducks in a row, wealth, social standing, what appears to be a stable family life, good health. And yet to us they appear to be anything but happy. Their cup is always half empty. As Harvard's Daniel Gilbert observes in his book Stumbling on Happiness, happiness really is nothing more or less than a word that we word makers can use to indicate anything we please. The problem is that people seem pleased to use this one word to indicate a whole host of different things. Now commentators on the subject Gilbert continues, distinguish generally between at least three lines of happiness. There may be more. The list is not exhausted. It can be treated as a feeling which it typically is. This is emotional happiness. It can also be treated as a function of virtuous behavior, doing the right thing. That's moral happiness. Or it can be seen as an altered state of consciousness resulting from the exercise of non-judgmental awareness. That's judgmental happiness. Classical philosophers generally extolled the happiness that accompanies virtue. And for the Buddha and his followers judgmental happiness was primary, an expression of the clear uncontaminated natural mind. Now in neither of the latter two instances were the emotions placed at the forefront, as is typically the case today. Indeed proponents of moral happiness were want to dismiss the sentiment of happiness as something cheap. Vacuous state of bovine contentment was considered perfectly tragic for life to be aimed at nothing more substantive, nothing more significant than a mere feeling. Gilbert comments. And in any case because each person's feelings of happiness are unique and are aroused by a wide and disparate variety of experiences and stimuli, it's hard to come up with a simple formula for achieving happiness. The person who professes to be happiest when they are free based climbing Yosemite's El Capitan with their adrenaline flowing that makes me shake my head in disbelief. Or the current president for whom daily doses of adulation and applause seem to be required to feel happy. That likewise confounds me. Which is not to say that feelings are completely irrelevant to happiness. It's only to say that we may be giving them more weight than they deserve. And moreover in the realm of feelings it is all too easy to confuse happiness with sensations that are somewhat analogous but considerably less satisfying in the long run. Pleasure for instance. The problem cultural anthropologist Ruth Benedict once said is not that we are never happy, it's just that our happiness seems to be so episodical. And this comment is particularly pertinent when we talk about the happiness that is derived from pleasure. It is frustratingly transient. And when it disappears we may end up feeling even worse than before. I'm sure we have all had the experience of purchasing something nice for ourselves. And we immediately feel this uptick in our sense of well-being. But then we watch it subside. As rather quickly we fall back into the state in which we started. This is a measurable phenomenon. Studies have revealed that the brain chemistry of shoppers changes at the point that they make that purchase. The individual becomes momentarily happier. Because a little dopamine has been released as the transaction is completed. And indeed the typical customer's pleasure and happiness peak at that very moment. Rather when the desired item is actually put into use. And the happiness that we associate with pleasure can also work to our disadvantage at times. Consider this phenomenon called confirmation bias. And the similar way in which it affects one's mood. When we read or we hear something that supports a belief that we hold very strongly. A belief about cats or dogs or personalities or principles. When we read something that kind of confirms our beliefs then we are again rewarded with this little hit of dopamine and our happiness quotient rises accordingly. And because confirmation bias feels good we tend to stick by our guns even when we are dead wrong. So when we relegate happiness to the realm of feelings we may condemn ourselves to a kind of boom and bust cycle that may also entail a significant degree of self-deception. Moreover Barbara Ehrenreich points out if the feeling of happiness is our paramount concern we may seek to avoid controversy or conflict or acts of injustice. Because all these things bring us down. Pursuing happiness can thus become a rather narcissistic and socially irresponsible enterprise. Let's talk about the word pursuit. When our third president composed that phrase, that memorable phrase that all men are created equal, they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Well with that last phrase I think he may have slid off the rails a little bit. Because the longer I live and the deeper I probe into the subject the more I am convinced that pursuing happiness for its own sake as an end in itself is a fool's errand. In and of itself happiness simply cannot be caught. It is rather a by-product of some other important agenda that we establish for ourselves and then work to fulfill. Dion Diamond, that Wisconsin student who risked his life fighting for civil rights in his native Louisiana, he certainly wasn't pursuing happiness was he? And his conversation with Robert Coles in that conversation he didn't call it that. Dion spoke of satisfaction feeling good about the relationships he was developing and the changes that he could already see coming. If you can spend some of your life doing work like this he said then you are lucky. Similarly there's a woman named Makayla Dreyer. She's a millennial and she is a registered independent voter in the state of Missouri. She has never been politically engaged but like so many of her chronological peers she likes to text. She doesn't so much like to talk on the phone but then after the last election as the political winds began to shift she began to kind of reevaluate both her feelings and her protocols. She said you know many of the new administration's policies they're a deep concern to me but I also know that I commute to work a lot and I have Bluetooth set up in my car and so every day from December 30th to February 2nd she called her Republican U.S. Senator's office from her car. That has become my routine she says and she further reports that it is really really good for her mood. When I am actively standing up and doing something I don't get dragged down and begin to feel hopeless. Now if I were going to fit these two examples into the previously mentioned categories they resemble moral happiness most closely. When we place ourselves in the service of some worthy cause or some unfulfilled need it does boost our spirits and even if there is no guarantee that our efforts will bear immediate fruit just the potential for success. If not in this season and maybe in the next or the next that can keep us uplifted. This is the active life finding one's voice exercising one's moral muscle. This thing called stewardship also belongs in this category. The willingness as Peter Block puts it to be accountable for the well-being of a larger organization by operating in service to those around us. As faithful stewards we choose service over self interest guided by a mature understanding of the causes we care about and ultimately our own well-being our best served when we pool our efforts and assume collective responsibility. Now Block is a highly respected organizational consultant by trade and he describes this as a spiritual enterprise not just a practical one. We want to affirm the spirit he writes for there is this longing in each of us to invest our energy in things that really matter finding meaning in and treating them as an offering. Block was thinking about institutions in general but he could well have been speaking about faith communities in particular for in no other context is the principle of stewardship followed so faithful. What are the implications for happiness here? Numerous studies have shown that people who are active in such communities whether they be churches, mosques, Buddhist sanghas, Hindu temples, humanist circles such people experience a higher degree of satisfaction with their lives than those who completely eschew such involvement. In the long run service is likely to be more gratifying stewardship is likely to be more gratifying than they sole pursuit of one's individual self-interest. Now we have to be sensible here of course excessive service that will weary rather than lift our spirits. So we need to learn also how to take our pulse and know when to step back and it's when we step back it's when we leave off our service and allow ourselves to rest in the grace of the world as Wendell Berry puts it it's then that we begin to experience that third type of happiness judgmental happiness where we are living in the moment open aware unencumbered by responsibility the earth was warm under me and warm as I crumbled it through my fingers Willa Cather writes in my Antonia. Queer little red bugs came out and moved in small squadrons around me their backs were polished vermilion with black spots I kept as still as I could nothing happened I didn't expect anything to happen I was something that simply lay under the sun felt it like the pumpkins I did not want anything more I was entirely happy perhaps we feel that way when we die Cather writes becoming part of something entire whether it's the sun or the air or goodness or knowledge at any rate this is happiness to be dissolved into something complete and great and when it comes to one it comes just as naturally as sleep you know the pursuit of happiness sounds to me a little bit too much like work persistent moving towards something that is always receding in the distance that we can never quite grasp where it is in reality as close at hand as a handful of warm earth but it's not the earth itself that matters of course it could be the clouds it could be a cup of tea it could be the cat on the pillow the dog on the leash it could be soft strains of music it could be laughter around the table we just invite a time in which we can taste what we have been given take delight in what we already have and see that it is good and when we cultivate such experiences our sense of appreciation and gratitude expands emotional states that are closely connected to happiness it's what Jamile the cat was after when he sought out the company of those two friendly trees the source of gratitude became for him this source of insight and inspiration at the end of the story Jamile thinks to himself thank you voice that lets me say love and peace to you today who have walked down the lane sat with the trees and who know the secret of what makes us free happiness is a little more complex than it might seem at first glance it's also somewhat paradoxical because as Rebecca Solnit rightly observes making happiness your primary objective in life that actually gets in the way of being happy so is there a reliable formula we can follow that makes it more likely that we will stumble on to happiness or something resembling it well the ancient Greeks developed a concept that may provide a clue it's called eudaimonia which they defined as a complete and flourishing life now when Bose told his friend Manish that he had no interest in being the head of his company because he already was the head of an enterprise his own life this is what he was talking about eudaimonia the complete and flourishing life he didn't need anything else so honor your relationships practice stewardship cultivate gratitude forget about finding happiness maybe happiness will find you we have cares of the congregation that are listed in your program today but none were entered in our book that sits at the outside of our middle doors and so we will continue directly into our offering and you note that the recipient of our outreach this week is sale non-profit organization that does a lot of good work in our community please be generous I'm Chip Wadi and I'm honored to be a co-chair annual campaign every year about this time the finance team goes to work on the budget for next year and every year about this time several of us are asked to share why we support FUS I'm not a lifelong UU so how did I get to FUS well first I made a mess of my life for 20 years a lot of broken thinking and denial went into that until eight years ago when I finally was ready to stop chasing my emptiness and turn towards spiritual fullness but at that point I wasn't yet ready to join a church because I distrusted religion then one day someone I love and trust said hey you want to try my church I didn't know what to expect but I found many things that have come to mean a lot to me today I'll mention three of them first is the way we talk about our journey we are a building full of people who believe there's more than one way to think about God we embrace the greatest hits from every faith tradition we are curious seekers each on a free and responsible search for truth and meaning with respect for the interdependent web of all existence we share messages about compassion gratitude and loving kindness pretty good huh and where else am I going to find something like this second is the opportunities for spiritual practice Buddhist meditation Japanese crane meditation singing meditation centering prayer Tai Chi and a lot more and of course service work is spiritual practice I like to work in the kitchen so there's that and there's making music and there's teaching RE and there's a hundred other ways to help third is the spirit of this community you are relentlessly upbeat and I'm inspired by that you are welcoming and I appreciate that the ministers invite us to bring our whole and sometimes broken cells and even when addicts like me get sober we still carry around a lot of broken thinking I hear this community saying that's okay you can hang out here I'll help you out with some of that spiritual glue that you need to put yourself back together so how could I not love a place that calls me to bring my best self and welcomes me even on days when my best self isn't very good we use our heads a lot here but my heart is what tells me to do my part to keep f us going and growing an investment here pays dividends that eight years ago I did not even imagine were possible and that's why I give what I can to the annual campaign please consider doing the same sooner is better for the finance team and if you like you can pledge today at a table in the commons or online and let me close by saying thank you for all the gifts that you have given me is a spiritual practice so let us join our voices in our closing hymn and there are two parts to it man I think many of you here know your part women I presume you know your part as well please be seated for the benediction and this is our beloved community one that provides inspiration and nurture and companionship so when you are cold reach for our heart when you are hungry for meaning come to our table when you feel isolated estranged be here with us and when it's time for you to go feel encouraged knowing that we will always be here for you bless it be and amen