 Please join in a moment of centering silence so we can be fully present with each other this morning and Now let's get musically present with each other by turning to the words for our in-gathering hymn Which you'll find inside your order of service my voice this morning and welcome all of you to the sobering reality of winter and To another wonderful Sunday here at First Unitarian Society Where independent thinkers gather in a safe Nurturing and mercifully warm 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 Intellectually gifted member of this congregation And I'd like to expand a special welcome and a happy hello to any guests Visitors and newcomers if this is your first time at First Unitarian Society I guarantee you'll find that this is a special place And if you would like to learn more about our special buildings, we will offer a guided tour after the service today Just gather over here by the windows and we will take care of you Speaking of taking care of each other This is a perfect time to silence those pesky electronic devices that you simply will not need for the next hour And this goes for those of you watching or listening at home because we can hear your ringtones And if you're accompanied this morning by a youngster and you think that youngster would rather Experience the service from a more private space. We offer a couple options for you One is our child Haven at the back corner of the auditorium We also have some seats just outside the doorway in the commons from which you and your youngster can see and hear the service as Is the case every weekend our service is Brought to us by a dedicated team of people whom we call volunteers these people deserve our thanks hug a handshake High-five better yet Offered to shovel their driveway These people include Mark Schultz who's operating the sound system for us Jeanne Heitman, I'm sorry Joan Heitman Whose smiley face greeted us as we arrive today and speaking of smiley faces and smiley is our lay minister The following people are handling the chore of ushering this group today include Patricia Becker Celia Carr and Melinda Carr Also deserving our thanks is Rick DeVita who's handling the hospitality and coffee a little later on today Hannah Pickerton who's making sure that our foliage is well watered and colorful up here on the stage and Richard Miller Who is conducting the tour after the service? just a couple announcements first Thanksgiving Thursday is our annual Thanksgiving potluck dinner party you'll find details featured very prominently in the red floors bulletin So take a look at that. It's a lot of fun if you don't have other Thanksgiving plans And speaking of family gatherings and family activities Our family-to-family gift program at FUS is alive and well And this is your opportunity to choose a needy family for the family-to-family holiday gift program you'll have a chance to beat the black Friday the black Friday rush and Let us know if you can help the social workers load their cars with gifts on December 14 or 15 More information available at the informational table in the commons right after the service Also an event that's taking place across the parking lot in the landmark building And the reason why some of us had a challenge parking today Is the art in the right place event Over 40 artists have gathered for this year's art in the right place, which is a fundraiser for the children's religious education program This art fair includes a variety of different genres In the field of arts and crafts 13 of the 40 artists are members of FUS. So this is a great opportunity to keep your dollars local While supporting an important religious education program here at FUS the art fair ends at four o'clock today And unlike those who stayed from the nine o'clock service and went over to the art fair You will not be obstructing anybody's parking if you do that The last announcement is that I have lost track of how many days until the next cabaret But I will find out and let you know shortly Meanwhile Please sit back or lean forward to enjoy this morning service I was here for the nine o'clock and I guarantee you that this service is special It'll touch your heart stir your spirit and trigger one or two new thoughts. We're glad you're here Let this be for us a time of celebration and a time of renewal In celebration let our minds be awake to the common miracle of the earth the flowing grace of the river and to the answering spirit within us in Renewal let our minds be aware of the deep down freshness of a new day of Holiness let loose in creation and of the responding. Yes within us Let this hour be a time of celebration when we feel at one with the mystery in which we move and have our being Let this hour be a time of renewal when we let go of past disappointments and present anxieties to embrace the healing power of our communion and Now invite you to rise in body or in spirit for the lighting of our chalice And if you will join me in reading the words of affirmation printed in today's program We light this chalice as a symbol of our thanks for the bounty of life We are grateful for the many gifts. We have been given gifts of love and laughter Where mutual support is most evident gifts of conscience which encourage us to contribute to the common good gifts of hope which give purpose to our days and Meaning to our efforts for these and many other Unnamed gifts of life we give thanks and in the spirit of that thanks Please turn to your neighbor in exchange with them a warm and friendly greeting those of the month We generally set aside a few minutes during the hour for the sharing of joys and sorrows This is a time for members friends and even visitors to our midst to relate to the entire gathered community some special event or Circumstance that has affected your life or the life of someone close to you in recent weeks or months More general announcements and news items and political and social appeals are not encouraged during the sharing of joys and sorrows So for the next few minutes anyone who wishes is invited to step to the front of the auditorium light a candle in one of the two candle labra and then using the microphone provided by and smiley our lay minister share Your name if you're comfortable doing that as well as your message Please note that our services are live cast so listeners are not restricted to the people sitting in this auditorium You may also come to the front and wordlessly light a candle of commemoration and then return to your seat So now I would open the floor for the sharing of these important matters of our lives and if we will light an initial candle and in sympathy for Those who have lost their lives in recent terrorist attacks and for their grieving families Hi, I'm Nancy better Schultz a week ago Wednesday. My mother fell down and broke a vertebra in her back She's here in Madison at Oakwood in the assisted living I'm not going to tell you the horror story of her staying at the hospital. Just let's say I'm really angry about it and She left much weaker and much less Mentally together because of it and if you ever have elders who have to go to the hospital Think at least four or five times before you take them there or Make sure you can get them out the next morning anyhow what I Am doing now is having her She has 24-7 help she's at Tabor Oaks in the assisted living she is getting better But if she'd left the morning after the accident she wouldn't have to go through this So I'm feeling very sorry for her and what I can say is Aging is not for wimps nor is it for wimpy children I'm Marlene Pearson. I just liked a lot of candle for my brother-in-law bill Who begins an experimental immunotherapy tomorrow for stage four colon cancer? He's a quite a fighter and Really struggled hard this year. Hi. I'm Susan Nelson and I just want to Let everyone know here how warm and how I felt a huge hug since joining the FUS and I just moved into a new home, and I got a lovely card signed by everyone at FUS and I feel really warm and love and ready to move on to the next stage of my life So thank you so much Hi, I'm Laurie Cresswell and I had the privilege of taking a meal to Bist and Rupnitsky, who many of you know were in a car accident they're recovering from and They were such role models for finding the positive that I just left there glowing they and they are feeling the love from FUS and just so happy to be alive and What an inspiration they were for so this is for them Excuse me. I'm Carolyn Zanwaxler and I light the candle in tribute to and celebration of the life of Helen Buchelik who passed away recently who was a staunch member of the community and did Really fine community work for for decades of her life her memorial service was beautiful It was at first congregational church, and I don't know how many of you've been in that church, but it's huge And it was filled for Helen and she also left behind a wonderful wonderful Family and it was just so good to be a part of that. She's a distant relative of mine I just have to add FUS was the bright spot in this difficult time for me People really came out of the woodwork, especially the society quieter So I want to thank you all too. Hi. My name is Terry Felton, and I'm lighting this for my co-worker My Pia Jean who lost her mother-in-law in a car accident this last week and her family is going through a lot right now And then if you would like one more candle on behalf of all of those who Had a joy or a sorrow that was not shared but that remains in your heart and it remains in our hearts as well Please join me now in the spirit of meditation For the silence which soothes our souls and the music which stirs us inside For the earth in all of its miraculous lushness and the knowledge that it's all just a gift For the children who keep us curious and the aged who show us life's depths For the visions which bolster our spirits and the places that we love to call home For the differences that make us unique and the convictions which link us as one For all of this we are indeed lucky people And so in this 11th month of the year with the cold the damp and the dark closing in We pause to give thanks for all that we are and all that we have We pause to say that because of it all We are indeed a lucky people Let us continue on in a moment more of silence Blessed be and amen Invite you to rise once more and body or in spirit as we sing together Him 322 verses 1 2 and 5 and if there are any children among us who are Due to attend their classes now is the time for you to head out It's a familiar passage from the sixth chapter of the gospel of man and Jesus said Therefore I tell you do not worry about your life What you shall eat what you shall drink or about your body what you shall wear It's not life more than food and the body more than clothing Look you to the birds of the air They neither so nor do they reap nor do they gather into barns and yet your heavenly father He feeds them. Are you of not more value than they? Can any of you by worrying at a single hour to the span of life? Why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field how they grow They neither toil nor do they spin and yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all of his glory was arrayed as one of these But if God so clothes the grass of the field Which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven will he not much more cloth you? Oh you of little faith and therefore do not worry Don't say what shall we eat what shall we drink or what shall we wear? Strive first for the kingdom and its righteousness and all these things will be given unto you as well So do not worry about the morrow For tomorrow will bring worries of its own and today's troubles are enough for today And then the second reading in a somewhat different and contrasting vein from Robert Folgem's book What on earth have I done Folgem of course is a retired Unitarian Universalist minister and well-known humorist a friend of mine Bree by name who was 12 years old at the time of this story She is willing to go anywhere with me that involves dressing up She likes my company and I like hers and we both like looking good and laughing hard. She's my kind of guy Technically speaking she is my grandchild But I emphasize that we are friends out of mutual admiration and not just blood ties She is old and wise beyond her years and I am young and goofy behind my years She aspires to adulthood but hasn't quite got the hang of it and I I know what's required of adults But I just can't get used to being one Now with regard to these dress-up occasions one in particular Bree went along with me to a wedding where I was the ministerial efficient Very romantic occasion that went off much better than I had expected Both the mother of the bride and the mother of the groom were perfectly pleased miraculous And the bride and groom they lived happily ever after it at least as long as the reception laughter tears hugging dancing eating drinking Home run with the bases loaded But during the ride home Bree was unusually quiet I parked the car we walked hand in hand toward my house where she was spending the night Still quiet and then she said I Wonder where he is tonight Who I asked You know him the man. I'm going to marry someday The father of your great-grandchildren He must be out there somewhere, but but where is he I? Can't imagine I said why do you ask? Well said Bree, you know I worry about him. I Hope he's okay Well, I said it if he's gonna meet up with you somewhere down the road Then I'm sure he must be fine safe in the hands of destiny Silence I look down at her and I see a trembling lip and I filling with tears What's wrong? What what if he got hit by a truck? What if he's hurt? I felt tears welling up in my own eyes. That would be awful. I said Yes, she's up. He will be so sad and lonely without me And then we went through the kitchen door and my wife saw our distress What's wrong with the two of you? She asked Her husband got hit by a truck. I'm all we don't even know where he is or who's taking care of him What Underneath this story is the question that I often asked myself Folgem writes What will become of me? Someone once asked me if you could know everything that will ever happen to you for the rest of your life But you could not change a single thing. Would you want to know? Some days yes mostly no But I can't stop wondering even if it makes no sense Even if I really don't believe in destiny or the one and only I wonder Meanwhile the trucks of fate roll on and the trick the trick is not to get run over by one The trick is to be there Alert by the side of the road with your thumb out and so if that truck with your number on it just happens to come along You will be able to know about it and you will then get in and you will go and the ride will be as long and as Lovely as you had ever imagined it would be perhaps as Americans We need to be listening to more choral music like that because according to a 2002 World Metal Health Survey we Americans are a notoriously anxious people We worry a lot We worry more in fact than those who are living in troubled countries like Ukraine Nigeria and Lebanon one in five of us suffers from an anxiety disorder of one sort or another and As a whole we spend over two billion dollars a year on medications to mitigate those conditions This might seem rather strange given that the average American is amply Supplied with the necessities food shelter proper clothing Schools medical care personal transportation public safety We aren't exactly in the same position as the pilgrims who stepped off the Mayflower 400 years ago in late November with little more than the clothes on their backs That first winter of 1620 half of those English refugees perished from exposure or poor nutrition But thanks to squanto and the remaining members of the Patuxet tribe a tribe already Decimated by diseases introduced by European explorers Thanks to the Patuxet the pilgrims adapted to their new surroundings and 60 or so of them were still around to celebrate with their gracious hosts the first Thanksgiving the following year an Event that was more than likely a traditional native harvest festival It is perhaps ironic that the Patuxet were not more Suspicious of these bad smelling white interlopers who had occupied a site Where in better days members of their own once numerous tribe had lived and worked the land Without Indian assistance the Plymouth Rock settlers would almost certainly have been up the creek By contrast in today's America Collective worry over refugees has led to both extreme rhetoric and extreme policy proposals We know that over three million Syrians and an equal number of Iraqis have now been displaced Due to conflicts that the US helped to instigate and for which we bear significant responsibility These burgeoning numbers have recreated a resettlement problem of crisis proportions in Jordan Turkey Lebanon and more recently in Europe Hundreds of thousands of men women and children have fled their war-torn countries seeking asylum straining the capacity of countries that are ill equipped to absorb them and Now with recent terrorist attacks in Paris persons of Middle Eastern extraction stand under a dark cloud of suspicion and perhaps perhaps given Americans still vivid memories of 9-11 We should not be surprised that many of our own citizens Seem as worried if not more worried than the British the Germans and even the French Despite the carnage created by ISIS operatives nine days ago President Francois Hollande has renewed France's commitment to accept a large number of Syrian refugees Yes, indeed European nations are tightening their security. They are taking additional steps to ensure their citizen safety But they are not reacting with the paranoia that's being displayed on this side of the Atlantic Canada accepting that rule There have been calls in our own country to close the door further to Syrian immigration Or to allow only Syrian Christians to enter the US The governors of 31 states have now declared Middle Eastern refugees to be persona non gratis and just two days ago Indiana's governor refused entry to two Syrian families who had been living in a Jordanian camp for over three years Other proposals have included closing all of the nation's Muslim mosques Or creating a national Muslim database and Faced with growing opposition to his own resettlement plan President Obama has remained defiant slamming the door in the face of refugees Would betray our deepest values he tweeted that is not who we are and that is not what we are going to do Well that rhetoric hardly satisfied South Carolina's Trey Gowdy who is demanding a risk-free immigration plan that guarantees America's absolute security Which of course is impossible Why do Americans worry so much Why have we in the US become so fearful? Truth be told this is an old story The 1850s saw the rise of the American Party better known by historians as the know-nothings The know-nothings adamantly opposed Irish and more broadly Roman Catholic immigration a Few decades later and in the grip of the yellow peril the US Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act which shut the door to Chinese immigration for over 60 years And of course more recently politicians have stoked Americans fears of immigrants from south of our border It is indeed puzzling that a country comprised almost entirely of immigrants and their offspring would turn out to be so Inhospitable toward those who are seeking the very same opportunities as my German and English and Swedish forebears Is it violence that we are so afraid of you know statistics indicate that Latino immigrants both documented and undocumented Commit violent crimes at a significantly lower rate than the average America as Jonathan Rauch wrote in the Atlantic last March President Obama catches flak when he lectures the American public not to be so darn worried If you watch the nightly news he says it feels like the world is falling apart But I promise you Obama said things are much less dangerous now than they were 20 years ago or 30 years ago And you know what Rauch continues in his article Obama is simply right and the alarmists are simply wrong Violent crime in this country has declined by 70% since the early 1990s and the 2011 homicide rate reached its lowest level since 1963 Moreover Americans are four times as likely to drown in their own bathtub as to die in a terrorist attack Rauch quotes Stephanie regalo of the Libertarian Kato Institute who has observed that no great power in world history Has come close to enjoying the traditional state security that we in the US do today Now human beings are Rauch continues we are hard-wired to Overreact to perceived threats and in an earlier age this hyper vigilance did serve us well It was a protective measure the snap of a twig or the sight of a shadow a figure could alert us to a dangerous predator Today however this attribute can be Maladaptive leading us to take the sort of extreme measures to adopt state and national policies that end up undermining our freedoms and Audently serve to reduce our security rather than to enhance it Now memory plays a role in this fear factor to Rauch says Incidents of murder and mayhem make a much deeper and lasting impression on us then do long stretches of peace and security So we conjure up a world that is fairly teeming with perils and pitfalls And we tend therefore to overestimate the likelihood of a calamitous event in the future we worry a lot But none of what I've just said should be construed as an argument against worry and its place in our emotional repertory No, we should not allow our fears to override our common sense to cancel out our compassion But complacency carries with it some very real risks of its own in that same Atlantic article last March Jonathan Rauch characterized ISIS as almost entirely a local menace lacking an active lethal presence in either Western Europe or the US Nine days ago. We learned the hard way that this was simply not the case And so perhaps those who had been entrusted with Francis security, perhaps they should have worried a little more Worry in other words is by no means an unnecessary or inexpedient emotion Problems do arise when worry is excessive when it becomes chronic or when it is Misdirected, but there are times that call for worry and there are occasions that warrant it Yes, Jesus counseled his listeners not to give any thought for the moral simply take care of business today Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? He asked Actually, yes, you can worry that Intuitive sense that something isn't quite right that feeling of impending peril Can protect us and our loved ones and it can add time to our lives Worry begets vigilance Exactly what all of us need to stay out of harm's way Now Robert Folgem's experience with his granddaughter Who was worried to tears about the safety of her future husband that highlights a kind of worry that seems Just a little out of whack But Folgem's conclusion is the right one We need to stay alert Because a truck with our name on it may be barreling toward us And so it is reasonable to worry a little about the sobriety and the skills of other drivers out there on the road Now worry does of course produce stress in Extreme cases it does become in some people an anxiety disorder whose physical symptoms may include heart palpitations hypertension insomnia and shorter life expectancy Clearly heightened worry like this does not serve a useful purpose and for some people it requires medication But moderate worry It may be worthwhile for example a recent study that was published in the journal Emotion Tested this thesis on a sampling of students who were taking the bar exam once they had completed the testing and Were sitting around waiting for the results some of those students adopted a kind of a fatalistic attitude and they just kind of chilled out What will be will be Others however remained anxious They found it very difficult to tamp down their worries. They hoped for the best, but they braced themselves for possible failure Now once the scores had been posted Which group was better prepared to handle the information they received turns out the warriors They were more thrilled if they had passed and they were less devastated if they failed as Dr. Kate Sweeney observes if the news was bad the warriors were ready with productive reasonable responses And if they passed they were elated But woe to those who remain calm Those who sailed through the waiting period were shattered and paralyzed by the bad news and if they got good news Well, they were underwhelmed So does worry get an undeserved bad rap To a certain extent it probably does if worry raises our stress level We presume it should be avoided because stress as we know is unhealthy But that too is an oversimplification because other recent research suggests that generally speaking stress is harmful Only if the subject believes it is harmful if we reframe the experience of stress And if we regard it in a more positive light its physiological effects are dampened Kelly McGonigal writes that over a hundred thousand Americans may have died prematurely not from stress But from the belief that stress was bad for them I once had a female colleague who served a large UU congregation in Texas And she always struck me as kind of high strong and one time she conceded in the conversation You know stress is my drug of choice Which was another way of saying that she found stress particularly in her professional life to be useful rather than Discomfiting and I had to agree with her sentiments After nearly 40 years of public speaking not a day goes by that I don't stress out about what I'm gonna say and how I'm going to say it And the same is true of rites of passage I've performed over 700 weddings in my career half that many memorial services and I always always worry about getting it right If worry can be kept within manageable limits Jonathan Gohal suggests it helps prepare us to make the best performance that we possibly can And beyond that worry is also a way of demonstrating active concern Children especially when they enter adolescence and have begun chafing at the bit may those children may express frustration with what they see as Exaggerated parental worry they will recall from our worry saying don't treat me like a kid. I know how to take care of myself But if as parents we don't share our worries Then our kids just might judge us to be apathetic indifferent As long as it doesn't suffocate them As long as it doesn't create Significant resentment worry. I believe can reassure our sons and our daughters that we really do care about their welfare and This can be true for non family members as well who fall within our orbit Some of you have read the powerful book just mercy by Brian Stevenson And if you have you will remember that he was an attorney who had been Litigating on behalf of condemned prisoners for over a quarter of a century And near the end of that book he admits that at a certain point he was just worn out with worry He worried about pending execution dates for his clients He worried about decisions coming down from the Supreme Court He worried about not having sufficient funding and resources to carry on the fight He worried about released prisoners and the challenges that they faced and despite all of his victories and all of his accomplishments Stevenson felt overwhelmed and he said it is time for me to stop. I can't do this anymore But then a couple of pages later Like the protagonist in Samuel Beckett's novel the unnameable Stevenson Says to himself. I can't go on But I must go on And the beleaguered attorney realized that not only were his worries inescapable They were the juice that fed him that motivated him in his ongoing struggle for justice For Brian Stevenson the emotion was not disabling if he could move from the pain and the distress of worry into constructive activities that proved to be its antidote And we can do the same But that means first of all being selected letting go of those sources of worry and anxiety over which we can exert little if any control and Turning our attention instead toward issues where we do have some leverage and At a personal level if we're worried about having sufficient resources for our retirement We can become more intentional about retirement planning if we are worried about our children We can keep closer tabs on the social media that they happen to be using In the social and political sphere there are many issues that are worthy of our worry the criminalization of poverty Hostility toward the Muslim faith and its members glaring inequities in housing education and employment Art Markham says we worry a lot about the future without there being anything we could really do about it So find an action you can perform and engage with it Now can we really do that can we really choose not to worry about certain things to be selective in what we worry about? According to the Stanford anthropologist Th Lureman about a third of us are born We come into this world with this genetic predisposition for a higher level of anxiety Which may make it hard for some of us to worry less and furthermore Over exposure to sensationalist conflict driven media increases our propensity all of us to worry These days I think too many Americans suffer from a kind of a free floating anxiety That latches on to each disaster desjured raising it up to a near panic level So it's important to find that action that we can perform But also to develop a strategy that can help us to understand and moderate our worry Sharon Salzburg says that when we lose the sense that we have choice And we forget that things can be different that they can change then those negative mind states of ours tend to solidify and they begin to seem permanent and so a Mindfulness practice of some sort can lead to greater self empowerment the ability She says to face our demons and find the strength to stare them down Attempts to repress or to run away from worry that usually isn't going to work for us It is by allowing those worries to enter and to pass through our consciousness that we may be able over time To identify their underlying source to put them in proper perspective and to control our own reactivity steady yourself and See that it is your own thinking that darkens your world John O'Donoghue writes But search and you will find a diamond thought of light and a new Confidence will come alive to urge you toward higher ground where your imagination will learn to engage difficulty as its most rewarding threshold Blessed be and amen And today our offering will be shared with st. Biddy de Paul which operates one of the largest food pantries in Dane County And if you did not bring turkey and fixings for the truck that was outside before the second service You can make a donation here in the auditorium. Please be generous for our closing him number 151 inspired with gratitude for the wondrous gifts that are ours and moved by the desire to share this Undeserved bounty with life's fellow travelers. We prepare to re-enter the world as it is May we leave here sensitized to the world's Unfulfilled needs but also with a song of thanksgiving on our lips to the creator to the sustainer of the daily miracle That I am and that we are please be seated for the postlude