 First Unitarian Society of Madison. My name is Kelly Aspruth-Jackson, and I am one of the ministers here. Today I am joined by my colleague, the Reverend Kelly Crocker, and the worship team of Drew Collins, Stephen Gregorius, and Daniel Karnes. This morning we also have Brian Rainey joining us at the piano. Thank you for being with us, Brian. The vision of FUS is growing souls, connecting with one another and embodying our UU values in our lives, our community, and our world. If you are visiting us today, welcome. We are so very glad that you are with us. If you would like to get some more information about First Unitarian Society, please stop by the welcome table, which is located out in the commons, just through those doors there. We hope that you will be able to stay and join us for coffee hour immediately after the service, also in the commons. For those connecting with us virtually today, we are glad you are with us as well, and we hope that you will be able to join us for our virtual coffee hour immediately following the service. The information for joining can be found on the home page of our website, fussmedicine.org, as well as on the slide that will be seen again after the post loop. Our announcement slides will also be shown briefly after today's service, and we encourage you to take a moment and learn about upcoming programs and activities. And now I invite you to join me in a moment of silence to center ourselves and bring ourselves fully into this time as we join together once again in community. 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 when we share. 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 the possibilities of love, a heart home to nourish your soul and share your gifts. Welcome home, welcome to worship. And we invite you now to rise in all the ways we do, joining together in our words of affirmation as we light our chalice. This isn't just a place of worship. This isn't just a fellowship of like minds. This isn't just a Sunday morning filled with spirit and topped off with coffee and cookies. This is our church, our congregation, where we are building beloved community, where we are opening ourselves to each other, where we trust and love, rise and fall together. This is where we feel safe. This is where we know we are welcomed. This is where we belong. For this gift and so many others, we light our chalice. Rise up, O flame, by thy light glow. Good morning. Let's sing together our opening hymn, number 402. From you I receive. We'll sing it three times. To come up to the carpet, to get closer for our story, guesses for what, you know I'm gonna drop it if I keep doing that, right? Look at me trying to be clever. What do you think is in this box? So it's not very heavy if I can do this, right? And it doesn't make any sound when I shake it. What's your guess? But clever. Are you ready? Oh man, if there was a cupcake in here, I wouldn't do that. I would do that. I think, ready? Yeah, so exciting. Using the clues of the name of the book. It's a box of yarn. And I have a box of yarn because our story is extra yarn. And it is, it's here and it's up there. You definitely know this one. Brilliant, I love this one. You've read it at your neighbor's house. How many of you know this one? Yes, I love this one. All right, on a cold afternoon in a cold little town where everywhere you looked was either the white of snow or the black of soot from chimneys, Annabelle found a box filled with yarn of every color. That would be a fun find, wouldn't it? So she went home and knit herself a sweater. Where are the knitters? Don't you love that? She found a box of yarn and went home and knit herself a sweater. That's how it works, right? And when Annabelle was done, she had some extra yarn. So she knit a sweater for Mars too. But her dog, but there was still extra yarn. Your grandma's a really good knitter. Absolutely, your grandma's a really good. How many of you know knitters? Okay, here's a surprise. Do you know me? Then you know everybody knows a knitter then. Oh, you're so fast. And when Annabelle and Mars went for a walk, Nate pointed and laughed and said, you look ridiculous. You're just jealous, said Annabelle. No, I'm not, said Nate. But it turned out he was. And even after she'd made a sweater for Nate and his dog and for herself and for Mars, she still had extra yarn. Good job. At school, Annabelle's classmates could not stop talking about her sweater. Quiet shouted Mr. Norman, quiet everyone, Annabelle. That sweater of yours is a terrible distraction. I cannot teach with everyone turning around to look at you. Then I'll knit one for everyone, Annabelle said. So they won't have to turn around. Impossible, said Mr. Norman. You can't, but it turned out she could. And she did, even for Mr. Norman. And when she was done, Annabelle still had extra yarn. Okay, what do you think the best part of this picture is? Mr. Norman, what do you notice? Look at this, what do you see? I love the fact, look it, she didn't cut the yarn between their sweaters. Can you see that up there? It's kind of light, but all the yarn, it connects all of them. So she knit sweaters for her mom and dad. Where's Mr. Norman back here? Right there, see Mr. Norman? And for Mr. Pendleton and Mrs. Pendleton, I'm not sure Mr. and Mrs. Pendleton have arms in their sweaters. It's more like she made them a poncho, maybe. And for Dr. Palmer and for Little Lewis. She made sweaters for everyone except Mr. Crabtree. He never wore sweaters or even long pants and he would stand in his shorts with the snow up to his knees. No sweater for me, thanks, said Mr. Crabtree. So she made Mr. Crabtree a hat. Us knitters, we will find a way to cover you in wool somehow. And even then Annabelle still had, you guys are the best, she made sweaters for all the dogs, for all the cats, and for other animals too. Soon people thought soon Annabelle will run out of yarn. But it turned out she didn't. So Annabelle knit sweaters for things that didn't even wear sweaters. Like houses. Look at this, things began to change in that little town. Look at it now, even trees. New spread of this remarkable girl who never ran out of yarn and people came to visit from around the world to see all the sweaters and to shake Annabelle's hand. She's good-eyed, she's connected to all the houses. I love how the yarn stays connected in the whole book. What, do you see that the pole? You think she keeps buying yarn? Yeah, you do know knitters. Okay, I was thinking, I never run out of yarn. Whoops. Hi Nancy up there knitting away. I love seeing the knitters like knitting away in the service today. One day an Archduke who was very fond of clothes sailed across the sea and demanded to see Annabelle. Little girl said the Archduke, I would like to buy that box of yarn and I'm willing to offer you one million dollars. No thank you said Annabelle who was knitting a sweater for a pickup truck. As you do, the Archduke's mustache twitched. Two million he said. Annabelle shook her head, no thanks. 10 million shouted the Archduke take it or leave it. Leave it said Annabelle, I won't sell the yarn and she didn't. So that night the Archduke hired three robbers to break into Annabelle's house and they stole the box and they took it to the Archduke who set off across the snow and sailed over the sea back to his castle. The Archduke put on his favorite song, he sat in his favorite chair, then he took out the box, he lifted the lid and he looked inside. What do you think's gonna happen when he looks inside? It wasn't. It what? It didn't, because he stole the box of yarn it didn't let him be happy. Yeah it went in. He's not allowed to be happy. He's not allowed to be happy. Cause he was stealing right? And he was mean. I love the fact that y'all are as excited about yarn as I am. I feel like I found my little people. Oh you think? Let's find out. His mustache quivered, it shivered, it trembled. The Archduke hurled the box out the window and shouted, little girl, I curse you with my family's curse. You will never be happy again. But, did you see the box? Sailing back across the ocean, where do you think it's going? To Annabelle. To Annabelle. There it is. Annabelle's getting the box back out of the water. But it turns out she was. Look at that tree. So why do you think the box was empty when it got to the Archduke? What do you think? Because he stole it. So this is something about, I'm gonna talk about with the grownups a little bit about this later. You know we're always giving things to each other and we're always receiving from each other. It's kind of what makes our lives work. We all need each other right? So you see lots of yarn. So we're always giving and we're always receiving. But that has to be done with what? Open hearts, open hands. We give back and forth and that box with kindness and that box wasn't a gift, right? He took it and that made the box not have any yarn. So just remember that giving and receiving, we call it mutual, right? That's our big fancy word for it. Back and forth with open heart. So remember that today. I love you all. I am so glad you're here today. And we are now gonna sing at you off to class. Have a great time. What about what? What about what? What about what? This time of giving and receiving, where we give freely and generously to this offering which sustains and strengthens our community here and also our outreach offering recipient, who this week is the Sierra Club Four Lakes Group. The Sierra Club is a national environmental advocacy group with a 130 year history of working to protect wildlife and wild places seeking to defend the earth and communities which depend upon it. The Four Lakes Group is our local branch of that effort grounded here in central Southern Wisconsin. There are multiple ways to share your gifts this morning. Baskets are available at the exits to this room where you can place cash or checks. You can also see on the screen that you can donate directly from our website, fussmedicine.org, and you will see our text to give information there as well. We thank you for your generosity and your faith in this life we create together. Being with us this weekend. I'd like to begin today by telling you a story. A story from a distant time, the year 2006. The year everything in my world changed. For that was the year my first child was born. And on one night, if you can imagine it, deep in the middle of the night, when it would seem that the rest of the world was blissfully fast asleep, I was awake with a very unhappy baby. Those of you who are parents or have taken care of young children may recall your own night such as this. He had been fed. He had been changed. He had been rocked. He had everything he could possibly need. And yet, still the crying would not end. I remember thinking, why do we do this? Why did I do this? I don't think I can do this. And I sunk to the floor with my wailing child and joined him in his tears. I felt completely and utterly alone. Then my eyes glanced over to the living room chair and draped over it was this blanket. 20 squares, all different, all lovingly created by members of this congregation. The idea of Gail Snowden, who taught me to knit the year before, given to me before Sam's birth. I remember laying it out on the living room floor, placing his tea, tiny body down upon it, curling up next to him, and both of us falling fast asleep, this blanket. It somehow got us through that night and so many nights to come. The Reverend Rod Richards wrote these words, "'It is all very well to speak of an interdependent web of all life and remind us that we are all connected. We are. But there are times when the loneliness strikes so deeply that the only thing of which I am certain is that I am a solitary being. There are times when the only piece of belonging I can feel is the longing. There are times when the interdependent web feels like just a mess of cobwebs in a basement or an attic of the abandoned house where I live. Times when the spirit of life and love are just words, written in invisible ink on a postcard to myself, wish you were here. Be with me now. Don't try and talk me out of how I feel with perfect theology. Stay beside me and carry my hope until I am ready to hold it again and be there for you." In that moment, no one could have talked me out of my exhaustion, my worry, my fear that I was not ready to care for this new life. Yet this blanket was a visual representation of people who loved me so very much, who cared enough to create this symbol of support for me and for a baby they hadn't yet met. And in that moment, they held me and my hope until I was ready to hold it myself again. Now that baby is 16 years old, learning to drive, and someday will inherit this blanket. And I will tell him that it is made of so much more than wool. Two years after that night in 2008, Lorna Aronson approached our ministers with an idea. Lorna wanted to begin a shawl ministry program here at FUS. The idea was that members of our congregation would provide handmade comfort items to others during challenging times when the symbols of care and support would be meaningful. That spring, we announced a meeting held in the palatial space that we called the trailers. The temporary staff offices and meeting rooms that were parked just outside on the lawn, overlooking this soon-to-be building. About 25 people crowded into that tiny space and that group created the foundation of what would become our shawl ministry program. The giving of comfort items is a century's old tradition in communities of worship. This ministry summed up with the words hand to hand, heart to heart, nurtures the bonds between us here in community. Since 2008, we have gifted over 250 shawls and lap robes. And in 2009, at that meeting of our shawl ministry program, I told the story that I shared with you a moment ago about this blanket and what it meant to me. The decision was made to add child dedication blankets to our offerings. And since that year, over 275 blankets have been given to the young ones that we are privileged to bless and welcome to the world as a visible show of love and support from the congregation. Now we are adding pocket comfort items. These are small knitted, crocheted, quilted squares that fit easily into a pocket, a purse, a hand. There are times when a large item, such as a shawl or a lap robe, isn't what's desired and so these pocket items can be kept nearby as a smaller yet no less meaningful reminder of the connection, the love and the care of this community. From you I receive, to you I give, together we share and from this we live. We sang those words in our opening hymn and they truly embody the heart of shawl ministry. Those who create items will tell you that creating a shawl, a lap robe, a dedication blanket, it is somehow different from our regular making. What sets it apart is that there's a spirit of intentionality that goes into every item that is made. The maker may or may not know who will receive what they are making and they are encouraged to weave in thoughts of comfort or connection into every stitch. The words of our hymn reinforce the reciprocity and the mutuality that is core to our understanding of how we live in community, both in this congregation and in the larger world. We give, knowing that someday we will receive and we receive knowing that we will also give. This reciprocity has a practical dimension since in sharing we all benefit, yet it also has a deeper meaning. For in sharing with another I acknowledge that they are the subject of my concern, that they matter to me, that they are worthy of sharing something of myself. And in receiving from another I acknowledge that I cannot make it in this world on my own. I need others. When we receive we do that very scary thing of making ourselves vulnerable. In shawl ministry there are three involved in this mutuality of giving and receiving. There's the one who makes the item, the one who delivers the item typically myself, Reverend Kelly AJ or one of our lay ministers, and then there's the one who receives the item. Through all of this, the creating, the giving, the receiving, each time it happens our web of relationship is more widely and deeply woven. Through it all we remember that we are each the giver and the receiver, that each of us will have moments in our lives when we say stay beside me and carry my hope until I am ready to hold it again and be there for you. Now if you have ever spent time with me in a meeting or a class or a program or pretty much any time with me of any sort you will know that I'm a knitter. I knit pretty much all the time whenever it's possible. I wish I was doing it right now. I've been known to knit in traffic jams in long grocery lines, definitely waiting to pick up children, that's a definite. It's my constant companion. You may have overheard someone remark on a shawl or a pair of socks that I've made and then you will have heard my usual refrain. It really is only sticks and string. And I'm not wrong. To knit you use two sticks and some string, that's it. Even the most complex fair isle sweater with its designs and its vibrant colors is at its core, sticks and string. Yet a very dear friend upon receiving a gift of socks and declaring that they were the most amazing things she'd ever seen and getting back my, it's not a big deal, it's sticks and string. Quickly added and magic, dear one. Don't forget the magic. She's not wrong. There can be a powerful magic hidden within those sticks and string. In a book titled The Power of Knitting, author Loretta Napoleoni tells the following story. Some time ago, I came across an amazing story of knitting and healing. An English woman, Claire Young, had developed post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety after the death of her husband. Her psychologist suggested that she learn to knit. So with the help of some friends, she did and they yarn bombed a tree at the hospice in Cheltenham to thank the staff who had cared for her husband during his long illness. This is why she also knit look-alike dolls of the doctors, the nurses, the housekeeping staff, anyone who had interacted with him. And she placed all of these under the tree on a blanket. When I saw the pictures of Claire's yarn bomb installation, I thought it looked like the knitted dolls were having a picnic under the tree, enjoying a beautiful English spring day in a garden of a hospice. It was a joyful image drenched in love and happiness and a celebration of life. Claire did such an amazing job that photos of her yarn bombing became a sort of sensation online. The response to her project so moved her that she was inspired to ask others to knit small, woollen hearts in memory of the ones that they had lost. Hearts that then she would use to create another knitted healing garden at the hospice center. She posted her request on Facebook and soon she received more than 52,000 hearts from 450 knitters from every continent in the world. Many sent their knitted hearts with moving notes about the ones that they had loved. Soon after she launched another appeal in which she asked people to donate leftover yarn that they weren't using so that she could carry on knitting flowers, pots, and plants for another healing garden at the Royal Horticultural Society. And among the people who heard about her was Ian, a man who had lost his wife a year earlier. She had been a knitter and she had left behind, as we do, a lot of yarn. When he saw Claire on TV, he was touched by her initiative and impressed by her determination. He got in touch to donate his wife's leftover wool and they met, and as you might guess, they fell in love. The yarn that Ian's wife had not been able to knit was the thread that brought Ian to Claire and Claire's celebration of the love and devotion for her husband, provided the pattern that stitched their lives together. As Claire knit away her grief, Ian did the same by providing her the yarn. And together, one stitch at a time, one knitted flower after another, they filled the emptiness left by loss. My friend's magic can happen with sticks that not string together and create something beautiful. Likewise, community at its core is simply people binding themselves together to create something beautiful, something that is essential to our survival. Each week, we gather together, human sticks and string, very ordinary folks. Yet when we do, magic happens. I've seen it myself. When I've delivered a soft purple shawl to someone beginning chemo and their eyes well up with tears and say, I'll take it with me to every appointment, it is so cold in there and I'll be wrapped in love. When I give a dedication blanket to a new parent with dark circles under their eyes and so much love and worry in them, I remind them you're not alone. Here you belong and we are with you every step of the way. When I bring a laprobe to the spouse of the one in hospice, I look into their eyes and I say here, I think you're the one who needs this now. And their eyes well up with grief and love and gratitude and I gotta tell you, it's magic. If you were to unravel our lives here, if we were to rip back the budgets, the buildings, the programs, we would be left with us. But when we weave ourselves together with color and shape and love, when we knot ourselves together, we create something beautiful and we serve a larger purpose necessary for our survival. We need each other to make it through the most painful moments of this life and we need each other if we want to experience the joy of love, laughter, home. So I'll leave you this morning with a poem from Barbara Kingsolver. It's called, How to Knit a Sweater, a Realist's Prayer. Oh Lord, whether male, female, animate, all knowing, unreasonable or just whether or not, we are a practical people who hedge our bets. As I hold my loved ones this day in my thoughts, meditating on our hopes and wild adversities, I also hold a skein of good wool, needles that click like rosary beads working through hail mary's of knit and pearl. By involving fiber in my invocation of divinity, I feel assured of a fairly positive outcome. Sticks and string, it's pretty ordinary stuff. You and me and all of us together, that's some powerful magic. And when we knit ourselves together, I feel assured of a fairly positive outcome. We would like to invite the coordinators of our Shell Ministry program, Lorna Aronson and Dorrit Bergen, to come forward with a few more of our items. First, we're going to ask a blessing for the ones who create all of these items. Today, we bless your minds that we may be free to enter into times of creativity and contemplation. That you may find a restfulness and ease in your own self as you create. We bless your hands to be the source of creating something of beauty and love. We offer a blessing to your souls that they may be open to the promptings of reflection. A blessing to your yarn, your fabric, your threads as you shape them into patterns of love and caring. A blessing to your needles to be the holder of stitches as they become items of beauty. A blessing to your creations to be works of heart and hands, body and spirit. A blessing to the ones who taught you these ancient arts. May your spirits be renewed throughout your making. May you remember to breathe when mistakes appear. May you know yourself and your creativity to be gifts from within and beyond. And now we offer a blessing for those who will receive one of these gifts. For all those who are in need of comfort and care. May you find ease from all that appears too much to bear at this moment. From all that feels as if it might be the breaking point. From all that seems to threaten your peace of heart. May this gift be a shelter in times of grief. A shade in times of sorrow too deep for words. A shield from times of unimaginable loss. May you be comforted by the presence of those who love and support you. By the abiding love of community. By the memories of what you hold most dear. Now if you would please join me in the blessing for from all of us to all of this as it appears on your screen here. Today we remember all those for whom we create these gifts. Those who are lonely and need to know they are loved. Those who are ill and yearn for healing of body, mind, and spirit. Those who face challenging decisions and search for guidance. Those who are grieving and welcome comforting words and actions. Those who are celebrating newness of life and rejoice in the warmth and richness surrounding them. Bind us together in one community of love founded on the faith that the love and grace we find together here are everlasting. And now for the items themselves we ask, may the grace of love be upon these gifts of hope and healing. Warming, comforting, enfolding, and embracing. May these mantles be a safe haven. A sacred place of security and well-being, sustaining and embracing in good times as well as difficult ones. May the one who receives these be cradled in hope kept in joy, graced with peace, wrapped in love. Blessed be and amen. Eyes and body and or in spirit to sing together. Our closing hymn number 22, Dear Weaver of Our Lives Design. Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone. Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation. The kettle is singing even as it pours you a drink. The cooking pots have left their arrogant aloofness and seen the good in you at last. All the birds and creatures of the world are unutterably themselves. Everything is waiting for you. Blessed be, go in peace, and please be seated for the postlude.