 So, today, I'm going back to the room and I'm just going to take a shower and get some coffee. So, I'm going to take a shower and I'm just going to take a shower and get some coffee. So, I'm going to take a shower and I'm just going to take a shower and get some coffee. So, I'm just going to take a shower and get some coffee. Thank you so much, choir, for that wonderful opening. We are indeed now in the life of love. Now, good morning and 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 of 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 entire congregation, I'd like to extend a special welcome to any visitors who are with us today. We are a welcoming congregation, so whoever you are and wherever you are on your life's journey, we celebrate your presence among us. As we gather in this place and this time, let us remember we are all visitors in this life. We come together to find meaning and hope with all the other visitors in this life. Let us join our hearts and minds together as we celebrate this life together. Please silence your cell phones as I invite you to join me in a few moments of silence for contemplation, meditation, prayer as we settle in and come fully into this time and place together. Good morning. Let us rise in all the ways that we do to sing together hymn number 318, We Would Be One. We gather together staying up as we hear these words from the Reverend Natalie Maxwell Fenimore. We seek to be a home for all who desire our company. We seek to make a welcome for all those in search of our good news. Come, come little children, teens, young adults, adults and elders. Come, families in great diversity. Come to this loving home and this safe harbor, but not to find a place to escape the world. This is a community of engagement and of creativity. We come together to create boldly and dangerously. And together we light our chalice to the words printed in your order of service. As we say together, we must create the beloved community with an awareness of how difficult it is because it is hard work. It is work that challenges us to bring our whole selves and engage deeply and for the long haul. I invite you now to turn to your neighbors and exchange some friendly greetings. You are young and young at heart. All are welcome to come forward for a story. Good morning. There's lots of space on the carpet today. Good morning. Who did you bring with you? Is that a dragon and a bunny rabbit and a book? You have a horse? Good morning, good morning. Happy summertime. You have hearts. Excuse me, not a horse, they are hearts. Yes, come on up. We have space for everybody and we are so glad to see you. I have a book and I have some questions about the book and I'm wondering if any of you have ever felt like this. This book is called I Am Peace and you know this book? Oh, raise your hand if you've read this book. One, two, three, four, five, six people. Seven. Thank you. Well, on the first page it says there are times when I worry about what might happen next and what happened before. Does that ever happen to you? You worried about what happened before or what might be coming up? Yeah. Yeah, that happens to me sometimes too. Not yet. It doesn't happen to you. Yeah. Well, I'm glad. This is a book about someone where it does happen to them and they say the thoughts in my head are like rushing water. And I feel like a boat with no anchor. I'm being carried away. What must that feel like? I give myself a moment. I take a breath. Let's take a breath. Let it out all the way. Let's take another one and the person continues and then I tell myself it's all right. Let's say that it's all right. I feel the ground beneath my feet and I study myself. You can put your hands on the ground if you want. Can you feel it? It feels good, I hear. It feels weird, someone else says. It feels soft and lumpy. And look at this. And I start to notice the here and the now. My thoughts begin to settle. My mind begins to clear. I am peace. Can you remember that thought and tell me at the end? I can watch my worries gently pop and disappear. I let things go. I can say what I feel inside and out loud. I know myself. She says, I can share kindness with others. I make a difference. What's happening in this picture? Yeah. Giving the bird some food. Yes. And here is a picture with no words. What do we think is happening? Dropping what? A seed that grows into a tree. Look at that tree. A seed that grows into a tree. And then they say, I can hug a tree. And thank it for its beauty and its strength. Raise your hand if you've ever hugged a tree. Oh, yes, I have. Yeah, trees are rough too. A cottonwood tree has been hugged. A humongous cottonwood tree. And look at this. It says, I connect to nature. So when you were hugging that cottonwood, you were connecting to nature. I can watch the clouds move and make shapes against the sky. I know wonder. Have any of you ever seen clouds? Yeah. I can taste and smell and touch and hear and see what is all around me. I use my senses. I can feel my breath fill my whole body. I tune in to me. Let's take another breath. Is it filling your whole body? Now the water is still. I have found my anchor and everything is all right. I don't need to worry about before or after. I am in this moment. I am peace. I share my peace with others. And I hope that it is carried away to those who need it. And I dream we are peace. Everybody dreams that we are peace, I hear. And other people say, maybe not so much. And so sometimes when things are scary, that's a good time to breathe, right? You want to tell me about it? I bet you do. We are going to sing a song about breathing. It's called meditation on breathing. And while we sing our next song, you all get to go to summer fun, okay? Thank you for joining me today. I hope you notice your breath this week. Let us rise in all the ways that we do to sing together him, number 109, meditation on breathing. Most of us are going to sing the top line if you feel adventure some and want to sing with a desk counter drone. That would be lovely, but no pressure. When I breathe in, I'll breathe in peace. When I breathe in, I'll breathe in peace. Oh, I'll breathe out love. This morning's first reading is a short passage written by the Reverend Dr. Arvid Strauby, who is a retired Unitarian Universalist minister. He currently offers spiritual coaching, spiritual direction, and meditation instruction to individuals. Reverend Strauby writes, in order to be at its most effective, a congregation needs to address four areas of religious practice. The cushion, the living room, the sanctuary, and the street. Today's second reading comes from Unitarian Universalist minister, the Reverend Rosemary Bray McNatt. She currently serves as president of the Star King School of the Ministry. This affirmation is entitled, this essential work of justice and liberation for all. By no means are we Unitarian Universalists perfect. We often fail as much as we succeed. Yet even when we have broken our vows a thousand times, we return to this essential work of justice and liberation for all. We do the work best when we remember what church is and what it is not. Church is not a place to hide. It is not the place to get away from the world. It is not a place where we get to pretend that the lives we live and our particular situations are not terribly complex, often confusing, and sometimes depressing. Church is the place where we stand with one another, look the world in the eye, attempt to see clearly, and gather strength to face what we see with courage and, yes, with joy. Does washing dishes count? You know, if we are like being mindful while we do it. That was the question posed by a group of first-year seminarians when they got an assignment to engage in a spiritual practice on a regular basis. They, okay, it was actually we for I was one of the people in the group, we were desperately trying to figure out how to fit this assignment to engage in a spiritual practice on a regular basis into our already full lives. It was our first semester at Meadville and our minds were reeling with lives packed with kids and pets, with jobs and relationships, with chores and the upcoming homework that was about to land on our shoulders. How were we supposed to fit this in, too? Washing dishes wasn't the only idea we considered when figuring out how to complete this requirement. What about walking the dog mindfully or drinking a cup of coffee? Mindfully, of course. For me, it was preparing food. Does cutting carrots count? Could these daily tasks that we were already engaged in count towards completing our assignment? Can any of these fulfill the requirement of doing a spiritual practice? In his 2015 blog post on the subject of what makes an effective congregation, the Reverend Dr. Arvid Strauby recommends, as Emily read earlier, that we attend to four different aspects of religious practice. He says that if we want to be an effective congregation, we should address four different areas or what I like to think of as locations. So the first location is the cushion. Reverend Strauby uses a meditation cushion to indicate a personal spiritual practice. Ideally, this would be an activity we engage in daily. Of course, it doesn't have to be a cushion. For some people, it's a yoga mat or a prayer rug or simply a comfortable chair with a drawing journal. The idea is that there is a regular time set aside for prayer, meditation, and or reflection. It doesn't have to last hours on end, even just five to ten minutes per day, dedicated to sacred reading, a body-spirit discipline, or even unstructured prayer. That can be, as Reverend Strauby notes, indispensable for integrating and reflecting on one's life experiences and growing into a whole human being. This is the location that we seminarians were fretting about. Perhaps we're not alone. Perhaps you too have wondered if you need to set aside time for a personal spiritual practice. Have you fretted? Or have you embraced the opportunity? Or have you rejected the idea entirely? Or perhaps you, like me, have done a little of everything at different times. Often congregations help us to find the cushion that is right for us. Here at First Unitarian Society, there have been study groups to learn about and to practice the traditions of centering prayer, Japanese crane meditation, and Buddhist insight meditation. By exploring these spiritual practices in these groups, which are open to everyone, regardless of their experiences, we are encouraged to integrate these spiritual disciplines into daily routines back home. Now, the second location is the living room. Of course, this location, like the cushion, need not be a literal living room. But imagine, if you will, a living room as a space where we might gather for face-to-face conversation with a small group of friends. In this framework, these groups meet regularly, ideally one time a month, to provide an environment in which people can nurture spiritual friendships with one another. Together, people explore deeply and express authentically, bearing witness to each other's processes. In these 90 minutes of structured times together in the living room, people explore the huge questions that life presents. Questions such as, what is my life purpose? And what does it mean for me that I have to die? And how am I to serve? And what of good will I leave behind? And finally, how can I love well today? Of course, theological themes are woven throughout these conversations, and we are attempting to grapple with such questions. Theological themes like forgiveness, compassion, liberation, they are all likely to come up. Additionally, and not surprisingly, by gathering monthly, the friends made in these small groups become those who most readily provide support to us when we experience times of trouble, loss, or illness. When I think of the living room, I think of small group ministries. Here at First Unitarian, some folks gather in chalice groups and have been doing so for years. Other folks meet monthly in journey circles, which are groups of 8 to 10 people who explore the worship theme of the month, be it resilience, trust, or curiosity. It is also where we bear witness to each other's life journeys, offering a place to celebrate joys and commemorate sadness with and for one another. The living room, like the cushion, is indeed a vital part of a vibrant spiritual and religious life. Now, the third location is the sanctuary. It's a location for collective worship, sometimes called corporate worship. That is what we are doing right here, right now. By coming together weekly to celebrate through music, through art, through the spoken word, this spiritual community is made stronger. Across the continent, Unitarian, Universalist, and others gather in sanctuaries to explore and interpret the symbols and stories of those who came before us and commit once again to creating a world for those who will follow us. Consider, for example, the story that Unitarian Universalists sometimes tell about the symbol of the flaming chalice. During World War II, an Austrian artist, Hans Deutsch, brought the chalice and the flame together through his work with the Unitarian Service Committee. To this artist, the image evoked connotations of both love and sacrifice. Of course, one can also see how the flaming chalice suggests the transformations that take place when we are held with love. As Unitarian Universalist Historian and Professor Susan J. Ritchie notes, when we light the chalice in worship, we illuminate a world that we feel called upon with love and a sense of justice. As a unified body of individuals, weekly worship and a sanctuary can remind us of our highest ideals and call us into our best selves. We use stories, song, movement, images, prayers, and silence. We use these to focus our collective attention on a collective good. The sanctuary is also an important part of an effective congregation. Now, the final and fourth location, location, location is the street. When you think of the street as a location of religious practice, what do you think of? For me, one of the first things I think of are the protests, the rallies, the marches, filled with poster boards and chants and calls to action. That's why I chose the images that you are seeing today. Reverend Strauby also considers the street any place where we are helping to heal the world. As he notes, the street is where all that is learned on the cushion, in the living room, and in the sanctuary is brought to bear to help heal the world in service and in witness. Perhaps for you, the street is a workplace or a classroom or the grocery store. It might be the neighborhood association, the voting booth, or a hospital room. It could be inside a prison, the state capital building, or a community center. If you are in that location embodying loving kindness and compassion, advocating for justice in our systems and bearing witness to the wrongs that must be righted, then you are in the street. Unlike the previous three locations, there's not a recommended frequency for how often we should take it to the streets. The frequency is really going to vary depending on each person's life circumstances and the various opportunities that present themselves. In this poem, written by Jess Reynolds, we see ourselves joined in the street by an embodied love. Entitled, Love is Calling, the poem goes like this. Love is calling for liberation. Love is horse from calling. Her voice raw from the decades she has spent chanting at protests and speaking from pulpits and singing the songs of freedom. Love is weeping into a white candle. She cups in her hands at a vigil for one more black hoax. Ripped away, gunned down, forgotten. She is holding the hands of a grieving mother and praying aloud for peace. This is where love shows up, where love has always shown up. She is tugging at our hands and our sleeves and begging us to lay down our egos and take up our courage. Love is weeping into a white candle and take up our courage and dedicate our lives to justice. This call to dedicate our lives to justice is not new. It's one of our deeply held unitarian universalist values as evidenced by the fact that justice is found in two out of our seven UU principles. We affirm and promote justice, equity and compassion in human relations. We affirm and promote the goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all. I would even go so far as to say that the effective congregation of which Reverend Strauby speaks is one that offers congregants ways to engage in justice making that helps heal our world. Justice is indeed a thread that is woven throughout the fabric of our shared faith. Today's reading from the Reverend Rosemary Bray Magnat is another such thread. We return, she writes, to this essential work of justice and liberation for all. And then she speaks about the role of the church, the role of the spiritual community, the role of a unified body of fallible and fabulous human beings who are speaking, who are seeking to build the beloved community. She reminds us that such a beloved community is not where we come to hide our true selves. This community is not where we retreat from the pain of our lives. This community is not where we pretend that the confusion and mess don't hurt sometimes. Rather, this location, this community, is where we work together. We side with one another. We grow stronger from each other's support. Together, we dare to face the ugly realities of our world. And together, we gather the strength to face those realities with courage and yes, with joy. Both Reverend Strauby and Reverend Bray Magnat lift up the importance of the spiritual community in our ongoing faith formation. I have to say, Reverend Strauby lays it out nice and neat for us, explaining what it takes for our beloved community to be effective. Four locations presented in the order of the number of people involved. The cushion has one person. The living room has ten. The sanctuary has a hundred or more. And the street has a thousand or more. We could also imagine the four locations in order of frequency with daily meditation, being followed by weekly worship services, which in turn are followed by monthly small group gatherings, which lead us to live our values every moment that we can. But what about those dishes? Does washing dishes count? Perhaps you, like me and those first year seminarians, are already feeling too stretched. These four locations seem like just too much. Maybe there are about three locations, too many. This is too much time required of us. Too much time out of our already full lives. Now let me assure you, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. You have the freedom and the responsibility to search for what is true and meaningful for you. That said, there's a rub for me. I cannot do the street if I do not do the sanctuary. I cannot do the living room without the cushion. These four locations bring me, bring us different things, offer us different gifts, different opportunities for insights, different ways of being fed. Without all four areas of religious practice, there's no way that we can answer the call of love. The call of love is a hard call, and we need as much support as we can get in order to answer it with grace and with gratitude. If we are to return again and again to the work of justice and liberation for all, we need the courage we find from being in beloved community. We need the spiritual practices that will sustain us in times of crisis. We need to be supported by deep spiritual friendships. We need the joy we create when we celebrate life with song and with art. Imagine that. We need joy. Joy. We get to be joyful together. Indeed, I think that without joy, we won't be able to sustain the ongoing efforts it takes to answer the call to dedicate our lives to justice. We need joy. We need love. We need art. We need song. The song we will be singing as our closing hymn and that the choir beautifully sang for us to open our worship this morning has been called a joyful song of liberation. Imagine that. Liberation through song. Liberation through joy. What if we can't have one without the other? According to the song information provided by the Unitarian Universalist Association, Siahamba is a South African freedom song that comes from the apartheid era. It's not clear whether the original composition was in Zulu and Afrikaans, but today we sing it in Zulu and in English. Now, when we sing it, you'll notice that the structure of Siahamba is cyclic rather than sequential. That means the lyrics consist of one phrase that is repeated with permutations. The song information notes that cyclical forms emphasize a spirit of community and allow for a physical response during the performance. When we sing together today, I invite you to feel the spirit of community. May we feel the joy in our hearts and in our bodies. May we recall the South African communities from which this song arose. Communities that were facing devastating oppression. Communities that were not willing to give up their joy. Communities that were gathering strength to face ugly realities with courage and yes, with joy. As we answered the ongoing call to dedicate our lives to justice, to dedicate our freedom to, in the words of Toni Morrison, freeing someone else, may we take the time daily to engage in spiritual reflection. May we take the time weekly to worship together as a unified body. May we take the time monthly to go deep with a small group of spiritual friends. Through these regular, dedicated, religious practices, may we find ourselves more open to the insight, the capacity, and the determination it takes to make a difference in our bruised and broken world. Together, we can answer the call to dedicate our lives to justice with joy. May it be so. Blessed be and amen. As we prepare ourselves for this morning's offering, may we remember that Unitarian Universalism is a grand vision for a world filled with peace, justice, love, and joy. And we each give and work for that vision. That vision is embodied in a few large congregations, like this one, numerous mid-sized congregations, and many, many small congregations. What we hold in common, what holds us together, is our own dedication to that grand vision. And that no matter our size, every congregation depends on each of its members. Each of you, by your commitment of time, energy, and resource, help make that grand vision real. As our offering is given and received, may we remember, individually and together, we are Unitarian Universalists, building a world with justice and peace, love, and joy. In addition to our great appreciation for your financial generosity, we thank you for all the ways you give to this community. And we want to express a special thanks to those who have helped make our service possible this morning. Our greeters were Claire Box and Dorit Bergen. Our sound operator is Mark Schultz. Our ushers are Marty Hollis, Brian Channis, Liza Monroe, and Dick Goldberg. Hospitality, the coffee, which is all important, is being prepared by Jeannie Hills and Richard DeVita. Our lay minister is Ann Smiley. Pulpit Palms are being cared for by Betty Evenson. Mary Bergen will be at our Welcome and Information table after the service. Also, our tour guide is John Powell. If you'd like a tour of our campus, please meet John over on that side of the auditorium near the big windows. Our beautiful single rose was provided by Ann Smiley in honor of her late mother's birthday, which is today, and she's brought it in a beautiful crystal vase, which was her mother's. Thank you, Ann. We have also two other special announcements, and they are both in your order of service, so I call your attention to the list called, sorry, Upcoming Offerings. We have the Welcome Back and Opportunity Fair with Food Cards. Friday, September 13th, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at FUS. Mark your calendars for this family-friendly evening of fellowship and food to celebrate the start of our 2019-2020 program. This is a good time to see other ways in which you might want to be involved, and we'll also have food available so you can purchase a meal and support local businesses. And don't forget to pick up your copy of our updated Guide to the Universe, at least our universe. Now we have another special announcement from Linda Warren. Hi, I'd just like to invite all of you to come to our music department cabaret fundraiser event. It's this afternoon at 3 o'clock in this room. We will have the FUS Chime Choir, the Solstice Harp Ensemble, a couple of violinists, and a special guest, my sister, who is a church organist. It's kind of a genetic flaw in our family. And also a professional cellist, and she'll be playing cello with us. We had our rehearsal yesterday, and all during the rehearsal, we were stopping and saying, oh, we need string players with the Chime Choir every time. Heather Thorpe is also playing a big role. She's doing some conducting and also singing, and it's just going to be fabulous. So I hope you can join us at 3 o'clock. Tickets are $10, and if you haven't got them already, you're welcome to make your donation when you arrive. Or if that's not something you can afford at this time, please join us anyway. We would love to have you with us. Thank you. Moving into the cares of the congregation, may we accept the invitation offered by the story for all ages this morning, and let our breath call us fully into this place. Mindful of how the gift of life enters our body wherever we feel it most, may it remind us to be here now, that there is nowhere else to be but in this moment. And being in this moment is a gift. From the connection with the ground beneath our feet and the weight of our bodies on the chairs, may we be fully present here, returning to the place of our centering and our deep grounding. From this place, we remember that week after week, we come into this space, this space where we are loved and where we offer the gift of love, where we give and we receive and return. And in this coming together, we seek to find strength and common purpose. We think about the truth of our lives and the lives of those gathered here in the larger world. For a moment, I invite you to gather your own thoughts. What has happened this week in your life? What has happened in the lives of people that you know and love? What has happened in the larger life of community in the world as these thoughts come to your mind? May you hold each of them for a holy moment, the moments of joy, the moments of frustration, the moments of loss, all alike. Hold them, honor them, let them call you in some way to reach out in your life. This week in particular, we remember that there are many people moving, those who are moving to college, to jobs all over the world, many reasons for moving away from the home that they have known. We remember their times of big change, meaningful goodbyes, and powerful hellos. For just a moment more in quiet, we honor all the joys and sorrows, both those known and those not yet spoken. And I will light a candle to represent all of those joys and sorrows as we hold them in this space. May we remember that we are all part of the web of life that calls us to remember that we are one with humanity and with the universe. We are grateful for the miracle of our lives that we may share and hope together, remember and love. So may it be in this moment and in the days to come. Amen. And blessed be. I invite you to rise in all the ways that we do as we join our voices together in our closing hymn. So maybe we should say these words before we sing them for those of you who have not sung this song over and over again. Some of us have, but for those through whom it's new, see ahambe kukanyen kwenkos. See ahambe kukanyen kwenkos. See ahambe kukanyen kwenkos. Good. If you miss a syllable, I'm sure somebody else will get it. Don't worry about it. See ahambe kukanyen kwenkos. See ahambe kukanyen kwenkos. See ahambe kukanyen kwenkos. See ahambe kukanyen kwenkos. See ahambe, hamba, see ahambe. Oh, see ahambe kukanyen kwenkos. See ahambe, hamba kukanyen. We are marching in the light of God. We are marching in the light of God. We are marching in the light of God. We are marching in the light of God. Marching, we are marching. Marching in the light of God. Marching, marching, we are marching. Oh, we are marching in the light of God. We are singing. We are singing in the light of God. We are singing in the light of God. We are singing in the light of God. We are praying, praying. We are praying, we are praying in the light of God. We are praying in the light of God. We are clapping, put your books down. We are clapping in the light of God. We are clapping in the light of God. Captured by the peace found on the cushion. May you be ad livened by the love found in the living room. May you be emboldened by the creativity found in this sanctuary. And as you work towards justice and liberation with joy, may you find yourself out in the streets of your life. We extinguish our chalice today, but not the light of truth, not the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we carry with us until we are together again. I invite you to be seated for one last gift of music.