 Check, check, check, one, two. Check, check. Check, check, check, one, two. Check, check, check, one, two. Check, check, check, one, two. Check, check, check, one, two. 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 Grevler, and on behalf of the entire congregation, I welcome all in attendance. We are a welcoming congregation, so whomever you are and wherever you are on your life's journey, we celebrate your presence among us. As we gather today, may we savor the air as it grows warmer and love the greening earth once again. While we wait for the sun to grow stronger, may we warm the earth with our love and our care for one another. I will now sound the gong leading us into a time of silence as we catch up with ourselves, slow down and breathe, and come fully into this time together. Please remain standing for the opening words in the chalice lighting. Sometimes the mountain is hidden from me in veils of cloud, and sometimes I am hidden from the mountain in veils of inattention and apathy and fatigue when I forget or refuse to go down to the shore or just a few yards up the road on a clear day to reconfirm that witnessing presence. And as Karen Rose lights the flame of our faith, I invite you to join with me in the words of affirmation. You will be reading the bolded sections. May the light of this chalice remind us of those lights which bring us here to this place of hallowed memory and ever renewing hope. The light of kindness which overcomes animosity. The light of beauty which redeems life's drabness. And in keeping with the light of our friendship, please turn to your neighbor, exchange with him a warm greeting. Now's the time for a story. Kids, a dog is going to come up here. You can do it. So we're going to have a kind of different story today. And pretty soon, you'll see the pictures behind me. My name is Claire. It's nice to see you all. So, oh somebody saw this book before. Isn't that great? Yeah, it's a good book. Welcome. I think that's everyone, so let's start. This is called the listening walk. So this is a kind of a walk where you don't talk. Probably not what we usually do. I like to take walks. I take walks with my father and our dog. Our dog is major. He's kind of old and he doesn't walk very fast. I still love him. So, we go down the street and we do not talk. My father puts his hands in his pocket and he thinks. And major walks ahead and sniffs. I keep still and listen. I call this a listening walk. A listening walk. On a listening walk, I do not talk. I listen to all the different sounds. And you know what? I can hear many sounds when I walk and don't talk. First, I hear major's toenails on the sidewalk. Major has long toenails. So when he walks, his toenails scratch the sidewalk. Like this. I hear my father's shoes on the sidewalk. My father walks slowly and his shoes go. Da, doo, da, doo, da, doo. I can't hear my shoes. I wear sneakers. So you hear all kinds of sounds on a listening walk. All kinds. I listen to sounds I've never heard before. I listen to lawnmowers. Lawnmowers can be really noisy. A lawnmower makes a steady zooming sound. Put my hand over my ear. It goes. I don't like that sound. It's loud. I listen to lawn sprinklers. They're quieter. Very quiet. They make different sounds. Some sprinklers make a steady whispering sound. They go, pretty soon you're going to hear lawn sprinklers. Other sprinklers turn around and around. They go like this. Whiff, whiff, whiff. I love to run through sprinklers in the summertime. Maybe you do too. When it's warm. On a listening walk, I hear cars in the street. The shiny new cars are quieter. They usually only make a mmm sound as they go by. But some old cars can be very noisy. Some old cars can sound like this. Brack, brack, brack, brack, brack. You know I have an old car, but it doesn't do that. When cars go around the corner too fast, the tires go whoo. Have you ever gone around the corner too fast? Maybe. Not driving, I mean. And when cars stop quickly and you slam on the brakes, it goes mmm. The brakes are trying to stop the car fast so you don't have an accident. On a listening walk, if I'm quiet, I can hear even sounds like a bicycle ring. And a baby. I think I just heard a baby crying. It can make me kind of sad when a baby cries. A jet flies over. Jets are noisy when they're overhead, right above us. A jet goes mmm. Baby cries. Yeah. A boy. You have to be quiet for this one because a boy runs dribbling his basketball. Some of you probably dribble a basketball. And it goes bump, bump, bump, bump, bump on the sidewalk. And then a lady all dressed up. I couldn't walk in no shoes. She's wearing high heels. And the lady's heels go bick-buck, bick-buck, bick-buck, bick-buck. And then she sees a bus coming. She's running. The bus stops at the corner. And the lady gets on. And then the bus stops up again and goes, and then we go around the corner and men are digging up the street and they're using a jackhammer. Do you know what a jackhammer is? Probably. Yeah. It makes a loud banging sound. Duck, duck. I don't like that. I cover my ears again. Duck, duck. Glad to get away from that jackhammer because, oh, I feel so relaxed because sometimes my father and I take major to the park. It's quiet in the park. It's quiet there. Yes. The sounds in the park are not loud like the noises in the street. My father and I walk down a shady path. I do not talk. I listen. I listen to my father's shoes on the path. On the path, they make a soft sound. They go, I listen to the birds in the park. You've probably been listening to the birds yourselves. I listen to the pigeons and the ducks. The pigeons fly down to meet us. They want us to feed them. The pigeons fluff up their feathers. They take tiny little steps. They come towards us. Have you ever seen a pigeon kind of nodding its head like that? They say, bro, bro, bro, bro. As we feed them. And then we go to the pond and the ducks are waiting. They want us to feed them, too. The small ducks, the baby ducklets, come up close. They turn their heads to the side and they look at us. They're curious. They wag their tails and they say, quack, little quacks. Quack, they have little voices. Quack, and they're not so afraid. They're braver. The big ducks are not so brave. The big ducks stay back and swim around in circles. The big ducks look at us, but they don't come close. And the big ducks, they have bigger voices. They say, quack, quack, quack, quack. You probably heard them. And now you have to be really quiet if you want to hear a woodpecker. Sometimes you can hear a woodpecker in the park. The woodpecker has a sound like a tiny little hammer. It goes, rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat. It's tapping on wood. Rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat. Maybe looking for a bug to eat. In the park, I hear crickets. Again, to hear crickets, you have to be really quiet. I haven't heard any crickets yet this year, but one sound that you have to really be quiet for is to hear the wind in the leaves. What do you think that sounds like? Kind of whispers. And to hear the bees and the flowers. The bees are coming out, because we got flowers now. It's fun to go on a listening walk. You don't have to go far. You can walk around the block and listen. And you can walk around your yard and listen. And you can hear the baby crying and listen. You don't even need to take a walk to hear sounds. There are sounds everywhere, all the time. All you have to do is keep still and listen. Listen to them. So right now, there are sounds that you can hear. So, now I'm going to count to three. Very quietly. And when I say three, you can leave for your classes and listen. Listen as you go to your classes. You ready? One, two... Please be seated. This from the poet Mary Oliver. So what if a hundred rose-breasted gross-beaks flew in circles around your head? And what if a mockingbird came into your house with you and became your advisor? What if the bees filled your walls with honey and all you needed to do was ask them and they would fill your bowl? What if the brook slid downhill just past your bedroom window so that you could listen to its slow prayers as you fell asleep? What if the stars began to shout their names and to run this way and that way above the clouds? What if you painted a picture of a tree and the leaves began to rustle and a bird sang cheerfully from its painted branches? What if you suddenly saw the silver of water that was brighter than the silver of money? What if you finally saw that the sunflowers turning toward the sun all day, every day, who knows how, but they do it, were more precious and more meaningful than any pot of gold? So thank you, Michael, for this invitation to talk. And good morning to everyone here. It's lovely to see you. And as I look out at the faces, I know well. And many that I'm still to know. And I see our sacred beloved community that has supported and nurtured our journeys through this sometimes challenging, sometimes joyful, sometimes sad life. My heartfelt belief about a community of caring is that we can embrace our vulnerabilities and be safe enough to share them with each other. Sometimes the sharing may be in our small gatherings like chalice groups, classes, or perhaps here, joys and concerns. When we do this sharing, we open our tender hearts so that the universal suffering to the universal suffering in this troubled world, we can then feel compassion for ourselves and all that is around us. However, if we close down, we can become numb with a frozen heart. Recognizing and sharing vulnerabilities is a risk, sometimes scary and often held deep inside. One of the possible consequences of this is that we may withdraw from our communities and sadly, even ourselves. Over my years at FUS, I've seen someone and say, I have missed you, haven't seen you in a while and the reply varies, oh, I'm fine, oh, been busy, or most often, I've been going through a difficult time. And I wonder, why? Why would we withdraw if we're having a difficult time? Sharing our vulnerabilities is a sacred giving and receiving if we open our hearts and listen. It can become an act of generosity. We become sacred witnesses for each other. Recently, I read a touching and profound book, The Five Invitations, discovering what death can teach us about living fully. Living fully now. By Frank Ostasevsky, I can never say this. Got it. So it has been a very huge gift to me in facing a difficult reality. I have early stages of Alzheimer's disease that was diagnosed over the last couple of years. I am doing well, and I'm grateful both for my excellent medical care and for being held in love. This diagnosis is a dreaded fear for most more fear than death. Many of you have had or are having experiences with relatives, friends, and perhaps yourself related to dementia. And it is not something that we talk about openly. It's a vulnerability. However, we can continue to talk about these vulnerabilities. Frank's invitations help us in living life fully now, no matter what. And I'll share a couple of ways that are meaningful and helpful for me in embracing life with dementia. His first of five invitations. Invitation one, don't wait. Don't wait for anything. Don't wait to tell somebody you love them. When I first noticed some difficulties, given my family history of dementia, I asked for an evaluation. It rather surprised my DD, my fond nickname for my dementia doc. He said that most people wait until somebody else brings or drags them in, or else things are really quite progressed. And he also said in that early time that early diagnosis is important for treatment and prognosis. So that meditation and mindfulness practice opened my heart and mind, so that denial gradually could not be pushed into the darkness. And my mother, other family members, and friends have had dementia. And as a nurse, I know dementia. So early treatment is a gift of awareness. Invitation two, welcome everything. Push nothing away. While I still do have negative self-judgment, fear, sadness, and sometimes shame, I'm learning to recognize them and not always run away. And humor really helps. Often I walk down the stairs to the garb and have forgotten my purse or something I need. Today it was the buttons that I wanted to bring. So I've moved from saying, shit you are really losing it to, oh goody, a chance to walk those 46 steps back up to my apartment. Free exercise and it makes me smile. It is possible sometimes to accept when I do forget something like an appointment or mix up words to once again just face my memory issues. Let go of the myth of perfection and always to remember the practice of forgiveness. First for myself and then for others. Invitation three, bring your whole self to the experience. Curiosity has fed my heart and helped me find new ways to manage things differently. I realized fairly recently that my automatic pilot did us not always function well. Sometimes not at all. So routines all need to be done slowly and mindfully. I might, for example, forget to brush my teeth. I take a lot of medications so I triple check them. I use my skills, I read and learn and go to dementia support groups with many folks at different places in their journeys. But being a nurse helps with all this too. So if I use my skills, I can deal with the loss more easily. Perhaps most importantly, I welcome joy and beauty. Seeing the smiles of children, talking with them, feeling the warm sun on my face, reading the story to the kids today. The beauty of the moon, being with loved friends and family and sharing my journey with you. Joy can be present even in the most difficult circumstances. Invitation four, find a place in the middle of things. One issue for me is to pull back or withdraw or be afraid to do things. A question I ask myself when I say, I don't think, or why did I, I can't manage that. Why did I say is, are you sure? Are you sure that's true? No, is the most frequent answer. And so I go to church and continue to come here and I agree and I go to meditation groups and volunteer. I do the best I can and I practice kindness to those I meet and to myself. This opens my heart to this ever-present joy, beauty and sacredness of this one precious life and our beautiful planet. And this also means embracing that I cannot do what I might have been able to do last year or perhaps even last month. Invitation five, cultivate don't know mind. Accepting that we don't know, we never know, is a continuing process. We'd like to believe we know what's going to happen today or tomorrow or next week. With dementia, it is important to do some realistic planning. To get stuff in legal order, to check that I'm driving safely, luckily I am still driving and to know options if I can no longer live alone. What really is not helpful is perseverating. Perseverating about what will happen to me as a disease progressive. This is not planning, this is fear. So recognizing and facing fear day by day is not always easy. Sometimes I run away, try to escape. For example, I may eat too much. As with all kind of escapes and addictions, it doesn't help, it's just dullness, momentary dullness. So if I see the fear clearly, I have an opening to use meditation to feel it in my body, very helpful to me, to recognize and say, oh yes, hello, hi fear, there you are. It is just fear. And I can breathe and feel and let it be gently, tenderly and with kindness. Thich Nhat Hanh said, every time your fear is invited up, every time you recognize it and smile at it, your fear will lose some of its strength. Paul McCartney, for those of you that are old enough, wrote, let it be. His mother Mary died when he was just 14 and spoke to him in a dream at a difficult time in his life. I would sing this if I could sing, maybe I could get Dan to sing it, but anyway, I can't sing. When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be, let it be, let it be. And in my hour of darkness, she is standing right in front of me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be, let it be. Thanks to the Festival Choir for joining us and we look forward to their concert on May the 19th in which they'll be showcasing music like you've been hearing and more besides. Thank you also to Claire for her very special offering, both meaningful and I think for many of us as we move through our lives increasingly valuable. Well, as I've been moving through my life, for the last 30 years, I have been witnessing people from throughout the globe venturing into the landmark meeting house across the parking lot, venturing into that space eager to see firsthand what Frank Lloyd Wright hath wrought. And I notice their expressions as they enter the sanctuary and I try to discern what it is they're feeling, admiration, awe, surprise, fascination, bewilderment. And so, what is it I ask myself that provokes those feelings? Is it the cult of personality surrounding the architect himself such that his creations, like those of a Picasso or a Mozart, are automatically placed on this high level? I suppose that the fruit of any recognized genius will always capture our full attention. But the notoriety of the designer aside, as religious edifices go, our meeting house is really rather modest. There are few, if any, of the elements delineating sacred space, at least from a traditional standpoint. There's no iconography, there's no stained glass, there's no altar rail, there's no polished brass. Now Wright used to say that the prow itself was meant to convey the impression of praying hands. But if he had not suggested that image, I doubt that any casual visitor would make the connection. Originally, of course, occupants of the auditorium would have enjoyed something special, an unobstructed view of what was then agricultural fields and the shimmering waters of Lake Mendoza beyond. And when combined with the exposed natural elements of the interior space, this certainly did create a sensation of unity with the surrounding environment. And so with apologies to the poet Adrian Rich, we might call that structure a transcendental etude composed of living stone. In any event, all of this got me to thinking once again about the nature of the sacred. What is it that gives something that quality? Does it adhere in the object or the act itself as part of its essential nature? Or is it rather a sensibility, an attitude that we ourselves bring to that which we contemplate? Or to put it another way, can something be objectively sacred or is sacredness primarily a perceptual matter? Does it, like beauty, lie in the eye of the beholder? The word itself comes from the Latin sacchiaire, which literally means something holy or something cursed. Now in its original usage, to be cursed did not mean that something was undesirable, something was evil. A cursed object or person was deemed to be taboo, to be avoided or treated very carefully because of its association with powerful and potentially dangerous metaphysical forces. As Marcia Eliade wrote in his famous book The Sacred and the Profane, the sacred is the manifestation of something of a wholly different order, a reality that does not belong to our world nor to our world, nor in objects that are integral part of our profane world. Eliade's definition of the sacred can be usedfully applied in certain areas, for instance, the kabah in Mecca, Islam's holy of holies, to the subterranean kivas of Pueblo culture, Buddhist stupas, Christian reliquaries, Judaism's Torah scrolls. For the faithful in these various traditions, the only appropriate attitude to assume when you are inside one of those structures or in their presence is reverence and self-negating admiration. Now we may today question the validity of this whole notion, this idea that something or anything can be intrinsically sacred, particularly in light of today's relativistic and commercialized world. Objects regarded as spiritually potent by one people or one culture are routinely expropriated and put up for sale by those who do not share that particular outlook. As Wendell Berry glumly observed, far from assigning an absolute value to such things, the financial system puts a price, a highly variable price, of course, on just about everything. It has no use for a category like the sacred. And we see this collision with two standards of evaluation in almost every episode of Antiques Roadshow, as people bring their personal possessions in for expert appraisal. And for some, clearly, the monetary value assigned to that artifact is paramount, and their delight or their disappointment in the dollar figure that they're quoted registers very clearly in their voices and on their faces. Others, and there aren't nearly as many of them, say much more interested in the provenance of their possession. And whatever its commercial value, it is not something that they are prepared to part with. And so their purpose in being at Antiques Roadshow is to increase their understanding of and deepen their appreciation for something that they already hold very dear, something that they believe to be sacred. Similarly, certain civic observances have long been invested with this particular quality. So when the President of the United States takes the oath of office, he is thought to be assuming a sacred obligation, an obligation to uphold the Constitution and by implication to prioritize the interests of the Republic and its citizens above and beyond his own interests. And the fact that most U.S. presidents have placed their hand on the Bible when repeating the oath reminds them to treat that oath with the utmost seriousness. Frankly, I'm not sure that Mr. Trump gets that. Now for ordinary citizens, the National Anthem, the Pledge of Allegiance, are accorded a similar status. And in repeating these words or singing that song, we ourselves profess fealty too and a willingness to sacrifice for the sovereign state to which we belong. And because they do see loyal citizenship as a sacred trust, many Americans are deeply offended when someone, either out of peak or personal principle, refuses to participate in those civic rituals. And even if mindlessly repeated while clutching a beer in one hand, respect must be paid. It strikes me, however, that when someone like the former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, Colin Kaepernick, when he breaks that rule, he may be taking the National Anthem more seriously than his critics, because he, at least, has been thinking long and hard about those words, about what those words symbolize. And he knows that the promise contained in those words remains, for many, unfulfilled. And so by kneeling during the playing of the National Anthem, Kaepernick gives visible expression of his belief that something sacred has been defiled. The foregoing is indicative of a larger trend, I believe, the trend being the unrelenting desacralization of our world. And that is not a trivial matter because by depriving us of experiences which generate feelings of deep respect and concern, this desacralization threatens much that we ought to be caring very, very deeply about. In his book, The Reenchantment of Everyday Life, Thomas Moore has this to say. He says, in modern life, we are not prepared to honor the hidden or the invisible. We know how to deal with what is plainly right there in front of us, but we have forgotten the technologies of reverence that were once commonplace. With its emphasis on efficiency and practicality, modern life works against a sustained appreciation of the numinous. The numinous. That statement harkens back to the definition of the sacred that I shared earlier. Moore invokes the term numinous, which when it is present, when we are aware of it, leaves the impression of something mysterious and vaguely magical. When we are confronted by the numinous, we are reminded that there is more to heaven and earth than can be dreamt of in our philosophies. The numinous is akin to the sacred because there is something about both that can be intuited, but cannot be fully grasped by the intellect. And in any case, the numinous, like the sacred, possesses absolute and not just instrumental value. It is not its usefulness. It is not the market price that counts. It's the claim that it places upon us to approach life our lives and the lives of others more graciously, more gratefully, and more caringly. As one commentator put it, the sacred is perceived by us as being richer in being, more saturated with being than ordinary reality, and thus our experience of it becomes richer and fuller as well. But becoming aware of that sacred quality of something is difficult for instrumentalists such as us who are not used to thinking in such terms anymore. And that's why it is so important, as Thomas Moore said, to rediscover those technologies of reverence by which our hearts and our minds are opened to what otherwise would be inaccessible. For Ralph Waldo Emerson, prayer was such a technology. But he defined prayer this way. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. Now, a bit earlier, Clare Box urged us to bring our whole selves to any given experience, whether positive or negative. And that too is a kind of prayer. It is a prayer of opening which serves as a gateway to greater reverence. Now, Daniel Dennett is a philosopher-scientist whose book, Breaking the Spell, laid bare the humbuggery of traditional religion, at least in his opinion. Now, Dennett is often counted among those thoroughgoing modern materialists who have advanced the cause of the new atheism. So one might not expect Daniel Dennett to have much use for a category like the sacred. But in fact, he does. Dennett says that when he contemplates the infinitely rich tree of life that has spread root and branch over the entire planet, it leaves him humbled and awestruck. Is this tree of life a God that one can worship or pray to, he asks? And then he answers his own question saying, I certainly cannot. But I can stand in affirmation of its magnificence. And it indicates to me that the world is sacred. I've heard similar sentiments expressed by deep ecologists and those who have been swept up by what Dwayne Elgin calls the experience of cosmophilia, a profound love for and belonging to the totality of nature. It's the kind of feeling that I have experienced while gazing across Lake Jackson at the Grand Teton Range or while hiking through an ecologically rich tall grass prairie alive with flitting butterflies and colorful finches. Cosmophilia. But in contrast to such expansive breathtaking perceptions of the sacred, there are others that can be so much more intimate. So when the Jewish theologian Martin Buber was sitting watching his cat one day, he suddenly became aware of its thouness. It was no longer just an animal, just a cat, just an it. It was a thou, something sacred in its own right. And sometimes that shift of perception will occur when we least expect it and in a way that completely defies our expectations. In her last collection of essays, the writer Ursula K. Lagine describes an encounter that she had years earlier but an encounter that was burned into her memory. She had just left her home, her house in Napa Valley, walked out into her yard, and she was about to lower herself into a chase lounge and she heard a hiss in the telltale rattle. And as she turned, she saw the startled rattlesnake slithering toward the high grass. But then the snake stopped and it turned and it looked at her and both beings froze. Lagine held her gaze on the snake and she says we were like two people newly in love who cannot take their eyes off each other. But of course the two of them were by no means in love. Under ordinary circumstances, snake and woman would have had absolutely nothing to do with each other. Their mutual impulse being either to flee or to strike out. But neither one of them moved and neither one of them moved away, looked away. And this went on Lagine says for six, seven, maybe even ten minutes in total. We were alone together, she says, alone in all the world, bound together by common fear and tranced. And she later describes this out of the ordinary, timeless encounter in its own way as something sacred. And over the years she says, I have thought about this again and again, always with the same vividness of that moment and always with a sense of its importance, its import and of there being a great deal that I still could learn from it. So there it is again, this sense of the numinous embodied in that inexplicable transient communion between a human being and a deadly snake. It was in its own way a miracle. The kind of miracle that, as Willa Cather puts it in her novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop, results from our perceptions made finer so that for a moment our eyes can see what is right there in front of us always. A miracle. And this no less than the grand teetons is convincing evidence of the tree of life's utter magnificence and of the privilege that we all have of being a fleeting part of that magnificence. In the words of the Pawnee Indians, remember the circle of the sky and the stars and the brown eagle. Remember the supernatural winds breathing night and day from the four directions. Remember the sacredness of things, running streams, human dwellings, the young within the nest, a hearth for the sacred fire. Remember, remember. Blessed be, and amen. It is now time for the giving and the receiving of our offering. And as you can see from your program, your gifts will be shared with native energy as an offset to our carbon load as a community. Please be generous. I would like to appreciate your monetary gifts that support our outreach recipients as well as our faith community itself. And also your gifts of service. Today assisting with our service, our worship associate earlier was Karen Rose Gredler. The lay minister was Ann Smiley. Ann was doubling as an usher, along with Brian Chanis and Ann Moser. Jeannie Hills and Sandy Plush are serving our coffee after the service. And if you are new among us and would like a tour of our facility, Nancy Wormuth will meet you over there by the windows following the service. And in terms of opportunities, I would note that this coming Friday is our annual spring cabaret. And it's cruise to Caribbean is the theme. And if you have not yet purchased tickets, we would encourage you to do so. The opportunity is running out. There is a table right outside the middle doors here. And so if you would like to attend cabaret, which is always a wonderful event, then please stop by the table and sign up. This is also a time in which we honor those individuals who have formally and officially joined First Unitarian Society since last December. And overall, some 40 individuals have taken that step, and some have said that they would be in attendance at the 11 o'clock hour. Becoming a member of the congregation is, on the one hand, a fairly straightforward proposition. We encourage you to attend orientation classes. And then you signify your intention, professing agreement with our Unitarian Universalist Principles and our FUS Bond of Union. And then you just simply enter your name in the registry of members. In terms of actual preliminaries and mechanics, there's not a lot to be frightened of. So then we would want to ask why would someone want to take that step? Well, we join in the first place because we believe that the promotion of liberal religious values will make a difference in the world. That a stronger Unitarian Universalist movement will help to make our community and our planet more peaceful and enlightened place. And we make this commitment because we believe in the transformative power of our tradition. We also join because we want to be part of an enterprise that can elevate humankind ethically and at a personal level fulfill us spiritually. And we join because we hunger to be in relationship with people who like us. Think of religion as an open-ended ongoing quest for deeper meaning and more honest and authentic religious connection. So this is not a casual commitment that we ask people to make. And that is why we are taking the time today to recognize and celebrate those who have accepted the solemn responsibility of being a member for themselves. And now Kelly Crocker will tell us who is here this afternoon yes it is to celebrate with us. And as I call your names if you will please come forward and remember to bring this skinny insert from your order of service with you. So with us this morning Lisa Perez, Jose Perez, Rick Johnson, Stephanie Johnson, Kathy Block Brown, Robert Block Brown, Lindsay Woodbridge, Michael Johnson, Eric Veenendahl, Alexandra Wells, Melissa Whittington, David Whittington, Aline Bolin, Sherry Bell, and Kate Kowalski. And are there any other new members attending this morning who weren't on my list? Wonderful. And now John McEvna who is here from our Board of Trustees will lead you through the ceremony. Thank you Kelly. I will ask you now do you accept the responsibilities and freedoms associated with membership in the Unitarian Universalist Congregation? Do you promise to support this religious community with your words, your time and your substance? Responses we do. Are you willing to join the members of the First Unitarian Society in a common quest for religious and spiritual understanding and for the common purpose of living reverent and compassionate lives? Responses we are. Now I ask a congregation, do you accept these people into this community as companions in the spiritual journey? Do you pledge to rejoice with them in times of happiness? To grieve with them in times of sorrow? And to share with them all the blessings of our free faith? Congregation we do. Join me then in the continuing bond of union in unison. We, the members of the First Unitarian Society of Madison desiring a religious organization in the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth which shall make the integrity of life its first name and leave thought free associate ourselves together and accept to our membership those of whatever theological opinion who wish to unite with us in the promotion of truth, righteousness, reverence, and charity among all. Welcome everyone. And John, I would invite you now to extend the right hand of fellowship to all of our new members an ancient and traditional symbol of full belonging in our faith community. Let's give our new members a hand as we are handing them their flowers. Let us now join our voices in our closing hymn as our new members return to their seats. Please be seated for the benediction and the postlude. We close with these words from the Irish poet John O'Donohue. Nearer the earth's heart deeper within its silence animals know the world in a way that we never will. Stranded between time gone and time emerging, we manage seldom to be where we are. Whereas they are always looking out from the here and the now. May we learn to walk upon the earth with all of their confidence and clear eyed stillness so that our minds might be baptized in the name of the wind and the light and the rain. Blessed be.