 Please join me in a moment or two of centering silence and our voices together in singing our in-gathering hymn number 224, Let Christmas Come. 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 greater good in our world. Michael Shuler, the senior minister, and on behalf of the congregation, I extend a warm welcome to all, including any visitors among us this morning. We are a welcoming congregation, so whoever you are and wherever you happen to be on your life's journey, we celebrate your presence among us. Visitors are encouraged to stay for our fellowship hour after the service, as is everybody else. And you might look if you are a visitor for those people holding teal stoneware mugs because the people holding them are individuals that are knowledgeable about our programs and our community life, and they would look forward to having a conversation with you. You can also stop by the information table outside of the library where you can find more information about our society and its upcoming events. In this lively, acoustical environment, it can be, at times, hard for those in attendance to hear what is happening in our service, although I don't think that will be a problem this morning, but just to remind you that we do have a child haven and the commons area outside, which are excellent places to retire if somebody in the family needs to move around or to talk a little bit. Service can still be heard and seen from those areas. We do have hearing assistance devices, and so please see one of our ushers if one of those would be helpful for you. This would be a good time, however, to turn off any other electrical devices that you might have brought here with you so that they don't disrupt our wonderful choral festival today. I'd now like to acknowledge those individuals who do help this service to run smoothly. Our ushers today are artists Kauffman, Dorit Bergen, and Pat Becker. Our greeters at the door this morning were Corinne Perrin and Claire Box, and our hospitality after the service has provided compliments of John and Allison Mix. Please note the announcements in the red floor is insert to your order of service, which again, describes some of the upcoming events and provide more information about today's activities. Again, welcome. We hope today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart, and stir your spirit. All the little sheep have lost their children gone and all the twins wore them. A soul king, a soul king. Please, good misses, a soul king. Never a pair of blankets, all merrily, a soul king, a soul king. Please, good misses, a soul king. One for Peter, two for Paul, and think a soul king. Please, good misses, a soul king. Please, good misses, a four for Peter, two for Paul, and three for him. Nine for Diwali, menorah candles, flicker, Christmas lights glow. All the candles, all the glimmering lights to drive away the darkness of the cold and heartless winter. Light your own light and burn as only you can burn. I invite you to rise for the lighting of our chalice this morning. Please join me in the affirmation printed in your program, and if you will join your voices in reading the italicized sections. May the light of joy we kindle this morning brighten our lives. May the light of morality teach us the right. May the light of freedom burn more purely in our hearts. May the light of hope give us high vision. May the light of Hanukkah and the holiday season never be extinguished in our lives. And now I would invite you to turn and share your light with those around you in exchange of friendly greetings. Please be seated. And so in this Hanukkah advent season, may we be blessed with visions of peace. The peace of the dawn in all of its stillness, the gentle snow falling ever so softly, the world slowly reawakening from its deep December slumber. May we be at one with winter's hard but gentle peace. May we have knowledge of peace, the peace of meaningful tasks well performed, of good works accomplished, of generous giving and grateful receiving. There is a peace born of honest labor and selfless endeavor that gives strength to our spirits, encouraged to our lives. May we enjoy feelings of peace, the peace of love, of companionship with those whom we trust, those whom we cherish. Whether at work, at play, or as we sit in silent company, may we find comfort and reassurance in their familiar presence. May we cultivate the peace of love. And may we harbor aspirations of peace, the peace of nations, races, religions, a peace that sometimes seems so elusive, so improbable, so unattainable. But as we enter the holiday season, may we dream peace, wish for peace, create peace. And may we be the peace that we wish to see. And now for something in a more subdued vein, my colleague David Rankin reflecting on winter. I refuse to wish away winter. It is a glorious season of the year and not simply a prelude to spring. The winter air is pure and refreshing. The winter sky has a clarity and brilliance at night. The winter trees are penciled into the dawn and the sunset. The winter birds give shows of strength and endurance, and the winter fields hide rare and mysterious truths. The winter winds sweep friends and family together, and the winter snow invites fun and sport and play while the winter ice calls for skill and alertness. The winter cold inspires hugs and cuddling, and winter needs illicit gifts and sharing. The winter silence assists in our thought and our meditation, and the winter kitchen has deeper smells and finer tastes. The winter fog and darkness stir joy and merrymaking within us, and so I refuse to wish away winter. It is a season rich in meaning and pregnant with the colossus of hope. Kabir is a 15th century Indian poet whose verses were influenced by both Hinduism and Sufism. The Lord is in me, and the Lord is in you, as life is in every seed. Oh, servant, put false pride away and seek for him within you. A million suns are ablaze with light. The sea of blue spreads in the sky. The fever of life is stilled. All stains are washed away when I sit in the midst of the world. Hark to the unstruck bells and drums. Take your delight in love. Reigns pour down without water, and the rivers are streams of light. One love it is that pervades the whole world. Few there are who know it fully. They are blind who hope to see it with the light of reason. That reason that is the cause of separation, the house of reason, is very far away. How blessed is Kabir that amidst this great joy he sings within his own vessel. It is the music of the meeting of soul with soul. It is the music of the forgetting of sorrow. It is the music that transcends all that is coming in and all that is going forth. For his book, A Walk Through the Year, the naturalist Edwin Way Teal recorded his observations of the world around his home for each day of the calendar year. And this particular set of observations comes from December the 8th. Wandering through the Juniper clumps on Juniper Hill in the bright sunshine of a cold December morning, I hear the whistling of a cardinal. The clear musical sound carries from the trees along the brook. It comes over the lane, over the pasture, over the pond to where I stand. It reminds me of how in the years since we've been on this old New England farm, the cardinal, the mockingbird, the tufted titmouse, all birds associated with the south have increased in this region. The first cardinal to visit us in winter, I recall, was extremely shy, easily alarmed. The newcomer was the odd bird out of its territory, and it flew up frequently. That cardinal gleaned around the edges of the feeding areas, and it would give way to other birds, especially the aggressive blue jays. Even now, we notice a characteristic of our cardinals that they are early and late feeders. In winter, as soon as day breaks, we see them coming for the scattered seed, almost as early as the tree sparrows. They tend to make their harvest of food before the more dominant birds arrive. And in the fading light after the sun has set when the larger birds are gone, the cardinals are active again. And when frightened away, they tend to remain away for a longer time than many of the other species. In the last few years, cardinals have been nesting at trail wood. And once they raised a brood in the tangle of a pillar close to the kitchen door, we see the males at mating time pick up and pass to the females plump sunflower seeds. And we see the young brought to the terrace and introduced to the source of food found in the seeds that had fallen from our hanging feeders. Now in winter, the red of the red birds amid the snow and the clear-carrying whistle of their repeated calling brings color and cheer to days of wind and storm. For so long associated with southern states, the voice of the cardinal is now one of the dominant sounds produced by the songbirds in our northern winter. So in the spirit of the meditative mood created by that anthem, please join me in a moment of silence. Abruptly this past week, the air became bitter cold, the wind biting, snow fell, and roadways froze for the first time since April, alerting us to the onset at last of winter. May we not rue but rather welcome this seasonal shift. For winter presents opportunities not string nor fall nor even summer can afford. Because winter was in centuries less complicated than our own, a firelight storytelling time, a time for recalling the deeds of ancestors and for unthawing old traditions before an open hearth. Winter is the fallow season, quieter, more mellow. And if the cold and the dark induced depression, they also invite deeper reflection. Like the icy formations outside on roof and bow, new insights can crystallize in the stillness as the world slumbers beneath the solstice moon. Let us then invite winter into our harried lives and permit it to do what it does best. Slow us down, sharpen our senses, steady our restless spirits, preparing us as only cold and darkness can for the resurrection that will surely follow. Let us continue in another moment or two of community silence. Blessed be and amen. It is now time for the giving and the receiving of our offering, and as your program indicates, your gifts will be given in their entirety to our outstanding music program. Please be generous. As the turning year tips into December, and thanksgiving memories give way to Christmas expectations, we pause once more to express gratitude for the heart's work, for seeds of faith planted with faith, for love nurtured by love, for courage strengthened by courage, we give thanks for the struggling soul, the bitter and the sweet, for that which has grown in adversity, for that which has flourished in warmth and grace. For the radiance of the Spirit in autumn and for all of that which must inevitably fade and die, for the many blessings of life recognized and unrecognized, once more, this day, we give thanks. I invite you to stand, rise, and body or in spirit for our closing, Carol, number 235.