 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 Dorit Bergen and on behalf of the congregation I would like to extend a special welcome to visitors. We are a welcoming congregation so whoever you are and wherever you happen to be on your life journey you celebrate your presence among us. Newcomers are encouraged to stay for our fellowship hour after the service and to visit the library which is directly across from the auditorium. Bring your drinks and your questions. Members of our staff and lay ministry will be on hand to welcome you. You may also look for persons holding teal stoneware coffee mugs. These are FUS members knowledgeable about our faith community who would love to visit with you. Experience guides are generally available to give a building tour after each service. So if you would like to learn more about the sustainably designed addition or our national landmark meeting house please meet near the large glass window on the left side of the auditorium immediately after the service. We welcome children to stay for the duration of the service however because it is difficult for some in attendance to hear in this lively acoustical environment our child haven and commons are excellent places to retire if a child needs to talk or move around. The service can still be seen and heard from those areas and speaking of noise this would be a good time to turn off all those electronic devices that might cause a disturbance. I'd like now to acknowledge those individuals who help our services run smoothly. Our lay minister this morning is Tom Boykoff. Your greeter was Janine Nussbaum, your ushers Dan Bradley and Marty Hollis and your hospitality folks are Sandy Plisch and Biss Nitschke. Please note the announcements in the red floors insert in your order of service which describes upcoming events of the society and I have two special announcements. Last year over 120 people joined us for a June evening with the Mallards so we are doing it again this year. The game is this coming Thursday June 4th and tickets are $15 per person which includes all you can eat and drink at our tailgate grill out at Warner Park Shelter. It's Star Wars theme night and children of all ages are welcome. Contact Jean Sears for tickets and feel free to invite your friends who are not members. Today we are honored to have a guest music director here with us. Martha Swisher is completing her ninth year as music director at Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist congregation in Oak Park Illinois. Marty is a popular voice teacher, choral conductor, clinician and notorious music instigator who empowers singers to delve deeper into the joy of music making. We are so grateful to have her here with us today. Again welcome. We hope that today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart and stir your spirit. This is a Souto song from South Africa that I learned two years ago when a group of music educators from all over the world went to Cape Town and learned all of these about 32 songs in 10 days. And with that we were instructed to never write down the music, to never use our Western notation to put some of these words down and to carry on the oral tradition. This song is a song, Kanalimona, about honoring, in this case I'm using the word weina, a man. And in this case we're honoring the man that is our music director here at FUS. You can always also sing this at a wedding and you can sing it about your bride or your room or your partner or your dog. But we are singing it that way for our music director. Kanalimona! We come together today seeking a reality beyond our narrow selves that binds us in compassion, love and understanding to other human beings and to the interdependent web of all living things. May our hearts and minds be opened to the power and the insight that we have together the scattered threads of our experience and help us remember the wholeness of which we are a part. Please rise now in body or in spirit for our chalice lighting and join me in unison with the words printed in your order of service. We light our flaming chalice to illuminate the world we seek. In search for truth may we be just. In search for justice may we be loving. And in loving may we find peace. And now I invite you to please turn and greet your neighbors. I am for all ages and I would like to invite any kids that we have here with us today to please come forward. Come on up. I'm going to gather around because I've got some pictures to show you with this story. So did you know that there is a version of Time Magazine for Kids? I didn't know that at all, but I ran across it yesterday when I was looking for a story to tell you about Nelson Mandela who we will be singing about in a little while. So I wanted to give you some background of who this man was so that you know who we're singing to. This is an article written by Justin Chan and a few extra details were thrown in by me. Nelson Mandela was known for ending a system called apartheid. And I'm wondering have any of you ever heard that word before, apartheid? So apartheid was a system that was similar in some ways to segregation here in the United States. You don't know what segregation is. Segregation was a system in which men and women of color were separated from white people. We're not allowed to participate in society and in schools and things. Precisely, yeah. So that was how things went here in the United States, but something very similar happened in a country called South Africa to a man named Nelson Mandela and to other people in his country. And so Nelson Mandela was a black man who fought against apartheid and was locked up for 27 years for his work trying to free his non-whites in his country from their oppressors. Now I'm wondering did any of you see the big box that's out there in the commons? That really, really big box. So that box is a kind of jail cell that people are sometimes locked up in here in Dane County when they're put into something called solitary confinement. And that basically means that a person doesn't get to spend any time at all with other people, which is really, really hard and lonely, right? So Nelson Mandela, who lived very far away from Wisconsin in a country called South Africa, was also, though, thrown into prison just like some people here when he was working against apartheid. And he was sometimes put into solitary confinement just like some people here sometimes are. This was a way of trying to break a person's spirit, but his spirit was not broken. Instead, after 27 years there, when he was finally released, he became South Africa's first democratically elected president. Our own president of the United States, President Obama, described him as a hero for the world. Nelson Mandela was born on July 18th, 1918. So here's a picture of him as a little boy. And if you want to pass that around, you can all look at it. Put it right here. And he grew up in a small village, herding cattle. And when he was nine years old, he was adopted by and sent to live with his father's friend, who was a prosperous clan chief. In school, he learned about African history and his ancestors' struggles against discrimination. And he wanted to help his countrymen. So in 1948, when the government introduced apartheid, he realized that there were not very many opportunities left for the country's majority non-white population. And in response, he traveled throughout South Africa and encouraged people to take part in nonviolent demonstrations against the government's racial segregation policies. And he was arrested for doing that work. And again, as I said before, he was locked up in jail. But when he got out, he was then elected as the country's first democratically elected president. In 1994, for the first time in South African history, non-whites were allowed to vote in democratic elections. Mandela was elected president by an overwhelming majority. While in office, he worked to promote, to improve housing, education, thank you, and economic opportunities for the country's largely black population. Even though he had gone during his life from being a cattle herder in a small village to the president of the country, he still remembered the wisdom that he had learned as a cattle herder. In 1994, the year he was elected as South Africa's president, he described leadership in this way. When you want to get a herd to move in a certain direction, you stand back, in the back with a stick. Then a few of the more energetic cattle move to the front and the rest of the cattle follow. You are really guiding them from behind. That is how a leader should work. Mandela stepped down from president in 1999, after only one term as president. And over the years before his death, he continued working to promote peace around the world. What does what mean? Term. So a term is a period of time that a person spends in a leadership position. And so we like to have those terms be short so that many people can participate in leadership. So this is what he looked like closer to the end of his life. So we're going to continue our time together for just a little while longer now as we're gonna teach you the song about Nelson Mandela and we'll later be then singing that song as you go out to your summer fun classes if you're gonna do that. But for now, stay here. We're gonna learn the song together. Good morning. I'm going to teach you this song that actually is not a folk song. It's a pop song in South Africa. And as Nelson Mandela was getting more and more ill and his health was failing, the country wanted him to know that they were sending him love and support and honoring him with the song. So the young people actually, a college group from the University of South Africa got together and they started to make the song. I'm going to ask you to sing some words that are very different from the words that we use in its Osa and it's a part of Nelson Mandela's language that he was speaking when he was growing up. Can you make that sound? Everyone please with me like this. And right behind that click, there's a vowel O, O sa, O sa. So you click and you open to that O, O sa. Yeah, it's really important that they have the clicks. It took me a long time to practice to do that in order to do that for you now. But I think it's really, again, in the spirit of authenticity and honoring Nelson, we wanna try it, right? We wanna try it. Now I'm going to ask you to, this is a call and response song, so I'm going to say, Nelson Mandela and you're going to repeat. Nelson Mandela, Nelson Mandela. And here's the tricky part. Repeat after me. Ahona, ahona, yaswana, yaswana, leena. Yaswana, leena, leena. Those G's are just like H's. So it's ahona, ahona, yaswana, leena. Leena, yaswana, yaswana, leena. Yaswana, yaswana, leena. Nelson, Nelson Mandela, Nelson Mandela, yaswana, yaswana, leena. Do it again. Nelson Mandela, Nelson Mandela. Yaswana, yaswana, leena. And the next thing that will happen is look at that next word, that long word that starts with an R. Roli, plop, plop. Roli, plop, plop. Do you hear that air coming back? Plop, plop. That was his name, his given name. Instead of Nelson, it was Roli, plop, plop. Interesting. Roli, plop, plop. Roli, plop, plop. Ahona, yaswana, leena. And so we're going to sing more of that. But I wanted you to hear the teaching of that. I'll take you out to your classes then on this song as everyone in the congregation sings it. So if you need to go to your summer fun classes today, which is summer fun, you're free to go do that now as we sing you out, okay? Thank you. Nelson Mandela, Mandela. I can bishop former anti-apartheid activist and social rights activist. 25 years ago, people could be excused for not knowing much or doing much about climate change. Today, we have no excuse. No more can it be dismissed as science fiction. We are already feeling the effects. This week in Berlin, scientists and public representatives have been weighing up radical options for curbing emissions contained in the third report of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The bottom line is that we have 15 years to take the necessary steps. The horse may not have bolted, but it's well on its way out the stable door. Who can stop it? Well, we can, you and I. And it is not just that we can stop it. We have a responsibility to do so. It is a responsibility that begins with God commanding the first human inhabitants in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it. To keep it, not abuse it, not destroy it. The taste of success in our world gone mad is measured in dollars and francs and rupees and yen. Our desire to consume any and everything of perceivable value, to extract every precious stone, every ounce of metal, every drop of oil, every tuna in the ocean, every rhinoceros in the bush, knows no bounds. We live in a world dominated by greed. We have allowed the interests of capital to outweigh the interests of human beings and our earth. Throughout my life, I have believed that the only just response to injustice is what Mahatma Gandhi termed passive resistance. During the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, using boycotts, divestment and sanctions, and supported by our friends overseas, we were not only able to apply economic pressure on an unjust state, but also serious moral pressure. And this second reading is called The Return of Earth She by Christopher Sims. The earth has returned. She is living, breathing, realizing her breath was leaving. She was needing us to remember her worth, to recognize her worth all over again. We used to be her friends. We used to help her heal us. Help her heal us. Help her heal us. And then she lost all trust and faith in us. She has returned, mad, saddened. However, she's empowered by this new commitment we're signing on to. She wants you, me, and the rest of human beings who populate this planet to never take her for granted again, to never take her for granted again. If she is dying, then who wins? If earth is dying, who really wins? She is providing for species. We live in a cycle that provides for one another. You and I, we are earth sisters and brothers. We must take care of each other. Her lungs are smothered with toxins, radioactive chemicals, and plastic. She cannot digest. She has cancerous garbage in her breasts. We have polluted earth to death. Unless we take a step forward and reverse our damaging effects, our next steps should be radical movements that peacefully change things. We have the ability. Earth is alive. We can't let her die. I want my earth back. I want my earth back. I want to take each of our solutions, then spin them into 180 degree revolutions. We all have effective contributions. We need to turn our passion into action execution, drum circles, live spoken word theater, or even getting arrested. We are all a collective that can't be defeated, that can't be defeated. Immediate action is needed. What about our children? What about future generations? Who is going to save the lungs of the ecosystem? Toxic water slaughters the frogs and the fish. Imagine how they wished we didn't pollute their habitats. Clean water, clean air. Imagine that. We need our earth back. She returns. We need our earth back. It is her turn. South Africans would communicate with each other, sort of in secret. They would do it through the guys up singing at church. But what they meant very often, when they said, Lord, we praise you, or Lord, we bless you, but we are joining in our religious solidarity is we need each other. We short each other up. Because they couldn't be criticized for communicating at church. The messages and the translation. Oh, you don't see a translation that you see. Lord, we praise you, we rejoice in you. Messiah, we hail you. This was a secret language of reaching out to each other. Help me, help each other. We can do this. And so when you hear these words of the Christian faith, it is very much the underlying soothing speak of the South Africans. Maudimaria hoboka, the choirs will sing for you now. And this is what a soothing song they sang during some of the unrest. Religious studies major and later a seminarian. I would have first heard the word ubuntu in a classroom somewhere. Though it is as much a cultural and political term as it is a religious one. And perhaps I did learn about ubuntu in a classroom. And it simply went in one ear and right out the other as so many things sadly do. So no, I did not first hear the word ubuntu in a religious studies context. Instead for a long time, I thought ubuntu was simply a Linux based open source operating system used by people much cooler and much nerdier than me. Later I came across the word again when reading a transcript of President Obama's eulogy for Nelson Mandela, following Mandela's death in December of 2013. While I had known that ubuntu was not an English word and even had a vague sense that it might be an African concept, that was about as knowledgeable as I was on the topic. But there in that eulogy, President Obama put the word ubuntu into its cultural context for me as well as traced the connection between the concept of ubuntu and the anti-apartheid work of Nelson Mandela. He said, there is a word in South Africa ubuntu, a word that captures Mandela's greatest gift. His recognition that we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye. There is a oneness to humanity that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others and caring for those around us. Now ubuntu is a concept that belongs to the people of South Africa, not to us. But it reminds me a little bit of our Unitarian Universalist Seventh Principle, respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are apart. Another confession, when I used to think of the justice implications of each of the principles, I used to think that the Seventh Principle calls us primarily to the work only of environmental justice, not of social justice. You see, I used to think of the interdependent web as, say, the universe or the planet or the biosphere or the ecosystem. And even though the principle flat out states that we human beings are a part of the interdependent web, I nevertheless used to think of it as something outside of human culture. I thought nature and culture were separate things. There are some cultural reasons why this is so. Here in the United States, we often place nature and culture into a system of binary opposites. When we are stressed out or overworked or just caught up in the vast pace of modern life, we often need to get away from society and into nature. Maybe we go camping or go for a walk or a hike, go canoeing or skiing or horseback riding. Whatever we do, we try to leave the cultural spaces of our hectic modern lives, get away and immerse ourselves one way or another in nature. So there is an implication here that nature in its purest form is untouched by human cultures or that human cultures are in some sense unnatural. We talk frequently about what is natural and what is man-made, as though human beings and the things we produce are not part of the natural world, unlike birds and bees or their nests and honey. Yes, we can produce some pretty nasty things with our technology, but the natural world is not all sweet apples and fragrant lilacs. It has its venoms, poisons and toxins. Yet these are seen as natural because they were not made by human beings, while household cleaners, plastics and pollution are seen as unnatural. Yet in reality, we human beings are just nature's biggest, most selfish polluters. And that has serious implications for those of us who still insist that social justice and environmental justice are completely separate things. If nature is in culture and culture is in nature, then the well-being of human beings is an environmental concern and the well-being of the earth and it's other than human life is a social justice concern. I'm on an email list for a national anti-racist network called Showing Up for Racial Justice. A few days ago, anti-racist organizer, Chris Crass, posted an interview he conducted with Reverend Ashley Horan of the Minnesota Unitarian Universalist Social Action, sorry, Social Justice Alliance. In the interview, Ashley described her theology of salvation by interconnection, one in which we are all born with inherent worth and dignity from a wellspring of love that desires our interdependence and health and has endowed us with the power to be agents of that salvation right here, right now, on this earth. In organizer language, I'm trying to get people to understand collective liberation and to sense both the blessing and the responsibility of claiming a belief that none of us is free until all of us are free, end quote. I've got to tell you that when I read those words, I felt a sense of exhilaration because that's very much what I believe too and it is part of what I'm trying to do as a person to make a commitment to keep anti-racism central to my life and my ministry. And yet in preparing this sermon, I found myself thinking also of the implications of such a theology of salvation by interconnection for work at the intersection of environmental and social justice. Our first principle refers to the inherent worth and dignity of every person. But what if we also affirmed and promoted the inherent worth and dignity of every plant, animal, and ecosystem of our planet? Our second principle calls for justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. But we can go further and also choose to relate to other than human beings and our planet with justice, equity, and compassion. Our sixth principle names the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. And for all need not mean just all people, but all beings. But what does that look like? What does it look like when we allow our seventh principle, the respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part to inform how we live out the other six principles? It looks a bit like the way Desmond Tutu has applied the principles of Ubuntu and anti-apartheid work to the problem of climate change. Again, Desmond Tutu is a retired South African, Anglican bishop, former anti-apartheid activist and social rights activist. In an article titled ECO Ubuntu, he wrote, Ubuntu emerged from the African experience of long habitation in this place, this land. The African environment is uniquely challenging to human survival. Humans don't survive or thrive as individuals. We survive or thrive as communities. Ubuntu merely acknowledges that we are, biologically, not individual beings. We evolve as social beings. This is the literal meaning of the expression which defines Ubuntu. A person is a person through people. He goes on to say, as the circle of Ubuntu widens to include all people, and Ubuntu is taken up as a guiding ethic by people of all cultures, one might ask, how wide does the circle go and how deep? Does it include animals? Does it include plants, earthworms, soil? Ubuntu rose as relatively small groups of people cooperated to survive in a challenging environment. But in this time, when technology and growing human numbers have changed the face of the earth, humans no longer have to fight nature. Nature has been defeated, succumbed. We are in the midst of the sixth great extinction event caused by humans, with other species disappearing 100,000 times faster than the natural background extinction rate. We also face planetary crisis of climate change, water availability, and pollution. This suggests a need for change in our relation to the web of life, for a new gentleness and appreciation. We are totally dependent on the ecosystems which support us. So to see these ecosystems as us, as a system that we are embedded in as an extension of our being is pragmatic and accurate. If Ubuntu encourages us to cultivate and care for ourselves, for our family as in our brethren, so too should we care for our larger extended body, the bush, soil, air, water, and the wetlands. Again, Ubuntu is a South African concept, deeply embedded in its land, its people, and its history. We do not share that history. But Desmond Tutu's argument really resonates with me and my growing understanding of our seventh UU principle. And I wonder if it resonates with you too. We UUs want to create a better world, a more just, compassionate, and sustainable world. A world with peace, liberty, and justice for all, community. A world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. Our communities are never only human. For instance, our pets are part of our communities. Your family, like mine, may include pets who depend on you for food, shelter, and affection, who need you to take their needs into account as you move through the world and make decisions about how to live your life. As a case in point, my partner, Smoky, and I will be moving to Raleigh, North Carolina here soon. One thing we have been taking into consideration as we plan how to move is how best to transport our little Calico cat, Devi, to her new home with maximum comfort and minimal stress. For us, yes, but mostly for her. Why? Because she is part of our family. She's part of our community. But our communities are not more than just human because of our pets, but also our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our shops, doctor's offices, are all situated in the ecosystems, however disrupted, that include local wildlife, however displaced. Meanwhile, the quality of our food depends upon the health and wellbeing of the living creatures we must eat. This is true whether we are eating healthy and ethical diets or simply doing the best we can with limited time and money. We are healthier and the earth is healthier when the plant and animal life we eat was raised in healthy ways. And the very air we breathe, pause for a moment and breathe it in and feel its weight in your chest. That air was created by the life on this earth. And even our bodies, our ecosystems supporting and being supported by countless microorganisms. Creepy though it may be to pause and think about that for a few moments. Yuck, but cool and amazing. Human beings are relational beings, always tied to other life around us no matter how self-reliant or alienated we may perceive ourselves to be. If we live our lives in ways that preserve our privilege at the top of the food chain, while oppressing or destroying other life, we not only harm other lives in our planet, but also ourselves. But if we make decisions that promote the well-being of all life instead of attempting to look out for the needs only primarily of human beings or only primarily of the environment, in the end all people and all lives on this planet benefit. In cry of the earth, cry of the poor, Leonardo Boff argues that a community that recognizes and promotes the full flourishing of all its members requires an extended and enriched democracy that is centered on life and regards all members of the community, humans, plants and animals as new citizens, sharing and participating in the great common life. Creating such a great common life requires us to enter more fully into relationship with those we previously considered voiceless and powerless. But how can we best allow the needs of other than human life to guide our conscience and our actions? This requires the ability to learn to listen to and honor a wisdom that may seem alien to us. That is alien to us because it literally is not human. The task may seem impossible or even nonsensical at first. After all, non-human beings cannot speak to us in the way that human beings speak to one another and cannot tell us what they need or argue their case with us as people can. Yet this is not to say that it is impossible or nonsensical to try to listen to the best of our ability, even recognizing that we may not always get it right. Leonardo Boff had some wisdom to share here too. He touched upon how we might discern what nature is communicating about its own identity, ways and needs, claiming that the entire universe and each being as tiny as it might be is filled with history. They can tell their story and deliver their message that speaks of the grandeur and majesty of creation. Other theorists working at the intersections between ecology and liberation theology argue that indigenous people all over the world learn through generations of direct observation of and relationship with the natural world. What is best for a given plant or animal species and for other life, human and non-human life, that is in relationship with it? Exercising our right of conscience and participating in those democratic processes that I've mentioned in previous sermons and that Leonardo Boff was talking about, those processes create communities that are life-giving and life-sustaining for all members of the community and requires deep listening and deep relationships. If we can learn to hear what, say, local wildlife is telling us about what our affections and decisions do and how they can and should affect them, then we can learn to listen to other human beings too. If you take one thing away from you today, take this. We live as you are all well aware in a world marked by extreme environmental devastation and near environmental collapse, as well as the oppression and exclusion of billions of people, many who disproportionately suffer the worst consequences of environmental devastation. I believe our seven Unitarian Universalist principles are strong enough to guide us in responding as people of faith and as citizens in many overlapping and interdependent communities to the central spiritual, humanitarian, and ecological crises of our time. However, it requires a radical reevaluation of the meaning of community. It requires a new understanding of peace, liberty, and justice for all. And it requires new practices to help honor and uphold all life on this planet so that we can share together in the great common life. We gather each week as a community of memory and of hope. To this time and this place we bring our whole and at times our broken selves. We carry with us the joys and sorrows of the recent past and seek here a place where they might be received, shared, and celebrated. We pause now to acknowledge that Carol Ferguson had her foot surgery on Thursday at UW Hospital and was home and resting on Friday afternoon. We send her our best wishes for a quick recovery and know that she may have actually joined us online. And in addition to the one just mentioned, we also acknowledge any unarticulated joys and sorrows that remain among us and as a community we hold with equal concern in our hearts. Let us sit silently for a few moments in the spirit of empathy and hope. By virtue of our brief time together today, may our burdens be lightened and our hopes expanded. And now I invite you to share in this morning's offering. Today's outreach offering will be shared with One City Early Learning Centers, a new early childhood education initiative opening its first facility in South Madison. The center will serve children ages six weeks to five years old preparing them to enter school on pace to read, compute, and succeed at grade level. Please give generously. See that we still have the basket going around. Not soon though. May we hear the melody of life and find ourselves singing harmony. I'm sorry, we have a closing hymn right now. That seemed a little bit early to me. I hand it over to you. The choir just sang is a very famous Zulu song. It's sort of like the equivalent of our rock-a-bye baby. Only, only that this is a mother singing to her child and consoling the infant that the infant's father will return and come back and will be safe. She's telling herself, she's telling her child and she's singing this over and over again to both of them, right? Now it's important that I know you're going to see so a lot of Zulu up here, but I'm going to ask you to sing along with us. And I'm going to ask you to try one time to sing that text if you would. If it is something you would appreciate just by listening, we understand. For example, tula-tul, tula-baba, tula, that's a mistake, tula-sana. Could you say that with me? Tula-tul, tula-baba, tula-sana. Tula-baba, uzo-boya, ekuseni. Tula-u, tula-sana, ekuseni. And then we repeat that. Tula-tul, tula-baba, tula-sana. Say that? Tula-tul, tula-baba, tula-sana. Tula-baba, uzo-boya, bu-ya, ekuseni. Tula-baba, uzo-boya, ekuseni. The second part, wow, this is kind of scary, isn't it? Cookin' kind, let me say it, you don't have to sing this part. Cookin' kan yezi, zi-ho-le-l-u-baba. Zikan ye-sena, ind-le-le zi-kaya. Zobi-si-ko-na, kabon-ke-ba-sho-yo, bayati-bu-ya-la, u-bu-ya-le-kaya. And then at the end, I will ask you to sing with me. Tula, sing that with me. Tula-tul, that first part, and I'm gonna just sing the, and then if you'll join us at the end to what you just sang, maybe we can let some of that comfort and consolation wash over us. In South Africa, they don't have pianos and organs. When you don't hear accompaniment, it's not because we don't think about doing that. It's supposed to be that way. It's supposed to be that way. Can we hear the melody of life and find ourselves singing harmony? Maybe we be open to the dissonances in the song of the land and its people. That we may be part of the world's urging toward justice, peace, and love. May we feel in our bones the rhythms of life and the land and find ourselves dancing. Amen, blessed be, and go in peace. Please remain seated for the choral closing. In the 70s, when things started to heat up and the resistance was rising and the unrest was almost too great to contain. Itembalam is a Osa song that was sung in the churches, in the schools, after schools, at parties, at the ends of celebrations, saying, keep fighting, keep fighting. Nikon Itembalam. Nikon Itembalam, Nikon Avalokos, Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. Itembalam. He said, he said, come and do this, let me go. He said, he said.