初次子供は小学校の動画です。中学校の子供が大好きな人生で's1つ目に見ることができます。クリエンションの間に、クリエンションの間に、クリエンションの間に、チェックのチェックについて進め、クリエンションの間に、キティのはいつか行ってくらいさらに 私たちが彼の情報を私たちにしているはずです私たちは 眂力を辞めることもできるそこにも 私たちの情報を作り 喚きとしていく私たちの心の一緒に私たちを合わせてみなさまの方々にそれを迎えてみよう私たちに向かって 二つのビデオを集める私たちに 心の一握りで他にみなさまの方々を盛り添えてそれを合らせて 私たちはリピリアの Romance世界にある前に、私の救護師は、私たちは、スティーブ ゴルブーガーのために、そして、部屋を抜けることで、これからも再会したいと思います。最後に、私たちのスティーブをお邪魔します。私たちのお邪魔をするために、私は、一日を参加するために、私たちがお邪魔をするために、私たちは、お邪魔をしているために、私たちは、一つ一つ、新想像をしています。We're glad you're here.Seeking rest.We bid you welcome, you who come with hope in your heart,with anticipation and courage in your step.We bid you welcome, you who are seekers after a new faith,who come to probe and to explore and who come to learn.We bid you welcome, you who enter this hall as a homecoming,who have found here ample room for your growing spiritand who experience these people as your boon companions.We bid you welcome, whoever you are, whatever you are, wherever you are on your life journey.In this hour may we create a community that embraces each and all,that we might celebrate the one precious life that is ours this day.I invite you to rise in body and spirit as we light our chalice.The words of affirmation this morning are responsive in nature.Would you please join your voices in reading the bolded italicized sections.This spiritual community is not a fortress of truth or an impregnable bastion of faith.It is where the strands of our convictions, our hopes, and our courage form a cable strong enoughto bear us across the valleys of pain, grief, and disillusionment.That is why we come to this special place,harboring old doubts, hungering for new insight.And now I do invite you to turn to your neighbors and exchange with them a friendly and warm greeting.Please be seated.And I invite any children in our midst to come forward for the message for all ages.For the young and the young at heart, any caregivers that would like to come up as well?We've got lots of kids here at 11 today.At least on this side we're kind of overcrowded on one side, a little slim on the other.Ok, so there are two very very important words.And I wonder if any of you have ever said those two words.Thank you.Those are the two words.Thank you.How many people have said thank you?Ok, some of you said thank you sometimes out there.Ok, so why do we say thank you?Does anybody know why we say thank you?Oh, nobody will give you anything unless you say thank you for it.Ok, if somebody gives you something, you've got to appreciate it.And that's why you say thank you to them.That's right.So,that's right.So when you say thank you to someone, what do they say back to you?You're welcome or no problem.I like your welcome a lot better, don't you?So do you think we say thank you enough?You do?You don't think we should be saying thank you more?Well, this is a story that I'm going to tell you about thank you and about all the things that we may not even think about that maybe we should be saying thank you for.Ok, each time you need to.Well, there are a lot of times sometimes that we might need to.So this is a story about that.So this is a story about Jamile.At the end of the lane, there stood two trees side by side and their branches touch.And they reach out wide.And each day, as it ends, Jamile walks down the lane toward his tree friends.And he hears them murmuring, thank you rain.Thank you, son.Thank you, they whisper in harmony for the ring around the moon at night.For the western sky and the northern lights.And thank you for the air we breathe.For the wild garden and the flowered reef.For the salty scent of the deep blue ocean.For the open spaces where the flowers open.And thank you too for this place of peace, a place of dreams, and a place to sleep.Thank you for the ancient stones for sand and sea and a place called home.Thank you for the color of joy and the shape of love.For the shadows at dusk and for the morning dove who coos in hours of gray when life is sad.And we've lost our way.Thank you for life and death and life again.For the seed of hope born from each sad end.Thank you for the smallest gifts for a sleeping cat.For a dog running free.For toes and clothes and sweet memories.And thank you for our friend Jamile.And Jamile smiled when he heard his name and he hugged the trees.And he walked back the lane.That's right Jamile was a cat.Now one day one day it rained.And it rained very very hard.And Jamile tried to walk down the lane to see his tree friends.But the wind and the water floated him all the way back to his blue room.And he shivered and he shook and he couldn't get warm.He felt lonely and forlorn for the voices of the trees.And sadness came and sat with him as he rested in bed.And heard the rain.But then the words of the trees they came to him.For once they had whispered,We will be your friends.Even when you feel that you have no friends.And if you cannot come because the road is dark.Remember to thank yourself.That you have traveled so far along your path.And in your heart.And as he rested in bed.Tired and cold.Jamile looked around his blue room.And within the blue he saw many different blues dancing together in harmony.And so he thought to himself,Thank you eyes.That we can see the blues in the nighttime skies.And thank you ears.That we can hear the sound of rain upon the lane.Thank you hands.For reaching out over sadness over doubt.Toward all that is wonderful.And thank you voice.That lets me say peace and love to you today who have walked down the lane and sat with the treesand know the secret of what makes us free.The gift of you and the gift of me.For believing,loving,feeling,seeing.The gift of earth and the miracle of being.We say thank you.So the trees gave thanks and appreciated everything didn't they?Everything around them.Yeah the trees can't move or go to a house.That's why Jamile needs to go to them,right?Because they can't come to him.So that's our story about thank you.And it might give you a little ideaabout some of the other things we never think about.That might be worthy of our saying thank you.So remember that as you go to your classes today.And remember to say thank you to your teachersafter you're done.And we're going to sing you out with him number 135 now.We continue our servicewith two selections.The first brief story that appeared in the Sun magazine recently by a gentleman namedManish Nandi.Something about him just put me off.He was tall,thin,unkempt,even for a college student.His shirt always seemed to need ironing.His hair combing.And he had this impudent air about him,as if hedid not care what anyone else thought about him.In class he didn't participate,sharing witty remarks withthose sitting next to him instead.Now I was a social guy,involved in student politics who talked witheverybody except for him.I was quite certain I wouldn't like him.And even though we were in thesame class,we never exchanged a word.But I did find out his name.His name was Bose.Well in the4th month of the semester,I was helping to lead a public discussion of an issue that the student unionwanted to take up with the college administration.It was a noisy and acrimonious debate until one personchanged the tenor of the discussion by posing three simple questions.And that person was Bose.His questions were pertinent.They were incisive.But he tossed them out as if he was not a bitinterested in the answers.Well after the meeting had ended,I complimented Bose on his contributionand asked whether he would like to join me for coffee in the cafeteria.We talked for over three hours.By the end of the conversation,I wanted to stay in touch with him,and we remained friends throughout college.I found a job immediately after graduation,but Bose,well he survived by tutoring.His great love wasmathematics.So I was delighted when after four years he met the chief researcher of a mathematicalanalytics company and he joined their staff as an intern.He rose steadily until he was theprinciple researcher for the entire group.Bose's new affluence had very little effect on him.Hecontinued to live a modest life in a middling apartment and to spend free time with hisfriends.He did dress better though.Now one of the directors of that company was a friend of mineand he told me that Bose was brilliant.He was this inventive man who could easily be the head ofthe company,but Bose just didn't seem to want that.I mentioned this remark to Bose and hereplied,I'm already the head of an enterprise.My own life.The second selection comes fromThe late Harvard psychiatrist Robert Coles,prolithic author,and this is from his book,the call of service.Dion Diamond had taken leave from the University of Wisconsin to work in Louisiana,where he had relatives.I first met Dion at the home of a black New Orleans lawyer who was the NAACP legal defense funds representative in that state.The second time I saw him,he was in a Baton Rouge prison,where he had been jailed for disturbing the peace.You see,Dion had attempted to have lunch at a restaurant that wanted no part of black customers.As a psychiatrist,I had been asked to testify on his behalf becausethe local prosecutor had decided to call him unstable,possessed of an anti-social personality.Hence,his lawyer's decision to ask me to interview him and then later to tell the court what I thoughtof Dion's personality.So as I sat in the prison's visiting room and heard this tall,thoughtful,sensitive,hardworking man tell of the extreme danger he'd been facing voluntarily,in hopes of seeing an end to segregation in Louisiana,I wondered.I wondered,first to myself and then out loud.What gave this young man the strength to keep going?He was in constant danger and in 1962,there wasn't the national backing or the attention that coalesced around the Mississippi summer project two years later in 1964. Often Dion was working alone.There was the distinct possibility that one day he would be found alone and dead.So in our interview I asked,Dion,your values and your ideals apart,I really have to wonder,why do you keep at this,given the obstacles,given the dangers?I was stopped in my well-meaning tracks by the young man's three-word reply.The satisfaction man.I'm afraid my imagination back then was rather limited.I couldn't think a few possible satisfactions for him.Dion had been telling me how tough his work was,how lonely it was,how frightening it was at other times,and worst of all,how so frequently it was discouraging.So I asked him about those satisfaction.He said,well,you know,I am meeting some really fine people.I'm listening to them tell me a lot about their own lives.I'm hearing them stop and think about what they are willing to do to help change the world down here in Louisiana.Isn't that enough?Isn't that reason enough to feel satisfied?If you can spend some part of your life doing work like this,you are really lucky.Now I know there may be a sheriff out there waiting for me with a gun,but if he gets me,I will die thinking,Dion,you actually did something.You were part of something bigger than yourself and you saw people beginning to change right there before your eyes,and that is a real achievement.And that's what I mean by satisfaction.So different to have a,without exception,all creatures seek to avoid suffering.Sometime late last summer,and I'm not exactly sure what day it was,I was contacted by an individual from the psychology department of a major university,and was asking whether I had some time to talk to him about a project that he and some of his colleagues were embarking upon.It seems that they were concerned about a decline in the overall state of happiness among Americans,and they believed that they had come up with at least a partial solution.So I was intrigued,and so we set a date for a longer telephone conversation.And when we spoke again,this gentleman began by outlining his concern.He said,you know,a lot of people today are feeling stressed.A lot of folks are isolated.They're lonely.And this has led to a whole raft of health issues,and substance abuse,depression,and a decline in personal productivity.And as a response to this emerging epidemic that already affects upwards of one-third of the adult population,his team has launched this new for-profit startup,simply called Happy.The objective of this enterprise is to connect sufferers to compassionate,confidential listeners with whom they can open up and freely share their troubles.And this would be designed as an on-demand service that clients can access 24 hours a day for talk sessions of indeterminate length.Happy's sharing economy creates conversations between people who need support and people who are naturally good at providing that support,and their rates apparently are quite affordable, $25 an hour.So after this explanation of Happy's mission and purpose,their representative cut to the chase.Why am I calling you?Well,as a minister,I might know of individuals who would be well-equipped to serve as providers,happiness-givers,as it were.Andthese he described as sensitive,caring men and women with some time on their hands.Social work students, retirees,empty nesters,stay-at-home parents,and unemployed millennials.I said I would ponder it.Butas this story indicates,happiness has become kind of a major concern in society today.We are told,of course,that we all have a right to be happy,that happiness should be one of our prime objectives in life.And yet,at the present moment in history,we seem to be experiencing thishappiness deficit.Surely,it is a problem simply begging for a remedy.But then another problem immediately arises when we pause to ask ourselves,well,what are we talking about here?What constitutes happiness?What are its sources?And how is it maintained?The poet,Amy Lowell,explained the difficulty with just two evocative lines.Happiness to some elation is to others mere stagnation.Is there a one-size-fits-all definition of happiness?I don't believe so.We look at people who seem to have everything going for them.All their ducks in a row.Wealth,social standing,what appears to be a stable family life,good health,and yet,they seem to be anything but happy.Their cup is always half empty.As Harvard's Daniel Gilbert observes in his book,Stumbling on Happiness,happiness really is nothing more or less than a word that we word makers can use to indicate anything we want.The problem is that people seem pleased to use this one word to indicate a whole host of different things.Now commentators on this subject,Gilbert writes,have distinguished between three basic kinds of happiness.This list may not be exhaustive.I'm sure there are more.But he says it can be treated as a feeling.That's emotional happiness.That's the way we typically use it today.It can also be used as a description of virtuous behavior,doing the right thing.That's moral happiness.Then there can be an altered state of consciousness resulting from the exercise of non-judgmental awareness,and that is judgmental happiness.Emotional happiness,moral happiness,judgmental happiness.Classic philosophers generally extolled the happiness that accompanies virtue,and for the Buddha and his followers,judgmental happiness was primary,because it was an expression of the clear and uncontaminated natural mind.And in neither of the two latter instances were the emotions placed at the forefront,as is typically the case today.Indeed,proponents of moral happiness were want to dismiss the sentiment of happiness as cheap.A vacuous state of bovine contentment,as they put it.And it was considered perfectly tragic for a life to be aimed at nothing more substantive and significant thana feeling.And in any case,because each person's feelings of happiness are unique and are aroused by a wide and disparate variety of experiences and stimuli,it's hard to come up with a simple formula,even for achieving emotional happiness.The person who professes to be happiest when they are free base climbing Yosemite's El Capitan and their adrenaline is pumping,that makes me shake my head in utter disbelief.And our current president,for whom daily doses of adulation and applause seem to be required to feel happy,that likewise confounds me.Which is not to say that feelings are completely irrelevant to happiness,only that we may be giving them more weight than they actually deserve.And moreover,in this realm of feelings,it is all too easy to confuse happiness with sensations that are somewhat analogous,but considerably less satisfying.So,take pleasure,for instance.The problem,culturalanthropologist Ruth Benedict once said,it's not that we are never happy,it's that happiness is so episodical.And this comment is particularly pertinent when we talk about the happiness derived from pleasure.It is frustratingly transient.And when it disappears,we may end up feeling worse than we did before.I'm sure,for instance,that all of us have had the experience of going into a store and purchasing something nice for ourselves.We feel that uptick in our well-being,but then we watch it subside as we slipping back into the state that we were in before.And this is a measurable phenomena.Studies have revealed that the brain chemistry of shoppers changes at the point when they make a purchase.The individual becomes momentarily happier because a little dopamine is released as the transaction is completed.And indeed,the typical customer's pleasure and happiness peaks at that very moment,not at the time that the desired item is actually put into operation,is actually used.The happiness associated with pleasure can also work out to our disadvantage at times.Consider this thing called confirmation bias and the similar way that it affects our mood.Now,when we read or we hear something that supports a strongly held belief,whether about cats or dogs or personalities or principles,when we hear something that confirms what we already believe,we are again rewarded with this little hit of dopamine and our happiness quotient rises.And because confirmation bias feels good,we tend to stick by our guns even when we are dead raw.So,when we relegate happiness to the realm of feelings,then we condemn ourselves to this boom and bust cycle that may also entail a significant degree of self-deception.Moreover,barber erinreich points out that if the feeling of happiness is our paramount concern,then we may avoid exposure to controversy,to conflict,to acts of injustice because all these things bring us down.Pursuing happiness can thus become a rather narcissistic and socially irresponsible enterprise.Let's talk about the word pursuit a little.When our third president composed the phrase,all men are created equal and dowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights,and among these are life,liberty,and the pursuit of happiness.Well,he may have run off the rails a little bit with that last phrase.We're not exactly sure what Jefferson meant by that,but the way that these words have been interpreted may give us the wrong idea about happiness because the longer I live and the deeper I probe into this subject,the more I am convinced that pursuing happiness,pursuing happiness for its own sake as an end in itself,is a fool's errand.Because in and of itself,happiness cannot be caught.It is rather the byproduct of some other agenda that we establish for ourselves and then attempt to fulfill.So,let's go back to one of the readings that I shared earlier.Dion Diamond,the Wisconsin University student who risked his life fighting for civil rights in his native Louisiana.Now,certainly,he was not pursuing happiness.And in his conversation with Robert Coles,he did not call it that.Dion spoke of the satisfaction.He talked about feeling good about the relationships he was developing and the changes that he could already see coming.And if you can spend your life,a part of your life,doing work like this,he said,then you are really lucky.Similarly,Makaya Dreyer.She's a millennial and she's a registered independent voter in the state of Missouri.She has never been politically engaged and like many of her chronological peers,she would rather text on her phone rather than talk on it.But then after the last election and as the political winds were beginning to shift,she began to become concerned and to think differently.Many ofthe policies that were being put in place by the administration really bothered her.And shethought to herself,what can I do here?And then she remembered,well,you know,I have a long commute to work every day,and I have Bluetooth set up in my car.And so every day,from December30th through February 2nd,Dreyer called her Republican U.S. Senators office.32 times.That has become my routine,she says.And she further reports that it has been very good forher mood.When I am not actively standing up and doing something,she says,I could drag downand I start to feel helpless.Now,if I were going to fit those two examples into thepreviously mentioned three categories,they resemble moral happiness most closely.When weplace ourselves in the service of a worthy cause or an unfulfilled need,it does not boost our spirits.Even if there is no guarantee that our efforts are going to bear immediate fruit,just the potential for success.If not this season,then maybe next season or the season after that,that's what keeps us uplifted.This is the active life.This is finding one's voice,exercising one's moral muscle.This thing called stewardship belongs in the same category.The willingness,as Peter Block puts it,to be accountable for the well-being of alarge organization by operating in service to those around us.As faithful stewards,wechoose service over self-interest,guiding by the mature understanding that the causesthat we care about,and ultimately our own well-being,are best served when we pool our efforts,and assume collective responsibility.Now,Peter Block is a highly respected consultant by trade,and he describes this as a spiritual as well as a practical and enterprise.He says,we want to affirm the spirit,for there is this longing in each one of us to invest our energy in things that matter,finding meaning in,and treating our actions as an offering.AndPeter Block was thinking when he wrote this about institutions in general,educational institutions,commercial institutions,but he could well have been describing faith communities in particular,because in no other context,is this principle of stewardship followed so faithfully.What are the implications for happiness?Numerous studies have shown that people who are active in such communities,communities such as this one,whether they be churches,cinagogues,mosques,buddhasangas,Hindu temples,or humanist circles,people involved in communities like this,do experience a higher degree ofsatisfaction in their lives than those who eschew such involvement completely.In the long run,service is likely to be more gratifying than the solitary pursuit of self-interest.That's not the end of the story.It doesn't stop there.Excessive service can bewearing,can lead to burnout,depress rather than lift the spirit.We have to learn to take our pulse,and to allow ourselves as we disengage to rest in the grace of the world,as Wendell Berry once put it.And it's here that we begin to experience that3rd variety of happiness,judgemental happiness.Because now,resting from our labors,we areliving in the moment,open,aware,unencumbered.The earth was warm under me,and warm as Icrumpled it through my fingers, Willa Cather writes in my Antonium.Queer little redbugs came out and moved in small squadrons around me.Their backs werepolished vermillion with black spots.I kept as still as I could,and nothing happened.I didn't expect anything to happen.I did,I was something that lay underthe sun and felt it like the pumpkins.And I did not want to be anything more than that.And I was entirely happy.And perhaps that's what we feel like when we die and become part of something entire,whether it's the sun or the air or goodness or knowledge.At any rate,this is happiness.To be dissolved intosomething complete,something great.And when it comes to one,it comes as naturallyasleep.The pursuit of happiness.That sounds too much like work compared to whatWilla Cather just described.This persistent moving towards something that'salways receding into the distance,never quite graspable,whereas it can really be just as close as a cloud of warm earth in your hands.And it'snot the earth itself that matters really.It could be the clouds.It could be a cup of tea.It could be a cat on a pillow or a dog on a leash.It could be soft strains of music or laughter around the table.We invite a time in which we taste that which we have been given.Wayne Mueller writes,take delight in what we already have and see that it is good.And when we cultivate such experiences,our sense of appreciation and gratitude expands.And these are key emotional statesthat are closely associated with happiness.It's whatJamile the cat was afterwhen he sought out the company of those two friendly trees,whose murmurings ofgratitude became for him,a source of insight and inspiration.And at the end ofthat story,Jamile thinks to himself,thank you,voice,that lets me say loveand peace to you today,who have walked down the lane,sat with the trees,andwe know the secret of what makes us free.So,happiness is a little more complex thanit might seem at first glance.And it's also rather paradoxical,because asRebecca Solnitrightly observes,making happiness,your primary objective in life is the way it gets in the way of actually becoming happy.Is there any kind of a formula that we can follow that makes it more likely that we will stumbleon tohappiness or something approximating it?The ancient Greeks developed a concept that may provide a little bit of a clue.The concept was called eudaimonia,which they defined as a complete and flourishing life.Now,when Bose told his friend,Manish,that he had no interest at all in being the head of his company,because he was already the head of an enterprise,my own life.He was talking about eudaimonia,a complete and flourishing life,and he already had that.So,honor your relationships,practice stewardship,cultivate gratitude.Forget about finding happiness,and maybe,just maybe,it will find you.Blessed be,I've got man.And we do have at least one care that was shared in our book today.And,Rose,would you bring that up to me,becauseI left it on the seal over there.We do gather each week as a community of memoryand hope,and to this time and place.We bring our whole,and sometimes our broken lives.We carry with us the joys and sorrows of the recent past,seeking here a placewhere they might be received,and celebrated,and shared.And Patrick and Lloyd Egan entered in our book today that Pat's mother,Sherly Egan,died this past month,at the ripe old age of 94.And so,we join the Egan's in celebrating their loss,acknowledging their loss,and we wish them the best.In addition to that mentioned,we would acknowledge any unarticulated joys and sorrows that remain among us.And as a community,we hold those with equal concern in our hearts.Let us sit silently for just a moment,in the spirit of empathy or hope.So by virtue of our time together today,may our burdens be lightened,and our joys expanded.Invite you now to participate in this morning's offering,and as you will know it from your program,we are sharing our gifts today with sale,and you can read a description of its good work in the order of service.Please be generous.I'm Chip Quattie,and I'm honored to be a co-chair for this year's annual campaign.Every year about this time,thefinance team goes to work on the budget for next year,and every year about this time,several of us are asked to share why we support FUS.I'm not a lifelong UU.So how did I get to FUS?Well,first I made a mess of my life for 20 years.A lot of broken thinking and denial went into that until eight years ago,when I finally was ready to stop chasing emptiness and turn toward spiritual fullness.But at that point,I wasn't ready yet ready to join a church,because I distrusted religion.Then one day,someone I love and trust said,hey,you want to try my church?I didn't know what to expect,but I found many things that have come to me a lot to me,and today I'll mention three of them.First is the way we talk about our journey.We are a building full of people who believe there's more than one way to think about God.We embracethe greatest hits from every faith tradition.We're curious seekers,each on a free and responsible search for truth and meaning with respect for the interdependent web of all existence.We share messages about compassion,gratitude,and loving kindness.This is awesome.And I ask myself,where else am I going to find that?Second is the opportunities for spiritual practice.Buddhistmeditation,Japanese crane meditation,singing meditation,centering prayer,taichi,and a whole lot more.And of course,service work is spiritual practice.I like to work in the kitchen,so there's that,and there's making music,and there's teaching RE,and 100 other ways to help.Third is the spirit of this community.You are relentlessly upbeat,and I'm inspired by that.You are welcoming,and I appreciate that.The ministers invite us to bring our whole and sometimes broken selves.And even when addicts like me get sober,we still carry around a lot of broken thinking.I hear this community saying,that's okay.You can hang out here,and we'll help you out with some of that spiritual glue that you need to put yourself together.So how could I not love a place that calls me to bring my best self,and welcomes me even on days when my best self isn't very good?We use our heads a lot around here,but my heart is what tells me to do my part to keep FUS going and growing.An investment here pays dividends that eight years ago,I did not even imagine were possible.And that's why I give what I can to the annual campaign.Please consider doing the same.Sooner is better for the finance team.And if you like,you can pledge today at a table in the commons right out there,where you can pledge online.And let me close by saying thank you for all the gifts that you've given me.Turned out who are closing him,which is 368,and those of you who are familiar with our hymn,they'll realize that this is a hymn that has two voices in it,male and female.And so as the men begin the singing,then the women chime in.Low and high,that's by the wayPlease be seated for the benediction of the poster.This is our beloved community,providing inspiration and nurture and companionship.So when you are cold,reach out for our heart.And when you are hungry for meaning,come to our table.And when you feel isolated,then be here with us.And when it's time for you to go,feel encouraged,knowing that we will always be here for you.Blessed be,and amen.