 And really be caught open. And be able to know what you are and why you are looking at my face. And for sure, I'm sure. I'll never show you the whole galaxy. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. So what do you mean? I mean, I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. We're still having a lot of fun, but we're still having a lot of fun. Oh. Save us. Put money in the little bag. There you go. Oh, that's good. Please join me in a moment of centering silence so we can be more present in ourselves and with each other in this room. Please join with me in singing our in-gathering hymn. The words are printed in your order of service this morning. Welcome to 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 transformation and healing in the world. My name is Beth Binhammer, and on behalf of the congregation, I'd like to extend a special welcome to visitors this morning. We are a welcoming congregation, so whoever you are and wherever you are on your life's journey, we celebrate your presence among us this morning. Visitors are encouraged to stay for our fellowship hour after the service. Look for people carrying teal-colored stoneware mugs. These people have special divination about our community and our funness. So they would be happy to talk with you this morning. You can also stop by the information table outside of the library where you can find more information about upcoming events and programs. In this lively, acoustical environment, it can become difficult for some to hear. So if you have a child with you and they're getting a little rambunctious, there's the child haven to my right and out in the commons so you can hear the service quite well. We do have hearing assistance devices available for any people who would find that useful, and you can speak to one of our ushers. This would also be a great time to silence any electronic devices that you have to help with our service this morning. We do have an experienced guide. Nancy Wormuth will be to my right over here if you would like a guided tour of both this sustainably designed addition and also the landmark meeting house. I would like to acknowledge the individuals who have signed up or been recruited this morning to help our service run smoothly. Our sound operator this morning is Mark Schultz, our Greeter March Schweitzer. Greeter was also Hannah Pinkerton, our ushers this morning Anne Smiley, Roz Woodward and Ron Cook, and hospitality this morning, meaning the coffee makers. Yay! Jean Hills and Sharon Skratish. So we thank you so much for your service. And speaking of inside of your order of service, there's this brown insert. So if you would be interested or willing to sign up for or let us know that you would be willing to take on one of those jobs that help our service run smoothly, fill this out and put it in the collection basket when the collection baskets come around. We appreciate that very much. There are a couple of extra announcements this morning. So in your order of service, there is an announcement about Trees for Tomorrow. This is the winter getaway in the north woods. And I just want to draw your attention to the fact that the date in this announcement is incorrect. Instead of the 3rd through the 5th of February, it will be occurring on the 9th through 11th. So just make a note of that. Another announcement, drawing your attention to the Wortman lecture today. At 2 o'clock this afternoon in the landmark auditorium, Dr. Aracela Alonso will be speaking on the topic of sexual exploitation and trafficking of women in the European Frontera Sur, a major health and human rights issue. And there will be a reception that follows that talk today. Please note any other announcements that are in your red floors insert in the order of service which describe other upcoming events at the society and more information about today's activities. So again, welcome. We hope that today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart and stir your spirit. That's an opening to get the blood moving. It wasn't already moving from being outdoors in the snow and the cold. Though beautiful and bounteous, this is an imperfect world filled with imperfect people. With people who fail, although they do try to be as good, as caring, as honest and as generous as they believe that they should be. How we live with these imperfections, that's what really matters. We need to acknowledge them, take responsibility for them, outwit them, forgive them in others and in ourselves. This is an imperfect place, we are all imperfect people, and yet we do have some amazing strengths. May we join our strengths and our affections to become, for a little while at least this morning, a steadfast chain of community. I invite you to rise in body and spirit as Beth lights our chalice. And as she does so, please join me in the words of affirmation printed in your program. As we gather, we light this chalice as a symbol of hope. May the light within each of us be rekindled each day. May the light of truth and goodness be part of our lives always. And when that bright spark sputters, let us use our powers to bring it back to life. And now on this fine and snowy January morning, please turn to your neighbor and exchange with them a warm and friendly greeting. This weekend we have the pleasure of experiencing our annual banner parade. Each of our 25 children's religious education classes has created a banner to reflect the things that they think about and talk about and play about and care about in their individual classes. From preschool through the ninth grade, our children and our youth are busy every week learning and growing. Following this parade, their banners will be hung on the rail above our commons area out there, adding color and spirit to our shared space with each subsequent worship service this winter and spring. So be sure to take a look once those banners are all on display. But for now, feel free to applaud as each of our classes come in. Once they've gotten to the front and are moving back out, please greet them with a round of applause. Thank you for all your beautiful work. It always does my heart good to know that we have such a wonderful intergenerational community here and so many wonderful children and the teachers that help them with their classes. So we continue with two personal statements, the first by Jessica Coutts and this appeared serendipitously enough in the January 2018 issue of the literary magazine, The Sun. She writes, I'm sorry I don't have a better way to start this. I tried to think of an interesting hook and amusing anecdote, but then I figured I might just as well lay it out there. Of all the bad habits I possess, and there are many, unnecessary apologies are the worst. I'm sorry. It rolls off my tongue so mindlessly, like an um or an err, I barely hear it when I say it anymore. When I was a child, apologies were often expected, they were even demanded of me and I was a quick learner, eager to please, eager to pacify. I'm sorry. That did the trick with angry parents, with irritated teachers, with bullying classmates. And even if I wasn't at fault, peace was more appealing to me than justice. I would do anything to dissipate the tension so that I could go back to my books and my cats and my drawings and my vivid imagination. Now as a teen, I felt like apologizing for my very existence. I was too fat, too plain, too clumsy, too dreamy, too awkward to take up space in the world. Numbing myself with alcohol and drugs, that helped. So did angry music, art, dark clothes, dark hair, friends who did the same. I just kind of disappeared a little bit. As a college student, I began to see my privilege more clearly. Not just as a white female, but as a middle class American with clean drinking water, access to birth control, a warm house, plenty of food. I was so lucky and so very sorry for it. I've come to realize now that I'm sorry is the wrong reaction to all of the above. I do not need to apologize for having an imperfect body. I do not need to apologize for my first world privilege, although I do need to work a lot harder on making the playing field a bit more level. And yet I still mindlessly say I'm sorry many times a day to the clerk in the grocery store when I forget to bring my canvas bag, to the waiter when I request my salad dressing on the side, to the postman who has to lug a large box up to my doorstep, even to my sweet boyfriend when we bump noses while kissing. Well, recently I've started paying more attention to the men that I know. Few of them seem to possess this verbal tick. What's their secret? My five-year-old son has become my role model. Yeah, sure. He will say I'm sorry when he's heard a friend's feeling or where he has carelessly broken a toy, but my son never apologizes for his existence. The second reading from an interview conducted with Ani DeFranco. In 2013, DeFranco was scheduled to lead an event that she entitled, Righteous Retreat. And she was going to lead it at the Nottoway Plantation and Resort in White Castle, Louisiana. Now, like much of the land in the South, this used to be a slave plantation. But her idea was to have seminars and classes over four days with the goal of inspiring artists and musicians in their own creative work. And she writes, A promoter who had done a similar event at Nottoway the previous year had planned it all out. And I had agreed without knowing the exact location, only that it was near New Orleans. For my co-faculty, I had selected Tashi Reagan, Buddy Wakefield, and Ed Hamill, three very poetic and political kindred spirits of mine. When I found out that the name of the resort was Nottoway Plantation, I was shocked. I didn't automatically think it was incorrect for my crew and me to inhabit that space. After all, Tashi is black and had played at former plantations before. But there was backlash. The woman who spearheaded the criticism of the event, she had done her research, which I certainly had not. She had discovered this promotional pamphlet describing the slave owner of that plantation as benign, someone who tried to maintain a willing workforce. Willing is pretty offensive as a word to apply to slavery, isn't it? Well, first, the controversy built on social media for two or three weeks. But my manager just chose not to tell me, believing that it was not my job to get involved with every dispute about my work. And when I eventually became aware of the problem, I thought, I've got to respond immediately. I've got to respond today. I was emotional, and I made a misstep. You see, I tried to explain my side how I perceived the matter. I pointed out, for example, that any older building in the deep south had been constructed directly or indirectly by slave labor. And to avoid using such buildings, I'd have to move far, far away from New Orleans. And I also asked whether I should investigate the history, the ownership of all the venues where I played, performing arts centers, the theaters, the nightclubs. Is that my responsibility? This only provoked more fierce reaction. And so I see now that I should simply have said, I'm sorry. That I should have affirmed people's pain. Sorry would have indicated that I was listening. And a few days later, I released another statement saying exactly that, that my white privilege had snuck up on me. And these attacks made me re-examine myself, places like not away. They need the most awareness and the most healing in our country. And when you have this kind of a wound, you can't just turn away from it. You have to address it, or it just becomes worse and worse. Please join me in the spirit of meditation. From many places and many conditions of the spirit we come, seeking here a center for our lives, a sense of greater wholeness. We come from dry places where words and knowledge seem broken into brittle fragments that do not cohere, and from overfilled places where information abounds, but there's no real depth of understanding. We come from hard places where feelings are dulled, and from lonely hollow places where meaning seems thin. Here in this caring, supportive community at this time of quiet reflection, we come to be emptied of all this clatter and confusion, of the information that we once thought was all sufficient. We come to be emptied, and then filled with the spirit that flows in and among us, that can be for us a reliable source of solace and insight. In this time of quiet, let us center our spirits, ground our being, that we might find the power that already lies latent within us. Power for love, power for creativity, power for hope, and power for transformation. Given this brief reprieve from daily pressure, that we learn once again to appreciate that every inch of space is a miracle, every instant a wonder, and an opening for new opportunities. So at this very moment, may our hearts be open to compassion, our minds be open to wisdom, our spirits be open to grace. Let us continue on in just a moment more of silent meditation. Blessed be and amen. A contemplative peace, wonderful interlude. If you receive the news of the day from just about any source whatsoever, print, electronic, or just plain coffee shop conversation, you are of course familiar with charges of sexual misconduct that have been leveled at increasing numbers of notable public figures. And some like former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore, nothing more than a creepy miscreant preying on teenagers. But others like Garrison Keeler, felt more like a member of the family, didn't he? The rumpled uncle, quick with a quip, or with an amusing story. The fall of an insufferable blowhard like Bill O'Reilly, that may have elicited a little shot in Freud. Oh, how the mighty have fallen, we smugly say to ourselves. But when someone like the personable Charlie Rose falls from grace, our emotions might be a little more mixed. Who'd have guessed that Charlie was such a cad, except of course for those whom he'd abused. Now what I've found interesting about this avalanche of reports, which has now given rise to the nationwide hashtag MeToo movement, is the manner in which the various perpetrators have responded, the strategies that they have adopted to deal with or to deflect these scandals. Some of course decide to circle the wagons. And despite copious evidence to the contrary, deny any wrongdoing. Judge Roy Moore didn't know any of the women that he accosted as a young DA. For Donald Trump, reports of his infidelities and raunchy behavior were and are fake news. Stories fabricated by women I don't know and have never met, he claimed. At least one highly regarded religious figure, the 70-year-old Buddhist teacher, Sogyal Rinpoche, had the temerity to justify his lechery, claiming it was consistent with the Tibetan Rigpa traditions' crazy wisdom. Rigpa disciples apparently are obliged to accept the ostensibly abusive behavior of recognized spiritual masters as part of their enlightenment training. When eight longtime associates of the Rinpoche detailed his misdeeds in a 12-page letter, he offered this rejoinder. I have spent my whole life trying my best to serve the Buddha's teachings. And not a day goes by when I am not thinking about the welfare of my students. I will now go into retreat to pray and practice for healing and understanding to prevail. And in the spirit of the great masters of the past, I will take the suffering upon myself and give happiness and love to others. Other perpetrators expressed a greater willingness to take responsibility for past indecencies. After having been shown the door by CBS and the National Public Broadcasting Company, Charlie Rose did offer an apology, saying he was greatly embarrassed. He characterized his past behavior in hindsight as insensitive. But then, in his own defense, he said, I do not believe that all the accusations are accurate, and I have always felt that I was pursuing shared feelings, even though I now know I was mistaken. Judge Alex Kosinski, a federal appeals court judge out of San Francisco for 32 years, reacted similarly after 15 former law clerks individually issued complaints. I may have overstepped, he admitted. But it was really just a misunderstanding because, as he put it, I've always had a broad sense of humor and a candid way of speaking to my clerks. Without addressing specific damning aspects of that 12-page report, Kosinski went on to say, I just may not have been mindful enough of the special challenges that women face in the workplace. If you are thinking that some of these responses, apologetic or not, don't quite measure up, you would probably be right. In each instance, one or more important elements seems to be missing. So, leaving aside those who simply dismiss charges like this out of hand as part of some feminist-inspired conspiracy, where do others miss the mark? For purposes of comparison, let's consider one more post-exposure apology, that of Al Franken. Although some of his ardent supporters complained that Al Franken was being pilloried for offenses far less egregious than those of a Charlie Rose or a Donald Trump, the entertainer-turned-senator did feel that an abject apology was in order. And of all the maya culpas that I've read, his seemed to me to be the most authentic and the most insightful. I respect women, he told his colleagues from the Senate floor, and I don't respect men who don't respect women. And the fact that my own activities have given people good reason to doubt that, that makes me feel ashamed. Now, as a comedian, I've told and written a lot of jokes that I once thought were funny, but later came to realize were just plain offensive. But my intentions behind my actions, that's not the point at all. It's the impact of the jokes, the impact on others, that's what matters. And I'm just sorry it's taken me so long to come to terms with that. So my topic this morning is contrition. And I've spent considerable time at the outset describing the way well-known public figures have responded to their accusers because it may help us to understand what contrition really is and why it matters. Now to be contrite is to be remorseful and to be sincerely penitent. That's the thumbnail definition. And if we parse it, we can see that it contains several elements. First, the contrite individual feels bad about what they've done. They are paying an emotional price for their behavior. And second, they are conscious stricken. They know that they have crossed an ethical line and violated societies and their own professed values. And finally, they're honest about it. They exhibit candor and they accept personal responsibility. Now using these criteria, we can revisit the foregoing statements and point to those that reflect the true spirit of contrition. So again, leaving aside the denialists like Roy Moore and Donald Trump, where did the others make the grade or fall short? Now, Sogiel Rinpoche, that Buddhist teacher, does not deny the evidence. He's honest. He's honest about his past abuses, but he feels no remorse. Because he believes that given his spiritual orientation as a Rigpa Buddhist, no ethical norms were violated. In this respect, Sogiel Rinpoche resembles the former overlords of the South African apartheid regime, who, when they were confronted with the torture that they had inflicted, defended it in ideological terms. As Pumlo Godobo Madakazela, a psychologist who served on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, says, the trick perpetrators use starts out with a rationalization to convince oneself of the legitimacy of one's acts. But then they begin to communicate this rationalization to others, and at that point, it no longer is a rationalization, it becomes a truth. And that truth releases the perpetrator from any sense of guilt that he or she might feel about their evil deed. Now, although it's not quite so obvious, we find in some of these public apologies, I've mentioned this same element of rationalization and evasion of contrition's honesty requirement. Charlie Rose says that, I thought I was pursuing shared feelings. As if a man, at his level of influence and power, was not used to imposing his feelings and his desires on others. And to argue after years of serial abuse that the problem could be boiled down to what a miscommunication, that's more than a little disingenuous. Similarly, Judge Kosinski lays part of the problem on the clerks. They just didn't get his broad sense of humor. For Kosinski, as for Rose, this has become the truth, an outgrowth of the rationalizations that abusers often use to absolve themselves of serious breaches of trust or safety or personal honor. Now, at the feeling level, on the other hand, it seems clear that Charlie Rose is suffering emotionally for what he's done. He says, I am greatly embarrassed, but is that remorseful? Is it the unseemly acts themselves or the public exposure of those acts that causes him such deep embarrassment? And if it's the latter, then Charlie Rose is indulging in self-pity and not showing genuine sympathy for his victims. So how do we judge the genuineness of remorse? Pamela Gota from Matakazeila asks. How do we judge the genuineness? How do we know that the signs of an alleged contrition are not simply the product of the perpetrators having been caught or the changes in society that have destroyed his power base and his support structures? How do we know? Now, Charlie Rose may now, at this point, appreciate the distress that his overbearing, unwanted advances have caused those who were under his celebrity thumb. But you wouldn't know that from his public apology. So what about Al Franken? Does he pass the contrition test? It is telling to me that he used the word ashamed rather than embarrassed to describe his emotions. Synonyms for ashamed include abashed, rueful, regretful. And these words point to a profound sense of self-betrayal and a clear recognition of wrongdoing. And moreover, Franken makes no attempt to rationalize his behavior as some part of a comedic shtick. I came to believe that the jokes I thought were funny were just plain offensive, he admits. And in any case, he says, it's not the jokes. It's not the intention behind them that matter. What matters is the impact that those jokes have had on others. There's been no misunderstanding here. And no one is to blame but Al Franken himself. Now, more often than not, in issuing an apology, we do invoke our intentions, don't we? I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I had no idea my comments would cause you offense. But that, again, is usually something of a deflection as the Buddhist teacher Ken McLeod points out. The subtle implication is that the victim may be too sensitive, that the problem is not with the words themselves but with the recipient's reaction to the words. And Franken doesn't go that route. Lesson learned, words do matter. And I'm just sorry it took me so long to grasp that. Now, that's not to say that the victim's feelings are irrelevant, that they don't matter, that they should not be acknowledged in an apology. But that recognition of the other's feelings need to be accompanied by a clear statement of personal responsibility. And without that, where's the impetus to change? You just want to be a little more careful about the company you keep. Quite often, as Beverly Flanigan points out, we choose to express regret rather than remorse. We rue the outcome but not necessarily the deed itself. Regret says, I'm sorry you were hurt. Remorse says, I'm sorry for what I did. Regret is the easier path to take because it does excuse us from doing any further inner work. In true contrition, the individual resolves to do better, to become a better person, to do what's necessary to avoid making the same mistake over and over again. That's not regret, that's remorse. This is not an easy process to undertake, especially for men in our culture who are so used to being on top, exercising control, projecting strength. And our default position, and I know this for myself as well, is that when we are challenged, we raise the shields in order to maintain control and preserve our precious self-image. It is quite rare in my experience for a man with celebrity comparable to Anita Franco to do what she did with the Tataway Plantation scandal to just suck it up and admit to needing to be further educated. The word repentance, that is a near synonym for contrition. And in the Bible, repentance signals a moral and spiritual awakening that leads to a turning around, a change of direction in your life that promises to make of your life something that's more responsible and life-affirming. The theological term for this is metanoia. And the quintessential tale of repentance and metanoia is the return of the prodigal son found in the Gospel of Luke. We all know that story. After leaving home, leaving all of his familial responsibilities behind, the profligate younger of two sons loses everything in a binge of gambling and carousing. And after hitting bottom as it were, he recognizes his selfishness and his stupidity and he begins walking home to be reunited with his family. He is still a ways from the house. His grateful father sees him, runs out and embraces him and the son blurts out his apology saying, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. That's powerful in its brevity. And that apology is a model of true contrition. The son acknowledges the grievous hurt that he has caused his loved one. He takes full responsibility for his unethical behavior. He shows his sincerity by saying that he deserves to be disowned. Now, it's not explicitly mentioned, but the son's commitment to change, to metanoia is implied by the unqualified forcefulness of that statement. So there's one more final issue that remains to be considered. The relationship of what I've been talking about contrition to forgiveness. So when we are confronted with someone who meets all the foregoing criteria, are we as the victim duty bound to forgive? Now, in our Judeo-Christian culture, people often feel that forgiveness is a moral and religious absolute. It is an obligation. Because after all, when Peter asked Jesus how many times one must forgive a person who has repeatedly harmed us, he said, Master, seven times? Is that enough? You remember what Jesus said? Seventy-seven times. He didn't even place any conditions on the process. We must forgive early and often because that is the godly way. Now, in the Gospels, Jesus speaks frequently of forgiveness and he extends his own forgiveness freely, even to those responsible for his crucifixion. Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do. But when applied to our normal human affairs, this can feel a little like cheap grace. It can feel a little like a get out of jail free card. Unconditional forgiveness leaves little incentive for the offender to engage in meaningful behavioral changes. It is as inhuman to forgive all, the Roman senator Seneca said, as it is to forgive none. It is as inhuman to forgive all as it is to forgive none. That kind of magnanimity, all forgiving. That's not good for the forgiving party either. The injured party feels pressured to take this step without sufficient readiness as often we do in our culture that it may add to that person's suffering. As Robert Enright says, not only has the person been violated, but now they can feel guilty because they cannot sincerely offer their hand in forgiveness. Still, when true contrition is shown and when it is recognized as such, this readiness to forgive may develop sooner than it would otherwise. The victim's suffering, in this case, has been acknowledged. Their story has been accepted at face value. The imbalance of power and authority created by the abuse is beginning to be corrected. Pumla Godobo Mardakzele says that a remorseful apology inspires empathy and ultimately forgiveness. And yet it is always the prerogative of the injured party to decide whether the contrition is genuine and whether further steps might be called for before the hatchet is buried. And the process of writing a wrong doesn't end with an expression of contrition and the extension of forgiveness. In fact, this may mark only the beginning of an extended process of moral and spiritual discernment on the part of the perpetrator. Again, writing from a Buddhist perspective, Ken McLeod says, we have to stop feeding the inner patterns that moved us to do the harm in the first place. Have to stop feeding those inner patterns and that will take time and the steady application of moral and ethical effort. Now, I've been talking this morning about the big stuff, haven't I? Not every inadvertent slight, not every accidental injury that occurs. As Jessica Cotts learned in the reading you heard earlier, we should not be apologizing for who we are for our all-too-human foibles. That's not only unnecessary, it is also debasing when we do that to the whole forgiveness process. For ordinary everyday injuries, a simple pardon me is probably going to be sufficient most of the time. But for serious transgressions, we do have to up the ante because for open wounds, the bandage is forgiveness and the balm is true contrition. Blessed be and amen. It is now time for the giving and the receiving of our offering and as you can see, your gifts will be shared this week with our literacy network of Dane County. Please be generous. Once a month, we generally set aside a few moments during the worship hour for the sharing of joys and sorrows. A time for members, friends and even visitors to our congregation to share with the entire gathered community some special event or some circumstance that has affected your life or the life of someone close to you in recent days or weeks. And so for the few minutes that remain, anyone who wishes is invited to step to the front of the auditorium and light a candle in the candelabras to my right or to my left and then using the microphone provided by Anne Smiley, our lay minister, share your name if that's comfortable as well as your brief message. Please note that our services are live cast so listeners are not restricted to those sitting in this room. It may also wordlessly come forward and light a candle of commemoration and then simply return to your seat. So I open the floor now for the sharing of these significant matters of our lives. I'd like to start by letting a candle for Eva Wright who had heart surgery this week and is doing wonderfully. This is for Jackie Regenbogen and Dawn Regenbogen. Jack is having a variety of health issues. There are members here. She has to suddenly have a cancerous mass removed next week. She just received word two days ago about this so it's a very tumultuous time for them. I've had a hospitalization in December and I'm just grateful that it turned out as well as it did. I'm grateful for a new year and happy birthday. Thanks for all your support, everybody here. Thank you. That's a lighting a candle for my daughter Chloe who is home now after two brain surgeries and she's home, she's walking, she's talking, she's laughing, she's hanging out with her brother and it's... Seeing no others, Anne, would you please light one more candle to symbolize those concerns that may have occurred to people as others were speaking? We hold those also with tenderness in our hearts. And please turn to our closing hymn, This Old World and Rise and Body, Run Spirit. This Old World and... Good morning. If you haven't already heard today after service we are going to celebrate the generosity of this community. We've made tremendous progress on our capital campaign goals and we've raised nearly $3 million. We've had pledges from over 300 families and we're getting very close to the end. We've had a ton of support from volunteers. We're still accepting pledges but we're winding down our activities. If you'd like to know more about the campaign overall please come to the next parish meeting on Sunday, February 11th. After today's service everybody is welcome to celebrate and partake in their freshments out there together and I hope I'll see you after service. Thank you. Maybe Matthew needs no introduction but he has been the co-chair of our capital campaign so we very much appreciate all of his efforts on our behalf. And yes, before you go back out into the snowy January day get some hot beverage or some sparkling cider and enjoy a few other refreshments. We close with these words from David Miller. Sometimes we go forth from church with peace in our hearts and sometimes with a heightened awareness of the contradictions and the brokenness of our lives and our world. Always we go forth with a promise that whatever in our spirit is broken it can be made whole again. And even amid the brokenness we are assured that we can find a measure of peace. Blessed be and amen.