 It's a food bag made for foodists, but it is a thing to buy because it's only one huge pocket. It's a little thing as well. It's a food bag made for foodists, but it's only one huge pocket. It's a big pocket as well. It's a big pocket as well. It's a big pocket as well. It's a big pocket as well. It's a big pocket as well. It's a big pocket as well. It's a big pocket as well. It's a big pocket as well. It's a big pocket as well. Good morning. Welcome to the first Unitarian Society of Madison. This is a community where curious and compassionate seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical, and social issues in an accepting and nurturing environment. Unitarian Universalism calls us to work toward equity, love, and justice in our congregations and in the world. My name is Elizabeth Barrett, and on behalf of the congregation, I would like to extend a friendly welcome, a special welcome to visitors. We are a welcoming congregation. So whoever you are and no matter who you love, we celebrate your presence among us. This would be a great time to silence our cell phones as I would like to invite you to join me in a few moments of silence for contemplation, meditation, prayer, as we settle in and come fully into this time and place together. Please rise and body your spirit for our in-gathering hymn. We will do number 354 together. I invite you to join me in the first and the fourth verse. I invite you to remain standing for our opening words and then join me in a moment in our chalice sliding words. Reverend Gretchen, hail the rights. Whatever you have come in anticipating, whatever you expect or worry for our world, for the future, for our lives, let it go. Make space in your heart to be surprised. Make room in your soul for a new story to take shape. Let astonishment be possible. All this life that remains before us is a miracle. Imagine here the bursting of joy, relentless and resilient, coming in waves, washing over us with music and stories. Let it go. Make space in your heart to be surprised. Make room in your soul for a new story to take shape. Imagine here the bursting of joy, relentless and resilient, coming in waves, washing over us with music and stories. Let it go. Make space in your heart to be surprised. Make room in your soul for a new story to take shape. Make room in your heart to be surprised. Make room in your heart to be surprised. Make room in your heart to be surprised. Come, let us worship together. I invite you to turn towards each other and offer a warm greeting. Aner Parade. Each of our 22 children's religious education classes has created a banner to reflect the things that they talk about, think about, play about, and care about in their classes. As we move back into our new calendar year, it is wonderful to sort of re-energize and celebrate this important part of our community. And so from preschool through ninth grade, our children are busy learning and growing. As each of the classes come before us, they will actually come up onto the chancel and you are very much invited to applaud each class as they move in front of us to celebrate this important work. And so now, may the banner parade begin. Wonderful way to celebrate an important part of our community. Be sure to take a look more closely at the banners after the second service. They will be up around in the commons area, so be sure to take in the artwork. May we rise in all the ways that we do as we join together in number 298. Wake now, my senses. And hear the joy with each pill is of sun. Verse 5, wake now, transformed by- You may be seated. One of the wonderful things about growing up in the South had to do with the gentle enchantment of long, warm summer nights, which seem especially beautiful right now. I particularly recall sometimes when I would be visiting with distant cousins, and we would be up late into those summer nights watching it unfold in front of us from the porch. The lightning bugs dancing around us. And when the stars became fully visible in the sky, inspiring us to imagine, we would talk and dream about some of our favorite stories from the past. We would share with each other some of what was really happening that was important to us in our lives now. And as the night would move on, inevitably, we would find ourselves thinking about, dreaming about the future, what we wished for our lives to be when we were older. What drew us to another level, a place of wonder and possibility. I would not have put it together then, but there is significance in participating in that reverie that has enlivened and enraptured human beings for eons. Such pondrings have reminded us of our possibilities and limitations perhaps as long as we human beings have existed. It has invigorated the imagination, for we have projected onto the stars themselves patterns and images of heroes and legends and how we imagine their relationship to each other in constellations. Furthermore, as we explore together literally in the world, we have used the stars as a guide for the intrepid, the lonely, the lost, and just the adventuresome alike as they sought to orient themselves into the realm of deeper dreamings at night. While it is true, as our explorers discovered, that one could, with some familiarity, use a single star to find broad direction. It was important if you wanted to be more specific and where you were moving to use the relationship between many stars to increase the accuracy of your sense of where you are going. And so I thought that the metaphor of stars was especially apt in thinking with you about the future of this congregation. Over the last months I have been in conversation with many, many of you. We have worshipped together. We have worked together. We have shared some of what is true about the past and the present. And what I want to do is to reflect back to you some of what I have heard in broad themes. The star-like places of illumination and importance and energy that you have most often spoken about and lived in my presence. And I have tried to focus on one or two constellations in particular because it is important for us to choose carefully where we use our energy. But also to make sure that there were more than just a couple that I share with you today because all of these important touchstones help us know who we are. And by their relationship with each other, they often tell us even more about what is possible, more about what is deeply meaningful. An important caveat in what I will share after the musical interlude in a few moments is that one of the things that I assume and I hear most often is that you tell me again and again that one of the primary reasons at the end of the day that you come here is for a sense of community. A sense of community for yourself, for your family, especially for your children often. And that is essential actually in many ways at its core what this gathering is about is community. And so I will assume that the five stars that I share with you in a few minutes are indeed part of what contributes in the fuller sense to what it means to be a community that gathers week after week going into months. It is good to turn to these truths when we need to know deeper wisdom about our lives. So as we get ready for the musical meditation and as I share in a few minutes after that these five stars, let's bring a sense of imagination. Turn one night in the very center of a long and important journey that you have paused to rest. You are blanketed under a vast and awe-inspiring cover of the night sky. And having traveled for some distance you find yourself this night in a place that you have never been mysterious, foreboding in some ways, but also very beautiful. For a fearful moment you wonder, what if I am lost? What if I strayed from the right path many, many miles ago? But then as you look towards the stars some ancient knowledge reminds you that these points of light will help you navigate forward. You are not lost. You are merely finding your way. And as you ponder that path, you hear somewhere deep within you a melody begin to rise. One that connects you with past and present. One that sings with whimsy and joy, with longing, with hope, with dreams. May we now receive the gift of music. So these are the five stars that I have seen and experienced you living most. Star number one, not too surprisingly and appropriately, is music. Over and over again, indeed, when you have talked about what is most meaningful here, so many of you have talked about the power of music. Plato wrote, music gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything. In many congregations, the music that you experience in worship is a conduit to spiritual connection. So many of you have talked about in the gift of music week after week, you begin to connect with something powerful and transcendent. And in a somewhat related way, music is often in our congregations a place where we may feel that we can move safely into the realm of deep and powerful emotion and find with the help of music that there is a disarming and open quality that we can find in encountering deeper feelings and even through the power of music moving sometimes into a place of healing. The important thing I think about all of these stars is that we push against and underneath them again and again to find the real core of what makes them deeply significant to us. What they might say to us that is even more meaningful than what we first encounter as we think about them. That vision of music within the life of this congregation will help you live most profoundly into your possibilities as Unitarian Universalists. How will music actually be so much more than a place of entertainment as it already has deeply transcended but actually a way of rooting yourself more significantly in your faith? Because music is a profound source of connection, we know that one of the gifts and challenges of music is that it very often comes with significant cultural overtones. And because that is true, often music is a place that reminds us within a congregation of its ability to both build bridges. But if we are not thoughtful as well, it can be a place of division where generations, different ethnicities, different socioeconomic backgrounds, where racial difference will show in the exclusive use of one style of music in a way that feels like it leaves out the depth of others. Yet we know because music touches on powerful emotions, sometimes sharing the space of that musical truth can be difficult for all of us. It asks each of us to think about what it means to be in community and how all of the powerful creative outlets may help us be together in a more meaningful way. R number two, many of you have talked about how essential the ministries of justice and peace are to this place. Mother Teresa wrote, love cannot remain by itself, it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action and that action is service. Whatever form we are able or disabled, rich or poor, it is not how much we do but how much love we put in the doing, a lifelong sharing of love with others. The second star that you have shared with me again and again comes up very commonly in how you experience that justice and working towards equity and peace are part of the very marrow of the bones of this place. And that deep sense of it being so much a part of who we are asks for at least a couple of careful and thoughtful considerations in the future. How is it that you will create more opportunities for more people to act on their values? Our congregations will always have people that find primary and important identity in their activism. And this is a wonderful place for them to share that passion and to inspire us. But another important ongoing ministry in the congregation is how we facilitate people of all ages and many backgrounds who in their own way care deeply about what is happening in the world but feel disempowered and overwhelmed in finding a meaningful and personal way to engage that concern. How will we work more consistently together to open the doorway for more of us to find ways to act on our principles and to feel like that action brings a deeper wholeness to us all? Another important component of the justice and social ministries have to do with a sense of how it is shared. What is the role of your ministers and staff in the work of organizing and leading justice? And how much of it needs to be shared by the larger congregation? It does require a careful balance because often our staff are trained in ways to help volunteers do a successful job on important tasks. But if you give too much energy to your ministers and your staff, I've seen too often that congregations rest in being happy that someone else is out in the public square speaking for them, instead of each of us finding our own voice in whatever way feels right. This ministry has to be shared for it to really be in the marrow of our bones in this place. What will that look like in the future? Star number three, spiritual deepening. Elizabeth Kubler Ross wrote, consciously or not, we are all on a quest for answers, trying to learn the lessons of life. We grapple with fear and guilt. We search for meaning, love, and power. We try to understand fear, loss, and time. We seek to discover who we are and how, in a deeper sense, we can become truly happy. It's kind of a good thing, actually, that this star is in our list because if you think about it, that really is another one of the essential components that we understand as the true purpose of why we gather to deepen our spirits and our connection with each other and all that is. The reason I wanted to make sure this was on the list is I loved the variety of ways that you told me that that deepening happens for you. You told me that it is often in worship that you find that sense of the deepening and connection. Many of you talked about the quest program. That is something that was around for many, many years and was an in-depth spiritual program and how it changed your life forever. Many of you talked about the number of meditation groups and your experience of finding community and the power of sharing quiet and meditation. As we celebrated this morning, so many of you talked about in religious education, whether with adults or with youth or with our children, that again and again what happened in the classroom was more than just intellectual stimulation, but life-changing truth that made its way somewhere deep within you. One of the questions I always ask a congregation is, are the offerings that we intentionally put together, do they speak successfully to a fairly broad swath of the theological and spiritual diversity that we already have in this place, much less opening the doors for people that could come here and really find the right community for them if we allowed them to feel truly welcome with all that they are spiritually. In particular, I've noted that staff and ministers have an opportunity to experience more of the spiritual diversity than sometimes the congregation seems to know already exists in your midst. How often do you really engage in conversations with each other that feel brave enough to share the deep vulnerability of what stirs your spirit? We can make more opportunities and we will in the coming months, but is this a space that is brave enough for real spiritual diversity and deepening to happen? Part number four, many of you have talked about again and again in this place, it is experiences of smaller groups that have deeply changed your life. Tandeka wrote, small groups aim to make moments matter again. In these gatherings of a few people, six to ten, usually meeting more than once a month or once a month, we attend to the lives of the spirit and each member holds on to a moment through personal sharing and by asking for or by listening to the details, textures, contents, feelings and ideas packed into that experience. As people pay attention to the details of each other's lives, this gathered community can extend a moment of time until it is filled to overflowing with thoughts and feelings that turn time into an experience that is not fleeting, but abiding. And because we are fully present, sacred time begins. Women in the various kinds of small groups that we offer, whether they be various kinds of covenant groups like our Chawa circles or now our journey circles, or just groups like men's and women's groups or even meditation groups or anything that brings people together regularly in community, they may offer the opportunity for that sacred sense of sharing in time. They at their best offer us the chance to minister to each other. And in a congregation of this size, it is one of the most important ways that you can be known and know each other. But they require all of us to do our part in them. They take a great deal of energy and resource and if you at some point don't participate in them, you really miss an essential opportunity for that powerful connection. Even if you think it is not your thing, even if you've tried it in the past and you've been there done that, you need to keep re-engaging in those experiences for them to really do their work, which is creating deeper connections within this place. Star number five, so many of you have talked about your experience of the deep spirit found within this physical space, the beauty and elegance of this space at First Unitarian. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting. The beauty of the stone, the beauty of the light, the beauty of an opening or is a message for you. So many of you have talked about how the first time you walked into this space and it could be many spaces in this place that you felt something powerful happen within you and that on a regular basis, so many of you experienced that the time and energy and art that was put into the various spaces here speak to you and remind you of important things. In the future, what I invite us to do is to be very thoughtful and intentional about both what that gift of space gives to us, but also what it asks of us. In order for us to really maintain this space, you probably don't know, but about a quarter of our budget every year of our operating budget alone goes into keeping this space in some sort of working order and that doesn't even bring into the millions of dollars that we have to raise in order to really just keep this space safe and sustainable. There's no easy way for us to step out of that and it gives such a gift to the world. The important thing is that we understand the power of that gift and receive it with greater intention and think very carefully about what it asks of us in the future. So there are the five things most often that you have told me help you know what this place is about that have helped you feel a significant and life-changing power. What do you think about the list? Does it in some way speak to you today? And if it doesn't, what would help you understand what is important here? What in your opinion is missing from this list that is essential to you? And whatever the star-like qualities that you choose that help you know about this place, what deeper values are conveyed in them? What is expressed and sustained by these components of your shared life? What might these inspiring and grounding principles offer to you? I will remind you about these stars in the upcoming March newsletter and I will in a variety of ways help you explore these ideas and more in the future. How is it calling you forward with a sense of what is possible in this place? And how each of you in your own way will you find your own part in making that possibility real? Today we journey together with love and adventure into that place. Amen and blessed be. Every week as we move into the offering we think about all that is important to us and about the generosity that it asks of us. This week in particular I invite you to be aware that half of what we bring in today goes to Centro Hispano, which works in our community to help Latinx youth and families in Dane County and beyond find empowerment, hope and action for their lives. May a spirit of generosity inspire us as the offering is given and received. Every week we take a moment to thank those who share in the ministry of what allows for worship to be what it is and so we are grateful for our sound operator David Bryles and for Elizabeth Barrett, our worship associate, our lay ministers and Smiley and our greeters were Gail Bliss and Claire Box. Our ushers today were Mary Savage, Brian Channis, Daniel Bradley and Jane Nelson-Warrell and our hospitality is provided by Sandra Plish and Blaise Thompson. It is easy and a larger congregation to think that there are just so many people that every task just naturally is filled. But in truth almost every Sunday there are significant places that are not filled in each of our services and the tasks are satisfying and relatively easy. So very quickly we are inviting three of the people that fill those tasks to tell you just a little bit about them. I hope as you listen that you will think about whether you are able to give some time to do these tasks and if not these, some other way to contribute to this place that means so much to all of us. So being a worship associate, I like it because I like public speaking here in my religious home, sharing our Unitarian Universalist values and being able to see our congregation. I mean I can see all of your beautiful faces and that is so heartwarming. So worship associate, sound the gong at the beginning of the service, then do the welcome and then a little bit later light the chalice and it's a good idea to get her 30 minutes before in case someone tells you that you are supposed to speak at a different time too and you do it for both Sunday services so you do it for both 9 and 11, thanks. Good morning. I'm Jane Nelson-Warrell. About a year ago I checked the box on one of these forms that was in the order of service and indicated that I would commit to ushering and just personally I decided that I could handle that once a month because I was going to be here at service anyway. And I've really found it to be an easy way to serve the society and to really meet some new people and build community. The role of being an usher really means that once I filled this form out I was contacted by Dorit Bergen who is the volunteer coordinator. She reached out and connected me with a usher who was experienced and we served together one Sunday. I was shown the ropes and thereafter I just go on to the online sign up which is there for all volunteers and I checked the box for which of the services which Sunday I want to be here and usher and then I get a reminder a couple days in advance and I show up about 20 to 30 minutes before service so that we can get organized. Usually there's four of us here on a Sunday service and so we just sort of divide up the responsibilities which include handing out the hymnals and the order of service for the day, welcoming people, helping them get into the auditorium, help newcomers find the bathrooms and coat racks if that's appropriate. And then of course it's pretty obvious we collect the office when the time comes and then a few of us go up and sort the donations and then we clean up after service just meaning we just kind of put together things especially after the 9 o'clock service so that it's neat and tidy for those who come for the 11 o'clock. Good morning on this rather cool morning. It is really a gift to greet all of you. Greeting before a Sunday service is a lovely way to begin worship or as we sometimes say to bring up that which is of worth. This community is of worth. So that's just one example and the volunteer opportunity offers huge benefits including seeing friends, meeting new friends, talking with you, each of you in addition getting high fives, lots of smiles, hugs, what a way to start the day. Just arrive a little early and open your heart to all who arrive. Often I bring a friend with me like Sunshine. Sunshine it was named by one of your children a couple of weeks ago. And you know even old people like to play a little bit at least this old person. So I get a lot of delight in greeting and playing and enjoying the it's a really joyful experience for me. And greeting is another way to bring a loving sense of community to each other as we enter into this sacred space. And as Starhawk says community, somewhere there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us. Voices will light up as we enter. Voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Somewhere where we can be free. I hope that you will think about ways that you can offer the generosity of your time including in these tasks. I also want to remind folks that tomorrow night because of the likelihood of bad weather that the men's group is canceled. You can always check on our website for other cancellations because of weather. We move into a time of joys and sorrows. Once a month in the service we invite people to share the important events of their life. Whether they be moments of great difficulty and struggle or moments of joy and celebration. In a spirit of acceptance and support we share with one another these events and circumstances that affect our lives. So for the next few minutes anyone who wishes is invited to step to the front of the auditorium, light a candle and use the microphone provided by our way minister briefly sharing with us your message. You can also come forward and light a candle wordlessly and return to your seat. And if you are unable to come forward please raise your hand and we will bring the microphone to you and light a candle on your behalf. In particular we acknowledge that today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day and so we hold the deeper truths of remembering that both the stories of the past and how they live in us today. I now open the floor for the sharing of our sorrows and our joys. I'm Connie Beam and in January and even in December our family seems to celebrate the majority of the birthdays that we have and in this month of January my dad turned 87 and we are just so blessed to have him in our lives and yesterday and today both Roslyn Woodward and David Beam celebrated significant birthdays as well and I just thought let's light a candle for all of them we are so grateful for them being in our lives. Hi I'm Matt Howard I have a joy next week I'll be celebrating three years of remission from multiple myeloma which is an incurable blood cancer that I was diagnosed with three and a half years ago so I'm extremely happy about that it's been great. Hi there my name is Jack Blaster earlier this month I got in an accident when I was going northbound on Bedford's okay anyways so I was in an accident and I had the front left part of my Prius smashed up fortunately I wasn't in any serious danger I hit my head and was treated by medics so I ended up being okay unfortunately I lost my college graduation present that day since it couldn't move any further but so this is both a joy and a concern obviously is a concern because I could have I wasn't an accident that was pretty unfortunate it could have been a lot worse though I could have gone to the hospital but fortunately I'm okay now I lived to tell the tale as you can see so I'm really glad to be here and still be a functioning member of this congregation and I would like to warn other people just don't get in an accident if you can prevent it especially with the roads being what they are thank you so you know what the weather is expected this week and I'm just thinking about all the homeless in Madison all the shelters are stuffed they're in great need it's going to be minus 50 with windshield so may we open our hearts and our wallets and our sense of compassion to those who have nothing long underwear is really needed along with sugar so just remember in Dane County and really all over the Midwest there's places that people need help I'm Laura Tills and I have a sorrow we lost our two 18-year-old family cats in the last two months and so we miss them but we also have a joy we have two kittens I'm Kim Stegi and I have a sorrow and a joy my husband's brother is struggling with cancer and we are new grandparents for the first time so we have a two-month-old granddaughter in Chicago Daphne and we light one last candle for all the joys and the sorrows that remain unspoken and are too tender to share but are still held in this space and in the fullness of our hearts as we breathe together and as we are together may we understand the gift of community and all that it offers I invite us to rise in all the ways that we do and join together in hymn number 1014 in the Teal hymnal entitled standing on the side of love many of the people in our congregation who are differently able to have spoken to the fact that the standing on the side of love sometimes feels painful to them we invite if it would be something that feels comfortable to you you can also try using the phrase answering the call of love regardless we will sing together 1014 verse 1 and 3 the promise of the spirit faith hope and love abound and so every soul is blessed and made whole the truth ain't together as hard emboldened by faith we dare to proclaim a bright new day is dawn elections of grace in every inch fulfilling the vision divine together has hearts beat as one emboldened by faith and now may the stars that guide us on our journeys remain vivid to us may they illuminate our path with their wisdom may they energize us for the important work may they warm us with compassion and hope and comfort when we need it most we extinguish this chalice but not the light of wisdom the warmth of community or the fire of justice these remain until we gather in this place again I invite you to take your seat and to receive the gift of one other musical piece as we are together