 Welcome to the First Unitarian Society of Madison. This is a community where curious seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical and social issues in an accepting and nurturing environment. Unitarian Universalism supports the freedom of conscience of each individual as together we seek to be a force for good in the world. I'm Rosalind Woodward and on behalf of the congregation I'd like to extend a special welcome to visitors. We're a welcoming congregation so whoever you are and wherever you are on your life's journey we celebrate your presence among us. We trust that today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart and stir your spirit. And right now we'll take a moment of silence for contemplation, meditation or prayer as we settle in to come fully to this time and place. Our ring hymn is hymn number 83, Winsby Still. Please remain standing for the opening words. They were written by Jane Hirschfield. Poetry's work is the clarification and magnification of being. Each time we enter its word woven and musical invocation. We give ourselves over to a different mode of knowing, to poetry's knowing and to the increase of existence it brings unlike any other. And now if you'll join me in the chalice lighting. At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has caused to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within. Please turn to your neighbours and greet them. The Poetry Service has been an intermittent ongoing tradition here at FUS. The role of the Worship Committee is to fill gaps, particularly in the summer when staff are not available. This summer has opened up more opportunities so it made sense to ask poets in the congregation to reflect on the inevitable changes life presents, especially as we face major transitions in this community. The committee received many worthy contributions. We were not able to use all because of time constraints and have chosen those that best reflect the theme. The submissions serendipitously fell into broad categories and in your programme you'll see them gathered under these headings. It's a risky endeavour to share something as personal as a piece of original poetry with a larger audience so it is with gratitude we welcome those who are willing to do it. For those who are unable to do so their poems will be read by others and their authorship will be acknowledged and appreciate. For most of human existence poetry has been used to pass stories between generations. Before writing and mass education poetry was the medium by which a culture's historic and spiritual values were passed on, often through metaphor. Think Beowulf, the voyages of Odysseus and many native tales. The rhythm, structure and rhyme made them easy to remember and thus they travelled across space and time. The poet or bard often held a sacred place akin to a shaman in many cultures, Egyptian, Druidic, Norse, Hebrew, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist to name a few. For people struggling for daily survival poetic inspiration seemed to channel unseen forces and provide visions that explained a complicated, often painful and confusing world. Poetry also opens a small window into another person's life. It served to illustrate our common humanity and while we certainly trust the summer's changes will not fall into the category of a fight for survival a service such of this will hopefully serve to strengthen connections and enhance our sense of community. And if you will stand as you are able and join in the next hymn the children can go out for some of fun. It's hymn number 209. My name is Patricia Ferris Stinger. I am the editor of the poem and quotations feature in the monthly newsletter and I am grateful for the opportunity to help organize this poetry service. Our first group of poets will present poems on the theme of seasons of growth. The first poet is Hannah Pinkerton who was not able to be with us this morning so I will read Hannah's poem. And Hannah would like you to know that she wrote this poem to honor her husband Tad who is celebrating his 80th birthday today. Happy birthday Tad. Hannah's poem is titled While Sleeping. Hosta uncoils a new yellow green leaf. Pink cherry bud opens to five white petals. Those written in distinctive cursive disintegrate into sterile email. Sun speeds winter to summer in scarcely a wrinkle of time. Smooth skin on arms turns into puckers and pleats. A neighbor opens his mind when a child comes out as gay. The hay field west of town holds hundreds of new condos. Legs no longer paddle nor arms paddle. Still, the heart remembers fondly. Changes happen all around me, though the marrow of time is now. Melting icebergs leave polar bears hungry, stranded or homeless. Once change under a new baton, lovely music continues to rise. While he was sleeping, today's calendar turns my husband into an octogenarian. And my name is Sanny Oberhauser. I'm going to read my poem The Art of Growing. Being with a quote by Marcus Aurelius, all that exists is the seed of what shall be. Gardeners place rose bush into soil rich with nutrients. They plant more and more until there is a garden. Each rose reaches for nourishment from the sky. Bushes grow, bushes change, soon they support one another. The garden is a haven where all may thrive, survive adverse conditions. As petals unfold, they enhance the neighborhood. A congregation has a gardener, a leader who shares wisdom, sets example to encourage growth in individuals and entire congregation. The leader draws inspiration from all members to enhance community, offer protection, reaches beyond to gain support, to lend support. Individuals merge into their own community to help it grow. My name is Jeff Glover. I'm going to read my poem entitled Raspberries. The raspberries I did not pick in my little lot. The very ones where canes were thick. The truth is, I forgot, they grew and waited just for me, sweet and red and ripe, hoping someday I would see them, at least I might. But as you know how life goes, I was too distracted, hitting by and feeling woes. Many things protracted, and so my berries went to waste. Like many days, I failed to taste. Good morning. My name is Sandra Pomponio and I wrote this poem about my mother this spring. She was affectionately known by many as Mamaji. I woke up this morning remembering you and all the things that I love about you. The blood roots are up, offering cheer this May morning, but tomorrow perhaps they will not. The ferns are unfurling, fiddleheads playing a soft song of spring to the warm accompaniment of a shimmering morning sun. Each year you awaited these suggestions of spring with the anticipation of a child on Christmas morning. Your signs of springs gifted you with endless joy year after year as you lived your well-lived, well-loved life. I venture out in the soft morning light to pick the first offerings of spring, a small tradition created by your beloved, my father. The first small gift is a gathering of simple violets, shy white and periwinkle beauties, their delicate flowers well hidden amidst the dew laden grasses. A second offering is one of ferns and the bleeding hearts you planted carefully and nourished by the home you lived in for more than 50 years. I put the flowers by your chair empty since November. My heart aches with the longing to once again share so very much, especially the joys of spring. The season of rebirth arrived each year before your time on earth, and it will continue to arrive after my time on earth. But for now, the artistry of spring envelops and quiets my heart with the timeless assurance of my mother's love. Our next group of poets reflect on the idea of change of place. My name is Fran Raul, R-A-L-L. And I'm reading a poem called The City of Lost Objects, which is pretty much the way the life goes. The City of Lost Objects, excuse me. Billions of papers, both written and printed, that last pillow I needed for exercises. Did I put those shoes in the goodwill? Did I use goodwill for making myself feel helpful or just wanting to feel useful? Where is that spoon? Did I throw it away? Papers? Papers? Papers? Who cares besides me? Do I care? Great old photos. Lost dates. Lost people. Who wants them? I need millions of friends. Lost people, dead, dead, gone to their imaginings, their destinations, their dreams. Lost, lost, but still here somehow. Real and unreal. Why do people care so much about bones? I'm Ann Smiley reading a poem for Sparrow Sentie. I'm honored to be reading for her today. Leaving a home you've loved. There's something sad and melancholy about leaving a home you've loved and lived in. To have your possessions taken, knives, forks, your favorite teapot, beds, couches, pictures off the walls, books, children's toys, one by one, packed into boxes and piled into the huge cavernous moving van, leaving every warm, friendly room of your home bare. The floors, the walls, the ceilings echo and re-echo the emptiness. Suddenly, the van is filled and the driver clicks, the door is shut. You stand there watching as the truck drives off, taking away everything you own except the memories of living here. Those you keep in your heart as you travel to that new place where the melancholy and sadness transforms into an excitement and anticipation of adventure as all the boxes are unpacked. Their contents put into place in new rooms that will become home again. I'm Robin Chapman, reading The Lawrence Transformations. What is it like shifting frames to step from the riverbank into the river and be carried away? To hop on a beam of light with a slight lift the way the trapeze artist grabs the swing and lifts off and out over our heads or the way we open a book and surrender to words. Time, place, life shifts. The aerial is still in the center of her swinging arc, high above, but now a split-second exchange of movement and trust, and she swings from the wrists of her partner, game shifted again, or the way our eyes lift to the sports bar screen, lock into flash flood sweeping cars and people away as we drink our beer while we cheer a tackle in a football game, slowed thump of brain against skull. And that constant trickster, light, links us faster than the speed of thought. We are older than what we see, the halftime score, the Dow Jones feed, the faces of family in Brazil's mudslides searching for family, the houses in Brisbane underwater, the trapeze artist once aloft, suddenly airborne, caught, dropped, bowing now, grounded again on our spinning earth as we cheer. My name is Fran. The next poetic theme is personal change. The first poem in this group is by March Schweitzer, who could not be here today, so I will read her poem for her. March's poem is titled, Old and Well Used. Our daughter said, so now you've got scary old lady hair. I told her, do I care? I've earned every darn strand of it. I remember when I was a little girl, thinking how old my godmother looked, with her white hair and face furrowed by the sun and years, only to find out later, she was younger than I am now. When you're young, you worry so much about how things look. Everything must be shiny and new. Why keep that bowl? There's a chip on its lip. That tea towel looks so worn and used, and the elastic on that contour sheet sags, disgraceful. As you get older, though, your perspectives change. Because are no longer of such consequence. And one becomes comfortable with things looking well used, like me and you. And another poem by Sparrow Senty, A Matter of Getting Older. My body is older each day. Lungs tell me so, when I hurry and find I'm breathless. Slow down, they say, walk slower. My body is weaker each day. Hands fail me when I open jar lids. Help, they say. Ask for help. My body is fading each day, eyes dim and blur as I read or knit. Glasses, they say. Close your glasses. My body is stiffer each day. Bones, creak, joints crack when I sit or stand. Go easy, they say. Move carefully. My body is tired each day. It tells me so as I dust or sweep. Just less, it says, sweep less. My body talks to me a lot these days. Take a nap, it says. Some things, some things change. Some things change, and many don't. A million will while others won't. We're won't to say the things that may, the new that do, while old decay. To stay as current as a river, we need to move, also deliver, what will work at least for some advancing forward to become, what may seem at first for not, yet might stay worthy to be sought. Tools that thrive in time and space, the best of them with love and grace, to place ourselves within the range of better days well worth their change. Our next four poems are about love and change. Ben Friend-Roll, R-A-L-L. Love is abstract, but not abstract enough for me. I want a wide, white border around it so I can stay on the border and not get into the subject. The subject is something full of not wide borders, too much talking about how love goes and wanes, how it changes, how it has degrees, and talking about it with large cups of coffee, not abstract, just distances from details about it. So in camaraderie, my name is Claire Fox. I wrote this poem as a prayer, as a prayer for the inevitable suffering and challenges of life for all of us, but in particular for those of us suffering with cognitive challenges in the name of love, let gratitude flow from our hearts. No denial or withdrawal from the tragedies of the world, rather embracing compassion. We awaken to this moment, present to what is right now. May gratitude give us courage to step into the unknown, perhaps afraid, perhaps afraid to engage knowing this journey will demand everything we can do and are, whether we are sick or well, rich or poor, religious or not. May we join together sustained by gratitude, listening, being, holding each other in love, acceptance, kindness, and resolve. I'm Susan Harvey. The name of this poem is Meditation on Love and Death. I wrote this in the fall of 2008, after a dear friend had died long before his time. Meditation on Love and Death. As I reflect on the unanticipated, unwelcome events that have suddenly become part of my life, I realize with fall, apple, Christmas, what it means to love unconditionally. When death is involved, the previous hesitations, fears, conditions in a relationship dissolve. All that is left is the pureness of caring for another, another who barely has a functioning body anymore, certainly not the previous attractive self with eager smile and ready desire to engage as the body fades, the spirit becomes more apparent. And in the end, all there is left to love is the spirit. My name is Lori Schwartz. This poem found its name yesterday at the rehearsal. It's called Reclaim Now. Strange to rearrange, memory can become an enemy, lost in thought, confusion distraught. What was it I fought to keep the same and for what and for whose gain? Control is not ours. Those are another's powers. Our tightening grips is how everything slips away, away and farther every day, longing, my dear, in memory you appear, the sound of your voice, mysterious sunshine's choice. But who created the sunshine? Who made the love appear? Are we really just dirt to dirt in pine with random moments of cheer? Could change be a gift in a plan, not a drift? It must be for only God was with me, facing fear. God's hand becomes clear, understandings appear. When love don't veer, see joy in the mirror, become silent to hear home, and return to our unconditional home, love, peace, fears cease. Love is on lease, trust and release. Waves in the ocean, mesmerizing magic potion, illusion of power growing, no. The creator is invisibly blowing, the fall of the wave is not so grave. For love divine, we bravely find that no one and nothing is left behind, calm, peace, bliss, increase, trust, know, love will grow, enjoy, in fun, in sun, play and run, until our time is done and we all return to one. This poem was written after I received my genome information from the National Geographic Genome Project to which I had submitted a DNA sample. It's called Genome J1C1B1. I arose out of Africa, wandering, pulled by hunger and the need for shelter and sustenance that keeps life moving forward into an unimaginable future. Drought and starvation push relentlessly towards resource and satiety. Others too are pushed and pulled by unseen forces, life clinging to life, hounded by hunger, disease and death. These are different, make unfamiliar sounds, have unusual form but are recognizable. They have eyes, ears, hands and feet. They seek food and shelter. We tentatively make contact, play together, labor together, share skills, tools and resources drawn toward each other for comfort and curiosity. Others withdraw and hide, afraid of the unknown. Those who resist inevitable change disappear into oblivion. Hidden by desert sands, they await archaeologists who will uncover their bones and artifacts centuries from now. Greet me among the wanderers from Mongolia and the steppes of Russia, farmers and herders, settling for a while and moving on when necessity drags a reluctant traveler away from hostility toward food and safety, until finally may be a promised land. Greet me by a river that flows with milk and honey, green and verdant, plenty for all. Plump brown-skinned babies play in the mud, laugh by streams, yet there is still not enough for all, greed, fear, violence grip the earth. Discover me covered in filth, slave to another, follow me, wrapped by the chains of servitude across rivers, oceans and plains, toward unimagined and unfamiliar places. Forced to live away from beloved landscapes, yet still I survive, urged on by life itself. Find me searching forests for game and berries to feed the children, to stave off starvation that nips at heels like a young wolf puppy. See a community building relationships to find safety within another's presence. Catch a glimpse as I merge into the stream of life fighting for existence, over rivers, through forest thickets, finding refuge in secure caves that eventually transform into houses, villages and towns that replace the trees. More terrifying turbulent waters lead to a small green island lifted out of the seas by those same life forces that placed me here. It is now possible to settle down for a breath in the passing eons, birth, death, toil, rest, sickness, health. Leave behind traces of the past in skin, bone and sinew. Travel other kinder waves, pulled and pushed by survival. See before you, risen from the roots of many different mothers, another woman. She carries within her a history of ancestral genes, black, yellow, brown, beige and pale skin, forebears. So who is she? Do you judge her by the color of her skin? She has seen all of those. Do you believe she is from her most recent place of origin? She is more than that. Do you see her for the place she presently holds? There have been many for her skills, for her interests, for her accomplishments, for her failures, for her children, for her relations. See her instead not as a wrinkly old woman, but a finely cut diamond, cleaved from ancient rock by the acts of time, honed into unique form, here for an instant to leave behind small traces in another's hair, skin and bones and maybe spread a glow of kindness, compassion and understanding along the way. The name of this poem is Maintaining Hope. I wrote it in December of 2012 after the school shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. How can I respond to the paradox that persists in my mind? The clear presence of human tragedy and waste alongside the fuzzy vision of a nurturing and caring human community, I must maintain the hope that a greater, all-encompassing arc of the universe is still bending toward compassion, equality and peace. And that a wiser knowing and all-creating spiritual energy is present with the human race on its very, very slow evolution toward these qualities of the arc. Interrupting destructive mutations and smoothing worthy designs along this long, long path over eons and eons of time, it seems to require a huge, heartful of blind and reckless hope. Today is the day we are a talented new music director. Thank you, Drew, for everything you've done for the service today. I don't know where he went. Where is he? Our offering today is for the continuing work of this congregation. Our sincere thanks to all of our poets participating in today's service. Thank you. And then we appreciate the many gifts of all those who helped our service this morning. Our greeter was Pamela McMullen. Our ushers are Anne Smiley and Allison Mix. On sound, we had no volunteers sign up for this hour, so our talented staff member Dan Carnes has kindly stepped up to fill in. Hospitality is being provided by Richard DeVita and John Mix. Our lay minister is Anne Smiley. There are no further announcements, but please check the red floor's insert in your program for ongoing details of community activities and needs. The cares of the congregation. We join together each week, a community who gathers with joys and sorrows written on our hearts. In this place, we love and are loved. We forgive and are forgiven. We give and we receive in turn. We come together to find strength and common purpose, turning our minds and hearts toward one another, seeking to bring into our circle of concern all who need our love and support. There are two entries in the Book of Cares this morning. The first one reads, Our deepest gratitude to Carol Clongland as she steps down from leading our dance fellowship. Carol has brought beauty and inspiration to our congregation through her choreography and creativity. Thank you, Carol. A second writer writes, Grateful for the bounty of our gardens and farmers markets. And we thank Larry Johnson for the beautiful flowers that he brought here this morning. Our closing hymn is number 326. Please stand as you are able for the hymn and the benediction. Blessings from what's new. Blessings be upon you, all who deal with change. People of the new, the modern and the strange. Advances sent like storms with computers ever faster, upending daily norms with protocols to master. In suburbs and city hives, from technology and waves, that rearrange your lives in unfamiliar ways, that gobble up your time, seduce you by the hour, like Facebook, yours and mine, that wants us in its power. Blessings be upon you, all who do not fear the challenges of the new, yet endure and persevere. Not just survive, but thrive. Take wisely what is good. Change but then arrive with values understood. Keeping as your goal to thine own self be true and never lose your soul to the latest thing that's new. And now if you'll be seated for the postlude.