 I'm not sure what it is. I'm not sure what it is. I'm not sure what it is. Well, I know. Hi, Miss. How's it going? Yes. Well, it's updating all the devices. Yeah. Well, thank you, John. What do you want to do? Move it. I have a second. She has. She has. OK. She has. She has. She has. How do you push that button? She has. Oh, I know. Yeah. Is it going? OK. Oh, wow! OK. She has. She has. OK. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. OK. Thank you. I would say, because we're going to be sitting here, so I'm just going to slide her down and pick up the camera. I don't know. Sit, do you better just sit in the water. I'm going to do just sit in the water. I'm going to pick up the camera. The project is going to play. And that musical introduction is our melodious way of saying good morning everybody. Welcome to another Sunday here at First Unitarian Society where independent thinkers gather in a safe, nurturing, and sunny environment to explore issues of social, spiritual, and ethical significance as we try to make a difference in this world. I'm Steve Goldberg, a proud, totally perfect member of this congregation. And I'd like to extend an extra special greeting to any guests, visitors, or newcomers. If this is your first time at First Unitarian Society, I know you'll find that it's a special place. And if you'd like to learn more about our special buildings, we'll be offering a guided tour right after the service. Just gather over here by the windows after the service and we'll take good care of you. Speaking of taking good care of each other, this would be a great time to silence those pesky electronic devices, deactivate them, disarm them, make sure that they don't interrupt the service because that will subject you to the public shame of flogging. And while you're taking care of that simple task, let me just ask you to sit back and enjoy today's service. I think it'll touch your heart, stir your spirit, and trigger one or two new thoughts. We're really glad that you're here and I ask you to join now in a moment of centering silence so we can be fully present with each other since it's only 13 days until cabaret. So please enjoy a moment of centering silence and then we will sing our in-gathering hymn. Good morning. Good morning, let us rise and sing hymn number 1,000. Good morning has come. Good morning has come. I'll rise and greet the day. Dance with joy and sing a song of gladness. The light of hope here shall today dawns more than this moment shared in hearts to welcome. Remaining standing for our opening words and our chalice lighting, as surely as we belong to the universe we belong together. We join here to transcend the isolated self, to reconnect, to know ourselves to be at home here on earth under the stars linked with each other. Will you join me in our chalice lighting words printed in the order of service as together we spark the light saying, We light this chalice for the web of life which sustains us, for the sacred circle of life in which we have our being, for the earth, the sky above and below, and for our mother earth and for the mystery. I invite you to turn towards each other and offer a warm and friendly greeting. I invite anyone who'd like to come forward for our message to come on up. Oh, there's more coming. Clip, clop, clip, clop, clip, clomp, stomp, stomp. Thank you, that way we knew you were coming. How you doing? Our story today is called The Three Questions. There once was a boy named Nikolai, who sometimes felt uncertain about the right way to act. I want to be a good person, he told his friends, but I don't always know the best way to do that. Nikolai's friends understood and they wanted to help. If only I could find the answers to my three questions, he said, then I would always know what to do. So here's his three questions. When is the best time to do things? Who is the most important one? What is the right thing to do? Nikolai's friends considered his first question. Then Sonia the heron said, to know the best time to do things, one must plan in advance. Gogol the monkey, who'd been rooting through some leaves to find something to eat, said you will know when to do things if you watch and pay close attention. Then Pushkin the dog, who was just dozing off, rolled over and said, you can't pay attention to everything yourself. You need a pack to help keep watch and help you decide when to do things. For example, Gogol, a coconut is about to fall on your head. Nikolai thought for a moment, then he asked his second question, who is the most important one? Those who are closest to heaven, said Sonia, circling up into the sky. Those who know how to heal the sick, said Gogol, stroking his bruised noggin. Those who make the rules, growled Pushkin. Nikolai thought some more. Then he asked the third question, what is the right thing to do? Flying, said Sonia, having fun all the time, left Gogol. Fighting, barked Pushkin right away. Then the boy thought for a long while, he loved his friends. He knew they were all trying their best to help him answer his questions, but their answers didn't seem quite right. Then an idea came to him, I know, I will ask Leo the turtle. He has lived a very long time. Surely he will know the answers I'm looking for. So Nikolai hiked high up into the mountains where the old turtle lived all alone. When Nikolai arrived, he found Leo digging a garden. The turtle was old and digging was hard. I have three questions I came to ask your help, Nikolai said. When is the best time to do things? Who's the most important one? What is the right thing to do? Leo listened carefully, but he only smiled. Then he went on with his digging. You must be tired, Nikolai said. Let me help you. The turtle gave him his shovel and thanked him. And because it was easier for a young boy to dig than it was for an old turtle, Nikolai kept on digging until all the rows were finished. But just as he finished, the wind blew wildly and rain burst from darkened clouds. As they moved toward the cottage for shelter, Nikolai heard a cry for help. Running down the path, he found a panda whose leg had been injured by a fallen tree. Carefully, Nikolai carried her into Leo's house and made a splint for her leg with a stick of bamboo. The storm raged on, banging at the doors and the windows. The panda woke up. Where am I, she said, and where is my child? Oh. The boy ran out of the cottage and down the path. The roar of the storm was deafening. Pushing against the howling wind and the drenching rain, he ran farther into the forest. There he found the panda's child, cold and shivering on the ground. The little panda was wet and scared, but alive. Nikolai carried her inside and made her warm and dry then he laid her in her mother's arms. Leo smiled when he saw what the boy had done. The next morning the sun was warm, the birds were singing, and all was well with the world. The panda's leg was healing nicely and she thanked Nikolai for saving her and her baby. At that moment, Sonya Gogol and Pushkin arrived to make sure everyone was all right. Nikolai felt great peace within himself. He had wonderful friends and he had saved the panda and her child, but he was also a little disappointed. He still hadn't found the answers to his three questions. So he asked Leo one more time. The old turtle looked at the boy, but your questions have been answered, he said. They have? Yesterday, if you had not stayed to help me dig my garden, you wouldn't have heard the panda's cries for help. Therefore, the most important time was the time you spent digging the garden. The most important one at that moment was me and the most important thing to do was to help me with my garden. Later when you found the injured panda, the most important time was the time you spent mending her and saving her child. The most important ones were the panda and her baby and the most important thing to do was to take care of them and make them feel safe. Remember then that there is only one important time and that time is now. The most important one is always the one you are with and the most important thing to do is to do good for the one who is standing at your side. For these, my dear boy, are the answers to what is most important. This is why we are here. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us this morning and listening to our story. It is now time for you to head out to summer fun. Have a great time. Let us rise in all the ways that we do to sing him number 1051. We are For each child that's born A morning star rises And sings to the universe Who we are For each child that's born A morning star rises And sings to the universe Who we are We are grandmother's prayers And we are our grandfather's dreamings We are the breath of our ancestors We are the spirit of God We are mothers of courage And fathers of time We are daughters of dust And the sons of great visions We are sisters of mercy And brothers of love We are lovers of life And the builders of nations We are seekers of truth And keepers of faith We are makers of peace And the wisdom of ages We are our grandmother's prayers And we are our grandmother's dreamings We are the breath of our ancestors We are the spirit of God We are mothers of courage And fathers of time We are daughters of dust And the sons of great visions We are sisters of mercy And brothers of love We are lovers of life And the builders of nations We are seekers of truth And keepers of faith We are makers of peace And the wisdom of ages We are our grandmother's prayers And we are our grandfather's dreamings We are the breath of our ancestors We are the spirit of God For each child that's born A morning star rises And sings to the universe Who we are For each child that's born A morning star rises And sings to the universe Who we are Each child that's born A morning star rises And sings to the universe One more time For each child that's born A morning star rises And sings to the universe It is my task to introduce our new month's theme June brings about the theme of transcendence And this is the final set of themes For this church here The next time that we will have a monthly theme We'll move into September And our theme of Covenant So a favorite question that has come From my new non-UU friends in the area Strangely enough, never from people From the congregation is What are you preaching on this weekend? And when I told them That I was preaching on transcendence Every one of them to a person Said something exactly like What does that even mean? Now it turns out that most of them Actually understood the definition More or less of transcendence But they were curious about What a sermon about transcendence might say And the thing is, me too I'm really excited to see What we discovered this month And the word suggests Some rather large ideas And a fair amount of abstraction But the good thing, one of them At least about the theme of transcendence Is that it has many facets Even the pathways that we might take To explore it might help illuminate Some different ways that transcendence Might help us explore For instance, if we go philosophical We might trace the pathway from rationalism And it's claimed that we know by thinking Primarily, to empiricism That focuses a lot on experience And how Kant suggested That there was a middle path In his transcendental idealism He argued that while it is true That we depend on experience To know anything at all We are also able to reason And reach logical conclusions That are not necessarily dependent Upon a correlating experience Such knowledge, he said Was a priority That which is known regardless Of sense experience He believed that we needed all That life had to give us In order to really deeply know And he argued, along with other folks That transcendent, as imposed to transcendental Transcendental talked about The sort of knowledge that lies Between almost any pathway Of absolute knowledge And he concluded that it was impossible To achieve any knowledge of the reality That is another extension Of the word transcendent The things that we might consider To be divine, or sacred Sometimes associated with words Like goddess and god And so if we took the theological Path through transcendence We would originally look at the ideas That speak of the sacred Or god as something beyond Any worldly knowledge And wholly other than our daily existence But the thing is, we Unitarian Universalists Come from a strand of theology That is more Talikian in its style And so we would speak of the sacred As the ground of being And it would ask questions Like where do you stand and why What are your roots? What values connect you With the depth of your living? What values connect you With the depth of the world itself? What anchors you? And ultimate concern What transcends you as an individual? What commands your loyalty? What do you live for? And what would you be willing To die for? Transcendence will ask us to think In a variety of ways this month It will ask us in its own way To think about those deeper questions In light of our community And that questioning will take us Into the months to come And even if we took an etymological Route into transcendence And combined trans and scandere together That would tell us that transcendence Means to climb across Perhaps this month You will be invited by transcendence To explore something lofty and large Or perhaps something specific And evocative Perhaps transcendence will be The weaving energy that connects That which might seem to be Otherwise disconnected Or adrift Perhaps transcendence will invoke Questions about what is most important And where you might turn For a place of centering And solid ground Wherever the theme of transcendence Takes you It is also likely to invite you To some rocky moments Some arduous crossings To something life changing For as William Sloan Coffin reminds us To believe you can approach transcendence Without drawing nearer in compassion To human suffering Is to fool yourself There can be no genuine Personal religious conversion Without a change in our social attitude What will transcendence Invite you to think about? Where will its pathway take you? What crossings will it invite? May this month Invite us all to take That journey together In love and curiosity So may it be Most of my reflection today will be musical You'll hear from the choir the story of Lazarus From the Christian scriptures Which I'll read to you now Luke 1619-31 There's kind of a gross part that I want to skip over So if you know the scripture, you know what I'm talking about There was a rich man who was dressed in purple And fine linen and lived in luxury every day At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus Covered with sores and longing to eat He never fell from the rich man's table The time came when both the beggar And the rich man died The beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side In Hades, where the rich man was in torment He looked up and saw Abraham far away With Lazarus by his side and called to him Father Abraham, have pity on me Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water And cool my tongue because I am in agony in this fire But Abraham replied, remember, in your lifetime You receive your good things While Lazarus received bad things But now he is comforted here and you are in agony And besides all this, between us and you is a great chasm So that those who want to go from here to you cannot Or can anyone cross over from there to us? And he answered, then I beg you, send Lazarus to my family I have five brothers, let him warn them So that they will not also come to this place of torment Abraham replied, they have Moses and the prophets They should listen to them No, Father Abraham, he said, but if someone from the dead Goes to them, they will repent And Abraham replied, if they do not listen to Moses And the prophets, they will not be convinced Even by someone raised from the dead So we'll hear part of that story from the choir In the first two verses The first verse about Lazarus And the second verse about the rich man Who's called Davies And what's interesting about this African-American slave spiritual Is that it's not those two verses The interesting thing is the commentary That comes in the third verse So we can imagine, can't we Why this particular passage of Scripture Was appealing to the slaves To those who had nothing To those who were surviving off the scraps From a rich man's table And then their reward would be greater in heaven If they were righteous And so the third verse is about praising God So there's a poor man, there's a rich man The rich man goes to hell The poor man goes to heaven Praise God! And of course this falls into a category As many spirituals do of being in code And being something that they were allowed to sing That the slave owners could not get mad at Because it was biblical, right? And it was fairly brave, I think, to sing this And almost in their face, they were heard They had no privacy So they were saying to the slave owners We will transcend you, we will one day Our time will come and we will be above you in heaven A great thanks to our anybody choir For the music this morning These are the words of Billy Collins It was a day in June All lawn and sky The kind that gives you no choice But to unbutton your shirt And sit outside in a rough wooden chair And if a glass of iced tea And an anthology of 17th century devotional poetry With a dark blue cover are available Then the picture can hardly be improved I remember a fly kept landing on my wrist And two black butterflies with white and red wing dots Bobbed around my head in the bright air I could feel the day offering itself to me And I wanted nothing more than to be in the moment But which moment? Not that one, or that one, or that one Or any of those that were scuttling by Seemed perfectly right for me Plus I was too knotted up with questions about the past And his tall evasive sister, the future What churchyard held the bones of George Herbert? Why did John Dunn's wife die so young? And more pressingly, what could we serve The vegetarian twins we had invited for dinner that evening Not knowing then that they travel with their own grapes? And who was the driver of that pickup Flying down the road toward that single railroad track? And so the priceless moments of the day were squandered One by one, or more likely several thousand At a time with quandary and pointless interrogation All I wanted was to be a pea of being At rest inside the pod of time But that was not going to happen today I had to admit to myself As I closed the blue book on the face of Thomas Trahearn And returned to the house Where I lit a flame under a pot full of water Where some eggs were afloat And while they were cooking I stared into a little oval mirror by the sink Just to see if that crazy glass Had anything particular to say to me today I find this poem from Billy Collins Particularly relatable, and maybe you do as well All I wanted was to be a pea of being At rest inside the pod of time, he wrote And yet his mind was any place but at rest Squandering the priceless moments of the day Perhaps missing moments of transcendence I used to believe that transcendent moments Were few and far between With this word transcendence being reserved For those times when we found ourselves having Mountain-top experiences Going beyond the ordinary and the mundane Perhaps only when we have found ourselves connected To some other worldly or divine presence But I have begun to question my assumptions About transcendent moments Meg Riley, the senior minister At our Church of the Larger Fellowship Wrote these words on the topic of transcendence I am talking to a man whose wife Has just told him she loves someone else I need to go to the ocean, says the man To see something bigger than my pain I am on the phone with a woman whose sister is dying Even here, says the woman on the phone There is beauty, there is joy Even here there is something beyond the pain I'm reading a letter from a prisoner Behind bars for more than half of his 37 years on the planet I have to work hard, he says To see things to be grateful for But they are always there And my spiritual practice is to notice them Meg shared these interactions from her ministry As stories of transcendence Examples of ways people tap into Something larger than themselves Illustrations of how people find wholeness And holiness even in the midst of difficulty I remember an early moment of transcendence In my own life When I was a freshman in high school Just entering the orchestra program And we were invited to Usher At a symphony concert Before the concert began The conductor turned to address the audience And shared that their concertmaster The principal first violin Had passed away suddenly and unexpectedly Just a few days before They were going to begin that evening By playing Rachmaninoff's vocalese In his honor It was the first time I had heard that piece And I remember being transported out of myself And carried away into a sense of oneness A union with those who were using this musical form To express their deep grief and pain With those sitting around me Who were each experiencing their own losses As well as beauty and joy and love And a realization that we were all part Of a life force that was in us And around us and beyond us It was a moment of intense connection And deep peace After that moment I believed that transcendence Was a rare thing Only happening in grand and exceptional moments in time And yet isn't there something of the transcendent In the ordinary human experience In the ongoing moments of understanding or compassion Alison Luterman in What We Came For Wrote, Strawberries, you know, Are too delicate to be picked by a machine Perfectly ripe one's bruise And even too heavy a human touch It hit her then that every strawberry she had ever eaten Every piece of fruit had been picked By calloused human hands Every piece of toast with jelly Represented someone's knees Someone's aching back and hips With a bandana on her wrist to wipe away the sweat Why had no one ever told her this before? Perhaps these moments of transcendence These elevated moments of connection Might be more available to us than we might think Perhaps Emerson was correct When he said that transcendence can be found In the innumerable instances of the common life A walk in the garden A favorite piece of music Witnessing an act of kindness Or carrying out a kindness oneself Witnessing someone else's joy A quiet sunset, a powerful storm The embrace of someone you love Whether a moment is transcendent or not May be more about our response to it Our interpretation of it Rather than the moment itself And so may we go forward Revealing in the priceless moments of this day Learning to be a pea of being Resting inside the pod of time Seeing if this day has anything particular Or possibly transcendent to say to us Does transcendence have a direction? When I hear the word transcendence I often think of the direction of up Like Lazarus Out there, bigger than me Beyond my reach Airy and universal As if I'm in a hot air balloon I'm rising above Transcending I'm rising above the usual mess of life And getting a new perspective I wonder, however How might transcendence also be possible When we go down Into the earth Digging into the ground Feeling grounded In his book, Let Your Life Speak Listening for the Voice of Vocation The Quaker educator and theologian Parker Palmer speaks to this going down mentality When he writes about his experience With clinical depression He explains how he finally found a therapist Who helped him see his depression Exactly as he needed to interpret it As a spiritual journey Palmer writes, Of course, it was not the sort of spiritual journey I had hoped to someday to take Not an upward climb Into rarefied realms of light Not a mountaintop experience of God's presence In fact, mine was a journey in the opposite direction To an inner circle of hell And a face-to-face encounter With the monsters who live there After hours of careful listening My therapist offered an image That helped me eventually reclaim my life You seem to look upon depression As the hand of an enemy Trying to crush you, he said Do you think you could see it Instead, as the hand of a friend Pressing you down to the ground On which it is safe to stand Amid the assaults of suffering Palmer continues, the suggestion That depression was my friend Seemed impossibly romantic And even insulting But something in me knew That down, down to the ground Was the direction of wholeness Thus allowing that image to begin Its slow work of healing in me Now this image that Palmer offers It reminds me of all the ways the earth Has literally healed me and helped me I'm thinking, for example, of when My mother-in-law died several years ago Now I found myself digging in the garden I started out being focused on weeding That creeping Charlie and that garlic mustard And that golden rod I ended up noticing How different root systems work I noticed how the plants were interconnected And I pondered the flow of nourishment The earth, the dirt, the ground Was there for me in my time of grieving And my time in the garden was A sort of transcendence It allowed me to experience a new perspective To see something larger than myself To remember my own root systems This poem by Unitarian Universalist writer Jess Reynolds, entitled I would like to be buried alive Offers images of being grounded, literally And reminds me of planting spring gardens Jess writes, spirit, plant me Part the soil until there's room For me to curl up around myself and wait I know there's life sleeping somewhere in this seed Just waiting for water and sun Spirit, plant me This is our covenant You on your knees, up to your elbows in dirt Me, stripped bare of bark and shell Risking wind and snow to give myself The chance to grow May we all grow Knowing both our roots and our shoots May our experiences of transcendence Include both going up and going down The giving and receiving of our offering Is a time to lift up our collective responsibility Toward the common good In our offering we exercise that All important generosity of spirit Our offering for the summer Supports the ongoing work of this congregation And its many programs and ministries We thank you for your generosity We could listen to more of that So thank you for your generosity during the offering We also want to thank the generosity of time Provided by our volunteers who help make this service Run smoothly So please offer your thanks when you see these people During the luncheon that follows today's service Thank David Briles for operating the sound system Thank Ann Smiley for serving as our lay minister Kareen Perrin and Claire Box were our smiling Happy, cheerful greeters this morning Our ushers have been Marty Hollis, Ann Ostrom, and Brian Channis The flowers behind me were donated by Cynthia Nolan And Paul Abramson, thanks to them Thank you to Gene Hills and Blaise Thompson For staffing the coffee and hospitality Nancy Webster for making sure that our pulpit palms Had the necessary quotient of moisture John Powell for serving as our tour guide And Karen Rose Gredler for staffing the information table A couple more announcements here The chalice that you see over here near the podium Was provided, crafted, and donated by David Weber And you'll notice it has seven sides to it Seven corners, if you will Representing the seven principles of Unitarian Universalism So thank you very much, David And we want you to know that after today's service We will enjoy a communal lunch As we get ready for our 12.30 parish meeting Again, the parish meeting is at 12.30 The lunch will begin shortly after this service And speaking of services, next Sunday's service Is a blessing for animals and a service for all ages That means you can bring your animals Live or stuffed, it doesn't matter When I heard it was a service for animals I made sure it was open on my calendar I thought it was directed at me So 10 o'clock means your animals can sleep late Get them up at 9.30, bring them here And we'll have a wonderful service For all animals and all ages Speaking of animal behavior, it's only 13 days until Game night, game night It won't be a plain night Pinball, cake walk, bingo and smart game talk Come on out and play Bring your game face to cabaret Then you can play the night away If you join us for our game night cabaret Hold your applause, please But thank you, that was nice Cabaret is Saturday evening, June 15 Right here, from 6 until 9 o'clock It is a game night theme The first time we've ever done this at cabaret There will be a pinball machine I know, some of you would come just for that I know I will There will be a cake walk Church bingo We're making this up as we go along And along that same theme line FUS trivia Some would say that's a redundant term But FUS trivia that we'll get to play Against each other in table teams So that'll be fun, that's the first Twister, no that is not a description Of our sermons, twister And checkers, and a raffle There's also a kids cabaret Which includes a movie for them And popcorn and games just for them And food for them You can get flyers regarding the kids cabaret At the cabaret table in a moment or two And we'll have, again, live in silent auction I understand that this year's MC is extremely handsome And, okay We're bringing them in from Pittsburgh, yeah There's also an online auction That you can access It was just activated today And you can bid early on several wonderful items Including some excellent Milwaukee Brewer's tickets And other things that will delight you And the whole family Access the online auction site And cabaret site by going to the FUS site And you'll see a section that is labeled Give, hint, hint That's how you can get to the cabaret site Or you can scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page And access the cabaret site We do invite you to experience the thrill Of volunteering at Game Night Cabaret I can't tell you how excited I am To see your level of energy And pizzazz as you participate In that volunteer opportunity at cabaret You're going to write to all your relatives You're going to go home and you're going to text them Or email them and say, you won't believe the fun I just had Because I helped volunteer at the kids cabaret And made sure that they had a lot of fun And I wish I could have volunteered to monitor the pinball machine Because that was really exciting And after the kids cabaret, it cleaned up So we need that kind of help There are people who will track you down They'll be staffing the cabaret table during the break So that really is all about cabaret And all I got to say about that is So please join us at our Game Night Cabaret Steve has no shortage of energy For which I am so grateful So thank you And a sense of humor too You know, we come together as community Because we bring joys and sorrows with us Each time we gather In this place we love and we are loved We give and we receive 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 This week we are especially mindful Of those in Virginia Beach Who are impacted by the recent shooting on Friday We hold them in our hearts and prayers And we also know there are many joys and sorrows Throughout the world And throughout this room That remain in our hearts And ask for our attention May we remember that we are part of a web of life That makes us one with all humanity And one with all the universe May we be grateful for the miracle of life that we share And the hope that gives us the power to care To remember and to love We now get to join together once again in song Our closing hymn is number 301 Touch the earth and reach the sky I invite you to rise in body and or spirit All right, let's bring the kind of energy That Steve brings to his announcements To the singing of this hymn Last hymn for the day, let's hear it Touch the earth, reach the sky Walk on shores while spirits fly Over the ocean, over the land Our faithful quest to understand Touch the earth, the sky Children have the reasons Wassers show and bow To follow the sky And now as we prepare to leave this place And journey through our week May we have experiences that are transcendent enough That lift us up when we feel trapped and overwhelmed That ground us when we need something ancient and powerful That turn us inward to answer the questions That will set us free We extinguish the light But not the light of the greater wisdom Not the fire of our commitment to that Which matters most, not the warmth of human love These remain within us and in our relationships With each other until we gather in this place again I invite you to take a seat again And receive one more gift of music Together in worship