 Good morning. 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. My name is Dorit Bergen, and on behalf of the congregation, I would like to extend a special welcome to visitors. We are a welcoming congregation, so whoever you are and wherever you are on your life's journey, we celebrate your presence among us. I invite you now 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. I'm Mary Oliver. My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird, equal seekers of sweetness. You can be seated. Here the quickening yeast, there the blue plums, here the clam deep in the speckled sand. Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young and still not half perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. The Phoebe, the Delphinium, the sheep in the pasture and the pasture, which is mostly rejoicing since all the ingredients are here, which is gratitude to be given a mind and a heart and these body clothes, a mouth to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren to the sleepy dug up clam, telling them all over and over how it is that we live forever. I invite you now to rise in body and or in spirit as Dorot helps us light our chalice. Please join me in these words. To kindle the spirit of love, to shine on what is good, to seek out what is needed, to illumine the path to justice. We light this chalice. Oh, look who's here. Say hello to your neighbor. I invite the children and the young at heart to join me up here on the rug. If you could have a superpower, what would it be? Be invisible? Shoot lasers out of your eyes like jack-jack? Be really fast? Come on. What would you, what kind of superpower would you love? Tallulah, you told me what superpower you wanted. What superpower would you want? Rainbow superpower. What would you do with this superpower if you had it? You would climb on rainbows and slide down them. Winnie's superpower would be she could turn invisible and have a force field. What would you do if you had that superpower? How would you use it? Do you think superpowers can be real? Like, can you think of any real superpowers? Yeah, so a superpower could be going really fast, really super fast, and you can already go really super fast. Awesome. Well, I want to talk to you about a sea creature that I love because of its real-life superpowers. Introducing, you want this or something? It's a cuttlefish, the incredible cuttlefish. Okay, so cuttlefish aren't really fish. They belong to the same family as octopuses and squid. They're cephalopods, which is a thing that means head, feet, because they have eight arms coming out of their face, and their arms all have tentacles all over them, and then they have suckers all over them, and then they have two extra long tentacles that also have suckers all over them. And the pupils and their eyes are shaped like W's. See how their eyes are shaped like W's? Cuttlefish were around when the dinosaurs were here, and it's possible that a few hundred million years ago they had shells, like their cousins, the snails and the oysters, because they are mollusks, but now all they have is something called a cuttlebone, which is like having a shell inside their body. And the cuttlebone is kind of like a surfboard that runs along inside the cuttlefish's body that creates pockets of air and water. There's air at the front, and there's water at the back. And the cuttlefish rises up and sinks down by taking in and letting out air. And then they have these cool, fluttery fins that's like a little skirt they wear all around their bodies, and that enables them to hover and to move in all directions to turn in circles, they can go backwards. But sometimes they use their fins and their arms to walk along the bottom of the ocean. Cuttlefish can be little, like this is called a flamboyant cuttlefish, and this little cuttlefish is about three inches long. They can be big, like this giant Australian cuttlefish, which is about three feet long. What was that? Every people are taller than that. Well, for a cuttlefish, that's pretty big, though. But here's, I love cuttlefish because they have a superpower. So let's see if you can guess what their superpower is. Okay, so this is a cuttlefish, and this is a cuttlefish, and this is a cuttlefish, and this is a cuttlefish, and this is a cuttlefish. There's a cuttlefish. That's a cuttlefish. Yeah, there's a cuttlefish. Somebody's guessed it. Here's a cuttlefish. There's a cuttlefish. There's a cuttlefish. There's a cuttlefish. So what's their superpower? Camouflage. Look at this cuttlefish trying to look like a plant. Now, if dolphins and seals and sharks and seagulls thought you were yummy and you were kind of little and didn't have any shells and didn't have any teeth, what kind of superpower would you want? Camouflage. You want to be able to go fast. Okay, so the cuttlefish, if they need to go fast, they propel themselves backwards by using their cuttlebone to suck, yeah, to suck water through their body and then blowing it out hard, and they can shoot ink. But what they are really good at is hiding. They can make themselves look like plants and rocks and coral and other animals. The cuttlefish has taken camouflage to the next level. They can change their color and their shape and their texture to blend in with the background. And it's hard to believe, looking at these pictures, that these cuttlefish are all the same species. They're just... They're just... Yes, it is. They're simply changing their appearance, depending on what they see around them with their crazy WIs. It's called adaptive camouflage, and it's perfect for hiding from predators and from the prey they want to eat. Whoa! Now, octopus and squid have camouflage superpowers, too, and that helps them hide from the little fish and crabs and shellfish they want to catch and from the big animals that want to catch them. But here's a special power that only cuttlefish have, hypnosis. So, here's a cuttlefish, just out for a little hover in the neighborhood. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blending in, looking for something to eat. Oh, a crab! I love crabs. I will try to sneak up on it. Don't mind me, I'm just a piece of coral on the crab's scuttles away. And the cuttlefish says, no, really, really, I'm just some red algae and seaweed. And the crab scurries away. Cuttlefish gets a little annoyed. Crab scurries and hides some more. And then the cuttlefish stops trying to blend in and says, hey crab, look here. The crab is mesmerized and comes out of hiding and says, and the cuttlefish grabs the crab and hurries away. Hypnotism. Cuttlefish have superpowers. They are incredible. Thanks, you can head back to your seats now. You guys can just sit with your families now. Move back and sit with your families. We join together each week in this place where we love and are loved. The sharing of joys and sorrows is our time in the spirit of acceptance and support. To share with one another some special event or circumstance that has affected your life or the life of a loved one in recent days or weeks. If you woke this morning with a sorrow so heavy that you need the help of this community to carry it, or if you woke with a joy so great that it simply must be shared, now is the time for you to speak. So for the next few minutes, anyone who wishes is invited to step to the front of the auditorium, light a candle, and using the microphone provided by our lay minister and smiley, briefly share with us your message. You may also come forward to wordlessly light a candle and return to your seat. If you are unable to come forward, raise your hand. We will bring the microphone to you and light a candle on your behalf. I now open the floor for the sharing of our sorrows and joys. My name is Rod. I'm a United States veteran Navy. I'm in rehab over at Building Six. And I just like the joy is I'm in rehab. A lot of addictions, a lot of people with addicts are still suffering and they don't make it back to rehab. And I just like everybody prayed that everybody in Building Six, you know, God does this little miracle and cures everybody of their addiction. Hi, I'm Susie DeBeers and I wasn't planning on getting up. I was going to just share it with the book. On Monday, this past week, our son called and said, I have some bad news. Well, I thought it was his friend who's been very ill. But no, he said, I cut two of my fingers off today at work with the bandsaw. And I said, we'll be there. So he was down in Milwaukee, had wonderful care. But it's a very hard thing for him. He was on his way to go on vacation to see his cousin, our nephew. And so I'm very concerned for him. He's staying with us. And I hope he can keep his spirits up. And he is beating himself up because he did it. And it's not an unusual thing to have happened, but today all it is. So I just wanted to share it. I'm lighting a candle for Eric Olin Wright. Some of you may know him. He's a very famous sociologist at UW. And he was recently diagnosed with leukemia. So I'm lighting a candle hoping that he gets better. Have a joy this month that all of my daughters and their mates were with me for a week for my 79th birthday. And we just laughed and enjoyed the company of each other for an entire week. Then the unexpected news came for my sister, my kid's sister, who is living a very vibrant life despite some back problems. And she accidentally learned suddenly just three days ago that she has a brain tumor. And she will be operated upon with great uncertainty in everything on this Tuesday. So that's my sorrow. And that one last candle for all the joys and all the sorrows too tender to share that live in the fullness of our hearts. I now invite you to rise in body and or spirit and join me in singing him 205 as our children depart for summer fun. Who deserves heaven? These stories are in the gospels according to Mark and Matthew. As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. Good teacher, he asked, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Why do you call me good? Jesus answered, no one is good except God alone. You know the commandments. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony. You shall not defraud. Honor your father and mother. Teacher, he declared, all these I have kept since I was a boy. Jesus looked at him and loved him. One thing you lack, he said. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. At this, the man's face fell. He went away sad because he had great wealth. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples were amazed and said to each other, who then can be saved? Jesus replied, with man this is impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God. Then Peter spoke up. We have left everything to follow you. What then will there be for us? And Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven is like the landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. About nine in the morning, he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, you also go and work in my vineyard and I will pay you whatever is right. So they went. He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon, he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing? Because no one has hired us, they answered. He said to them, you also go and work in my vineyard. When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, call the workers and pay them their wages beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first. The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. These who were hired last worked only one hour, one complained. And you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day. But the landlord answered, I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous? So the last will be first and the first will be last. And this is from a friend of a friend on Facebook who has given permission for me to share with you, but wishes to remain nameless. I had a thought this morning that I want to share with my white, straight, cis, able-bodied, middle and upper class, et cetera, friends. When I leave my house and drive through my safe, quiet neighborhood, I feel privileged. When I'm at my intact and relatively clean home, I feel privileged. When I hand money to someone for something I want and don't have to worry about whether I'll still have enough later in the month for what I need, I feel privileged. When I buy food based on what I like to eat and what I want to eat, I feel privileged. When I leave my second job and don't have to think about it for another week, I feel privileged. When I get days off of my primary job that don't require any excuses and I still get paid, I feel privileged. When I read about children being taken from their parents at the border but get to hug and hold mine any time I want to, I feel privileged. When I hear about another black person having the cops called on them for doing something completely ordinary, I feel privileged. When I think back to the lives of my father and grandfather and how they were able to choose where to work and live without interference, I feel privileged. When I consider the ease my ancestors had in coming to America and fitting in quickly, I feel privileged. When I think about how one of my ancestors came here because he wanted to make a better life for himself and not because he was kidnapped from his home, I feel privileged. The word privileged in every one of these cases could be easily replaced with grateful. So many people are afraid of that word privilege as if it indicts them somehow. But learning about my privileges, way more than I even mentioned, hasn't made me feel burdened. In fact, it's made me realize how good my life really is. It's made me more grateful than I ever knew to be before. And feeling so much more grateful has made me want to share what I have with others who don't have it. So the next time someone calls you privileged and it feels like an affront, remind yourself, take a minute to remind yourself that it's not. They are saying that you have something that others don't. Something that you can and probably should treasure but shouldn't hoard for yourself. If someone observes that you have something nice that they wish they had, do you yell at them that they're being mean? Or do you appreciate what you have just a little more and say thank you? Joe doesn't know how to play both sixes now so at the last minute he decided to play both sides now. Okay, who here has a superpower? Let's see a show of hands. That's it. Okay, let's try this. Who is left-handed? Raise your hand. Keep them up. Who can speak more than one language? Pig Latin counts, keep your hands up. Who can sing in tune? Who can drive a clutch? Who has had a letter to the editor published? Keep your hands up, keep them up. Who can skip a stone? Who got excited about something they learned this week? Who can knit? Keep your hands up, keep them up. Who can march? Who can bake? Who can donate money to an important purpose? Keep those hands up. Who has legible handwriting? Who can get angry without being mean? Who can catch a ball? Keep your hands up. Who has ever taught a teenager something? Who has ever listened long enough to a teenager to learn something from them? Who can build a one-match fire without using newspaper or charcoal fluid? Keep your hands up. Screw? Who can insert a screw into plywood without splintering the plywood or stripping the screw? Who can reach stuff on the top shelf without a ladder? Keep those hands up. Who can spark a conversation with a little kid? Keep those hands up. Who has a superpower? That's more like it. You can put your hands down. Around this time last year, I received an invitation to meet with a group of Hartford High School students who were visiting some of Madison's more architecturally notable worship spaces. The teacher's request was for a tour of the building and a presentation about how our religion thinks about grace. Now, far be it from me to wonder at the agenda, I was too busy wondering about grace, wondering what these kids already thought it was, wondering what my religion thinks it is, wondering what I think it is. I'm not aware of our talking about grace too much here. We talk about blessings. We talk a lot about gratitude, but not about grace. The word grace comes from the old French graffit, meaning pardon, mercy, favor, thanks, elegance, and virtue. It shares its roots with words like agree, congratulate, disgrace, gracious, grateful, ingratiate, gratuity, and ingrate. And in Christian theology, grace is the undeserved gift of God's love and mercy without which it is impossible for us to achieve salvation. Now, I'll say that another way. Grace is a gift of God's love that we don't deserve without which God would condemn us to hell. No wonder you use don't talk about grace. First of all, even though Unitarian Universalism has its roots in Christianity, and the universalist part of that describes the Christian belief that Jesus saved everyone, our movement isn't very theological anymore, and a lot of us arrived here wounded from the Christian churches that made a big deal of who will and who will not achieve salvation. Many of us disagree with a theology that embraces concepts of literal, physical, afterlife, heaven, and hell. And a lot of us are more concerned with how we live rather than what happens when we die. And what is the deal with our not deserving God's love no matter what we do? It flies in the face of American ideal of self-determination and humanist principles that we are responsible for what we are and what we will be. Second, we have a hard time talking about deserves in general. Talk of deserves floods the nightly news. Who deserves healthcare? Who deserves clean water? Who deserves to have their children put into cages? Who deserves to be shot? Who deserves to be educated? This grace business isn't fair. Who deserves to receive a living wage? Is it the guy who showed up for work? Or is it just the guy who showed up for work and then was chosen to do the work? And who deserves to choose who gets to work and who doesn't? Now, Christian theology is pretty clear on who deserves God's embrace. None of us, because we're all sinners. How have we got that way? Who made us that way? I don't know. Anyway, but we live in a society where who deserves depends on where a person is positioned on the ladder of white patriarchy. White men at the top, children of color at the bottom. And that's the third reason we don't like to talk about grace because we know where we stand on that ladder. Talk of who deserves necessarily leads us to consider that we are beneficiaries of privilege that we did nothing to deserve, which makes us feel guilty. The fact that our privilege is undergirded by centuries of institutional oppression of the people beneath us on the ladder makes us feel worse because nobody deserves to be institutionally oppressed. And we don't want to be made to feel guilty about taking that vacation to Milan instead of staying home and dismantling racism. Michael Hario says that every form of inequality would disappear by next Friday if every white person in America used his or her privilege to eliminate it, and it'd feel bad about that. Which brings us to Cuttlefish. Now, two of the things I find most interesting about Cuttlefish are the things that I don't understand and wonder about the most. Thing number one, Cuttlefish have the largest brains relative to the size of their bodies than any other invertebrate close to the relative size of a dog's brain. From the time they hatch until they reach adult size, their brains grow 5,000 fold faster than any known animal group. But they only live one to two years. Why? Now, we have big brains because we have so much to learn. We use our big brains to learn, to develop complex social structures, to build advanced skills, to process short and long-term memories, to plan and use tools to seek self-fulfillment. Why would a creature with such a short lifespan be given a big brain if it never really gets the chance to use it or pass its wisdom on to the next generation? Maybe it just needs a big brain to manage its complicated body. About half of their brain tissue is their optic lobes. And maybe the Cuttlefish would live longer if they weren't so squishy and delicious to predators who have a taste for squishy and delicious. But what if it could live long enough that it could really develop its potential as a brainy being? Thing number two. Cuttlefish change texture, shape, and color based on what they see, not on what they feel around them or beneath them or on different kinds of light waves doing light, wavy energy things to them, based on what they see and they're colorblind. Dang. They can see polarized light, which means they can change color in complete darkness, but they are colorblind. What if they knew what they could do? There's nothing a Cuttlefish does to deserve being born a Cuttlefish with all the amazing things a Cuttlefish can do. All those amazing gifts, those amazing undeserved gifts, that's grace. The Cuttlefish got them just by being born a Cuttlefish. Those gifts don't make it morally superior. If a Cuttlefish is going to be honest with itself, it knows that its gifts are nothing to feel particularly prideful about, but they're nothing to feel guilty about either. They're just part of the Cuttlefish's inventory of strengths and weaknesses. Big brain, camouflage, hypnotism, strength. Short life, colorblind, non-existent social network, weakness. To the extent that Cuttlefish thinks about anything, including the amazing things that it can do, it probably just takes it all for granted. Now, imagine being a creature with a big brain and not even aware that you have superpowers. What would you do if you knew? And what if, once you were aware of your superpowers, you were smart enough and had enough time to really apply those superpowers to something amazing, in addition to hiding from dolphins and crabs. Now, when I was taking inventory of the superpowers in this room, some of them were obviously gifts received as is, being left-handed, being tall. And others are some things that we're kind of proud of and want to take credit for. Skills, knitting, building a fire. But I submit to you that all of these things, even the ones that we want to feel proud of, all have their beginnings in the gifts that we received unearned. Now, Cuttlefish arrive in the world without any society or wise elders to teach them the ways of Cuttlefish because the elders aren't around long enough to learn anything and they're probably dead by the time you're born anyway. But we arrive in this world in relationship and with advantages and opportunities that have nothing to do with anything we did. The skills that we developed and the successes that we have achieved are inextricably interconnected with the zip codes we were born to, the parents we wound up with, the color of our skin, our gender, the food our parents feed us, the quality of water coming out of the tap and whether we were even born into a society that had water taps. We are skilled because we are lucky and that's what grace is, luck. It's a lucky gift, it's being white a gift. We're not lucky to be white as much as we're lucky to be born in a society where we get treated better for being white. So it sort of is, isn't it? It's nothing to be proud of but it's nothing to be ashamed of either. What makes a gift a moral issue is not whether you deserved to receive it but how you choose to deploy it. So to what purpose do we apply our undeserved gifts? I told that visiting high school class that you use don't talk about grace. We talk about justice. We concede that life is unfair. We try to take responsibility for the extent to which we have been complicit in its unfairness and we believe that we are called to put our gifts to the purpose of creating a more fair world. I hope I got that right. So how do you put your gifts to best use? First, you have to see it. Too often grace is what we take for granted. I will bet you a nickel that Cuttlefish don't even know they live in the water. The gifts have been there all along. We just never noticed them. So count your blessings literally and own your power. Now when I talk about power, I'm not talking about the expression white power that has been co-opted by the white supremacists. I'm talking about the pure ability to influence others and to create change. Power is neither moral nor immoral and having it is not a reason for guilt unless you want to waste it, hoard it or misuse it. Yeah, Hitler was powerful. So was Gandhi. A river is powerful. It can irrigate farms or flood cities. What matters is how you use it, but you can't use it if you don't admit you haven't. Second, ease up on the self-congratulation. Now there's an emerging school of research that suggests that the number one determining factor in success is luck. Yes, talent matters, but talent is distributed evenly across the population, but success, especially if we're talking about financial success, is concentrated. And it probably doesn't surprise you that the people who have the most financial success are not necessarily the people with the most talent. And even if you, and the experiments that these social economists have been modeling, show that when you present people with talent, evenly distributed talent, opportunities, their success rate depends on luck. So remember how you got here. Remember how you were chosen. Be pragmatic about the systemic opportunities you were presented with at the expense of others. And if after some reflection, you still have a hard time being humble, I suggest you visit Harvard's Project Implicit Online where you can take a few tests and uncover some blind spots. Third, put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others. And both parts are important, putting on your oxygen mask and assisting others. Your job is not to put on your own oxygen mask and then grab all the other oxygen masks and run up and down the aisle going, ha, ha, I got all the oxygen masks. Feed yourself, offer your strength without tapping out. And to paraphrase Rabbi Sofer, you can't rebuild the world by destroying yourself. Finally, practice compassionate, humble generosity. Compassionate means putting the needs of others ahead of your own desire to feel helpful. Humble means using your strengths to strengthen others. That's the opposite of no bless or believe. Generosity means putting aside your fear of not having enough, whether that anxiety is about not having enough money, not having enough status, not having enough comfort. Put aside your fear of not having enough to help everyone have enough for the long term. I think each and every one of us is called to reach toward our potential as fully loving beings, called to the light, if you will, to borrow from today's chalice-lighting words. And our commitment to putting our love to meaningful purpose with whatever gifts we are lucky enough to have in our inventory and despite whatever shortcomings we have in our inventory is what will save us and the world. Our salvation is justice. Social justice, economic justice, environmental justice, immigration reform, racial justice, LGBTQ rights, kick one and put your back into it. Oscar Schindler used his status and privilege to save over 1,200 Jews from the Nazi death camps. At the march for our lives, the Parkland High School kids used their white privilege to create an intentional space on the stage for students of color whose voices are not typically heard. A young woman just last week saved an Afghan man from being deported to certain death by refusing to take her seat on a Swiss air flight until the man was safely escorted from the plane. Whatever strengths you have, use them. A young man from Paris climbed an eight-story building to rescue a toddler dangling from a balcony just because he was good at climbing. Our daily deployment of gifts to the greater good doesn't have to be so dramatic in order to be deeply impactful. Some days you work to stop war. Some days you work to stop this war. Some days you work to stop the bleeding. Some days you sit with a soldier and tell him jokes. At the close of its first podcast last week, Dan rather advised his listeners to every day think of one thing to help one person and do that thing. And every day think of one thing to help one's community and do that thing. And I would add to that every day to think of one thing to work on with one's community, because there's a lot of superpowers in this room. I now invite you into the giving and receiving of our gifts. You said my time, happy to hear what I've got to say. You tell me something, just be, be the best you got, the best you go through. You may already have, you also have, don't you? You may already be there, waiting for you at which place to be. Please take a moment to look at your red floors to see about upcoming events and opportunities here and around FUS. And then the folks who helped put on this morning's service, Mark Schultz on sound, Anne Smiley, our lay minister. Your greeter was Elizabeth Barrett. Your usher was Anne Smiley and your impromptu ushers were Mike Linau and Elizabeth Barrett. Coffee was being made for you today by Gene Hills and Trudy Carlson. And we are going to have a tour guide available. So if you would like to take a tour of our campus, would you meet over there by the window? And Tom will be your tour guide. It's not just what you're born with, it's what you choose to bear. It's not how big your share is, but how much you can share. It's not the fights you've dreamed of, it's those you really fought. It's not just what you're given, it's what you do with what you've got. Blessed be Shalom, Omur Shanti, Shalim Alakim, Dohea, peace, and amen. Please be seated for the postlude.