 Did you know you've done that? No. He's an archer. He's an archer. Right. I would actually hide. Oh, right. Yeah. He said I'm just going to take some of his hair back. I guess you were supposed to be the mate. I don't think you're going to take it. You're going to take your hair back, or you're going to take the hair back. You're going to take your hair back. I'm not sure. Start taking out the things that are all of the things that I have. I'm not sure if you're gonna raise something for me or others. No. You want to? Yeah. I'm just gonna do this. It's a... Yeah. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. That's the position. It's not. It's only the answer. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. I I I Smiling at me nothing but blue skies. Do I see blue birds? Singing a song nothing but blue bird all day long. I never saw the sun Shining so bright never saw things Going so right Noticing the days are hurrying by When you're in love My how they fly Nothing but blue sky from never saw the sun Shining so bright never saw things Going so right noticing the day nothing This morning Well, good morning everybody and welcome to another Sunday here at First Unitarian Society Where independent thinkers and brave travelers gather in a safe nurturing environment to explore issues of social Spiritual and ethical significance as we try to make a difference in this world and Speaking of things that are different in this world. I'm Steve Goldberg a proud member of this congregation And I'd like to extend a very special welcome to any guests Visitors or newcomers if this is your first time at First Unitarian Society You picked a heck of a day to be here But I I think you'll find that this is a very very special place And you'll find as we do every weekend That today's service will touch your heart Stir your spirits and trigger one or two new thoughts And the next sound you're about to hear is the gong and as we hear the sound of the gong That's your signal to Join us in a moment of centering silence so we can be fully present with each other this morning We're glad you're here Any words come from Leslie Takahashi For those who come before us may our gratitude be long and lasting For those who come after us may we be strong stewards of our commitments May each of us know the immortality of the larger frame Revealed through community and may we always remember that it's transformational power rests in our actions Please remain standing for the lighting of the chalice which is a responsive reading by Elizabeth M. Strong I will read the non-bolded parts, and you and I will read The bolded parts together our unitarian heritage bids us light our chalice In the name of freedom in the light of reason in actions of tolerance we gather in the community to celebrate a heritage of freedom reason and tolerance Our universalist heritage bids us light our chalice in the name of faith in the light of hope in the actions of love We gather in community to celebrate a heritage of faith Hope and love Let us bring this unitarian universalist heritage into our world and our lives today And we'll start off by greeting the fellow unitarian universalists and otherwise among us Today these times I like to think of FUS and the Children's Religious Education program as being an antidote to that As being a sanctuary for children and youth where they are nurtured loved encouraged and safe We have over 400 kids in our Religious Education program So I think I'm stating the obvious when I say that I couldn't provide that sanctuary alone Our East staff couldn't do that not even all of the FUS staff to provide that sanctuary on our own The one and only way we can do that is through the dedication and the commitment and creativity of our volunteer teachers And it never ceases to amaze me that there are so many teachers that year after year will sign up to teach and Give up themselves five years ten years Fifteen years and nine o'clock. We have a teacher who is being acknowledged for his 29th year of teaching. It's pretty amazing So today we're going to take a few moments to acknowledge the incredible service that our volunteer teachers give to our FUS community Your order of service includes an almost full listing of the names of people who recently reach their five year or more anniversary of teaching But at this service we're just going to call up the people who are able to make it at this time in this weather So a much smaller group than what you see listed Our gratitude for all of our teachers goes deep and wide as we all work together To live and promote the UU values that we hold dear So teachers as I call your name, please come join me up here Jim Jaeger Who is teaching his fifth year this year? Mary Kaye did not make it. Is that right Mary Kaye is not here Rene U. Hardy Who is teaching her 13th year Go Rene Andy Levy who's teaching his fifth year Ninth year Ninth year Vicki Jones who's teaching her 16th year Amy Schultz who's taught eight years and Dave Willow who's also taught about eight years Not quite sure about the accuracy of that but pretty dunkless, right? FUS has many heroes here who have helped us to grow and size and scope over the years You all are at the top of that list of heroes. We are so incredibly grateful for your generosity and your commitment Let's give them a hand Thanks to Heather. I would like to invite all of the kids who are here into the steps right here in any teen choir members And any children's choir members. Come on up everybody. We're gonna all and the congregation is gonna help us out, too So come on up Don't be shy. We got a smaller group, but we need lots of singers and lots of help. All right. We got a few people All right, here we go. Now We're gonna teach you all song That we put together to acknowledge these wonderful teachers up here and a lot of these teachers I know my kids had you so thank you. Come on up you guys. Don't be shy. Come on up. Come upstairs Come on up. Thanks Leslie for helping And I it goes like this La la la la la we thank you teachers. La la la la teachers. La la la let her play I'm going to the congregation help us up, too. Now this is a song that we can all do. All right. Here we go La la la. I think you can handle it everybody. Here we go La la la la we thank you teachers. La la la teachers. La la la. We make the world a better place Thank you. You get a chance to sing that again a little bit. Here we go Teachers have incurred dust to open our minds and heart Here we go You make our minds so know it's all thanks to you. It was you who said yes When others said no, you help us make our dreams come true Excellent job Our voice are unique diverse gifts You support all the better Seated I'm giving the microphone folks and the audio folks a hard time today I'm actually going to be moving around a little bit because my energy is dropping So if Sean can you give me a thumbs up if I'm like or like a big thumbs down if I'm moving out of the video I want the livestream folks to see me My sit my kids are actually real sick or just getting over being real sick So we've had a lot of late night So I want to be I want to be here with you today 11 o'clock is the service I always went to and it always makes My spirit glow when 11 o'clock is bigger than nine o'clock So thank you for that today nine o'clock was it was sparse Today we're going to have a few readings from america's religious history and we're going to start off with seven principles principle one You can guess you let's do this. Let's guess what religion this comes from. It's not ours. It's although it sounds a lot like our so make a guess Principle one one should strive to act with compassion and empathy towards all creatures in accordance with reason Two the struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions Three one's body is inviolable subject to one's own will alone For the freedoms of others should be respected including the freedom to offend To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forego one's own Five beliefs should conform to our best scientific understanding of the world we should take care to never distort scientific facts to fit our beliefs Six people are fallible if we make a mistake We should do our best to rectify it and remediate any harm that it may have caused Seven every tenant is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility and action and thought The spirit of compassion wisdom and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word Those are the seven principles of the satanic temple america's largest satanist religion Our next reading comes from a Tibetan author Who spent most of his life in america bringing shambhala buddhism to our country? He mostly worked out of colorado His name is shogam trunkpa And this is from his book shambhala the sacred path of the warrior, which I reference in my sermon a few times I remember very clearly says shogam The experience of discovering my connection my own connection to my family heritage I was born in a cowshed in eastern tibet where people have never seen a tree The people of that region live on pasture land that has no trees or even bushes They subsist on meat and milk products throughout the whole year I was born a son of this genuine earth The son of a peasant At a very early age I was recognized as a tulkoo or incarnate lama And I was taken to the surmang monasteries to receive my training and become a monk So almost from birth I was taken out of my family situation and placed in a monastic environment I was always called by my religious name trunkpa Rinpoche Nevertheless, I never forgot my birth When I moved to the monastery my mother accompanied me and stayed with me for several years Until I was old enough to begin my formal education Once when I was about four or five I asked my mother mother. What is our name? She was very shy. She said what do you mean by are you know that your name is trunkpa Rinpoche? But I insisted I asked what is our name our family name Where do we come from and she said well, you should forget that it's a very humble name and you might be ashamed of it But I still insisted saying what is our family name? What is it? At the time I was playing with some pickled radishes that are fed to horses I was picking up these little pickled radishes off the floor outside the monastery kitchen Tulkoo's are not supposed to eat them, but I was chewing on one and I kept saying Mother, what is our name? What is our family name? I like one I like the image of like on the big list of rules in the monastery is do not eat the Do not eat the pickled radishes She was I was about to bite into another pickled radish, which was dirty and she was very concerned and she was so shy But she was also intrigued that I had asked We had an intense moment of relating with each other I remember that it was a sunny day and the sun shone from a window in the roof onto her face She looked old and young at the same time I kept asking what is our family name and finally she said mukpo Mukpo, of course, but don't bite that pickle. It's for the horses I'm afraid I did bite it and I remember chewing it. It was very crunchy and tasted something like a sucumono A kind of Japanese pickle and I liked it very much I looked at my mother and asked does that mean I'm mukpo too? She wasn't quite sure. She said well you are Rinpochi Then I distinctly remember asking her whether I was her son And came out of her body And at first she said yes, but then she said well Maybe I'm an inhuman being a subhuman being I have a woman's body. I had an inferior birth. Please go back to your quarters She took me in her arms and carried me from the kitchen annex to my quarters Never nonetheless. I have kept the name mukpo as my family name my identity and pride My mother was a very gentle person as far as I know. She never did anything aggressive And she was always accommodating and kind to others I learned a great deal about the principles of human society from the wisdom of my mother And there are oh so many stars So many stars the wind is filled with songs So many songs which one is mine? One must be right for me Which song of all the songs when there's a song for every star And there are oh so many stars So many stars godless days The endless nights that I have searched So many eyes so many hearts So many smiles Which one to choose which way to go How can I tell how will I know So many stars So many stars the countless days The endless nights that I have searched So many eyes so many hearts So many smiles Which one to choose which way to go How can I tell how many stars So many stars So many stars So this sermon you'll see in the red floor was billed as a comparison of Unitarian and Universalist and Mormon history I when I got into the The topic I was struggling. I got some good advice from minister once And she said uh and I asked her you know Other churches have these have uh lecture areas that tells them what scripture verses to read from each week And And we don't really have anything we don't have anything that guides us kind of structures us in our sermon So how do you know if you really given a you you sermon and she said She said is there more emotion than a Wikipedia article? And and if you can answer yes to that then you've given a Unitarian Universalist sermon Uh the sermon I was writing had no more emotion than a Wikipedia article So I had to I had to redo it and what I've done is and what I wanted to do and what I probably wanted to do the whole time Rather than explain to you a Unitarian or Universalist and Mormon history Which you can read about on Wikipedia. I wanted to give you something more of an experience of Of what it was to be Mormon. I'm going to go off camera just for a sec to grab this book down here if you want um If you want a great or a great resource on that if you want if you if this inspires you to do some deep reading American originals By paul k conkin. He actually spoke here. I don't think Michael was he ever a member here? He was a member here. Okay Um, so paul k conkin was a member here. It wrote american originals homemade varieties of christianity I love the book. He did such a great job of explaining it. I felt like I was just doing a book report on on his Um, so I moved away from that But if you if you're if you're further interested that it was a really great read um So this sermon is really about my personal experience But I but but what I want to do with that personal experience Is to invite you to think about the personal experiences The people the places the things that have brought you here To this congregation not just today, but for the first time That made you make the choice The harder choice of getting up one sunday morning or one saturday afternoon And uh and coming here rather than staying home When I when I think back on on what brought me here, uh, my mind is taken to a trip to chicago I took quite a while ago. I actually just came back from a trip to chicago with my family My wife had a conference there. I took the kids to museums and she would bounce in and out from her conference I learned early on not to call a trip with kids a vacation Reverend kelly taught me that So we had an adventure in chicago for a few days Right before and then right out the day after they got they got sick. So it was a good great timing Uh, but that but the trip to chicago i'm thinking of is a different one and i'm thinking of one particular morning of that trip I'd love the early morning hours of the day When as dicken says the night is more actively dying than the morning being born Uh, I get those mornings a lot walking here to work Today was just a miserable. I wasn't trying to experience the walk to work here before my sermon at all But some days I get that just as the world's waking up people are just grabbing the paper Of that time of day This morning. I'm thinking of isn't is a similar morning. It was bright Early Uh, and it was the year 2004, but I wasn't walking to work. I was in a Toyota Corolla with Four of my best friends from high school. It was our senior year of high school And for spring break rather than going to mexico or the more common in our small rural farming town Going to the sand dunes to four wheel or down to southern utah to camp We were going to we were going east to the midwest To look at some of the Mormon historical sites Mormonism started in northeastern New York Was pushed out of there and they slowly they got pushed west and west. They had a big time in Missouri Had their last large settlement in Illinois before they left for the utah valley So there's all there's there's a Mormon pioneer trail that you can follow which we did in our car That takes you to all of the big important Mormon historical sites We called this the plan for this trip plan p Because we knew that plan a for most kids was these other typical spring break trips But we were going to do plan p As our as our trip we we devised it in the back room of our local public library This isn't at all related But I found out the other day that there are more public libraries in america than mcdonald's and that just warmed my soul If anyone here works at a mcdonald's, you know good on you, but I love public libraries more Uh, so back at the public library. It was printed on 14 marvelous laser printed pages full of maps and Printed hotel reservations because we were just on the the edge of the cell phone age But not quite there This would be my first time east of the rocky mountains I wouldn't fly on a plane Until my mission a few years later when I flew to argentina I'm not no, I'm not one to live in the past, but senior year was really awesome I I loved my senior year. I'm not I'm not one of those guys like senior year was the best part It was but it was good. I was co-captain of the track team. My grades were up I'd given up being like trying to figure out how to be the cool kid and was just learning how to be myself And really enjoying it My girlfriend had dumped me not too long before this trip But I feel like getting dumped your senior year it makes your senior year more I don't know more senior year, I guess Our first day of the trip was a full day of driving on this Mormon pioneer tail And it took us to winter quarters, Nebraska, which is just outside of Omaha Winter quarters was the last winter quarter That the Mormons had before they went to the Salt Lake Valley Some of them went straight from Illinois to the Salt Lake Valley But a lot of them stopped off did a lot of prep in winter quarters Nebraska got their last supplies like an organ trail right the last fort on the way So they would they went from winter quarters in Nebraska to Salt Lake a journey A journey that took them Took them several months and that we made in just 12 hours just over 12 hours. So that was That was on our mind that whole time The next day we woke up very early And drove to Carthage, Missouri Now Carthage, Missouri is the site of the former Carthage prison Which where is where Joseph Smith the founder and prophet of the Mormon church would die On June 27th 1844 at just under 40 years of age A mob dressed as Native Americans angry at Joseph Smith's order destruction of a local printing press Would Storm the building shoot and kill him and his brother Hiram and And injured the two other men that were with them We came to that prison Not looking for these historical details But looking for the man who we were supposed to model our manhood after Joseph Smith The small visitor center that marks the site of his death still has some of the original prison walls in it You can see the bullet holes From some of the shots Apparently still see some of the blood I guess On the floor But it was too early actually for us to go in there that the place wasn't open yet No tours were being given So we sat on a bench together and sang rather off-key praise to the man Which was a song written for Joseph Smith almost immediately after his death by his friend An enemy and then friend again Praise to the man it goes who communed with Jehovah Jesus anointed that prophet and seer Blessed to open the last dispensation King shall extol him and nation's revere Hail to the prophet Ascended to heaven Traders and tyrants now fight him in vain Mingling with gods he can plan for his brethren Death cannot conquer the hero again Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven Earth must atone for the blood of that man Wake up the world for the conflict of justice Million shall know brother Joseph again And I I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that one of our one of our deep desires one of our goals of this trip Were to become something of the brethren that joseph smith was planning for in heaven with the gods We Didn't necessarily see a conflict of justice But we knew that we were entering into a part of the world where conflict was real We came from the most Mormon county in america morgan county utah And we knew that this was a place east of the rocky mountains where values were less secure family is less sure And where we had to be on guard of our Of our traditional Mormon values We were boys on the cusp of manhood We're a few years or a few months out from the great Mormon coming of age ritual the mission That would scatter us the fore ends of the globe I went to argentina my friends went to hungary and australia and england And it would be our last close Experience together we all married quite soon after our missions and started our own families And as far as I know, I don't think we've all been in the same place since Our goal one of our goals on this trip was actually to distribute Mormons have these informational cards Uh, they're about the size of baseball cards that have a picture on the front and some information on the back like the Mormon website and stuff They came in packs of a hundred and we had four packs of 100 and our goal was to to give those out We were leaving them on like gas pumps and then like the the napkin holders and restaurants and stuff We didn't get near to 400, but I remember one particular night It was oxy on our way back our card got in a flat tire and it was uh, Easter Sunday So everything was closed so we Pulled over at this at this gas station. The only thing you know one of those like one One stoplight and four gas station kind of kind of stopped places And I found one that was open and they had a tire repair kit So while the three other friends that knew more about cars were repairing the tire um Me and my other friend land and went into the restaurant We couldn't eat because Mormons aren't allowed to buy anything on Sunday, but we talked with the With the woman she was probably 22 or 23 who was working the counter She said no one else had been in all day We said, well, we're not going to buy anything but can we sit and talk and so we talked and You know, it's just two young men just prepping for Mormon missions kind of doing learning the early stages of sharing the gospel and it went well she was receptive and interested and You know talking about our spring break trip and why we would do this Afterwards I was talking to my friend Landon And I said I think you know when I really think about it I feel like I'm called for something big in the church Like I have something important to do and I guess I should have been more specific about which church I was I was talking about um Because When I think about when I think about that time That that's that's that's the me. I always have to answer to that's the me. I always have to think Uh, what would that what would that person think about me? um when We were crossing through Go back a step. We were actually crossing through like I said what felt like foreign territory and One of the things we knew about that foreign territory is it's where our spiritual are in my case In a few other cases literal ancestors have been have been driven have been driven out of the land When we arrived in avu Which was the last great Mormon settlement east of the rocky mountains navu, illinois, which at one time was almost as big as chicago We found What's now a historically preserved city, you know kind of a visitor's a visitor's Center on a city city city wide scale if you ever want a trip it's You I think you'd like it. It's a it's a fun trip back in time Uh, we found there my grandfather's gun shop my grandfather great great great grandfather jonathan browning Uh started browning arms in morgan youth in navu illinois right before right after he converted to the Mormon church uh After befriending joseph smith He started that gun company would make the guns for the trip West to the salt lake valley that the Mormons would use to defend themselves And in morgan valley utah a tiny town with only a gas station Now it had nothing then he started the browning arms company, which is now a multinational Arms company one of the bigger sporting arms manufacturers and in the world Uh, my father actually visited that the the company Just to get in contact with his family heritage and when he did He loved the the valley morgan valley so much that he decided to move our family there And only 10 years later where'd he start working for browning arms Uh as a computer analyst computer something that I don't really understand um We each have our own story of Of what brought us here go back to that point uh and What brought me here was our second great trip to the midwest 10 years after this this first trip Now my faith collapsed as i've said before in a wendy's parking lots Uh at the foothills of the great smoky mountains after we left utah Spent a summer with my wife's family in south carolina And came up here to madison for my wife's master's degree Uh on that trip my faith finally collapsed after years of discernment and Inner turmoil and wondering if I could raise my kids in this church. That was that was the big thing I couldn't I couldn't imagine raising my kids in the mormon church Um But we'd committed we had friends who lived here mormon friends who lived here So we'd committed the first day to go to the mormon church on regent street. We lived in eagle heights um that way And so we walked down university bay To end up on university avenue to end up on regent street It was a long walk. It was really hot. You know one of those late really hot summer days in madison So we walked past f us right as the nine o'clock service was starting because the mormon church started at 10 So we walked past right as people were coming in for the nine o'clock service And we you know one it was much closer And two it just looked like I mean, you know, it's a compelling place visually And it seemed like the people were just very happy to be there So we decided the next time we'd heard about unitarian virtualism that it was a place where Sometimes people went after after mormonism because there's a place where you could bring Whatever wherever you were to So the next week we did come here and we found it to be a wonderful place I'm saving the story of what exactly I felt like we found here to next week And how that led to not next week my next sermon, which is the end of may And how it ended up leading to to me being in front of you today But on this But what I found then And decided to come here was that I'd become a much different man than the man. I was expecting to be I formally resigned my membership The easter after we moved here. So exactly 10 years from our trip to chicago and One of the questions I put this on facebook the other day one of the questions I would have really liked to ask I would have really liked to have someone ask me when I left was where does it hurt? Leaving the Mormon church was incredibly painful But it seemed like each person that I talked to about it had their own agenda Either trying to keep me to stay or trying to You know kind of congratulate me or like you made it out kind of it's so great that you that you're no longer stuck And and what I much would have preferred was some curiosity about About how that felt and how that how that was to me And one of the one of those I alluded to this before one of the main sources of pain was I had a much different idea of who I was going to be when I was 18 And I had a very sure idea of who I was going to be and to leave that idea was was very difficult and to try to rediscover myself somewhere new I'm not sure what 18 year old me would think about seeing me here today I think he'd be a little disappointed a little confused a little worried But I think he'd be very appreciative of how great my hair has become So once more I'd like you to reflect on the story that brought you here And some people don't even remember that's what I found out Yesterday some people are like, why did we come here? You know asking I mean we Do we really want to be here anymore? So I mean I threw some people into some crisis yesterday Um, I thought people came here originally for the coffee. This was the first place Uh, this is the first place I ever drank coffee and I had to it was like 90 hot chocolate and 10 coffee because I just couldn't I couldn't stand it. This was also the first place. I um had a beer And this was also the first place. I uh had wine and The second place I bartended was also here. The first place was at my last year. You church Uh, some people like me are fleeing harmful religious paths a lot of pain a lot of sorrow in their past Some aren't some don't have any religious trauma that they're bringing But something of a religious absence that they're trying to fill some people This is the first time they've experimented with spirituality at all Some people are here for their kids And only come to services because they like having a break And they like knowing that their kids are getting moral and spiritual instruction by talented teachers that have Been teaching here for a long time um And all of those are equally valid reasons for being here come up and tell me after service why you're here and be happy to hear We all bring with us a unique spiritual and religious heritage None of us can none of us no one's past is free of a religious heritage a cultural heritage And while I have complicated feelings about religion, and I'm sure most of you do here today I think we can all recognize that it's one of the more fascinating creations of our evolutionary brains Of our evolved brains that even before we understood what exactly we were doing We found religion as a way to connect with the universe and it makes sense of our stories And we experienced it as valid long before we had any Even our early what we have now our early understanding of why psychologically we need religion Or some of us at least need religion In uh shambhala the path of the sacred warrior trokba says that to live rightly we must recognize our dependence on both our current communities And all of the communities that have informed our past We must become family people aware of our literal and spiritual heritage Or biological and spiritual heritage as much as we can Um he says we should respect life on the mundane level Because the only way to implement our vision for society is to bring it down to the situation of a single household And that if we don't understand the complexities of each household we're trying to to bring together Then we won't make any significant change in the world When we look back on our uu family heritage Uh, we can see some interesting things one of the things I've always been fascinated with are how closely linked uu spiritual heritage is our two Mormon spiritual heritage and this was kind of the heart of my my early drafts of this sermon They both come out of the same time period. Well modern modern unitarian universalism As we know it today Both were really formed in the second great awakening America at the founding of the nation was incredibly religious the most irreligious we've ever been With about 10 percent regular church attendance um the first great awakening was The congregationalists which we come out of we became we grew we established we were we were opposed to the anglican churches But then the Calvinists and the Methodists really got a strong foothold and campfire revivals Really brought a new religious fervor to america and it's been that way ever since it's really laid the foundations of the religious fervor that continues to today Mormonism and unitarianism and universalism all responded in unique ways to that second great awakening Now joseph smith and emerson two of the the big figureheads of both those faiths Uh, both came out of uh, the same new england area at the same time. They were born three years apart They were also contemporaries with mary baker eddy and mother ann lee the founders of christian science and shakers and the shakers There are differences, of course But in our differences, we actually end up being quite similar There's a great graph that shows Religious and political affiliation. So Up and down is how big you want the government to up and down is how much you want the government to enforce Morality and left and right is how much you want how big you want the government to be how many services So small government and big moral enforcement Mormons are right up in that top right corner and then at the exact opposite end of the corner Small big government and small enforcement of of religious services of of moral values Are the unitarian universalists? No one's even close to those two circles on both sides so Although our our ideologies are vastly different our insistence on ideological purity is actually very similar No, there's no more republican church in america than the Mormons And there's no more democratic white church in america than the unitarian universalist and we're more democratic than they are republican We have 92 identifying with one party. They're only like 85 Um, I like to argue And if you want to get me talking about something how Mormons are actually the true unitarian universalists of Of modern times joseph smith looking for new models of christianity went back to some very old models of christianity Origin and joseph smith origins and a very early church father He had ideas of pre existence and universal salvation and and and god creating And he was also, you know, I believe that god created jesus We come out of Mormons actually hold on to a lot of those same traditions that also inform unitarian universalism Which we've now abandoned To be kind of all-encompassing and they've they've held on to but I can I can talk about that forever So i'm not gonna keep going What I do want to focus on is the fact that these two streams mormonism and unitarian universalism Ran often very divergent courses But often came very close and i'm very happy For me that those two streams brought two churches very close together so I could make A decision when I really needed to make a decision about which place would work best for me Making sense of our heritage our religious heritage is always going to be very messy work Whether we have a deep connection to it or whether we feel very estranged from it What helped me to make sense of my religious heritage is to realize that all of these figures that I've talked about today Their main goal was to tell a better human story And even though they were often very flawed human beings themselves Their desire to lift up humanity by telling a better story about humanity was consistent And They've passed on that responsibility of telling better and better stories more and more relevant stories about humanity to us today To live in the now we must strive to make peace And make understanding of the then Shogam Trungpa says that venerating the past itself Will not solve the world's problems We need to find the link between our traditions and our present experience Nowness or the magic of the present moment is what joins the wisdom of the past with the present There's no changing what brought us here What brought the church to the point it's at now But I don't think most of us came here because of the way the church has always been I think we came here because we had A vision of what the church could be We had an excitement for the possibilities that we would find here and this established and honored and and storied religious tradition Just the same excitement that emerson smith lee eddy truncpa had for for the religious landscape that they found in america That they would use to form new ideas to form new ways of being They shaped our past for better or for worse and we have to leave that to them But the present they have left to us What really excites me is that we get to make our own stories. We get to make our own magic I'm very excited to see where this journey takes me and where this journey takes this congregation in the years to come Thank you Our offering today goes to open doors for refugees of volunteer run non-profit in madison Helping refugees make a home in madison through providing food and clothing vouchers transportation and employment services Please be generous Just as during our try to be generous in connecting with Others in our community We want to thank those who are generous with their time in bringing us today's service So starting with rich divita and gene hills who'll be hosting the hospitality and coffee in a few moments And smiley who did double duty as usher and as lay minister Uh, and we also thank those of you who volunteered spontaneously to help and with the ushering And elizabeth barrett who was our greeter and of course marine friend who Makes it possible for us to hear the service because she managed the sound system today And speaking of being able to hear the service We want to thank John and nancy webster for their generosity and financing A new technology known as hearing loop hearing loop which enables people with hearing aids to get direct transmission of the service Real time while they're here Think of it as worship Wi-Fi But thank you to john and nancy for that generosity And when you think of our office Tory and the gesture that john and nancy have made Those represent i think quite vividly some of the Things about f us that we really like the most The concept of being generous the concept of connecting And we have something else coming up in 19 days that also reflects generosity and connecting It's called cabaret on friday may 4th. How many days from now? 19 and We're gonna cruise the caribbean on friday may 4th here at cabaret If you've never attended cabaret in the past you're in for a real treat. It's all about connecting. It's all about fun. It's about that Caribbean cruise theme It's a party with food and music will even have a conga line and Above all else there's a wonderful auction And the auction gives members of f us a chance to give something of themselves And share that with the rest of you It could be a dinner at their home a group dinner. It could be a party. It could be Sailing lessons a few years ago. Some woman gave belly dance lessons I give belly laugh lessons, but she was giving belly dance lessons And it makes cabaret the gift that keeps on giving long after the event itself so Encourage you to sign up for cabaret to donate something that represents your skills or your cooking or your artwork and register for child care if you like to bring your kids and also Pay in advance because you save a little bit of money And the biggest lesson to learn from this is Come to cabaret Because when you cruise the caribbean You'll love what you are seeing so we'll see you there on may 4th 19 days from today Please rise and body your spirit Hold time. Hopefully they muted me To this place we bring our whole and broken selves This book or one like it lives outside of the Doors there and you can write in it any cares you would like read from the pulpit It's empty today So we will hold a moment of silence for all the unspoken Needs concerns and joys of this congregation Thank you for being here today Thank you for being here Thank you for being Thank you As our service ends here today our service to the world begins Blessed be go in peace and please enjoy the postlude You can hear from far and near A world you've never know Clear day and sea For ever and ever and look around you and you'll see willow star That the glow of your being Outshines every sigh and joy from far and sea For ever