 Tell me when you're ready check check one two one two Good morning, and welcome to the first Unitarian Society of Madison My name is Kelly Crocker, and I'm one of the ministers here today I am joined by the worship team of Dan Carnes deep Gregorius Linda Warren and Drew Collins Along with our special guests Andy Carlson. Are we okay? No, these are the same. Oh, that's that okay brilliant It's rising body and our spirit to sing him number zero need more Good good morning, and welcome to the first Unitarian Society of Madison My name is Kelly Crocker, and I'm one of the ministers here today I'm joined by the worship team of Linda Warren Drew Collins Daniel Carnes and Stephen Gregorius And we are joined by our anybody choir. Thank you all very much, and We are also joined by the Reverend Andy Carlson. Thank you very much The vision of first Unitarian Society is growing souls Connecting with one another and embodying our Unitarian Universalist values in our lives in our community and in our world If you are visiting us today welcome We are so very glad you are with us if you would like more information about first Unitarian Society Please stop by the welcome table located outside these doors in the commons We hope you'll be able to stay and join us for our coffee hour immediately after service It will be held right out here in the commons today Our after service all ages activity will be in the education end that end of the commons down there and Our activity today will be the 12th century Japanese process of Sumina gashi or Floating ink. This is the process of marbling paper with water and ink Transforming it into something vibrant and colorful. The process is easy. I am told and the results are stunning and For those connecting with us virtually today. We are so very glad you are with us as well We hope you will be able to join us for our virtual coffee hour Immediately following our service the information for joining will be found on the home page of our website FUS Madison.org as well as on the slide that will be shown at the end of today's service Our announcement slides will also be shown again briefly after the service And we encourage you to take a look at those to find out more about upcoming programs and activities here and now I Invite you to join me in a moment of silence as we center ourselves and bring ourselves Fully into this time Joining together once again in community How about now I've got the green light Was I I was I was occluded by my mask Well, I'll try again. Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here today and I would Like to share for our opening words a poem by Mary Oliver Entitled some questions you might ask Is the soul solid like iron? Or is it tender and breakable like the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl? Who has it and who doesn't I? Keep looking around me The face of the moose is as sad as the face of Jesus the swan opens her white wings slowly in The fall the black bear carries leaves into the darkness One question leads to another Does it have a shape like an iceberg like the eye of a hummingbird? Does it have one lung like the snake and the scallop? Why should I have it and not the anteater who loves her children? Why should I have it and not the camel? Come to think of it. What about the maple trees? What about the blue iris? What about all the little stones sitting alone in the moonlight? What about roses and lemons and their shining leaves? What about the grass? Those are the words of Mary Oliver and If you will rise and join me as we light our chalice With the kindling of this flame We reaffirm our commitment to accept life's gifts with grace and gratitude And to use them to bless the world in the spirit of love Remain standing for our first hymn Rise up, O flame And now let us sing together our opening hymn And if anyone would like to come up closer for our message and you and I are gonna tell you a story this morning Yeah, come on up Charlie Yeah, make sure you can see the the pictures up there too because then it'll make sense Mmm-hmm duck rabbit see what you guys think maybe we should have you vote on what you see hey look a duck That's not a duck. That's a rabbit Are you kidding me? It's totally totally a duck It's for sure Rabbit see that look there's his bill. What are you talking about? Those are the ears silly It's a duck and look. He's about to eat a piece of bread It's a rabbit and he's about to eat a carrot Wait, listen, did you hear that? I Heard duck sounds. Did you hear duck sounds because I hear distinctly hear rabbit sounds Now the duck is wading through the swamp. No the rabbits hiding in the grass There see it's flying Lying it's hopping Look the duck is so hot. This must have been yesterday that is so hot. He's getting a drink Nope, that rabbit is so hot that he's cooling off his ears Okay, here look look at the duck through my binoculars. Okay Sorry Still a rabbit Here ducky ducky ducky here come here you cute little rabbit Oh, oh great. You scared him away. Oh, I didn't scare him away. You scared him away you know Maybe you were right. Maybe it was a rabbit. Yeah, the thing is now. I'm actually thinking it was a duck Well, anyway, now what do you want to do? I don't know. What do you want to do? Hey, look an anteater. That's not an anteater. That's a Brachiosaurus What do you think? What did you see? Did you think how many people thought duck and how many people saw a rabbit? All a matter of perspective, huh? Thank you so much You guys can go back and I now invite you into the giving and the receiving of today's offering Each week we give freely and generously to our offering and this week Our offering is dedicated in its entirety to our partner church in the Transylvanian village of Najweta For 30 years now first Unitarian society and the Unitarian Church of Najweta have been partnered learning about one another Visiting one another sharing our stories our lives our struggles and our celebrations The village of Najweta has recently completed a stunning renovation of the historic Fortress Church, which was constructed between 1360 and 1380 and you can see the beautiful results of that renovation on your screen our partner church minister Levin to Feketa and his wife Yutka wrote to us recently to let us know of a huge event They are planning in the village and to ask for our help. They are hosting the first ever Fortress festival a unique event in Transylvania and the first festival organized by their community People will attend from all around the surrounding area There will be music organ concerts in the church on their newly renovated organ workshops for children and adults art expositions and more it is a huge Undertaking for them and as you can imagine it is an expensive one as well Yutka wrote to us this event is very important because the people here need light and joy in their lives and We believe this event will bring them that and will bring the power of community to them as well So all of your gifts today will be sent to Najweta to help bring that light and joy to their community So you'll see on your screen that you can donate directly from our website f us Madison org You'll find our text to give information there as well and in addition there are baskets For those of you here in person at the end trends and exit of this auditorium We thank you for your generosity and your faith in this life We create together with our partners who may be physically very far away Yet always close within our hearts eating today from Victoria Safford To confess my faith or my beliefs out loud And I were scrambling for some place to begin I would start in the desert In the lonesome valley And say that first of all and ultimately We are alone No god abides with us caring watching mindful of our going out and coming in The only certainty is chance connections both chosen and involuntary That matter most of all and ultimately help and heal and hold us We are alone yet intricately bound Inextricably connected to soil and stream and forest To sun and corn and melting snow We are alone yet bound by stories we cannot get out of To ancestors and descendants we will never meet And all these natural conditions these bonds we did not forge ourselves and yet cannot deny Are the strands of a theology The seeds of a faith The beginning of religion the binding of all things When I say god and sometimes I do because sometimes there is no other metaphor No other symbol no other poetry no other offering When I say god I mean that place of meeting That place where solitudes join The space between my hand and the dogwood The space where the tiny feet of the ant brush the dry dirt beneath her The space between mercury and venus Between electrons which we unblinkingly believe in without seeing God is the space in between the bridge between solitudes the ground where we meet you And I or any to by grace If I were asked I'd say that all of us together Are alone and the emptiness between us Is waiting to be filled Let's rise and body under a spirit to sing together hymn number 23 Bring many names It is always a delight to preach here at first unitarian society in madison wisconsin The congregation in which I grew to young adulthood and which has been my own lifelong tether To the my unitarian universalist faith I went to sunday school here I sang in the kids choir and the meeting house choir here I journeyed out of the country for the first time on a choir trip that departed from this parking lot I experienced leadership and community as a why are you you participant here and that's uh the the Former unitarian youth group young religious unitarian universalists Which was so important to so many you use of my generation And just before moving to california for seminary With my wife sarah and my parents davin trudy and the church choir and other folks from the congregation Uh, I traveled to transylvania with a group from f us Where I was fortunate enough to stay for a few days with reverend leventa and yutka in the najoita church parsonage And uh as i'm speaking on my own uh from my own ministry and not as a representative of uw health i'll take off my name tag I uh Wearing my work clothes So this community and most importantly the practice of unitarian universalist values and principles that I experienced here This is my foundation in my profession as a chaplain and in every way in which I am a human being And uh for the last year as I've been serving university hospital as a chaplain supervisor and palliative care chaplain I have the the joy of getting surprised a few times a day By uh views from the of the landmark auditorium through different hospital windows And I say surprised because if you've been in that hospital, you know how easily it is to get turned around in Reflecting on my work in palliative medicine is what got my gears turning about my topic this morning The often invisible power of binary thinking in our lives And what it can require of us to make more room in our lives for The nebulus the uncertain the ineffable the contradictory the queer It wasn't that long ago in the big picture that the work of healing bodies and the work of connecting with the divine Was the same work And there are times when I am walking the halls of the hospital and and catch a glimpse of that Influential sanctuary prow of mr. Wright's That I recall that I'm standing inside of one edifice of enlightenment era thought and gazing out at another One venerates the use of intellect and conscience in the creation of beloved community And one venerates the use of intellect and conscience in diagnosis and treatment of illness and injury that word diagnosis has Greek roots and in literal definition It means to know what something is by knowing what it is not To know what something is by knowing what it is not It is a powerful way of looking at and understanding the world and seeking deeper knowledge And it's the wellspring of tremendous healing. I don't want to get twisted around on that It's there's a there's much good that can be done from the work of of Knowing what is by what is not at the same time That way of thinking is seductive In that it enables a fantasy the fantasy that everything about the body and what can go wrong with it Can be known and therefore solved Palliative medicine Is a discipline that tends to be consulted when the usual answers have run out To palliate is to relieve pain and suffering And while the palliative care clinicians do have special expertise in medicinal pain control More often the suffering that we are called to address is Existential in nature There are no more chemo options. What now? The doctors are recommending hospice, but isn't that a death sentence? What now? Granddad didn't want to be kept alive on machines, but he got intubated anyways. What now? They say mom has no meaningful No chance of meaningful recovery, but her sister is her decision maker And wants to keep doing everything even though it's been a month and the rest of the family and her nurses All think she wouldn't want this suffering. What now? palliative medicine is To me counter cultural to the medical mainstream in that its clinicians practice the medical discipline to move into those places Where the unknowns outweigh the knowns and the diagnoses lose their power because the treatments have run out They enter into relationship with folks in maybe the hardest moments of their lives And offer guidance and support in charting a path forward that fits the needs and values of the patient and their family Every day that I work with the palliative team Doing my small part to help meet our patients and families religious and spiritual needs Every day that I do this work is an education in empathy courage and companionship To persist in relationship when the answers have run out But decisions still must be made is one of the deepest acts of caring that I know It is a practice of radical intimacy with lives of fundamental uncertainty those gnawing doubts and anxieties That we are so accustomed to concealing behind a thin veil of false certainty A thin veil of false certainty that so often takes the form of binary either or always and never thinking we and All of us we not just folks working in the hospital or in healthcare. We are all so accustomed to these habits of thought so well practiced in their applications that That it's often invisible to us. We don't We don't see what we How we behave and what it is that's pushing us forward in certain ways of Action and thought and relationship It's hard to recognize when we are defining one thing against another when we are knowing what something is by knowing what it is not Because we do it all the time even a spiritual exhortation to Let all that divides us remove and pass away as we sung together a short while ago Is itself practicing a false binary as it divides time between an imperfect and now and an aspirational eventual undivided then I can't help but think of these words from the reverend theodore parker by way of contrast I do not pretend to understand the moral universe the ark of the ark is a long one and my eye reaches but little ways I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight I can divine it by conscience And from what I can see I am sure it bends toward justice Reverend parker's words situate us in the present moment and more than that we feel his presence and companionship in them There is no critical or comparative distance But rather acknowledgement that he is right with us on the journey to that time approaching When all shall dwell together secure and manifold now Did you catch my slip up in that example? It was these four words by way of contrast I I decided to leave that phrasing in as an example And as a reminder that this is a habit of thought which is deeply embedded in our culture and the day-to-day habits of our lives But I do wonder about different ways of phrasing Different words or thoughts that I could have used that wouldn't have aimed reverend theodore parker At good old hymn number 144 as though he was a theological battering ram To shift to a more personal and intimate example. I invite you to take a moment to reflect To think back on the last time you argued with someone you care about Did the words you always or I never escape either of your lips One great thing about having a family or being in any kind of close relationship Is that it offers frequent opportunities to observe and participate in conflict And it is amazing How that totalizing language those always's and never's is When deployed in disagreement are like throwing gasoline on a fire Because that false binary hurts That mischaracterization that totalization that cuts It's not an accident that the word that we use for deeply entrenched political factions partisanship Takes its name from a brutal variety of european spear If you need something divided expediently from itself reach out and grab a partisan Finally and speaking of political weapons. We are in in this country and in in our world We are in a cultural moment In which this binary either or mode of thinking Is being cynically leveraged against people whose lives do not fit within the heavily policed boundaries of gender and sexuality binaries trans people gender queer people Intersex people enby people Gay lesbian and bisexual people all are being targeted by reactionary conservative individuals and groups Which know that they can build a stronger sense of in-group identity among their own partisans By scapegoating people who are simply seeking to live lives of authenticity and integrity And this country's long history of racism of propping up a white majority by systematically oppressing people and communities of racial and ethnic minorities Runs on that same dynamic of othering and dividing now my impulse this morning is to Transition to wrap things up now into a nice tidy package with a nice tidy takeaway that We can each bring forward into the next days and weeks and months of our lives but Isn't that impulse towards completeness and perfection? The symptom of that binary thought of which i've been speaking Rather than a conclusion then i want to Close this part of our service with some suggestions Some ways that might help us to remember that we are each part but not all And conveniently enough different pieces of the service can help as memory aids and guides for these suggestions From our story of the rabbit and the duck May we each strive to remember that there is more to the story than what we pull from our immediate impression and frame of reference And may we remember that Being in beloved community can guide us to fuller knowing In her poem some questions you might ask Mary oliver reminds us to be open to broader thinking and deeper love For the world around us and the ecosystems we participate in if I were asked Reverend victoria saffard suggests that we conceive of god or spirit Or whatever name you have for that which is greater than all As a space between a space of meeting where solitudes can join Like these words from khalil gabran's the prophet To let us remember that even as the strings of the lute stand alone they quiver with the same music And finally from our our hymn number 144 let us remember that What we experience now is not the totality of what we will experience And that faith is not the exercise of certainty That faith is that which helps us proceed with life Even as we experience doubt suffering and loss And that there must be a place within each of us An enviable sanctuary sanctuary of the heart In which to paraphrase the words of Him that's beloved to my heart. I know this rose will open in which we hold the certitude that That the bud contains the blossom And that our fears Are not the final word in our lives And the best news of all the the news the the reminder that I'll share to end my words today Is that there is no better community that I know of no better set of principles to practice To serve as guide and support and loving encouragement and correction To do the ongoing work of practicing that eternal becoming that sets us free from false dualities There is no better way that I have come across Than to be in this place with this congregation Doing the work of upholding our principles and building our beloved community Now I need to find out what's happening next Let us enjoy the song from the choir We gather each week creating a community of love and support a place and a time where we can share the celebrations and the sorrows of our days And this week we light a candle for eva Wright former f us assistant music director Who passed away on tuesday Our love is with bob With their children larry and danica their grandchildren And all who love our dear miss eva A memorial service will be held sometime this fall to celebrate eva's life To remember all the joy And all the light that she brought to our days And we light a candle in solidarity with the people of ukraine Both in their suffering and in their struggle Together we yearn for peace for them and for all people For an end to all wars of conquest anywhere And everywhere on earth And if you'll join me now in a moment of prayer With these words from mark belatini Holy one that holds us all May the sky above us unroll like a scroll and let us read upon it today's text for our lives You are alive here and now Love boldly and always tell the truth Let the wind arrange the branches of the maples and aspens and oaks into letters which proclaim this sacred text Your heart beats now Not tomorrow or yesterday Love the gift of your life And do no harm Let the eyes and hands and faces of all those with whom we share this earth Be chapter and verse in this great scripture text Life is struggle and loss And also tenderness and joy Live all of your life Not just part of it And now let all the poems and scriptures and novels and films and songs and cries and lullabies and prayers and anthems Open up before our hearts Let them open like all the holy words and let them proclaim Do not think you can take away each other's troubles But try to be with them Remember that you are part Not all Great Not by far the greatest Small precious brief breaths In the great whirlwind of creation And remember that every single human word is finally and divinely cradled In the arms of silence Blessed be And amen And now let us rise and body and our spirit to sing together our closing hymn number 1002 in the teal hymnal Comfort me The first four verses Of our benediction today come from the reverend doctor howard thurman mystic theologian Mentor of the civil rights movement This is an excerpt from his autobiography with head and heart as a boy in florida I walked along the I walked along the beach of the atlantic in the quiet stillness that can only be completely felt When the murmur of the ocean is stilled and the tides move stealthily along the shore I held my breath against the night and watched the stars etch their brightness On the face of the darkened canopy of the heavens I had the sense That all things The sand The sea the stars The night and I Were one long through which all of life breathed Not only was I aware of a vast rhythm enveloping all But I was part of it And it was a part of me blessed be Go in peace senses alert for the moments where you find In yourself the comforting cloak of night As well as the glittering clarity of the stars And please be seated for the postlude