 Good morning. Will you join me for a moment of centering silence? And now will you join in singing our in-gathering hymn number 1023, Building Bridges. Welcome to the first Unitarian Society of Madison. This is a place where curious seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical, and social issues in a safe and accepting 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 Beth Binhammer, and on behalf of the congregation, I would like to extend a special welcome this morning to any visitors. We are a welcoming congregation, so whoever you are, and wherever you are on your journey, we welcome and celebrate your presence among us this morning. Newcomers are encouraged to stay for fellowship, as well as all of you old comers. After the service for coffee, visit in the library. And your drinks, your questions can come to the library where members of the staff and lame ministry will be there to welcome you and answer questions. Now's a good time to turn off your cell phones if they are still on vibrate or something other than vibrate. We do have an experienced guide this morning, and I forgot my sheet. John Powell will be right over here this morning to take anyone who's interested in learning more about the National Landmark Meeting House and this sustainable building. We'll take you around and tell you all about it. Children are welcome to stay during our service. If that becomes difficult, there's the child haven to my right and the commons where the service can be heard. I'd like to acknowledge those individuals that make our services run and hopefully run smoothly, although I'm a little rusty already this morning. Our greeter this morning is Kareen Perrin. Usher's are Bob and Paula Alt. Hospitality, which means coffee. Sandra Plisch and Emma Yan. We had John Two's tending to our lovely orchids this morning, and again, John Powell will be our tour guide. So note further announcements in the red floors insert in your order of service. You'll find more information about activities at the society there. Again, welcome. We hope that today's service will stimulate your mind. Touch your heart and stir your spirit. Are big enough for us to live a life in. We need the wider world of joy and wonder, of purpose and venture, of toil and tears. What are we, any of us, but strangers and sojourners for a lonely wandering through the nighttime until we come together and find the meaning of our lives in one another? Dissolving our fears in each other's courage, making music together and lighting torches to guide us through the dark, we belong together. Love is what we need to love and be loved. As we gather today, may our hearts be open and what we would receive from others let us give. For what is given still remains to bless the giver when the gift is love. And if you will rise now in body or spirit joining together in our words of affirmation, which are printed in your order of service. May unity and peace abide within us. May wholeness and joy touch our hearts. May kindness and compassion fill our universe and reverence fill our days. May we see the light that shines in all. And before we join our voices in song, if you'll take a moment to turn and greet your neighbor. Would like to come up for our story to come on up and join me on the carpet. Did you see that right in? Are you playing T-ball? I thought so. Angry Birds. We got an Angry Birds book up here. Well, I have a story today that my friend Paul told me. And I need your help because we only know part of the story. So I'm going to tell you the parts that I know and then I'm going to need your help to figure out what you think happens at the end, OK? So not too long ago, there were four neighbors living together in peace and harmony. Doesn't that sound lovely? They like to get together to play, to sing, and they would have a barbecue in their backyards. Is that crazy? That's crazy to have a barbecue with your neighbors? Yeah. In fact, they grilled out so often that one of their neighbors built a grill permanently into her backyard. Now, these friends always like to eat the same thing, burgers. Some of them were hamburgers. Some of them were burgers made of yummy beans and sweet potatoes. But they were all round. They all smelled great on the grill. Some people put cheese on theirs. Others put lettuce, tomato, maybe onion. They felt good about the fact that they could each do their own thing and everybody could eat their burger however they wanted. Now, all was well in the neighborhood until one day the neighbor with the grill got a job in another place and he had to move away. As they waved goodbye, the remaining friends were sad because they were sure that no one was ever going to take the place of the friend who was leaving. Now, a few days later, as it happens, a new neighbor moved in. And the others watched carefully as she moved in her things. They were delighted when she came out to the grill that evening and got it started right up. She was going to fit right in. But wait a minute. Where was the round burger? The stranger placed something soft and kind of mushy on the grill. And as it cooked, it gave off this unfamiliar smell. And the neighbors went, oh, phew. They thought it was really stinky. So everybody ran into their houses and locked their doors. The new neighbor soon came around knocking on their doors, trying to invite everyone over for dinner. But the others pretended they weren't home. They called each other on the phone and they said, we got to get rid of that new neighbor. Her cooking smells are going to pollute all of our backyards. So they decided that they would build fences in their backyards. Fences so tall that the awful smell could never reach them. Fences so high that the sunlight wouldn't get into the neighbor's windows or onto her grass. And maybe if they were lucky, the new neighbor would move away when her house got dark and her grass turned brown. Perhaps then a burger kind of person would move in. So the neighbors built these ridiculously high fences. They were the size of skyscrapers, which prevented even the tiniest little bit of light to get through. And then they waited to see what would happen. Well, one of the bad things was that they could no longer use the grill in the neighbor's yard, right? But they didn't have to put up with the strange smell anymore. You know, they had been so quick to put up their fences that I don't think they really thought the plan threw. The fences were as attractive as a clump of weeds. So not really good to look at at all. The other neighbors on the block started complaining. And the fences were so big they were hard to paint. There was no way that you could get to the top to paint them. And it really became a pain in the neck to keep them up over the years. And finally, the fences were so heavy that they just started to sag. And one day, boom, they just all fell down. And the neighbors came out of their houses to see what had happened. And they, oh, no, the new neighbor. What if she's hurt? Well, you know what? She wasn't hurt. She was gone. Now, they hadn't seen her since she moved in, so she could have moved out years ago. And the neighbors realized that they had gotten what they wanted, but they weren't happy about it at all. And they were wondering if they had made a big mistake. Now that is all I know of this story. So can you help me come up with an ending? What do you think? How would you make the story end? They could have tried the squishy thing, right? Even though it smelled different. They could give it a try, because have you ever tried food that you thought, ugh, and then you ate it and you liked it? Yeah, right? So they could have tried it. What else could they have done differently instead of building those big fences? They could have asked her what it was, and maybe they could have brought her some of their burgers for her to try too. What would you have done if a new neighbor moved in? You could move, that's true. That's right, right, they could have gone over to the neighbor's house, introduced themselves, checked out the funny stuff, and eaten mac and cheese, there's always side dishes if you don't like the main course. So there are a lot of things that these folks, mac and cheese, I know right now I'm getting hungry, silly story, so we realize there's a lot of things they could have done differently instead of building those big fences. And the first thing they could have done was gone to meet the neighbor and get to know her a little bit and not be so put off just by that stinky smell, and you know the best thing, they could have brought her some mac and cheese. Thank you guys for helping me figure out a different way to have that story go. We are going to rise in body or spirit and sing the next hymn while you head out to summer fun. Have a great time. Our reading today from Jeffrey Lockwood. Melody, one of the sweetest, kindest, gentlest women I've ever known, suffered terribly because of me. Her profound distress was difficult to watch, both because she was such a decent person and because I was the source of her pain. Melody was a student assigned to help me in my graduate school research. And while engaged in the repetitive mundane tasks that so often go into science, we would share our views on the world. And in this way, she came to discover that I had not been saved. As a devout Christian, she felt obligated to do everything in her power to bring others into the fold. But I was not just another unbeliever. I was a friend. So her sense of duty was even more compelling. She was nearly desperate to keep me from walking into the fires of hell. And the impending spiritual disaster was made all the more tragic because I had consciously chosen this path to perdition. Melody invited me to lunchtime Bible studies, which I gently declined. Finally, I felt so bad about her anxiety for my fate that I went along. But it was like throwing a life preserver to a drowning man who refuses to grab the ring because he thinks he's out for a pleasant swim. I know she prayed fervently for me, and I wished sincerely for her happiness. In the end, she graduated and married a wonderful person. So it seems that at least my wish for her happiness was granted, although I suspect she did not soon forget her drowning friend. I have often been in Melody's position. As a professor, I've spent a great deal of energy trying to convert other people. There was the lazy but gifted student whom I wanted to turn into a scholar, the overconfident colleague I wanted to turn into a doubter, and the cynical administrator I wanted to turn into an idealist. Outside of work, there was the despairing friend I wanted to turn into an optimist, and the happy-go-lucky friend I wanted to turn into a realist. But they all, to a person, refused to reach out for my life preserver. Some even seemed happy, while the pounding surf of mistaken perceptions and the crashing waves of unrealized potential washed right over them. I agonized over their fate, and I lamented their failings. I suffered for them. At least I suffered until I finally realized that I was trying to convert the wrong person. The essence of happiness lies not in changing colleagues into people I can respect, students into people I can value, or friends into people I can love. The task is instead to turn myself into a person who can respect, value, and love others. I'm still working on it. So I still feel compelled to save some on occasion. But at least now when I attempt to rescue I don't stand on the deck of my ship and throw a flotation device. I jump in after them. That way I begin to understand that treading water on your own can be more meaningful than wearing someone else's life jacket. What appears to me to be drowning may just be a pleasant swim. And sometimes I find that being tossed by their waves is preferable to the navigational certainty aboard my own. Century mystic jolot lately. It goes like this, out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn't make any sense. These words have been on my mind as I have noticed an increase in the number of folks requesting pastoral care sessions. Now people call Michael and myself for sessions all the time. But there's been an interesting and somewhat different trend in the past few months. Whereas people usually desire a conversation because they are struggling in a relationship, whether with a partner, parent, child, or they're considering a life change, the folks calling recently were calling about a struggle. They have not with a relationship with a particular person, but rather their relationship with our current political climate and what it is doing to their psyche and or their soul. If you too have been feeling this tension and upset inside of yourself, know this. You are not alone, and it is definitely not your imagination. Our country is more polarized now than ever before. I'm sure that if I stopped and asked you for examples of the polarization present, examples in which sides are taken, lines are drawn, and people stop listening, we could spend the rest of the morning telling our own stories of disconnection, heartbreak, animosity, and fear. The pattern of polarization is so ingrained in our public process and increasing in our relationships that it is hard to avoid. The Pew Research Center released findings that over the past 25 years, Americans taken as one big whole have not changed all that much, but the values of our political parties have. Years ago, when they started this research, people who identified with the two parties answered questions about items such as immigration and the environment pretty much the same way. Today, one could use those same questions as a litmus test for party affiliation. We now have much broader differences by party on these issues. In 1987, 93% of Democrats and 86% of Republicans said there needs to be stricter laws and regulations to protect the environment, pretty much the same. Today, 93% of Democrats still feel that way, but 47% of Republicans agree. The percentage of Democrats today versus then, who say they support efforts to improve the positions of the poor and disenfranchised, even if it means preferential treatment, is up 19%. So the Pew Research Center tells us that both parties have gone through what could be called a purification process, making them smaller and more ideological than ever. And according to some who refuse to claim a label of liberal or conservative Democrat or Republican, the political life of the nation has degenerated into such a polarized partisan battleground that the extremes of both left and right dominate the scene. The center does not hold anymore, and the country is becoming ungovernable. Our national discourse has become one of open animosity. There's no censoring anymore. Our presidential debates, as you know, devolve time and again into screaming matches where moderators would have to interrupt candidates and ask them to stop because no one could hear or understand a thing being said. I don't see this improving between now and November 8. One of the most concerning pieces for me and that I have heard in my conversations is a very dangerous leap that is being made in our thinking regarding those who hold differing viewpoints or beliefs than our own. Not only are their positions on policy issues ridiculous, but they are bad people. And they and their beliefs are ridiculous. And there has to be something inherently wrong with this person if this is what they truly believe. We no longer consider the opinion objectionable. We also consider the person obnoxious, intolerable, and unacceptable. These are the politics, as Parker Palmer wrote, of the brokenhearted. When all our talk about politics is partisan and polarizing, we loosen or sever the human connections on which empathy, accountability, and democracy itself depend. Why does this matter? How is it harmful? If you look at the political landscape, you have those debates that turn into ugly name calling. And the only reason we watch is to be entertained or horrified by the spectacle. We aren't watching to have our perspectives informed or broadened. We certainly aren't learning anything new. We are tuning in to see the latest installment of a highly visible circus. There are rallies filled with hateful speech that lead to deadly violence. We are losing trust in those elected to govern. We are reaching a level of cynicism and suspicion that is detrimental for us all. Now this seeps into our civil society, in our relationships with family and friends, to the rather calm unfriending of someone on Facebook because you just can't see those posts anymore. To no longer calling family or friends because you don't want to hear it. To heated arguments over the dinner table that cause ongoing strife. Does it have to be this way? We know that this great democratic experiment of our country is dependent upon our engagement with one another on matters that are important to all of us. I find some wisdom in how we might get to a different way from two different sources. A colony of ants and Abraham Lincoln. Now the Harvard expert on ants, Edward Osborn Wilson, published a book on human nature. He said that out in the fields when ant colonies grow so large that there isn't enough food to feed all of the ants, they go to war with nearby colonies. The war continues until so many ants die that there is enough food left to feed the remaining ants. Wilson suggests that like ants, human beings form colonies. For example, we're in a colony called the United States, a sub colony of Wisconsin, another called Madison, one called First Unitarian Society, and perhaps the most important sub colony for us, our family. Wilson said that like the ants, we fight when we believe that the resources necessary for our colony's survival are threatened. When it comes to government policies, we do not ask what's in it for me. We ask what's in it for my tribe, my group, my colony. Justifications people give for their aggressive acts such as religious differences or political differences are in Wilson's view of the near that covers the real reason, the perceived fear of death of the colony due to scarce resources. Wilson argues that when humans believe that we have enough, we speak about the inherent worth and dignity of all people. However, when we believe we are running out of resources, phrases such as, all people are created equal, justice, equity, and compassion in human relations, these become less important and are replaced with talk about personal responsibility or fending for yourself. In times of perceived scarcity, we focus on supporting our tribe, our colony. Now, in contrast to this colony mindset, we find the example of Abraham Lincoln. Joshua Schenke in a book called Lincoln's Melancholy discusses Lincoln's own journey with depression and how his need to preserve his life by embracing and integrating his own despair and his own joy made him uniquely qualified to help America preserve the union. Because he knew sorrow and he knew delight intimately, knew them as inseparable elements of everything human, he refused to split the North and the South into good guys and bad guys, a split that might have taken us closer to national destruction. Instead, in his second inaugural address, March 4th, 1865, a month before the end of the Civil War, Lincoln appealed for malice toward none and charity for all, animated by what one writer called an awe-inspiring sense of love for all who bore the brunt of battle. In his appeal to a deeply divided America, Lincoln points to an essential fact of our life together. If we are to survive and thrive, we must hold its divisions and contradictions with compassion lest we lose our democracy. So how do we do this? How do we decrease the polarization? It requires an ability to see the situation as the other side sees it. Or as Lincoln might tell us, we have to stop seeing the good guys and the bad guys. If we want to influence another person, it helps enormously to understand their point of view and feel the emotional force with which they believe it. This goes against our evolutionary programming, which encourages us to focus on the facts that support our point of view and demonize the people with whom we disagree. One thing we can do is increase the number of personal relationships we have with people of different perspectives and make an effort to truly listen to them, not debate them. Establish good human relationships with people. Be curious about their positions and why they hold them. What do they hold sacred? This makes it harder to demonize someone else when they strongly hold a belief antithetical to everything you stand for. This is tough work. I have a friend who's married to a wonderful man, a great husband, an amazing father, and who, unfortunately, in my view, is completely off the mark when it comes to politics. He votes for people I think are destroying our country and especially our state, and he makes remarks to try and start political arguments because he's well aware of the fact that our views couldn't be farther apart. So when I was there a month ago, I tried something different, a little experiment. I tried to find what we have in common, not engaging in the discourse that leads to debate and disagreement, finding what it is that we share. We both love our families. We both love our kids. We want to give them a world to grow up in where they can feel they have a real future. So instead of engaging in the who is the best candidate for president conversation, that was never going to end well. I said, sounds like you're pretty frustrated with the whole process. And he agreed that he was. I said, I am too. I feel like I don't have any good options, an option I can really wholeheartedly feel good about. He said that was the way he was feeling as well. Then I went out on a limb and said, you know what? It scares the heck out of me and I worry about the kids. And he said, I completely agree. How do we fix this mess? And then we went on to have an open, honest, heart-rending conversation about the world we want to give to our children and what it would take to get us there. I have known this man for 15 years. This has never happened before. We used to play a game where I would steal his bush guard signs and replace them and then his would end up in my lawn. I gotta tell you this way is much better. This was a special moment. It may never happen again. It may take us 15 more years to get back there. Sometimes all efforts to decrease polarization will fail because others are convinced that we threaten their survival and there's nothing that we can do to change their perception. But there are ways to increase the movement toward depolarization. This conversation never would have happened without an understanding that we are in this together. Despite our illusion of independence, we are profoundly interdependent and that includes everyone regardless of political ideology. We have to stop with the binary thinking. There's no good guys, no bad guys, no I'm right, you're wrong, no one truth with the rest being false. Can we get to a place where we value otherness? Our differences can remind us of that ancient tradition of hospitality where we open our hearts to the stranger with the understanding that there is much we can learn from the other. Become comfortable with doubt. Vaclav Havel famously said that he would rather have a beer with someone who's searching for the truth than with someone who's found it. Now, Havel was a man of firm convictions and he started a revolution based on them. He was not talking about being passive, not giving up your voice, not ignoring your own beliefs. He was advocating against a certitude that breeds contempt for one's opponents and transforms the desire for authentic engagement into a need to lecture and point out the error of their ways. In today's polarized environment, doubt is seen as weakness, but the opposite is true. Doubt often supports true convictions based on realistic foundations and gives the ability to empathize and connect with another. And with that, we find the ability to hold tension in life-giving ways. Our lives are filled with contradictions from the gap between our aspirations and our behavior to observations and insights we cannot abide because they run counter to our convictions. If we fail to hold them creatively, the contradictions shut us down and take us out of the action. But when we allow the tension to expand our hearts, it can open us to new understandings of ourselves and our world enhancing our lives and allowing us the ability to enhance the lives of others. We are imperfect beings who live in an imperfect and damaged world. The genius of the human heart lies in its capacity to use the tensions to generate insight, energy, and new life. A. Powell Davies, Minister of the All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, DC, from 1945 to 1957, once said this, some of my all-time favorite words. I become more and more certain as the years go by that wherever friendship is destroyed or homes are broken or precious ties are severed, there is a failure of imagination. Someone is too intent on justifying himself or herself, never venturing out to imagine the way things seem to the other. Imagination is shut off and sympathy dies. If we know what it is that makes other people speak or act as they do, if we knew it vividly by carefully imagining all that may lie behind it, we might not quarrel. We might understand. Often, we could heal the wounds. But even where that is not possible, and of course, we have to admit that it is not always possible. Even where fuller understanding only leaves us rather sad and helpless, it would still give us the power to be kind, to act yes, but still to be kind, to go on being kind. In a world being torn apart by hatred and fear, be brave enough to make honest human connections. Remember that we're all in this together. Doubt, wonder, question, hold the tension and allow it to open your heart. Speak your truth with love and compassion, and go on being kind again and again. Go on being kind. Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. And I now invite you into the giving and receiving of the morning's offering. You'll see in your order of service that it will be shared with mentoring positives. You can find out more about their good work in your order of service, and we thank you for your generosity. Join together each week a community who gathers with joys and sorrows written on our hearts. We come together to find strength and common purpose, turning our minds and hearts toward one another. This week, we join in the joy of Sarah and Sean Goodman on the birth of their son, James Robinson Goodman. He was born on Wednesday, and all are doing very well. We join with James Morgan in the hope that we all conquer our year of the other, face our strengths, and pass on our courage. And we hold in our hearts the victims of the attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando last night, and we pray for all the victims of violence that they might be healed in their heart and find their way to peace. May we remember that we are part of a web of life that makes us one with all humanity, one with all the universe. May we be grateful for the miracle of life that we share and the hope that gives us the power to care, to remember, and to love. And if you will rise now in body or spirit to join in our closing hymn, number 121, is the goal toward which we stretch step by step in our own time at our own pace. As our beauty unfolds and our hearts open, we become gentler and more compassionate, yet brighter, more empowered, and fearless. We have been holding on, laying small, hiding our light under a bushel. Enough of that. It is time to let go. We are needed now, all of us, all of us together, all answering a call to be who we are to the fullest, to make a difference, to give it all we got. Blessed be, go in peace, and please be seated for the postlude.