 The bar is hard to do. It's not. The bar is hard to do. The bar is hard to do. Yeah, that's the same thing. Yeah, that's the same thing. Oh, my goodness. Cross. Cross. Cross. Cross. Cross. Cross. Cross. Cross. Cross. Cross. Do you want to stand in the center? I think it's almost over. That's too much to talk about. Yeah, it's kind of too much to talk about. Yeah. It's too much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Please join in a moment of centering silence so we can be fully present with each other this morning. Let's connect musically by turning to the words for our in-gathering hymn, which you will find inside your order of service. A happy hello to everybody. Welcome to the first Sunday of June here at First Unitarian Society, where independent thinkers 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. I'm Steve Goldberger, proud and very happy member of this congregation, and I'd like to extend a special welcome to any guests, visitors, or newcomers. If this is your first time at First Unitarian Society, I think you'll find this is a very interesting place, and we invite you to stick around for the fellowship hour right after the service. This will be a great time to silence those pesky electronic devices that you just will not need for the next hour, so as you're doing that, let me remind you also that if you're accompanied by a youngster, we welcome youngsters, some of us consider ourselves still to be youngsters, but if you think that your young companion would rather experience the service from a more private space, we offer a couple options for you, including our child haven in the back corner of the auditorium, and some seating just outside the doorway in the commons from which you and your young companion can see and hear the service. And one of the reasons we are able to see and hear the service today is that it's brought to us by a wonderful group of volunteers, and just think, if you decide to join this team of volunteers, someday your name will be read from this podium. Starting with Mark Schultz on the sound system, thank you, Mark. Thanks to Anne Smiley for being our lay minister. Thanks to our greeters, we are greeted today by Jeanne Nussbaum and Mary Elizabeth Kunkel, our ushers, John McEvna and Smiley and Patty Becker, and handling the coffee after the service is Jeanne Hills. Just a couple of quick announcements before we begin the service, actually three announcements, and they all relate to fundraising. Cabaret was a great time. We spent the night in Ireland a few weeks ago. It's about 350 days until the next cabaret, but let me tell you about this cabaret, because we have good news for those of you who might have missed out. We have a few vacancies in some of the group events, some of the dinners and other outings and events from cabaret. And if you're interested in taking part in those, stop by the cabaret and fundraising table in the commons right after the service. The second fundraising announcement involves timing. The end of June is the end of our fiscal year. And we still have a few outstanding pledges that haven't been completely paid yet. And we need you to do that by the end of this month so that we can finish our fiscal year the way we had hoped. So if you haven't had a chance to retire your campaign pledge yet, please do so. And the third fundraising announcement involves our parish meeting held right in this room around 1230 after today's service. And anticipating that the capital campaign will be approved at this meeting, we will need help from various members of the congregation with that campaign. So please keep that in mind as you're budgeting your time and your talent and your creative energy for the next year. We could use help with that campaign. So end of the announcements, I invite you to sit back or lean forward to enjoy today's service. I know it will touch your heart, stir your spirit and trigger one or two new thoughts. We're glad you're here. We're composed by the subject of today's service. You must live in the present. Launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. There is no other land, there is no other life but this or the like of this. This is no world for the penitent or the regretful. We do not live by justice, but by grace. I invite you to rise and body your in spirit for the lighting of our chalice. And if you will join me in reading the words of affirmation printed in today's program. For daylight and darkness, for sunshine and rain. For the earth and all people, we offer deep thanksgiving. For all things bright and beautiful. For all things wise and wonderful. For all creatures great and small, we offer endless praise. We kindle this light in celebration of the life we are privileged to share. And now I invite you to turn to your neighbor and exchange with them a warm greeting on this warm June morning. Please be seated. And I would invite any children who are in the congregation this morning to come forward, if you will, for the message for all ages. Don't be shy. Where there's one, there must be more. But where two or three are gathered. Ah, here we go. Good morning on this sweet June day. Anybody going to be going swimming this afternoon? Maybe, okay. All right. Well today I wanted to talk to you a little bit about a very famous Unitarian named Henry David Thoreau who would be 200 years old almost if you were alive today. His parents were Unitarians and they lived in a small town about a thousand miles from here called Concord, Massachusetts. Now when he got a little older, older than you all, he didn't much care about going to church. How many of you like to go to church? Let's see if we can get all the hands up here. But one of the reasons he didn't really like going to church, even the Unitarian church is because he would rather be out swimming in the river or exploring the woods and the fields or maybe tinkering in his father's workshop kind of making things. And his father had quite a big workshop because his father manufactured something for a living. He made his living making these. Pencils. That's right, he made pencils and Henry and his brother worked with his dad to make these very simple writing tools. Any of you know how to use a pencil? OK, I thought most people just knew how to use computers these days. OK, you still know how to use a pencil. That's good. And it was said that Henry David Thoreau's father, whose name was John, made the best pencils in the United States. Well, how do we know that he made really good pencils? Because he had this very secret process for making the points of the pencils, which it's made out of graphite. He made them in a very special way so that when they were inserted into the wood and you start writing with them, the graphite wouldn't smear on the page and make everything all messy. Pencils today, you write something, you can't really kind of smear it. And that's partly because of what John Thoreau did with this new process he had. So Henry really respected what his father did, making these great pencils. And even more so when he got older because he did an awful lot of writing himself. And he used up a lot of pencils. He wrote all kinds of things in the journal that he kept, and he wrote one of the most famous books ever published by an American. And that book was entitled Walden, or Life in the Woods. Now when he was younger, he did help his father make these pencils, and when his father died later on, he took over the pencil making business. And he'd like doing that in some ways because he always had a good supply of pencils himself. But he also had kind of a funny attitude about all this writing business. And he said one time, if you learn how to write your name, how many people can write their name? Then pretty soon you're going to be writing sentences. And then after that, the next thing you know, you're going to be writing paragraphs. And then you might be writing books. And then he said, you're probably going to get into as much trouble as I've gotten into. Because he actually did get into a little trouble with some of the books that he read. But even though he appreciated how important it was to make pencils, he really loved certain kinds of other things. He really preferred being out in the natural world by himself. And he made a boat with his brother. And they rode down the Concord and Merrimack River in the boat that they had made themselves. Or he would wander in the woods around Walden Pond where, as an adult, he built this very small one room cabin. And he actually lived for two years in this very small cabin that you can see up on the screen there. And he spent those two years reading and writing in his journal and just watching how everything in the wood changes with the seasons, how the flowers change, and how the animals' behavior changes. And he wrote all this stuff down in his journals. He recorded it all. And then eventually, he put all the stuff that he had learned into this book called Walden. And today he's famous for this book, Walden. But because of that book, a lot of people think that Henry Thoreau was a kind of a hermit. You know what a hermit is? Person that lives alone and really doesn't much care to be around people. Yeah. And Henry David Thoreau, he didn't particularly like people that much. And in fact, he said as much in his journal, this is what he wrote. He said, I live best in solitude. And if I have a companion for only one day a week, I find that the value of that entire week has been seriously eroded. He says, it dissipates my days. And often it takes me another week to get over the companionship that I've had. So he's saying he would rather actually be alone in his little hut or wandering around in nature than be with people, because people kind of tire him out. Take up too much of his time. Well, he was a person. That's right. He had to get along with himself, didn't he? Yeah. But actually, he didn't dislike people as much as he said he did. Because in those two years that he lived in that little hut, he was only a 20-mile walk from the village of Concord. And he often would walk right into Concord. And he would sit down in front of the village store. And he would talk to people. And he would hear all about the news in the outside world. And he would walk over to his friend's house, a guy named Ralph Waldo Emerson. And usually he'd arrive just before dinner time. Because he knew that he would be invited in to eat with Emerson's family. So being alone, kind of a hermit, was very important to Henry Thoreau. And he said a lot of positive things about being alone, how to be happy while you're all by yourself. But he didn't write very much about other people and about how communities like this one can help to support people during their lives. He just said, I don't have much use for the company of people. He took great pride in his independence, being able to be alone. But he did have a very hard time admitting that just like all of us, he really needed to be in community. And he was, even though he wouldn't admit that much. Did you have a question? Yeah. You have a cousin named, what's his name? Oh, really? Oh, very nice. Very good. Yeah. Well, thank you for that. Yeah. He does what? Do you get along with him really well? You like each other? Very good. OK. Well, thank you all for listening to our story about Henry David Thoreau. Your folks are going to hear a little more about him later on. But in the meantime, you guys get to go to summer fun. And so we're going to sing you out with our next team, number 328. Have a good time. Please be seated. We continue with a selection from Edward Abbey's essay Down the River with Henry Thoreau, written in 1980. Edward Abbey is better known perhaps for a novel that he wrote entitled The Monkey Wrench Gang. Some of you may be familiar with that. November 4, our river is the Green River in southeast Utah. We load our boats at a place called Mineral Bottom, where prospectors once searched for gold, later for copper, still later for uranium, with very little luck in any case. With me are five friends. And I carry a worn and greasy paperback copy of a book called Walden or Life in the Woods. Not for 30 years have I looked inside this particular book. And now, for the first time since my school days, I shall. Thoreau's mind has been haunting me all the days of my life. And it seems proper now to reread him. And what better place on this golden river called the Green? November 5. Thoreau said, in wilderness is the preservation of the world. Somewhere deep in his 39 volume journal, he said, I go to my solitary woodland walks as the homesick return to their homes. It would be better if there were but one inhabitant to a square mile as where I live. Thoreau once defined happiness as simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. But solitude? I never found the companion so companionable as solitude, he wrote. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. November 6. Purity, purity, he preaches. The wonder is how they or how you and I can live this slimy, beastly life eating and drinking. Like Dick Gregory, Thoreau recommended a diet of raw fruits and vegetables. Like a Pythagorean, he found even beans impure since the flatulence beans induced disturb his more ethereal meditations. He raised beans not to eat but to sell his only cash crop during his lifetime. His beans sold better than his books. When a publisher shipped back to Thoreau 706 copies of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Thoreau noted in his journal, I now have a library of 900 volumes, over 700 of which I wrote myself. November 7. How easy for Thoreau to preach simplicity and asceticism and voluntary poverty when, as some think, he had none but himself to take care of during his 45 years. How easy to work part-time for a living when you have neither wife nor children to support. But he was a family man, nevertheless. Thoreau lived most of his life in and upon the bosom of family, Emerson's family part of the time, Thoreau's family, mothers, sisters, uncles, aunts during the remainder. When his father died, he took over the management of his pencil-making business, a cottage industry carried on in the family home. But Thoreau had no wish whatsoever to become a businessman himself. Trade curses everything it handles, he wrote. And so he never gave to pencils more than a small part of his time. He was considered an excellent surveyor by his townsmen. And whatever he did, whatever he laid his hand to, he did well. But to no wage-earning occupation would he give his life. He had, as he put it, other business. And this other business awaited him in the woods, where, he wrote, I was better known. November 8th, what is your favorite dish? A guest asked Thoreau as they sat down to a sumptuous Emerson meal. The nearest, Thoreau responded. At Harvard, they teach all the branches of learning, Emerson remarked. But none of the roots, Thoreau replied. Refusing to pay a dollar for his Harvard diploma, Thoreau said, let every sheep keep its own skin. November 9th, the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. A stereotype but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them. But is it true that the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation? And if so, did Henry escape that desperation himself? Well, he allows for exceptions, indicating the mass of men, not all men. As for himself, when one of his friends, Ellery Channing, declared morosely that no man could be happy under the present circumstances in reply, Thoreau declared, without hesitation, but I am happy, he spent nearly a year in his dying. And near the end, two weeks to write anymore, he dictated the following in answer to a letter from a friend. You asked particularly after my health, he said. I suppose I have not many months to live, but of course, I know nothing about it. But I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and I regret nothing. June days are rendered so much sweeter by our society choir. Thank you so much. Shortly after he had moved to the village of Concord, Massachusetts, Ralph Waldo Emerson was introduced by a mutual friend to a fellow Harvard University alumnus, guy named Henry David Thoreau. The younger man struck Emerson as an individual of unusual abilities. My friend, Emerson recorded in his journal, has as free and upright a mind as any I have ever encountered. From a temperamental standpoint, these two men could, on the other hand, have been no more different. But for whatever reason, they hit it off. At Emerson's urging, Thoreau began to keep a journal of his own, and in a quarter of a century, he filled some 40 volumes with his musings and observations. Although more than a few of his acquaintances found Henry insufferable, Emerson admired some of the very qualities that put other people off. His speech, Emerson wrote, was laconic and biting and laced with ironic humor. Emerson found that refreshing. And Thoreau was not one to waste or to mince words. When he spoke, he was often blunt and to the point. Emerson found his pithy epigrams, particularly appealing. The bluebird carries the sky on its back, Thoreau wrote. And nothing is to be so much feared as fear, an expression to which Franklin Delano Roosevelt is particularly indebted. Physically, Emerson and Thoreau were an odd couple. A quaint stump figure of a man is the way that William Dean Howells described Thoreau, while Emerson was noted for his long, lanky, six-foot frame. But both men's noses dominated their features, and each was pale-skinned and blue-eyed. Thoreau's glance could be very intimidating, Emerson noted, for his terrible eyes often blazed with an icy, grayish light. Whether it was his chilly personality, his physical characteristics, or a combination of the both, Thoreau never found an intimate life partner. Twice, as a younger man, he proposed marriage to two different women. Twice, he met with rejection. For someone with Thoreau's hypersensitive character, Edward Abbey speculates, these must have been disabling blows to what little confidence he possessed. But throughout his life, Thoreau did not lack for casual companionship. Although he once declared nature to be more interesting than people, he did enjoy a close relationship with members of his own immediate family, as well as with the Emerson household. And as a some-time house guest, Thoreau served as a handyman, a gardener, a secretary, and a childcare provider for the Emersons, winning the enduring affection of their children. On one occasion, he responded to young Lydian Emerson's concerns about her chickens. Lydian was upset that her hens had to be confined to their coop during the coldest months of the year, lest their feet freeze. Well, Henry, a master of invention, made each hen a little fitted pair of cowhide booties that could be secured around their slender ankles, and thus they could promenade freely in the frozen backyard. Given our subject's reputation as a hermit, which is owed largely to his descriptions of his life at Walden Pond, the foregoing may seem to be somewhat out of character. And it is true that in that classic piece of American literature, Thoreau does provide us with a very different self-portrait. He built that small cabin on a piece of property that Emerson owned on the banks of Walden Pond at a total cost of $28.12. A detail he faithfully recorded in his journal. And here, as Thoreau famously put it, he set out to live deliberately, fronting only the essential facts of life. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. Those were to be his watch words. And as Thoreau tells it, he went to great pains to apply that principle both to his material and his relational life. No superfluous curtains would adorn this new domicile, nor did he require a doormat, of which he wrote disparagingly. I had no room to spare within the house, nor room to shake it, time to shake it outdoors. I prefer to wipe my feet on the sod before my door. It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil. And I think I've lost my simplicity, simplicity. And Thoreau could be just as dismissive of friendship as of his material wants. He says, I love my friends very much, but I find it of no use to go to see them. And even when I meet them unexpectedly, I part from them with sorrow. And reacting to his aloofness, Ellery Channing, a frequent hiking companion, wrote, behold, Henry David Thoreau, he who believes in simplicity, he who has gone steadily along over the rough places and the thorns in order to crucify and kill all human virtue. Each social faculty in which all others delight, he mortifies. And what is his compensation? Eternal solitude and endless blundering. Well, this year does mark the 200th anniversary of Henry David Thoreau's birth, an appropriate occasion to inquire into the source of his ongoing appeal. During his lifetime, he was surrounded by the social and literary leaders of the transcendentalist movement, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Bronson Alcott, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Margaret Fuller. Now, although Emerson recognized his genius, Margaret Fuller, for her part, scorned Thoreau. And as editor of The Dial, a transcendentalist journal, she rejected most of the material he submitted for publication. And yet, Henry David Thoreau, he is the one among all these notables who survived, who even conquered the test of time. Edward Abbey did not bring along Emerson's essays for inspiration as he floated down the Green River. He chose Waldo, which, in the estimation of historian Perry Miller, certifies Thoreau as the supreme artist to come out of that transcendentalist ferment. As a writer, Miller says, he stands far above the pale wreath of Ralph Waldo Emerson. So how to account for the enduring source of this man's appeal? Well, here there are three facets of Henry David Thoreau's thought and his literary product that are worth mentioning. The relationship that we have as human beings to the natural world, that's one. The lifestyle that we might choose to adopt for ourselves is two. And our social and ethical responsibilities as individuals, that's three. Now, with respect to nature, Thoreau's outlook can only be described as religious. Nestling near to nature's bosom, we sense the divine presence. We are privy to transcendental truths. And here Thoreau comes closest to the Emersonian ideal of the natural spirit-infused man. The good river god has taken the form of my valiant Henry Thoreau, Emerson enthused. And Thoreau's own meditations on nature read like a 19th century biblical psalm. Of thee, O earth, are my bone and sinew made. To thee, O son, am I a brother. To this dust, my body will gladly return as to its origin. Here I have my habitat. I am of thee. Thoreau qualifies as a nature mystic. For as Paul Bowler observes, his sense of kinship was so profound that on occasion he felt totally absorbed into the natural processes surrounding him. And it is in this capacity that he has been a reliable source of inspiration for spiritually oriented naturalists ever since, like Lauren Eisley, or Annie Dillard, or Sigurd Olsen. Thoreau was impatient with the abstractions and with the armchair philosophizing of his fellow transcendentalist. He was eager to equate himself with nature firsthand. Nature is not a place to visit. It is home. The 21st century poet Gary Snyder once wrote, and Thoreau would wholeheartedly agree, nature is not a place to visit. It is home. This was not a passing fancy for Thoreau. Both before and after his two-year sojourn at Walden Pond, he continued to spend what seems like an inordinate amount of time trekking through the woods and the fields of eastern Massachusetts. And on these treks, he typically would be seen by neighbors wearing a straw hat, sturdy shoes, trousers heavy enough to wade through the thick underbrush to fend off the rough bark of a tree that he might climb to examine a hawk's nest. His outsized passion for the outdoors sometimes got under Emerson's skin, for whom it signaled a lack of ambition, a waste of great potential. Emerson said, it is an inexcusable fault that Henry would rather be the captain of a Huckleberry party than the head of the American engineers. Brushing off criticism like this, Thoreau expressed his own displeasure with the Puritan work ethic. The order of things, he said, should be reversed somewhat. The seventh shall be man's day of toil, wherein to earn his living by the sweat of his brow. The other six, his Sabbath, to range this widespread garden, drink in the soft influences and sublime revelations of nature. Thoreau's relationship with nature did have its practical side, however. Nextoling its therapeutic value, he said, if you are filled with melancholy, go to the swamp. See the brave spears of skunk cabbage buds already advancing in the new year. Do not despair of life. You have no doubt forced enough within you to overcome all of your obstacles. In much the same vein, traditional Japanese healers prescribed what they call forest bathing, shinrin yoku, to treat stress, insomnia, and anxiety. And then lastly, there is Thoreau, the scientific naturalist. He claimed to be able to tell the time of year within two days by simply observing the condition of the plants around Waldenpond. His journals, from which much of the material in Walden was drawn, contain detailed descriptions of the plants and the animals he encountered in the landscapes he traversed. His powers of observation, Perry Miller observes, seemed to indicate that he had additional senses to the five that we possessed. And Thoreau's sensitivity toward and his deep knowledge of the natural world aroused his protective instincts. And so he became a sharp critic of unrestrained free enterprise. And he anticipated, by 100 years, Aldo Leopold's land ethic, a man would be judged a loafer, he wrote, if for love of the woods he walked in them half of the day. But if that man spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods, making the earth balled before its time, then he will be esteemed as an industrious and enterprising citizen. Thank God they cannot cut down the clouds, he said. All kinds of figures are drawn on that blue ground with those fibrous paints. That's one facet of Thoreau's legacy that is so much admired even today. But a second has to do with another of his epigrams. He said, a man is rich in proportion of the number of things that he can afford to let alone. Thoreau was an outspoken advocate of voluntary simplicity. And his retreat to a sparsely furnished cabin on the banks of Walden Pond was meant to be a test of those principles, simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. And that has become a mantra for generations of his admirers ever since. And although he would not emulate them, Ralph Waldo Emerson did applaud his friend's efforts in this regard. How near to all the old monks in their aesthetic religion, he said, Henry has no talent for wealth. He knows, however, how to be poor without the least bit of squalor or inelegance. There is, however, more than a whiff of hypocrisy in the claims that Thoreau made for himself. Writing in The New Yorker recently, Catherine Schultz took issue both with Thoreau's rigid asceticism and with his failure from time to time to walk his talk. On the one hand, Thoreau described salt, salt as an unnecessary luxury. He advised eating only a single meal a day in order to spend more time doing important things. He claimed that a six by three foot wooden tool chest would make a fine home, provided it was equipped with a few air holes. Robert Louis Stevenson, after reading the book Walden, said he abstains from almost everything that his neighbors innocently and pleasurably use. But his obstemious claims aside, it was Thoreau's inconsistency that troubled Catherine Schultz the most. Because in Walden, he does gloss over the fact that he was just a 20 minute walk from the village green and conquered. And when he would walk into conquered, he'd stop by his mother's house and they would wash his clothes and he could get food from their larder and oftentimes he was invited to share Emerson's table. Schultz says that Thoreau lived a complicated life, but he pretended to live a simple one. Does it matter in the end that he failed to measure up to the ideals that he professed? Well, to the extent that he faulted others for their simple indulgences, it does matter because he's asking more of us than he's asking of himself. Nevertheless, at a time in history, when the average person in the world's 34 richest nations consumes over 220 pounds of stuff every day, most of it simply a function of our modern lifestyles, then perhaps a little more emphasis on simplicity wouldn't hurt. Finally, let's consider Thoreau's social and political positions. As a thinker who elevates individual rights and prerogatives over collective responsibilities, he is often cited approvingly by libertarians and advocates of limited government. Human institutions are a frequent target of Thoreau's disdain. Businesses are rapacious. Churches are filled with hypocrites and moral cowards. The voice comes up from the houses of worship, he said, but they are not so brace and cheering as that which rises from the frog ponds of the land. But Thoreau's harshest criticisms were reserved for the public sector, for, as he famously said, that government is best, which governs not at all. And so despite the able assistance that he rendered members of the Emerson family, Thoreau denied that the individual had any social obligations beyond him or herself. I come into this world, he said, not chiefly to make this a better place to live, but just to live in it, be it good or bad. And despite his professed scorn for those who labor, rather than walk leisurely in the woods, Thoreau evinced very little sympathy for what he called the non-producers. They are bloodsuckers, fastening themselves to every helpful man and woman in the world. And Rand couldn't have said it better. Thoreau was also no fan of democracy. He mistrusted the popular will, which he said can exhibit strength, but not morality. He expressed great confidence in his own conscience, which he insisted is the sole arbiter of right and wrong, true and false. He fancied himself a man in touch with the higher truths about which the mass of humanity, ruled by their passions, know next to nothing. With respect to the wisdom of his elders, he wrote dismissively, I have yet to hear the first syllable of advice from my seniors. All of that being said, and despite his inconsistencies, Thoreau often did respond to the promptings of his own conscience, that seat of all moral and ethical authority. And in meaningful ways, he protested the federal government's imperialistic policies by refusing to pay his taxes, a stand that did land him in jail until an unknown party paid his taxes for him. He was an ardent abolitionist. He defended John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, and he wrote that in a slave state, prison is the only place that a free man can abide with any honor. Reformers from Gandhi, the Berrigan brothers to Martin Luther King Jr. have all gained inspiration from Thoreau's germinal essay, resistance to civil government. It's also important to put Thoreau's denunciations of government and American society more generally to put them in their proper context. Because much of what he was writing in the 1840s and the 1850s was in reaction to the presidencies of Andrew Jackson and his successors. He said that American culture has become vulgar and mediocre. It was the decline in America's public standards that made Thoreau into this militant nonconformist that caused him to express a preference for solitude over society, for nature over humanity. And two centuries after Thoreau's birth, an admirer of President Andrew Jackson now sits in the Oval Office, which might make it a little bit easier to understand how he felt at the time. Thoreau struggled with tuberculosis in his final years. He succumbed to the disease in 1862, just shy of his 45th birthday. And whatever they made of him in life, his friends were inspired by Thoreau's dying. He refused all medications to ease his pain. I elect to die with a clear mind, he said. Nor did he lose his wry sense of humor. One world at a time, he said, brushing off questions about the afterlife. And when his Aunt Louise asked if he had made his peace with God, Thoreau smiled at her and said, I did not know we had quarreled. Sam Staples was a hunting buddy of Henry Thoreau's and he was also the county jailer who had locked him up for a night years earlier. Sam Staples was one of the last to see Thoreau alive. Later he reported to Ralph Waldo Emerson, never spent an hour with greater satisfaction. Never saw a man dying with so much peace and so much pleasure. Henry David Thoreau. Now it is time for the giving and the receiving of our offertory. And as you can see, your gifts will be shared with Vosses de la Frontera. And you can see more about the work that they're doing outside on the table directly across from the center doors. Please be generous. Thank you, Dan. We gather each week as a community of memory and of hope to this time and this place we bring our whole and occasionally our broken selves. We carry with us the joys and sorrows of the recent past seeking here a place where these might be celebrated, received and shared. A couple of entries in our Cares of the Congregation book this morning. One, a family hug to the Goodmans. Sean's back there behind the controls. Sarah, Sean and Jamie are celebrating Jamie's first year here in the world. So happy birthday to Jamie. And then an individual sharing the thoughts perhaps of all of us as we think of those who were killed or injured on London Bridge and in the marketplace in London yesterday. This happens with such frequency anymore that it's tough to process it all and think about what our world is coming to. But again, our thoughts are with those who are grieving those losses this morning. In addition to those just mentioned, we would acknowledge any other unexpressed joys or sorrows that remain among us and these we hold with equal concern in our hearts. Let us sit silently for just a moment or two in the spirit of empathy and hope. So by virtue of our brief time together this morning, may our burdens be lightened and our joys expanded. Now I invite you to turn to our closing hymn and that would be number 75, The Harp at Nature's Advent, sung to the tune appropriately enough, Walden. And we will just sing the first three verses and we conclude with one more brief selection from Henry David Thoreau. God himself culminates in the present moment and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend it all, what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us. Please be seated for the postlude.