 Please let's all join in a few moments of centering silence, being seated as we sing our in-gathering hymn, number 1031, and the words also appear in your order of service. Welcome to the first Unitarian Society of Madison. This is a community where curious seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical, and social issues in an accepting and nurturing environment. Unitarian Universalism supports the freedom of conscience of each individual, as together we seek to be a force for good in the world. My name is Karen Rose Gredler, and on behalf of the congregation, I would like to extend a special welcome to any visitors who are with us this morning. We are a welcoming congregation, so whomever you are and wherever you are on your life's path, we celebrate your presence among us. Visitors are encouraged to stay for our fellowship hour after the service and to look for people carrying teal-colored stoneware coffee mugs. These are FUS members knowledgeable about our programs and community life, and they look forward to the chance to speak with you. You can also stop by our information table outside the library, where you can find more information about upcoming events and programs at the society. In this lively, acoustical environment, it can become difficult for those in attendance to hear what's happening in our services. So we remind you that our child haven back in that corner, high folks back in the child haven, and the commons area out behind the auditorium are great places to go to see and hear the service in case somebody wants to hop around or sing or dance or whatever. We do have hearing assistance devices available, so please see one of our ushers if you think that would be helpful to you. This would in fact be a great time to turn off any electronic devices that might disrupt the service, especially cell phone ringers. Experienced guides are generally available to give building tours after each service, and I do believe we have someone signed up for after this service, so if you would like to learn more about this sustainably designed addition or our National Historic Meeting House across the parking lot, please meet near the large glass windows which are at your left side of the auditorium right after the service, and someone will meet you there. I'd now like to acknowledge those individuals who help our services run smoothly. This morning we have David Bryles on sound. The minister is Lois Evenson. Our greeter is Kayo Tade and Claire Box. Our ushers are Chuck Evenson, Tom Dalmage, and Brian Channis. Our coffee makers, hospitality folks, are Sandy Plish and Biss Nitschke. I believe that John Powell is going to be our guide after the service, and the Pulpit poems have been tended to by Hannah Pinkerton. Thank you. We generally have a few extra announcements, not many this morning, and Smiley would like to remind us all to leave our hymnals on our chairs after this service, so they'll already be in here for the folks coming. Your announcements are in this red floors insert to your order of service. There's lots of interesting stuff in there. Look how chocked full it is. One thing that's not in there, and that's my responsibility, is an announcement of the caregivers group, which will be occurring the same Saturday that our art fair occurs from 10 to 12. And it's scheduled for the Gabbler living room, but I'm not sure if that's... Yeah, it'll be in a classroom because of the bake sale that will be in the Gabbler living room. So art, food, treats, whatever, come and get some. Again, we hope today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart, and stir your spirit. Here in the refuge of this Sabbath home, we turn our busy minds toward silence and our full hearts toward one another. We move together through the mysteries, the bright sunshine of birth and the shadowed questions of death. In our slow walk between the two, we will be wounded and we will be showered with grace, amazing and unending. Even in our sorrows, we feel our lives cradled in a holiness we cannot comprehend. And though we each walk within a vast loneliness, the promise we offer here is that we do not walk alone. This is a holy place in which we gather, the light of the earth brought in and held, touched then by our answering light, the flame on a chalice, the flicker of a candle, the lamps of our open faces brought near. In this place of silence and celebration, we make a sanctuary and name our home. Into this home, we bring our hunger for awakening. We bring compassionate hearts and a will toward justice. Into this home, we bring the courage to walk on after hard losses. Into this home, we bring our joy and gratitude for ordinary blessings. By our gathering, we bless this place. In its shelter, may we know ourselves to be blessed. And if you will rise now in body or spirit and join together in our words of chalice lighting printed in your order of service, community is the spirit, the guiding light of the tribe, whereby people come together in order to fulfill a specific purpose, to help others fulfill their purpose and to take care of one another. And before we join together in song, if you will turn and greet those around you. Please be seated. And if anyone would like to come forward for our story, come on down. You totally were first. Yes. Hello. Hi, Finn. I know I love the way you come in. It's always like you're trying to steal home base. You have a princess? Are you a princess? It's a better day when you've got a princess. How are you today? And a piggy? We have a piggy? You have a sticker book? A what kind? A minion sticker book? Super fun. You do. Oh my gosh, now we have, okay, you're like all piggies now. Hey, have any of you ever had trouble falling asleep? Yeah, your brother, Finn. Here he comes. Keen, have you ever had trouble falling asleep? No, it's not true. Elliot, what keeps you from sleeping sometimes? You just don't know, you just can't sleep, right? What keeps you from sleeping? The alarm clock makes noise when you're sleeping. Mine does that too. It's totally annoying, isn't it? Just turn off the alarm. How about we just never set them in the first place? You guys are brilliant. Yeah, what keeps you up? Oh, they turn the lights on and off and you can see that. It's automatic that it wakes you up when the light shines in. Yeah, noise, noises wake us up. You're scared in your bed. How many of you have ever been, where'd you come from? Hello, Max. You weren't there a second ago, were you? No. Wow. I'm scared that Max can appear and disappear at will. Hey, have any of you ever been scared in your bed? Maybe you have. What are some things you're scared of? Yeah, if Ian makes noise and then that startles you awake, Max, what? The window? What about the window is scary? Like the wind? The wind. Well, our story today is about a little boy named Mark and it's called Mark Just Couldn't Sleep. Fireworks can be really scary. Yeah, they're loud. I don't like those really, really big booms that shake the whole house. Like quiet, pretty ones. Any of you had Halloween candy for breakfast? I think that might be what's going on here. I will admit that I think my children had Halloween candy for breakfast. That's good parenting 101 there. So there's Mark up there. Do you see Mark? Does he look happy? Does he? Well, how does he look in that picture? He looks suspicious. Yeah, you guys are awesome. Let's just make that clear. So I'm going to tell you a story, talk about Mark after and see what happened. Mark wanted to go to sleep. Really, he did, but he couldn't. He just couldn't sleep. He called out for his mom. I'm afraid a giant mosquito will fly in and bite me, he said. Don't worry, little one. His mom answered, I'll fix that. And soon you'll be asleep. She made him a special pair of mosquito-proof pajamas, complete with a helmet, a sword for protecting himself and a buzz repellent teddy bear. And then she left. Soon Mark called out for his mom again. I'm afraid I'll fall out of bed, he told her. Don't worry, my love, I'll fix that. And soon you'll drift off to sleep. She gave him a mountain climbing rope, secured it to his pillow with an anchor, and slipped a parachute over his back. And then she left. Shortly after Mark called out once more, what if the moon melts and the world goes dark? He asked, don't worry, honey, I'll fix that. And soon you'll fall fast asleep. She gave him a pair of glasses with glow in the dark lenses and sent a letter to the moon. The letter said, moon, don't even think about doing anything silly like melting or something. And then she left. A few minutes later, Mark called out yet again. I'm afraid a mean wind will blow in my face and I'll catch cold. Don't worry, darling, I'll fix that. And you'll fall asleep so easily. She hung a sign on the front door of the house that said, mean wind, you took the wrong road. Buy yourself a map. She covered Mark, goose feathers, and a real live duck. And then she appreciated, if you asked your parents, to bring you a real live duck. And then somebody send me a message tomorrow and let me know. Finn, Finn, Pinky swear, real live duck, OK? Finally, Mark called to his mom one last time. I think I'm afraid of everything, he said. Don't worry, sweetheart, I'll fix all of that. And you'll sleep soundly through the night. She began running around the house. She closed doors, windows, suitcases, and notebooks. She scared away all the monsters. She even scared away the dentist and all the relatives. She invented a special stick for fighting off nightmares and an invisible trap for catching ghosts. And even though it wasn't really necessary, she went up to the roof to keep watch just in case. How does she look in that picture? Above and beyond. Yeah, yeah. But suddenly she heard Mark's voice. What do you think he said? I'm still scared. Mark's mom exhausted from trying to find the right solution came down from the roof. She took off Mark's mosquito-proof armor. She unfastened his mountain climbing equipment. She ripped up the letters to the moon in the mean wind. She sent the duck off to have a bath. And she took away the traps and the sticks. And then finally she sat down on her son's bed. She ruffled his hair and said, my dear, I really don't know what else I can do to help you stop feeling so afraid. I think I'll just have to sit here next to you and you can tell me everything. Smiling and yawning at the same time, Mark took his mom's hands and whispered, I'll tell you later, I'm much too tired now. Mark wanted to stay awake. Really he did, but he couldn't. He just couldn't stay awake. So what finally helped Mark in the end? Yeah, right, his mom stayed next to him. And sometimes when we're scared, what do we need? We just need people around us. And then suddenly it'll be OK. Yeah, Jack, right, that's really important. Jack's reminding us that when we're scared of things, the best thing to do is to talk about it, to try to figure out what it is, and then to find a grown-up, find some friends. You have lots of grown-ups around here who are more than willing to listen. So I want to thank you for listening to my sort of silly story about Mark. We are going to rise in body or spirit, and we're going to sing you out to your classes. Please be seated. Thoughts today from Vanessa Southern. I was in Northern California on my college campus in 1989 when an earthquake shook our world. It registered 6.9 on the Richter scale, no small event. We all walked around in a daze afterward blinking in disbelief. People returned home to find that their dorms had been condemned or closed down until they could be inspected by engineers. At the time my roommates and I lived in a trailer park which had been erected as temporary housing on campus 20 years earlier. It turned out to be one of the safer places to be. Its aluminum sides shook but rarely broke. So once the gas connections were checked for leaks, we were clear to return. And soon our floors were covered with homeless friends and their belongings in one big post-disaster sleepover that lasted for weeks. Immediately after the quake, we had no idea what would follow. And we could do nothing but wait and see how things settled out. We had to wait to hear what the experts ruled about what had been ruined, what needed repair, and what miraculously remained unscathed. Moreover, in the midst of this waiting, an unsettling number of aftershocks continued for days, mild and unpredictable bouts of quaking would send us looking for some place to stand until they stopped. These were not serious, but they made the world feel like a perpetually uncertain and unsafe place. It is hard to live a life amidst all that. Ready to dash to safety, living and sleeping even as if on your toes and harder still when you have no clear place to run to where you know you will be safe. We were told at the time to stand in the doorways. This, they said, was the best and safest place to ride out the shaking. When you think about it, it is such a great metaphor, the commandment to stand in the threshold. In our lives, we often stand in just that place. In the aftermath of some massive personal or collective upheaval, we stand at the doorway to who knows what, hanging on to the frame of that threshold until the world stops shaking. There we stand uncertain, waiting, hoping, and wondering what we will find when the dust settles, preparing also to step through to whatever survival will demand of us. Priest and writer Henry Nowan compares such places to the flight of the Trapeze artist who's between two rings, having let one go the acrobat sails through the void for a little while, suspended there, unmoored until another ring swings out of the darkness. The truth is that the shaking will always end and a new world with a new normal will greet us. That world is just beyond the threshold of what we know. Like the Trapeze artist, we always have a ring heading toward us to give us a handhold, even as we launch ourselves blind into the wide open world of uncertainty. Yet it will forever feel scary to be in those waiting places or to be flying temporarily without a net, standing in the quivering doorways, watching whenever it is that the world decides to shift the ground on which we stand. Meeting House Chorus for that beautiful gift this morning. So this past Monday, I embarked on a new adventure. As I prepared myself that morning, making sure I had everything I would need to make it through this adventure alive and whole, I noticed a sense of unease within me. It was small and gnawing at first, but it seemed to grow before my very eyes. Would I be able to do this? Who was I to think that I could do this? Someone else, heck, anyone else, to be honest, could do this better. This was going to end in failure. And then what would people think of me? The fear was almost overwhelming. I must say, I was taken aback by my reaction. And looking back on it now, it is quite dramatic for the kind of adventure I was beginning. Mountain climbing, no. Long distance running, not going to happen. Skydiving, never. I was going on the adventure of teaching mindfulness to kindergartners. So yes, my sense of dread and outright fear was over the top. It went extremely well. And the kids asked if I would come back the next week. Even my own kid asked if I would come back. So mama is putting it in the win column. I had emailed the mindfulness-based kindness curriculum that is created by the Center for Healthy Minds to Owen's teacher back in September. I sent it along with a simple email that read, hi, Holly, I don't know if you've seen this resource. I'm passing it along just in case you're interested. Owen's teachers used it last year at the Weissmann Center. They were really impressed. Hope it's a great day, Kelly. Less than an hour later, I had a reply that said, hi, Kelly, I love this. It's something I've been wanting to incorporate into the classroom, but I don't have any personal experience with it. Any chance you'd be willing to lead it on Mondays? We could have mindful Mondays. Let me know what you think. Thanks, Holly. What do I think? I'm thinking, why did I send it to this woman? I'm thinking that I am nowhere near qualified enough to do this. Sure, I teach mindfulness to adults, but kindergartners. I think I would need training and certification and something, anything more than what I have now. So it took me a few days to respond. And during those days, I wrestled with this growing fear that I was not good enough, smart enough, qualified enough, definitely hadn't meditated long enough to do this. Those five and six-year-olds were going to see right through me and know me as the fraud I was. I would lie awake at night with worst-case scenarios of classroom chaos running through my mind and the principal asking me not to return to school for a little while. So much for being mindful. During those days, I was reminded of the words of Parker Palmer, who said that he would like to write a book on the spiritual teaching Be Not Afraid. He says he struggled with this passage because it just seems unrealistic. We all have fear. It's natural. It's with us since birth. So what do you mean Be Not Afraid? How is that even possible? He writes that fear is so fundamental to the human condition that all of the great spiritual traditions originate in an effort to overcome its effects on our lives. With different words, they all proclaim the same core message, Be Not Afraid. Though the traditions vary widely in the ways they propose to take us beyond fear, they all hold out the same hope. We can escape fear's paralysis and enter a state of grace where encounters with otherness will not threaten us but will enrich our work and our lives. It is important to note, he says, with great care what that teaching does and does not say. Be Not Afraid does not say that we should not have fears. And if it did, we could dismiss it as an impossible counsel of perfection. Instead, it says that we do not need to be our fears. Quite a different proposition. When I was asked to teach those kids, I was at what Vanessa Southern calls a threshold place. This was a positive threshold for me, a doorway into an unknown experience, uncertain as to the outcome, but opening up a new possibility just slightly outside my comfort zone. We all have these places. We've all been to a threshold. There are much more difficult thresholds we face as well. Think of a time when the world as you knew it changed, most likely in a way that you didn't expect, most likely in a way you didn't want. And you were filled with uncertainty and dread. This is where fear comes in strong and is ready to freeze us in our tracks. What we're talking about here is not the healthy kind of fear. The fear that makes us jump out of the way of a speeding car or the fear that arises when a doctor says the news isn't good or the very real fear of too many adults and children in our country who don't know where the next meal is coming from or where they will sleep at night. I recognize with deep reverence the very real fears that many experience in our world today, deep-rooted fears for safety and survival. And if we have a desire to help those with those kinds of fears, if we wish to begin reaching out more to those right here in our own communities who walk with that kind of fear, then we need to work on what is immediate to us all the time. We need to work on ourselves. We need to come to terms with the fears that are living within us so that they don't stop us from the very important work that we are each called to do. The Buddhist monk Pema children says that the news we hear these days is almost entirely bad. And that makes us afraid. It can be quite discouraging. Yet we could actually derive inspiration for our warrior ship from these dire circumstances. We could recognize the fact and proclaim the fact that we are needed. We are needed in this world today. For those of us with privilege, we need to know how to pass through those threshold places, holding and recognizing the fear and discovering how to go to the scary places anyway, because we are needed. This asks us to face the fear that keeps us from being fully ourselves, that stops us in our tracks when we think about taking a risk, that whispers in our ear that the world is too dangerous of a place, and really, we're not brave enough to make a change. This is the fear that Elizabeth Gilbert spoke of when she wrote, Around the age of 15, I somehow figured out that my fear had no variety to it, no depth, no substance, no texture. I noticed that my fear never changed, never delighted, never offered a surprise twist or an unexpected ending. My fear was a song with only one note, only one word, actually, and that word was stop. My fear never had anything more interesting or subtle to offer other than that one emphatic word repeated at full volume on an endless loop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, which means that my fear always made predictably boring decisions, like a choose your own ending book that always had the same ending, nothingness. Our fear has the power to make us stop, to convince us to never venture out into the unknown, to stay in our very comfortable places. But there's so much we miss when we stay tucked away inside and comfortable. My colleague, the late Reverend Marnie Harmony, wrote about this beautifully when she said, If on a starlit night with the moon brightly shimmering, we stay inside and do not venture out, the evening universe remains a part of life we will never know. If on a cloudy day with grayness infusing all and rain dancing rivers in the grass, we stay inside and do not venture out, the stormy threatening energy of the universe remains a part of life we will never know. If on a frosty morning dreading the chilling air before the sunrise, we stay inside and do not venture out, the awesome cold quiet and stillness of the dawn universe remains a part of life we will never know. If throughout these grace given days of ours surrounded as we are by green life and brown death, hot pink joy and cold gray pain and miracles, always miracles, if we stay inside ourselves and do not venture out, then the fullness of the universe shall be unknown to us. And our locked hearts shall never feel the rush and power of life. Now Martin Luther King once wrote a sermon on four steps for dealing with fear. And I figured that he was a pretty good source to go to. This was someone who preached what he knew, who lived with death threats, who walked through angry mobs, who spent his life telling ordinary people like you and me how to face our fears and walk calmly into, through, and out of them. His first step, he said, is that you have to face fear, you have to see it, and you have to ask what are we really afraid of. You can't fight an enemy, he said, that you don't understand. Now in a similar vein, Pema Children tells a story about a student warrior who was told that she had to battle fear. She didn't want to do it, because fear seemed too aggressive. It was scary, and it was definitely unfriendly. But the teacher said that she had to do it, and she gave her the instructions for the battle. And when the day arrived, the student warrior stood on one side, and fear stood on the other. The warrior was feeling very small, because fear was looking really big and really wrathful. They both had their weapons. The young warrior stood and went toward fear, prostrated three times, and asked, may I have permission to go into battle with you. Fear said, thank you for showing me so much respect that you ask permission. Then the young warrior said, how can I defeat you? And fear replied, my weapons are that I talk fast, I get very close to your face, you get completely unnerved, and you will do whatever I say. If you don't do what I tell you to do, I have no power. You can listen to me, you can respect me, you can even be convinced by me. But if you don't do what I say, I have no power. And in that way, the student warrior learned how to defeat fear. When afraid, face our fears. Look at them. Pema children says, smile at your fears. You can listen, you can try to understand it, you can even see where it's coming from, but you don't have to let it stop you. And this is King's second step. He said, see your fears and go on anyway. He started his sermon with the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, one who is not every day conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life. Can your fears mean go instead of stop? Can you see them, acknowledge that they're there, and instead of seeing them as a signal to freeze, see them as something telling you that you are in a threshold place and that what is needed now is to muster as much courage as you can and go forward anyway. For if we stay inside and do not venture out, we miss the fullness of the universe and the miracles, always miracles. Third is to remember that fear is mastered through love. When we recognize our deep connection with all life, when we see those who we are afraid of as fellow travelers on this journey with needs and vulnerabilities, strengths, and fears of their own, then we work from a place of connection. King said, only love, understanding, and organized good will can cast out fear. Love, understanding, and organized good will. And finally, he tells us to confront fear with faith. Now, for him, he said faith was in the larger goodness of things, and I would add faith in ourselves and in each other. Now, last week, eight of our staff traveled to Unity Temple in Oak Park to attend a regional large church staff gathering. And the keynote speaker was Rashida Graham Washington, Executive Director of Communities First Association in Chicago, and she's a powerhouse of a woman. And she started by saying that she likes to do presentations and go to places she has never been before because she believes that all of us have gifts inside of us, our own gifts, and we hold the gifts of others. So if we are not doing this work together, if we are not reaching out and meeting each other, we're never going to find all of our own gifts because I have some of yours and you have some of mine. We can only be our fullest and most whole selves when we're in this work together. We help each other shine. Or as Marianne Williamson said, that our deepest fear isn't that we're inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It's our light that most frightens us. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. I have your gifts and you have mine. And we can only do this work together. For all those who are living with those daily fears of survival, we have to figure out how to step over the threshold of our own fears. We have to go into our uncomfortable places and do the work that is ours to do. For me right now on Mondays, I'm with kids who have difficulty controlling strong emotions. And I'm teaching them how to use their breath to calm, to soothe, and to heal. That's my work. What is your work in the world? Is it scary? Does it keep you up at night? Can you feel that and think, this is telling me something? Could it be that now is the time to move forward, now is the time to go? The world is too beautiful to be praised by only one voice. May you have the courage to sing your part. The world is too broken to be healed by only one set of hands. May you have the courage to use your gifts. The world needs you. Your beauty, your message, your light. May you be brave enough to step over your threshold places and shine. And our offering this week, our outreach offering, will be shared with veterans for peace. You can find out more about their work in your order of service, also in the commons after the service, and we thank you for your generosity. We gather each week a community of memory and hope. We come together here bringing our celebrations and our joys, our struggles and our losses, and we seek a time to be held together in a spirit of support, connection, and love. This week we hold in our hearts Karen, a member of our society choir and her husband, Paul, who was in a serious bike accident on Thursday. We send them our thoughts of strength and healing. And I would like to offer you a prayer today, a prayer for our times, a prayer from our hearts, and I would also like to invite you into a practice. This is a practice that comes from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and it's called Tonglin. Tonglin is also known as giving and receiving because in this practice we take into ourselves the suffering of the world and we breathe out our compassion and our loving kindness. So just for one brief minute, I invite you to be together in prayer and then to sit with the suffering in the world, our own, of those we love, for those who live in daily fear and breathe out of our goodness and our kindness, our wish for all to be well. Spirit of life, help us. Following another week of brutality, we continue to be a nation in mourning, a nation full of anger and fear, filled with pain and grief, confused and at risk of becoming numb to hatred. Help us to find our way through the turmoil that turns people against each other instead of turning toward each other in love. Help us to see that good comes when we find our common humanity. Then we can find peace. As exasperated as we may become, we go on. The future beckons us to come to it bearing a faith and a resolve that brings hope and healing. Like the birds of the air that can't help but sing their songs, we too have a song. We sing of love, forgiveness, mercy, compassion. We believe in the power of love to repair us, not the same as before but stronger in some places. Living out our lives potential in the warmth of one another, in the light of what restored we may become. And now in the next minute, if you will just join me in breathing, breathing in the suffering and transforming it through the power of your own heart into love. We ask this prayer and offer this practice in the name of all persons present and absent, remembered and forgotten, known and unknown. Amen, blessed be, may it be so. And if you will join me now, rising in body or spirit for our closing hymn, we'll build a land. Please be seated. That we have been separately and all that we will become together is stretched out before and behind us like stars scattered across a canvas of sky. We stand at the precipice, arms locked together like tandem skydivers working up the courage to jump. Tell me friends, what have we got to lose? Our fear of failure, our mistrust of our own talents, what have we got to lose? A poverty of the spirit, the lie that we are alone? What wonders await us in the space before the first leap and the moment our feet, our wheels, however we move our bodies across this precious earth, touchdown softly on unknown soil? What have we got to lose that we can't replace with some previously unimaginable joy? Blessed are you, spirit of life who has sustained us, enlivened us and enabled us to reach this moment, give us courage in our leaping and gratitude in our landing and share with us in the joy of a long and courageous life together. Blessed be and go in peace.