 Please join me for a few moments of centering silence. Please remain seated as we sing our in-gathering hymn, which appears in your order of service. There are only a couple of lines, so we'll sing it through twice. Good morning. 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 entire 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 happen to be on your life journey, we celebrate your presence among us. Newcomers are encouraged to stay for our fellowship hour after the service and to visit the library, which is directly across from the center doors of this auditorium. Bring your beverages and your questions, and members of our staff and lay ministry will be on hand to welcome you and answer those questions. You may also look for persons holding teal-colored stoneware coffee mugs. These are FUS members, knowledgeable about our faith community, who would be glad to visit with you. An experienced guide is sometimes available to give a building tour, but I'm not aware of there being one with us this morning. Hands if you are a guide and want to give a tour. What we would usually do is meet over in that corner to your left, so if you would like a tour and we have someone, they will meet you over there after the service, and if not, and you have questions or want some more information about the building and our architecture, then see one of us in the library and hopefully we can give you some additional information even if there's not a guide. We welcome children, babies, everyone to stay for the duration of our service. However, because it's difficult for some in attendance to hear in this lively, acoustical environment, we also have alternatives. If your children would like to sing and dance and run around, and those are the little glass room in the your back left corner and the entire commons where you can still see and hear the services. One thing we would like to make sure you do is turn off any devices that might cause a disturbance, such as cell phone ringers primarily, and please then pick that back up after the service. Excuse me. I'd now like to acknowledge the individuals who are helping our service run smoothly this morning. Mary Manning is taking care of sound. Tom Boykoff is our lay minister. Patty Witte is the greeter. And our ushers are Nancy and Pete Daly. Tom Dolmage and I think maybe Brian Chanis as well. Hospitality, people making coffee and water for hot cocoa are Becky Hustad and Sandy Plisch. Thanks to all of you folks. Please note the announcements, many of them. In your red floors, insert to the order of service, talking about things that are going on today and in upcoming weeks, please check those out. And Steve Goldberg has asked me to say, and I'm sure you'll all be shocked, Friday, May 12th is cabaret, and that means what? 89 days till cabaret. Yay, and thank you, Steve. He's hiding there. I asked him if he wanted to shout out the message and he said no, he'd deferred. So he's deferred. Again, welcome. We hope today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart and stir your spirit. Let it shine indeed. Thank you to our choir. Good morning. It is my pleasure to welcome to our pulpit today the Reverend Scott Rudolph from the UU Church north of Pittsburgh. Thank you. Pittsburgh. This morning, I'd like to begin our time together with these words by Nancy Shaper. She writes, witness to that place before words know how to save themselves or thoughts even have an inkling of how they will be born, to that quiet place where the holy dwells, that place before knowing, stillness before form, where tears cannot stop, can find no ending, and crying out, fills the sky, and also to that place where the earth first turns and turning turns to bounty, we stumble upon hope out of love, out of longing, and calm. And indeed, we all come here in this place this morning to do this thing we call, worship together, gathering on a Sunday morning to share life. And so let us share together. If you want these rise and body or in spirit and join in the words of our chalice lighting, may the lighting of this flame renew in us our endless for all that is right and true, our abiding love of life and all who share it with us and our unending dedication to following paths of peace and justice. And I invite you to share some of that abiding love with those around you. If we could have the kids and the young and the young at heart come forth for a time for all ages. I know there's a lot of you. Fantastic. They just keep coming. All right. The kids here. Fantastic. So how are y'all doing this morning? Everybody doing pretty good? Did you notice the sun is shining? Does it make you happy? It makes me happy. So I'm going to tell you a story. Sometimes stories start out with once upon a time long, long ago. This story starts out like this. Once upon a time, very, very, very near to right now, a man woke up. This man was a minister. And he woke up on a Sunday morning of all days. And he woke up in this very soft bed. He was such a soft bed and he thought to himself, oh, this bed is so comfortable. I'm so lucky to be sleeping in this bed. And he got out and he was in a hotel. And he was on the fifth floor. And he looked at his window at the day and he thought, what a magnificent thing to see this day. And he went downstairs because he wanted a cup of coffee. And he got in an elevator. Have you ever ridden an elevator before? They're quite amazing, aren't they? You get in, the door's shut. They push a button. They open and you're somewhere else completely. It's amazing. He loves elevators. And so he got downstairs. He got a cup of coffee with some of his new friends. And they talked about how wonderful coffee is. And coffee comes from little beans. They make coffee, a liquid out of beans. Isn't that just kind of crazy and amazing? And so he drank his coffee and he got in a car and he drove to a church. Because remember, he was a minister. And so he drove to a church. And here I think about how amazing cars are. I mean, he only came about three miles, but if he had had to walk, it would have had to take him a lot longer. And cars, they're pretty incredible when you start thinking about them, aren't they? And so he showed up at the church. And he looked at it and it was, let me tell you, it was an amazing church. He had never seen a church like it. It had all these angles on it. What is at the church? Fantastic question. So he walked into the church and no one was here yet. And it was kind of quiet and quiet, kind of dark. And he walked in and it was a beautiful room. And he just looked around and he looked around and the room was amazing. And then what's in the room? That was the most amazing thing. Soon, people started coming in the room and filling it up. And that was the most amazing thing at all. The church started filling with people. And then at a certain time, I think it was roughly around nine o'clock, something magical happened. It started. This thing started where they were singing and they were talking and the minister was a part of it. And he got up and he started speaking and he had a little hard time with the microphone. But microphones, when you think about it, they're amazing too. You turn them on and they make your voice really loud. I'm using one really loud, right? If I was, you can't even hear me anymore. But now look at that. Microphones are amazing. And then something else happened. These children sang a song and that was incredible. And then everyone sang a song together. It was so amazing. And then something really cool happened. The minister said something like, if the young and young at heart would like to come forward and the children were going to have a time for all ages. And then all these children came right up front and they sat on a carpet and they listened to that minister tell a story about how his day had started. Isn't that amazing? I'm telling that story. You think that's me? That's my story from this morning. That's what happened to me. And I tell you, I've had an amazing morning. Do you know why? Because I've been paying attention to what's amazing in my morning. You ever do that? You ever just pay attention to what's going on in your life and what's amazing about it? Sometimes you have to remember to pay attention to that kind of stuff. So let me ask you, what do you all think is amazing in life? What do you think? What? When I get to go to the Wilderness Hotel. Fantastic. What else is amazing? What? That sounds amazing. The Children's Museum There are kinds of amazing things there, isn't there? Who have we heard from? What's amazing in the world? Anybody have anything amazing? Somebody in the back there. What's amazing? That's it. We can all go home. Sometimes I play this game. When I'm feeling down, I'm not sure what's amazing. Here's what I do. I put my hands, not over my microphone, I put my hands over my eyes and I turn my body around and I open them and the first thing I look at, I think, that's amazing. This time I just looked at that A-V projector and when you think about that, it projects light on that and we can all read hymns and sing together and that's amazing and sometimes I do it like this and I open them and I see a harp. Harps are amazing and what I find is I can do this and anything I look at, really, if I think about it, that certainly is amazing, kids. So we play this with me. Where's our choir? Do they? There they are. So if everyone will turn, turn, if everyone will turn and put your hands over your eyes and close them and then open them. See? Amazing things happen. So we're going to listen to the choir sing and then you'll go to your religious education classes. Reading this morning comes to us from Clark, a 12-year-old tried to gain his parents' attention to a shining star. The parents were busy with time and schedules, the irritabilities of the day and other worthy preoccupations. Yes, yes, we see the star. Now, I'm busy. Don't bother me. On hearing this, the young one launched through the porch door, fixed a fiery gaze and said, You be glad at that star! I will not forget the incident or his perfect words. It was one of those rare moments when you get everything you need for the good of your soul, reprimand, disclosure and blessing. It was especially good for me. That's that surprising moment because I am one who responds automatically and negatively to the usual exhortations to, quote, pause and be more appreciative of life, unquote. Fortunately, I was caught grandly off guard. There is a notion with some truth to it that we cannot command joy, happiness, appreciation, fulfillment. We do not engineer the seasons of the soul or enjoy the quality of mood in one another. And yet I do believe there is right and wisdom in that imperative declaration. You be glad at that star. If we cannot impel ourselves into a stellar gladness, we can at least clean the dust from the lens of our perception. If we cannot dictate our own fulfillment, we can at least steer in the right direction. If we cannot exact a guarantee for a more appreciative awareness of our world for persons and stars and breathing and tastes and the incalculable gift of every day, we can at least prescribe some of the conditions through which an increased awareness is more likely to open up in the skies for us and for our children. It is not always the great evils that obstruct and waylaid our joy. It is our unnecessary and undignified surrender to the petty enemies. And I suggest it is our duty to scheme against them and make them subservient to human decree, time and schedules, our irritabilities of the day and other worldly preoccupations. Matters more subtle and humane should command our lives. You be glad at that star. I invite you to rise in body or in spirit for our next hymn, number 391. Deep inside all, this voice speaks to us in many different ways and brings many different messages. Sometimes it's a message of peace or comfort. Sometimes this voice might suggest some soft insight into our lives. And sometimes this voice just whispers, wow, or that. My dad does this thing when we're in a large crowd. He's always done it my entire life at a sporting event or a big parade or something. He just stands there kind of dumbstruck and says with wonder in his eye, would you look at all the people? He says it all the time. Enough that it became a joke to my brothers and I, one of those kind of inside jokes you have if you have siblings and you can laugh behind your parents' back at them. And so he was always saying it and anytime there was a sea of humans you could just count on him using. The thing is, he meant it every single time. He was amazed by these people, not by what they were doing, but just the fact that they were there doing whatever it is that humans do. Would you look at all the people? I think in these moments what my dad was doing was being glad at that star. Just taking it in. Just appreciating. You be glad at that star. It's good advice from a three and a half year old and a three and a half year old is a great place to get good advice. The world around us is brilliant. And it's just that sometimes we forget to take notice. We shove it off to the side because we're busy, we have schedules to keep or we have worries on our mind and our days fill up. But for lucky sometimes we can remember to be glad at that star. Whatever it is that star might be in any given moment. Because at any given moment there is some star to be glad about. Like rotten logs or dirty puddles. The poet Hubbard wrote, Oh God, how wonderful are thy works. Thou makest the rotting log to nourish banks of violence. And from the stagnant pool at thy word springs forth the lotus that covers all with fragrance and beauty. From rotten logs and dirty puddles. And so I think there's a difference between awe and appreciation and gratitude. Although subtle, awe for me is that feeling that's great, that's before words, it's just kind of dumbfounded where it just hits you. You think, oh! And gratitude is something different. That's thankfulness that this event has occurred. So this is an concern about awe or gratefulness. It's something that happens right in between there. It's a moment of appreciation. That act and art of noticing, of seeing in life the good and the possible who you're caught up in a moment and you think to yourself, and I find myself, I don't know about you, that I'm in times that I need to ground myself in what is good and what is possible. As I think to what is going to be spiritually required as we look to do the work around culture and justice in our country and our world in the days to come. There is a bumper sticker. I tried to find out who said this but I don't know, no one knows. So sometimes you just have to say, there's a bumper sticker that says if you're not angry, you're not paying attention. And that's right. Absolutely. If you're not outraged at what's happening in the world, you're not paying attention. But very true. It would be another bumper sticker. You could put right on the same car that says if you're not astonished with the beauty in life, you're not paying attention. Both are true. Albert Einstein said there are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle and the other is as though everything is a miracle. So I prefer the second. I choose the second. I try to choose the second. Okay, on a good day, if I'm really trying, I may be accomplished some of the second. Noticing life can be a miracle and it can be hard to notice these moments of the miraculous in the mundane and we just take life's blessings for granted until these blessings don't show up and then we scream at their absence, even the small things. Many of us drive cars every single day but it's only when we turn that key and it doesn't work that we think to ourselves how important that car is in our day and how we rely on it, how complex that system is inside that hood that makes that car work and I hope that it doesn't cost too much to get this fixed. And so now we get to the part in the sermon in the service where the minister says so you should just appreciate things more. It's that easy. Just make lemons out of lemonade. Oh wait, no, that would be hard. Just make lemonade out of lemons. And so this is one of the reasons I like the reading this morning. He addresses that. He gets it. It's not always easy and you can't just say this. You can't just automatically appreciate things in life or force it. He says we do not engineer the seasons of the soul or enjoying the quality of mood in another. And so if I'm in my car and it doesn't start I don't want to hear but isn't it great that it starts every other time? No, I want my car to start then. But really I want them both. I get it. This is life. And there's no way that we couldn't take life for granted because life is too large and too varied and too wonderful and too unbelievable to take in. And so I turn to the comic Louis C.K. who once spoke about this so very well. And this is adapted because if you use the comic Louis C.K. in church you have to adapt it. He says that I was on an airplane and there was high speed internet on the airplane and this is the newest thing and I didn't know it exists. And I'm sitting on a plane and they say open up your laptops and you can go on the internet. And I do and it's fast and I'm watching videos and I'm watching YouTube and it's amazing and I'm on an airplane and then it breaks down. And they apologize that the internet's not working and the guy next to me goes, this is ridiculous. Like how quickly the world owes him something that he didn't even knew existed 10 seconds ago. And flying is one of the worst because people come back from their flights and they tell you their story like it was a horror story like it was the worst day of their lives. First off we didn't board for 20 minutes and then we got on a plane and they made us sit there for 40 minutes. We had to sit there. Really? What happened next? Did you fly into the air incredibly like a bird? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight? I mean you're flying. It's amazing. Everyone on a plane to just the whole time be saying, oh my God, wow! You're in a chair in the sky flying and all you can think to say is the seat doesn't go back quite as far as I'd like it to go. And so yes, this is me and this is you and this is all of us. And so that's why it's good for me to fly with my young children sometimes because they can remind me how amazing it is to fly and what it means to stare out a plane window. We just don't do this all the time and that's because there is an obstacle in the way. It's not all our fault. Our brains do this for us. We tend to see the negative in life often instead of the positive. Negativity bias is the psychological phenomenon which points to the power of negativity and how we receive and how we process life. It would have us believe and understand that unpleasant memories are easier to recall than pleasant ones. The ideas can stick out stronger and be more instructive in how we form our impressions and our opinions. We behave in ways often that is just so that we don't replicate negative experiences of our past. And sometimes, strangely enough, negativity can just be more attractive. Like, who doesn't enjoy a good wallow every once in a while in your own misery? And who doesn't keep reading the news day after day after day? And I have bad days and I have good days. And on the good days that are great, if there's one bad thing that happens, sometimes that's the thing I'm thinking about as I go to bed. It's a strange thing how negativity can be so powerful in our lives. And this doesn't even talk about what's called hedonic adaptation. And this is the idea that humans find in equilibrium. We adapt and adapting is good, but that also means that there's a stasis in our life around happiness. Major events can come, but we return to normal. And as we find new happiness, that becomes the new normal. Over and over, we find new baselines of happiness and things kind of calm out and become as they were. Even things like flying through the sky or looking at a night sky. I know I see this at church sometimes as well. There's all these incredible things happening in a community. All these missions being fulfilled, all these justice works happening, all the little things like who takes care of the name tag holders. And all we can do sometimes is walk in and think, hmm, that corner's a little dirty. I wonder who missed that. And so it works at church too to remember all that goes in to make this place happen. We fail to recognize the miraculous because we expect the more the miraculous all the time. And we can't process the miraculous all the time. We couldn't even get through a meal if we truly understood how remarkable it is what had to happen to put food on our plate. And so sometimes we might offer a blessing before. That's a moment of acknowledgement and appreciation so that we can go on and eat our meal and get through it. It becomes a spiritual task to remember and to notice the goodness and the beauty in life. And so I'd like to pose the same question to you that I posed to the children this morning. What is it that you find amazing in life? What is it you find just miraculous? I'll ask you just to... the red cardinal outside her window that she saw. So red. Forgiveness. Absolutely amazing. The sun is out. Hmm. It's been like it's been in Pittsburgh here I see it as well. Medical technology, absolutely. That's amazing. What else? Cabaret. Cabaret! I'm beginning to learn things about this congregation quickly in your traditions. What else is amazing in life? Your children singing. Absolutely amazing for you and for all of us as well. Yeah. Well how about this? What's amazing in this church? For volunteers. Yes! There's two of them. Sense of community, right? The physical beauty of this church. Absolutely. The joy to be in. Music. Music. Music. Music. Absolutely. How about this? Which can sometimes be a little harder question. What is amazing and miraculous about you? Anyone brave enough to answer this one? The fact that you're here. Absolutely. Good health. Healing. Magic, right? I mean that's as good as magic. You are a humble, humble church. I'll invite you to think to yourself. Something about yourself that you find incredible. Amazing. Be proud. Be proud. Lift those things up. They are truly amazing and they are you. Hold on to those. Remember those. It's important to appreciate amazing things about ourselves as well. And so it is good to look to what is amazing. And it's not all amazing. We know this. Constructive criticism is important. It's how we as individuals and institutions improve and grow and get better. This is inherent in our liberal religious philosophy. And we know that justice is deeply rooted in seeing hard truths of life and being dissatisfied with unfairness and inequity. And so this isn't anything about being Pollyannish, naive or blissfully blind or wishing away pain without growth. Some things in life are hard. Of course. Illness and death and grief and pain and depression and shame and failure. All this is a part of life. And so what the religious life asks us to do is to hold multiple things at one time. Because that's how life happens. All at once. E.B. White wrote, if the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve or save the world and a desire to enjoy or savor the world. And this makes the day hard to plan. It does all happen at once. Life is difficult and joyous. And so it feeds our soul to remember the positive and the affirmational. And we can do things to help ourselves. Because life becomes so quickly routine and moves so fast. And so the field of positive psychology says that appreciation is something that we can cultivate. Thank goodness for that. We can cultivate it by putting in little reminders in our day. Maybe it's when you hear a bell or a gong, it reminds you to appreciate something. Maybe when you see the color red, you think to appreciate. Or maybe you have a bracelet that you can wear and appreciate something. But whenever somebody else's phone went off, you thought to yourself to appreciate something around you. You can practice mindfulness. You can practice smiling. You can practice being kind to others and lifting up their day as you lift up your own. And of course, one way to remind ourselves about beauty and what is good to appreciate in life is to come to church. Where we lift up ideas of love and peace and justice. Where we create a sense of religious community and sharing together. Where we have children who inspire us and we have music that lifts our heart and soul. Church is a place to come to appreciate and have our wells dipped into. And come up with life enriching waters. So last summer I was at a large outdoor concert on a huge lawn. People were throwing frisbee, having fun, cooking out. There were people everywhere. And I swear to you, without thinking it, I muttered to myself, Would you look at all the people? I kid you not. But it was a good thing. We can't make ourselves be glad for celestial bodies. We can't force appreciation or gratitude. It comes from within. But we can, by constantly noticing our blessings and being aware of the amazingness of life, sometimes rekindled that fire of gratitude within us. It's not always evil or hardship that gets in the way of experiencing joy, but sometimes it's just inertia. It's the willingness to concede, to grievances, it's the routine, it's schedules, it's deadlines, it's apathy, but it only takes a moment to look up at the sky and see a star twinkle and be filled with ineffable awe. And so that becomes our challenge. Simply to remember. To actively find moments and to claim them throughout each and every day. To be glad at that star. Whatever that star might be. Be glad at that star. This is the great end of all of the world's faith traditions. To bring the human being closer to the divine by acts of creation and compassion. We now take an offering that allows us to exercise that all-important generosity of spirit, an offering that will support this self-supporting church and its many ministries. The gifts of the congregation will be most gratefully received. Thank you, Linda, for such a gift. We gather each week a community of memory and hope. To this time and place we bring our whole and at times our broken selves. We carry with us the joys and sorrows of the recent past and seek a place where they might be received, celebrated, and shared. We take a moment now to share those joys and those concerns that are living here within our congregation. We hold Hathaway Hastler and her family in our hearts as they grieve the death of her daughter, Hathaway Happy Rokes. Hathaway passed away suddenly in her sleep on January 30th. The memorial service was held on February 4th. We send our love to the Hastler and Brooks families. We send our love and care to Kirsten Carlson and her family on the loss of Kirsten's father, John Carlson, after a bone marrow transplant. We send much love and strength to them. And for all those joys and sorrows that remain quiet in the silence of our hearts, let us join now for a moment of quiet and hope. May our coming together and sharing of lives lighten our sorrows and expand our joy. And I invite you to rise in body or in spirit for our closing hymn, number 128. I invite you to put your hymnal down. And if you're willing, I invite you to put your hands over your eyes and just look somewhere different in the room than you were just looking. And open your eyes again. Isn't that amazing? Go from this day with new eyes refreshed by the love and light of this place and the spirit that happens when good people come together. Amen.