 moment of centering silence so we can be fully present with each other this morning. And now let's get musically familiar by turning to the words for our in-gathering hymn, which you'll find inside your order of service. Welcome to another fabulous Sunday 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 Goldberg, a proud but shy member of this congregation. And I would like to say a special hello to everybody watching or listening at home this morning, as well as any newcomers, guests, or visitors. If this is your first time at First Unitarian Society, I know you'll find that this is a special place. And if you would like to learn more about our special buildings, we offer guided tours after the service, just gather over here by the windows after the service, and we will take good care of you. Speaking of taking care of each other, this would be a perfect time to silence those pesky electronic devices that might interfere with your enjoyment of the service. And this goes for those of you at home as well. And while you're doing that, I'll remind you that if you're accompanied this morning by a youngster, and that youngster is concerned that you might become a bit fidgety during the service, and you might prefer to enjoy the service from a more private space, we offer a couple alternatives. One is our child haven in the back corner of the auditorium, and we also have some comfortable seating located right outside the doors in the commons, from which you can see and hear the service. This is the case every Sunday. Today's service is brought to us by a wonderful team of volunteers whose names I will read because they deserve our thanks and appreciation. Please express that to them by giving them a high five or shaking their hand and inviting them to your home for dinner. Operating the sound system, Mark Schultz, thank you, Mark. Anne Smiley is our lay minister this morning. Thank you, Anne. Thank you to Karen Hill for greeting us as we arrived earlier today. John Webster, Sam Bates, Elizabeth Barrett, and Doug Hill are our ushers today. We thank them. We also thank Rick DeVita and Gene Hills for hosting the hospitality and coffee after the service. Betty Evenson for watering the orchids that you see behind me, and Pam McMullen for conducting the tour after the service. The only announcement is that we've got about 173 days until Cabaret, so you have half a year to get ready for that wonderful event. Anne, you have another couple seconds to sit back, lean forward, and get ready to enjoy this morning's service. I heard the nine o'clock version, and I know that today's service will touch your heart, stir your spirit, and trigger one or two new thoughts. We're glad you're here. I'm the great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore. Today the peace of autumn pervades the world. In the radiant noon, silent and motionless, the wide stillness rests like a tired bird, spreading over the deserted fields to all horizons, its wings of gold and green. Today the thin thread of the river flows without song, leaving no mark on its sandy banks, and the many distant villages bask in the sun with eyes closed in idle and languid slumber. And in the stillness I hear in every blade of grass, in every speck of dust, in every part of my own body, in the visible and invisible worlds, in the planets and the sun and the stars, I hear the joyous dance of the atoms through endless time. I invite you to rise in body and spirit for the lighting of our chalice. The words that accompany the chalice lighting today are responsive, so if you will join your voices in reading the bolded sections. We have gathered here in search of insights into life's riddles. Let this be a place not only of searching, but of discovery. Let this be a place not only of meeting, but of meaningful connection. May we create here a circle of curiosity and love, and in the spirit of our meaningful connections, please turn to your neighbor in exchange with Emma Warm Greeting. And if we have some children that would like to come forward for the message for all ages, so this is a story called The Three Questions. And the original story, this is kind of an altered version, was written a long time ago by a Russian man named Leo Tolstoy, and there are going to be some pictures up on the screen if you want to look at them. So once there was a little boy by the name of Nikolai, who sometimes wasn't exactly sure how he would act, he said to himself, I want to be a good person, but I don't always know the best way to do that. Well, Nikolai had some friends, and his friends understood, and they wanted to help him out. If only, Nikolai said, if only I can, if only I can figure out the answers to three questions that I would always know what was the right thing to do. And those three questions were, when is the best time to do something? Who is the most important person, and what is the right thing to do? Those are the three questions. So Nikolai's friends thought about the first question, and Sonia, the heron, spoke first. She said, to know when is the best time to do things, one must make plans, one must plan ahead, and then you'll know. Gogol, the monkey, disagreed. He'd been rooting through some leaves, trying to find something good to eat, and he said, you will know when is the right time to do something when you pay attention, when you look very closely. And Pushkin, the dog, who was dozing off and then rolled over, said, you can't pay attention to everything all by yourself. You need a pack to help watch, and then you can decide when's the right time to do something. Nikolai thought about their answers, and then he asked them his second question. So, who is the most important one? Those who are closest to heaven, said Sonia, who was flying overhead. I'm not sure what I'm looking at. We got a bird up there, a balloon, a balloon. Somebody lost their balloon, sorry about that. We'll have to get our BB gun later on. Okay, and so Gogol the monkey, Gogol the monkey had another answer to the question, who is the most important one? He said, those who heal the injured, because he had this bump on his head where a coconut had hit him. Pushkin, the dog, growled, those who make the rules, those are the most important. Well, Nikolai thought some more, and then he asked his third question. What is the right thing to do? Flying, said Sonia. Having fun all the time, said Gogol the monkey. Fighting, barked Pushkin. Well, the boy wasn't satisfied with any of those answers. He knew his friends were trying the best they could to answer those questions, but they just didn't seem right to him. And then an idea came to him. He said, I know who I'll ask. I'll ask Leo the turtle. Leo has lived for a really long time. Surely he will know the answers to the questions I'm asking. And so Nikolai hiked high up into the mountains, where Leo the turtle lived all by himself. And when he arrived, he found Leo digging in his garden. And the turtle was old, and so digging was really hard work for him. Nikolai said, I have a problem, and I came to you for help. And he repeated his three questions to Leo. Leo listened carefully. He just smiled, and then he went back to his digging. You must be tired, Nikolai said, looking at him. Here, let me help you. And so, gratefully, the turtle gave the hoe to Nikolai. And because Nikolai was young and he was strong, he was able to finish the job in no time flat. But just as he was finishing up, the wind began to blow, and the rain began pelting down from the sky. And so they quickly moved toward the turtle's cottage to find shelter. But just as they were going in the door, Nikolai heard a cry for help. And so he turned around. He rushed back down the path. And in the woods, he found a panda whose leg had been hurt because a tree fell on it. Nikolai lifted her up very carefully. And he carried her into Leo's cottage. He put a splint of bamboo on that injured leg of hers, and then he put her in bed. And outside, the storm was raging on, banging at the windows and the doors. And the panda woke up and looked at Nikolai and said, but where's my child? What happened to my child? So Nikolai ran back out into the fierce storm and down the path. He was pushing against the wind. He was getting drenched with the rain. He went into the forest. And there he saw the young panda. She was lying on the ground, and she was wet, and she was cold. But she was still alive. So Nikolai picked her up and carried her to the cottage and dried her off, and later in her mother's arms. Leo, the turtle, was watching all this. And he smiled when he saw what the boy had done. The storm passed. And the next morning, the mother panda and her child were getting ready to leave. And they thanked Nikolai for what he had done. And just at that moment, the three friends, Sanya, Gogol, and Pushkin, they arrived just to see whether everybody was safe after that really bad storm. And Nikolai that morning felt a great sense of peace within himself. He knew he had wonderful friends. He felt really good about saving the panda and her child. But he also was kind of disappointed, because he'd come all the way up into the mountains, and he had not found out the answers to his three questions. And so he asked Leo again. And Leo said, don't you know you already have your answer? I do, said Nikolai. Of course, said Leo. Think about it. Yesterday, if you had not stopped to help me dig my garden, you would not have heard the panda's cries for help in the storm. Therefore, the most important time was the time that you spent digging in my garden. The most important one at that moment was me. And the most important thing you did was to help me with my digging. And later on, when you found that injured panda, the most important time was the time you spent helping her and her child. The most important ones were the panda and her little baby. And the most important thing to do was to take care of them and protect them from harm. So you see, Nikolai, remember this. The most important time is always the time that is now. The most important one is the one that you are with. And the most important thing to do is to help those who are standing right there at your side. These, my dear boy, are the answers to your questions. And they are the most important answers in the world, because that is why all of us are here. So that's the story of the three questions. And we're going to have you just sit right where you are for a few more minutes, because we're going to have a song to entertain everybody. Everybody. And so now, then, we'll play a little bit of music for the journey as our kids exit for their classes and other activities. So we continue with a selection from the great physicist, Albert Einstein, from a short essay entitled, The World As I See It. The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and all true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement is as good as dead, snuffed out candle. It was the experience of mystery, even if mixed with fear, that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in its most elementary form. It is this knowledge and this emotion that constitutes the truly religious aptitude. And in this sense, and in this sense alone, I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes His creatures or who has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death, that's also beyond my comprehension. Nor do I wish it otherwise. Such notions are for the fears and the absurd egotism of feeble souls. Enough for me, the mystery of the eternity of life and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavor to comprehend just a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in the natural world. And the second selection comes from the book of Ecclesiasticus, which from the Latin means the book of the church, not to be confused with the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiasticus is found only in the Roman Catholic canon of scripture, not in the Jewish and not in the Protestant canon. This book is also called the book of Ben Sirach. My son, if thou wilt, thou shalt be taught. And if thou will apply thy mind, thou shall be prudent. If thou love to hear, thou shall receive understanding. And if thy bow your ear, thou shalt be wise. Stand in the assembly of the elders and cleave unto him that is wise, and be willing to listen to every godly discourse. Let not the parables of understanding escape thee. And if thou seeest a man of understanding, get thee betimes unto him, and let thy foot wear the steps of his door. But accept no man against thine own soul. Let reverence for no man cause thee to fall, and let the counsel of your own heart stand, for there is no man more faithful unto it than thee. A man's mind is sometimes want to tell him more than seven watchmen that sit high above us in their lofty tower. Now I invite you to rise in body and spirit once more for our next hymn, number 293, monthly newsletter. And I suspect that applies to only a few of you. If you read it, you may have learned that I am not a birthright Unitarian universalist, that my earliest experience of church was in the modest disciples of Christ congregation to which my paternal grandmother and great-grandmother belonged. And the disciples, as I experienced them, were a warm and welcoming people. Communion in that church was served every week, and no one, not even doubters and disbelievers, was excluded. I don't recall any mentions of fire and brimstone, and the prevailing message seemed to be, what a friend we have in Jesus. All in all, the first Christian church wasn't a bad place to hang out for a couple of hours once a week. But ultimately, it was just too conventionally churchy for my father. And so we began to attend a small lay-led Unitarian fellowship that recently had taken up residence in a small country chapel not that far from our family farm. And it was, as I said in my newsletter column, a place where any and all questions were welcomed and rational explanations readily provided. William L. R. E. Channing, early 19th century Unitarianism's most prestigious minister and theologian, once wrote that the multitude do actually receive their religion on authority, on the word of others. But a faith so received seems to me to be of little worth. The precious, the living, the effectual part of a poor man's faith is that of which he sees the reasonableness, the excellence, that which approves itself to his intelligence, to his conscience, and to his heart. And those parts of his belief, which he takes on blind trust, do him little, if any, good. Now in one important respect, William L. R. E. Channing differed from those who frequented our Unitarian fellowship in the early 1960s. Channing was a convicted Christian who trusted that the Bible was divinely revealed. But Channing also was convinced that human beings possessed God-given reason, which must be used to resolve scriptures inconsistencies and to shed light on its varying claims. It is each person's responsibility thoughtfully to examine the text and to reach his or her own conclusions about its meaning. By contrast, the good Unitarians of my early experience pretty much dispensed with the Bible entirely. I cannot recall hearing it cited except to point out its absurdity and the many ways in which assertions were antithetical to reason. The adults I knew were, for the most part, died in the wool humanists who insisted in the immortal words of dragnet's Sergeant Joe Frydy, give me the facts, ma'am, only the facts. Fortunately, Unitarian Universalism has, in more recent times, adopted a more moderate, if we might say, reasonable position with respect to sacred scripture, including the Bible. We are now able, as I did a moment ago, to quote approvingly those passages which contain inspiration and wisdom for living without inferring divine authorship without according the good book, Ultimate Authority. That being said, like our forebears, we, you use still place great emphasis on the power of human reason. We certainly do not agree with nor do we subscribe to the view expressed in another book in the Bible, the book of Proverbs, whose author admonishes us to trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own insight. The great Protestant reformer, Martin Luther's, equally dismissive appraisal, also strikes us as utterly inappropriate. Reason, Luther said, is the greatest enemy that faith has. It never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God. And so Luther said, whoever wants to be a Christian should tear out the eyes of his reason. Now the fourth of our seven Unitarian Universalist principles stands in rather stark contrast to this point of view. As followers of a progressive faith, we are invited to, quote, join in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. A free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Free, that implies unfettered by creeds, dogmas, ideologies, and authoritative prescriptions. Search means that the truth is never all in, that there is always more for us to learn, and that revelation, whatever its source, is continuous. Responsible suggests that we must each apply ourselves to the task of examining and testing the truth of all sacred scriptures of preachers, of teachers, and of various pundits. Now the fifth source from which you use draw inspiration adds greater specificity to the fourth principle. In keeping with humanist teachings, we should rely on reason and the scientific method lest we succumb to the idolatries of the mind and the spirit. Now it certainly could be argued that if anything, our world today suffers from a dearth of reason. At a time when many influential opinion leaders maintain positions completely at odds with scientific findings and common sense, one begins to wonder whether as a society we are slipping back into pre-adolescent habits of magical thinking. 97% of the scientific community agrees that anthropogenic climate change is real, and that it is a growing problem. There is a virtual consensus among experts in the life sciences on the broad outlines of evolutionary theory. The vast majority of social scientists are convinced that systematic racial bias has contributed significantly to America's achievement gap. Policymakers in other countries have reasonably concluded that easy access to high caliber pistols and assault weapons makes mass killings far more likely. But substantial numbers of Americans remain unconvinced of the foregoing and appear to have abandoned the rationalism that is in the words of Charles Watts, the faculty of judgment which discriminates, infers, deduces, enabling us to premise future possibilities from past experience and to distinguish truth from error. Now this word that I've been bandying about, the word reason, has on occasion been used to describe a human faculty that is thought to be superior to the merely rational as Charles Watts just outlined it. And so where Alf Waldo Emerson and his transcendentalist colleagues, they contrasted reason which they spelled with a capital R with a lesser mental attribute that they called understanding. Understanding employs an empirical methodology. It utilizes hard data and systematic analysis to reach its conclusions. But Emerson's capital R reason was more akin to intuition, a little bit like what Einstein was talking about in the reading that I shared earlier. Because the sage of Concord was interested ultimately in absolute rather than in tentative and provisional truths, the truths that are the stock and trade of understanding and for that matter of science and its related disciplines. But today this particular take on reason only serves to kind of muddy the waters because it bears little resemblance to the word as our culture typically defines it. Near synonyms today would include thoughtful, sagacious, discerning, discriminating, sensible, astute, erudite, logical and rational. The Enlightenment thinker of Voltaire extolled reason as the best weapon for fending off the trials of life and dealing with its problems. It partakes of common sense and seeks results that are useful and pragmatic. That is the sense in which I'm using it this morning. But if this rationalism, this reason thought process is so important and if it is so demonstrably effective, why is it not more consistently practiced and its findings more widely accepted? Couple of possible explanations. One has to do with this very concept of provisionality. Provisionality. This is a hallmark of rational and of scientific thought. And provisionality refers to the state of knowledge at any given time. It's a concept that some people find deeply distressing. Now opinion polls reveal widespread and deep support for science education in our schools and generally speaking people say that science is a positive force in our society. But at the same time, the methodology of science is poorly understood by the general public. Many folks seem to expect science and the men and women in white coats to reach conclusions that are the equivalent of divine revelations, the last word on the subject. And when those expectations are not met, when provisionality sets in, then people become cynical. They become disillusioned. And ignoring probabilities, they conclude that any one theory, creationism for instance, is just as good as any other. And a second and related reason for eschewing the dictates of reason has to do with the manner in which our brains index and categorize information. According to the social psychologist Robert Schenck and Robert Abelson, reasoning is not a straightforward process. Rather, it is conditioned by the stories that we tell ourselves. Stories and storytelling are fundamental to human knowledge, Schenck and Abelson said. And if a set of facts or if a rational proposition does not align with the story, if we can't fit it into a niche within that storyline, it will bounce off. It simply will not be deemed credible. And so in his book, Brilliant Blunders, Mario Livio shows that even towering figures of science like Charles Darwin and Linus Pauling and Albert Einstein, they made grave errors in reasoning because they were held captive by their entrenched intuitions and refused to accept new ideas until they were faced with absolutely overwhelming evidence. In short, these scientists were saying to themselves, this is my story and I'm sticking to it. And in their insightful book, Animal Spirits, economist George Akerlof and Robert Schiller discussed the role that stories play in determining economic behavior. The economy does well, they observe, when public confidence is high, when people are feeling good, when they trust that the system is operating the way that it should. And confidence builds with the circulation of inspirational stories, successful startups, people getting rich off their investments. And within the marketplace, these scholars say, stories spread like viruses and can be as contagious as any disease. Markets become overheated, or they go into a slump and become severely depressed. Not because the players are making carefully considered choices, but because there is a change in the contagion rate of certain stories, certain modes of thinking. So the average person then is probably not as consistently rational as he or she imagines. And when we consider the role that the emotions play in the process, the picture becomes even more complicated. Now I know we have all been in situations where deep distress or excitement or panic swept in took possession of us and our minds just locked. Our thinking froze. As Daniel Goldman points out, in order to think clearly, we first need to have a handle on our emotions. According to Goldman, studies have shown that the kind of intelligence associated with IQ, our linguistic and logical mathematical problem-solving ability, that this accounts, IQ accounts for only about 20% of the factors that determine life's success. Other variables include race, social status, being in the right place at the right time, in other words, dumb luck, and an ability to manage our feelings. The latter is critical. Emotional intelligence, Goldman writes, matters immensely for our personal destiny, and that includes the ability to motivate ourselves, to persist in the face of frustration, to control impulse, delay gratification, regulate one's moods, empathize with others, and remain hopeful. In short, emotional intelligence is the ability, as Kelly Crocker noted last week, to listen with the heart as well as with the head. So the point is, we cannot always be strictly rational, even if we want to be, even if we aspire to be creatures of reason. And that's not only inevitable, it may in certain respects be a very good thing. So for instance, in her book, Transformative Experience, the philosopher L.A. Paul disputes the notion that we can always make those big decisions in life, whether or not to have a child, the vocation that we are going to follow, we cannot make those decisions based on reason alone, because it's almost impossible for any of us to extrapolate what life as a parent, or as a Unitarian Universalist minister for that matter is going to be like. So you shouldn't fool yourself, Paul says. You have no idea what you are getting into. So yeah, you try to use your reason, but don't weary yourself, trying to figure it all out. She says the best way to approach a big life decision is just to move courageously into the unknown, be open to new experiences, and eager to discover what you are going to become. Now for those of us who value it so highly, we need to be cognizant of reason's limits, as I've described them, and also cognizant of its potential pitfalls. Because something appears to be reasonable, doesn't necessarily mean that it's the right thing to do. So for instance, our educational system today has become increasingly reliant on MOOCs, M-O-O-C, Massive Online Open Courses, which may make sense from an economic and practical standpoint. But how much intangible benefit is lost when the physical link between teacher and student is broken? What does that do to the educational experience? We don't really know. And then there's cost-benefit analysis, whose aim is to rationalize the choices that institutions make solely on the basis of monetary value. And thus the notion that an old growth forest, or a historic building, or an orphan drug might possess inherent or intrinsic value, and therefore merit some extra consideration according to cost-benefit analysis, that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Too often, the philosopher Robert Solomon complains in our market-driven society today, the real test of rationality seems to be maximizing one to own interests. It is the ability to get what one wants. Unitary universalism, as I mentioned earlier, has historically regarded reason as the primary tool for ethical and spiritual investigation. And there have been times when it seemed like it was the only tool that we needed in our toolbox. Today we recognize it is but one of several means we may use to grow in wisdom and to gain greater insight. And so we have our seven principles and our six sources. And the first of our six sources today references the direct experience of the transcending mystery. Sounds a lot like Einstein. This mystical feeling that Einstein referenced. And the sixth source cites wisdom from the earth-centered traditions. We need to use that as well, which, as David Abrams has written, might require of us a rejuvenation of our carnal sensorial empathy with the living world that sustains us. And then there are the words and deeds of prophetic men and women, of social reformers. That is commended to us in the second source. History-making figures who bucked the odds out of a sense of moral necessity. These were not reasonable men and women. For as George Bernard Shaw once said, the reasonable individual adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. And therefore all progress depends on unreasonable men and women. History and increasingly science do confirm that as important as it may be, reason is but one of several human faculties that contribute to a well-tempered and fulfilling life. And left to itself, rational, discursive thought may well inhibit other equally important human powers, such as empathy, such as imagination. The ancients, as Daniel Goleman writes, gave every aspect of human nature its due. And so should we, blessed be and amen. And today our offering will be taken and a portion of it will be shared with the Fair Share CSA. The description of its work can be found on your program and there is an information table out in the lobby that we invite you to visit after the service. Please be generous. We gather each week as a community of memory and of hope to this time and this place. We bring our whole and sometimes our broken selves. We carry with us the joys and sorrows of the recent past, seeking here a place where they might be received and celebrated and shared. So now we would take a moment to share concern and a joy with two parties. Patricia Leonardi, a member of the congregation who many of you know, underwent a stem cell transplant recently as a potential cure for her cancer. She is now, gratefully, out of the intensive care unit and yesterday was able to be rolled outside to enjoy the sunshine. She is still in isolation, can receive no visitors, but her thoughts today are with her and with her partner, Linda McAfee. And then Teresa Stabo and Jeff Schimp joyously announced that their son, Ansel, who grew up in the church was married to Hilary Boyce this past August. The bride and groom mountain biked to their ceremony and the bride got a lot of her dress caught up in the gears to the bike. But some of the fabric became the veil that she lacked, a train for her dress and some a bandana for her groom. Congratulations to the Stabo and Schimp family. And in addition to those two joys, we also would acknowledge any unarticulated, unspoken joys and sorrows that remain among us. And so let us now sit quietly together for just a moment or two in the spirit of empathy and hope. And so may our coming together for this brief time this morning may it lighten our burdens and expand our joys. And now I invite you to rise one last time for our closing hymn. Words by Confucius. We close with these words from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Within us is the soul of the whole, the wise silence, the universal beauty to which every part, every particle is equally related, the eternal one. And when it breaks through our intellect, it is genius. When it breathes through our will, it is virtue. And when it flows through our affections, it is love. Blessed be your naman. Please be seated for the posting.