 If I could just do a service for Justin, you should have a wonderful seven-times, that will pull up a pill on you. That goes great, you know I get to think of it perfectly in our generation, I've heard of it. I invite you to join me for just a moment or two of Centering Silence. Now I invite you to center yourselves musically as we join together in singing, Oh We Give Thanks, the words are printed in the program, but if you're not familiar with the tune, then it's 10-10 in the Teal Himmels. And so good afternoon and 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. And my name is Michael Shuler, I'm the senior minister of the First Unitarian Society taking on a slightly different role this evening. And on behalf of the congregation, I'd like to extend a special welcome to all of you and particularly to our visitors today. We are a welcoming congregation, so whoever you are and wherever you happen to be on your life's journey, we celebrate your presence among us. Newcomers, as well as everyone else, is invited to stay for our fellowship hour after the service in the commons area of our atrium addition across from the parking lot. Members of our staff and lay ministry will be on hand to extend our welcome to you then. If you are accompanied by a young child, please remember that if they become restless or need to talk a little bit, the loja area over to my right is a good place to retire with them and you can still hear the service from that location. This would also be a good time for you to turn off all electronic devices, beepers, cell phones and tablets that might cause a disruption during the evening service. And I would acknowledge those individuals who help our services to run smoothly, but we actually didn't have many volunteers this evening, so the people that you saw were staff and other people that just pitched in to help at the last minute. That's kind of what happens at the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. So please note that there is a red florist insert tucked into your order of service, and in that insert you will find upcoming events described that are taking place at the Society and information about other activities that may be taking place today, of which I do not believe there are any. And we do not have any other special announcements for your edification this evening, so once again welcome. We hope that the evening service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart and stir your spirit. Poetry is the scripture of lived experience. The practice of daily human upkeep is what connects us to the world, to our bodies, to each other and to life as we were intended to live it. Those exempt from work have the room to wait agonizingly for God or something like it. Those who receive the grace of daily obligation know that the sublime is transactional, that you must live this life to love it. Let the scholars observe the living. There is a prophetic knowledge only available to the miners, the farmers, and dare I say it, the carpenters. Because God speaks most dramatically from the mountain or after the flood. But God speaks most often during the ordinary, routine, mundane, unspectacular work of being faithful to love. And I'm wondering if our worship associate would mind coming up to help me light the chalice today. And if all of you would please rise and say the words of the chalice lighting with us. The chalice is the fullness of life's experiences. As we light the chalice flame, let us explore the empire of the senses. Let us live into the work of the world. Let us be awed by the power of just our own hands. Let us celebrate, experience, and experiment. And maybe you can experiment with getting to know one another by exchanging friendly greetings at this time. So the story that we're going to read today, you could see us sitting here at our old scratched up homemade kitchen table. You would know that we're not rich. But my father is trying to tell me that we are. Doesn't he notice my worn out shoes or that my little brother has patches on the pants he wears to first grade? And why does he think that the old rattle trap truck is parked by our door? I say, you cannot fool me, we're poor. Would rich people sit at a table like this? My mother sort of passed the table and says, we're rich and we sit here every day. Sometimes I think I am the only sensible person in my whole family. I should mention that my parents made this table out of lumber that somebody else threw away. They even had a celebration when they finished it. Understand, I like this table. Fine, all I'm saying is you can tell it didn't come from a furniture store. It just doesn't look like a table where rich people would sit. Parents said they should both get better jobs so we could buy a lot of nice new things. I tell them I look worse than anyone in school. I hate to bring this up, I say, but it would help if you both had a little more ambition. Look surprised, you can see that they never think about all of the things that we need. Right here I might as well admit that my parents have some strange ideas about working. They think that the only jobs worth having are jobs outdoors. They want cliffs or canyons or deserts or mountains around them wherever they work and they must have a good view of the sky. As far as I can see, it's just an excuse to camp some beautiful and wild place. Planting sweet corn or alfalfa, they like to pick chili and squash and tomatoes and they'll put up strong fences or train wild young horses but they say they can't stand to be cooped up indoors. Now of course my dad is asking how many people are as lucky as we are but I've called this meeting here today to say I bet that you could make more money working in a building in town somewhere. Remember our number one rule my dad said, we have to see the sky. You could look through a window, I say, but they won't even think about it. Do you see what I mean about being the only sensible one? And finally my mother says, all right, mountain girl, we're going to explain to you how we figure our money. You be the bookkeeper tonight. And by the way, my name's not really mountain girl. They call me that because I was born in a cabin on the side of the mountain. They say it was the most magical place and most beautiful mountain ever that they've climbed and maybe it was, but you know how they like to exaggerate. Anyway, they wanted my first sight to be that mountain side so they held me up outdoors at sunrise when I was just about eight minutes old. The truth is, I still really do like sunrises a lot. No wonder I had to call this meeting about money though. Can you believe my father is sitting here looking me straight in the eye and saying, but mountain girl, I thought you knew how rich we were. I say, we can't get very far in this discussion if you won't even admit that we're poor. I'll prove it to you right now. He says, let me make a list of the money we earn in a year. How much is that? I ask, I'll write it down. But he says, well, not so fast. We have a lot of things to think about as we add them up. What kind of things? Mom says, we just don't take our pay in cash, you know. We have a special plan where we get paid in sunsets too and in having time to hike around canyons and look for eagle's nests. But I say, can you give me one single number to write down on this paper? So we start with $30,000. That's how much my father says it's worth to him to work outdoors where he can see the guy all day and feel the wind and smell the rain an hour before it actually starts raining. He says it's worth that much to be where if he feels like singing he can sing out loud and no one will mind. Then my father thinks of something else. When the cactus is bloom, you should be there to watch it because it might be a color you won't see again in any day of your life. How much would you say that's worth? $0.50, my brother asks. But they decide on another number, $10,000. So now I write $40,000. But I'd forgotten how much my father likes to make bird sounds. He can copy any bird sound, but he's best at white-winged doves and ravens and red-tailed hawks and quail. He's good at eagles too and great horned owls. So of course he asked to add another $10,000 for having both day birds and night birds around us. And I cross out what I had written. $50,000. Now my mother says, let's see how much our mountain girl is worth to us. I'm beginning to catch on to their kind of thinking, so I suggest I'm worth $10,000 even though my little brother laughs at this. Don't underestimate your father's said. Don't underestimate yourself, my father said. Remember all those good lists you make for us. And he's right, I do. I make lists of the best books each one of us has read and a list of all the ones we want to read again. I also made a list of all the animals each one of us has seen and the ones we still want to see out in the wild and not in a zoo. They end up deciding I'm worth about a million dollars. I don't think I am, but I write it down anyway. In fact it turns out every single one of us is worth a million dollars. So we have four million and fifty thousand dollars. And then I realize I want to add five thousand dollars for myself for the pleasure I have in wandering an open country alone, free as a lizard, not following the trails, not having a plan, just turning whatever way the wind takes me. And they say that's certainly worth five thousand dollars. So that makes four million and fifty five thousand dollars. And finally, my brother says to put down seven more dollars for all the nights we get to sleep outside under the stars. And we all say seven dollars doesn't really seem like enough so we talk him into making it five thousand. And now my paper says four million and sixty thousand dollars and we haven't even started counting actual cash. And to tell the truth, the cash part doesn't seem to matter anymore. And I suggest maybe that shouldn't be on a list of our riches. So the meeting is over. And the rest of them have gone outside to see the new silver of moon, the new sliver of moon. But I'm here sitting at our nice homemade kitchen table and I'm writing this book about us. Kind of pat the table and I'm glad that it's ours. In fact, I think the title of my book is going to be The Place Where the Rich People Sit. And this would normally be the time that you folks go off to your classes. But we're going to keep you here today which is going to be so much fun, I hope. So I actually need you guys to help me a little bit with this next hymn. We're actually going to sing our raffy song. And I bet you guys know more raffy than a lot of the adults in the congregation. So why don't you go back and join your parents so that you can help us sing? Does that sound good? Too much information about almost everything. There's such a blessed relief in the weight of wetting the wicker basket to creek as I carry it out to the clothesline. Every time I bend down to shake loose a piece of laundry, I smell the grass. I smell the sun. Above all, I smell clean laundry. This is something concrete that I have accomplished. A rarity in my brainy life of largely abstract accomplishments. Most of the laundry belongs to my husband Ed, who can go through more clothes in a week than most toddlers. Hanging his laundry on the line becomes a labor of love. I hang each t-shirt like a prayer flag, shaking it first to get the wrinkles out of it, and then pinning it to the line with two wooden clothespins. Even the clothespins give me pleasure. I add a prayer for the trees from which these clothespins came, along with for the Penley Corporation of West Paris, Maine, which is still willing to make them from wood, instead of colored plastic. Since I am a compulsive person, I go through some trouble to impose order on the lines of laundry. Handkerchiefs first, then jockey shorts, then t-shirts, then jeans. If I sang these clothes, the musical notes they made would lead me in a staccato downward scale. The socks go all in a row and end like exclamation points. All day long, I watch the breeze toss these clothes in the wind and I imagine my prayers spinning away over the tops of trees. This is good work, this prayer. This is good prayer, this work. So as digging in the garden and cleaning the chicken pens and washing potatoes and doing the dishes, I know there are people who would give anything to not do these things. I know that there are people who would give anything to do these things. People whose bodies have become too numb, too busy, too old or painful to do them. These are the practices that sustain life. Not only my life, but the lives entwined with mine and the lives of all living beings. When I haul water, I am in instant communication with all other haulers of water around the world. We may have little else in common, but we all know the deep pleasure of being water bearers. To deliver water for drinking, for cooking, for washing, for bathing, this is what muscles are meant to do. To watch a thirsty creature dip its head into the bucket and drink, I'm happy to sweat for this. A long time ago, in the land far away, I was a young piano student. I had a teacher named Flavio Varani. Flavio Varani came from far away from a country called Brazil. When Flavio Varani was a young piano student, he went to study in the land of France with a man named Francis Poulet. And Francis Poulet happens to be the gentleman who wrote the pieces of music I'm playing today. And the pieces of music I'm playing are from a set of pieces called sweet francets. And sweet simply means a set of pieces. In this case, there are seven of them, and I'm playing just four of them for you today. And the music, the melodies and the rhythms that Francis Poulet used for the sweet process are from French folk music, from the songs and dances that the farmers and the hunters and the gatherers made and wrote in France a long time ago. The first piece I'm playing is called a bronzel, or a boron. And a bronzel just happens to be the oldest dance that ever was. It's the very first dance that people ever danced as far as we know. You probably can't see it by the ancient picture here of people dancing the bronzel. And what they did, it's really a circle dance. They would hold their hands up high, and they would curl around like that. And then they'd move in a circle and keep doing that. That's called a bronzel. So I'm going to play another bronzel in just a moment or two. The bronzel I'm going to play next is called Bronzel de Champagne, which means it's the dance called the bronzel from that part of France called Champagne, which is also the part of France where we get a delightful grave we call Champagne. And circle dances don't have to be fast at the first moment. Circle dances can also be slow. Let's see if this circle dance I'll play now makes you feel like dancing. The time that's filled with quite a lot of stress, filled with lights and songs and snow and family and food and shopping. And for some of us, sometimes the holidays can even be a sorrowful time because they're filled with so much silence that reminds us that we don't have enough lights and snow and family and food and shopping. So maybe you came here today because you know a secret that at times, at times in life when you can feel joy and stress and sorrow all at the same time, those are the times that you really need to come to church. Those are the times that you really need to find the place that fills up your soul. When I was younger I thought that I might cheat in doing this a little bit. I thought that I would get a job that filled up my soul on a daily basis. So I went to go work for a nonprofit whose mission I really believed in thinking that I could do soul work and regular work all at the same time. But it turned out that most of my days were filled with spreadsheets and money because I was the development person there and not really with programs and people. So I needed another place to fill up my soul. So I dedicated myself. I said I'm going to go to church every single week. And for a while I did. I did go to church every week and it did fill up my soul and I was so grateful for it that I decided that I needed to give something back to the church. I joined the board of trustees and the worship committee and the canvas team and the lay ministry team and I also joined the team that was going to help find the new minister. And pretty soon church kind of started to feel like work. There was that one hour that filled up my soul and then I was dragged into logistics and meetings. So I thought okay what is something else that can fill up my soul because the rest of it is starting to feel like work to me. So I found this program. I found an after school program that taught kids in the poor city music and arts and theater things that their schools couldn't afford to teach them in a classroom. And I made it work by getting to work very, very early in the morning and then getting off at three and going to this after school program where I could teach music and theater to these kids. And I thought I love music and theater. This fills up my soul and I love children. They fill up my soul. So it will just be a soul-filling experience between the work of work and the work of church. And then I got there and these kids they were brilliant and beautiful but their stories were rough. And every day my soul got filled up but not in a way that was replenishing and rejuvenating. So every week I would get up early in the morning and go to work. And then I would go to this after school program and then most evenings and weekends I would spend at church. And then I had Sunday night. I had this one time that was just for me when I didn't have to do any work. And I thought I'm going to find something to do to fill up my soul. I'm going to find a place where I can be utterly and totally useless. And so every Sunday evening I would ride my bike across the city and I would go to the Detroit Zen Center. I would take off my winter jacket and my anxiety and hang it on a peg outside one of the most peaceful, lovely rooms I've ever seen. This room was laden with cushions and a person wearing impossibly comfortable looking clothing would ring a chime. And all I would have to do was sit and be quiet for 45 glorious minutes. I would hear nothing but the sound of the trickling waterfall below the Buddha statue. And Buddha would sit there with me looking serene and jolly and I would try to mimic him. And this is where I found the thing that filled up my soul in the midst of all the work. And I would go back every Sunday. I would go back because it did fill me up so much. I would come in like a tornado carrying all of the weight of the world on me until I saw that peg where I was going to hang my anxiety. And one day, as I was making a beeline for that peg, Myeongju came up to me. Myeongju was a monk there. She was whatever level of monk you are when you've attained an inner peace that fills you up so much. It literally oozes out of your skin. That's the kind of monk Myeongju was. And she said to me in the most soothing voice, Julie, wonder about your practice when you're not here. And I said, you have to practice sitting and being quiet for 45 minutes? And she said, you have to practice sitting when you're not sitting. There's something I skipped over in describing this experience before the person in the impossibly comfortable looking clothing would ring the chime. They would talk for 15 minutes about lessons in Buddhism. And they would mainly center on two subjects that can be found throughout most teachings of Buddhism. Mindfulness and detachment. Mindfulness being the experience of being where you are, when you are. Of noticing all of the things that are going on around you. And detachment being of not getting too involved with interacting with those things and how they affect you. With not getting too involved with your own emotions and experiences. And I have a confession to make to all of you here today. The thing is, I'm a really terrible Buddhist. I really am just a terrible Buddhist. I love the idea of mindfulness. I love the idea of being in your experience here and now. But detachment is kind of where you lose me. Myeongju thought that I should pay as careful attention to every room that I walked in as I did to that room in the Zen Center with the statues and the cushions and the people in the impossibly comfortable clothing. Some rooms would be serene and jolly. And some rooms would be fraught and stressful. But it didn't matter, she said. Because I shouldn't be too attached to my experience of the room. I should experience it and let it go. The thing is, I have the ability to experience joy and stress and sometimes sadness. And I want to be attached to that. I want to deeply believe in and care about the mission of that nonprofit. I really want to care about the outcome of the stories of the children I taught. I want to be overwrought with how much my church means to me. And I want to be attached to the 45 minutes that I get every week to recover from caring so much. Being able to experience joy and stress and sometimes sadness, that is deeply part of being a human being. It's the covenant we make with existence in order to be alive. I want to feel joy and stress and even sometimes sadness. Because it seems like Myeongju's lessons were that I should detach from the experience of being in a body. And the only thing that I know, theologically or philosophically, despite my myriad of beliefs, the only thing that I know is that I get to be here now in this life. On this planet, in this body, and I want to experience all of it, I want every human experience. No matter what combination of bitter and sweet, I want every human connection. No matter what combination of broken and whole, I want to experience the grace of daily obligation. Because our chores remind us how to be in the world. I want all of my days to be full from sun up to sun down. And when these bones grow old and tired, I want them to feel as if they have earned it. And sometimes that's difficult. Sometimes that's difficult because sometimes I don't want to do the laundry. And sometimes I don't want to do the dishes. And sometimes I don't want to write my newsletter article. And I'm wondering if especially the kids would be able to help us with a little exercise right now. Is there anyone here that actually likes raking the leaves? Is there anyone here you guys like raking the leaves? Alright, let's do this. Stand up if you like raking the leaves. Would you guys be willing to say what you like about raking the leaves? Do you want to use the microphone? What I like about raking the leaves is that it's helping my community clear off their yards and there's no reason why you shouldn't like raking the leaves. Alright. Okay, so who likes helping their community? Stand up if you like helping your community. That's a whole lot more people than like raking the leaves, right? Okay, alright, alright, sit down. Who likes doing their homework? You like doing your homework? You do? Why do you like doing your homework? Because you're good at math, yeah, and you like doing things that you're good at? Who likes doing things that they're good at? Stand up if you like doing things that you're good at. Very cool, very cool. Who likes... Alright, sit down, sit down. They're little brothers and sisters or they're children or they're grandchildren. Over here, do you want to tell me why you like doing that? For indulging, peers and philosophers talk about the grace of daily obligation, of learning to be in the world. A lot of people around this time have this practice, it's a gratitude practice where they say, I'm thankful for the dishes because it means I had food to eat. I'm thankful for cleaning my house because it means that I had a place to live. I am thankful for my homework because it means that I get a good education. And I was in the ministers meeting this week and I was playing with this idea with Michael and Kelly. And Kelly said, you know my dad used to say that to us when we were little kids and it was really annoying. It is, right? Telling people, again I'm not a very good Buddhist, telling people that they should have a certain experience with their emotions. So this service could be all about a gratitude practice that you can have, that you can do to attain some sort of peace or some sort of going about your daily work with grace. What if instead of a gratitude practice or a mindfulness practice, what if we had a practice of mindful, what if we thought about raking the leaves? What if we thought about raking the leaves and we recognized and we noticed that it was sort of cold outside and that it made our back hurt and that we would much rather be watching the new episode of whatever had just been released on Netflix and that we were helping our community, that we were outside in the beautiful fall colors. What if we could notice all of these things and be annoyed and grateful all at the same time? I'll leave you with the words of one of my favorite childhood philosophers. Piglet went to go see Winnie the Pooh one day and he said, Piglet, or he said, Pooh, what's the first thing you think about when you get up in the morning? And Pooh said, breakfast. And Piglet said, oh, but Pooh, don't you think about all of the things that you can do that day? All of the things that could happen to you, the things that you could experience? And Pooh said, yes, it's the same thing. And to that I say, amen. And part of living in a human body is that we must eat. And for those of us who have hunger, we are collecting our offertory for the St. Vincent food pantry. We give generously. Our offertory will now be taken. A famous musician who I don't remember who once said that music either dances or sings. The first two pieces of that favorite dance is now the last two pieces that play are songs. Sicilian is a French song that uses the rhythms of the island of Sicily, the Italian island of Sicily. The French simply call it Sicilian. And it's a sad song. In fact, the music, there's a big word for sad in melancholia that's in the music as I'm playing it. The last song I'm playing is called Carillon. And the carillon is the world's largest instrument. In fact, there's a carillon right here in Madison. Carillons live in towers. They're big towers filled with bells of all sizes. Little bells and big bells. And this piece called Carillon, the composer of Poulenc, is trying to make bell sounds with the piano. And at the end, let's see if you can tell when I'm making the bell sounds. Maybe I'll look up and see. Who are not parlor generals and field deserters, but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire must be put out. The work of the world is as common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. But a thing worth doing done well has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. Hopi vases that held the corn are put in museums, but you know that they were made to be used. The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real. May you go out and do real work. Blessed be an Amen.