 The work was smooth. But I knew it was a little more important to me. And maybe it was all simple, since you can't see the skyline so high as well. Or just someone from the school. It was a high level. But it was a good deal. Then you tried, you tried. You didn't get it right. No, I didn't. I didn't get it right. Maybe it was a little too high, that's for me. Can I see the hours? That's because there are two reeds. All the machines. It seems to be basically for... No, I'm not. I don't know where they are. Oh, a little bit. Even the software. The computer only. And where are we? I don't know. It's a bit of a support. I don't know how to say it. Where are we at? We're at the end of the world. We're at the end of the world. We're at the end of the world. We are the end of the world. We're at the end of the world. I'm listening. I joined like 30 years ago. And we did that every where our face starts. After the video. But once we got back, it's very straight forward. So, yeah. It's a nicer video than I thought. That's a good message, yeah, that's good, that's good there as well, it's a collaboration with a lot of people. It's a very nice, you know, nice, nice area. And that may be the bigger result of your project. That's because it's a state-of-the-art project. I think it looks all the best on Saturday. Yeah. Oh, fantastic. We need Saturday people. Please join, please join, please join in a moment of centering silence so we can be present this morning. And now let's get musically present with each other by turning to the words for our in-gathering hymn, number 1011, which you will find inside your order of service. Now we return to another 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. Good morning, everybody. I'm Steve Goldberg, a proud, handsome member of this congregation. And I'd like to extend a special welcome to all guests, visitors, and newcomers. If this is your first time at First Unitarian Society, I know that you'll find it's a special place. And speaking of how special this place is and how special this morning service is, we ask that you take a moment right now to silence those pesky electronic devices that might interfere with your ability to enjoy the service, and you need to enjoy and hear the service in order to pass the pop quiz that occurs afterwards. So thank you for doing that. If you're accompanied this morning by a youngster, and that youngster is worried that you might get fidgety during the service, that youngster can take you to the child haven in the back corner or to some very comfortable seats outside the doors in our commons from which you and your youngster can enjoy the service. And as is the case every weekend, our service is brought to us by a wonderful team of volunteers. These are people who are providing great support for the service and they have earned the right to have their names mentioned from the microphone here. So please take a moment and thank the following people. Shake their hand, give them a hug. Mow their lawn, wash their car. Handling the sound system today is Maureen Friend. Greeting us with her smiley face was Karen Hill. And speaking of smiley faces, Ann Smiley is our lay minister. Hush is our Wally Brinkman, John Webster, Ron Cook and Douglas Hill. Our coffee and hospitality provided by the world famous food haulers. You'll hear more about them in a moment. And Nancy and John Webster have made sure that the foliage you see up front is properly watered and some of that foliage, namely the flowers, donated very generously by Sam Bates and Elizabeth Barrett today. Just two brief announcements before we get on with our service. One is that following this service will be our parish meeting to talk about the future and the growth of First Unitarian Society. And the food is provided by the world famous food hauler Comfort Food Emporium. And you'll enjoy that. And then the last announcement, 189 days until Cabaret. So please sit back, lean forward and enjoy today's service. I know that it will touch your heart, stir your spirit and trigger one or two new thoughts. We're glad you're here. A fragile bubble in the very hands of God. And I think this is how we are called. To cup our hands and hold this peace even when the sirens begin and even when the sorrows cry out old and gnarled and even when words grow fangs and rend. Cup hands, gently open, supporting peace, like the golden hollow of a singing bowl, like the towering rims of the mountains cradling this slumbering and mist-draped valley. Good morning. I invite you guys as we light our chalice this morning. Things exchanged. He was red, but he wasn't very good. His mother said, oh, dear, his teacher thought, I'll draw a red strawberry and then you draw a red strawberry. We can do this. He couldn't realize it was a blue strawberry. His mother thought that he needed to mix with the other colors. Why don't you two go out and draw a nice orange sun, she said, and yellow said a really big one and red said a really orange one. They made was a really big sort of greenish one. His grandparents thought he wasn't warm enough. Your class is making self-portraits for the parents' night where this warm red scarf, it looks so nice on you. But it really, I don't think he's very bright. Well, you together, it said this. But even with his hard work one day, met a new friend. That was easy. I was talking about it. All of his work makes me mean. All of the colors are great. And we're going to sing you out to your classes, okay? Universalist Friedrichs. Living in 21st century America, most of us are born with lives of comfort and relatively when I grow up. Just if family or finances remain living a life that is not our own. Until his book, Let Your Life Speak, Warts and All. Parker Palmer puts it this way. I know myself to be a person of strength, light, and giftedness, darkness and light, and claim our wholeness. When we do the hard work of discovering our own darker Palmer writes, makes life more demanding. Because once you must live, Mary Sarton is a teller of this fact. Mary felt her own weight and density, as she said. To be who we are is to offer to the world the greatest gift that we can give. That our sacred in the true forces of the world, our collective wholeness, will, by definition, heal the world. I was an actress living in Chicago, and I didn't think there was anything better that I could possibly do with my life. Until we're not enough to put between he and I, and I needed to get out. So I called my best friend, who was at the time living in rural Southern Mississippi, or Vivian. I could go to the beach, beautiful beach, and these beautiful beachfront homes, and I thought, why is there any rehab work that needs to be done here? And then we turned off of the road where people could afford beachfront property. And I saw homes that had tarps, water, and this was two years after my friend's mom was living in a volunteer camp. When I went out there, I saw my friend Adam, who was a construction company to move volunteers for the work that we had, and who we get, when we went, and none of them can drive. I believe the work is worthwhile. I know that you have a license. And I thought, Megan, and then Adam told me that they were building this particular house on a tiny home schedule because there was a woman who was living in a FEMA, so I got the job, but there was something else to do until I found it. I guess my soul really likes beautiful homes pulled from someone's garden and the church. Oh, hallelujah, the church. There was gospel music in the air and God in the water, and it almost didn't matter that I didn't agree with anything that I heard theologically because there was something in Chicago, a couple of years ago, I was living and I called my job and I quit. And I knew that whenever I did go back to Chicago, I was as unemployed, and it made absolutely no sense that it was not logically feasible to have a space to sleep and still being a dramatic and overly, at the top of my lungs, I'd go out and dance parties to the beach at sunrise one morning. I was learning so much about the people who were happy and joyous and loving even though they only had each other to rely on. I just started making promises to God about what I was going to do with God to stand on anything and more than 30 feet off the ground unless they are hooked into something that is 10 feet off the side of the house and sort of leverage it over right into the foundation of the house and put the markers on, particularly and then there's two stories and you want me to stand on a 2x4 on top of that and then he reminded me about the pregnant lady. It took me three eternities, three eternities to get up on that 2x4, one to actually find the ladder and then I had to transfer myself from the ladder by then so as soon as I saw the acts of faith I woke up and I raised my hands possibly too large to catch or hold this year, a release. Watching this community work together to do everything they could to support one another and I knew that I had to go to seminary. I kept struggling with this word minister and what that meant that I didn't feel particularly called by God. Some people maybe had more of this beloved community thing about this beloved community thing. I felt truly and deeply called. And when I went and started talking to everyone about things felt connected to me the initial spark of life. God, biological ideas and all of these other things that happen connected back into the first thing but then they also affect everything that comes after them and that sounds like a lot of pressure but it also sounds like a whole lot of agency. I learned about me that okay for me to do this only you needs your ministry. The world needs your ministry because you are the only one who can do that specific and particular ministry without you. The spectrum of humanity is incomplete. And maybe your ministry and maybe your ministry is taking a different direction and maybe your ministry is being an office administrator and maybe maybe you don't know what your ministry is or maybe maybe you have a ministry here I'm talking about ministry with you. If you are having doubts or fears or questions especially about what I want you to come talk to me or talk to someone because finding what deeply calls you and following it is one of the most important things that human beings can do. I don't have perfect knowledge about this but I can give you the one thing that I have seen work and over and over if you are calling the call of the spirit and you don't know what to do put your hands ready to catch some possibly Lord and then surrender. Part of our religious calling is to give to those who are in need and 100% of today's offering is going to go to the First List Service Committee which is an emergency fund to help Syrian refugees be able to be taken. Using him today Dan was the Director of Service and I think we'll get it as we just