 Welcome to the First Unitarian Society of Madison. This is a community where curious and compassionate seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical, social issues in an accepting and nurturing environment. Unitarian universalism calls us to work toward equity, love, and justice in our congregations and in the world. My name is Elizabeth Barrett. On behalf of the congregation, I would like to extend a special welcome to visitors. We are a welcoming congregation, so whoever you are and wherever you are on your life's journey, we celebrate your presence among us. This would be a good time to silence our cell phones, because now I invite you to join me in a few moments of silence for contemplation, meditation, prayer as we settle in and come fully into this time and place together. Please rise in body or spirit for our in-gathering hymn, number 295. Good morning. Happy New Year. Sing out praises for the journey, pilgrims we who carry on. Searchers in the soul's deep yearnings like our forebears in their time. We seek out the spirit's wholeness in the handless human quest. Look inside your souls, the kindling of the hot fire pill. Find the spirit always restless. Find it in each mind and heart. Touch and hold that ancient yearning, kindling for facing futures yet on dust. Wayside hostel built by those who carry. Remaining standing as we invoke the words of colleague, Linda Susan Ulrich. Open the doors. Push on looming wooden arches embroidered with iron work. Brace shoulders against the weight of history unmoved. Slough off the musty smells of unused joy and stored up sorrow. Knock rust off of the hinges if you have to and let your breath proceed you inside. Open the doors more. Make room for a shaft of sunlight to cross the threshold. Give the dustmote something to dance about. Peek through a single slice of possibility and name even the half-hidden truths you see. Open the doors wider still. Pour yourself through the gap. Strut or sneak or sidle as suits you best. Cleanse whatever scrapes, catches skin and bind up the wounds that keep you from entering hole. Open the doors as far as they will go. Draw on the strength of the stones beneath you. Ground yourself in a firm sense of who you are. Stand as a beacon welcoming the next seeker and shine far beyond the lintel and sill. As we spark our flame we continue with Reverend Ulrich's words printed in your order service as together we say may we be open to all that we are. Heighten and deepen our connections to the world around us. Broaden our definition of neighbor. Grow into the largest target for grace that we can muster and pray to become a gateway for even greater love and compassion. Open the doors indeed my friends I invite you to turn towards each other and offer a warm greeting. Today we continue our worship service with one of the most meaningful times in a congregation's life the rite of dedication. This is a time in which we who are gathered here are privileged to welcome a child into our family and religious community. Today it is our cherished assignment to welcome and pledge our care to Reese Paul Sheeter. Today all of us are gathered here who are gathered here are more than just casual witnesses to life's gifts and nature's marvelous creations. We are all being invited to share the joy with which these parents take in their child and to enter more fully into their lives. I believe in my heart that I speak for us all when I say that we are grateful for this privilege. We continue with this time honored ritual because children are our present delight. By them we are reminded of life's small joys and wisdoms. Antoine de Saint-Exploree writes in a house which becomes a home one hands down and takes up the heritage of mind and heart laughter and tears musing and deeds love like a carefully loaded ship crosses the gulf between generations and so we come here today with our ship carefully loaded with gifts that Reese truly needs. Ears to listen, arms to embrace a world of experience to encourage his inquiring mind. We are blessed by his presence among us and pray that our lives will be a blessing to him. I would like to invite Reese and parents to come join us up here on the chancel. And if you all will rise in all the ways that we do to join together in our congregational pledge which is on the insert in your order of service. For the gift of childhood whose innocence laughter and curiosity bring hope joy and new understanding into our lives we lift thankful hearts. We welcome Reese into this spiritual community and extend to his parents our love and support in the joys and challenges of caregiving. As this child grows we will share with him our insights our values and our dreams that he may enjoy the rich benefits of our religious heritage. And if the adults will be seated but all the kids stay standing today we welcome Reese into our first Unitarian family soon he will be part of our classes here and will be growing and playing and learning with you. I ask you to join us in welcoming him will you try to be true friends to Reese will you speak to him with kindness treat him fairly and help him to feel at home here if so please say we will. Thank you please be seated. And to those who stand with their child before us Erin and Scott as caregivers it is your privilege and obligation to provide an environment both of security and challenge in which this young soul will grow and which brings you before us today you commit yourself to promote physical emotional and spiritual well-being will you respect as well as protect this child and bestow your love as a free and unmerited gift if so say we do. There are several here with us today who are here to celebrate Reese will you please stand as your names are read first of all we have big sister Ellie hi we have Rita Paul Lauren and Zach Schultz Sarah Sheeter and Brian and Kaye Sheeter to all of you I now ask do you take upon yourselves the privilege and responsibility to nurture defend and support the inherent worth and dignity of this child to whom you bear a special relationship will you encourage him to grow in freedom and spirit and to always seek the truth finally will you help him to grow in love for the larger human family to love and respect the larger community of life to which we all belong if so please make this sacred promise by responding we will thank you please be seated in the act of dedication we use the symbolism of water as a sign of our common heritage there's no suggestion here of a washing away of inherited sin this child came into the world with the limitations natural to our species but he arrived innocent water here stands for vitality it is the essence of life the foundation of being its use here reminds us of our common bond with all embracing ever sustaining nature it's also the water of community the waters of our world gathered at our annual water communion service this water was an offering of the earth brought to us in joy for the sake of memory and community its use here reminds us of the ever sustaining and the all embracing love of community Erin and Scott name this child Reese Paul Sheeter we dedicate you in the name of truth the promise of love and the fellowship of this society may you be granted clarity of thought integrity of speech and a compassionate heart just don't just don't try and hold me lady we have other gifts that we wish to offer to you as a token of his dedication we give to Reese a rosebud fragrant symbol of beauty promise and love this rose has no thorns symbolizing the better world we would give our children if it were in our power we know that the world is not altogether as lovely as this rosebud but we hope that Reese will learn to recognize the beauty and goodness which does exist and that he will grow in wisdom and compassion adding his own beauty to the world Reese as this flower unfolds in all its natural beauty so may your life unfold and secondly we have as a remembrance of this dedication a blanket a gift from the member of our members of our shawl ministry program when you see this blanket may you be reminded of the warmth and the support and love of this community for your child and your family you may be seated and so today as we dedicate this child may we all dedicate ourselves as well as we contemplate the miracle of new life as we renew our hearts in a sense of wonder and joy may we be stirred by a fresh awareness of the sacredness of life and the divine promise of every child may we pledge to build a community in which all of our children may grow surrounded by beauty embraced by love and cradled in the arms of peace may we pass on the light of compassion and courage and may that light burn brightly within us all i invite us to rise in all the ways that we do and sing our children and religious educators out with number 338 i seek the spirit of a child i seek the spirit of a child the child who meets life naturally the child who sings the world alive and greets the morning sun with glee children are real beyond all choice a gift to our heart i seek the freedom of a child a child who loves instinctively hates our day with just a smile and shines that light on all hopes a gift to our tea i seek the one child a child now clowns in cloud now golden sun imaginations true and please be seated our first reading today from john odonahue in out of the way places of the heart where your thoughts never think to wander this beginning has been quietly forming waiting until you were ready to emerge for a long time it has watched your desire feeling the emptiness growing inside you noticing how you willed yourself on still unable to leave what you had outgrown it watched you play with the seduction of safety and the gray promises that sameness whispered heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent wondered would you always live like this then the delight when your courage kindled and out you stepped onto new ground your eyes young again with energy and dream a path of plenitude opening before you though your destination is not yet clear you can trust the promise of this opening unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning that is at one with your life's desire awaken your spirit to adventure hold nothing back learn to find ease in risk soon you will be home in a new rhythm for your soul senses the world that awaits you this month as we enter into a new year we enter into a new theme the theme of possibility today and in the coming weeks we will be exploring the question of what does it mean to be a people of possibility where does possibility live within our lives and here within our congregation what do you think of when you hear possibility do you think of something new and exciting to say yes to or maybe the beauty of a new day the road less traveled that can bring new adventures a stranger who may become a dear friend hands open in welcome where is possibility for you possibility is central to our faith to who we are as unitarian universalists today and also who we have been historically when others were preaching the depravity of human nature our ancestors were focusing on humanity's inherent goodness and worth this theological distinction is what drew me to unitarian universalism during my years as a seminarian at the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary one of our first classes was church history and theology and each day we learned a little bit more about the Presbyterian church at this time I was there as a Presbyterian student thinking that this faith of my husband's family would be not only my faith but the denomination and community in which my future career and ministry would be based during the early days of that class our professor taught us what is lovingly known as Kelvin's round a three-part round based on the theology of their founder John Kelvin the round begins with one section singing turpitude moral turpitude to then be joined in here with section two singing depravity depravity and then finally our section three blending in beautifully with inherent baseness inherent baseness now I won't ask you to actually sing that this morning it is a thing of beauty and a joy to behold early in the morning this round pointed out the key message in Kelvin's theology humans are he believed at their core wicked depraved vile and corrupt this was deeply concerning for me someone who was considering devoting their life to spreading this message which at my core I knew I could never authentically do this message did not fill me with a sense of possibility but rather filled me with dread it felt constricting suffocating spiritually exhausting as if humanity had been tried and found deeply wanting what I began to search for was an expanded view that let in more light more possibility for possibility is the oxygen upon which hope thrives yes life can be cruel and people can be terribly brutal but at my core I believed that they are good with a worth and dignity to respect to call upon to be put into service for the greater good Michelangelo is often quoted as having said that inside every block of stone or marble dwells a beautiful statue one need only remove the excess material to reveal the work of art within it's a wonderful image for our theology our work in this world is to remove the extraneous debris that keeps us from living fully into our potential into everything that is possible what would that look like do you think to live and dwell in possibility what would it look like in your life if you woke in the morning and went through your day believing that all things are possible while on retreat at a monastery a few years ago I noticed a beautiful painting hanging on the wall with the words faith makes all things possible in large letters at the top at first glance I thought yep I've seen that one before but then I noticed smaller writing beneath what it said was faith makes all things possible it doesn't make them easy our faith in human goodness in the potential that lies within each of us helps us to believe that all things are possible that the heaven on earth we seek is possible that our hope doesn't lie only within and afterlife that heaven is possible now in our lives and our homes and our workplaces and our congregation it doesn't mean it will be easy being a people of possibility means we also need to be a people of courage willing to face our fears open to new ideas willing to make mistakes face our imperfections not as a sign of any depravity but as a sign that learning is happening being comfortable with making mistakes is a difficult one it is one of those layers of extraneous debris that Michelangelo mentioned it is our desire for perfection that if we can't get it right can't solve the problem on the first try can't be completely assured that this idea will work then maybe we won't even try maybe we can't see things in a different way so can we become comfortable with being uncomfortable because it is in those places those deeply uncomfortable places where we can discover possibility and where we can be transformed when he retired from the supreme court justice Thurgood Marshall was asked what accomplishment was he most proud of and he answered simply that I did the best I could with what I had could there be any greater acknowledgement he saw the best in what he did in a way that allowed him to also speak of errors of judgment of things he may have done differently so this month as we continue to delve deeper into the theme of possibility I challenge each of us to stand in the great space of possibility in a posture of openness with an unfettered imagination for what could be willing to take new risks embracing our imperfections and when we make a mistake to say how terrific because then we have the chance to learn something new and begin again what would it look like to live and dwell in possibility this month I'm going to make it a practice to ask myself that question and a few others and I invite you to join me when I notice tightness or constriction within myself when I am faced with a new idea I'm going to ask what assumptions am I making that I am not aware of what am I afraid of in this moment and when I have an answer to those questions I'm going to ask what can I now discover that I haven't yet discovered that could give me other choices what can you now discover that you haven't yet discovered though your destination is not yet clear you can trust the promise of this opening unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning that is at one with your life's desire awaken your spirit to adventure hold nothing back learn to find ease in risk soon you will be home in a new rhythm for your soul senses the world that awaits you the second reading is a poem by kaelin pot entitled god says yes to me I ask god if it was okay to be melodramatic and she said yes I asked her if it was okay to be short and she said it sure is I asked her if I could wear nail polish or not wear nail polish and she said honey she calls me that sometimes she said you can do exactly whatever you want to you want to thanks god I said is it even okay if I don't paragraph my letters sweet cakes god said who knows where she picked that one up what I'm telling you is yes yes yes so often in life powerful moments happen and it really is only much later that we realize just exactly what that deeper meaning is all about and maybe it is the case that all through life there are all these moments that really change us and open up possibility but it takes quite a while before the real depth of what happened there comes to us and so it is an interesting parallel with reverend kelly that I found myself thinking about a moment where I was really at an important crossroad of possibility and it was also in graduate school as I was studying theology and at the time I saw it not as I would eventually come to see it eventually I would understand that in this moment I stepped into a stream of providence and open possibility in my life but at that moment it honestly felt like another cruel joke of the universe was being played on me that I had just stepped out of one closet and directly into another one in theological school I mean I had struggled for years in deciding to be open about my sexual orientation as I went into the ministry and join with people who were out on the front lines in a time when there were no guarantees what would happen except for difficulty only to find myself in yet another closet because over the years as I explored my own spirituality I found so many pathways that were deeply meaningful to me I was fed deeply by Buddhism I found Jewish mysticism to be a place that really helped me see the world in a different way so much of my life experiences didn't fit into neat boxes or into clear ways of understanding that seemed to be easily accepted and so I found myself thinking all of these experiences had been deeply meaningful to me I wanted to be able to minister with that same sort of openness to let people come to me as they are and not to have some secret answer in my back pocket that I always had to pull out like doesn't this work for you doesn't it come on but and so on an afternoon when I found myself sitting at a table with my peers and one of my professors I had prepared my paper on my theology of ministry and I tried my best to be very honest in that paper but also to oh so carefully nuance the words and leave open a sort of poetic possibility for people to project and interpret the way they wanted to in those words hoping that even though this group was not a gatekeeper they were just there to reflect back whether there was clarity and cogency in my paper I knew that the gatekeepers were coming and I wasn't sure I would fare so well with them now the thing is the reason that was a moment of providence and grace and possibility is that while I had played a sort of theological word game with the process and instead of really grappling with the past and the history of the tradition that I had come from and letting that wrestling really helped me understand myself more deeply instead of more honestly telling what it is I wanted to do with my calling and what I wished to offer to the world as a gift for me that was heartfelt I had been afraid that the gift would not be received well that I would place it in front of the world and really again and again I would be offered that opportunity week after week and the thing is because that panel of people had come to know and love me and because I had come to know and love them they would have none of it and read underneath what I said and said to me Doug your paper is in many ways a beautiful and clear paper although we know that there is more to you than what you have written and we don't see how you have a chance in hell in any Christian church we know of what a wonderful gift of love that was truly can you imagine all the years of frustration for us all if in that moment they had not spoken that truth so often in our lives in order to really enter into possibility we have to do some really hard truth telling with ourselves we have to sink into the depth of who we really are now and what is deeply true for us whether it's comfortable or not we have to instead of leaving the past behind us or brushing the side we need to grapple with how the past is still alive and still doing its work in us and from that place and really only that place can we actually discover the possibilities that the world is offering us only from that place can we really engage what the world is asking of us and say a powerful yes the thing is often in our communities what we end up doing because we are so afraid of the power of the past and still so hurt and held by it because we are so cautious about offending each other in the present because we are so unwilling to be courageous in our hopes and dreams for the future we practice being little gods of no with each other instead of embracing the powerful God of yes that was so beautifully described in Kaylin's poem isn't that the sort of power and promise that we want to walk into together how often in our lives have we not embraced something that our deep liberal tradition has practiced for over a hundred years understanding that the basic faithful call is for us again and again to engage the world as it actually is not as we wish it were and in that reality to see what is possible and to ground ourselves again and again in the few powerful worthy things that we can give our lives to to find over and over again what is the important thing to do and when we refer to words like God we are not talking about some sort of deity that we bow to but an idea that there is a force in the world that helps us understand that all of life is deeply deeply rooted in mystery all of it has some powerful thing that transcends our individuality and what a gift that actually ultimately is and most importantly that that sort of ground of being holds us all in a powerful deep connection which is the grace in which we all swim again and again what if that is the place that we start that work of possibility what if in this month instead of being so afraid of what the world thinks of us to be so loving of the gift that we have to give the world no matter what for this month what does it mean to be a people of possibility how is it inviting you to say yes to life how is it inviting you to be part of that connected web of love and grace how is it asking you in your own way to change the world may that call us forward into this month in love and courage and life amen and blessed be so week after week in so many ways in our worship service we are called to think about what really matters and sometimes we don't even realize that that's actually what's going on often in the offering we think well really this is just about a chance for us to give some money to the church and yeah that is important without a doubt but what it really is about is an age old call to think about all that you are and all that you have been given and how you are in relationship with that incredible gift and to practice again and again what it means to be generous and this week in particular I remind us that part of our offering will go to healthy food for all there is more information about that program but it really supports sustainability and saves food that might otherwise go wasted and helps it get to people who desperately need it I hope we will find a way to be deeply generous in that spirit the offering will now be given and received in love we appreciate the many gifts of those who said yes to helping our service this morning so greeters upstairs were March Schweitzer and Mary Bergen and our ushers are Doug Hill Pamela McMullen and Ron Cook hospitality is being provided by Trudy Carlson and Jeannie Hills they're the ones making coffee it looks like Mark Schultz is on sound thank you and our lay minister is Lois Evenson now if any of you have been wanting to serve in any of these fabulous roles you're in luck because right in the news from the red floors there are boxes you can check to do this you can get trained in any of these and they're really fun now I have one other announcement oh first if you want to tour after you simply meet over here by the ramp you can tour our building and I received this important announcement this morning so next week January 12th on Saturday some white nationalists are planning what they call a we the people rally now we know that that's a misnomer what they're doing is a we straight white male bigots rally right so it's the 3% united patriots and the free men report who are going to get together at the state capital so the free men report is actually a Madison based group they organize against the rights of immigrants and women so a counter rally is being organized so we Unitarian Universalists want to figure out how we want to side with love and answer that as people of faith so after the service feel free to get your coffee or your tea and then come back in here and Tim Corden our social justice coordinator will help us figure out a response to this rally thank you very much we join together here each week a community who gathers with joys and sorrows written on our hearts in this place we love and our loved we give and we receive and return we come together to find strength and common purpose turning our minds and hearts toward one another this week we hold Janet Swanson in our hearts as she sits vigil with her mother who is passing from this life surrounded by the love of her family and we are sending Janet and her family our strength and our love we also hold all the joys and the sorrows that are too tender to share that are living in the fullness of our hearts may we remember that we are part of a web of life that makes us one with all humanity and one with all the universe may we be grateful for the miracle of life that we share and the hope that gives us the power to care remember and love and if you will rise in all the ways we do for our closing hymn in the teal hymnal number 1017 we are working to be free we are hate and greed and jealousy we all we can feed our every need we can we can feed start with love that is the seed we can feed our every need peace and freedom is our crime peace and freedom is our crime peace and freedom peace and freedom is our crime without these this world would die peace and freedom and now as we prepare to leave this place may we take with us a sense of what is possible in our lives may we take with us that inner strength may we know how deeply we are connected may we see yes to our life again and again we extinguish this chalice but not the light of that wisdom not the fire of our commitment to what matters in our lives not the warmth of love and community these remain until we gather in this place again before we head out into the day may we take another moment together and worship and receive the gift of music