 Please join the silence is not supposed to apply to the microphone Please join please join in a moment of centering silence so we can all be present this morning And now for a moment of musical intimacy Please turn to the words for our in-gathering hymn, which we'll find inside your order of service Good morning. Hello and welcome to our first service of the winter season here at first Unitarian Society 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 member of this faith community and it is a particular pleasure to extend special welcome To any newcomers guests and visitors if this is your first time at first Unitarian Society We know that like many of us in this room. You will find that this is indeed a special place So if you would like to learn more about our special buildings We offer a guided tour after every service Simply gather over by the windows after the service and we will take care of you Speaking of the service, this would be a perfect time to silence all those pesky electronic devices that might interfere with your ability to enjoy the service And I will demonstrate how to perform this task There you go. Thank you very much and if you are accompanied this morning by a youngster at today's service and Your youngster would prefer to Experience the service from a more private location We offer a couple options for you and your youngster Including our child haven in the back corner of the auditorium and some wonderful bench seating out in the lobby Which we also call our commons in Unitarian vocabulary From which you can enjoy the service As is the case every weekend our service today is brought to us by a wonderful team of volunteers whose names you deserve to hear Operating the sound system so you can hear everything this morning Anya and Mike Linau. Thank you very much to them Thank you to our lay minister and smiley Our greeter who met you upstairs with a smiley face as you arrived Renee Rice and The all-important ushers to control this unruly crowd. We have four of them today Carrie Earhart Helen Dyer Han Wong Vivian Littlefield and Jackie. I'm sorry Jackie Annenbach is handling the all-important and much appreciated hospitality and coffee hour following the service and Our pulpit palms palms have been lovingly watered by Nancy Webster three announcements for you before we begin the rest of the service and All of these announcements speak very directly to the essence of and the examples of the things we believe in here at First Unitarian Society First the children's religious education program Seeks a volunteer to serve as an inclusion buddy for a 13 year old girl who is on the autism spectrum This volunteer would assist this young lady No more than two Saturdays per month in her classroom Helping her engage with the rest of the class as much as possible Our children's religious education program as many of you know is committed to doing all we can to make our classes Accessible to everyone. So if you'd like to be part of that inclusion effort as a buddy for this young lady Please contact Leslie Ross our director of children's religious education Second announcement is right after this service in this very room Staff members from the Salvation Army will talk about and answer your questions regarding their winter shelter program so winter is coming and Affordable housing and shelter a very important part of what we stand for here at First Unitarian Society your opportunity to learn more About that right after this service and the third announcement Some of you may have heard about the First Unitarian Society's micro loan fund. Well this loan fund organized by members of this society Has helped five local individuals launch their small business and Those five individuals are here today and during the coffee hour You'll have an opportunity to meet them and maybe even consider doing business with them or at least celebrating their achievement in Launching their own small business So if you're ready for the service so am I Please lean back or lean forward to enjoy this morning service. I know that it will touch your heart Stir your spirit and trigger at least one or two new thoughts Glad you're here here in the sanctuary of our dreams our wisdom and our beauty We come to grow and we come to be healed We come to stretch our minds and our hearts to be challenged and renewed We come to be supported in our ongoing quest for greater meaning and deeper love and to help build a world with more Justice and more mercy in it In the face of so much cynicism and brutality around us and sometimes even within us We seek to align ourselves with a living community of faith that would affirm life rather than deny it And that would rather think and act than remain passive and inert Here we invite the spirit of our own humanity to be present with us and among us to give us the nerve and the grace the Toughness and the sensitivity to enable us to serve without fear the cause of justice and to grow with hope and conviction into our full and glorious humanity I Invite you to rise in body or in spirit as we light our chalice Our affirmation is responsive in nature and if you will join your voices in reading the bolded sections This spiritual community is not a fortress of truth or an impregnable bastion of faith It is where the strands of our convictions our hopes and our courage Form a cable strong enough to bear us across the valleys of pain grief and disillusionment That is why we come to this special place harboring old doubts Hungering for new insight and those of you who are on this journey. I invite you to turn to your neighbor in exchange with Emma warm greeting Please be seated and so on this beautiful and yet bracing and breezy October morning With the trees beginning to flaunt their autumn finery and the squirrels madly laying away their winter supplies of nuts and seeds on this fine morning We pause to acknowledge the presence among us of a young soul World just recently at this time of seasonal transition We join this child's parents in welcoming him into our lives and into this our spiritual home And we offer this family our friendship and our support in the opportunities and the challenges that lay ahead We trust that the commitment to and love for each other is strong in the Fogarty family And we hope that this youngster will be blessed with a secure home Dependable caregivers that he may enjoy the freedom to develop his own personality and to shape his own unique destiny Unitarian universalism this tradition holds that every person comes into the world fresh and Unsullied possessing inherent worth and dignity and so this morning we would acknowledge that this child Maxwell Emmett Is a bona fide human being with his own special gifts and with needs and feelings that matter just as much as any of ours And although he has yet to fully unfold Max is already a vital active participant in his family's home life a full partner in the work and play of living and A true heir to all of our dreams and values Now dedication does not make max a full-fledged member of first Unitarian society because that is a choice He must make for himself when he achieves the age of reason But this ritual today does affirm his special place in our hearts and it affords him we hope the special kind of emotions emotional security and Spiritual opportunity that a progressive faith community can provide And we are glad that moved by a sense of the blessings of their own parenthood and trust in this community Tricia and Sean have chosen to express their values and their liberal faith through this celebration And yet ultimately it is not just the parents but friends parishioners relatives neighbors who are responsible for the teaching and the Nurture of our children and by presenting him to us today His parents acknowledge that this child max is more than a purely private treasure He's a young soul in whom we all have a stake and for whom we all wish the best So on this day of great promise we not only dedicate this lovely and gifted youngster We dedicate ourselves to him and to his interests and welfare And now I'd like to invite the Fogarties to come forward And if you will now look in your order of service for the insert that contains the congregational pledge and Please note that on your insert the name is Sebastian and that is the wrong name. It is actually Maxwell So if you will read Maxwell instead of Sebastian Please join me 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 Maxwell 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 All of the children here today, please stand Maxwell is young now But in the future he will become a part of the church school and you will have an opportunity to get to know him Will you be friend of this child and do what you can to help make him feel comfortable and welcomed in first Unitarian society If you will please say we will thank you. You may sit down Among us today are a number of people who bear a special close relationship to this child as I call your names I invite you to please rise and remain standing until after your pledge with Maxwell today are his sponsors Megan Zabowskwitz and Caitlyn Hardin and a number of additional family members. Please stand up My friends, do you take upon yourselves the privilege and responsibility to nurture? Defend and support the freedom and growing spirit of this child Will you recognize his worth as a person and encourage him to speak truthfully and from the heart? Will you share with him the best that is in you the insights values and dreams that give your life meaning? Finally, will you help this youngster to understand not only his own rights, but also the rights of others if so, please say we will Thank you. You may sit down And so now to the parents Tricia and Sean who have brought their child max before us It is your privilege and your obligation to provide an environment both of security and of challenge for max to grow up in And so do you commit yourselves to promote your child's 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? And do you also reaffirm your commitment to care for and to support each other as partners in life and in parenting? And if so, please say I will in the act of dedication We use the symbolism of water as a sign of our common heritage There is no suggestion here of the washing away of inherited sin We believe that this child came into our world with all the limitations that are natural to the human species But we believe that max arrived innocent and so water here stands for vitality It is the elixir of life the foundation of all living being and for purposes of today's ceremony and all of our dedication Ceremonies a portion of the water has been saved from our annual water communion services held in late August a Service to which our members and friends bring water from their travels across the continent and throughout the world to be put in a common receptacle and to be celebrated together and so This water today Reminds us of our common bond with ever-embracing and all-sustaining nature name this child Max will em at Fogarty. 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 the integrity of speech and above all a compassionate heart as a token of their Dedications we give to this child a rosebud Fragrant symbol of beauty promise and love This rose has no thorns Symbolizing the better world we would give to our children if it were in our power While we know that the world is not altogether as lovely as this rosebud We hope that Maxwell 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 Maxwell as this rose unfolds in natural beauty. So may your life unfold And now as is the custom in our congregation Amy will bestow upon Maxwell a baby dedication blanket May the warmth of this community Be felt by Maxwell every time he holds this blanket close We conclude our celebration with words from Kenneth Patton former minister of this church The child has come forth from the great womb of the earth The child has come forth to stand with stardust in his hair With the rush of planets in his blood With shining in his eyes like sunlight With hands to shape with that same force that kept long When one baby is born it is a symbol of all birth and life and therefore all must rejoice and smile And all must lose their hearts to the child Let's now give Maxwell and his parents a round of applause on his dedication And as they're retiring to their family and to their seats We now invite you to sit back and listen to a wonderful choral anthem by our youngsters And so as our children are proceeding to their classes. I invite you to join me in a communion of silence Let us now attend for a moment or two to the quiet voice of the inner self That which we variously call conscience or spirit or soul That whose promptings we seldom hear over the clamor of our daily comings and goings the time of quiet in the company of each other and In this spiritual sanctuary that can be a very special time the very walls shoulder the burdens of our sorrows and The space itself cradles precious memories Here as we have today we have brought and held our infants and bestowed upon them their names Here we have celebrated marriage Loved and been loved and celebrated common aims as families Here we have welcomed single persons into this community of freedom in religion and Here we have believed in life even as we have said farewell to lost loved ones Committing their spirits to the ongoing life of the universe and Calling upon love to keep its own eternally and yes, we have argued here as Families and communities sometimes do We have also laughed and we have played and we have wiped away each other's tears So let us today bring to this sanctuary our whole hearts with minds and intuition open and Let us meditate if we call it that Or pray if that is our way Meditate and pray our hearts out for that is one of the ways of finding more surely What is in them let us return to the silence for a moment or two more Blessed be and amen And now Sasha will offer us our reading for the morning the following are the words of Rebecca Parker Former president of star king school for the ministry. This is titled no caravan of despair When I began as a young parish minister I was assigned by my Methodist Bishop to a congregation on the verge of closing The active membership was down to about 50 people many of them in their 80s They had spent their whole lives together in their church Loving one another and the place until it shined with the patina of care It seemed to me that such a place should not close its doors But it wasn't going to remain open unless it attracted some new members. I Decided to keep my eyes open for visitors that wandered into the church Almost every Sunday someone would show up When they did I would visit them the following week arriving unannounced on their doorstep Often they were surprised, but almost everyone was hospitable People told me why they'd crossed the threshold into the church No one it turned out ever dropped in casually as if they'd awakened on Sunday Morning with nothing more appealing to do and found that reading the New York Times over coffee seemed boring that day People came to church for life and death reasons Susan came because she had just given birth to a baby after years of trying Her joy was great and she was searching for a way to say thank you She came to church to offer gratitude for life and to seek support in raising her child within a loving community Thomas and Vince came when Thomas lost his job because the school district was firing gay teachers He was heartbroken and angry and they were worried about making ends meet They were looking for some word of encouragement an expression of kindness that might ease their pain and give them some hope John came because he was depressed He worked in the aerospace industry and his job was to design computer systems That would allow a nuclear exchange to be carried out even if all military personnel in the US had been killed He hadn't become a scientist for this But his family depended on him to keep his job He came to church because his values called him to be something different, but he couldn't do it alone Julia came because she'd just been diagnosed with cancer She was frightened and her family was overwhelmed Where would she find the spiritual strength she needed to endure chemotherapy? Elizabeth and Rodrigo came because they'd fallen in love and decided to marry They were looking for a sacred place and a sacred community to bless their union People crossed the threshold of our neighborhood church impelled by life's joys injustices difficulties and hopes They came looking for a way to amplify their happiness solidify their commitments ease their difficulties and fulfill their hopes They came believing that the church could do all these things. I Responded by asking them to help rebuild our small congregation Nearly everyone I visited said yes The church began to grow Our sense of shared mission deepened anchored in the longings of the heart that had brought each person there The progressive church holds a feast of life open for all It is ours to share with any who come seeking nourishment within our walls And now if you will please turn to number 300 in your hymnal for him Please be seated a couple of weeks ago as I reflected upon the prospects for increasing racial and ethnic diversity here in this congregation In the process of doing that I offered a snapshot of the churches that a great many African American Protestants now attend And if you were present for those remarks two weeks ago You learned that the black church serves for many of its members as the very center the heart of communal life a pattern that emerged several centuries ago African Americans not only attend Sunday services they look to their church for ongoing support and Sustenance and as the sociologist Robert Putnam notes black churches have long served to reinforce African American racial identity and to spur black empowerment Black Protestantism Putnam continues is intensely communal the highly Participatory overtly emotional energetic manner in which worship unfolds all of this serves to forge and to reinforce connections between and among members of the congregation Moreover, I said black Protestant preaching and hymnity speak to the oppression and the disenfranchisement that blacks have experienced throughout American history For African Americans therefore the biblical account of the Hebrews divine Deliverance from Egyptian slavery under the leadership of Moses that story reflects their forebear their forebears lived experience an experience that is quite foreign to those of us with a European heritage Now all of this being the case if I were to pose to a regular African American churchgoer the question I'm addressing to you this morning. What is the faith community for they'd probably look at me like I was crazy What's a faith community for? To paraphrase Louis Armstrong's classic response to a similar inquiry about jazz Buddy if you got to ask you'll never know For African Americans church is about so much more than getting your ticket punched for the train bound for glory It's just as much about creating a simulacrum of heaven in the here and now a Practicing Roman Catholic might also be puzzled by that question for the devout Well Catholic Church is the one legitimate church ordained by Jesus himself in the Gospel of Matthew The Catholic Church boasts an apostolic tradition that originates with the Apostle Peter in the first century and for centuries After that the clergy have taught that one must stay in good standing with the church in order to be saved because Salvation is contingent upon the reception of the sacraments, which only a duly ordained Catholic priest can administer No greater tragedy was imaginable than to be cast out ex-communicated Denied the sacraments and through the sacraments God's grace What's a faith community for? An observant Jew would say that it fulfills a three-fold function It's a house of study a house of prayer and a house for sharing in and celebrating the common life of God's chosen people In recognition of its teaching function the synagogue is also called a shul a school for the serious study and application of lessons drawn from scripture and tradition Such scholarly pursuits are complemented by communal worship in which as Leo Trep puts it Each worshiper aides upholds and strengthens his neighbor in a shared effort to combat selfishness and to encourage greater responsibility Now among Jews many religious practices Sabbath candlelighting Hanukkah celebrations pass over Seder morning a death these all take place in the environment of the home But because of its indispensable role in Jewish life the synagogue is often described by Jews as their second home For Muslims the mosques purpose is very simple to provide an unadorned space for people to gather weekly for prayer The mosque Thomas Lippman says is not a church. There's no altar no tabernacle no baptismal font no statuary no choir loft on Fridays the faithful are called forth to reaffirm their submission their surrender to God to be a Muslim is to be one who submits The mosque is a place where decorum and a heightened degree of attention are expected And so Lippman says talking laughing clearing in the throat movements other than those prescribed by tradition are all to be avoided and Muslims he concludes may never be more disciplined and orderly than when they are gathered for communal prayer Among Buddhists the Sangha The community of seekers is important enough to be listed as one of that religions three jewels The other being the inspiration provided by the historical Buddha himself and the Dharma the wisdom teachings that he imparted According to the American Buddhist practitioner Barbara O'Brien the importance of the Sangha cannot be overestimated Trying to achieve enlightenment by yourself and for yourself is like trying to walk uphill during a mudslide Opening yourselves to others. She says supporting and being supported is critical to loosening the fetters of the ego and reducing our selfishness Okay, so much for some other religious traditions that we may or may not be familiar with but What about us? What is a unitarian universalist faith community really for? That's a more difficult question to answer because our own tradition features much less continuity There are few if any hard and fast requirements and we feature an intellectual heritage that places greater emphasis on freedom self-reliance and Individualism than on institutional loyalty and commitment And it doesn't help that some of our more illustrious unitarian forebears were not always generous in their appraisal of the church As the famed jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. once put it here in Boston one has to be something and Unitarian is the least you can be Ralph Waldo Emerson himself a former unitarian minister was equally lukewarm He declared that he preferred the silence in the sanctuary before the service began to any preaching that came afterwards And yet both of these men despite their criticisms were in fact lifelong churchgoers not simply out of habit Not simply because of social pressure And so when he was asked why he so faithfully attended services just as Holmes conceded That he had a plant called reverence that required watering at least once a week That is perhaps as good a reason as any to connect with and to maintain one's relationship with a faith community Because at the present time more than a few of us seem to be suffering from a reverence deficit Faced with the well-nigh Inescapable onslaught of narcissistic messages from the media driven marketplace our souls Slowly begin to atrophy even as our appetites continue to grow People need to detoxify from a culture that is poisonous in its materialism its Individualism and its violence the Unitarian Universalist consultant Michael Dural recently wrote the church He says should take a strong position Against the cultural imperative that life is always about having something more an Essay by Paul Roberts appeared in the most recent issue of the American scholar and it piggybacks on Dural's observation he says that ours is an era of increasing impulsiveness We are continually regaled with opportunities to upgrade from one level of gratification to the next And at the same time we are denied any chance to reflect soberly on exactly why we are doing that In an ideal world Robert says our social institutions would temper our myopic Narrowly self-serving reflexes, but today these institutional bulwarks are under the same myopic spell as individuals are Well today I could review for you the many Practical functions that a Unitarian Universalist faith community like this one performs We provide an attractive venue and clergy leadership for the celebration of life passages like the dedication you saw earlier We offer a wide array of spiritually oriented program I think that you may not find available elsewhere in an effort to break down age barriers We offer multiple opportunities for intergenerational interaction We engage our members in activities that are intended to increase the quality of life in greater Madison and Dane County We provide a safe and accepting environment beyond the family for people to share their joys and their sorrows and to receive Support I could go on and while all of the foregoing is by no means incidental It is all important. It is not of the essence It doesn't get to the heart of what a progressive spiritual communities reason for being really is So at least one strong justification for our existence is this counter cultural one It has to do with helping those who are here young and old to focus To focus on what really and truly matters in life Which is probably not the impulsive acquisition of superfluous consumer items. It's probably not the generation of evermore Facebook friends The experience of worship seeks to accomplish just this to help us attend to what really matters Now for conventional Christians and Jews and Muslims what ultimately matters is not the Impermanent things of this world, but their relationship to the divine to the permanent People attend services in those orthodox traditions to come to terms with what is idolatrous and to refresh their connection to the ultimate Now as Unitarian Universalists we too try to focus on and encourage people in the pursuit of what really matters But for that for us at least for some of us that doesn't necessarily mean God Our own approach to worship Harkens back to the words original meaning Atomologically worship comes from the old English term Worshskippa, which simply means to consider that which is worthy in Liberal religious worship as my Minnesota colleague victorious Saford puts it in liberal religious worship We strive to honor what is worthy of honor to notice what is worthy of notice To grieve the losses and the sorrows that are worthy of our tears to be more mindful of what matters to name in the Clear as possible language with the best possible music through the deepest possible silence Just a few significant things We gather in worship to reverently address those things that matter Those things that make life more meaningful more bountiful and when things get tough more Endurable No, I will not argue that participation in worship and in congregational life is Indispensable for those who wish to attend to what matters all sensitive observers and writers like Mary Oliver or Annie Dillard seem to need is the great outdoors Nature's Cathedral open on all sides But when we talk about an Annie Dillard or a Mary Oliver, we're talking about people who are already specialists at worship They are experts at paying attention at practicing reverence. Most of us are mere amateurs We do not have sufficient self-discipline. We allow too many other interests to claim our attention And so our faith communities afford the structure that we need to step back Put away our smartphones and for a brief hour or two Consider again what is worthy in life It's important to have an appointed time a special place because As experience teaches us That which can be done at any time will rarely be done at all But there's something else here Faith communities provide more than periodic punctuated occasions for serious reflection And if we are willing we can engage in an ongoing process that the early 19th century minister William L. R. E. Channing described as self-culture Now unlike his conservative Calvinist counterparts William L. R. E. Channing did not believe that human beings were Incorrigibly wicked and depraved and thus we were ultimately dependent upon God's grace No, he said humans are born with the God given potential for almost limitless improvement for developing as he put it likeness to God And religion And faith communities Channing argued that's the vehicle for doing this And this self-culture that he spoke of that's a lifelong enterprise And while the point of moral and spiritual perfection is never going to be reached with earnestness of effort and steadiness of aspiration Significant process along that path can be made it happens by degrees. It's not some kind of born-again transformational burst We grow in spirit like a battery being trickle-charged with worship and spiritual practice service projects interpersonal engagement all aiding in this process all reinforcing each other And over time by focusing and refocusing on what really matters and trying to put into practice Those things we do acquire qualities that help both us and others to flourish The environment a congregation provides roi phillips writes is that of a fertile and cultivated field In which the uniqueness the preciousness the power of the divine seeds that people bring They can send down roots into the rich grounds of culture and community actualizing their potential And coming gloriously to flower bearing fruit for serving the needs of the world So if it is true to its mission A faith community will provide invaluable assistance in helping us Stay the path of self-culture and spiritual growth a path that puts us on track to becoming our own best and most fulfilled cells And this has been in large part what our faith communities have been doing for a century and a half Back in the mid 19th century james freeman clark declared that unitarians believe Not in salvation by faith Not in salvation by works but in salvation by character For clark and many liberal religious thinkers since then Salvation implies the full flowering of the human personality with traits of reverence respect Compassion humility generosity and equanimity Now interestingly Others in the orthodox world seem to be moving toward this very position that we have upheld for so many decades Barbara brown taylor is a former episcopalian priest and she's now a professor of religious studies and she asks What would it be like if the church felt more like a waystation than a destination? What if people had a place to try and make sense of their experience in the world and have a community to support them while they did that? It'd be a lot like a unitarian church Spencer berck is the disillusioned former pastor of an evangelical mega church He weighs in suggesting that religion should reposition itself should no longer be the place where you get ultimate answers Church should be a guardian of the great questions fostering communities of conversation where people can openly engage in those questions sound familiar And then there is the prolific spiritual writer and lamott a practicing presbyterian In an essay entitled why I make sam go to church Sam is her son Lamott says I want to give him what I have found which is to say a path and a little light to see by Lamott goes on reporting that of the many people she's encountered in her adult life The ones who have left the deepest impression have been as a general rule those who were religiously active These folks have what I want. She says Purpose heart balance gratitude and joy and whether they're buddhist or christian or jewish or humanist They are all joining together to build a better world and all of them She says are following a brighter path than the glimmer of their own individual dim candles None of these writers offered a shout out for unitary universalism But they are all speaking our language And they are all describing our mission Basically, they are saying that a faith community is not about getting us into heaven. It's about getting a little more of heaven into us So one last comment yesterday morning. I not yesterday rather friday now friday I presided at the intimate gathering of a 95 year old man who had died Actually rather unexpectedly and we'd come together to celebrate his life And he and his wife had joined first unitarian society shortly after frank Lloyd Wright's meeting house was completed across the way He had retained his membership for better than 60 years And during that hour after I had spoken and as other people were speaking about him I learned many wonderful things about this man that I had not known before He was greatly admired. He was deeply cherished And I would like to believe And actually I do believe that his long-standing relationship with this faith community had something to do With the full flowering of his outstanding character What's a faith community for Perhaps in the end it is to help us lead lives that are Free of significant regret That we feel we can be genuinely proud of when it is our time to step out of this world And into the great unknown May it be so And now I do invite you to Participate with gratitude and due generosity in the morning's offering the outreach portion Is described in your order of service We gather each week as a community of memory and of hope and 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 We take a moment now to share news of several members. We are glad That genie peters is back with us after taking a fall on service sunday She's been one of our faithful Coffee makers in the kitchen and so she is apparently ready to make coffee again But we're not going to allow her to fall again And then I would note the passing of robert schilling actually I alluded to him at the end of the sermon 95 years old He suffered a massive stroke and died a couple of days after that Memorial service will be held here in this auditorium on november the first And then we also regret the passing of Robbie Preston who was a faithful attender of services here and she succumbed after a recurrence of cancer Her memorial service will be held the following week on the eighth in the landmark auditorium We send our best wishes and our condolences to both of those families And then for any joys or sorrows that occurred to you as I was speaking this morning We hold those with tenderness and reverence in our hearts Let us join together once more for just a moment Uh of silence in the spirit of empathy and of hope And so may our coming together for this brief time today may it serve to lighten our burdens and expand our joys Now I invite you once more to rise and body or in spirit as we sing together our closing hymn Which is number 295 renewed by each other's loving presence Fed by this communion of free souls reassured by our common vision Grateful for the opportunity to minister and to serve and blessed by the gifts of friendship May we now go forth Inspired and nourished by our time together back into our private lives And yet caring in our hearts the strength and the inspiration of this beloved community Peace be with you and please be seated