 Good morning and welcome to First Unitarian Society. I am the interim minister, Roger Birchhausen. I'm delighted to have you join us for this virtual service for all ages. I especially want to welcome and say hello to the children at First Unitarian. I took over for Reverend Doug Watkins when he left about a month ago and I'll be here for one year. I'm really glad to be part of SUS and I'm so happy that you are part of this congregation. Reverend Kelly Crocker and I are joined today in worship by Leslie Ross, the Musselman family, Drew Collins, Linda Warren, Stephen Gregorius, and Daniel Karnes. Plus, we have surprise cameo appearances from a few more of our beloved FUS members. We invite you to continue the community building after the service by joining the virtual coffee hour. And this morning I want to especially call your attention to a very important activity at FUS this year, the search for a new settled minister to join Reverend Kelly a year from now. Your fabulous ministerial search team has been using the summer to prepare its work for this fall and the first task this fall will be a confidential survey. We hope that every member and every affiliate of FUS will take the time to fill out the survey. It'll come in two weeks or so with various ways to access it. The results will inform the next step in the process which will be cottage meanings in October. All of the information will be used from the cottage meanings and the survey by the search committee to present information about FUS to prospective ministerial candidates. The search team looks forward to lots and lots and lots of you participating in the survey. In a moment, we will light our chalice here and I invite you to light a chalice or a candle at your house. May the fires of our chalice flames burn brightly through the Madison area and beyond. I invite you now to take a few moments for some deep breathing and centering yourselves for this sacred time of worship. Gather into this time. We need to be together. We yearn for connection. We hunger for music and singing. Words of inspiration. The sound of shared voices proclaiming who we are, where we are going. That which resonates with our hopes, our dreams, our values. Come, gather. We are here in this space made of all spaces and we share our becoming in this moment. I invite you now to light your chalice as we join the musselmans in our chalice lighting words. We light this chalice for the light of truth. We light this chalice for the warmth of love. We light this chalice for the energy of action. We light this chalice for the harmony of peace. And now, let us sing, we give thanks, hymn number 1010. Hours is a welcoming community where we find connection. A spiritual community where we find meaning. By our sharing, our joys are amplified and our sorrows are lessened. We take this moment to reflect on our losses and our celebrations and acknowledge the mutual support of community. We light a candle of gratitude for Bobby Zainer, who writes, one year later, thank you my beloved FUS community for holding us in your hearts, since Larry was struck with a rare spinal cord injury. And a candle of joy for Janice Napcortes, who traveled to Connecticut to see her two sons, daughter-in-law and 17 month old granddaughter, Kira, in August. After quarantining for two weeks, they took over daycare for Kira, while her other grandparents took a vacation. Janice shares that it was delightful and exhausting. May we remember these candles that have been named and also hold in silence all those in our own hearts. And today we join our hearts together. Our hearts that join the river of broken and aching hearts around our country and around the globe. We light a candle of hope for all those impacted by Hurricane Laura, all those who found themselves in the path of destruction. We light a candle of solidarity and strength for Hobbit House, a Jewish community center at the University of Delaware. Two nights ago, Hobbit House was set a flame in what has been confirmed as an intentional attack. Our hearts go out to all those affected by another act of hatred and violence. And we light a candle of healing and support for Jacob Blake in Kenosha. We pray for Jacob, for his family, his children, for the two protestors who also lost their lives in Kenosha this week, and for all those swept into the sea of violence and pain. As we light these candles, we remember that the history of injustice is complex. The politics are intense. The fear and anger are overwhelming and the future is unclear. May we be granted glimpses of a hopeful vision. May we find room for one another in our hearts, in our dreams, and in our lives. May we hold firmly to a vision of peace and justice in our communities, in our world, and especially today in Delaware and in Kenosha. Spirit of life and of love, be present with all who are suffering. Lift up the hearts of those who fear. Inspire courage among the peacemakers. Be present with our leaders, ensuring a retreat from violence and a procession toward justice. Guide the hands of all those who are caring for the injured and the grieving, and open our own hearts to compassion. Remind us of our complicity and responsibility and lead us toward generous engagement, moving us always toward a vision of justice for all, blessed be and amen. This month we've been talking about becoming and thinking about how we become the people we want to be so we can create the world we want to live in. Being human comes with many questions. One we are always asking is what's next? What do we do next? What's our best decision, our best choice? And many times we don't know. What's important is to remember that there are many things we can be and many things we can do. There are so many possibilities ahead of us and each one of us holds a magical, unbounded potential inside. We all have dreams that pull us along through our days and our years. We never know where we will end up but what matters is who we are along that journey. Have you ever wondered why you are here? You are the only you there ever has been or ever will be. You have so much to offer. Maybe you will invent something that no one has ever seen before. Maybe you will build things that reach high into the sky. Your life is yours. Try as many things as you can try. See as much as you can see. Wherever you go, take your hopes, pack your dreams and never forget it is on journeys that discoveries are made. Maybe you will help others to see the beauty in each day. Or maybe you'll lift, cheering crowds onto their feet. Do everything with love. Follow your heart and see where it leads. Maybe you are here to shine a light into places that have been dark for far too long. Maybe you'll speak up for those who can't speak for themselves. Maybe you are here to help in ways that only you can. There will be struggles, there will be fears, and it won't always be easy. At times it will feel really hard and you might make a mess of things. You may fall down, you may fail, but you'll also get back up and you will rise a little stronger and a little taller because there really is more inside you than you know and this world needs your gifts, your talents, your big ideas, and maybe you are just getting started. What if you're only scratching the surface of what you can do and who you can be? What if you have talents you haven't discovered yet? There is something powerful, even magical about you. You already have everything it takes to do big things. Maybe you have no idea just how good you really can be and maybe you don't know how much you matter, but maybe, just maybe, the world has been waiting centuries for someone exactly like you. One thing is for sure, you are here and because you are here, anything is possible. Story is about the dreams of one girl and the hopes she has for someday in the future. It's so fun to imagine all kinds of possibilities. When I was a young girl, I would imagine becoming a veterinarian so that I could spend my days taking care of animals and I was lucky that I had a dog who was really cooperative playing along with me. How about you, Kelly? Well, when I was little, I always wanted to be an archeologist. I wanted to make discoveries about people from the past, learning about how they lived, what their families were like. What did they do for fun? In our next story, we're gonna hear about a lot of possibilities and I suspect that they'll inspire some of your own someday hopes as well. Someday, I am going to be a great artist. I will wear a blue smock. I will carry my paints to the beach to paint the sea. A very rich person will offer to buy my painting for $2 million, but I will smile and I will say, I'm sorry, this painting is not for sale. It is a gift for my art teacher someday. Today I am off to help my dad paint the shed. Green, it's where I keep my bike. I just might paint that too. Someday I will make friends with a dolphin. I will call her Wilma. Wilma will let me climb on her back. We will speed across the water. We will sail beside tall ships. We will dip under the waves. I will ask Wilma to tell me all the secrets of the sea and she will someday. Right now, I am shaking fish food flakes into the bowl where my pet goldfish, pumpkin, lives. Pumpkin darts in and out of his pink castle. He blows tiny bubbles, but he doesn't talk to me. Maybe goldfish don't have secrets to tell. Someday I will dig for dinosaur bones, deep in a field where once a farmer grew corn and chicken scratched. I will find the bones of a T-Rex. The farmer will faint with surprise. Reporters from the TV station will bring their cameras and microphones. I will be on the evening news someday. Today I am digging for coins under the sofa cushions. Quarters, dimes, nickels, enough for a popsicle. Someday I will be invited to the White House to have lunch with the president. He will want my ideas on world peace. I will wear white gloves and a hat with a rose pin to it. I will bring the president a box of golf balls. The White House waiter will pour tea. I will eat my salad carefully. No spills on the rug. In the meantime, I'm having lunch with my brother, Roger. Roger talks with his mouth full. He slurps his milk. He burps. I don't think Roger will ever be invited to the White House. Someday I will be an animal scientist. I will travel to the South Pole. I will count at macaroni penguins, all five million of them. It will take a very, very long time. My hair will turn gray. I will return home to a ticker tape parade. Five million people will cheer someday. Right now my hair is still brown and it's jelly beans I'm counting. 10 for my little brother, Roger. And then 11 for me. One extra for the counter. Someday I'm going to be a gymnast at the Olympics. I will tumble and twirl across the mat. I will leap into the air as gracefully as any ballerina. The judges will swoon with delight. I'll win the gold medal someday. As for today, I am practicing cartwheels in the backyard. Look out, splat. Do they make medals out of mud? Someday I will spend the night in Egypt. I will ride a camel in the silvery dark. I will feel the cool desert breeze as I climb down from the camel's back. I will take my frog print pajamas from my overnight bag and put them on behind a thorn brush. I will lie next to the pyramid in the bright moonlight. I will dream of golden palaces and pointy-eared cats someday. Tonight I'm sleeping on the bottom bunk with Roger, who's afraid of monsters in the dark. I think he forgot to brush his teeth. His breath smells like a camel's. I turn toward the open window where the night sky glitters with stars. Quietly, mom and dad come into our room to tuck us in. Mom kisses our foreheads. When they leave, I go to my window. I see two baby owls perched on a branch of the tree. I think they're going to fly for the first time in the dark. I smile right now. It is great fun to think about all that we may do someday and it's also wonderful to see the magic and the wonder that is with us in this moment right here and right now. And I invite you now into the singing of our next hymn when our heart is in a holy place. The place when our heart is in a holy place. Are blessed with love of us. Every calm and we see our faith blessed with love. When we tell our story inside and we listen with a loving mom. We are blessed with love and amazing grace. When we share the silence of sacred space and the goddess within and we. One of the things we've been missing in this time of distancing is seeing and hearing the children of this community. So for today's service, which celebrates the potential, the hopes and the dreams living within each of us, we asked our families to submit videos of what they hope for someday. As you listen to their words and see their faces, may your own someday come to you. Maybe you wish for an end to violence. Maybe you wish to travel the world. Maybe you want to learn a new skill, a new language. Maybe you want to do what you can to create peace in your own community. What is it that you long for someday? Someday, I hope that children all over the world can spend a lot of time exploring the wonder and the mystery of lots of natural places like forests and mountains and rivers. Someday, I hope that all people have access to healthy food available right in their own neighborhoods. What is it that you hope for someday? I want to see the northern lights. Someday, I hope that all children can have food, shelter, clothing and love. Someday, I want to work at a zoo and help elephants have their family. I see all of the privilege and opportunity is that my family has. And someday, I hope that people who have privilege and opportunities want that not just for their own families, but for everyone in the world. And when I say people, I mean myself. So I hope to be also somebody who deeply wants that for everybody. Someday, I want to be an ocean scientist and study the fish and the sharks and the dolphins. Someday, I hope that reason and compassion will guide our country again. I hope that someday this quarantine will end. I hope that someday the words liberty and justice for all truly mean liberty and justice for all people. Someday, I hope the world will be a fair place for all races. Someday, I would like to invent a telescope device. Someday, I would like to write a musical that inspires everybody to be kind. Someday, I would like to build a car that runs on chocolate chips. Someday, I hope all children have excellent learning opportunities even before they start school, regardless of their family circumstances. Someday, I wish for a world peace, no more racism, and more planes than buildings. Someday, I want to live for an extended period of time on an island off Scotland or Ireland, especially during winter. Someday, I want to own a fishing boat because I love to fish. And it's real exciting when you're real on the big ones. Someday, I would wish for a more wild life to come, more like more nature, more flowers, meaning the air, more deer, wild life, bunnies, I love bunnies, I like bunnies a lot. And I also wish for like, winals, horses to play out free and everything. And baby birds too. I would like that someday I can go passo dick. Someday, Someday, I will paint at the museum and if I'm still little, it will still be fun. The offering is a time when we are attentive to the gifts that bless and enrich our lives. Even in this time of the pandemic and horrifying events happening nationally and in our state, it is good to set aside a little time where we're mindful of the gifts in our lives. I invite you from that place of gratitude to consider your gifts to FUS and its mission. If you feel moved this morning to financially support FUS, you will see on your screen that you can donate directly from the FUS website, fussmedicine.org. We thank you for your generosity and for your faith in this community that we share and build together. You have given and all you have sacrificed. We thank you. And now let us sing together our closing hymn as we leave this friendly place. We'll sing through it three times. As we extinguish our chalice flames, may we each be filled with the blessings of this community. May we carry them with us in the days to come. May we discover the places in the world where these blessings are needed. And may we have the courage to share them. May there be an open place within each of us to receive the blessings of all those whom we will meet along the way. Blessed be and go in peace.