 Welcome to the First Unitarian Society of Madison. My name is Leslie Ross, and it's a joy to welcome you to this year's Coming of Age Worship Service. As our Children's Religious Education Director, it's my honor to work closely with this program throughout the year. In a moment we will be lighting our chalice, and I hope you will find your chalice or a candle to light in your home so that the lights of our chalice flames are burning brightly throughout our wider community. What a unique year this has been for all of us, and especially for our Coming of Age participants. We warn these students at the beginning of the year that we would present opportunities that will push them outside of their comfort zones in ways that encourage self-reflection, new perspectives, and thoughtful inquiry of the world around them. Little did we know then that a pandemic would add so very much challenge to the challenges that we envisioned for them this year. Despite the necessity to stop meeting in person, our Coming of Age participants and facilitators held fast to their purpose and to the important connections they have with each other. Through weekly Zoom sessions, they continued the substantive work that exemplifies the Coming of Age year. Two weeks ago, they were finally able to complete an adapted wilderness journey retreat on 110 acres of beautiful land out in Mount Horrib. The wilderness journey is an important part of the Coming of Age experience, and we are so grateful that we were able to fulfill that part of the year. The year culminates in this worship service where each team presents his or her own this I believe statement. This I believe is an international organization that engages people in writing and sharing essays that describe the core values that guide their daily lives. Our Coming of Age teens have heard and discussed many of these essays during the year. They then set themselves down to write their own essays, which they will share with you today. Imagine what that might be like, articulating your core beliefs amidst a pandemic, social unrest, the interruption of school and friendships, the cancellation of many things looked forward to, the anxiety of the unknown. Many of us would run from such a challenge, but not these brave young souls. They have important ideas to share with us and to learn from. We hope you enjoy their wisdom, their creativity and their unique experiences. I invite you now to take a breath and enter into a time of silence as we settle in and prepare ourselves to take in the words of these amazing youth. For this one hour, spirit of life, we let go. For this one hour, maybe let go of our anxieties, our fears, our anger, our self-doubt, our regrets, our petty grievances, and our distraction. If only for this one hour, let the flame of this challenge burn them from our hearts and our minds, and light a way to peace and serenity. For this one, holy hour. Please join together in the words on your screen as we light our challenge. This light unites us. This light unites us with our neighbors, our friends and our enemies. Most importantly, this light unites us within ourselves. Our hearts, our souls, our spirits. This light unites us. And now I invite you in to sing our ink gathering and come sing a song with me. Come sing a song with me. Come sing a song and I'll bring a song. By Peter Spear. We all know that there are lots and lots of people in the world and many more millions each year. There are now over seven billion human beings on earth and if it takes you an hour to finish looking at this book, there will be over 4,000 more. By the end of 2050, there will be nine billion people on earth. If we all joined hands, the line would be about six million miles long and would stress 229 times around the equator or 24 times the distance to the moon, more than seven billion people and no two of them alike. Each and every one of us is different from all the others. Each one a unique individual of his or her own right. We come in all sizes and shapes, tall, short and in between. But without a single exception, we all began quite small. And we come in many colors. Even our eyes have different shapes and colors. And noses come in every shape imaginable. So do faces, lips and ears and everything else. Think of our hair from snow white to pitch black, straight, curly, kinky and wavy. And a lot of people have no hair at all. People have fun. Some with straight hair want theirs to be wavy and others with little curls want theirs straight. People around our world wear different clothes or none at all. All of us want to look our best. So what is considered beautiful or handsome in one place is considered different elsewhere. Some of us are wise, some of us are foolish but most of us are somewhere in between. Most people are decent, honest, friendly and will mean but some are none of these. Some of us love noise whereas others simply cannot stand it. And not everybody's idea of a good time is a lie. People everywhere love to play but not the same games everywhere. Our tastes are as different as day from day. The homes we build are as buried as we are but we all need a roof over our beds. What makes some people laugh makes others cry. Some of us excel at things others could never do. Many of us like doing things with others while some of us like being by themselves. And we love and keep all sorts of pets. And we celebrate different feasts and holidays. And the things we like to eat are not the same. What people in one place consider a delicacy others will never touch let alone eat and the food some people eat or drink are forbidden to others. We practice nine main religions and there are thousands of others as well. Many people believe in one God and millions of others believe in many and many millions more do not believe in anything at all. Most of us have to work for a living and there are more different ways of doing that than you would believe. Most people work hard but others are lazy and a lot of people who want to work cannot find a job. And some of us are rich although most are not. Almost everybody can speak but there are 201 different main languages spoken on Earth not to mention the countless variants and dialects spoken by smaller groups and deaf people can communicate in silence through sign language. Not nearly all the world's people can read and write that there are almost 100 different ways of doing. Some people but very few are mighty and powerful although most of us are not mighty at all. We have invented a strange system of ranks and classes that we all live on the same planet breathe the same air and warm ourselves in the same sun and in the end we almost die. A few of us are remembered long long after we are gone and even that encounters different ways. More than 7 billion human beings young and old, sick and well, happy and unhappy, kind and unkind, strong and deep, people everywhere and all different. It is very strange. Some people even hate others because they are unlike themselves because they are different. They forget that they too would seem different if they could only see themselves through someone else's eyes. But imagine how dreadfully dull this world of ours would be if everybody looked, thought, ate, dressed and acted the same. Now isn't it wonderful that each and every one of us is unlike any other? Especially now as school turns to summer and I have less to do, the days seem to pass quicker than ever and that scares me. Most of the time I feel like each moment blurs into the next and no day feels special or memorable in any way. I don't want to live my life like that so I try to appreciate the beauty of a moment. I believe in making each second count. I believe in appreciating the small things in life. A perfect photo from a walk in the woods, a warm pie coming out of the oven, a chat with a friend who I haven't seen in a long time, a song that leaves me lost in thought, a clear, starving night or a joke that only I seem to find funny. These small snippets of my day bring me happiness. If only I take the time to fully appreciate them. Being a student for me is like a full-time job. I wake up at 6.45, get ready and head to school. All day I learn until I come home and work on my homework to establish that learning in my head. From there, I'm sure I have to be somewhere. Either ballet, jazz, voice, piano, volleyball, I have to keep a schedule or I'm sure I'll forget to do something. So taking time for myself feels wrong and unproductive. Sometimes I'll spiral myself so far down into that must-be productive mindset, that black hole of thought that I'll forget to do anything for hours of my week, lost in my own mountain high standards. But I realize that sometimes I need to take a break. I'll write a better essay after reading on my own for a bit. I'll understand that math problem once I've gotten a fresh breath of air. Any small thing that I do to improve my mental state will make a huge difference in my attitude towards a problem. As I've grown older, though I'm still fairly young, I've realized how short life really is. I've realized that I need to choose my battles and build relationships. I try not to hold grudges because they weigh me down and dampen my ability to appreciate what I have. I try to spend my energy focusing on the good moments and try not to worry too much about the bad. This doesn't always work, but I know that I'm trying to make an effort to change the way I live my life. I'm focused my time and energy on the things that matter to me. Time have changed scaring me, but there's nothing I can do to slow them down. Instead, I've taken a different approach and made sure to make time for the things that I love. I like to take advantage of every year, month, week, day, hour, minute, second that I have. I have to use my opportunity to enjoy each moment because I believe that the small things are what makes life worth living. I believe in noise. I believe in silence. I believe in the balance between the two because you can't have one without the other. You can't have the shout without the pause afterwards. You can't have dark without light. You can't have death without light. You can't have sorrow without joy, and you can't have chaos without order. However, however, the balance is not always perfect because the scale tips, its ways, it will even out, but until then, shadows creep in, death walks behind you, sadness sits waiting, and paths slowly crash through reality. You're probably sitting thinking, why is she using the bad examples? Why is she doing this by herself? Because. Because light without darkness is blinding. Because life without death is crowded. Because pure unfiltered joy is reckless. Because without chaos, nothing happens. And because you can't have laughter if you don't believe in the balance between dark and light. Between death and life. Between sorrow and joy. Between chaos and order. Between silence and noise. I believe in equality. Life is short. Yeah, that can be seen as cliche, but it's true. But truth is circumstantial. And frequently, people say their opinion as the truth. Whether saying that an activity was fun or exhausting, that might be how it was for them, but that might not how it was for somebody else. It might not have been fun or exhausting for another person. I believe that the only constant truth is that if something is or was alive, at one point it will die. The only guarantee in life is that. Now some people might say, that's a dark way of looking at life. It's all about perspective. I think about it and think that's how it is. It's very common for me. I'm not afraid of death. Other people might think about it and think about what comes after death. Loved ones that have passed. Some will look back at the past and their regrets. And some will look at the future. Two things that people generally think about as they do these things is think about the good and bad things in their life. Whether heaven and hell, graduating or failing a class, it's the things that are important to them. When we think back to what's important to us, the happy moments, the things we regret, the things we love, the things we've loved, those are the things worth fighting for, those are the things worth letting go. I believe that the only promise in life is death. I think that's all we have. So I'm going to strive for the things I want and try to live my life without regret. Then I lived in an apartment with just me and my mom. But the ones that I do have consist of cold pizza and flooded floors and dirty floors. My parents were a huge part of my childhood and I do have memories of them. I spent two days a week if not more at their house. Absolutely changed. In other words, my mom got married for much. But I do remember my first meeting with my now younger step-sister, Portia. She was loud and I was out. In fact, I was kind of abnormally quiet. Being shy was basically my main personality trait all the way up until around sixth grade. In hindsight, my meeting with Portia seemed pretty representative of how the entire situation felt to me. Here I was, a shy, quiet, introvert child being pushed headfirst into a loud, bright heck of a family. If someone asked me what's the best thing that's ever happened to me was I would always say that it's my step-family. Because it is. But back then, I felt like quite the opposite. I remember feeling out of place. Feeling like everything that I did was somehow wrong. Feeling like I didn't belong there. I mean, I was the step-sister and if Cinderella ever taught me anything that step-sisters were never good, were they? Over a couple of years, that feeling faded away. But this wasn't the last time that I would feel so out of place with everything that was happening around me. I say this again because it's somewhat worth repeating. But I was shy. I had two or three friends up until fifth grade. And in fifth grade, I think that I began coming out of Portia a little bit. I was so quiet. I was happy, though. I had a couple of friends and I had my family and for a 10-year-old, that's more of a problem. At school, I slowly became more extroverted. And then eighth grade came. I'll be upfront. Eighth grade was the worst year of my life. I remember at the beginning of eighth grade, I developed a feeling like I couldn't breathe. It freaked me out, so, of course, went to the doctor. I had x-rays done and it was clear that there was nothing wrong with me. But I remember being angry and thinking, if there was nothing wrong with me, why in the world could I breathe? They also had me take a screening for anxiety and depression. And everything fit. And I guess it was then that the year only got worse. I remember a day in February, a day when everything should have been perfect. But I felt like I was breathing all of this sadness inside and it was finally going to burst out of me. I was sitting at the lunch table, surrounded by friends, and I still felt completely alone. I felt like no one understood what I was feeling because it was so intense and so sad. Feelings of no 14-year-old girl should be had. I broke down and I started crying in the middle of the lunch table. Not the peak of my low school career, but it would have made a nice montage and a teen drama. One of my friends took me to the bathroom and tried to calm me down, but it didn't work. I went upstairs to my next class and I realized that I just couldn't do it. I sat in the bathroom for half of the class period and I was crying on the floor and feeling so alone. I saw the counselor later that it did nothing to help. I don't go into detail, but I was at my grandparents' house, the place where I should have felt the safest with the people who had made my childhood the happiest. But still my thoughts just got worse and worse and louder and louder. Eventually the police showed up. I wish that I had had some kind of realization then but it wasn't. Instead, as summer came, so did new friends. It felt like a rush of warmth and stability that had never been there for me up until that point. And from there only got better. I've had some of the best experiences of my life with those friends. In a way, sometimes I feel like they saved me or something, and my family too. Community and celebration and music and all the goodness that comes with warm weather is what saved me. I just got better and better and better. I think that mental growing and self-love rarely happens alone. I've looked over the events since last year countless times. I started by looking back on what made me so sad in the first place and I have never been able to pinpoint anything. And then I focused on the more important side of this metaphorical coin. What was it that made me happy again? And I realized it was the people who stayed with me when I was not someone who was easy to be around. And I guess after all of this I've come to the conclusion that no one can do everything alone. We all need to feel safe in a community of people who love us. And I will always be grateful that I have that. This I believe. I believe in the present. I believe this that I live my life as freely as I can. That basic my actions are what will happen after I pass, but follow my morals and beliefs instead. I have done this so that I do not worry about what happens afterwards. On the other hand, I do this so that I exit my safety net. If I take no risks, I will never change as a person. If I always walk a life of repetition making sure I never do what I do a little bit I can, I can never change as a person. Change is the most important part of life. It dictates everything. Without change you can never become a better person. You must always move forward. Understand those and try to stand that high will eventually all crumble down around you. But if you try to live through life too quickly, you'll forget your past for your mistakes. You won't change as a person. When I was 10, my family had a discussion after dinner. My parents would be splitting up, leaving me and my sister to go between the households. For a period of time after rooms, I didn't want to believe it. I couldn't believe it. I was 10 and my life changing entirely was something I didn't want to believe. And again, when I was 12, I wanted to move through life much faster than how I was gone. I wanted to be older and this stemmed from me being a little younger than my other classmates in school. My mind kept thinking about how everyone would be able to drive before me and vote before me. I wanted to be an adult. Now, four years after my parents divorced, I understand that neither of these options have worked. In both these situations I tried to stay in the past and move towards the future. I realized that I must live in the present. To always think about what happens next or what happened before takes away from life. You spend all your time thinking about something that in reality, you won't go back or ever arrive at what you think happened or will happen. I try to live my best life because of this. This is also why I don't believe in the higher power of life after death. Instead of doing good things for the afterlife, I do good things for the present. With my time thinking, I can never enjoy my time here on Earth. And hey, if there is life after death, that's a nice bonus, right? It used to be a wedding photographer and the pictures turned out great. I would always cover my face and refuse to be photographed. I was impatient and I didn't want to be interrupted and I'm more nostalgic and started to cherish these pictures along with letters, gifts and other artifacts of the past. This is a result of an important thing I recently found out about my memory. Just last year while listening to Luna West's belief statement at her coming of age service, I realized I have a Vantageia. This basically just means I have no mind in the eye and I am unable to visualize only member images. This discovery forced me to become the photographer. I am now the one who takes pictures of constantly writes letters and collects keepsakes because I know I will want these memories when I'm older and I will still be unable to see them in my mind. I believe in creating artifacts to remember people. It is a capturing moment in time that I rely on the most to remember which is why I take so many of them. Seriously, I think both my phone and my camera are about to run out of storage space. But it's the words that are written for people and the words they write themselves. I can tell you the most about them. Every year since 1972 when my mom was in kindergarten my grandparents Bobby and Bob we call them Union Bob have written and mailed out a Christmas letter. It covers important events of the year and is sent to close friends and family. Our collection a few weeks ago in preparation for a Spanish project and I realized just how the small details that are forgotten over time can mean the most. A person writing about their own events and relationships creates a window to their life that is unlike any other. And reading these words is one of the best ways to learn about who they were before you knew them or remember what they were like in the past. These Christmas letters also included the small details that my parents and grandparents had simply forgotten to tell me. I didn't know that my mom was on the prom court as a junior, but my dad's old antiques is a side job. I didn't know how everyone reacted when my brother was born, or when I was. The letters expressed so much love and emotion that I genuinely started to cry while reading them. I got a firsthand glimpse into my parents' personalities and achievements that didn't just teach me about the past. It helped me understand who they are now. The more recent letters brought up memories of vacations and events that I didn't even know I had which is exactly the impact I value so much in these artifacts and the one I want to create myself. I actually ended up creating an artifact for this class for the service specifically. I wanted to make something for my classmates and for myself. I wanted to comfort all of us to look back on the amazing memories we've had here at First Unitarian Society and how they will hopefully impact us for years to come. I sincerely hope that the song I wrote and it'd be fine does this for all of you. If not, that's fine. It's important to me and I'm proud to have these memories and I think that's what matters. Sometimes I think I need to detach from what's happening too often. I'm taking pictures and live with it later. But this belief, for me, has never been about preserving every specific memory forever. It's about having something to look back on in a few years or a few decades. It's about having something to show for my experiences and a reminder for myself of good times. It's about being able to teach others the way I learned from my Christmas letters. And it's for me. I value these artifacts so much because I know what it's like to not have them. I know what it feels like when my entire family remembers a person or an experience and I just can't. My last great-grandparent passed away when I was 7 and I have no memories of her face or her personality. I couldn't stand losing someone like this again. I might overcompensate for this fear but those close to me know how important creating these artifacts is for me. It is a belief that I've only realized recently but I act on it every day. So if you've ever seen me with my phone out at an important gathering just know. I'm definitely on Instagram. Thank you. I believe in what comes next. As a cautious person, I've ever been one to completely enjoy spontaneity. This really has no correlation to my adventurousness. On the contrary, my family would describe me as so. This may be because of my love for travel or hunger for foreign food. For me, however, I like an adventure that coincides with a plane. It doesn't have to be completely sad or super rigid. Just gives me a sort of peace to know what I'll be doing in the future. For example, I've been known to start a birthday list the day after the one I just had or to announce my order at a restaurant for the next time we go. Aside from having a plan giving me a piece about the future, it also excites me for what is next. My belief in what is next also translates to my religious linking. I would say that for my whole life I believe that there is a next time on earth because that's what I always was told. One day we were driving to church and though we would travel it was always past the cemetery. I looked out the window and saw a coffin being buried and I had a terrifying thought. That when you die, everything is over. However, after some time my realization was that I didn't just think I believed in an actuary. I actually did and this made me feel so much better. Now as far as surprises go this pandemic was probably the largest one I've ever been apart of. But during this quarantine I've had a lot of time, too much I would say to think about what comes next for myself my friends and family in our country. I've come to expect that nothing might ever be the same. What has helped me through this is making a list of all the things I want to accomplish with my friends and family this time. From backyard campouts to nighttime bike rides to bonfires and s'mores these ideas have helped me stay hopeful for what is after COVID. What comes next for our country I'm hoping that this pandemic is a wake up call for our still salvageable leaders especially for our generation. As I sat here and wrote this protesters all over the country are fighting for change in regards to police brutality especially against African Americans. What comes next for our country is up to the types of people who educate themselves and do what they can to fight for positive change. It makes me sick to think that we are likely to be killed in our country. Now more than ever before it is important to show your support for the Black Lives Matter movement by educating yourself, protesting and voting for representatives that will rally for a change in dynamic between the police and minority groups. Most of the change we are going to see in years to come is going to be born from the generation that is sick of our corrupt and unequal government which I admit is a scary realization. However, this puts power in our hands that we must use for good. In all aspects of my life I choose to look to what is next as I believe. I believe in taking chances. I have taken lots of chances throughout my life. We all have taken smaller big chances before. Life is full of unexpected bumps in the road. Some are good bumps, some are bad. The bumps provide chances that you can accept. From those bumps there are many choices and decisions. It can be challenging for some and for others effortless. It depends on your outlook. When I was in elementary school I was the kind of person that enjoyed being at home as my mom would say a homebody. I was the kind of person that waited for chances to come to me rather than me finding chances. If I knew something big a big bump was coming in my life I would want to be warned ahead of time. When my dad told me there was a possibility that we were going to move abroad for my fifth and sixth grade I was surprised. I never knew our move and I didn't really know how to react to something so different from the rest of my life. After a month or two it was confirmed. We were moving to Budapest, Hungary where my dad would teach English. At first I had no idea where the country Hungary even was. I had a mix of emotions after hearing that scared, excited, confused, shocked. We were moving as myself over and over again. This was such a new concept to me and way out of my comfort zone. We left in the summer after my fourth grade. I even registered to go to a Hungarian public school with a bilingual program. My dad was an English teacher at the school. I remember the first day of school pretty clearly. It was extremely hot outside taking the public train to school. As I walked into my classroom some of my classmates asked me what my name was in Hungary. I couldn't understand them until they finally realized I was American. Surprisingly, their English was pretty good. The scariest part was that my homeroom teacher couldn't speak English. I couldn't understand my schedule. I didn't have any friends and I didn't know when each class was or where it was. After the first day of school I was in the middle of a miss medicine. Throughout living in Budapest I learned so much. I traveled lots of new places. I ate so many different kinds of food. I learned about other cultures. I met my relatives in Hungary and I learned to live somewhere new. I think living in a different country for two years strengthened me as a person. I have realized now that I am more culturally aware towards others and I strive to find a uniqueness in other cultures. I hadn't accepted going over the bump of being out of my comfort zone. I wouldn't have made friends that I miss now. I wouldn't have learned Hungarian. I wouldn't have met my Hungarian side in my family and I wouldn't have learned about my race history. People sometimes don't take chances because of being shy or scared of the unknown. Those feelings and emotions were also there for me at the beginning. I felt like the outcome of the chance with knowledge and a bigger understanding of the world. I've seen a pattern in taking chances. At first, you feel hesitant. When you take that chance, the outcome of that is being aware, feeling good about yourself, grateful that you took the chance and feeling accomplished. And most importantly, feeling connected to people. Getting out of your comfort zone can be immensely fulfilling. After living in Hungary for two years, I am no longer a person that waits and now finds chances. I'm not scared of the choices I have to make. In the United States, there are so many people from different backgrounds, and we all need to be welcoming and aware of that. The community that you live in probably has tons of people you won't meet unless you go over a bump. I believe if you don't go over bumps in the road, you will not get to meet new people or have new experiences embrace different cultures. As my old elementary teacher used to say every day the choices you make today shape the world you live in tomorrow. Choices and chances both words that mean you get an opportunity to do something. You are the person to decide if you want to make that choice or not. So greet the bumps in the road with energy and bravery. See the bumps as chances rather than obstacles. Don't wait for the chances to come find you. Take action. If you wait too long, don't wait. Disciple be. When our heart is in a hole we are blessed with love and amazing grace when our heart is in a hole here when we trust the wisdom in each of us every color every creed and kind and we see our faces in each other's eyes when our heart is in a hole here when our heart is here blessed with love when we tell a time and we listen with a lot and we hear our words when our heart is in a hole here when our heart blessed with love and amazing grace when we share the silence of sacred space and the God of our hearts and the God of our heart stirs with it blessed with love grace when our heart is in a hole What a joy it is to be celebrating another coming of age ceremony and the culmination of another coming of age year. We are deeply grateful for our youth who were flexible and willing to deliver their service in this format. We are grateful for their insights and to recognize that their classroom learning at First Unitarian Society may be over but their journey of lifelong learning on their own has just begun. Throughout this year our youth have begun in earnest to study themselves to get to know themselves examining their beliefs and values, ideals and aspirations. With their belief statements our youth have given us just a glimpse of where this process has led them and we pause for a moment to thank those who've walked with them on this journey. There are those in our gathered community who have served as the adult facilitators for coming of age and who have given these youth direction, insight, wisdom and guidance throughout the past year. They've brought patience good humor and much love and compassion our facilitators this year were Susan Koenig Jacob Hahn Karen Fowler and Jim Shuey and now to all of you gathered with us today we ask that you remember your important role in the spiritual and moral development of these youth where their journey from here is not entirely up to them it's also up to us. We must remember that deepening their experience of unitarian universalism is not the responsibility of their parents and these wonderful facilitators alone helping them to blossom as loving and conscientious human beings is a responsibility we all share and now that they have completed their coming of age year that responsibility becomes more relevant and more you can serve as both example and inspiration of how people live out in everyday life their spiritual values. Through you they observe unitarian universalist faith in action. There can be no greater or more effective teaching than your good example. We ask you today to continue to encourage the spiritual growth of our youth to value their insights and emerging convictions to recognize the gifts and the talents they bring to our community and the enthusiasm and the hope they bring to our world and now to all of our coming of age youth. We recognize today the work you have done this past year. We are grateful for the gifts and the talents you have brought to us here in your time at First Unitarian Society. Today we ask you to continue this journey you have begun growing as an individual expressing your beliefs deepening in faith and continuing to question and explore. And now we turn to your parents the parents of our coming of age youth you beyond everyone else have been witnessed to the unfolding and maturing of your child from birth until today. In the beginning of this coming of age year we asked you to give permission for your child to come of age and we ask you now to continue opening your hearts in order to receive your child into your family for all they have become in this past year and to continue to journey with them with respect, patience guidance and love. At the dedication of a child we give to each a rosebug fragrant symbol of beauty and kindness and love. The rose we give then has no thorns and it symbolizes the better world we would love to give to our children. We hope that the children whom we have dedicated will learn to recognize the beauty and the goodness that does exist that they will grow in wisdom and compassion that they will add their own beauty to our world. Our hope is that the rosebud unfolds that the life of each child will unfold in beauty. We have already given to each of these young people that you've seen today a rose in full bloom this rose symbolizes the beauty and the gifts that they already bring to our world and the natural beauty that is found within them. Yet this time the thorns are still intact. When they were children we could do our best to shield them from the harshness and the cruelty of this world. But now as youth we can no longer protect them from all that they encounter both the beauty and also the cruelty but to our coming of age youth I say no matter where you may go how far you may travel you will always be with us in spirit and we will always be sending blessings your way so please accept these roses knowing that there are harsh realities in this world but there is much beauty as well. May you choose to see the beauty whenever possible and now as we did when you were young children we ask that you be granted clarity of thought integrity of speech and a compassionate heart may the blessings of an understanding heart strength and integrity of purpose love received and given be yours today and remain with you as you go forward into ever fuller life Blessed be and Amen May we each be surprised by the gifts that surround us may we each be enliven by constant curiosity and may we remain together in spirit till the hour we meet again we extinguish our chalice but not the light of hope the warmth of love or the fire of commitment these remain with us until we all gather again