 Please join in a moment of centering silence so we can be fully present with each other this morning. And now let's get musically present by turning to the words for our in-gathering hymn, which you'll find inside your order of service. Welcome to the first Sunday in August here at First Unitarian Society, where independent thinkers gather in a safe, nurturing environment to explore issues of social, spiritual, and ethical significance as we try to make a difference in this world. Speaking of things that are different in this world, I'm Steve Goldberg, a proud, charming member of this congregation. And I'd like to extend a special welcome to any guests, visitors, and newcomers. If this is your first time at First Unitarian Society, you'll find it's a special place, and we invite you to stay for the fellowship hour after the service to learn a little bit more about this place. And as you're thinking about that, if you could please silence those pesky electronic devices. This is the only ritual we have at FUS, is silencing our devices. And while you're doing that, I'll remind you that if you're accompanied by a youngster today and you think that young companion would rather experience the service from a more private space, we offer a couple options for you, including our child haven in the back corner of the auditorium, and some comfortable seating just outside the doorway in the commons from which you can see and hear the service. One reason that we are able to hear and see the service is because it's brought to us by a very dedicated group of volunteers whose names I would like to announce for you now so that you can give them a hug or a handshake after the service and thank them for their volunteer effort. Thank you to Mark Schultz for operating the sound system. And Smiley for serving as our lay minister this morning. Thank you to Wally Brinkman and Mark Schweitzer who greeted us upstairs as we arrived. Sam Bates, Gal Bliss and Anne Smiley for serving as ushers for this unruly crowd and the hospitality and coffee being prepared by Jean Hills and Sharon Skaddish in the kitchen. The orchids that you see behind me were lovingly and generously donated by Doug and Karen Hill in honor of their 50th wedding anniversary. Say hello to them when you see them. Just a couple announcements. First of all, after today's service around 12.15 there'll be a parish forum in this room to discuss the roof repair project for the iconic copper roof that graces the landmark building across the parking lot and the never-ending saga of this important part of our facilities. We have an opportunity to learn what's the latest on the repair plan for the rooftop and that'll be preceded by some light refreshments. So join us here after the service to learn more about the roof repair project. Then we have a couple interesting events happening on August 26. First of all, it's the wedding of our own James Morgan and Rachel Kincaid. But also it is service Saturday. And that's quite a proud tradition of our community outreach here at FUS. And Anne Smiley would like to explain briefly a little bit more about service Saturday. Anne? Now says the once-ler, now that you're here, the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear. Unless someone like you cares a whole lot awful more, nothing is going to get better. It's not. That's Dr. Schuetz and the Lorax. And there is a spot for you and maybe even the Lorax in one of 176 slots in 13 service Saturday projects. Many family-friendly, including Arboretum Prairie Restoration Cookie Baking for homeless shelter, Farley Center and a whole lot more. So at FUS, the Abarray isn't the only FUS event with a court countdown. There are only 20 days left. So and there's also a congregational picnic afterward at the church. Tabling in the commons afterward, do you have questions? Thank you, Anne. So 20 days until August 26, our service Saturday opportunity here at FUS. So end of the announcements. I invite you to sit back or lean forward to enjoy today's service. I know it will touch your heart, stir your spirit and trigger one or two new thoughts. We're glad you're here. I'm Nicky Giovanni from a book entitled The Prosaic Soul of Nicky Giovanni. The power of speech, the freedom to engage our hearts and our bodies in dialogue is the most precious freedom of all. To secure all other rights granted us by either our religions or our laws, it is necessary to raise our voices. An idea inside our head is to our fellow humans the same as no idea. It must be expressed if it is to have power. The voice, the pen, is far mightier than the sword, any jail, and any attempt to silence. So I ask that you would arise in either body or spirit for the lighting of our chalice and read along with me from your inserts. With courage and humility, we strive to build a beloved community that speaks out boldly by word and action for those who cannot stand up for themselves. A place where all are welcome and the human family lives, hold and reconcile. With this vision in our hearts and minds, we like this chalice. And now is the time that we ask you to engage in friendly greetings with your neighbors. Opening hymn 134. A story that came from India a long time ago, over 100 years ago, and it was written, was from Scotland, she wrote this story for her girls who used to go to school in Scotland and then went home to India for a long trip home. They would get a bus, I mean a boat, and then go on a train. So she used to write stories for her children on a train to keep them busy, because you know how long a train journey gets when you've been on forever in a day, you know, you get fidgety. So she used, she drew the pictures too, and they are of Tamil Indians, and Tamil Indians look like Africans. So you'll see the pictures are African looking children, and these were the children that they used to play with. And it was, one of her neighbors got the book, got hold of the book, and gave it to a publisher who wanted to publish it, and they published it in England, and it sold like hotcakes. So then they sent it over to America, and the publisher's got hold of it there, and then they started printing it in different editions. And because they were African faces, they started drawing pictures that were sort of rude. And then by the end, by the middle of 1930s or so, there were three librarians in Chicago who said this is not an okay book anymore, and we have to send it away. So some of the adults will feel a little uncomfortable as I read Little Black Sambo, but if you have not heard it, it's a really cute little story. And so I'm going to read it to the children. And the pictures are up there. And what she wrote was there is very little to say about the story of Little Black Sambo. Once upon a time there was an English lady in India where black children abound and tigers are everyday affairs who had two little girls. To amuse these little girls, she used now and then to invent stories for which she was extremely talented, and she drew and colored the pictures. Little Black Sambo was made up on a long railway journey, and it has been made and copied exactly as she had it, and she hopes that you will like it as much as her two little girls did. Once upon a time there was a little black boy, and his name was Little Black Sambo. And his mother was called Black Mumbo, and his father was called Black Jumbo, and Black Mumbo made him a beautiful little red coat and a beautiful little pair of blue trousers. And Black Jumbo went to the bazaar and bought him a beautiful green umbrella and a lovely pair of purple shoes with crimson soles and crimson linings. And then was a little Black Sambo grand, and I forgot to tell you about the name Sambo, which is a mispronunciation of one of the gods, the Black God Shiva in India, so it's a good name in India. So he put on all his fine clothes and went out for a walk in the jungle, and by and by he met a tiger. Little Black Sambo, I'm going to eat you up. And Little Black Sambo said, oh, please, Mr. Tiger, don't eat me up. I'll give you my beautiful little red coat. So the tiger said, very well, I won't eat you this time, but you must give me your beautiful little red coat. So the tiger got called Little Black Sambo's beautiful little red coat and went away saying, now I'm the grandest tiger in the jungle. And Little Black Sambo went on and by and by, he met another tiger. And it said to him, Little Black Sambo, I'm going to eat you up. And Little Black Sambo said, oh, please, Mr. Tiger, don't eat me up. You can join me with this. And I'll give you my beautiful little blue trousers. So the tiger said, very well, I won't eat you this time, but you must give me your beautiful blue trousers. So the tiger got poor Little Black Sambo's beautiful little blue trousers. And went away saying, now I'm the grandest tiger in the jungle. And Little Black Sambo went on and by and by, he met another tiger. And it said to him, Little Black Sambo, I'm going to eat you up. And Little Black Sambo said, oh, please, Mr. Tiger, don't eat me up. I'll give you my beautiful little purple shoes with crimson soles and crimson linings. But the tiger said, what use would your shoes be to me? I've got four feet and you've only got two. And you haven't got enough shoes for me. So Little Black Sambo said, you could wear them on your ears. So I could, said the tiger. That's a very good idea. So the tiger got poor Little Black Sambo's beautiful little purple shoes with crimson soles and crimson linings. And went away saying, now I'm the grandest tiger in the jungle. And by and by, Little Black Sambo met another tiger. And it said to him, Little Black Sambo, I'm going to eat you up. And Little Black Sambo said, oh, please, Mr. Tiger, don't eat me up. And I'll give you my beautiful blue umbrella. But the tiger said, how can I carry an umbrella when I need my paws for walking? You could tie a knot in your tail and carry it that way, said Little Black Sambo. So I could, said the tiger. Give it to me, and I won't eat you this time. So he got poor Little Black Sambo's green umbrella and went away, saying, now I'm the grandest tiger in the jungle. So poor Little Black Sambo went away crying because the cruel tigers had taken away all his fine clothes. Presently he heard a horrible noise. And it got louder and louder. Oh, dear, said Little Black Sambo. There are tigers coming back to eat me up. What shall I do? So he ran quickly behind a palm tree and peeped around it to see what was going on. And there he saw all the tigers fighting and disputing over who was the grandest. And at last they got all so angry that they jumped off, took off all their clothes, and began to tear each other apart with their claws and their powerful teeth. And they came tumbling and rolling right to the bottom of the tree where Black Sambo was hiding. And he jumped quickly behind the umbrella. And the tigers all caught hold of each other's tails and wrangled them, strumbled them, so they found themselves in a ring around the tree. Then the tigers were very, very, very far away. Little Black Sambo jumped up and called out, oh, tigers, why have you taken off all your clothes? Don't you want them anymore? The tigers only answered, brrr, brrr, brrr. So he said, if you want them, you better say so or I'll take them away. But all they said was, brrr, brrr, brrr. So Little Black Sambo put on all his fine clothes again and walked off. And the tigers were so very angry that still they wouldn't let go of each other's tails. And they ran round and round the tree and they got faster and faster until they were whirling so fast you couldn't even see their legs. And they still ran faster and faster till they just melted away and there was nothing left but a great big pool of melted butter or ghee, as they call it in India, around the foot of the tree. Now, Black Jumbo was coming home from his work with a great big brass pot in his arms. And when he saw what was left of the tigers, he said, melted butter, I'll take it home to Black Mumbo to put her to cook with. So he put it in his pot and took it home. Then Black Mumbo saw the melted butter. She was so pleased. Now she said, we'll all have pancakes for supper. So she got flour and eggs and milk and sugar and butter and made a huge plate of the most lovely pancakes that were yellow and brown like little tigers. And then they all sat down to supper and Black Mumbo ate 27 pancakes. Black Jumbo ate 55, but little Black Sambo ate 169 because he was so hungry. And now we'll sing you out with him number 118 so that you can go to summer fun. To be seated, our first reading is from a document that's somewhat controversial, but I'll explain that a little later. You know, language is a peculiar institution. It leads to the heart of a people. The more a foreigner knows about the language of another country, the more he is able to move through all levels of that society. Therefore, if the foreigner is an enemy of the country, to the extent that he knows the body of the language, to that extent is the country vulnerable to attack or invasion of a foreign country. For example, if you take a slave, if you teach him all about your language, he will know all your secrets. And he is then no more slave, for you can't fool him any longer. And being a fool is one of the basic ingredients of any incident to the maintenance of the slavery system. And the second reading is taken from Healing the Heart of Democracy by Parker Parman. When we choose to engage, not evade, the tensions of our differences, we will become better equipped to participate in a government of, by, and for the people as we expand some of our key civic capacities. Excuse me. To listen to each other openly and without fear, learning how much we have in common despite our differences, to deepen our empathy for the alien other as we enter imaginatively into the experiences of people whose lives are radically unlike our own. To hold what we believe and to know with conviction and be willing to listen openly to other viewpoints, changing our minds if needed, to seek out alternative facts and explanations whenever we find reason to doubt our own truth, truth claims or the claims made by others, thus becoming better informed. To probe, question, explore and engage in dialogue, developing a fuller, more three-dimensional view of reality in the process. To enter the conflicted arena of politics able to hold government accountable to the will of the people. To welcome opportunities to participate in collective problem solving and decision making, generating better solutions and making better decisions as we work with competing ideas. To feel more at home on the face of the earth amid differences of many sorts, better able to enjoy the fruits of diversity. Now let us sit quietly for a minute in meditation of a little poem by Haffitz, the Persian poet. Out of a great need, we are all holding hands and climbing. Not loving is letting go. Listen, the terrain around here is far too dangerous for that. Let it be so. Thank you so much. When I first heard that at nine o'clock, I thought this is a fantastic example of harmony and disharmony. Before Christmas, James and I were chatting over coffee one Sunday and the subject turned to sensitive issues like race and immigration and how society seems to have lost the ability for respectful dialogue. We were enjoying each other's company and talking at a level that had not happened to either of us for some time and realized we both missed such contact and wondered out loud if it was possible to turn it into a community discussion. This service, with the blessing of the Lay Worship Committee, is the result. One of the reasons we chose Little Black Sambo to read was to push your adult buttons, starters. But it's really just a cute kid's story, which, if you've not heard it before, it really is, from another culture. But it's an excellent example of how ideas and words can be co-opted by ignorance in the service of a political agenda. The same is true of the phrase political correctness. Its history is checkered and slimy. Briefly, it was first recorded in Marx's tongue-in-cheek humor as a reminder that the party's interests should be considered above all else, such as, comrade, your statement is factually incorrect. Yes, it is, but it's politically correct. The phrase is a slippery as a nail and is now being used as a phantom enemy. An imaginary line used to belittle or contain those who disagree with a marginalized norm established by those who burl the accusations. The phrase rarely appeared before the 1990s, when it appeared 700 times, linked with other phrases like thought police. After that, its use increased rapidly, fueled by conservative movement and a series of popular media articles and books concerned about student-driven liberal campus policies at the time. Over the intervening years, its use has spilled from campuses and academia into common usage and now it's coupled with phrases such as trigger warnings, safe spaces, microaggressions, privilege, and cultural appropriation. I ask, is this education or consciousness raising or control and who is controlling whom? The original motivation was simple, to fix a broken society. The question now seems to be, whose vision is it serving? From outward appearances, I'm a white American woman. When I speak, things immediately change. Excuse me. Shortly after my arrival in Madison, one of my coworkers, an 18-year-old, the oldest in a Catholic family of 10, who lived in Cambridge, Wisconsin, all her life, corrected my pronunciation of tomato. Unfortunately at the time, I didn't know that this is also an East Coast pronunciation. Then I had no rejoinder, only the discomfort and angst of a judged immigrant. I often hear, I love to hear you talk, where are you from? Now mostly from strangers, then, Kevin's. Although I imagine it's unintended, the British accent is often considered in this country to be elite. In retrospect, this might have been why my coworker reacted as she did. But you can imagine the question gets very old after a while. To those I think might understand, I now say Atlantis. I've been here 50 years. However, it is amazingly refreshing for me to ask this very question of the many cab drivers in New York when visiting my daughter and her family. They're from all over the globe. We share encounters with demoralizing bewildering immigration system, for one, for oldeners. Recently, one of them had come by his country's lottery. That's the first I've ever met. Many come seeking refuge, jobs, or the mythological PR of the American dream. A lot, like me, end up here by default. You might know, before I retired, I was a health educator at a local women's substance abuse treatment center. It was a multicultural group, and my responsibilities included teaching healthy habits. I looked for ways to engage everyone, and Harry and Jacob's diary of a slave girl had just been republished. I realized that many of the behaviors described by Harriet Ann, necessary for her survival, was still being used to their detriment now by my clients. So I planned classes using this book, and naively thought it would be of interest to all. The African Americans in the class aggressively let me know I was ineligible to teach their history. I'm still saddened by this. In Europe, the long history belongs to nobody. It just happened. My intention was to introduce the clients to a remarkable role model, and to provide all with an understanding of an uncomfortable American past that was given short shrift in school. Personally, apart from being a very difficult experience, I was deprived of a very powerful teaching tool. Now I ask, was I guilty of cultural appropriation? Is introducing others to their own cultural resources out of line? If so, how limiting is this? I'd been enlightened by the story. Why not share it? So the question becomes, if I am frightened or affronted, am I responsible for speaking out, or are those who are offended by my apparent insensitivity, or both? This brings me to the subject of trigger warnings, safe spaces, micro-graphicians, and privilege. How can I learn what is upsetting another unless they tell me it hurts? The women did that, but they failed to tell me how, and I failed to ask them why. Is it my responsibility to let them know they've stepped on my cultural toes? Or is it theirs for not explaining their position? Is presenting my point of view authoritarian? What a noise some does not affect others? It is, as they say in England, a very sticky wicket. I now realize in my excitement, I failed to seek commonality before I launched the class. I'd failed to find shared ground other than their addictions. It was also where my co-worker erred, but it was where James and I connected, and where I meet taxi drivers, and is also Parker Palmer's first suggestion for civic engagement. Everything else ripples out from there. As we learn from each other, the picture expands and many more varied solutions emerge. Hanging together becomes even more important when there's a bully in the pulpit. The playing field might become unfairly tilted in that bully's favor. Let's tilt it back. Bullies tend to draw power from the grievances of others. The solution is to address those grievances and reduce their power. Bullies grab attention, but there's a larger world beyond their control. It contains so many more things that are working, enjoyable, beautiful, and virtuous. It is possible to disengage from repetitive loops of helpless outrage, fantasies of payback, and fault-finding of others. It's bad enough that the bully is out there. Let's try and let the bully invade our minds and stay there. You might be familiar with Tara Brack's acronym, RAIN, to cope with your own merciless nitpicking, imitating, inner judge. And for those of you that haven't, should be up there. RAIN, R, is for recognize what is going on. Allow the experience to be there just as it is. Investigate with interest and care and nourish yourself with self-compassion. Recently, I came up with another formula, it's actually an equation, to move fear into action. Discomfort with the situation plus observation of what's happening now, plus the insight gained by recognizing what's going on allowing the experience to be there, investigating it and nourishing yourself, equals negotiation and growth. Doing, may it be so. Thank you, Ross. We engaged one another in discussion out here in the hallway and it was refreshing. It allowed me to connect with Ross in a way that's unique and special. She's not only my friend, I embrace her as a sister. So welcome. Political correctness. While we were engaging one another that term, just kept coming up in my mind. And I was wondering, how does this word impact our culture? How does it impact in some ways the core of who we are, our families? How we relate to one another on our jobs and other areas of people activity? I looked at it from a sociological perspective and I noticed in general that people or persons with whom I had had the most contact were hesitant and sometimes fearful of engaging one another in honest and open communication. And then I realized that the consequences of that was that no one wanted or seemed to want to express what they felt or what they thought on any particular topic. Religion, politics. And so it did something. And I was wondering what is preventing them from even beginning to explore how to build functional relationships, either public or private. And I consistently heard from people in my exchanges with them, they said, you should change. You shouldn't say that. You're making people uncomfortable. I'd say to white people, you're not white, you're human. Well, we white people. And that disturbed me because it allowed me to see a level of self-censorship that's connected to this idea of I'm being politically incorrect, if I say that. And so that curiosity led me to think about this at a more basic level. And you all know what that is, it's called language. Real basic. We all possess it, we all use it every single day. But do we ever really think about the power of language? The power of the word. Some of us in our, I remember when I was in my Christian teachings and I read the Bible and one of the first things I recall was in the beginning was the word. And the word became. And so it led me to think about this language, self-censorship. Now, for example, I'm gonna get this out here. We just had an election and we have a president. And this particular individual, Donald Trump, sits in the highest office in his nation. And how did he get there? I think he got there by being the least politically correct individual on the face of the earth. He appealed to everybody's sense of the other. Women, immigrants, black people, people who were disenfranchised, and he just put it out there. And he sits in the highest office in the country. That's not where I wanna go here today, but what I believe is important is for us to gain an understanding of the value of being able to engage one another in open and honest dialogue and conversation. Let me give you an idea of what I mean because when I say language, I say word, that means something. And I combine that with this term power. And if you generally ask people what is power, they'll give you their idea and their definition, particularly around the personal power that they feel they possess. But I wanna share with you a definition of power that when I read it, it took me somewhere that I had normally gone when thinking about the term power. And it's actually a Jamaican proverb. And the proverb says that power is the ability to define reality and have other people respond to your definition as if it were their own. When I contemplated that, I realized something. That's the power that rules nations. That's the level of power that determines what happens in our economic systems, in our social systems, in our political systems. And guess what people, we don't even have a clue as to who's defining our reality. And I believe that that is a level of power and a definition of power that we need to possess for ourselves. Because if we wanna see effective change and we wanna see positive growth, if we wanna see our values, our faith values, our moral principles and other things operate within the society and the culture that we say we love, we have to take hold of that power. And that power is in this room. That power is in our communities. We wake up with it every day, we go to sleep with it every day, but we have to recognize that we possess it. I was talking to an associate of mine about what Roz and I are sharing here today. And this is a person that is well respected in the African-American community. And I said to her, you know, I'm gonna be over at First Unitarian Society with a friend of mine, and we're gonna be talking about little black Sambo. Woo! And she looked at me and she said, did they put something in your Kool-Aid? Are you serious? Why not talk about something positive? The good things that black people have accomplished and little James, you've, what is wrong with you? I was shocked and amazed because again, this was somebody that I deeply respected and saw as someone, you know, ahead, you know? And I thought, I said, well, hmm, can't we talk about it? If we can't understand or discuss the harm, how do we get to the healing? Those white people, the ugliness, it's their fault. Again, if we can't dialogue and openly and honestly talk about it, how do we approach the healing? And I'm a reader and so I said, okay, I can understand it from this perspective and I'm hearing the conversations about culture. And so I said, okay, so what? How does culture play into this? And so I went and I looked and there was a few definitions around the term culture and they seem, you know, somewhat connected of relative to political correctness. And so I looked at these things and I thought, wow, you know, culture, culture is what defines our values our morals, the things that we value that are transitioned from generation to generation that helps strengthen and guide us. And then I went back to the idea of who's determining and defining that reality and what that culture is. Is it being used to bring harmony or is it being used to separate? I could ask a question. What do you see when you see a black man? What you think, what you feel and what you believe will probably come from what you've seen as opposed to a direct experience. You see the drug dealer on television, you hear the narrative about, you know, those guys don't take care of their children. They have all of these kids, they're criminals. And if you hear it enough, it becomes your reality, even though it may not be your experience. So who's defining that for us? And is it politically correct to even talk about it? Or do we shy away from the discussion? Do we feel uncomfortable? Those are some things I believe we need to consider, we need to talk about and champion because I believe in us. And I believe that we possess a power to do so. I also read another book and the book was entitled The Culture of White Supremacy, Culture as a Process, a process. And it was written by Carolyn Phillips. And again, I'm gonna quote. She said, culture gives us our language and style of learning. A style of learning includes the way we think and the way we know what we think. For example, a common way of thinking that children are taught in the US is what's called dualistic logic. That is something is either one thing or it is another thing. And you have to make a choice between the two limited alternatives. But then she went on to say, a child in an ancient African school might have been taught a logic of both and. And you can make a choice which incorporates several different perspectives into a fresh new vision. As a 58-year-old African-American man standing before you today, it's not either or for me. It's both and because it allows myself and you to move forward with a fresh new perspective. And we can do that. And we can do that. And then she had something there alongside of that definition that talked about ideology. And she said that ideology is a worldview reproduced and verified in our daily lives. Although ideology is consciously created by those who own and control the major educational and media institutions, it must be experienced as real in some little bit of sense by non-ruling, that means us, classes of people in order for it to influence a person or group outlook. I found that mind boggling, so to speak. But I say in this sense and by example, as I just said, how do you perceive me? Where did you get those images? Media, people who control, who desire to lead us in directions that are not life-affirming, not based upon culture, not based upon religion, but based upon our common humanity. And that is the glue that binds us and has bound us for better or for worse. So here we are and we find it difficult to engage one another in conversations in this country. And in the 1980s, when I was deeply into some of my studies, I read this paper on racism and cross-racial hostility. And I'm gonna use a final quote and it said that the American nation was founded on racism. It said, compare the rapid emergence and eventual dominance of the United States with the century-long process of national formation in Europe. This dominance was not the result of, quote, Yankee ingenuity, unquote, and would not have been accomplished without the resources and wealth first created by the stolen Native American land and enslaved Black labor. That also took me somewhere different in understanding the culture and the people which I inherited through my ancestors, through their trials and tribulations and through their successes. It gave me a broader vision of the world that I would love to see us inhabit together. But here's what's disturbing to me because in this community, what I see from the white community is fear and guilt. And I don't believe that should be. And what I experience and see and sometimes experience on a visceral level in the African American community is apathy and defeat. If we don't talk about it, how do we heal? How has the silent incorporation of political correctness impacted us? Give that some thought, be not afraid. We won't get there. And I'm not saying we're gonna have this wonderful utopia, but I can guarantee you that we won't get there through self-censorship. Don't be afraid to come up and ask me why I'm wearing this beautiful skirt. This is part of the silent conversation that Roz and I wanted to have with you all today. She's dressed in all black, I'm dressed in all white. We have people who judge based on gender. I'm getting married here, August 26th. Beautiful woman. But someone probably would feel very uncomfortable walking up and saying, James, I'm curious. I mean, it looks good, but let's talk about it. Let's recognize that, yes, we have emotion. And I believe that the greatest gift that I could extend to each and every one of you here is to honor your capacity to think. I'm gonna give you a homework assignment. I haven't had one of those in a long time. Throughout your day tomorrow, count the number of times that people ask you, how are you feeling? How do you feel? How do you feel? How do you feel? And then add up the number of times someone says, I wanna know what you think about this. And then think about how we get to from where we are, to where our hearts and our minds and our spirits and love and in faith know where we need to be. The Heart of Democracy by Parker Palmer. When we choose to engage, not evade, the tension of our differences, we will become better equipped to participate in a government of, by, and for the people. I've read that somewhere before. And let us remember that, the people, us, we. And so I want to, on behalf of myself, thank you. I want to thank Michael. I want to thank everybody at FUS for giving us a ear. For listening with your ear, but more so, for opening up your hearts. Ross. We'll now have the offering. Please give generously to this fantastic community. Tim, 146, soon the day will arrive. What we choose to emphasize in the complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places, and there are so many, where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act. And at least the possibility of sending this spinny top of the world in a different direction. And if we do act in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presence. And to live now as we think human beings should live in defiance of all that is bad around us is itself a marvelous victory.