 The Episcopal priest and poet, Ala Renee Bozart writes, The small plot of ground on which you were born cannot be expected to stay forever the same. Earth changes and home becomes different places. You took flesh from clay, but the clay did not come from just one place. To feel alive, important and safe, know your own waters and hills, but know more. You have stars in your bones and oceans in your blood. You have opposing terrain in each eye. You belong to the land and the sky of your first cry. You belong to infinity. These words speak to me of the fundamental questions we are asking this morning. Who and who's are we? I know I have delivered many sermons to you on that second question. Who's are we? And I promise you we will get to that in a moment. First though, I would like us to take some time with that first question. Who are we? What is our commitment to ourselves? For when I look at these two questions, I know my own tendency is to jump immediately to thinking about who we are with one another, and I think this could be to our detriment. I'm learning that we need to answer the first question. Who are we first? To feel alive, important and safe, know your own waters and hills. Since early November, I have had the great privilege of taking part in a program called Flourishing in Ministry, offered through the Center for Courage and Renewal, an organization started by Parker Palmer and Marcy and Rick Jackson. One of the foundational pieces of this work is that we all have a trustworthy source of inner wisdom that informs our lives and how we are in this world. It is our identity and integrity, the sum of our shadows and our light, our true self. Without taking the time to discover and uncover who this true self is, we cannot live a life of authenticity. Without taking the time for this crucial discovery of self, we cannot be fully present in building a life with others. This inner place they talk about is more than our intellect, our ego, our emotions and our desires. It is the light behind the eyes, the energy that animates us, or as Howard Thurman said, it is the sound of the genuine within you. If their language of true self doesn't resonate, you can call it your inner wisdom or your inner voice, maybe trusting your gut. Poets, musicians and mystics have all given words to this essence of who we are beyond the usual ways we define our lives, how we live, how we make a living, what positions we hold. John O'Donohue calls it the dignity somewhere in us that is more gracious than the smallness that fuels us with force. William Stafford appeals to a voice, to something shadowy, a remote important region in all. Although Parker Palmer often refers to his inner teacher, he often says that what you call this core of humanity doesn't matter, but that we name it matters a great deal, that we recognize it matters, that we take the time to discover it and learn how to listen to it matters. If we don't find it and feel it and name it, we start to lose the being in human being. We start to treat ourselves and one another like empty vessels or objects to be marketed. When we say soul or identity and integrity, there is a recognition that there is something within ourselves and within each person we meet to make a deep bow to. There is a word for it, he says, in every wisdom tradition. Too many of us allow the sense of who we are to come from the sum of our life experiences or many of us tragically allow all of our mistakes to tell us who we are. We look through the murky lens of shame or regret at our stumbles and hurts, our heart aches and breaks and define ourselves by these alone. No other measure or other voice can convince us otherwise. Without taking the time to discover the underlying core of our being, getting clarity around what we value, what grounds us, what convictions we hold, we will not be able to see ourselves and one another as we really are. As beings of worth and value, light and shadow, inherently good just as we are. This question lives at the heart of Unitarian Universalism. We can hear it in the words of our transcendentalist forebears. In his 1841 essay, Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Insist on yourself. Never imitate. Nothing can bring you peace but knowing yourself. Don't try to be someone else. Be yourself and bring something new to life. Who are you? A woman in my small group cohort mentioned the power of rereading journals she has been keeping since she was a teenager. I see common threads throughout my life, she said. The themes are the same, the dreams are the same, the core of who I am is the same. I may be a different age, have a different job, live somewhere new, but my inner teacher is always there reminding me of who I am and what I stand for and whether or not I am being true to myself. It has taken me many years to realize that what I need to do is remember and listen. When we can be rooted in the answer to this question, who are you? Then we can show up in the fullness of who we are. This creates space for others to show up in their fullness as well. And it must be said that there are those for whom rooting in self, for whom making this commitment to knowing themselves and honoring themselves is a radical act. There are so many forces that disrespect selves, especially when those selves happen to be in bodies that are black or brown or Asian, female or non-binary or LGBTQ or more. The poet June Jordan said, I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am black. It means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect. To make a commitment to knowing yourself is about growth and justice and change and challenge. It's about what we hold sacred, and how sacred we hold our very selves. Know your own waters and hills, but know more. Douglas Steer, a Quaker teacher, says that this ancient and original question, who am I, inevitably leads to a deeper one, who's am I? Because there is no identity outside of relationship, he says. You cannot be a person by yourself. To ask who's am I is to know more, to wonder who needs you, who loves you, whose life is altered by your choices, with whose life is your own all bound up in obvious and maybe invisible ways. Reverend Sarah Lamert tells a story from her days of studying in Kenya when she was a youth. She and the other students were invited to a dinner hosted by some local tribal leaders. And during the dinner, she recalls, one of the young men asked me who my people were. I stumbled with my answer, explaining that I came from the area of the Mississippi River. He seemed puzzled that I could not clearly identify myself with a tribe. I know who I am, he said gravely. And by this he meant I know who I am in community. I know who I am as part of the natural world. I know myself to be a member of one tribal body. I belong, therefore I am. That powerful statement, I belong, therefore I am, is also a humbling one. Reminding us that we cannot be a person by ourselves. Whose lives are all bound up in obvious and invisible ways with your own? In our story of the blue songbird we see this journey of setting out and discovering who we are. For the bird it was finding her song, the one that only she could sing. What I love about her journey is that she risked the adventure. She found the courage to head out on her own. And she found her song when she returned home to her family. When she remembers whose she was. It was when she was with them that she discovered the song that was uniquely hers to sing. That story reminded me of the blessing that we give to our high school seniors when they participate in our bridging ritual marking their transition from youth to young adulthood. We use the words of my colleague Reverend Kelly Weisman, Aspreuth Jackson, who wrote, I send you out now to share yourself with the world. May its promise and complexity set your mind ablaze. May you hold fast to what your life has taught you. May you question everything. And when you have changed the world and when the world has changed you. May you return again to this place and share what you have learned with us. Who and whose are you? To become our authentic true selves we need to hold fast to what grounds us. Honoring our own inner wisdom. And we need others to help us see and understand ourselves clearly. In courage work Parker tells us we stand with simple attentiveness with another. Trusting that they have within themselves whatever resources they need. And that our attentiveness can help bring those resources into play. This is the beauty of knowing to whom you belong. Knowing that you belong here together. In community we are able to show up in the fullness of our beings. When we are filled with joy and when we are deep in sorrow. And know that we are held here in love. Our community is grounded in a core value of love. We say we are bound to one another in love. By which we mean the willingness to create space for our own growth. As well as the growth of another. Learning to be in community stretches us to understand, respect and support one another. Which is why we say love is hard. Yet we choose to do it anyway. A community that allows us to do this makes us want to grow from the inside out. Giving us the safety needed to take the risks and endure the failures that growth requires. Knowing who you are is critical. And so is knowing whose you are. These two questions together allow us to understand ourselves and why we are here. And remind us that we never need to do this alone. Each day you go out into the world holding fast to that core of who you are. With struggle and growth changing and being changed by the world. And then we hope you return here sharing what you have learned singing the song that only you can sing. Here with us our lives inextricably bound together in mutual care and abiding love. May we be brave enough to make it so.