 in a moment of centering silence so we can all come together and be here with one another. And now please remain seated as we sing our in-gathering hymn which is number 118 and the verses we will sing are in your order of service. Good morning and welcome to the first Unitarian Society of Madison. This is a community where curious seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical and social issues in an accepting and nurturing environment. Unitarian Universalism supports the freedom of conscience of each individual as together we seek to be a force for good in the world. My name is Karen Rose Gredler and on behalf of the entire congregation I want to extend a special welcome to any visitors who are with us. We are a welcoming congregation so whomever you are and wherever you happen to be on your life journey we celebrate your presence among us. New comers and anyone else who wants to are encouraged to stay for our fellowship hour after the service and if you like to visit the library which is directly across from the center doors of this auditorium bring your beverages and your questions. Members of our staff and lay ministry will be on hand to welcome you. You may also look for persons holding teal colored stoneware coffee mugs these are FUS members knowledgeable about our faith community who would be happy to visit with you. Experienced guides are generally available to give a building tour after each service I understand we have one after this service so if excuse me if you are interested in learning more about this sustainably designed addition or our national landmark meeting house across the parking lot please meet near the large glass windows on what is your left side of the auditorium right after the service. We welcome children to stay for the duration of the service however because it is difficult for some in attendance to hear in this lively acoustical environment our child haven back in that corner and our commons along the back of the auditorium are also excellent places to go you can still see and hear the service in those areas and if your child needs to talk or move around or jump up and down those are good places to be. I now oh I'm sorry this would also be a very good time to turn off all devices that might cause a disturbance during the hour especially cell phone ringers please because we love to hear those cute little sounds but not in the middle of some serious moment you know in the service. I'd now like to acknowledge those individuals who do help our services run smoothly. We have Mark Schultz, hi Mark, doing the sound control for us and Smiley is our lay minister. Carol Angel was the greeter whom you met on your way in. Our ushers are Gail Bliss and Karen Jagger and making coffee and all back in the hospitality area are Jeannie Hills and Rick DeVita who has a thing for being called by special names and today he would like to be Buckaroo Bonsai. Thank you Rick. I love that film myself. Oh dear okay please note the announcements in the red floors insert to your order of service which describes upcoming events at the society and provides more information about today and upcoming events. Again welcome. We hope today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart and stir your spirit. Thank you. Now grab some Greek one another, spirit from the neighborhood, yes. And who'd like to come up for the story. Any children at heart who want to join me here and you wouldn't have to sit on the floor. Oh good we have actual participating children. Yay. Hello. Now there's some enthusiasm. Oh do you have a boo boo? I'm very sorry to hear that but your band aid's pretty. Hello sweetheart. Well that's a good thing to do isn't it? Oh goody come on you can come over closer. Since Mr. O'Brien is talking today later after you guys go to summer fun about our expectations of satisfaction of all kinds of desires in the world. I thought we could talk about what we do have and how thankful we are for it. Things that we really really enjoy. And the people in this book are really cute little fuzzy people. Here they are. I say thank you. Aren't they cute? They're fuzzy people. That's all I know. They look fuzzy and they're supposedly sort of like people. I say thank you to the sun above. Thank you for my friends I love. Thank you for the earth and the air. Thank you for the food to share. Say again. Oh these are animals. There's a something and a something in a bunny. Yeah this book is made by a very creative artist who sees us in ways we don't always see ourselves which is a good thing. And thanks for trees and thanks for trains and for the breeze and for the rain. See all those things in this picture? Yeah trains you like those right? Well they're lots of fun to play with. Here they are for all the big kids in the audience and look at these. What are these? Yeah that are generating power from the breeze. Yeah yeah right well they can't do that in this book because it's just a solid picture in time but in real life they'd be doing that. And thank you thank you ocean deep. Who do you see here? Yeah great big whale. Who's this guy? Yes. Wow all that in this picture I guess so. Yes under the sea treasure chest. Yes yes ma'am see it's right there. It's kind of hidden in the weeds. Yeah oh the jellyfish we missed that. Oh did you? I'm sorry sir. I didn't I apologize. And desert dry and mountain steep. See those? And pigs and cows and ducks and sheep and horses geese and hands. What's strange about all these animals? Yeah they're all wearing sunglasses which is very important to protect our eyes but usually you don't see them on cows and pigs and horses right? And we thank you and thanks for balls to kick and kites to fly and places to go when we need to cry. Do you have a special place you go? This little fuzzy is in his bedroom it appears. That's a good idea yes well hopefully we don't have to cry too often but you know when we do it's okay right? Sometimes you just gotta cry. Thank you thank you thank you there are a lot of fuzzy people to moms and dads and sisters and brothers teachers and doctors and artists and others. Do you see all those people there? I'm gonna pull it around there see right and look some of them are doctors some of them have on aprons yep yeah green and red and pink kind of like the real world where there are people of all colors. See a stethoscope yeah a big red fuzzy doctor yeah yeah do you think this is the artist with the apron with all the colors on it? Yes there's a basketball player okay this is the most impressive page of all in the book because it has funny guys of all colors with other identifying look this must be a business person with a tie on probably a guy this looks like a ninja turtle doesn't it look at that oh okay okay thanks for all these people who make our lives so much better for a living thanks to music and dancing and singing and giving look at this funny purple guy he's like a one man band or a one person band yeah yeah yeah oh this is a good page thanks for patience and hopes and rewards and revisions and wizards and lizards and delightful decisions look at them lizards and wizards playing a game of basketball is that cool or what and it appears that the lizards are green and the wizards are all dressed in purple with gold stars you like this one this is my favorite page yeah that's a good one too thanks for taking time thanks for going fast thanks for jumping high and thanks for finishing last because first isn't always the best place to be and there's a tortoise and a hare like in the old fable and it really doesn't matter which one one if they had fun and thanks for second place and fifth on through 453 look at these people there were 453 people in that race or fuzzies in that race and they all had fun and we thank all of them this is a cute one too even bad things now see these look like sea monsters don't they sticking their little heads up out of the ocean yeah that's true here's a better picture of them even those bad things can turn out to be good look at that look at those sweet monsters one's giving the other one flowers and a heart that's right so maybe they aren't so bad maybe they like each other and they're friendly just like people even though initially they look like monsters i like that page too those bumps and those bruises that turn couldn'ts to coulds now i don't recommend doing this of course but this little person fuzzy person is trying to ride his skateboard along a stairs and Kerplunk he lands on the ground see but then on the next page it shows thank you for those those problems for they make us all stronger they make us all smarter they make us last longer and look there he is successfully doing what i don't recommend which is going down the stair banister on his skateboard look at that and he's done it successfully this also applies to schoolwork and friendships and lots of other things that aren't as dangerous thank you to all that has ever existed and everything else i could never have listed what's this over here well it looks a little like a tornado but i what yes the solar system thank you which is as far as we can see most of our everything although we know there's some more stuff out there but we can't see it very well oh thank you with kisses and thank you with hugs from a part of my heart that is so full of love look at all those hearts aren't they cool yeah all colors just like the fuzzies yeah they're a zillion i don't even know if we could count them all i know hundreds million well there could be hopefully they're 100 million people with love out there would say that again well let's not think of it as a mess let's think of it as an expression of thousands of loving thoughts how about that million zillion here's the last part i say thank you to you just for being yourself yourself as important as anything else and here's a beautiful butterfly yeah you like that story thank you very much what yeah that's the end this is a nice book i had to read only portions of it because it's very very big and thick so if you want to read it at home sometime it's called an awesome book of thanks okay and now we are going to sing no we're not wait what happens next jim you can go off to summer fun everybody who wants to can go to summer fun and the rest of us will rise as we are able by sweetheart and sing we'll build a land which is number 121 which has given us this America has provided a landscape and has given us the resources and the opportunity for the speed of national self but each of us individually provides the market and the demand for the illusions which flood our experience we want and we believe these illusions because we suffer from extravagant expectations we expect too much of the world our expectations are extravagant in the precise dictionary sense of the word going beyond the limits of reason or moderation they are excessive when we pick up our newspaper at breakfast we expect we even demand that it bring us momentous events since the night before we turn on the car radios we drive to work and expect news to have occurred since the morning newspaper went to press returning in the evening we expect our house not only to shelter us keep us warm in winter and cool in summer but to relax us to dignify us to encompass us with soft music and interesting hobbies to be a playground a theater and a bar we expect our two week vacation to be romantic exotic cheap and effortless we expect a faraway atmosphere if we go to a nearby place and we expect everything to be relaxing sanitary and americanized if we go to a faraway place we expect new heroes every season a literary masterpiece every month a dramatic spectacular every week a rare sensation every night we expect everyone to feel free to disagree yet we expect everyone to be loyal not to rock the motor take the fifth amendment we expect everybody to believe deeply in his religion yet not to think less of others for not believing we expect our nation to be strong and great and vast and varied and prepared for every challenge yet we expect our national purpose to be clear and simple something that gives direction to the lives of over 300 million people and yet can be bought in a paperback at the corner drugstore we expect anything and everything we expect the contradictory and the impossible we expect compact cars which are spacious luxurious cars which are economical we expect to be rich and charitable powerful and merciful active and reflective kind and competitive we expect to be inspired by mediocre appeals for excellence to be made literate by illiterate appeals for literacy we expect to eat and stay thin to be constantly on the move and yet evermore neighborly to go to a church of our choice and yet feel its guiding power over us to revere God and to be God never have a people been more the masters of their environment it never has a people felt more deceived and disappointed for never has a people expected so much more than the world could offer we are ruled by extravagant expectations of what the world holds and of our power to shape the world I note that expectations are more than they carry a sense of entitlement the way things should be they come first from our parents or parent figures we know about the extreme example what parents can have for their kids prom queen sports star we also know the normal expectations popular smart good-looking respectful to us competitive successful follow in our footsteps what if that's not their plan or their body's plan did they then become a disappointment and what's it like to carry that sense of fear teachers certainly have expectations pay attention be interested learn at least don't show you're not doing these things what if you're not interested you can't pay attention you can't or won't learn you're going to be hassled you're going to fall behind maybe fail you're going to carry that sense of failure and your classmates have expectations I can really speak only to the guys here the expectations are clear and forceful if you're big you should be out for football if you're tall you should be a basketball player if neither at least not a sec or a tattle tail and you should take signs and be loyal to your side even if you might get beat on by the other side and you should never cry they get the pattern bursin is more interested in the expectations generated by the mass mediums newspapers radio television movies these mediums expect attention even clamor for it but just enough attention so that it doesn't become critical attention and they know we want instant gratification and so they constantly tease us with the next thing right after these messages what are the consequences of this pandering to our expectation of instant gratification let's check in with our assigned authority Daniel borscht the making of the illusions which flood our experience has become the business of america some of its most honest and most necessary and most respectable business i'm thinking borscht says not only of advertising public relations and political rhetoric but of all the activities which purport to inform and comfort and improve and educate and elevate us the work of our best journalists our most enterprising book publishers our most energetic manufacturers and merchandisers our most successful entertainers our best guides to world travel our most influential leaders in foreign relations our every effort to exceed and satisfy extravagant expectations borscht continues simply makes them more extravagant and makes our illusions more attractive the story of the making of our illusions the news behind the news has become the most appealing news of the world oh by the way borscht published these thoughts in 1962 over 60 years ago do they still sound familiar these observations from a man who despite his vast learning knew nothing of the internet the smart phone facebook twitter trending and unprinting what about the expectations they create we're talking here suddenly about the social media i'm guessing it started with email exploded with facebook became worldwide with twitter became quicker and more evanescent with snapchat and it's fractionating with multiple e-services far beyond my knowledge um for example i don't know if pokemon go is the social medium or not i'm afraid to know i must admit that i'm not the best source of information here i do have a smart phone but it's a lot smarter than i am or care to be i have a facebook account that tells me i have 294 friends but i have no idea who most of them are or how they got to be my friends i suppose i could go through the list and unfriend them but that seems harsh and besides they might buy my book why are these social media so attractive they are personal and instant they give the illusion of connection and the illusion of control of safety we hear frequent stories of the emptiness of that illusion not merely of pathological behaviors like the slender man standing but the repeated reports of internet bullying among adolescents leading to breakdown social withdrawal and a sharp increase in suicides and only adolescents what about workplace bullying bullying of people perceived as different or whatever reason way beyond adolescents you don't grow out of bullying if it keeps working for you how strong an attraction to these social media yet well you can imagine the powerful appeal of the martyrdom you ever wondered to yourself how can these young radicals go out and strap arms to themselves and die to kill other people would you die for a cell phone message would you kill for it people do every day the answer the phone while driving they make that urgent call while driving they text while driving they crash and sometimes die and sometimes kill i'm not trying to take some righteous stance here i must point out i've done a lot of distracting just distracted driving myself without the benefit of a cell phone i'm only trying to show how intense is he urged to be connected in the instant and the occasional but growing cost of that intensity this is the time for a person of my age to go up in a rant about the pace of modern life such rants go back a long way in western civilization at least to the ancient greek philosophers but i have news for them and myself and all of us the pace of modern life is not going away and it's not going to slow down unless come up that great catastrophe the apocalypse you may recall michael's recent reflections in that area as my old compatriot marcia mcluwe used to say the medium is the message the social media are here they are multiplying and there is no going back from the new media inevitably change society how will they change this political blogger and their settlement sites play to this republic to the effect that democracies as they become more democratic become more more vulnerable to the appeal of a shameless demagogue fill in any name well the republic was written some 2,500 years ago but our founding fathers were well aware of plaguer's warnings when they crafted the elaborate system of checks and balances which we call american government they feared such a tyranny and they guarded against it consequently the government works slowly laboriously often taking one step forward and two steps back to the frustration of many and the satisfaction of others as churchal observed democracy is the worst of governing systems except for all the others someone points out what the 21st century added to this tendency toward tyranny and democratic political systems was media democracy in a truly revolutionary form if late stage political democracy has taken two centuries to mature in america the social media equivalent took around two decades swiftly erasing almost any elite moderation and control of our democratic discourse some of them suggest that the process has its origins in the partisan talk radio the end of the past century the rise of the internet an event so swift and pervasive in its political effect is only now beginning to be understood further democratizing every source of information dramatically expanding each cult lets readership and giving anyone and everyone a platform for example Sullivan notes political organizing calling a meeting fomenting a rally to advance the cause used to be very difficult now you could take you could bring together a virtual mass movement with a single web page would take you a few seconds to set up the distinction between politics and entertainment is becoming more and more fuzzy election coverage becomes even more model on sports casting political speeches are crafting to produce a 10 second sound white for the evening news what this fuel the Sullivan thinks is what the founding fathers feared about democratic culture the valorizing of feeling emotion and narcissism rather than reason empiricism and public spirits i'm earnestly attempting not to get into the political campaign here but the most obvious evidence available suggests there's widespread anger disillusionment frustration hopelessness even despair in american culture and it has certainly reached a boiling point in the contemporary election political liberals trace this back around Reagan's famous slogan government is not the solution to our problem government is a problem Reagan only said that because a lot of people already believed it so the elected Ronald Reagan who for some reason did not dismantle the government since he was the head of it the co-mortem which did embrace this model the tea party represented only a small fairly coherent slice of the political spectrum but the political pulsars have been fighting any of the people animated today by the political campaign had been largely indifferent to party affiliations and reach across a wide range of political attitudes of course older political liberals who shall remain nameless trace this back to the disillusionment with the vietnam conflict and the watergate scandal or perhaps even to the collapse in the early 70s of the social revolutions of the 60s but who remembers that certainly not me it is the responsibility function and fate of the government in power to be blamed the contemporary situation whatever its political strike and the blame gaze is always momentarily satisfying completely ineffective and ultimately frustrating we're told that we're a democracy that the people have power but then we don't see the change that we extravagantly expect and we're frustrated again and we want to express it the social media have given anyone a voice president obama loved his twitter account the pope has a twitter account and he uses it fiance well i won't go through the full list so it's a good thing it sounds like a good thing a democratic thing don't we all have a right to our opinion don't we all have a right to express it isn't believing the democratic process one of our uu principles do the flood of social media statements emerge from a thoughtful insightful consideration of the issue at hand or are they reactive knee jerk gut driven brain frailings not to characterize them in any way borsam would say that we have extravagant expectations for quick results from a system designed to work slowly and cautiously we hear candidates say on day one of my administration but that's just not the way it works for any new president well what can we do we start with what spiritual guides call discernment the power to distinguish discern the judge or praise a person or situation for example what do we expect of ourselves of our spouses our children our schools our church our nation our our expectations reasonable are they based on righteousness or cynicism do they produce euphoria or bitterness do they lead us to action or discourage us from action worst in things that what we need is to disillusion ourselves what ails us most it's not what we have done with america what we have substituted for america we suffer primarily not from our vices or from our weaknesses but from our illusions we are haunted not by reality but by the images we have put in place of reality to discern our illusions will not solve the problems of our world but if we do not discern them we will never discover our real problems to dispel the ghosts which populate the world of our making will not give us power to conquer the real enemies of the real world or remake the real world but it may help us to discover that we cannot make the world over in our image discernment will liberate us and sharpen our vision we hope it will clear away the fog so we can face the world we share with all mankind let's get started on that break no it's time for our offering to this time and place we bring our whole hear joys and sorrows find a place where they can be received celebrated and we pause to acknowledge previous concern and now joy i assume uh from Anne Smiley this morning's lay minister regarding her son will who has been doing archival research in Istanbul for the past month his flight home is wednesday and i assume she is very very happy he's coming home and can't wait to give him a big hug so we're all with you Anne may we silently in the spirit of empathy and hope hold in our hearts and hands the unspoken joys and sorrows of this community as well as those of the mourning french people and the shaken and bereaved people of turkey as well as our entire wounded world because of this time shared may our burdens be enlightened and our joys be expanded may we have a moment of silence i don't know about you but i always find it reassuring to hear the voices of children in the background when we are thinking of things that are sad they are the future and they're busy out there now i would ask you to stand as you are able for our closing hymn number 151