 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 Gretler, and on behalf of the congregation, I want to extend a special welcome to everyone here this morning, visitors and members alike. We are welcoming congregations, so whomever you are and wherever you may be on your life's journey, we celebrate your presence among us. As we gather today, may we savor the air as it grows warmer—hopefully—love the greening earth once again, while we wait for the sun to grow stronger. May we be warm in the earth with our love and care of one another. In our gathering, may you find compassion and freedom, comfort and courage, love and hope. May we join together to glimpse possibly new vision and the good that is yet to be. We will now sound our gong, leading us into a time of silence as we catch up with ourselves, slow down and breathe, and come fully into this time together. Please rise for our opening hymn, number 1000. Please remain standing for our invocation and chalice lighting. We breathe the common wind of the earth, no matter where we live, who we love, what language we speak. We drink the common water of the earth, no matter the color of our skin, how long we live, the coverings we drape on our forms. We follow the common paths of the earth, no matter our beliefs, how far we move from home the gold that we carry or its lack. May we live from these truths, our hearts open to the holiness around us, our hands turned always toward the common good. And if you will join together in the affirmation as we light our chalice. If ever there were a time for a candle in the darkness, this would be it. Using a spark of hope, kindle the flame of love, ignite the light of peace and feed the flame of justice. And if you will take a moment now to turn and greet your neighbor, today we continue our service with a precious moment in any congregation's life, the right of dedication. This is a time when we who are gathered here have the privilege to welcome a young child into our family and religious community. Today it is our cherished assignment to welcome and pledge our care to Corbin Nicholas Newman. Today all of us gathered here are more than casual witnesses to life's gifts and nature's marvelous creations. We all are being invited to share the joy which these parents take in their child and to enter more fully into their lives. We continue with this time-honored ritual because children are our delight. By them we are reminded of life's small joys and wisdoms. Antoine de Saint-Exupérez wrote that in a house which becomes a home, one hands down and another takes up, the heritage of mind and heart, laughter and tears, musings and deeds, love like a carefully loaded ship crosses the gulf between the generations. We come here today with our ship carefully loaded with the gifts Corbin needs, ears to listen, arms to embrace, a world of experience to encourage his inquiring mind. We are blessed by his presence among us, and we pray that our lives will be a blessing to him. And so if you will come forward with Corbin, and if you all will turn to the dedication that's printed on that skinny insert in your order of service, and join together for the gift of childhood whose innocence, laughter and curiosity bring hope, joy and new understanding into our lives, we lift thankful hearts. We welcome Corbin into this spiritual community and extend to his parents our love and support in the joys and challenges of caregiving. As this child grows, we will share with him our insights, our values and our dreams that he may enjoy the rich benefits of our religious heritage. And now if all of our children will please stand, you can stand up then I can see you. So today we are welcoming Corbin into our first Unitarian family. As he grows, he will be studying and playing with you and learning from you too. I ask you to join us in welcoming him. Will you be true friends to Corbin? Will you speak to him with kindness, treat him fairly and help him to feel at home here? If so, please say we will. Thank you. Please be seated. And now to those who stand with their child before us, Nicholas and Morgan Newman. As caregivers, it is your privilege and obligation to provide an environment of security and challenge in which this young soul which you bring before us today will grow. Do you commit yourselves to promote his physical, emotional and spiritual well-being? Will you respect as well as protect this child and bestow your love as a free and unmerited gift? And do you also reaffirm your commitment to support and care for each other as partners in life and in parenting? If so, please say we do. There are several among us today who bear a special relationship to Corbin so please stand as your names are read. Godparents Kane and Cary Clenco. We have our big sister Caitlin up here and grandparents Frank and Nandi Jones. To all of you, I ask, do you take upon yourselves the privilege and responsibility to nurture, defend and support the inherent worth and dignity of this child to whom you bear a special relationship? Will you encourage him to grow in freedom and in spirit to always seek the truth? Finally, will you help him to grow in love for the larger human family, to love and respect the larger community of life to which we all belong? If so, please make this sacred promise by responding we will. Thank you. Please be seated. In the act of dedication, we use the symbolism of water as a sign of our common heritage. There's no suggestion here of a washing away of inherited sin. This child came into the world with the limitations natural to our species, but he arrived innocent. Water here stands for vitality. It is the essence of life, the foundation of being. Its use here reminds us of our common bond with all-embracing, ever-sustaining nature. This is also the water of our community, the waters of the world gathered at our annual water communion service. Its use here reminds us of the ever-sustaining and embracing love of community. So please name this child Corbin Nicholas Newman. We dedicate you in the name of truth, the promise of love and the fellowship of this society. May you be granted clarity of thought, integrity of speech, and a compassionate heart. As a token of his dedication, we give to Corbin a rosebud, fragrant symbol of beauty, promise and love. This rose has no thorns, symbolizing the better world we would give to our children if it were solely in our power. And while we know that the world is not altogether as lovely as this flower, we hope that Corbin will learn to recognize the beauty and goodness which does exist, that he will grow in wisdom and compassion, adding his own beauty to the world. Corbin is this flower unfolds in all its natural beauty, so may your life unfold. And also as a remembrance of his dedication, we give Corbin a blanket, a gift from the members of our shawl ministry program. When you see this blanket, may you be reminded of the warmth, the support and the love of this community for you and your family. Today we have dedicated this child. May we also dedicate ourselves as we contemplate the miracle of new life as we renew in our hearts a sense of wonder and joy. May we be stirred to a fresh awareness of the sacredness of life and the divine promise of childhood. May we pledge to build a community in which all of our children will grow surrounded by beauty, embraced by love, and cradled in the arms of peace. May we pass on the light of compassion and courage. May that light burn brightly within us all. Blessed be, if you will join me in welcoming Corbin. Yay Corbin! Did the head pop off? Would you like one? Caitlin, do you want one? We'll give it to mom. And if you will now please rise and body your spirit as we join in our next hymn, 338, and our children may leave for classes. Please be seated. For our reading this morning I just want to say what an honor and a privilege it is to have Sister Simone Campbell with us this morning. Sister Simone was the where lecturer in 2014 at our Unitarian Universalist General Assembly. Several of us were there and she urged us as Unitarian Universalists to walk toward trouble. And I was sold. Then in 2016 she was here again with the beginning of the Nuns on the Bus tour, which started right here from our parking lot and many of us remembering signing that bus. And I thought, well it can't get any better than this. And then a few weeks ago we got a call from Network asking if Sister Simone could be in our pulpit this morning and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. So I want to say on behalf of all of us that we are thrilled that you are here and we are very grateful. Our reading this morning is from the Gospel of John. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept she bent over to look into the tomb and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her woman, why are you weeping? She said they have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him. When she had said this she turned around and saw Jesus standing there but she did not know that it was him. Jesus said to her woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for? Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away. Jesus said to her, Mary, she turned and said, Rabbi, which means teacher, Jesus said to her do not hold on to me because I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and say to them I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples I have seen the Lord and she told them that he had said these things to her. This is one of my favorite scripture readings because Mary is so much a recognizable character. Are you ever like that where you've got a plan, you've got an agenda, you show up early in the morning, you've got your day organized and something happens that changes it entirely. Mary showed up at the tomb, she was going to bring all these ointments, she was going to finish the ritual and she had it planned and the body was gone. And quite frankly, it kind of sounds like she was a little upset. Where did you take them? Well I identify with that with having an expectation and being a little upset when my expectations get foiled. Has that ever happened to you? November 2016. I had an expectation and I was pretty upset that when it didn't get fulfilled or I have a plan for how we can mend the gaps, the income and wealth disparity in our nation and we've got a seven point plan at network and we just have to do it and make it happen and we're lobbying on the tax bill and all our plans fall apart. And I think what happened was just wrong. They took away some of the basic substance of our nation in terms of being able to support what our nation needs and where did you put it? And then my beloved family has a wedding coming up. I don't know, do you always look forward to weddings with such dread as I do? Such a joyous occasion for my nephew, it's going to be wonderful except his mother, my sister is in her second marriage and her first husband is the groom's father so of course he's going to be there and his new relationship and my sister and hers and various step and half and various next generations and then there's the added complexity for us that my brother, the youngest in our family, my brother married my sister's first husband's oldest daughter from a prior relationship. It's so wonderful to be family, isn't it? I have expectations and they're making me nervous, hard to believe, isn't it? What I think that the lesson of this gospel is that when we are all busy planning, organizing, having everything prepared, being ready and we're going to march through this and this and this and this and then we're disappointed that our learning is to turn, turn around to see the unexpected, that our plans often block us from being able to see the truth of love that does exist among us in these oh so troublesome times. What I've come to see is that Mary teaches us that all the planning, all the productivity, all of the engagement with the tasks, we can miss the essential elements of the love that exists among us. So I love that in your orientation that you say that we were curious and inviting people because what I think Mary exhibits is for the first part of the story, she's not least bit curious, she's got her plan, she wants to follow through, get it done, be done with this, but then she asks the question, where did you lay him? And I'll go get him, still in her mindset, but by asking a curious question it becomes a doorway to knowing something more. How many times do we, oh no, I'll just put it this way, do I get riled, get upset? What do you mean interrupting my plan, I've got this all organized, anybody relate to that? And rather than asking the curious question, what did you do, I'm more inclined to say, how dare you do that? And if we change to the curiosity, a curiosity where we can see beyond the disappointment of our plans, that is when community and love flourishes. I believe that in this national moment, what is needed in our society is breaking out of our plans and into relationship with each other, that we see beyond the disappointment, the anger, the tomb is all about the chaos and frustration, and to turn away and see the gardener, see the one who sees something deeper, see the love that exists all around us, and then become missionaries of that love beyond the anger, beyond the incessant watching of MSNBC, beyond the hard stuff of our time because I believe what is happening in our nation is really about being in a tune with our nation crying out for a love that is deeper and bigger and broader than our elected leaders. And this love is going to require us. It would be so nice to be able to say it's somebody else's job, but I hate to tell you, I think it's ours, that the dysfunction at a governmental level that you all are having and some recent success after just a bunch of years of trouble, but that isn't where the hunger that exists in our nation is. The hunger is for relationship, for knowing love, for knowing there's a deeper story. That's the challenge that we're facing. And so I see that our nation is sorely in need of us becoming missionaries, perplexed missionaries of love that's bigger than any of our agenda. It also means that our economic disparity and the racial injustice in our society, we need to engage that without fear, but walk towards that trouble, but do it with love because it's love that's going to weave us together. And I say it to myself when it comes to October 13th and I go to this wonderful wedding that I need to go with an open heart, a curious mind, and a love that flows out to everybody despite our strange relationships or strange relationships. And in that hunger to weave us together, I've come to know that there are two things that I think this is called for, that is called for. And the first is radical acceptance. That's what Mary did at the tomb. I mean, she was like, she finally got curious and said, where did you take them? And then she could see them more. She could radically accept something she couldn't understand. And I usually ring out every piece of understanding some theories, some possibilities, some strategies. Mary's response was to radically accept the insight, the experience that she had, that there's a deeper truth, that there's love abounding. Radical acceptance means that I'm even going to radically accept your neighbor to the south in Jamesville, speak Orion. Or radically accept the folks that I think should be voted off the island. Name a few in-laws. But radical acceptance means that I see the possibility and to know that love is bigger than my judgment. Love draws me out to be in relationship. So radical acceptance is the key first. But then, at least politically, it becomes so important that we fight, not fight against. Too often, we're going to fight against that. At least I do this all the time. We're going to take on that tax bill. We're going to fight it back. We're going to, you know, it's kind of violent slamming your fist like this in a nonviolent way. But what I've realized is it's not about fighting against. I sure hope this works at the wedding, but rather it is fighting for a vision. Where we can share the vision of possibility. We can share the vision that Mary had. That was what changed Mary was she had a vision of a divine that was bigger than a love that was bigger than what she could ever imagine. It changed all her plans. She interrupted her day. She ran to the apostles and said, guess what? It's beyond our imagination. And that radical acceptance of everyone and having a vision, a fighting for a vision that's bigger than any of us. When you put those two together, in my experience, it's like fire. It's, it is attractive. It is engaging. It draws us in. It makes us a flame with the fact that in community, in gathering together, we are the love that we hunger for. We are the hope that we really thought could happen, that I thought could happen in November of 2016. It is that healing of income and wealth, disparity in our nation where we can make change. But it's because we've been together in a community of love where all are welcome. No one is left out of our care. That is what I believe. Our nation is hungry for. That's what Wisconsin is hungry for. That's what our city of Madison is hungry for. That's what our world is hungry for. So unencumbered by any power vested in me at all, I want to urge you, make you missionaries, missionaries beyond your plans, missionaries beyond your expectations, open to being missionaries of a love that knows no bounds, that includes all and fights for a vision. And even on the bad days when you still have expectations of getting your job done, being community, because that is the community that will see us through. Everyone will hold that open heart at some point. And in community, we can all move together into a future. That our nation is desperately hungry for. All over the country, I see a nation hungry to know they're not alone. I see people wanting to know that there's love beyond this. So, my friends, it's up to us. Let us be at the tomb and see our expectations, our plans, our agenda, our campaign mode, and let us at least turn away to see love beckons. It is possible to radically accept it is possible to fight for a vision. And together, let us be fire. Thank you. Thank you, Sister Simone. I now invite you into the giving and receiving of the morning's offering, which is for open doors for refugees. There is a table out in the commons with more information, and we thank you for your generosity. We appreciate all the gifts given to this society and those who gave of their time this morning. Our greeter was Elaine Lohr, our ushers, Sam Bates, Elizabeth Barrett, Pamela McMullen and Smiley, our lay minister and our all important coffee being made in the kitchen by Jeannie Hills and Allison Mix, and on sound, thank you that we can hear us, Maureen Friend, one opportunity to mention this morning is that there is a retreat coming up in a couple of weeks, April 20th and 21st at Holy Wisdom Monastery on how do we face this world with hope? We got a lot of material to work with this morning. I'm just going to ask her to come back and do it. I'll be co-facilitating that retreat with Scott Prinster, our former associate minister. So if you've missed him and you would like some time with Scott, please sign up. We would love to have you there. In our community, we make time each week to share pieces of our lives with one another. We share our sorrows and difficulties knowing that pain and loss come into every life and knowing that together we offer comfort. We also share our joys with one another knowing to that joy comes into every life, knowing that together our voices can rise in a chorus of celebration. This week, we especially hold in our hearts the new life of Tomas Lee Nash, grandson of Win Nash, who was born on Tuesday, April 3rd, and we wish their family all the best on this beautiful new life in their midst. We are also thinking of Jean Smiley, the highest ones up here are in her memory, mother-in-law and friend to Anne Smiley for 45 years. She passed away at the age of 89 in Wasaw this past week. May we join together in a moment of silence as we hold in our hearts gratitude for all that blesses us. And may we also hold the willingness to open ourselves anew to this beautiful and hurting world. Amen and blessed be. If you'll rise now and body your spirit for our closing hymn, number 121, gratitude for the wondrous gifts that are ours and filled with the resolve to share them with all who are in need. May we hold precious one another and the world which provides us with life and beauty. And may a song of thanksgiving be on our lips today and always. Our time in service together here has ended and our time for service to the world begins. Blessed be, go in peace and please be seated for the postlude.