 It's a lot of time when you can't decide, you can't decide before it's urgent, you can't decide, but that's one of the interesting things. The first Unitarian Society, but it's not just any other Sunday, it's Mother's Day. So Happy Mother's Day and welcome to 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. And speaking of things that are different in this world, I'm Steve Goldberg and I'm a proud member of this congregation and I'd like to extend a special welcome not only to all the mothers and grandmothers here in the room today but also to any guests, visitors and newcomers. If this is your first time at First Unitarian Society, I think you'll find it's a very special place and we invite you to join us at our fellowship hour right after the service. In a moment I will sound the gong and that is our signal to join in a moment of centering silence so we can be fully present with each other this morning. And then you'll have a chance to sit back or lean forward to enjoy today's service. I know it will touch your heart, stir your spirits and trigger one or two new thoughts. We're glad you're here. Please rise for our in-gathering hymn. Please remain standing for our opening words and the lighting of our chalice. One of the old ones stood up into the morning light and spoke to those who had come back to the river. Now we have come again to this place. It is a good thing. My life apart from you is not as strong. Yes, I have danced and I have told the stories at my own fire and I have sung to all six directions, but when I am with you, my friends, I know better who it is in me that sings. And if you can join together now in the words of affirmation, love can nurture our spirits and transform the world. May the flame of this chalice honor and embody the power and the blessing of the love we need, the love we give, the love we are challenged always to remember and to share. And if you will take a moment now to turn and greet those around you who would like to come forward for our story to come on up. Great dress. Hi, how are you guys doing this morning? Well, our story today is called Grandma in Blue with Red Hat. Does anybody know this story? This was new to me. It sounds pretty good. I think it is pretty good. We'll see. Look at the cat. I think the cat is in every picture. So you will have to see if you see the cat in every picture. Just see the cat. Oh, you guys can't. The cat's over there on that edge. See him? He's about to like dip in the paint. So this story is about a little boy who loves art. He loves to draw and he loves to paint both what he can see and what appears in his mind. Do you guys like art? Yeah. Now, Saturday is the best day for him because that is the day that he goes to art class at the museum. He has been going there forever. His grandma brings him and always says, have a great day. And he always says back, see you at home, grandma. Now, Ms. Montabello is the art teacher. She knows everything about art. She asks them, did you know that anything can be in an art exhibition? Toys, hair clips, guitars, water bottles, anything. He imagines, could anything really be in a museum? Look what they're saying. It's brilliant and beautifully crafted. What is it? Isn't that silly? Ms. Montabello calls them her little Picasso's. Picasso was a famous artist who liked to paint in his underwear. Look what she's saying. Pablo put some clothes on. The Guggenheims are on their way over. He wonders, could underwear be an art exhibition? Look at that. Calvin Klein. What do you guys think? Could there be an underwear art exhibition? No, you don't think so? I think that's an art exhibition we could get behind, right? Somebody hasn't had enough tea yet. Okay. So, Ms. Montabello always asks them, can any of you little Picasso's tell me why you think this is in the museum? That's the question she always asks when we look at art. Alice says, because it's beautiful. Sasha says, because it's different. Henry says, because it tells a story. Thomas says, because it came from somewhere far away. Jack says, because it makes me feel good. Alex says, because it's funny. Karina says, because there's only one like it in the whole world. Ms. Montabello says there are no wrong answers when it comes to art. And she explains that most of the artwork was given to the museum. Maybe he thinks, someday I could give artwork to a museum. Grandma's waiting when he gets home. She asks, what did you do in class today? So he tells her and then he realizes that grandma is beautiful. Grandma's different. Grandma's funny. Grandma tells me stories. Grandma comes from far away. Grandma makes me feel good. There is only one of her in the entire world. I should give grandma to the museum. What do you think? That would be cool, wouldn't it? The next week I tell Ms. Montabello about my idea and she tells me I should ask the curator of the museum. Your grandma sounds like an exceptional grandma, he says, but as much as I would love to accept your gift, we do have a rule at the museum. We do not take grandma's. And that's when I have a great idea. So do you see, he works hard at drawing and painting and reading about artists. And then the big day comes. Mom and dad and grandma help him get ready. As dad hangs a picture, I say, a little to the right. Nope, that's too much. Just tilted a teensy bit to the left. My friends are there. Grandma's friends are there. Mom and dad's friends are there. And Ms. Montabello and the curator are there. Welcome to my exhibition, everyone. As the guests look at the pictures, they say things like, this one's beautiful. This one's different. This one's funny. Do you see the one that's funny? It's grandma on a skateboard. This one tells a story. This one makes me feel good. I especially like this one, Ms. Montabello says, what do you call it? Grandma in blue with red hat. Grandma says, what a wonderful exhibition. It is one of a kind, just like grandma. Thank you guys for listening to the story today. We're going to rise in body or spirit and sing you out with him 300. Be seated. Our readings today are both from members of our congregation, this first one from Claire Box. My step-grandsons are young men. Isaac the older will be graduating from college on Mother's Day. When he was born I was offered the title of Godmother. I replied, okay, if we can change it to Goddess Mother. I did and I still do deeply love him and Andy, his younger brother. They have taught me much. When my husband, Pell, George to some, was obviously close to death, Isaac and his mother came to our home. It just happened to be spring break. At first Pell could talk and share a bit, however by Monday he became much more ill. It was a very sad and difficult time as his symptoms increased. Isaac sat with Pell and I for hours at a time. After a day or so I said to him, you know, you can go and do something else. Read or go out for a bit. His response was, no, this is where I want to be. A couple of days later his father and brother arrived. Isaac continued to sit with me and we talked about what was happening to Pell. Issues like why he couldn't talk or couldn't hear us. Such open sharing between the three of us. When Pell began to have trouble breathing we talked about the death rattle and that most likely Pell was aware of the struggling. We kept talking to him, memories and love. The day he died two express packages arrived. About two hours before his death Isaac came into the room, picked up his grandpa's hand and put a book under it saying, here is your book, it's here. Does he understand? I only nodded. It was the memoir Pell's book that he had written in the last year. The publisher rushed an unbound copy with a cover in hopes he would receive it before his death and so he did. Isaac was 18 and applying to colleges. I didn't learn until later that he chose to write his entrance essay about that last week with his beloved grandpa and all that he had felt and learned. I remain so grateful for his lessons in love, commitment and courage. And this from Joyce Carey. On Easter Sunday Philip and Alice invited the family over for a fine spread. The whole family now extends to four great grandchildren. The youngest Grayson is five years old. They're a healthy bunch full of energy. It's a pretty good idea to have a supply of things for the kids to do especially when it is cold as it was on Sunday and going outside is not an option. My contribution was a variety of board games including Candyland and Battleship. Grayson couldn't interest anyone in playing Candyland so he started setting up Battleship. When I was a kid Battleship was a paper and pencil game but this one was fancy. A plastic grid to place your ships on and a corresponding plastic grid to work out the position of your opponent's ships. Grayson's opponent was Phil who was playing the game for the first time. The worthy opponent set up their battlefields three ships each on numbered grids that the other player couldn't see. The idea is to guess the location of the other player's ships by calling out coordinates like G7. If you guess right you place a red marker on your blank grid. If you guess wrong you place a white marker. All seem to be going well. Grayson called out a number and Phil would say whether it was a hit or a miss. Then it was Phil's turn to guess. I noticed that no matter what coordinate Phil guessed Grayson said it was a miss. Phil had no red hits. Grayson was giggling and having a great time. Family members started drifting over to see what was going on. That little rascal was moving his boats. If Phil guessed a hit Grayson's boat sailed to a new coordinate. Grayson's dad asked why he was moving the boats and he said because I want to. Nobody cared the game was more fun because Grayson was so delighted in his clever strategy. The best part was watching the two players at work both intent on their game boards both having a good time. The youngest and the oldest players at the party. 84 years difference in age which made no difference at all. I wonder if Grayson will remember playing with his great grandfather. Will he remember how he outfoxed the old man by simply moving his game pieces? Grayson may have a future in a field that requires creativity and duplicity. Maybe he'll run for office here through the regular channels. And that is insurgent grandmothers are fighting the status quo. Successfully seeding peace justice education health human rights and a better world for grandchildren everywhere. When I heard the indigenous teaching that says there will never be peace on earth until the voices of the grandmothers are heard. I wondered what was happening with grandmothers around the world. What I found were grandmothers in India who are learning solar engineering to bring light to their villages. In Argentina I found grandmothers who have searched for and found more than 100 grandchildren who were kidnapped during the military dictatorship and have returned them to their families. They're still searching. I found Israeli grandmothers who monitor military checkpoints to prevent human rights abuses against Palestinians. Grandmothers who are campaigning universally and vigorously for political economic and social change. Grandmothers around the world forming and joining groups stimulated by our tightly connected and troubled world compelled to improve the future for all the children. I will admit I wasn't too surprised because of the stories of my own grandmother. Now by the time I was born my grandma Crocker was in a wheelchair debilitated with rheumatoid arthritis and multiple strokes that left her unable to walk and learning to communicate with halting speech. Yet I heard the stories from my father. The calls in the middle of the night from worried new parents because she was the town's midwife. Delivering babies at all hours checking on children who were feverish or had a concerning cough. Comforting worried parents and crying with new ones as she placed babies into waiting arms. She was also involved in the political world campaigning door to door for those she believed in whether it was the mayor of Carbondale, Pennsylvania or Eisenhower. I cherish her shiny bedazzled I like Ike pins. Through her stories I learned about compassion and caring for others. I learned about passion speaking up for what you believe and I learned about the power of grandparents and elders. This power is in teaching important lessons and doing so with strength and grace. In looking around the world I found grandmothers teaching generosity and compassion, modeling resilience and mercy, sustaining traditions, catalyzing change, seeding hope and peace. Both of my grandmothers passed on when I was in my early twenties and there have been many days as a parent myself that I desperately wanted to pick up the phone and call for advice, wisdom, a listening ear. I reached out to seven grandmothers here at FUS. Women I deeply respect and admire and I asked them this, what has it meant to you to be a grandmother? How has becoming a grandmother changed your life? This is what I learned when I listened to the voices of our grandmothers. They found great joy in being in the moment. Part of it they said comes with the knowledge that they are not going to be there for this child's whole life. You do these activities with them and you think will they remember this at all? What of me will they remember? You put love out and that love is there and you hope that they will carry that sense of well-being and fun and all the things they learn from you into their adult lives. Caring for these little beings that you may not see grow is much like caring for the earth. One of them said I have learned to do what I can and then to let go. To try and make a difference when and where I can. I'm always asking what can I impact today? Joseph Bruchock wrote a poem that's called Bird's Foot Grandpa and I think it echoes their sentiments. The old man must have stopped our car two dozen times to climb out and gather into his hands the small toads blinded by our lights and leaping live drops of rain. The rain was falling amiss about his white hair and I kept saying you can't save them all. Accept it, get back in the car we've got places to go. But leathery hands full of wet brown life knee deep in the summer roadside grass. He just smiled and said they have places to go to too. Our elders have a unique perspective of seeing the world change over time. And the grandmother spoke of the importance of sharing the difficult times as well as the joyous ones so as to bring perspective on what is happening now. When you share your stories of struggle and challenge they said when you talk about how you changed and grew when you tell them how you survived you teach the message of putting your energy into what you can change where you can serve. They described the power of learning from those who had gone before them what they learned from their own grandparents and they talked about how they learned how community can sustain us in our struggles. And again I was reminded this time of Alice Walker's words in these dissenting times to acknowledge our ancestors she says means we are aware that we did not make ourselves that the line stretches all the way back we remember them because it is an easy thing to forget that we are not the first to suffer, rebel, fight, love and die. The grace with which we embrace life in spite of the pain the sorrows is always a measure of what has gone before much like the grandmothers around the globe these grandmothers wondered what kind of world was being left to the next generation and how their role as an elder was to teach the importance of service the opportunity to do what you can the willingness to support those who are taking the lead in fighting for change they spoke of lining up on the streets to cheer on the high school students who marched out of classes to the capital to rally for gun control they said they are the ones who bring cookies to the demonstrations in order to surprise the ones who are fighting for change in a lot of ways they said you realize it's no longer your fight this next generation is speaking up and out and they're wearing themselves down we can bring the love to the demonstrations we can bring kindness we can remind them of the goodness that is still there Rachel Naomi Rehman in my grandfather's blessings tells this story often when he came to visit my grandfather would bring me a present these were never the sorts of things that other people brought dolls and books and stuffed animals have been gone for more than half a century but my grandfather's gifts are with me still once he brought me a little paper cup I looked inside expecting something special it was full of dirt I wasn't allowed to play with dirt disappointed I told him this he smiled at me fondly turning he picked up the little teapot from my dolls tea set and he took me to the kitchen where he filled it with water back in the nursery he put the little cup on the window sill and handed me the teapot if you promise to put some water in the cup every day something may happen he said at the time I was four years old and my nursery was on the sixth floor of an apartment building in Manhattan this whole thing made no sense to me at all I looked at him dubiously he nodded with encourage every day he told me and so I promised at first curious to see what would happen I didn't mind doing this but as the days went by and nothing changed it got harder and harder to remember to put water in the cup after a week I asked my grandfather if it was time to stop yet shaking his head no we said every day the second week was even harder and I became resentful of my promise to water this cup when my grandfather came again I tried to give it back to him but he refused to take it saying simply every day by the third week I began to forget to put water in the cup and often I would remember only after being put to bed and I'd have to get out of bed and water it in the dark but I didn't miss a single day and one morning there were two little green leaves that hadn't been there the night before I was completely astonished day by day they got bigger and I couldn't wait to tell my grandfather certain that he would be as surprised as I was but of course he wasn't carefully he explained to me that life is everywhere hidden in the most ordinary and unlikely places I was delighted and all it needs is water I asked gently he touched me on the top of my head no he said all it needs is your faithfulness this was perhaps she says my first lesson in the power of service but I didn't understand it then my grandfather wouldn't have used those words he would have said that we need to remember to bless the life around us and the life within us he would have said when we remember we can bless life we can repair the world for each of the women I interviewed there was a message of blessing they wanted to get to their grandchildren a message that they hoped was being transmitted to all children and that is you are okay you are safe here and you are loved grandparents are the ones who can lie down on the floor and engage in games for hours on end with no sense of being rushed to move on to the next thing they were the ones who could dance in the rain and sing songs at the top of their lungs to make the rain go away with no worry of looking foolish they were the ones who would listen to the heartache and figure out how to be their person in that situation how to soften the blow how to help them find wonder and joy again their deepest hope was that each child in this world has a person who teaches them unconditional love a love that would be there for them throughout all of life when times are rough they said we want them to be able to call upon this sense they may not say oh there it is that's grandma but this feeling of love and support and the knowledge that there's one person in the world who thinks you are amazing and fantastic exactly as you are today that there's a person who will be there to hold you up and sustain you and perhaps this was the biggest thing I learned from the grandmothers that this is the work for all of us to do I've learned that we can all be elders regardless of age Thomas More said I've always found the word elder a little strange I've never had the ambition to become one I've never really known for sure what one is yet many people I run into speak of elders with this hushed reverence and recently a friend told me that the main point in growing old is to become one on reflection I can see that becoming an elder could be a good way toward feeling positive about growing old and learning how to do some real good in the process elder means that being older is an honor and it carries with it this particular role of quiet leadership and humble teaching so I learned a couple of things from the grandmothers that I think all of us can do first be comfortable with your years whether it's 20 or 80 how you define the required age to have this mindset of elder is relative and completely up to you whatever your age accept it speak forthrightly and calmly about it be proud of your years and become friends with the process of getting older spend time with youth and love them some of us can become jealous and envious of youth and may become angry in their presence some of us complain and criticize and judge when you learn to love exactly where you are in life and learn to love yourself in that process you can open your heart to those who are younger and are looking to you for guidance I have spoken before about my time in kindergarten since October I've been leading Owen's kindergarten class in kindness and mindfulness activities to be honest with you it is the highlight of my week there's no pretense in kindergarten they are uniquely who they are and the more time you spend with them the more they let that show and the more you learn to love them exactly where they are in the process they have taught me to be gentle with myself and accept myself and wherever I am in the same way I'm there every Monday and I am paid in hugs and smiles questions and giggles best volunteer job ever use your knowledge and your wisdom to benefit others Thomas Moore tells the story about his father's desire to teach middle school students about the city's water supply not all that exciting he says but when he stood in front of those children he was using his technical knowledge of plumbing to inspire them as an old man who talked about his life talked about something he loved and inspired them to make something of themselves there's this direct learning understanding the technology of water treatment but there's this indirect learning seeing how an old man has found joy in his life's work an elder would be wise to keep both kinds of learning in mind you can teach technical skills but you can also teach inspiration and that's the one I'll leave you with cultivate your power to inspire the word inspire means to breathe into so you can inspire into another person a reason to work hard and be creative and engage the world meaningfully you take your own good breath and you give it to someone else and your example can light a fire within them now there's a lot of negative news in the world today our young are seeing leaders act as petulant children with bullying behavior clinging hard to power to get their own way they need to be inspired with your actions your beliefs, your example to live another way we don't have to go out and create huge new movements for change if you feel called to do so please do the world needs your wisdom, your passion and your love but each one of us can elder in small ways to our friends, children, neighbors, communities advising from our experience and making a conscious decision to be available, to be present, to spread kindness and what we've learned in our own time so may we go forth today remembering to bless the life around us and the life within us for when we each remember to stop and save a toad and spend time with a child to teach the miracle of growing things we can bless this life and then we can each go forth and do our part to repair the world and I now invite you into the giving and the receiving of today's offering which will be shared with a fund for women you can find out more about them in the red floors and we thank you for your generosity appreciate your monetary gifts we appreciate all those who gave of their time this morning our greeter was Kareen Perrin Usher's Dick Goldberg and Liza Monroe making that all-important coffee in the kitchen, Nancy Kassaf and Bish Nisky lay minister John McGevna and our tour guide John Powell will be up front here after the service if you would like a tour of this building and our landmark meeting house I'd also say that our flowers are in honor of Joan Burns who was recognized on Friday for founding the Masters in Genetic Counseling Program at University of Wisconsin 40 years ago we have two opportunities to let you know about today first one is that later this month our intern T.K. Browning will be leaving FUS and as we know in June Michael Shuler will be retiring so today and for the next few weeks there will be a table in the Commons where you could write notes to T.K. and his family also to Michael and Trina there's more details in the red floors between and after all the services this weekend peace poles will be decorated along University Bay Drive you may have noticed the poles as you came into the parking lot some classes and families and members have already signed up to do it and there are posts for you as well if you'd like to participate please go on out to the lawn choose an unclaimed post there is a craft table under the eaves where you can get materials that you might need and let your peaceful creativity materialize and thank you to Ross Woodward for doing that year after year after year we gather each week in this place made sacred by the presence of both the Holy and the Human we come together in this space and this time to sing and to pray to be still, to be alert, to celebrate to see in others their best to see reflected in other eyes our own to dream together of a world of justice to remember our sorrows and our joys and today we hold in our hearts all of those quiet celebrations and quiet struggles that live within for all these and more we lift our hearts in thankfulness today we pray to be more aware and thus more alive blessed be and amen and if you will rise and body your spirit for our closing hymn which is number 368 if and love there is so much work to do we have only begun to imagine justice and mercy help us hold fast to our vision of what can be may we see the hope in our history and find the courage and the voice to work for that constant rebirth of freedom and justice that is our dream may it be the song on our lips and the work of our hands as we go forward this day and all the days to come our time together in service here is ending and our service to the world begins again blessed be and go in peace and please be seated for the postlude