 Who can argue with that? It is so good to be together again after that musical introduction. That's our way of saying good morning everybody and welcome to another Sunday here at First Unitarian Society. And it's not just another Sunday, it's Super Bowl Sunday. Or as we Packer fans call it Passover. So here we are Super Sunday 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. And speaking of things that are different in this world, I'm Steve Goldberg, a proud much loved member of this congregation. And I'd like to extend an extra special welcome to any guests, visitors and newcomers. If this is your first time at First Unitarian Society, I think you'll find that it's a special place. And we invite you to join us for a fellowship hour right after the service. And this would be a great time to silence those pesky electronic devices so that you can avoid being embarrassed in front of your neighbors. And while you're doing that, I'll mention that we hope to see many of you at the parish meeting, 1230 right in this room, featuring lunch and some wonderful presentations that you just won't want to miss. And speaking of things we don't want to miss, we don't want you to miss the service. So please sit back and enjoy today's service. I know it will touch your heart, stir your spirits and trigger one or two new thoughts. We're really glad that you're here with us. And speaking of being here with us, I invite you to join in a moment of centering silence so we can be fully present with each other this morning. This morning's opening hymn is number 396. We're going to sing it together three times. The first time we all sing it together, the second and third times we'll sing it in a round. This half of the auditorium will go first. This half of the auditorium will go second. I invite you to rise in all the ways you are able to sing in this first song with us. Standing for our opening words and the lighting of our chalice. We gather today to receive the blessings of trust. May the relationships in this room help us notice we do not walk alone. May the quiet we share help us connect to and trust our deepest self. May the music offered help us feel and hold tight to the restorative rhythms of the world. May the words offered remind us that we too have a voice, one that must be trusted and shared. And if you will join together now in the words of affirmation printed in your order of service. And so today may we lean into trust enough to let go, to put the vigilance down, to pause and stop all the striving. We can trust in the light. May this be the faith we kindle today. And if you'll take a moment now to turn and greet those around you. We would love to share a little time with you today. Reverend Kelly and I will be doing our magical thing together. So come on up. Come on. Oh, come on. I'm gonna come and sit by you guys then. Okay. So today's story is about how's that work? Look at them. Very impressive. Well, hello there. Glad that you're here. Hi. Hello. Hello, hello. So look at this. I have a blank piece of paper. That's not right. Some helpful notes. So have any of you ever been in a class where they used a marble jar? No. No? My kids teachers have often used marble jars. And how they work is when something great is happening in the classroom, when everybody's listening, when they're sharing going on, when folks are paying attention, you get to put a marble. The teacher will stop and say, hey, she has like a bowl. We'll pretend there's a bowl and she'll pick a marble out of the bowl. And she'll say, you all are doing so wonderful at whatever, I'm gonna put a marble in our jar. And when the jar is filled up to the top, there's usually some kind of special celebration of some kind. You have heard of that? Yeah, like maybe it's a pajama day or maybe it's a movie or maybe it's a bring a stuffed animal to school. Like there's some kind of special thing because your jar is full. Now sometimes the teachers though will have to take a marble out of the jar. Okay, no, no, never take a marble out. Why do you think that the teacher would take a marble out of the jar? Right, not listening to the teacher? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. What does a marble feel like? Feels like a round piece of glass. Feels pretty good actually. Whoa, it is kind of, I'm gonna put it away because I'm gonna start playing with the marble instead of listening to you all. Yeah, I know, they're fun. Oh, well, so there have to be ways that people in our lives are sort of like the marbles in this jar as well. Ways that they help us trust one another and care for one another. And so I'm trying to think of some of the ways that that happens. I know for me, like the way that people are like a marble that they sort of fill me up is when they remember something important is happening in my life this weekend. So they'll say, you know, you had a meeting that you were really worried about, how did that meeting go? Or some, your mom has been having a rough time. Is she feeling better? So when people remember, and they're very busy, that's sort of like putting a marble in my jar. What about you? Yeah, so we have people, we like to call them like our marble jar friends. Right? Do you, they're people who do really nice things like they'll listen to us. Or maybe they'll say, I, you know what? I know you're going through a really hard time. How about we go out to lunch? How about we go and grab coffee and you can just talk and tell me what's going on in your life? Do you have marble jar people? Who are the people who do really nice things for you? Yeah, what did they do? What are some of the things they do that make you feel better? You found a marble? Yes, you felt a marble one. Oh, yeah. Yes. Who are those people in your life that do nice things for you? Yeah, what do you think? Your family, what are some things that parents could do that are putting a marble in your jar and making your relationship strong? Yeah, what do your parents do? They help when you're sad. Have you ever had a time when you felt kind of sad and a friend has said, hey, what's going on? Or your parents have said, you seem kind of sad. Let's talk about that. Right? Yeah. What else? What are some other examples like have you ever had friends help you with homework, for instance, if you have a question about something or something like that? Family. What about teachers? Do teachers help you learn new things? Yeah, definitely, right. And they listen to your stories. Do they ever do your parents or your teachers ever read you some of your favorite stories? Yeah. I really like it when someone remembers some of the food that I really like and they will bring it to me as a treat, or they'll make dinner for me sometime. Has anyone ever done that for you, like made something you like, maybe for your birthday or something? So those are in other ways. You know, actually, Kelly, you have been a marble jar person for me, and so I think I have in here a marble because this week we were really, really busy. There were a lot of things to do and you could have easily when you were so busy, just spend all of your time doing what you needed to do to prep. But over and over again, Reverend Kelly would check in with me and make sure that we were working together well and that we could help each other out in this busy week instead of being overwhelmed. So I'm putting a marble in the jar for you. Thank you. Thank you. I love that. So each time the folks around us do something kind or show up or help us in some way, they put a marble in our jar and it makes our relationships grow stronger, right? And every time we remember to do that for others, we put a marble in their jar. So when we're kind, if we hug a friend when they're sad, when we're at home and we see our parents are kind of stressed out and we say, how can I help? What do your parents look like when they're stressed out? Oh, that's a good stressed out face you got there, babe. I like it. I like your mom's stressed out face. So what do you think you could do if your mom or dad is making that kind of face? You can help them, right? You can say, how can I help? What can I do? And all of those ways that we help each other, right? It puts marbles in our jars. So this week, may you remember to do those little small things that fill up other people's jars with marbles at school and at home. Thanks, guys. We're going to stay right here and listen to the kids sing one more time before we go off to class. Thank you, Chair Bequire and Choristers and Heather for that joyful music. It's a pleasure to be the music director at a church where music, where such a high importance is placed on music and where the music is so good. I am in need of music that would flow over my fretful feeling fingertips, over my bitter tainted trembling lips with melody deep, clear and liquid slow. Oh, for the healing swaying old and low of some song sung to rest the tired dead, a song to fall like water on my head and overquivering limbs dream flushed to glow. There is a magic made by melody, a spell of rest and quiet breath and cool heart that sinks through fading colors deep to the sebacuous stillness of the sea and floats forever in a moon-green pool held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep. Elizabeth Bishop. There are a lot of things I love about choirs, conducting them, singing and them, listening to them. One of the most interesting phenomena that happens is the trust between two singers, any two singers, all of the singers in a choir. The trust that happens between the conductor and the ensemble. There's even trust that we place in our listeners. But it's that trust between individual musicians that I'm going to focus on today. Because there's a lesson for us, whether we've ever sung in a choir or ever will, there's a lesson in that brand of trust that we can apply to our own lives. The lesson is this. You have a voice and you have the power to multiply that voice when singing or speaking or protesting or voting as a group. The final result is greater than the sum of its parts. In the case of a choir is because there are all these individuals, individual minds, individual voices, individual souls, spirits, but when they are put together they create a new entity, an additional entity, a section, a choir, an orchestra. So by its very nature, singing in a choir multiplies our voices and there are many other activities that do that as well. When we trust others with whom we are working toward a common cause, our effort becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Singers become a choir, individual players become a team, individual soldiers become a platoon, protesters become a movement, donors become disaster relief, voters become a majority. With all of our voices and all of our visions friends, we could make such sweet harmony, says the hymnist, but it's not just about the sweetness of the harmony. It's about the magnification of the message. There's a phrase, whoever sings, prays twice. It's just another example of how you can multiply your voice. Everybody has a voice, it's just whether or not we decide to use it and if we decide to use it how? Obviously I'm here to recruit you to sing in the choir. That line got a laugh yesterday too, but actually that's not why I'm up here. If you choose not to sing in the choir, do something. There's a contribution you can make and if you make that contribution with a group that's all moving in the same direction, you multiply your effort, you multiply your voice. I can hear you. Can you hear me? Politicians will say yes, but they can't. Not unless we speak in big groups or are very wealthy. If any of you is very wealthy, I'd like to see you after the service. There's a project I want to do, but we can multiply our voice and when we do, we become greater than the sum of our parts. We become an entity with our comrades in arms, with our colleagues, with our friends, with our fellow members and congregants. So join the choir, maybe literally or maybe figuratively. Our social justice coordinator is great at giving you opportunities to let your voice be heard by letting your voice be magnified, by trusting the other people in a group to move in the same direction and to magnify your voice and for you to magnify theirs. Harmony is beautiful and sometimes it leads to other things like change. But if you don't want to make harmony, use your voice. You have one and you have the power to multiply it. I invite you to rise in body and spirit and join me in singing hymn number 10, 23 in the teal hymnal. We will sing it three times, first time altogether and second and third time once again in around this half of the congregation singing first and this half singing second. Our next reading comes from Erin Powers. She says it's a familiar scene each holiday. No matter how meticulously the strings of lights were put away, they always seemed to come out a tangled mess. What happens to them all through the year as they wait in those boxes? And so the tradition of untangling the lights begins. We unwind them carefully, uncrossing and unlooping wires, stretching them out to their full length, all the while being mindful to not damage the bulbs which hold so much potential. I find that people aren't that different. We often feel like a jumbled mess of string lights, tangled up within ourselves, not knowing how to get undone or how to get back to our sparkly selves. Throughout the year, each struggle adds another tangle to the lights until by years end we're wound so tightly that we don't even know where to begin. Sometimes we need a little help to sort ourselves out. It's been said that it is easier to untangle a string of lights if you plug them in. The brightness of the little bulbs helps to guide our fingers through the tangles. It's no different for people. Connecting with friends, families, those we trust can shine a little light to help us untangle ourselves and to help us stretch to our full potential. Humans just like those strings of lights are wired for connection. It's when we're wound most tightly that we need the connection most of all. We're at our best when we are plugged into each other. We find our true purpose and spark with others, not alone, and it's in these connections that we shine most brightly. In my first year here at FUS, a small group of members and staff started to dream of a program in which people could gather in circles large and small to share the important pieces of their lives. We thought of all the different components a program like this would need to have and one thing kept coming up time and again. People would need to learn how to trust one another and nothing superficial either. If they were going to open up to each other and share what brings them joy and what breaks their hearts, they would need to share a deep and abiding trust. But such a thing cannot be forced. How would a trust such as this develop and grow among them? We realized we needed to create a very special kind of space. A space where no one would try to fix you or save you, where you would not be judged, where you could do the deep work of healing your own wounds, recognizing your gifts and your own worth. With people willing to create those places, those places where you could untangle, sort yourself out, reach your full potential. What we were really trying to build were spaces of belonging, spaces that recognized and honored the reality that we are wired for connection and to create trust we must first have a deep sense of belonging. Without belonging we are separate from one another. We are distanced and mistrust seeps in. When we feel we belong, then we can trust. Not belonging and mistrust go hand in hand because when we don't belong we think something is wrong. Either something is wrong with us and we begin to doubt ourselves or something is wrong in the world and then we feel the need to build walls to keep us safe from what is out there. Bernay Brown who gave us the image of the marble jar that we shared with the kids, tells the story of when she began researching trust. She started with the assumption that trust must be built in those large life changing moments, those times when the earth stood still and everything changed. But when she started listening to the stories, stories that people shared of how trust developed in their own lives, what she heard were small moment stories. Seemingly insignificant gestures that built deep trust. She kept saying to herself, I don't think so. Trust cannot be built by these small moments. They have to be large grand gestures. So she gathered the research and what she found is that trust is most definitely built over time, not by huge grand gestures, but in the everyday small moments. She heard people saying things like, I trust my boss. She asks me how my mother's chemotherapy is going. Or I trust my neighbor because no matter what's happening with my kids, she comes over and sits with me and helps me work it out. The number one thing she found that builds trust, the things she heard most often, attending funerals. She heard time and again. I trust him. I trust her because he showed up at my mother's, my sister's, my child's funeral. These small moments are when trust is built because they are moments of belonging. You see me. You hear me. You value me and my experience. In spite of all the things that could divide us, you recognize the connections between us. This is what we learned about the need for trust in that program we were building, which became our quest program and is now the foundation of our small group ministry. We find trust. We build trust through belonging here in community. It is in deep connection that the sources of trust reveal themselves. The real revelation, the deeper transformation is when we turn and trust our own experiences and then we turn and share those in trust with others, listening to each other's stories, reaching out in faith to join hearts and communities of people who will be there for us in those small moments. I'll leave you with these words from Fred Lamott. Trust in your breath. Rest in your heart. Bow to the stranger. If we are completely lost, we can always come once again home to each other. Psalm for the Wintered Soul by Cynthia Frodo. To the weaver of molecules, the spinner of stars, the impulse that gives birth to the universe, to the earth, to me. In the deepest darkest night of my wintered soul, I wrap myself in the blanket of my sadness and grief, pain and suffering, doubt, fears, questions and look out from my wandering eyes towards the light that dares to penetrate the layers of blindness that surround me. Each luminescent ray of love and hope and possibility is that catalyst which I need to transform my thoughts and emotions into fuel for that inner fire which will dispel the darkness of my night, which will help me to see more clearly the embers of love and hope and possibility that dwell in me. In the deepest darkest night of my wintered soul, I shall look through the window of my expectant eyes towards the source of my being, waiting as I do for your alchemist's hand to create within me the change that is necessary for this season of rebirth. Spring will come again. This I know, and I will be ready for my emergence and unfolding that I might soar ever higher into my own becoming, into the light of my own transcendence. Reawakened, renewed, reborn. When I failed and my courage left me in my tough intention to end my partnership that had been a relationship for over a decade before our anniversary on December 18th, I knew the holidays were going to be rough. But then, two days later when the relationship dissolved into a big fiery explosion of its own dysfunction, anyway, I knew the holidays were absolutely going to suck as a matter of fact. Not to mention, just a few days from that moment, there was a little something called Christmas Eve coming up, and I was the minister of a congregation, and I was not in a good head space. So that day as I was rehearsing one of the central components, this tradition that I had set up myself year after year of doing a big moving story when I broke down into utter sobbing tears in the middle of that story, I tried it a second time and I didn't make it through it then, either in the third time, and yet again I cried. And oh my God, I was so worried about what would happen. So I did that story so many times that I sucked any emotion out of it altogether. And so by God, I got up that night and I did that service and I got through it and breathed a sigh of relief that I had survived. And I stepped out to greet people as they left and it was packed to the gills, hundreds and hundreds of people, the largest service of the year. And it was only as the first couple stepped forward that they reminded me of another tradition that had been a part of the service since I had been there. That my partner was always a significant reader in that service and so they just innocently said, Doug, where's your partner tonight? And funny thing, I had not thought of answering that question whatsoever in all of my preparations for that night, much less that I was going to be asked to answer that question not once or twice but hundreds of times as everyone stepped up like this strange psychological torture that I was going through, each of them sucking a little more of the life out of me. So I finally happened upon a response that felt fairly true. I would say something like, well, you know, it just doesn't work for him to be a part of the service tonight. And the thing is that was so true, it so did not work for him to be part of the service that night. As a matter of fact, it never worked for him ever again to be part of the service. And I finished the service, I finished all of these hugs and goodbyes and I breathed the sigh of relief and I stepped back into the sanctuary. And they're standing in a little circle where those five or six people that you can count on to show up to everything to stay until the very end and make sure that everything is put away and neat and tidy so that no one else has to do it later. Those really faithful, trustworthy people and there they were looking at me, you could tell they had been talking to each other and in a very different way for the last time that night, they asked me, Doug, where is your partner tonight? And I was tired and I was very sad. And so I gave them probably the most honest answer I could. I said simply, I have no idea where he is. And in that moment, though they said nothing in their eyes, I could see that they got something powerful was happening in my life and they were there. So I got through that night, but I wasn't ready for the wintry sense of myself that I moved into next weeks into months where I felt like I was sort of a ghost floating through my days, never quite fully there because so much of what I trusted in my life, my sense of myself, of what I expected of my future, my sense of the person that I loved most, all of that trust had gone away, it seemed, and I felt lost. But the thing is that there I was in that community, there I was with not just those five or six people, but all of these people that I'd been in relationship with for years and they trusted me and I trusted them in that time to allow them sometimes to minister to me as well. Together, we've found ways for me to have my true voice that was authentic to who I was then in my pain and my struggle with what would come next in my life. It was not my forever voice, but it was the only one I had then. Together, we worked and had worked for so long on what it meant to be authentic community that I could and they could rest in the strength of the community that we built in that time of change. But most of all, as the reading that I offered a few minutes ago, by being a part of that community, the winter moved into summer and then summer into literally the season of spring and then all the way around again until back another Christmas Eve and somehow my life and my spirit had changed significantly over that passage of time. And so I was reminded of the power of the long journey that we share together as a community. So in this month, when we explore what we can trust really, we want you to find ways to trust more deeply in the authenticity and strength of your own voice in all of the various ways you do that. We want for you to explore what it means to be authentic and real in community and find the small ways that you build that enduring trust. But I also want to remind you that we practice and embody again and again here that you can trust in the flow of time itself. You can trust in the wisdom that nature gives us again and again, that there are cycles of nature and cycles in our life and that this despair will not last forever, that this joy won't either, all of it will continue to flow and change and that is a gift. But most of all, that even in those difficult times, much as is true in nature, there is something flowing and being born inside of you now and here always. What is it that you can really trust? What does it mean to be really trustworthy? In this month, may we explore those answers courageously and in love. I invite you to journey with me into February and explore those answers for yourself. Amen. And blessed be. So we practice so many things that are life-giving here and one of them is the spiritual craft of generosity. And so as we prepare to receive and give of our offering today, I invite you to remember that Centro Hespano is our 50-50 recipient today and we wish to be generous so that they might continue their work for youth and for families to find their own sense of empowerment and hope. And so I hope you will be generous so that they can continue that life-saving work. The offering will now be given and received in love and generosity. The lady can sing. Thank you, Heather. Thank you. Well, we just completed an act of generosity, our offatory, which we do every weekend. And there's another act of generosity we want to acknowledge and that is the generosity of our volunteers who help make the service go smoothly. It's a special team of people and you are all invited to join them because once in a while you get to have your name read from the podium here. Such as Richard Scoby, who operated the sound system for us. Thank you, Richard. Gal Bliss, who served as our lay minister. March Schweitzer and Lynn Scoby, who greeted us this morning as we arrived. Our ushers for this unruly crowd include Sam Bates, Elizabeth Barrett, and Pamela McMullen. Richard DeVita and Gene Hills are handling the coffee during the fellowship hour. And Karen Rose Gredler has been staffing the welcome and information table in the Commons. No other announcement except to mention that 12.30 p.m. a special meeting takes place right in this room including lunch and the purpose is our parish meeting and you'll want to enjoy that. So with that, the announcements are over except one from Doug. Yes, a reminder that this month we will be joining with other organizations in Madison to celebrate the 80th birthday of John Harbison and in particular, we are very grateful that we will be sharing a few events with John. On February 15th, our Friday New Music How will feature some of his chamber music. On the 17th, he will be here as part of our service and I believe conducting our Society Choir in some of his compositions and then on the 22nd, another Friday New Music How eat some more of the pieces that he has composed. I hope we will come together and honor the great work in life of this man and help him celebrate his birthday. We move into a few moments of honoring the cares of the congregation knowing that as we gather in this place week after week moving into months and years every time we gather we bring the truths of our life into the space and that for many of us there are moments of celebration that we may be ready to share. There are moments of grief and loss and frustration that we may be ready to share as well as major life events that will not yet make their way into the light of day. For a moment we hold all of those and I invite you to think about what is true for you as you sit here today. What great joys or deep losses and sorrows to you bring. What is true in the lives of those that you care about. In particular we honor a sense of joy that Terry and Susan are back with us today. They were in the first service and we wish for Terry continued good health and great numbers from his most recent medical treatment and welcome home to them. What is it that is going on in your life and in those that you love. May you find some way when you leave here to bring healing to yourself or compassion to each other. May this time that we hold together remind us of the gifts that we share, the power of love, the significance of remembering in the way that we can act in compassion. So may it be and blessed be. I invite us to rise in all the ways that we do as we join together in our closing hymn, hymn number 344, a promise through the ages ring. And now as we go forth from this place may you find the truth of trusting in your voice. The truth of the trust of deep community and the truth of the flow of life and time in the seasons and all the gifts that they bring. For we may extinguish the light of this chalice but not the light of that deeper wisdom. The warmth of compassion and community or the fire of our commitment to all that matters. These remain in our lives until we gather in this place again. I invite you to have a seat and to receive one more gift of music before we move forward.