 Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to First Unitarian Society. My name is Kelly Aspruth Jackson and I am one of the ministers here. Today I am joined by the worship team of Drew Collins and Daniel Carnes and Linda Warren, and by our special musical guest, Catherine Clouitt. And I am also so pleased to be joined this morning by our guest worship leader, the Reverend Suzelle Lynch. The vision of FUS is growing souls, connecting with one another, and embodying our UU values in our lives, our community, and our world. If you are visiting us today, welcome. We are so glad that you are with us. If you would like more information about First Unitarian Society, please stop by the welcome table located out in the commons just through those doors and to the left. We hope that you'll be able to stay and join us for coffee hour immediately following the service also in the commons. For those connecting with us virtually today, we are glad that you are with us as well, and we hope that you will be able to take a moment and watch the announcement slides after today's service to learn about upcoming programs and activities. And now I invite you to join me in a moment of silence, to center ourselves, and bring ourselves fully into this time as we join together once again in community. Good morning. Good morning. We are beacons of brief fire between the portals of life and death. Like shooting stars, we flash across the sky, giving light for a time, and then we are no more. What shall we make of this wonder, this life, while it is ours? Come. Let us worship together. Let us shape worth together. Come. Let us celebrate. And I invite you now to rise in body and or spirits and join me in the words for the kindling of our chalice flame. We light this chalice in honor of first steps for beginning even when the path ahead is unclear. For the courage it takes to trust that the way will reveal itself. That light will come to clarify our vision, that friends will be by our side. May the words, songs, stillness, and common breath of this hour remind us that every step of the way is never one we take alone. Putting together our opening hymn and the teal hymn note, number 1010, we give thanks. On a time when the world was very young, there was a great mountain in the middle of a huge plain, a very tall, very, and one day a girl named Aiella looked at that mountain in the distance and she began to wonder. Aiella had heard many stories about what was at the top of that very high mountain. Some people said there was a large diamond up there that was worth a lot of money. Some people said that once you reached the top of the mountain it was so beautiful you never wanted to leave. And some people said there was a very wise person on the mountain top who could tell you anything you wanted to know. Imagine that. Well the wisest person Aiella knew was her grandmother and so she went to ask if she thought there would be anything worth finding at the top of the mountain. Her grandmother said, that depends on you, dear. Only you can decide what is worth searching for and only you can decide whether it was worth what you did to find it. Well, Aiella decided that she wanted to discover for herself whatever was at the top of that big mountain. So she set off from her house and went far across the plain and finally reached the mountain. What do you think she found when she got there? When Aiella reached the mountain's base she found there were many other people there who also wanted to climb to the top. And you know what? They were arguing. There is only one way to get to the top. The shortest way is the best. You must go straight up, said one person. No, no, no, no, that way is too steep. There's nothing to hang on to and you could fall and hurt yourself. You must take the long winding path around the mountain, another person said. The third person said, no, that'll take too long and you might run out of food and water. You're both wrong. The only way to get to the top is to start climbing straight up and then find a path around the mountain when going straight gets too hard. A fourth person, they believed that the only way to get to the top was to fly there in an airplane. A fifth person thought you could not get there by yourself. She thought the only way to the top was with a guide, someone who had been there before and had a map. Sounds reasonable. And a sixth person was convinced that the way you got to the top of the mountain was to imagine and think very hard that you were there and you would float there as if by magic. Listened to all the people arguing about how to get to the top of the mountain and decided she would have to figure out the best way for herself. She started climbing until she noticed she couldn't hear the other people arguing anymore. Then she looked down at the bottom of the mountain. She saw the man who thought the only way was straight up. He was going straight up the mountain. She saw the woman who thought the only way was to go around and around the mountain. She was doing that. Another person had left to go find an airplane. And the man who thought he could get to the top by magic was sitting on the ground concentrating very hard. Hela kept climbing. She climbed and climbed and she got very tired. She also got a little scared when she realized that no one else was taking her way and she couldn't see the top of the mountain yet. But she kept on climbing and at last she got to the top of the mountain. It was so beautiful up there. She could see for miles and miles even all the way back to her home. Hela was seeing things she had never seen before. She saw many other mountains and counted three huge rivers. She could even see the ocean far, far away. She sat down and thought about how wonderful it was that she had found her way to the top and was seeing all these things she had never seen before. Even though it had been a lot of hard work, she knew it had been worth the scary, difficult climb. After a little while, the man who wanted to climb straight up got to the top of the mountain too. Then the woman who wanted to fly in an airplane got to the top. The woman who thought the only way was to get a guide with a map got to the top with her guide and her map. The man who wanted to take the long way around and around the mountain finally got there too. And do you know what they did when they got to the mountain top? They started arguing again. The woman who came in the airplane said, well, of course, there were other ways to get here, but mine was the best. No, said the woman who went around the mountain. My way was the best because I saw lots of beautiful trees and flowers and animals on my way that you didn't get to see. No, said the man who climbed straight up. I got here more quickly, so my way was best. You're all wrong, said the woman with the guide and the map. My way was best because I didn't have to worry like you did about whether I could find my own way. Well, Ayala, she just shook her head. And then she said, why are you arguing instead of enjoying all the beauty that we can see from up here? The other people didn't say anything for a while. And then they started nodding their heads and smiling at each other. And then they all sat down together to enjoy the view. I'll invite you into this time of giving and receiving, where we give freely and generously to this offering, which sustains and strengthens our community here, and also our outreach offering recipient, who this week is the Nehemiah Center for Urban Leadership Development, which cultivates character, leadership, and economic development within Dane County's African American community through culturally grounded programs. Their justified anger initiative works to eliminate racial disparities in the greater Madison area by developing relationships, solutions, and systems. There are multiple ways for you to share your gifts this morning. There are baskets at the exits to this room in which you may place cash or checks. You can also donate directly from our website, fussmattison.org, and see on the screen behind me the text to give information as well. We thank you for your generosity and your faith in this life we create together. It's very good to be here with you this morning. It's been a couple of years, but I know I've met some of you, and I look forward to talking with you after the service over coffee, or the beverage of your choice. I believe that each and every one of us, each and every person, is called to live a life of deep meaning and purpose. Do you have that sense of calling? Have you started to do what you came here to do? When I think about that call, that call to deep meaning, and about how we might find our particular purpose in life, I think about a song that I learned 40 years ago. That this song is still with me after so many years is testimony to its power. It's actually called Have you started to do what you came here to do? And it was written by a woman named Marilyn Penn. I learned it from Marilyn, and in just a couple of moments I'd like to teach you the chorus so we can sing it together. It's pretty simple, so I think we can do it. But before we do that, I want to give you just a little bit of context. Not long after I graduated from college in 1981, my little sister and I moved from our home state of Michigan to Denver, Colorado. Michigan's economy was in the tank right about that time due to the decline of the auto industry. I'm sure some of you remember those times. And we had heard that there were jobs to be had in the southwest in places like Dallas and Houston and Denver. And so off we went in our 1972 lime green Chevy Nova with a green vinyl top and a V6 under the hood. We were from Carland, of course. And we had a small sum of money we'd gained by cashing in the savings bonds our grandparents had given us on birthdays over the years. And sure enough, when we arrived in Denver, we found that there were jobs available. They weren't great jobs, mind you. They weren't deep, life-purpose, fulfilling jobs. But nonetheless, they'd pay the rent. My sister and I were young and scared and naive, but we were determined to make it on our own without our parents' help or their interference. It was the me decade, right? Remember that? Anybody remember the me decade? Yeah. And but even as we were enjoying all the glorious narcissism freedom and self-improvement, self-focus of that time, my sister and I entertained a secret hope. We wanted to find something to do with our lives that would allow us to use our gifts and our strengths to help make the world a better place. We had been raised as Unitarian Universalists, you see, and the idea of making the world a better place was something we had heard from our parents and our religious education teachers our entire lives, and we longed deeply to do it. But we didn't really know how to begin. So my sister took a job at a convenience store, and I worked as a receptionist for a small non-profit organization, and it was there through a co-worker that I met singer-songwriter Marilyn Penn. Marilyn and three other women had formed a group called Marilyn Penn and Friends. They performed Marilyn's original songs and covered a few other folk songs in four-part harmony at open mic nights in clubs like Muddy Waters River Bottom Blues Cafe in Old Town Denver. I was thrilled when they invited me to join the group. We even made a recording together, I know, right, which came out in limited edition on cassette tape. I was excited to be part of this group because in the midst of my young adult search for purpose I knew that my singing voice was one of my strengths. Perhaps by singing Marilyn's uplifting, thoughtful songs, I could make a difference in the world. Perhaps my very calling was to be a singer. Clearly, that didn't happen. For while I could sing, I didn't have the knowledge or the discipline to be a professional musician. But what I did have both then and now are the wise words of Marilyn's song. So let's learn the song. I'm going to speak each line of the chorus and have you repeat it back to me and then I'll sing each line and have you sing it back to me and then we'll sing the whole thing together and then I'll sing a verse and we'll sing the chorus together and then I'll sing another verse and we'll sing the chorus together and then by the time we're done it'll be an earworm. You won't be able to let it go but I think it'll be a good earworm. Are you ready? Okay, let's do it. First line, have you started to do what you came here to do? Have you started to say what you came here to say? How come you're all blue, nearly broken into? Don't throw it away. Here comes a brand new day. Okay, let's try the tune. Have you started to do what you came here to do? You came here to do. Have you started to say? Good job. What you came here to say? What you came here to say? How come you're gonna have to get your cowboy yodel on for this song? So let's try it together and then we'll go I'll go to the verses and we'll do it again. You're actually doing great. Do you feel like you're doing great? All right. Okay, all together now. Have you started to do what you came here to say? Look at your life. If you're not satisfied you have a choice. The stronger unity, have you started to do? Discover your talent and share it with others with joy. Spread it round to sisters and brothers. That's what all heal our tortured soul. Being a g-hole, have you started to do what you came here to do? Snap with me. Have you visualized that at double time with four-part harmony? Been ranging in age from 23 to about 60. So I have to say I really like Marilyn Penn's questions. In fact I'm kind of haunted by those questions. Have you started to do what you came here to do? Like here in this world, this life, have you started to say what you came here to say? Do you know deep in your soul what your purpose is? I'm sure some of us have a pretty good sense of what we're here in this world to do, but some of us don't really have that. And some of us wish we had it, or we're worried that time is passing by so quickly. We'll never feel that sense of joyful fulfillment that comes with pursuing a real vocation. Some of us I know are successful by the standards of our culture. We have enough money to be comfortable and our work or other activities are personally rewarding at least some of the time. But even so, sometimes it feels like we want what we want and we do what we do because it's what we think we're supposed to want or because it's what everyone else is doing. It's really easy to get drawn into this via the culture of celebrity and the sugarcoating of lives that's really present in social media. And sometimes it can feel like our goals, whether they are conscious and spoken or unconscious and unspoken, sometimes it can feel like they don't really belong to us. We feel a pull from within to try a different path, another way of being, but we don't quite know whether we can or what path it is we really ought to try. The pandemic, global climate change, the epidemic of gun violence, the increasing cost of living, and so many more factors of our lives today are awakening that inner voice, that inner pull in us now. The life of comfort and security that seemed so attainable and so promising to my generation has been pulled out of our grasp for many of us and we're left not only with a feeling of being ripped off but left again with that same powerful longing for that indescribable something that I had as a young adult. That something that brings meaning into our lives. How are we going to find it? Well, the advice from my wise friend Marilyn Penn, look at your life and heed your inner voice, but I like better the way Parker Palmer puts it in his book, Let Your Life Speak. How many of you have done work with Parker Palmer? Yeah, I have two. He writes, vocation comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about, quite apart from what I would like for it to be about. Or if I don't do this, my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions. Is this good advice for Unitarian Universalists? What do you think? Yeah, maybe. Yeah, kind of sort. It sure seems like it because we do hold dear the idea that each and every person has worth, and because we are informed by that Universalist heritage of ours, that each of us comes into the world equally beloved and blessed by the spirit and source of life, seems like it would apply to us. And it seems like good advice in light of our knowledge that each of us has a unique consciousness and a combination of gifts and skills and limitations that are held by no one else. Our singularity is a miracle backed up by science as the patterns of our DNA can be unpacked and traced through centuries. Each one of you represents an opportunity that has never existed before and will never exist again when you are gone. So the first answer to the question of finding our deepest life purpose is to listen to our own unique unrepeatable amazing selves. But you know it could just be that we listen better when we don't listen to ourselves by ourselves. Parker Palmer tells a story about this. At one point in his career he was offered the position of president of a small college and he was excited and he felt confident that this was just the right job for him. But he's a Quaker and as was the custom in Quaker, the Quaker community where he lived before taking the job he called half a dozen of his friends together to serve as a clearness committee for him. So how many of you know about clearness committees? Yeah the purpose of a clearness committee is to help you discover your own inner truth about something. Your friends sit with you for a couple hours and they gently ask you open-ended but honest questions. They don't offer advice. They just listen deeply and with compassion and with persistence. At first Parker Palmer's clearness committee asked questions that he thought were easy to answer. They were questions about his vision for the institution, how he would handle decision making. Then came another question that sounded easy. What would you like most about being a president? Someone asked. Palmer wrote, the simplicity of that question loosened me from my head and lowered me into my heart. He started talking but he didn't start talking about what he would like about being president. Instead he started listing all the things he didn't he wouldn't like about it. All the things he would hate about it. Gently but firmly the person asked the question again what is it you would like most about being a president? It took that person asking that question a few more times before Parker Palmer finally replied in a small voice. He said, well I guess what I'd like most is getting my picture in the paper with the word president under it. Do you think he took the job? No he didn't take the job. What does it take to listen to our own inner voice? Not only do we need others to help us sometimes it can also help if we have a spiritual practice. Something like meditation or mindful walking or contemplative prayer for me it's labyrinth walking. It helps carve out a receptive place in our hearts for it's all too easy for our hearts to be over full so full of the clatter and noise of our dailiness our plans our goals and our anxieties so full of all that that our inner voice is drowned out and when we do hear that inner voice it's probably good to acknowledge that it's ours. Chances are good it's not a voice from on high representing some sort of cosmic destiny creating power which will tell you in a clear easy language this is your true calling because that idea leans on a theological assumption that not many Unitarian Universalists are prepared to make. The assumption that there's a divine plan and a divine planner calling all of our shots but even though our belief tends to be in human free will and human choice many of the you you ministers I know including me have had an experience of being called into ministry by some force beyond ourselves. I was on an escalator going up when the loud whispering voice said suzel you want to be a minister we have to acknowledge when those things happen that we are part of a system of life so deeply interconnected it is far more mysterious than we can really know but in the context of our particular theological orientation in general our deepest purpose does have an additional layer theologian Frederick called it the place where your deepest gladness meets the world's deepest need to listen for our calling means recognizing that our lives are meant to be lived as part of or in service to something larger than ourselves that's what Marilyn Penn means too when she says we are to discover our talents and share them freely to help make humanity whole I have to say the one thing I don't like about her song given that it's 40 years old is sisters and brothers because not all of us identify with those gendered labels I searched around for a way to modify it and I couldn't come up with one although Marilyn would be cool with that she's still living there's something else important here as well it it's unlikely our inner voice is going to call us just once in a lifetime indeed as our world changes and we grow in age and life experience we can't help but be called to serve our own unfolding and the greater good in myriad ways across a lifespan this is my experience at present I left full-time you you parish ministry after 28 years of service because I knew my soul was calling me somewhere else but I will tell you unlike that booming quiet voice on the escalator that called me into ministry the call to leave ministry has not yet shifted form into a sense of what I should do and be next it currently remains kind of like a call to patience have any of you experienced a call to patience I don't like it as I walk with an open heart through the fog of transitions liminal space this isn't easy my heart longs to snap shut against fear and my mind wants to push me in some direction any direction it helps that I've begun writing and singing my own songs songs that help guide me on my journey but here is what I know for sure each of us has occurred on this planet as part of something larger more rich more full more whole than we really understand we emerge out of something like mystery and once we're here we have a sacred calling to respond to the very fact of our being by choosing to become fully and responsibly human as my dear elder colleague the Reverend Dick Gilbert also the author of our opening words as he once said we are called to choose to become fully and responsibly human and all of us are called called to step up to the plate and take our best swing at meeting the challenge of our full humanity we're called to live lives that matter lives of purpose that flex with the callings of time and change with the callings of creativity moment by moment we have the opportunity to start to do what we came here to do moment by moment we find our life's purpose by letting go of fear and being powerfully present to each person we encounter including ourselves moment by moment we recognize our partnership with the greater all of life and know that we are leaving the world a better place than it was a moment before how will you use your gifts and your strengths in the service of humanity in the service of our planet when you look back over your life where do you notice joy sparking up where do you notice that joy has arrived take these questions into your heart remember that you can answer them any moment of any day remember that ultimately they're not about you for your life well lived will always be about that something broader and remember you don't have to do it alone hold fast to this community that is climbing that high mountain with you and now shares with you the beauty of the amazing view the rivers the mountains the ocean far far away and even your home somewhere out there and remember that the purpose you carry is like a seed a seed of hope for you and for all beings on our good earth have you started to do what you came here to do have you right now this moment is a time you can begin shalom blessed be ashay and amen with us the joys and losses of recent days we share these cares of our hearts knowing that we are held in love we light a candle of sorrow and rage for the murders of daniel astin kelly loving ashley paw derrick rump and raymond green vance and the wounding of several others in the attack on club q in colorado springs last weekend as we mourn these irreplaceable lives let us affirm today and every day the preciousness beauty and full humanity of our trans by lesbian gay and otherwise queer siblings and cells and let us recommit to building a world in which the violence of these killings and the bigotry that motivated them are no longer common place we light a candle of gratitude for all the growing things which nourish our bodies and bring flavor and joy to our tables for all those people whose work makes possible our lives and for all the vital mercies of the earth which is our home may we receive these blessings with grateful hearts we light a candle of grief for the countless injustices done to the indigenous people of this continent for the theft of land the taking of lives the betrayal of trust and the destruction of culture may our lament of these wrongs upon which so much is built help us to seek their repair we light a candle of solidarity with the people of ukraine both in their suffering and in their struggle together we yearn for peace for them and for all people and for an end to all wars of conquest anywhere and everywhere on earth our candles now having been lit we think of all that remains unspoken in the silent sanctuaries of our hearts now aware of and moved by the deep well of feeling that touches every one of us we rest together for a moment in reverent silence sing with me when you go hold in your heart the certainty that you're as you go listen for new voices that speak truths and listen for the voice of your go out into the world empowered to make a difference and the larger life of which all of us are apart may these be your benediction please be seated for the postlude amen