 me in a moment of centering silence. And now please remain seated as we sing our in-gathering hymn and the words appear in your order of service. Good morning. Welcome to the First Unitarian Society of Madison. This is a community where curious seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical, and social issues in an accepting and nurturing environment. Unitarian Universalism supports the freedom of conscience of each individual as together we seek to be a force for good in the world. My name is Karen Rose Gredler and on behalf of the congregation I would like to extend a special welcome to any visitors who are with us this morning. We are a welcoming congregation so wherever you are and wherever you happen to be on your life journey we celebrate your presence among us. Newcomers and others are encouraged to stay for our fellowship hour after the service and to visit the library which is directly across from the center doors of this auditorium. Bring your drinks, your coffee, or lemonade, and your questions. Members of our staff and lay ministry will be on hand to welcome you. You may also look for the persons who have the teal mugs. These are FUS members knowledgeable about our faith community who would love to visit with you. Experienced guides are generally available to give building tours after each service so if you would like to learn more about this sustainably designed addition or our National Landmark Meeting House please meet near the large glass windows on your left side of the auditorium. We welcome children to stay for the duration of service however because it is difficult for some in attendance to hear in this lively acoustic environment our child Haven back in that corner and the commons out behind the auditorium. This would also be a good time to turn off any electronic devices that might cause disturbances during the hour especially cell phones please. I'd now like to acknowledge those individuals who help our services run smoothly. For this service we have Mark Schultz on the sound. We have Anne Smiley as our lay minister, Mary Elizabeth Conkel as greeter, and as ushers we have Richard and Lynn Scoby, Allison Brooks, and Amira Hasnell as our ushers. Please note the announcements on the red floors insert in your order of service which describe upcoming events at the society and provide more information about today's and this week's activities. Again welcome. We hope that today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart, and stir your spirit. Thank you. As we enter into this time put away the pressures of the world that ask you to perform, to take up masks, to put on brave fronts, silence the voices that ask you to be perfect. This is a community of compassion and welcome. You do not have to do anything to earn the love contained within these walls. You do not have to be braver, smarter, stronger, better than you are in this moment to belong here with us. You only have to bring the gift of your body, no matter how able. Your seeking mind, no matter how busy. Your animal heart, no matter how broken. Bring all that you are and all that you love to this, our time together. And if you will rise now in body or spirit to join together in our words of chalice lighting. We light our chalice, symbol of our faith, for truth sought through a questioning heart and an attentive mind. And for love pursued through obstacles inside and outside our own human heart. And for forgiveness and all it entails the place where truth and love meet and merge. And before we join together in song, if you'll take a moment to greet your neighbor, please be seated. If you woke this morning with a sorrow so heavy, you need the help of this community to carry it. Or if you woke with a joy so great that it simply must be shared, now is that time. The sharing of joys and sorrows is our time in the spirit of acceptance and support to share with one another some special event or circumstance that has affected your life or the life of a loved one in recent days or weeks. This is not a time for general announcements or political opinion. And as you share, please remember that the listeners are not limited to the people in this room as our services broadcast on the web. So for the next few minutes, anyone who wishes is invited to step to the front of the auditorium, light a candle using the microphone, briefly share with us your message. You may also come forward to wordlessly light a candle. And if you're unable to come forward for any reason, raise your hand and we'll bring the microphone to you and we will light a candle on your behalf. I'm going to begin our sharing with this candle for Roberta Preston or Bobby as we know her. Bobby was admitted into hospice a few days ago, and we hold her and her family in our hearts and we send her our love and support. I'd like to share the joy of the birth of Isabel, a niece of ours in Seattle. My wife Joan and I have a joy to share. We have learned that we're expecting our first great grandchild. Yeah, I think the day before yesterday, but I'm not sure I went to a water park. Good morning. I'm Morris Waxler. I share two sorrows and some hope. My dear friend James Morgan has been moved to the Dodge so-called Correctional Facility, and Khalif Moab El is having his hearing next week to determine whether he goes back to person. I have a joy that I lost my seventh tooth and I'm seven. This service I don't want to give details, but I'm here for the choir to remember Janet Stonecipher and Eva Wright who have not been well and who are in recovery and both of them doing better. Yes, or? I'm Dave Cresswell and I'm here to share the joy that Lori and my grandson, Graham David, is going to be a year old on October 12th and he's brought so much joy to both of us and we are very grateful. I'd like to light a candle for thankfulness for all the people that helped last year. My father-in-law died in the fall. Then my dad broke his hip. Then my mom passed and everybody here was just so wonderful to our family and we couldn't have done it without you, without a Grace Hospice, without St. Mary's Care Center. We really thank them for all that. The other part of my lighting the candle is that things have turned around and my dad is back and vital in 92 and a veteran of World War II and I accompanied him on the honor flight to Washington DC and he's our special guest today. We are asked of our prayers and our concerns, our eyes and our ears for an elder black woman still unaccounted before for the last two weeks on the east side of Madison. Her African family longs for her return. I'm Tom Heiney. These must be the elder moments now. I have a joy and a concern at the same time. My mother Leah Heiney who is a member of this congregation probably from the 30s through the 50s and a stone hauler celebrating her 103rd birthday at St. Mary's Care Center in about 10 days. I'd like to share gratitude today. My wife was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year and a lot of care later and a lot of medical care and support from friends and family and today she's cancer free. My name is Janet and I'm here visiting from Whitby Island Washington. I just would like to light a candle for my son Ron. And Anne if you will light one last candle in the spirit of life and love to lift up every joy and hold up every hurt that remain quiet in the silence of our hearts. And now if we will rise in body or spirit to join in our hymn number 1029 as our children and teachers leave for classes please be seated. Once upon a time there was a blacksmith who worked hard at his trade. The day came for him to die. The angel was sent to him and much to the angel's surprise he refused to go. He pleaded with the angel to make his case before God that he was the only blacksmith in the area and it was time for all his neighbors to begin their planting and sowing he was needed. So the angel pleaded his case before God. He said that the man didn't want to appear ungrateful and that he was glad to have a place in the kingdom but could he put off going for just a little while and he was left. About a year or two later the angel came back again with the same message. The Lord was ready to share the fullness of the kingdom with him. Again the man had reservations and said a neighbor of mine is seriously ill and it's time for the harvest. A number of us are trying to save his crop so that his family won't become destitute. Please come back later. And off the angel went again. Well it got to be a pattern. Every time the angel came the blacksmith had one excuse or another. The blacksmith would just shake his head and tell the angel where he was needed and decline. Finally the blacksmith grew very old, weary and tired. He decided it was time and so he prayed God if you'd like to send that angel again I'd be glad to come home now. Immediately the angel appeared as if from around the corner of the bed. The blacksmith said if you still want to take me home I'm ready to live forever in the kingdom of heaven. And the angel laughed and looked at the blacksmith in delight and surprise and said where do you think you've been all these years? He was home. Thank you. When I was a child the priest who served our Catholic Church loved a hymn called Here I Am Lord. It goes something like this. I the Lord of snow and rain. I have borne my people's pain. I have wept for love of them. They turn away. I will break their hearts of stone. Give them hearts for love alone. I will speak my word to them. Whom shall I send? Here I am Lord. Is it I Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart. We sang this hymn week after week. So much so that I could stand here and sing the entire hymn to you from memory even though I haven't really thought about it in probably 20 years. It was the refrain. I will go if you lead. I will hold your people in my heart that really stuck. This is the piece that Father Cawley wanted us to remember. Each week after we would sing this hymn he would reinforce a message of care, of giving, of taking to heart the idea that we are the ones who are here. We are the ones being sent to love, to remember, to heal. There are many who believe that helping, service is who we truly are. In that seminal work, How Can I Help? Ram Dass and Paul Gorman wrote, caring for one another, we sometimes glimpse an essential quality of our being. We may be sitting alone, lost in self-doubt or self-pity when the phone rings with a call from a friend who is really depressed. Instinctively, we come out of ourselves just to be there with her and say a few reassuring words. When we're done and the little comforts been shared, we put down the phone and feel a little more at home with ourselves. We're reminded of who we really are and what we have to offer. Father Cawley was this magnificent Jesuit priest who brought the stories of the Bible alive. All of us, young and old, listened to his stories on the edge of our seats because when he talked about these ancient tales, they actually made sense. They made us laugh, made us question our place in the world, made us understand something more about who we are and what we are meant to be doing. I will never forget this Sunday he discussed the parable of the loaves and the fishes. You remember this one? It's also called the feeding of the 5,000. The story is usually interpreted to highlight Jesus' miraculous abilities. When read in this way, the emphasis is on Jesus' special relationship to God and how this relationship allowed him to turn five loaves of bread and two fish into enough food for everyone. When Jesus prayed, God worked a miracle through him. The food meant for maybe a dozen became more than enough. Father Cawley reminded us that like all stories in the scriptures, this one could be interpreted in another way. What he said that morning stuck and stays with me still. Jesus performed a miracle all right. The miracle was that he spoke words that opened people's hearts to one another and taught them the power to share, the power to give, the power to receive, the power of community. In community all are fed, all receive care, all are given the gifts of presence and hope. When Jesus brought out the loaves and fishes that he and his companions had with them, when he blessed the food and offered to share even though it would never have been enough, he convinced everyone else present to share with the group what they each had. Some may have had fruit in their pockets and his generosity moved them to share it. Others had loaves of bread tucked away in the bottoms of their bags and when they saw what was happening, they decided to share as well. In this way, the whole community created a giant miracle and because they shared, everyone had not only enough but more than was needed. Buddhist teacher Jack Cornfield would tell us that this is what we ought to expect. We all have without exception, he writes, a very deep longing to give. Give to the earth, give to others, give to society, to work, to love, to care. That's true for every human being and even the ones who don't find it, it's because it has been squashed or somehow suppressed in some way in their life. But it's there to be discovered. We all long for that and there's a tremendous sorrow for a human being who doesn't find a way to give. One of the worst of human sufferings is not to find a way to love or a place to work and give of your heart and your being. Opportunities to give arise everywhere. One thing I've come to understand is that it isn't the bold initiatives or the grand strategies which make a difference. It's the small moments, the time when you have brightened someone's day with a smile or a call or reminded them that they are not alone in their struggles. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a Hasidic master once said, it is easy, very easy, to criticize others and make them feel unwanted. Anyone can do it. What takes effort and skill is picking them up and making them feel good. A favorite poem of mine was written by Naomi Shahib Nye and it's called Kindness. Before you know what kindness really is, you must lose things. Feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go. So you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop. The passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever. Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you. How he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive. Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore. Only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread. Only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say it is you I have been looking for and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend. Then it's only kindness that makes sense anymore. A kindness that flows naturally out of the recognition of our connection, our oneness, our place in this web. As we move around this world and as we act with kindness perhaps or with indifference or with hostility toward the people we meet, we are setting the great spider web a tremble. The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life and that in turn another until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt. Our acts have reverberations which are felt beyond our imagining. Kindness is sometimes viewed as one of those worn out virtues lacking in charisma or clout and yet it encompasses meaningful acts of love, words of encouragement, reverberations beyond our knowing generosity, healing. No wonder Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel near the end of his life concluded when I was young I used to admire intelligent people. As I grow older I admire kind people. Caring, giving, kindness, these are essential qualities of our being human. Yet there are two parts of this that are important to remember. First the words of the poem. Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. We have many ways to distract ourselves from suffering, from sorrow, from knowing that they are both present in others and ourselves. Denial, abstraction, constant activity, these are all ways in which the mind reacts to suffering and attempts to restrict the natural compassion of the heart. As we reach out we often pull back because the pain is too raw, the suffering too close to home, the feelings too intense. This is a lesson of caring. To truly care for another we must learn the gifts of openness and presence. This is no easy skill. It takes practice, time and courage. We must learn to be open without judgment, without turning away to the beauty and the pain of another. Sitting with each other in grief, holding a hand to say you are still here. I am still here. You are not alone. That is a gift we give to each other and to ourselves. This is the second piece. We need to loosen our hold on the beloved proverb it is better to give than to receive. Let's replace it with from you I receive to you I give. Together we share and from this we live. When we give to another we are saying you have value in my eyes. You are important to me. You are worthy of my care and concern. When we receive from another we are acknowledging that we are not entirely self-sustaining, that we need one another, that we are vulnerable. Giving and receiving is a dance and many of us are quite comfortable with the giving but few are very good at receiving. Sometimes we are caught off guard and are unsure how to react. Other times we are embarrassed by the attention. Questions begin forming in our mind. How do I feel about this person? What is my past experience with her? How does she want me to react? Is this gift something that I really want? What will he want in return? Just as giving requires us to practice openness and presence, receiving requires us to practice emptiness and letting go. Our minds are so full of our own stories, our own ideas, preconceived notions, assumptions that it's difficult for us to empty ourselves and simply receive a kind gesture or a gift given with gratitude and compassion. It requires letting go. Letting go of our need to direct our lives and control the outcomes. Letting go of the inner stories we use to understand ourselves and simply accepting what comes. From you I receive to you I give. None of us makes it on our own. Each of us owes our places in this world to a network of love and support that has made possible the opportunities we have been given. The truth is that we need each other. Not a one of us can be spared and the only way we can succeed individually and together is in the giving and receiving that keeps our world whole. This congregation, every congregation is a community of revolving care receivers and caregivers. Here in this place we can be strong enough to care and vulnerable enough to receive. The classic notion that the pastoral work of this congregation is done totally by the ministers is simply not the case. We are blessed with a lay ministry program, a network of care and support, people who offer comfort, kindness, help, and healing to our members and friends. These are people who model openness, presence, emptiness, and letting go. They have experienced joy and woken with sorrow and come to this work with the realization that only kindness makes sense. In a moment we will be recognizing them and the work they do here. If you are realizing this morning that you're in a place to receive care, to open yourself to another, call on them. They are here for you. If you are being stirred to join them, to offer yourself up as one who would like to do this work, come and speak with me. Anne Lomott posted these words a few days ago. Last night at Arbor Lawn United Methodist Church in Fort Worth, the last of 14 cities on this book tour, a woman in her late 20s raised her hand and asked, what is the big picture? I do a lot of things that I love and value but I don't have a clue what it all means. The crowd was actually hushed as if I might have the secret launch codes and could answer this for all time. I said welcome to the monkey house, stealing one of Vonnegut's titles. Everyone of every age roared with friendly laughter because we're all in the same boat. We all think we missed school the day that the visiting specialist stopped by our second grade classroom to distribute the pamphlets on what is true, who we are, and how we are to live with the great mystery of life, how to come through dark times, how to awaken. We're all sort of winging it, trying to learn self-love and respect, trying to be here now sometimes and live lives of meaning and joy. This was my response. You do a lot of things that you love and value. That's the big picture. You've learned about radical self-care, about putting your own oxygen mask on first, yet also have discovered that we can only be filled up by service, by giving. Ramdha said that he thought that when it was all said and done, we're all just walking each other home. That's the meaning, I think. That's the big picture. That is why we are here. May we hold one another in our hearts, and may we feel the deep responsibility and the gift of walking each other home. Home to beauty, to wholeness, to peace. Blessed be. I now invite you into the giving and receiving of today's offering, which is an outreach offering. You can read more about the recipient in your order of service. We thank you for your generosity. Ministry here at First Unitarian Society is all that we do together. Among the varied opportunities, the lay ministry team lives this out in tangible ways through the work they do each day. Lay ministers come to this work with a compassionate heart, ready to be present, to listen deeply and to be a companion on the journey. As the professional ministers, Michael and I cannot be everywhere when there is a need. Lay ministers hold a special role in this community for they serve as an extension of the ministry here. Lay ministers are committed to this work they do together. They participate in regular meetings and receive skill-building opportunities throughout the year. Their dedication and commitment to this area of ministry is palpable and strong. Today we pause to honor and bless our lay ministers. So will our lay ministers please stand. We are grateful for your role in this community. You work in coordination with us and serve this community as compassionate listeners and companion others on their journey. You have our trust and our respect. We thank you for your service and ask are you willing to serve this congregation as you are able and do what you can to build and maintain this beloved community. With open hearts and welcoming hands, will you listen and care for members and friends with whom you are matched? If so, please say we will. And if the congregation will please rise in body or spirit. Will you members and friends of this congregation support these lay ministers in their efforts? Will you trust them and open your hearts to the gifts they have to offer? If so, please say we will. With full and grateful hearts, we thank you for your service and your presence in this beloved community. And now if we will join together in singing our closing hymn number 301, please be seated. Before we close, I want to let you know that in three short weeks, you will be able to sign up for Select to Connect events. Since this is a short time away, I want to make sure you know what it is. Select to Connect is a whole array of events. Dinners, lunches, picnics, sporting events offered by our members and our friends. They are a fantastic way for people to get to know each other better. Some of you have already submitted events, and you can find those on the website if you're interested in seeing what's going to be offered. I'm hearing from Sally and Becky, who staff this table each weekend, that many are coming up to them with great ideas for events, but the confirmation and the actual forms and the dates are not getting through. We want Select to Connect to be a great success, both in making the special connections among members and friends, and also raise those much needed funds for the budget. So today I'm asking you for your help in considering hosting an event with others. My family's hosting a winter solstice family celebration, crafts, snacks, stories, welcoming back the sun. It is simple. It is easy. It's fun. If my family can pull it off, anybody can do it. Michael and Sasha and I are going to be hosting a fantastic something or other that will be decided on shortly. Whatever it is, it's going to be really special. So Sally is out there in the commons right now, looking at all of us with bated breath and hoping that you will stop by to talk with her after the service. If you say, I want to do something but I don't know what, tell her that she has wonderful ideas of activities that you can do. So thank you for considering hosting an activity and thank you for remembering to sign up to attend these great activities in just three short weeks. And now our closing. Those gathered here with you today are people whose hearts are sometimes tender, whose skin is sometimes thin, whose eyes sometimes fill with tears, whose laughter is a beautiful sound. The ones gathered here with you are seeking wholeness and know that you are doing the same. As you leave this place, may your hearts remain open, may your voices stay strong, and may your hands always, always remain reaching out. Blessed be and go in peace.