 Please join me for a few moments of centering silence. Now please remain seated while we sing our in-gathering hymn, which is number 131. Love will guide us 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 entire congregation, I would like to extend a special welcome to any visitors who are with us this morning. We are a welcoming congregation, so whomever you are and wherever you happen to be on your life's journey, we celebrate your presence among us. Newcomers 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. Members of our bring your drinks and your questions. Members of our staff and lay ministry will be on hand to welcome you. You may also look for persons holding teal-colored stoneware coffee mugs. These are FUS members knowledgeable about our faith community who would love to chat with you and answer questions. Experienced guides are generally available to give a building tour after the service. I'm not aware of anyone being available for after this service. Anybody here who is a guide who wants to volunteer? So probably there won't be one. Normally I'd tell you to meet up in that corner, so if you really really want a tour, go to that corner and we'll see if we can find somebody to help you. We welcome children to stay for the duration of our service, but if a child needs to jump around, talk, sing, dance, there is the children's haven in that corner and the entire commons where children can do normal children's stuff and you can still see and hear the service. I'd now like to acknowledge the volunteers who are helping to make this day run smoothly. Where's my list? Oh dear. Hold on one second. Mark Schultz. I see Mark. I know he's there on sound and Smiley is our minister. Joan Heitman and Jeannie Nosebaum are our readers. Let's see. And Smiley and Eva Wright. Yes thank you very much. Our ushers. Thank you. Jeannie Hills is making coffee. So I think that's it. I don't know where my other list is. I'm sorry. Please note the announcements in the red floors. Insert in your order of service which talk about things that are going on today and this week. Particularly please notice that there's still time to sign up for our service Sunday which is the 26th and there's a table out in the commons where you may do that or you may do it online. If you're listening at home go online and do it from there. Okay. Now I have one more thing to mention which is that I am thrilled to be able to introduce, thank you, TK Browning, our FUS ministerial intern who's back with us. Many of you remember him from several years ago. He and his partner Kate along with their two children Atticus 7 and Tallulah H5 were members of this congregation from 2012 to 2014. He was raised in Utah with a bachelor's degree in Middle Eastern studies and Arabic from Brigham Young. TK joins us for this important step in his journey toward becoming a Unitarian Universalist minister. With a deep love and curiosity for the many religious traditions in the world including the faith of his childhood Mormonism, TK hopes to build a humanistic ministry focused on peace, compassion and justice. Please join us in welcoming him today and throughout his tenure with us. Wonderful. Thank you. Again, welcome. We hope today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart and stir your spirit. Thank you so much. It's quite the Sunday to lead services for the first time. Hopefully I run a little bit smoother than the 9 o'clock service, but I always liked 11 o'clock better anyway. I saved this for later in the last service, but I think we should start off with it now. In the cares and sorrows I expressed my deep grief over the terrorist attack that happened in Charlottesville yesterday and all the terrorism that white supremacy has buoyed up and demanded throughout its history and hold the families of those injured and killed in our hearts and in our minds today and if we can be with that for a minute of silence. Thanks. God of Selma and God of Charlottesville with us on the mountaintops and in the valleys as well, prepare our hearts for the feasts of loving kindness we are about to receive. Let the words and music in which we are about to partake nourish us in all the ways we have needed. Let us be filled once again and made ready to be instruments of peace forged by justice in the work, play and rest that's before us today. With all that we are, let us worship as one and please join me in the words of the chalice lighting that are printed in your order of service. We're all just going to read them together. We call on a great cloud of witnesses whose hope lives on through us. They are present within us and present among us as we come together in this faith that is our religious home. As we come together held in the chalice of this community inspired by the promise of love which we do not need to earn and the commitment to justice which is our abiding hope. Those were the words of Reverend Bill Sinkford. I now invite you to turn to your neighbor and exchange the friendly greeting as we gather together today. If all the young people would like to come and join me up on the rug for a story, come on up. Hi there. So how many of you are ready for school? Well that's better than the nine o'clock they all went, oh no. Have you ever gone on a field trip at school? Yeah? Have you ever been to a museum? Yes you have. I know you have. Good. Well this is a story called Milo's Museum and Milo is going to go to a museum. In the pictures you'll be up there so you can see. Milo woke up feeling excited. Today her class was going to the museum. Mommy and daddy had to work but Papa went along a shepherd. The docent at the museum was named Ann. She led the group through the museum and told them interesting things about the artwork. After the tour Milo's teacher gave the children some time to explore the museum on their own. Milo held her grandfather's hand as they wandered through the rooms together. Milo liked most of the art but something didn't feel right. Milo tugged at her grandfather's hand. What are museums for Papa? Well he said museums hold all the objects that people feel are valuable or important. Things from long ago and from today. Museums are full of stories really. Milo nodded to show she understood and she still felt funny inside. When they got home Milo sat on the front porch and watched her world go by. So many faces, sounds and stories made up her world but none of it was in the museum. Milo frowned. Why so glum chum? asked Aunt Vashti. We aren't in the museum. Milo said quietly. I want to know why? Aunt Vashti took a deep breath. Every museum has a curator who decides what goes inside the museum. She told Milo. What about us? Asked Milo. Don't we get a say? We vote with our feet said Aunt Vashti. We go see the exhibits that mean the most to us. But we shouldn't have to wait for a special exhibit said Milo just to see ourselves in the museum. You're right said Aunt Vashti. So what are you going to do about it? Me Milo said was surprised. What could I do? You could write a letter to the curator Aunt Vashti suggested or or what Milo asked. You could make your own museum. Aunt Vashti replied. The next day Milo packed some things in her suitcase and went out to the backyard. She pulled her suitcase across the grass and stopped at her playhouse. With a purple marker she wrote Milo's museum on a piece of paper and taped it to the above her playhouse. Then she set up her exhibit and asked everyone in her family to come inside. Welcome to my museum she said proudly. Nana and Papa were the first to take Milo's tour. These baby booties were knitted by my great grandma Sally said Milo. She was born down south where it's warm but she knew it gets cold here. Papa picked up a red leather box. Tell me about this he said. That belonged to my great great grandpa Jack Milo told him. He fought in France during World War I and was so brave they gave him that medal. Milo's parents came in next. She handed a framed photograph to her mother and said this is a picture that was taken at last summer's block party. You and daddy slow danced in the middle of the street. Then she turned to her father. This is the statue of ISIS that I got at that other museum. She was a goddess in Egypt a long ago time. Aunt Vashti says ISIS looks a bit like me. Daddy kissed Milo's cheek and said auntie's right. Aunt Vashti came in last. Milo held up a carved Christmas tree ornament. My uncle Rod sent this from Germany she explained. Aunt Vashti nodded before pointing at something else on the wall. What's that? She asked. That is the jersey I wear when I play softball. Milo told her. Aunt Vashti gave Milo a hug. Your museum is wonderful she said. By the time Milo finished giving a tour to everyone in her family several of her neighbors had come into the yard. Two of her classmates were already standing in line eager to see Milo's exhibit. It's so cool that we have a museum right in our neighborhood. Mallory exclaimed. I want to open my own museum. Hector said why don't you two add something to the collection? Milo suggested. That way our museum will be a mirror for the whole community. Hector and Mallory agreed. Milo looked at all the friends family members and neighbors in her yard. Then she took out her purple marker and made a new sign. It says the People's Museum. Now the next time you go to a museum you can look around and see everything in your community that's shown there. As our children go to summer fun or back to their parents the rest of us will rise and sing 1051 in the Teal hymnal. All right thank you. Let's go now. Residency of the board here of reasons. Transition in our senior minister and I thought it'd be interesting after my daughter who had been there about 20 years ago said you have to go dad. So I went and I have to tell you I didn't just go and represent this congregation. I didn't go just and learn a few things about transition. I was inspired by the 1,000 plus congregations, the 4,000 people. You probably if you've been here before you know we do sort of a little banner parade at the different times of the year with the kids and all these congregations bring their banner. We have one and they march through and you think is it ever going to end? They just keep coming and coming and coming. It was really quite inspiring. Among the things that I found really interesting were how messy democracy can be and how important it is to have good moderators who know when it's time to sing. When we were in the middle of a little kerfuffle and people were sort of getting excited the moderators would go Leon it's time to sing and the whole crowd would stand up and sing and it was like oh that's sort of calm the water. So I don't know I'm not going to be president anymore but maybe we'll have to think about that next time we have a little bit of a kerfuffle here. I think that the one one of the most inspiring things for me was the where lecture which you're going to hear more about from one of the other speakers where Brian Stevenson the author of Just Mercy got up and talked and yeah I think you'll be quite inspired by that as well. I want to encourage you to think about becoming a delegate for FUS it's really a fascinating thing it's going to be in Kansas City next year and you can go and be inspired. I also want you to think about the fact that as a congregation a member of the UUA we are committed to trying to support the UUA financially. It's been tough for us to meet those minimum you know fair share and so think about how we can help as a congregation to increase our pledging for that. Also today's offering will be to pay towards our fair share towards that. I think that it's really really important for us to be supporting that they're going to be supporting us for the next couple of years as we go through our transition and they support a lot of other congregations there aren't many that are as big as we are. Many of them don't have as many members as we have kids in our RE program so let's think about that as we try to think about how we can be more supportive of the UUA. Thank you very much and the next person will come up and talk. Good morning I'm Richard Scovey and I believe this was my 14th general assembly so I am somewhat of a GA junkie as Elizabeth will talk about. The where lecture is generally one of the most anticipated events at general assembly. The speakers are prominent in their field and usually very interesting to listen to. Dinner plans are made around it and advanced parties are sent into the hall to reserve blocks of seats. The lecture is in honor of three generations of the where family founders of our movement basically. Speakers have included Linus Pauline, Martin Luther King Jr and Holly Neer. This year's lecturer Brian Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. He is a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned. Under his leadership EJI has won major legal challenges, eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill and aiding children prosecuted as adults. He is the author of the critically acclaimed bestseller Just Mercy, which was both the UUA and the UW Common Read in 2014. During his lecture he said the opposite of poverty isn't wealth, it is justice. He received a standing ovation that lasted several minutes when he arrived in the hall and when he left it. He gave you use clear direction on the work that must be done to create a more just world including fully accepting our history as a racist society. He said, I'm not interested in punishing America for this history I want to liberate America because in the other side of confession comes freedom. There are four essential things that we must do to create a more just and equal world. Stevenson told UWs, get proximate to the poor, the excluded, neglected and abused, change the narratives that underlie racism and other inequalities, stay hopeful about creating justice and be willing to do uncomfortable things. Changing the narratives that underlie racism is critically important, he said. Oppressors justify oppression with a narrative of fear and anger which leads to a culture that tolerates injustice. For example, the narrative that many black and brown children who commit crimes aren't children at all but rather our super predators created the school to prison pipeline. He urged us to resist fear and anger, examine how we treat poor children and acknowledge that we live in a post genocidal society given that more than 10 million native peoples died of disease or murder in the U.S. Stevenson said that the great evil of American slavery wasn't in voluntary servitude, it was the narrative of racial difference that was used to justify slavery which even the U.S. Supreme Court adopted at that time. The period from the Civil War to World War II was an error of terrorism against black people, he said, and black people in northern cities fled the U.S. south as refugees and exiled from the terror in the south, something that is very rarely discussed. Today, people of color are too often presumed dangerous and guilty no matter their social class, age, or how much money they have. In South Africa, the history of apartheid is openly discussed and in Germany, holocaust stones are placed in front of the homes of Jews who were taken and sent to camps because Germany is trying to change the narrative. But in the U.S., we avoid discussion of slavery and lynching, said Stevenson, who has a project to put markers at every lynching site in the United States. Stevenson urged you to make a choice to do uncomfortable things, say uncomfortable things, and be in uncomfortable places and to stay hopeful about creating racial justice. Hope makes us speak out, so fight against what makes you hopeless. Our hopefulness is the one thing we cannot compromise, he said. You are either hopeful or you are part of the problem. My name is Tim Corden. I'm your social justice court. My dream job really, your commitment to social justice because of your commitment, we're doing great things. I also want to thank you for sending me to General Assembly. It was an amazing experience and I too will become a General Assembly junkie if I have anything to do. I'm a Unitarian Universalist because I believe in justice and because this faith holds a promise of full inclusion. So naturally I was a bit shocked last spring when our denomination from many levels of the UUA was saying it was time to question our part in white supremacy culture. Wow, isn't this the organization that's encouraged me to read Just Mercy and the Third Reconstruction? And didn't you send me to Standing Rock and Selma? And aren't we like working with white, with young gifted and black? But really it shouldn't have surprised me because I think the greatest way to move ourselves forward is to really look at our own selves and that's really what I came out of GA with. My experience there led me to believe that white people, we are the initiators and the benefactors of systemic racism and it's time that we look at our complacency and our culpability and the persistence of that racism. Listening to brilliant leaders, I got a picture of the history of our movement and that we've got a chance now to go farther than we ever have before. In the mid-60s, Dr. King had called out to the nation to clergy across the country to come and join him in the South and after that call, after Bloody Sunday in Selma, after the murder of James Reeb, hundreds of UU ministers flocked to the South to join in the struggle. And what happened in the years following that is our denomination number swelled. I can't give you the exact figures, but we grew quite a bit and we became quite a bit more diverse. In fact, I learned at GA that in 1968, the GA there was nearly a third people of color. Dr. Matangalusi Senkia, who was at General Assembly, was at the 1968 and he referred to it in his address at GA. He was then, at that time in 1968, he was the young Hayward Henry Jr., the first chair of the Black UU Caucus. And in that role, he led the UUA to vote in favor of investing $1 million over four years for Black Liberation Projects. But for some reasons, which I don't know, the UUA was the first UU Caucus and the UUA was unable to fulfill that promise and by 1970, there had been a mass exodus of Black UUs from our movement. Dr. Senkia was one of them, but now over 50 years later, he was back addressing the General Assembly. He was serving as a mentor for the Black Lives of UU, also known as Blue, and they affectionately referred to him as Baba. In his address, I heard a great deal of appreciation for how far we've come and a great deal of hope that we might now be at a time where we can fully complete this work of racial healing. He stated that coming to General Assembly this year was like coming home for him. And I felt like I had come home too. And coming home to you, I want to finish with just a few things that I've observed about our faith. We are not a stagnant faith. We're critically looking at ourselves and that we haven't got it right just yet. We're pushing on and evolving and it gives me great hope. I got a greater sense for just how diverse we really are. We're very welcoming and that diversity comes through when you go to GA with 4,000 some people from all over the country. We're at an amazing point in history, not only as a religious tradition, but as a species. It seems clear to many of us that we need, now is the time to dismantle white supremacy culture. And if we don't, as King warned, I believe we will perish together as fools. So to this end, I think we as whites, and most of us here are, need to come to terms with how badly we feel about racism. Feelings of guilt and shame are not going to serve us. We didn't create this. And our fear, our confusion, our privilege is not going to help us either. To stay stuck in our denial, our bad feelings, or the silence of our pseudo-safety, our apathy will not help us. We have to confront our culture and make steps to change it because white supremacy culture diminishes our own lives. By working to continue this work, by committing ourselves to ending white supremacy culture, we give ourselves a shot at liberation. So may we all answer that call, that someday as beloved community, we may know the joys of our whole and healthy human family. Thank you for making this journey with me. I'm Elizabeth, and I'm definitely a GA junkie. I've been to General Assembly 14 times. Because this conference, convention, celebration gives me a high like no other. General Assembly nurtures my soul like nothing else ever could. But this year, I could not afford the airfare or the room and board to actually go there in person. So I participated as an online delegate. So I watched the whole thing on computers, on my computer, and sometimes on television. So I want to talk about what I learned about white supremacy culture, as Tim was saying. So it has a number of characteristics, many characteristics. And when you read through those, it sounds like just plain old mainstream U.S. culture. Just the culture that we all live in, recognize it all. I actually, well, more importantly than that, it lists antidotes. So there are antidotes to all these old ways of doing things that are joyful and life-affirming. So I actually took the list of the characteristics and the antidotes, and I've got several copies of it out on the table, the same table where I'm selling standing on the side of love's t-shirts. So feel free to pick one up if you want to. So I want to talk about just three of the characteristics. Individualism, power hoarding, and the sense of urgency. Now all three of these are in opposition to our Unitarian Universalist values. First, individualism. Now we've been working to get away from this for a number of years. We value teamwork, shared goals. We embrace community and our interdependence. You know that we have a shared vision of ministry here that gets changed every year. We work in ministry teams. Well, at GA they demonstrated this by they have different teams that cover various issues. One of them, say, is the UU accessibility team. So when it was time for them to bring their report, the whole group comes out. Some of them are in scooters. They're various ages, various ethnicities, and they all have the same t-shirt. And there's a group. They have just a couple of spokespeople. But you know they're all in solidarity. They all thought it over and decided how to do accessibility the best way they can. So the second one is power hoarding. So I learned at General Assembly that most Unitarian Universalists are anti-authoritarian. If you think about yourself and other UUs, you know that might resonate with you. So that's why we have congregational polity. Why only congregations can ordain and call ministers. And that's why we use democratic process to get things done. And it's also why the UUA is a Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations and not a centralized power that tells congregations what to do. So the question was asked at GA. If we don't like hierarchy and power hoarding more into power sharing, why are most of our congregations set up with one minister as the CEO and then other people below that person? I learned about some other models like say a congregation where there's an interim minister, a director of religious education, and the administrator and they're the co-leaders. So that congregation likes that arrangement so much that they're going to put in the job description for the next minister, that that person has to be a collaborator, has to be somebody who wants to work as a team. Now, this working in teams, my goodness, was so evident at General Assembly. So we had three moderators. There's usually just one. And in the past, the moderator has sometimes been really confused about the rules. Not sure what to do. So this time, none of that. So three moderators. One white woman, Denise Rimes, two African-Americans, Reg Boyd and Elandria Williams, and they were on it. Knew the rules of procedure so well. Knew how to read the people in the room, get things done, but also honor everyone. At one point, one of the moderators got a little frustrated. So the other two moderators just came up to her. They each put an arm around her. And the whole room, and me sitting in my computer, all of us calmed down. There's just this loving support when you know that these people have our backs. They're working. They're going to get this done. So the third characteristic is the sense of urgency. So this has sometimes been a burden around here, energy aid. It leaves no room for deep thought, no room for considering a wide range of ideas, especially no room for inclusion of various people or for listening, listening to lots of voices and needs from the community. So often the last day of GA is the worst of the sense of urgency. It's a whirlwind of debating and voting, rushing to end the last session because we have to go to the closing ceremony. So this trio of moderators did not do that. They didn't hurry. They were very thoughtful. They weren't anxious at all. And so I, therefore, was not anxious either. I could tell people there in person weren't. And you know what? We actually accomplished what we set out to do. And now we're all prepared to do what we need to do in our congregations until all of us go next year to General Assembly. As you know, it's June 20th through the 24th in Kansas City. Thanks. And now it's time for the giving and receiving of the offertory. Visitor otherwise can leave a care for the congregation that they would like mentioned over the pulpit. My good friend Nancy Koseff and her husband, Andy, joyfully welcome their new granddaughter, Ellen Naomi Koseff-Jones, born August 3rd. Ellen's mother and father Ryan and big brother Miles are all doing well. And this was also the part of this last service where I mentioned the vigil being held tonight at the Capitol. For Charlottesville, it's 8 p.m. You can find details on our FUS Facebook page. And I'll try to be in attendance although my wife's in Canada for her conference in kids' bedtime. We'll see. And we can just have a moment of silence for any other joys or concerns expressed or unexpressed in our hearts today. And our closing hymn will be Blue Boat Home, 1064 in the Teal hymnal. And we'll have a slideshow of GA. One of those is me. This is also my first GA. I had a really good time. It was a bit overwhelming, but a lot of fun. Thanks. 1064. And the first service is an interesting... Well, it's the poetry of Hafeez, but it has some words from Kimberly Quinn Johnson and her spurs. So she has the author credit here, but you can tell when I'm reading poetry it's Hafeez, who I love, 14th century Sufi Persian poet. Maybe not Sufi, but Persian. And then you can hear Karen's words as well, or Kimberly's words as well. Of a great need, we are all holding hands and climbing. Not loving is a letting go. Listen. The terrain around here is far too dangerous for that. We are called to a revolutionary love that demands that we not let go, a love that demands that we draw our circle wider and wider and wider still, a love that asks nothing in return. Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, you owe me. Look. What happens with a love like that? It lights the whole sky. A love like this, a love like ours, a revolutionary love can light up the whole sky. It can heal the world. May your love light up the whole world and may your love heal the world. Go in peace, peace, and enjoy a beautiful postlude. Thank you.