 Please join me in a moment of centering silence, and now please remain seated as we sing our in-gathering hymn, number 396, the words are in your order of service. Good morning. Thank you. 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 Jim O'Brien, and on behalf of the congregation, I would like to extend a special welcome to visitors. Do we have some visitors here today? Thank you. Welcome. Yes. We are a welcoming congregation. We hope we prove that to you. So whoever you are and wherever you happen to be on your life 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. 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, stone, coffee mugs. These are FUS members knowledgeable about our faith community who would welcome visiting you. And that way we can also tell if you know what the color teal is. This is a hint. Experienced guides are usually around to give you a tour. I think John was here earlier. In any case, there will probably be a tour after each service. So if you'd like to learn more about this sustainably designed addition or our national landmark meeting house, please meet near the large glass window on my right, your left over there. We welcome children for the duration of the service. But if they become antsy or lively or interested in participating to a greater degree than necessary, there are alternatives. There's a child haven back there in the corner with wonderfully comfortable chairs. And the commons area also provides opportunity for you to hear the service. This would also be a good time to turn off all devices that might cause a disturbance during the hour, especially cell phone ringers. I would like to now acknowledge those individuals who help our services run smoothly. Maximum importance is the sound operator, Maureen Friend, Arleigh Minister and Smiley, our greeter, Elizabeth Barrett, our ushers, Pat Becker, Mark Schweitzer, Karen Hill and Douglas Hill. All right. Please note the announcements in the red floor is insert in your order of service, which describe upcoming events at the society and provide more information about today's activities. Again, welcome. We hope today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart and stir your spirit. Sisters of the spirit, grateful heirs of the liberal religious tradition. To this house, we bring our boldest dreams, seeking here the inspiration, the strength and the synergy to bring those dreams into being. May we renew today our commitment to serving that which is highest and most ennobling. And in the spirit of mutual trust, abiding faith and overflowing generosity, let us rededicate ourselves to a ministry of hope and of healing for all. I invite you to rise in body and spirit for the lighting of our chalice. Please join me in reading the words of affirmation printed in your program. May this time of worship be a time of gathering and in-gathering, a time of renewal, a time to rediscover hope, optimism and commitment. In this house of the spirit, we gather to affirm the potential we all share for building community, for undertaking constructive change, for engaging in moral and ethical growth, for achieving greater humanity than we have known. May our hearts find sensitivity. May our minds find wisdom. And may our souls find peace as we seek communion with the mystery of being. And now on this fine September morning I invite you to turn to your neighbor exchange with them a warm greeting. If we have some young people that would like to join me in the front for the message for all ages is the boy who was afraid to try. Have you ever been afraid to try something? Maybe like a new food that your mom gave you? Or a new game or something like that? Well, this was a little boy who was afraid to try a lot of things. It's a story from Africa, from the country of Uganda. And so once upon a time in this small village there lived a potter, a man who made pots out of clay and his wife, and they had a little boy named Kumba. Now Kumba was kind of small for his age. And so when he played with the other children in the village, often he couldn't keep up with them and couldn't do the things that they could do because they were bigger, stronger. And so they would tease him a lot. Have you ever been teased? Yeah, yeah. So Kumba decided he didn't like that teasing. So he just started to play by himself. But the more he stayed away from the other children, the more afraid of them he became. And the more lonely he got. He wanted so, so badly to have friends, to be somebody. But he became afraid to do even very simple things because he thought that people might make fun of him. They might laugh at him. And he wouldn't even try to make bowls and vases out of clay like his father did because he was afraid when he showed his father what he'd made his father would say, Kumba, that's not good enough. So he spent most of his days walking alone in the fields and in the woods dreaming and wishing that someday he would be very wise and very great. And yet he was afraid to try the things that would make him wise and great. And the people in the village, they would kind of look at each other and they would whisper, well, one evening he was in a bad mood. You can understand why Kumba was in a bad mood. So he wandered off into the woods by himself. And the sun was hanging low in the sky, was getting ready to set. He sat on this hillside overlooking a clearing and he could see the gorgeous red clouds on the horizon. He was so sad. So he sat down and put his face in his hands and he began to cry. But then something walked out of the woods behind him. The lion didn't eat him. The lion came up and said to him, what are you doing here, little boy? I'm feeling very, very bad. Kumba said, I want to be wise and great, but I don't know whether I'm smart or just a fool. Is that all that you think about? The lion asked. Yes, said Kumba. I think about it day and night. Then you are a fool, said the lion. Wise people think about what they can do for other people. So the lion went back into the woods. Presently another animal came into the clearing. It was an antelope. She came leaping in. What are you doing? She asked. Feeling miserable, Kumba said, I want so much to be wise and great, but I'm afraid that I'm just a weak little fool. What do you eat? Asked the antelope. I was looking at the boy's thin legs and wondering if he got enough to eat. Well, my mother makes me two good meals a day and I like them and I eat them right up. Do you thank your mother? Asked the antelope. No, said Kumba. I forget. Whether you are a fool, said the antelope. All wise people thank the people who do kind things for them. And the antelope bounded back into the woods. Then who came along? Big old elephant shuffling through the grass. Looked down at the boy and said, What are you doing here? And Kumba repeated the same complaint that he wanted to be wise and great, but he just didn't know how. He was afraid of everything. What kind of work do you do? The elephant said, I don't work, said Kumba. Then you are a fool, said the elephant, because all wise people work. And with a disgusting twist of his tail, the elephant ambled back into the woods. By this point, Kumba, as you can imagine, was ready to burst into tears again. But then he heard this small, gentle voice right by his side. What are you doing here? The voice said. And it was a little gray rabbit. Oh, I'm feeling miserable, said Kumba. I wish so much to be wise, but all of the animals have told me I'm a fool. For a minute, the rabbit didn't speak. But then he said, Well, what, what, what did these animals tell you, Kumba? Well, Kumba said, There was this lion and there was this antelope and there was this elephant. And they all told me how foolish I was because I didn't thank my mother for the food she gave me. And I was not kind to people and thinking about them. And I didn't do any kind of work and all wise people work. They said, The rabbit was silent for a minute and then said, They're right. You are a fool, Kumba. Because wise people do work and they are nice to other people. They think about other people and they do say thank you. No more words passed between Kumba and the rabbit for a long time. It began to get dark. And so the rabbit said, Well, come on, you can spend the night here in the woods right beside my hole. You'll be safe there. And so Kumba followed the rabbit into the woods and laid down by his hole in the soft grass and started to think about himself. And I haven't been very courageous, have I? He thought. And with that he went to bed. But then when he awoke the next morning, he was thinking to himself, I've got to do better than this. If I've been a fool before, I am not going to be a fool any longer. And so he walked back to his village. He went into his home. First thing he said was, Hello, mother with a cheery voice sat down for breakfast. And after he'd eaten, he said that was really good. Thank you. And then his mother went out in the garden and began to work in the garden. And Kumba went out and said, Do you have another hoe that I could use to help you with the garden? So he started to work on the garden. And then after lunch, he went out to play with the other kids. They were all playing tag and hide and seek. And he couldn't keep up. But he didn't worry about it. He knew he'd get better. And then finally later in the afternoon, he went and watched his father making pots and vases. And he said to his father, Can I have a little clay? Can I try and make a vase of my own? And he knew it wasn't going to be very good, but he didn't care anymore. He knew he would get better. So the days and the weeks passed. And Kumba became more and more curious. He started asking his father questions like, Where do you get those bright paints that you use to paint your vases? And so his father took him out into the fields in the woods where they gathered these plants and these flowers. And his father would grind them all up to make the paint to paint his vases with. And so the years went by and Kumba grew up and became a man. And his father became an old man and no longer was making pots, but Kumba became the best potter in the whole village. And people would come from miles around to buy his pots because they were not like anybody else's pots. You know what? That made him a lot of money. But he didn't care about the money so much as what his neighbors were now saying about him. That Kumba was not only the best potter in the village, he was great. And he was wise. So that's the story of Kumba. I hope you enjoyed it. And now we're going to sing you to your classes, which I hope you'll enjoy as well with our next Jim. Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow. Michelle Alexander is a professor at Ohio State University. It turns out, are the one social group in America that we have permission to hate. In colorblind America, criminals are the new whipping boy. Criminals today are deemed to be characterless and purposeless people deserving of our collective scorn and contempt. When we say that someone is treated like a criminal, we mean to say that he or she is treated as less than human. Now, not only are African Americans far more likely to be labeled criminals, they are also more strongly affected by the stigma of a criminal record. Black men convicted of felonies are the least likely to receive job offers of any demographic group. An ethnographic work suggests that employers have fears of violence by black men relative to other groups of applicants, and they act on those fears when they are making hiring decisions. Employers may consciously or unconsciously treat all black men as if they have a criminal record, effectively putting all or most of them in the same position as black criminals. Many ex-offenders will tell you that the formal mechanisms of exclusion are not the worst of it. The shame, the stigma that follows you for the rest of your life, that they say is the worst. But one need not be formally convicted in a court of law to be subjected to this shame and stigma as long as you look like or seem like a criminal, you are treated with the same suspicion, the same contempt. And so practically from cradle to grave, black males in urban ghettos are treated like current or future criminals. Today, when those labeled criminals return to their communities, they are often met with scorn and contempt, not just by employers, not just by social workers, not just by housing officials, but by their neighbors, their teachers, even members of their own families. Young black males in their teens are often told, you'll never amount to anything, you'll just find yourself back in jail just like your father. A not so subtle suggestion that this shameful defect lies deep within them, this inherited trait. Now, none of this is to suggest that those who break the law bear no responsibility for their conduct, or that they exist merely as products of their environment. To deny the individual agency who is caught up in the system, their capacity to overcome these seemingly insurmountable odds, that would be to deny an essential element of their humanity. We as human beings are not simply organisms or animals responding to stimuli. We have this higher self, we have a capacity for transcendence. And yet our ability to exercise free will and to transcend the most extraordinary obstacles, that does not make the conditions of our lives irrelevant. Even small challenges, like breaking a bad habit, sticking to a diet often prove too difficult for many of us, even for those of us who are relatively privileged and comfortable in our daily lives. And considering the way that our criminal justice system now works, and the disproportionate burden that it does place on African Americans, it's astonishing, really, that so many people labeled criminals still manage to care for and to feed their children, still hold together their marriages, still do obtain employment and start businesses of their own. And perhaps the most heroic are those who upon release launch social justice organizations that challenge the discrimination that ex offenders face, that provide desperately needed support for those who have been newly released from prison. And yet these heroes, they go largely unnoticed by the media, by politicians, who prefer to blame those who fail, rather than to praise with admiration and awe, those who somehow manage despite seemingly insurmountable odds to survive. The second reading is a brief poem by the Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes. I too sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen when company comes. But I laugh and I eat well and I grow strong. And tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll be at the table when the company comes. And nobody will dare say to me, eat in the kitchen then. Besides, they'll see how beautiful I am. And be ashamed. Because I too am America. In the Splatoon, boy, Detroit, Chicago, Atlantic City, Palm Beach, and the steam of Hotel Kitchen, and the smoke of Hotel Lobby's slime of Hotel Splatoons, part of my life. Two dollars a day for the baby, gin on Saturday, Sunday, and gin and church. Women and Sundays mixed dimes and dollars in spittoons and house rent to pay the wine cups of Solomon. Thank you, Audrey and Christian. On a rare free Sunday sometime last spring, I ventured over to Madison's East Side to attend the 11 o'clock service at Christ the Solid Rock Baptist Church. This is the congregation, as some of you know, presided over by the Reverend Everett Mitchell. Reverend Mitchell preaches most Sundays, but for him, this is definitely a part time gig. For during the weeks, he directs UW Madison's Office for University Relations. Now I have sat in on services at this predominantly African American church on several occasions, having accepted Mitchell's challenge to us white folks that from time to time we move out of our comfort zone, that we experience what it's like to be in the minority, putting ourselves in a context where black people run the show, where they control the cultural norms. I have to concede that this can feel disconcerting at first. But of course, after two hours on a Sunday morning, I will reenter this white dominated world, that is, for the most part, my oyster. Now, Everett Mitchell is a powerful and persuasive speaker. And despite the many explicitly Christian references, I find his messages compelling. And on this occasion, he was expressing concern about the tendency within certain Christian circles to dwell on Adam's fall and its grim consequences for humankind, this, this inheritance of corruption and depravity that Adam bestowed upon all of us. Such teachings Mitchell suggested can cause us to lose faith in ourselves, because we will be all too prone to dwell on our deficiencies rather than our assets, our incompetence rather than our capabilities. And thus we will fail to acknowledge and to utilize the potential that each and every one of us, each and every one of us possesses. Mitchell told his listeners that God wants you to succeed, not to fail. He wants you to make the most of the hands, the hearts and the heads that have been bestowed upon you as a blessing. Now, as a Unitarian Universalist who has never subscribed to any doctrine of original or ineradicable sin, I didn't need to be persuaded. Everett Mitchell had me in his corner before he uttered the first word, but, but his is an African American congregation and many of those who do wander in the front door do not come in with a positive self image. They lack a sense of personal agency. They do not believe that they have a brighter future. And so Mitchell's mission and that of the church is to try to change that and the words of welcome that are extended at the beginning of each service, identify that church Christ the solid rock as a place where everybody is somebody. And that includes former prisoners who are reentering society under this cloud of suspicion. And that is important. For as Michelle Alexander writes, church in our society, far from being a place of comfort or refuge can be for these social outcasts, a place where judgment, shame and contempt are felt most acutely. Too often, and according to another African American pastor, Joseph Bering that I know, too often even here in Madison, black and white churches may shun ex cons out of concern for their institution's respectability. Now, no matter what our own racial and ethnic heritage, whether or not any of us possess a criminal record, many of us have difficulty performing and maintaining this positive self image. We may have been raised in a home with parents who were quick to criticize and slow to praise. Or like the boy who was afraid to try, we were mercilessly teased and belittled by playmates because we were just a little smaller or a little heavier or a little less coordinated or a little less articulate than they were. And then as adolescents, as young adults, perhaps we had a hard time establishing a direction for ourselves. We lacked the focus necessary to succeed. And without positive role models or helpful mentors, we may have drifted into classes and into jobs without much motivation, and in which success proved to be elusive. As Stanford University's Shelby Steele writes, as children, we were all wounded in some way and to some degree by the wild world that we encountered. And from these wounds, a disbelieving anti-self is born, an internal antagonist that embraces the world's negative view of us, that believes that our wounds are justified by our own unworthiness and that entrenched itself as a lifelong voice of doubt. The anti-self is a hidden, aggressive saboteur that scours the world day and night for fresh evidence of our unworthiness. In a similar vein, Carol Pearson, a Jungian analyst, she says that in the development of our personalities, each of us will acquire the characteristics of a certain archetype, a wanderer, a warrior, an altruist, a magician. But Pearson maintains that all of us enter into and experience our childhood under the aegis of another more problematic archetype, which she calls the orphan. And the orphan's story is about felt powerlessness and disappointment with the world into which we have been so unceremoniously thrust. Now, in the normal course of things, the orphan phase is mild. And although none of us are ever completely free of it, it doesn't cause most of us a great deal of trouble as we enter into and pass through adulthood. But Pearson allows if the childhood environment was not safe, if some serious trauma accompanied our upbringing, if our parents or some other respected authority figure taught us not to trust ourselves, not to believe in ourselves, then we can end up mired in and stymied by the orphan for a lifetime. So let's return to Everett Mitchell for a moment. Listening to him on an earlier occasion, Everett alluded to his previous position as an assistant district attorney for Dane County. And as a prosecutor, he frequently found himself in a room with a young black male just at the cusp of adulthood. And he would sit across the table from the accused and present to him the options at his disposal. And not infrequently, that might include an alternative to incarceration, an alternative to being put in jail. But to his deep chagrin, often these young men would respond to him with an air of resignation. Just send me to the joint, they'd say. That's where I'm gonna end up anyway. Given the percentage of black males between 18 and 35 who will serve time, that fate can begin to seem all but inevitable. But even prior to the commission of any crime, it's already embedded in one's personality as Michelle Alexander observed, as long as you look like, as long as you seem like a criminal, then you are treated with the same contempt. You're under the same cloud of suspicion. And that being the case, young black impoverished males may well decide that if they're generally perceived to be delinquents, I might as well act like a delinquent. After all, how many alternatives has society provided me with? So for me, the phrase black lives matter is certainly about the death of unarmed African Americans who have been accosted by or are in the custody of law enforcement officials. And clearly there have been enough widely publicized fatalities to justify a mass movement marching under that banner. But black lives matter is also about the depressed and disadvantaged conditions under which so many African Americans even today still languish. And that phrase, black lives matter, rebukes a system that for centuries has denied African Americans the opportunity to compete on equal terms for society, social and economic rewards. Black lives matter is as much about dignity, a sense of self-worth and the freedom to develop and to utilize one's native talents. It is as much about those things as it is a demand for physical safety. Now, of course, there are those who would dispute the claim that many, if not most African Americans must contend with a world where the odds are stacked against them. So for instance, there is presidential aspirant, Ben Carson. And Ben Carson dismisses the idea that severe disadvantage, poverty, poor schools, lack of access to jobs, mass incarceration, social stigma, he denies that any or all of this undermines the black individual's aspirations and thwarts their efforts to achieve upward mobility. He says, slavery ended 150 years ago. Jim Crow was ended with the civil rights movement. And Ben Carson raised in poverty by a single mother, hey, he blossomed into a celebrated pediatric neurosurgeon. And so in his opinion, individuals always have the capacity to conquer adversity, to become, like him, something truly special. And would that Ben Carson was the rule, rather than the exception? Because even as talented a figure as Viola Davis, who last week became the first black woman, the very first, to win an Emmy for best actress in a dramatic role, even Viola Davis used her acceptance speech to address the inequities in our society. The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else, she said, is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that simply are not there. Where there is opportunity, where we can draw from our strengths, be recognized for our assets and not be demeaned for real or imagined deficiencies. That's what we're looking for. But unfortunately, this has simply not been the case for many men, women and children of color in this putative land of opportunity. Black skin, Shelby Steele says, is more, is subject to more dehumanizing stereotypes than any other skin color in America. Why did the expression black is beautiful? Black pride becomes so popular in the 1960s and the 1970s. Precisely because the predominant culture had judged black features to be ugly, to be unattractive. And seeking to escape from their blackness to gain greater acceptance, many African Americans straightened their hair. They bleached their skin. They adopted white mannerisms. The black is beautiful aesthetic arose in tandem with the civil rights movement and it gained in popularity, according to one writer, when black people not only said they were beautiful, but came to believe they were beautiful. Appearances aside, black people have historically been judged by white Americans to be lacking in intelligence, incapable of making sound decisions, unfit for leadership. I remember former CEO of Alliant Energy, Aero B. Davis, sharing his displeasure publicly about teachers in Madison who presumed that his black children needed to be placed in remedial classrooms purely because of their race. Other black professionals have had similar experiences with their children. So even a family's higher status is not going to serve to dispel the stereotypes that African American children must so frequently live with. And as adults, African Americans still have difficulty competing on equal terms with white applicants for attractive and professional level jobs. Because as Alexander said, too many white employers harbor this irrational fear of black males. And if the individual has served time, even for a minor nonviolent drug offense, it can have consequences that leave that person at a perpetual disadvantage. Because no country in the developed free world is as harshly punitive of ex-offenders, 60% of whom are black, as the United States of America. In many instances they are permanently deprived of the rights and the opportunities that most of us enjoy. And all of this affects not only an individual's material prospects, but it sullies their self-image. All of these negative stereotypes, these messages, cannot simply be brushed aside. More typically they are internalized and they curdle into self-contempt. Although whites who have been wounded, like blacks, we may harbor this anti-self, yes, but shall be steel contends that a white skin with its connotations of privilege and superiority that helps protect us from its undermining power. The anti-self, he says, is for black people an internalized racist, our own subconscious bigot that conspires with society to diminish us. And this is wholly consistent with an argument that the Brazilian philosopher and educator Paulo Freire offered more than a half century ago in a pedagogy of the oppressed. The oppressed, Freire wrote, suffers from the duality that has established itself in their innermost being. They are one at the same time themselves and they are the oppressor whose consciousness they have internalized. So the problem, the dilemma that African-Americans face is not confined to the unique and challenging social circumstances in which they find themselves. There is also this powerful inner dynamic that could lead many African- Americans to simply say, why should I bother? As Frederick Douglas put it a century and a half ago, if nothing is expected of a people, that people will find it difficult to contradict the expectation. And that is why the slogan Black Lives Matter is so important and it's why it should be accepted for precisely what it is. Now, of course, all lives matter. That goes without saying. But who has ever disputed that white lives matter? Well, throughout our country's history, Black Lives and Indian Lives for that matter have mattered far, far less. Those lives for several centuries have been dispensable. They have been disposable. Seventy years ago African-Americans were still being lynched when they tried to vote. Seventy years ago, they were still dying after having been turned away from whites-only hospitals. Public figures like Mike Huckabee and Scott Walker have dismissed the Black Lives Matter movement as racist and as anti-police. But in doing so, the New York Times recently editorialized, they betray a disturbing indifference to or at best a profound ignorance of our history. So here at FUS, we are in earnest in our support of Black Lives Matter because we know that as white allies, we can at the very least afford the opportunity to lift our neighbor's spirits and show respect for their aptitude. Writing in the Capitol Times recently, Madison's former poet laureate, Black Woman named Febu, reported that she passes by our meeting house every day on her way to work. She sees our Black Lives Matter signs, and she writes, I am so uplifted. The people who put those signs up, she said they probably will never realize how the sight of those words, how much those words mean to me. But some of us do realize it, and that's why the signs are there, despite some people's attempts to take them down. The subject of Langston Hughes' poem, The Brass Batoons, that subject performs the unbecoming task of cleaning spatoons, and he suffers contemptuous treatment at the hands of patrons and employers. One would understand if that gentleman succumbed to despair, and yet he lovingly polishes the spatoons, bringing out their natural luster, and that makes him feel worthy. That act reassures him that his life does in fact matter if only in the eyes of God a bright bowl of brass is beautiful to the Lord, he thinks to himself, ignoring the cries of, hey boy, come here boy, at least he says, at least I can offer that. Hughes' poem does two things. One, it exposes the debasing nature of the work that African-Americans have for so many years been obliged to perform. But it also speaks eloquently to the possibility of transcendence, and how African-Americans have been able somehow to reframe their experience, find something redeeming in it, and thus keep the anti-self, the internal oppressor, at least partially at bay. But you know what, this must be exhausting work in a culture that has been so critical of, punitive toward, frightened of black people as ours. And considering the odds that still are stacked against them, Madison is no exception. It's really quite remarkable that so many of our black countrymen and countrywomen are still determined to succeed, to sit at the table. You know, and we UUs can assist in this effort by endorsing the Black Lives Matter Initiative, and in so doing, we will be standing, I guarantee you, on the right side of history. But that will entail an honest, ongoing examination of our own attitudes, a commitment to keep the conversation going, and partnering with people of color to create a community where anyone and everyone is able to lead with their strengths. There was a resolution passed at last June's Unitary Universalist General Assembly that stated, Unitary Universalists and our greater society have the power to make this happen. So let's just do it. Blessed be. Our offering today will be shared with six African-American congregations who have experienced devastating fires over the last six months to a year. Please be generous. This time, I invite you to join me in the spirit of meditation, as the names of 20 African- American men, women, and children are invoked. Unarmed, each of them suffered violent deaths. Their lives mattered, but not enough for them to be granted a future. Eric Gardner. Sandra Beland. These 20 represent, of course, but a small fraction of Black lives lost under similar circumstances. May we also be cognizant of the many who remain unnamed for their lives matter as well. Please join me as we continue in the spirit of meditation. The days grow short, the seasons turn, and life's adventure continues through incalculable numbers of births and deaths. Ages pass, and ever so slowly, humanity struggles out of the shadows, the nether regions of ignorance, superstition, and fear. Not forever will the blight of prejudice corrupt our relationships. Someday we surely will understand that the superficialities of color and creed, gender and ethnicity, have nothing to do with the intrinsic human value. So let us hold out the hope that at some not so distant time, the old errors will finally be erased, and that we will be one people richly diverse, resourceful, talented, celebrating in and marveling at the world we have created through common effort and for the common good. May it be so. And now I would invite you to rise in body and spirit for our closing hymn, number 1007. The differences, the love that heals all wounds that puts to flight all fears, the love which reconciles all who are separated. May that love be in us and among us now and always. Please be seated for the post loop.