 and she's so cute. I don't know how many people are watching this. So, just make sure you get one. Yeah, sure. Yes. Well, I was wondering if you could do that. Yeah, I think so. Okay. I'm going to try to move my hand here. Come on. I'm just going to move my hand here. Yeah. It's a very good chair that I wish to see, otherwise we're up there, and we kind of have this blind spot where it's very good. So, you know, I'm not sure what's going to happen tomorrow, but I would stay in there, because the mitigation is not right now. I mean, if you get up, you wish you had. So, stay in there, don't be afraid to come in close to me. That is what you need to do. Unless it's a community. But I would say I would. So, you know, if you're going to come close to sleep tonight, let me see if there's a little bit of a chance. I'm going to check a little. Oh, it's nice that it's light. I'm just sure that it's going to be a dialogue. It might not be. Right. Yeah. Okay. Can I have a smile so I can watch you? Yeah. Thank you. You're very welcome. I'm going to tell you what, one need to see how you feel about it. See what, what all that happens. And afterwards, it's like, you know, it's not like that. So, please don't. It's like, you know, you've got to think about those four things. What kind of number are they? I don't know. What's that number? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You can't walk. I mean, I think these kids are now two-farmers. This thing, you can't get on it two at once. But you can hear a mark. You hit two kids at once. You can't get on that mark. I'm just going to say, I'm really really looking forward to it. Yep. Because I'm a big fan of leather, it needs to be slender and it needs to be slender. It needs to be slender. So I was going to be doing a lot of new materials like scales, and trills. I know a lot of people there. Oh yeah. It's hard to do when you put a word in the play and you have to stay there. We'll find out now. It's not that. It's not that. It's not that. Please join in a moment of centering silence so we can be fully present with each other this morning. And now let's get musically present by turning to the words for our in-gathering hymn, which you'll find inside your order of service. Welcome to the first Sunday in August here at First Unitarian Society, where independent thinkers gather in a safe, nurturing environment to explore issues of social, spiritual, and ethical significance as we try to make a difference in this world. And speaking of different, I'm Steve Goldberg, a proud, charming member of this congregation, and I'd like to extend a special welcome to any guests, visitors, and newcomers. If this is your first time at First Unitarian Society, I think you'll find it's a special place, and if you'd like to learn more about our special buildings, we'll be conducting a guided tour right after today's service. Just gather over here by the windows after the service and we'll take good care of you. And speaking of taking care of each other, this is the time when we engage in one of the few rituals of this congregation, and that is to silence our pesky electronic devices. And while you're doing that, let me remind you that if you're accompanied by a youngster today, and you think that your young companion would rather experience the service from more private space, we offer a couple options for you. Our child haven in the back corner of the auditorium, and some seating just outside the main doorway in the commons from which you and your youngster can see and hear the service. And guess what? One of the reasons we're able to see and hear the service is because it's provided and presented to us by a group of volunteers who make things run smoothly, and I'm going to announce their names so that you can give them a thank you or a hug after the service. Thanking David Briles for running the sound system, Tom Boykoff for being our lay minister today, Clara Box and Patty Whitty for serving as our greeters upstairs this morning. A thank you to our ushers, Nancy Daly, Ann Ostrom and Marty Hollis, a special thank you, of course, to those who are handling the coffee and hospitality in the kitchen, talking about Bissnitschke and Sandra Plisch. The pulpit palms that you see in front of me are maintained and watered by Betty Evenson. Our tour guide will be John Powell after the service, and the orchids that you see behind me, donated by Doug and Karen Hill in honor of their 50th wedding anniversary. I don't think they're here right now, but when you see them, you can congratulate them on their 50th and thank them for the donation of the colorful orchids. Just a couple announcements for you before we get underway with our service. How many of you know what block colopalmer or copolymer lithography is? Couple of you do. Well, more of you have a chance to learn about block copolymer lithography because after today's service, in the Gabler living room, Bo Schweitzer, a Unitarian Universalist from Kentucky, will present information about that topic. Again, it's block copolymer lithography. So after the service, if you're interested in that today, grab a drink and come listen to what promises to be quite an interesting presentation on the subject I never knew existed before. In the Gabler living room right after the service. And then who knows what's happening here on August 26th? It's service Saturday on August 26th, a special event here at First Unitarian Society, part of our community engagement tradition and commitment, and to tell us a little bit about it, a woman who's helping to lead that effort and smiling. Ann? Ann says the one slur now that you're here, the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear. Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot more, nothing is going to get better. It's not. It's Dr. Schuess from the Lorax. And then there is a spot for you, and maybe even the Lorax, in one of 176 spots in 13 service Saturday projects, many family friendly, including the Arboretum Prairie Restoration, Cookie Baking for a homeless shelter, the John Muir Elementary School Gardening, Allen Centennial Garden Health and Talk, a Farley Center work project, letter writing, literacy council assistance, veterans' hospitals, and a whole lot more. So at FUS, Cabaret is not the only event but a countdown. Just 20 days left until August 26th. So if you want to find out more, after the service today, go out in the comments. We have tabling available. And you can find out more if you go out here. Thank you, Dr. Schuess. One more announcement about activity here at FUS. There's going to be, right after the 11 o'clock service, there's going to be a parish forum in this room on the subject of our roof repair project, the Copper Roof in the Landmark Auditorium. And as you know, that roof is an iconic part of our meeting house, our buildings. And if you'd like to learn more about what's happening with that roof repair project, just stop by here, about 12.15 after the 11 o'clock service. We'll have some light refreshments for you and a forum about the roof project. Again, that's after the 11 o'clock service. So end of the announcements. I invite you to sit back or lean forward to enjoy today's service. I'm sure it will touch your heart, stimulate your mind, and trigger one or two new thoughts. We're glad you're here. Good morning, all, for being here this morning, present here among you at First Unitarian Society. Our opening words, Nikki Giovanni. I think he sounds a little loud. I'm getting feedback, but that's OK. Nikki Giovanni, 60s activist, poet, some say, feminist writer, profile in her thinking and sharing with us. So I would like to quote to you this morning from Nikki Giovanni. The power of speech. The freedom to engage our hearts and our bodies and dialogue is the most precious freedom of all. To secure all of the rights granted us by either our religions or our laws, it is necessary to raise our voices. An idea inside our head is, to our fellow humans, the same as no idea. It must be expressed if it is to have power. And the voice, the pen, is far mightier than a sword, any jail, and any attempt to silence. So please rise and body a spirit for the lighting of our chalice. With courage and humility, we strive to build a beloved community that speaks out boldly by word and action for those who cannot stand up for themselves. A place where all are welcomed and the human family lives whole and reconciled. With this vision in our hearts and minds, we like this chalice. And now is the time that we ask that you greet your neighbors in exchange of friendly greetings, handshakes, hugs. A story for the children that some of you might be rather surprised to see, because this was a banned book. So I'll explain to you why. So if there are any children that would like to come up, it was a favorite of mine when I was four years old. And you'll see scribbles on the drawings, and those were mine. It actually is a little story about a little boy outwitting tigers in India. And the lady who wrote it was the wife of a man who was a doctor in India. And in India, there's a group of Indians who are called Tamil Indians. And they're Afro-Indian, which means that they look like Africans. And she drew these pictures for her children. So these actually are Indian children. They're not African-American children. But when it came over here, she wrote it. And for her kids who were traveling, they used to go to boarding school in Scotland. And then they would come back to India for the summer. And so they had a long train journey to get to north of India from where the boat landed. And so she wrote these stories so that they were entertained on this long train journey. And a friend of hers saw it. And it became a very popular book because she persuaded her to sell it for virtually nothing to a publisher. And then it became so popular in England that the publisher sold it in America. And it then got co-opted to the American market and it got reprinted with some rather rude pictures. And then there were a bunch of librarians in Chicago who decided it was not very nice book and took it off the shelves and formed a movement to take it off the shelves. So it actually is not available anymore, at least I haven't tried to buy it because I've got my own copy here. So I thought it was time to read it again because it really is a very cute little story. And I hope you guys all enjoy it. This is the story of little black Sambo. And the other thing I have to tell you is that Sambo is the name of the black guard in India. I made a note of it. It's a mispronunciation of the Indian god Shiva. So it's actually a good, it's his black manifestation. So it's actually a good name in India. But it became rude over here. This is a very little story about a little boy. And once upon a time in England, there was an English lady in India where black children abound and tigers every day affairs who had two little girls. To amuse these little girls, she used now and then to invent stories for which being extremely talented, she also drew and colored pictures. Among these stories, little black Sambo, which was made up on a long railway journey, was the favorite. And they used to enjoy a lot and in the hope that you will like it as much as little girls did, that we copied it as exactly as possible. Once upon a time, there was a little black boy and his name was little black Sambo. And his mother was black Jumbo. And his father was black Jumbo. And black mumbo made him a beautiful red coat and beautiful little trousers. And black Jumbo went to the bazaar and bought him a beautiful green umbrella and a lovely pair of purple shoes with crimson soles and crimson linings. Those are my scribbles. And then was a little black Sambo grand. So he put on all his fine clothes and went out to walk in the jungle. And by and by, he was met with a tiger. And the tiger said to him, little black Sambo, I am going to eat you up. And little black Sambo said, oh, please, Mr. Tiger, don't eat me up. And I'll give you my beautiful red coat. So the tiger said, very well, I won't eat you this time, but you must give me your little red coat. So the tiger got called little black Sambo's beautiful red coat and went away saying, now, I'm the grandest tiger in town. And little black Jumbo, little black Sambo went on and by and by, he met another tiger. And it said to him, little black Sambo, I am going to eat you up. And little black Sambo said, oh, please, Mr. Tiger, don't eat me up. You can say this with me. I'll give you my beautiful little blue trousers. So the tiger said, very well, I won't eat you this time, but you've got to give me your little blue trousers. So the tiger got back, poor little black Sambo's beautiful blue trousers and went away saying, now, I'm the grandest tiger in the jungle. I said in town tonight. And little black Sambo went on and by and by, he met another tiger. And it said to him, little black Sambo, I'm going to eat you up. And little black Sambo said, oh, please, Mr. Tiger, don't eat me up. I'll give you my beautiful little purple shoes and crimson soles and crimson linings. But the tiger said, what use are your shoes going to be to me? I've got four paws. But little black Sambo said, you could wear them on your ears. So I could, said the tiger. That's a very good idea. Give them to me and I won't eat you this time. So the tiger got poor little black Sambo's beautiful purple shoes with crimson soles and crimson linings and went away saying, now, I'm the grandest tiger in the jungle. Little black Sambo by and by, met another tiger. What did he say? Little black Sambo, I'm going to eat you up. Please, Mr. Tiger, don't eat me up. And I'll give you my beautiful green umbrella. But the tiger said, how can I carry an umbrella when I have all my paws for walking? You could tie a knot in your tail and carry it that way. Said little black Sambo. So I could, said the tiger. Give it to me and I won't eat you this time. So he got poor little black Sambo's beautiful green umbrella and went away saying, now I'm the grandest tiger in the jungle. And poor little black Sambo went away crying because the cruel tigers had taken all his beautiful clothes but presently he heard a noise that sounded like rrrrrrr and he got louder and louder and louder. Oh dear, said little black Sambo, they're coming back to eat me up. What shall I do? So he ran quickly to a palm tree and peeped around it to see what the matter was. And there he saw all the tigers fighting and disputing about which one of them was the grandest. And at last they got all angry, so they jumped up and took off all their fine clothes and began to tear each other with their claws and bite each other with their great big teeth. And they came tumbling and rolling right to the very foot of the tree where Black Sambo was hiding. So he jumped up quickly and hid behind the umbrella. And the tigers all caught hold of each other's tails as they wrangled and scrambled. And so they found themselves in a ring around the tree. And then when all the tigers were very wee and far away, little Black Sambo jumped up and said, Tigers, why have you taken off all the fancy clothes? Don't you want them anymore? The tigers only answered, argh. Then little Black Sambo said, if you want them, say so, or I'll take them away. But the tigers wouldn't let go of each other's tails and so they could only say argh. So little Black Sambo put on all his fine clothes again and walked off. And the tigers were very, very angry, but still they would not let go of each other's tails. And they were so angry that they ran round and round the tree trying to eat each other. And they ran faster and faster and faster until they were whirling around so fast you couldn't see their legs at all. And they still ran faster and faster until they all just melted away. And there was nothing left but a great big pool of melted butter or ghee, as they call it in India, around the foot of the tree. Now Black Sambo was just coming home from his work with a great big brass pot in his hands. And when he saw all that was left of the tigers, he said, boom, what lovely melted butter. I'll take it home to Black Mumbo for her to cook with. So he put it all into the big brass pot and took it home to Black Mumbo to cook with. When Black Mumbo saw the melted butter, she was very pleased. Now she said, we can all have pancakes for supper. So she got flour and eggs and milk and sugar and butter and made a huge big plate of lovely pancakes. And she fried them in the melted butter which the tigers have made. And they were just as yellow and brown as the little tigers. And then they all sat down to supper and Black Mumbo ate 27 pancakes and Black Jumbo ate 55, but little Black Sambo ate 169 because he was so hungry. And that's the end of the story. Yeah. And now we'll sing you out to some fun. This little light of mine, I'm going to share reading with you from a letter that I'll go into a little more detail in a little later. But it's from a letter by a gentleman by the name of Willie Lynch. You know language is a peculiar institution. It leads to the heart of a people. The more a foreigner knows about the language of another country, the more he is able to move through all levels of that society. Therefore, if the foreigner is an enemy of the country, to the extent that he knows the body of the language, to that extent is the country vulnerable to attack or invasion of a foreign culture. For example, if you take a slave, if you teach him all about your language, he will know all your secrets. And he is then no more a slave. For you can't fool him any longer. And being a fool is one of the basic ingredients of any incidents to the maintenance of the slavery system. Our second comes from Parker Palmer's book, Healing the Heart of Democracy. When we choose to engage, not evade the tension of our differences, we will become better equipped to participate in a government of, by and for the people as we expand some of our key civic capacities. To listen to each other openly and without fear, learning how much we have in common, despite our differences. Two, to deepen our empathy for the alien other as we enter imaginatively into the experience of people whose lives are radically unlike our own. Three, to hold what we believe and know with conviction and be willing to listen openly to other viewpoints, changing our minds if needed. Number four, to seek out alternative facts and explanations whenever we find reason to doubt our own truth, claims or the claims made by others, thus becoming better informed, to probe, question, explore and engage in dialogue, developing a fuller, more three-dimensional view of reality in the process, to enter the conflicted arena of politics, able to hold government accountable to the will of the people. And that means you and I to welcome opportunities to participate in collective problem solving and decision-making, generating better solutions and making better decisions as we work with competing ideas. We don't always have to agree because sometimes we have to agree to disagree, to feel more at home on the face of the earth, amid differences of many sorts, better able to enjoy the fruits of diversity. And our meditation will be read by my friend and colleague, Ross. Thank you. Now, we'll have a moment of silence. This meditation is a translation of a poem by Haffitz. Out of a great need, we are holding hands and climbing. Not loving is letting go. Listen. The terrain is around here. The terrain around here is far too dangerous for that. So let us be together with some wonderful harmonies. Thank you so much. I couldn't have asked for any because it sounds like dissonance in harmony. Before Christmas, James and I were chatting over coffee one Sunday. And the subject turned to sensitive issues like race and immigration and how society seems to have lost the ability for respectful dialogue. We were enjoying each other's company and talking at a level that hadn't happened to either of us for some time and realized we both missed such contact and wondered out loud if it was possible to turn it into a community discussion. This service with the blessing of the Layership Committee is the result. One of the reasons we chose to use a little black Sambo to read was to push adult discomfort buttons. It's really just a cute kid's story as you found out if you'd never heard it before but it's an excellent example of how ideas and words can be co-opted by ignorance in the service of a political agenda. The same as the true is true of the phrase political correctness. Its history is checkered and slimy. Briefly, it was first recorded in Marx's tongue-in-cheek humor as a reminder that the party's interests should be considered above all else as in, comrade, your statement is factually incorrect. Yes, it is, but it's politically correct. The phrase itself is as slippery as an eel and is now being used as a phantom enemy. An imaginary line used to belittle or contain those who disagree with a homogenized norm established by those who hurl the accusation. The phrase rarely appeared before the 1990s when it appeared 700 times linked with other phrases like thought police. After that, its use increased rapidly, fueled by a conservative movement and series of popular media articles and books concerned about student-driven liberal campus policies. Over the intervening years, its use has spilled from campuses and academia into common usage. Now, it's coupled with the phrase's trigger warnings, safe spaces, microaggressions, privilege and cultural appropriation. I ask, is this education and consciousness raising or control and who's controlling whom? The original motivation was simple to fix a broken society. The question now seems to be, whose vision is it serving? From outward appearances, I'm a white American woman. When I speak, things immediately change. Shortly after my arrival in Madison, one of my coworkers, an 18-year-old and the oldest of a Catholic family of 10 who lived in Cambridge, Wisconsin all her life, corrected my pronunciation of tomato. Unfortunately, at that time, I didn't also know that this is an East Coast pronunciation. So then I had no rejoinder and only the discomfort and angst of a judged immigrant. I often hear, I love to hear you talk, where are you from? Now mostly from strangers, thank heavens. Although I imagine it's unintended, the British accent is often considered in this country to be elite. In retrospect, this might have been why my coworker reacted as she did. But you can imagine the question gets very old after a while. And to those I think who might understand, I now say Atlantis. I've been here for 50 years. However, it's amazingly refreshing for me to ask this same question of the many cab drivers in New York when visiting my daughter and family. They're from all over the globe. We share encounters with a demoralizing, bewildering immigration system for our openers. And recently one of them had come from by his country's lottery. I'd never met one of those before. Many come seeking refuge, jobs, or the mythological PR of the American dream. And a lot like me end up here by default. You might know, before I retired, I was a health educator at Local Women's Substance Abuse and Treatment Center. It was a multicultural group, and my responsibilities included teaching healthy habits. I looked for ways to engage everyone. And Harriet and Jacob's Diary of a Slave Girl had just been republished. I realized that many of the behaviors described by Harriet Ann, necessary for her survival, were still being used now to their detriment by my clients. So I planned classes using the book, and naively thought it would be of interest to all. The African Americans in the class aggressively let me know that I was ineligible to teach their history. And I'm still saddened by this. Because in Europe, the long history belongs to nobody. It just happened. My intention was to introduce the clients to a remarkable role model, and to provide all with an understanding of an uncomfortable American past that was given short-shifted school. Personally, apart from being a very difficult experience, I was deprived of a very powerful teaching tool. Now, I ask, was I guilty of cultural appropriation? Is introducing others to their own cultural resources out of line? If so, how limiting is that? I've been enlightened by the story. Why not share it? So the question becomes, if I'm frightened or affronted, am I responsible for speaking out, or are those who are offended by my apparent insensitivity or both? Which brings me to the subject of trigger warnings, safe spaces, microaggressions, and privilege. How can I learn what is upsetting another person unless they tell me it hurts? The women did that, but they failed to tell me how, and I failed to ask them why. Is it my responsibility to let them know that they've stepped on my cultural toes? Or is it theirs for not explaining their position? Is presenting my point of view authoritarian? What annoys some does not affect others? It is, as they say in England, a sticky wicket. I now realize in my excitement that I failed to seek commonality before I launched the class. I'd failed to find shared ground other than their addictions, which of course everybody knew about. It was also where my co-worker erred. It was where James and I connected and where I meet the taxi drivers. And is also Parker Palmer's first suggestion for civil engagement. Everything else ripples out from there. As we learn from each other, the picture expands and many more varied solutions emerge. Hanging together becomes an even more important thing when there's a bully in the pulpit. The playing field might become unfairly tilted in that bully's favor. Let's tilt it back. Bullies tend to draw power from the grievances of others. The solution is to address those grievances and reduce their power. Bullies grab attention. But there's a larger world beyond their control. It contains so many things that are working, enjoyable, beautiful and virtuous. It is possible to disengage from repetitive loops of helpless outrage, fantasies of payback and fault-finding others. It's bad enough that the bully is out there. Let's try and not let the bully invade our minds and stay there. You might be familiar with Tara Brack's acronym, RAIN, which I put up here, which is a lot safer than I did in the landmark, where I nearly set fire to it by putting it on the podium with the candle underneath. This is used to cope with one's own merciless nitpicking intimidating inner judge. Recognize what is going on. Allow the experience to be there just as it is. Investigate with interest and care. And nourish yourself with self-passion. But recently, I came up with another formula to move fear into action. Discomfort with the situation. Plus, observation of what's going on now, leading to RAIN, which leads to insight, which equals negotiation and growth. That's doing. May it be so. Thank you, Ross. Political correctness. As Ross shared with you, we engaged one another in conversation. It was a beautiful moment that has extended into a very valued, loving and caring relationship. And so, I thank you. So very much. And it also made me think about that term in ways that I believe most of us haven't thought about it in the past and how it has impacted and affected us. You know, I looked at it from a sociological perspective, noticing in general that people, persons with whom I've had most contact were hesitant and sometimes fearful of engaging one another in honest and open communication or discussion. The consequences being that no one seemed to express what they thought and or were feeling about a particular topic, be it race, politics or religion. This in terms seemed to prevent them from even beginning to explore how to build strong functional relationships, either public or private. I consequently heard from people, James, you can't say that. You can't say this. And I noted a very real sense of fear and anxiety and at times, depression coming from them, especially around those issues of race, gender and the plethora of other issues that we face here in America, in this country. So my own curiosity led me to discover and attempt to engage as many people as possible around the issue of language, open and honest dialogue and why it may not always be important to practice self-censorship or being politically correct. For example, okay, let me get this out of the way. The recent election of Donald Trump to the highest office of this nation can in many ways be attributed to his ability to be non-politically correct in virtually every aspect of his campaign for the presidency. No subject was or seemed to be taboo for Mr. Trump. Women, immigrants, the disabled, the poor and disenfranchised citizens were fair game and revealed an atmosphere in America of fear of the other. He was able to do that, I believe, due to the void of silence created in this country under the guise of public civility, the banner of political correctness. Okay, but that, you know, that's not my issue, Donald Trump, you know, that I wish to delve into today. What I believe to be more important is for us to gain an understanding of the value and importance of being able to engage one another honestly and openly. Understanding as a result of that, that there is a power we possess and what it can potentially mean. Let me give you an idea of what I mean when I say the power we possess. And I want you to listen to this very closely because it had a profound impact and effect upon my life, this definition of what we call power. And the proverb says power is the ability to define reality and have other people respond to your definition as if it were their own. Think about that level and degree of power. That's a power that's unseen, that's a power that's controlling in areas of our life that we think remain untouched on a daily basis. It could be your economic situation. It could be the politics in the country, how you socialize, with whom you socialize, how you see and view others who make up the human family. And if someone is defining that reality for you, what is your role in your own reality? So what I'm talking about here, again, is language and language itself and the word. The writer Ralph Ellison put it this way. He said, the word has the power to build up and or destroy. He said, perhaps the most insidious and least understood form of segregation is that of the word. And by this I mean the word in all its complex formulations from the verb to the novel for if the word with all its subtle power to suggest or foreshadow overt action while magically disguising the moral consequences of that action for if the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it also has the power to blind, imprison and destroy. That, my friends, is power. That is the power of the word. The word that we use to engage one another. The words that we embrace every day with those whom we love and share and care for. And then there's another aspect to this, this thing we call culture. And there are a few definitions that I came across that I think are relevant when we talk about culture, cultural appropriation and political correctness. PC. But before I go there and when I originally put this together, I had spoke with an associate of mine here in the community who was highly respected in the African American community. And I mentioned that, you know, I would be doing a presentation with Roz at First Unitarian Society and that, you know, a part of that presentation would incorporate the story of Little Black Sambo. And the conversation ceased immediately. James, are you crazy? Why that? There's nothing good that can come of that whatsoever. And I, you know, they must have put something in your Kool-Aid, man. And I questioned how could one even consider talking about a caricature of black people most negative and degrading. Why not talk about and promote the positive contributions and accomplishments of our people? Okay, so they were like, okay, so why don't you just do that? Okay, that sounds good. But is it not politically, culturally correct to talk about such things? I believe it is. Because for myself, the deeper message was and is from that particular individual, how dare you, as a black man, talk to white people about that and what they did. It's their fault, this ugliness. And my response was, if we can't talk to one another about the harm, how do we begin the process of healing? We have to have open and honest discussion. And so then I went back to a favorite reading of mine some time ago because it presented a controversy, particularly in the African American community, because it was an alleged letter written by a guy by the name of Willie Lynch, the making of a slave, and it purports to be a speech or a theory or a thesis given on the banks of the James River Colony in Virginia in 1712. And it states that Willie Lynch was a British slave owner in the West Indies and was invited to teach his methods on how to break slaves to slave owners here in America. And so, you know, there's ample debate as to whether or not this document is authentic, but then again, that's not my debate. What came to me from the document as holding some sense of fact was a discussion around the issue of controlled language. And it said, you know, language is a peculiar institution. It leads to the heart of a people, the more the foreigner knows about the language of another country, the more he is able to move through all levels of that society to the extent that he knows the body of the language. Values are created and transported by communication through the body of the language. A society has many interconnected value systems. All the values in the society have language bridges that connect them for orderly working of the society. But for these language bridges, these many value systems with sharpening class and cause internal strife, the degree of the conflict being determined by the magnitude of the issues or relative opposing strength in whatever form. So we got back to the basics of language and the word and the value of communication. Okay, so controversy aside, what we think, what we feel is birthed in our ability to communicate openly and honestly. That's why I believe that political correctness as a social construct has created an abyss of knowledge, information and understanding of the other in this culture. We're afraid to talk to one another. I believe it is imperative that we as individuals and as a culture use the power of the word to heal and advance, engaging one another in dialogue that leads to actions that are progressive and life-affirming. The silence birthed via political correctness crushes the honesty and openness that this requires. And I'll share another reading, and this came from my readings on the culture of white supremacy, culture as a process by Carol Phillips. And Carol Phillips said, culture gives us our language and style of learning, a style of learning that includes the way we think and the way we know what we think. For example, a common way of thinking children are taught in the U.S. is dualistic logic. That is something is either one thing or another. It's either black or white. It's either hot or cold. There's usually no space for what's in between. And those, too, brings a certain limitation to the exploration of other alternatives. A child in an ancient African school might have been taught a logic of both and. You can make a choice which incorporates several different perspectives into a fresh and new vision. And because I believe in us, I think that's where we want to go. We want to have a fresh and a new vision and harmony and peace and joy when we move forward within this thing we call culture. And then another definition that she shared incorporates ideology, a worldview reproduced and verified in our daily lives. And she said, although ideology is consciously created by those who own and control the major educational and media institutions, it must be experienced as real in some limited sense of non-ruling, meaning a class of people, in order for it to influence a person or group's outlook. In this sense, by way of example, the media has criminalized young African-American males, creating an identification in the public's mind between drug pusher and young black men. And it then becomes your own experience of a pusher. We could easily discuss the merits of your experience here today. Of all black men, myself included. And yet we find it most difficult to engage in a discussion in this country based upon another following excerpt from a book entitled Racism and Cross-Racial Hostility. And this paper was written by Virginia Harris and Trina Ordano. And she says, the American nation was founded on racism compared to rapid emergence and eventual dominance of the United States with a centuries-long process of national formation in Europe. This domination was not the result of Yankee ingenuity and would not have been accomplished without the resources and wealth first created by stolen Native American land and enslaved black labor. So, you know, my experience here in this community is that I see and hear from the white community, fear and guilt. And from the black community, I hear apathy and defeat. No one seems willing or even capable of having an honest discussion around the issues that matter and which are affecting us all. It breaks my heart. But it also encourages me to stand here before you and them and all of us and say we can do better. We have the power and the ability to defy the reality. So, do we get there through self-censorship? Do we get there through political correctness? Or do we pursue and engage one another through the power of word and language to establish a healing conversation, a conversation respectful of our faith and power? And can we do that collectively? I say we can because I believe in us. And I believe that each and every one of us has a duty. Indeed, we have a responsibility to those young children who were introduced to Little Black Sambo, just like I was, to have those open and honest discussions and to trust one another in dialogue. Parker Palmer, when we choose to engage, not evade the tension of our differences, we will become better equipped to participate in a government of, and say this with me, by and for the people, by and for the people, as we expand, as we expand, some of our key and civic capacities. So, towards honest and open discussion, let us love, let us move forward in power and in strength, and let us do so using the power of the word. Thank you. So, now it's time for our morning offerings. I see my brother Mr. Goldberg and Lisa and everybody getting ready. And I don't want to put anybody on the spot here, but you know, there's another event going on here, August 26th. I'm being married. My fiance, Rachel, is sitting here with two of my lovely granddaughters, Cameron and Zora. And so we look forward to being here and stop by and say hello. You know, I guarantee you, I'll be dressed. So. We're closing him 146. What we choose to emphasize in the complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places and there are so many where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act and at least the possibility of sending the spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an implement succession of presence and to live now as we think human beings should live in defiance of all that is bad around us is itself a marvelous victory. Let it be so, and so it is. Thank you.