 Please join in a moment of centering silence so we can be fully present with each other this morning. And now if you're ready, or even if you're not, let's get musically present with each other by turning to the words for our in-gathering hymn, which you'll find inside your order of service. Welcome to another Sunday 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. I'm Steve Goldberg, a proud and very entertaining member of this congregation, and I'd like to extend a special welcome to anybody watching or listening at home. You're looking really good today. And to any guests, visitors, or newcomers, if this is your first time at First Unitarian Society, I think you'll find that this is a special place. And if you'd like to learn more about our special buildings, we'll be conducting a guided tour after today's service. Just meet over here at the windows after the service and we'll take care of you. Speaking of taking care of each other, this is a perfect time to silence those pesky electronic devices that you will not need for the next hour. So please take a moment to perform that task, and while you are doing so, let me remind you that if you're accompanied by a youngster today and you think that youngster would prefer to enjoy the service from a more private space, we offer a couple alternatives for you. One is our child haven in the back corner of the auditorium and some comfortable seating right outside the doorway in the commons. Our service is brought to us today by a wonderful group of people whom we call volunteers. Yes, and you get a chance to thank them after the service for their volunteer service. And now you're going to hear their names. And by the way, just think, if you were a volunteer, you could hear your name this morning announced from this microphone. And speaking of our microphone, our sound system is managed today by David Briles. Thank you, David. Thanks to Tom Boykoff for serving as our lay minister. To Janine Nussbaum for greeting us upstairs as we arrive this morning. Our ushers include Dorrit Bergen, Liza Monroe, Dick Goldberg, and James Morgan, who was volunteered and pressed into service at the last minute. So thank you, James. Helping with our hospitality and coffee hour after the service, Mary Elizabeth Kunkel and Rick DeVita. And our tour guide this morning is going to be John Powell. And John Tewes has taken care of the vegetation that you see up front here, making sure that it is green and vibrant. And only one announcement before we begin the service. And that is 61. 61 days until Cabaret. That's two months from today, Friday, April 22, where you'll have a chance to enjoy a musical extravaganza, a live and silent auction, food, and all kinds of fun right here in this building as we raise money for that organization we love so well, First Unitarian Society. And if you have not participated in Cabaret before, come and join us on Friday, April 22. You'll find why it is the most significant and enjoyable date on the FUS social calendar. April 22. How many days from now? 61. We've got them well-trained. Well, now that you're well-trained, please sit back or lean forward to enjoy today's service and our guest speaker. I know you'll find that today's service will touch your heart, stir your spirits, and trigger one or two new thoughts. We're glad you're here. Like Peter or Paul, but Nancy's voice sure is all through the willow trees, sun that sustains us, water that washes over the willing earth and weathered stones, a smile shared and savored, a child's squeal of delight as she dances in the daisies and daffodils, the quiet joy of gathered community. This is the spirit of life and love that we call forth now into this gathering. May this spirit infuse our hearts, fill our souls, and carry us forward like a wave on the ocean. As we enter now into this sacred time and space, come, let us worship together. And as we worship leading us through, we have a special guest speaker that I am honored to announce. Reverend Anthony McCar is here today. He grew up in Alberta, Canada and moved to Texas when he was 12 years old. He's a former college professor of philosophy and his lifelong passion is figure skating. Ordained in 2004, Reverend McCar's first ministry involved planting a new kind of UU church in the Dallas, Fort Worth area called Pathways. Since 2007, he has been the senior minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Atlanta, and we are very excited to have him here today. And we are also excited to light our chalice, so if Steve will come on up and you all will stand, he is entertaining, he is. And join me in the words that are in your order of service. Each one of us is a stanza. We make up a poem. We light this chalice in the hope that the poem is profound in meaning and full of beauty. And to recognize the beauty in one another, I invite you to exchange friendly greetings. Well, good morning, everyone. Good morning. It's time for our message for all ages and I'd like to invite the young among us to join me up here. And of course, the young at heart, you are welcome as well. Hey guys, how are you? Good morning. What's that? What's her name? Skye, Skye's pretty. Hi, good morning. Come on. Come on up here. Hi, good morning to you. First of all, I'm glad you guys are here in church this morning. I'm glad you're here on Sunday. So I thought we would start out by a little follow me game. I'm wondering if you guys will do that. And by the way, I'm Reverend Anthony and I come from Atlanta. Do you guys know where Atlanta is? Atlanta? Yeah, where is it? It is way far out in the ocean. You got that? That's true. So here's the follow me game. I want you to follow me as I clap. So do what I do. Follow me, follow me. Oh, we gotta watch now. Let's do it again. Follow me. Nope, follow my pace. Slow. Very good, guys. Hey, I wanna show you something and I want you to tell me what it is. I think this is, it's an envelope and what do you think, what happens? What do you have in envelopes, usually? Letters and I wanna talk about letters today, letters. Have you ever written a letter before to somebody? Okay, some of you have. So tell me, what did you write when you wrote your letter? What do you write letters for? Hey, come on, hi guys. Come on, join us. Hey, good morning to you. What do you do? Yes, tell me. Okay, okay. Fantastic. What letters to your grandma and grandpa about Christmas presents that you want? That is a very good reason for writing letters. And also, in your first day of school, and thank you letters. What other kinds of letters have we written? Yes, birthday cards and, yep, to let friends and family, fantastic. What else, other, yes. Valentine's cards, that's right. We just had Valentine's Day. And I wanna show you something that's a little bit silly. Do you see my socks? That's kind of Valentine's Day socks, right? Red socks. I want us to do something together. I want us to write a letter together. Can we do that? I want you to help me write a letter. And you're gonna write that letter to me. So I'll give you a hint. We'll start out with Dear Reverend Anthony. Okay, so let's write the letter together. Dear Reverend Anthony. What happens next? What are you gonna say next? Today, an evil chicken took over the world. Okay, this is gonna be a really good letter. That's great. Dear Reverend Anthony. Today, a chicken took over the world. It started here in Madison, Wisconsin. And so what happens next? What happens next? The chicken started eating people. This is getting dire. Okay, so what happens next? We need a hero, right? So, okay, I wanna hear from, yes, yes, what happens next? Tell me. The chicken started eating people, but your papa, is that your papa right there? No. No. Okay, papa's over there. Saved the day, we got a hero. Right, right. And he was wearing red socks. And yay, it was great. Sometimes we write letters to kinda tell stories. Like when you wrote a letter to talk about your first day of school, you told a story about what the day was like. And happily, no one was eating up people in that letter. We write letters for lots of reasons. You know, we can write letters to say thank you. We can write letters to say hey, this is what happened to me. We can say, write a letter to say I love you and I saw that you did this for me and that felt good. We can write letters for lots of reasons. I have this letter that I wrote to you guys and I wanna read it, but I'm wondering if one of you can open this envelope. Will you open this envelope for me? Can you open that thing? Okay, great, great. Good, just go for it. Do you know how to read, too? How many of you know how to read? Awesome. Okay, all right, back there. We're hanging back there. So here's my letter to you. It does not involve giant chickens. Yeah, so February 21st, 2016. Is that, today's the 21st, right? Yeah, okay, so thank you. So I write, dear ones, how are you? I am so glad you are here today. Here are some words that I love. It is good to be, it is good to be here together. I hope you like them. Sincerely, Reverend Anthony. And that's my letter to you guys. I have something I'd like you to think about doing this week. When you go from this place and when you go into your new week, I'd like you to think about someone that you would like to write a letter to and you wanna share with them some words that mean something to you or you wanna talk about something that happened in your day or you wanna tell them that you appreciate them and that you love them. Will you think about that? Will you think about doing that this week? That could be a wonderful thing to write a letter in this age where people don't write letters anymore. Really, not very often. And that is our message for all ages. Again, I'm glad you're here. And now we're gonna sing you out to your classes. All right, so let's do that. Thank you. Bye, guys, thanks for coming. A great opportunity to really celebrate life. In 2010, the Chambuk Center first collection, there is, of course, a lot of this college work. We're looking to hand-grew and manage with, I know, I don't pay for a sneeze. This was the book that put her on the map. In 1969, I wrote that she'd fall on the falls of a wedding. This is most likely the poem in the word of the Jesus known as of the tree, hosts to species long since the start. Mark, the matthodon, the dinosaur, who let dry-cooking of their children here on our planet go. She really uses a poetic metaphor to talk about the strength of this nation, the ability to learn from its mistakes, to go out of struggle in order to set a steady course for your dear environment. Here, on the path of this new day, you may have to raise your hand up and out, and into your sister's eye, and into your brother's face, your country, this morning. Dear Maya, how strange it will seem to my hearers that I am writing a letter to one who can never literally receive it. You died almost two years ago, and yet you seem very much alive to me once you said, we delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty. And that may be true of other people, but not of you. You have been very clear about your changes across the span of almost 90 years, and I have loved reading about them, so powerful, so poignant. How deeply and frequently you have moved me to laughter and tears. And I do believe your spirit lives on. I do believe that the death of anyone's body is best compared to a fatally damaged TV set, which can no longer transmit the vital signal anymore, even though the vital signal is still around and in the air. Others in my beloved community will see things differently, but one thing we can't agree on is how the influence of your seven autobiographies and books of essays and poetry and plays and movies and TV shows, in addition to everything else, has been nothing less than a part of the world's endless creation. You have set your mark upon us. Your immortality is at the very least in your influence, and that is no small thing. It goes on and on, like starshine. It has reached straight into my heart in ways small and large. And here's one of the small ways. In your amazing book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, you remember the Reverend Howard Thomas, who was the presiding church elder over an area of Arkansas, which included the town you grew up in, Stamps. He come to Stamps every three months to stay in your home. And when your paternal grandmother, whom you called mama, because she raised you, opened the door to him. He'd spread his arms out wide. He'd call out for you and your brother Bailey, saying, suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. He wanted a hug, but you thought he was ugly and fat. And that he laughed like a hug with the colic. You thought his arms were awful. You didn't want a hug, but your mama made you, just like my baba made me. His name was Ivan. And I had no clue what he did or what his purpose was in life, just that he was a dear friend of the family from a long way back. He'd always come when he'd heard that my family had made the long trek from northern Alberta to Edmonton to visit relatives. His breath smelled like onions. His face was shiny and flabby. And strangest of all, there was his forehead, which near the scalp featured a quarter-sized, caved-in part that no one ever mentioned, not even once. And it was so obvious that something was wrong that I just wanted to scream. He'd look at me with his big bug eyes and hold out his octopus arms for a hug. And I just wanted to run. But baba made me go to him, sit on his lap, and he would breathe on me with that onion breath and squeeze me and go, hey, hey, hey, hey. And I would laugh out of embarrassment. And then finally it'd be over, and he'd release me from his tentacles, and I'd book it out of there to everyone's vast amusement. Adults think children are simpletons, tabula rasa, but maya, you remind us that it is completely otherwise. Children have their own thoughts to think. They are already complicated little worlds. To them, the motives and behaviors of adults at times can be incomprehensible. But the main point is this, that you have brought me back to the memory, and it feels like something long lost in me has been found. And that feels so good, even if it was, but a small memory about a particularly weird moment. You have returned me to myself. And if there is any triumph to art, it is that. And it's also this. It's an enabling people to see through each other's eyes. Your art does this for me too. You tell stories that find absolutely no echo in my own world, and they break my heart wide open. Many of these stories are about the harshness of southern life and the experience of blackness as told from the inside. And you are one of the very first to share like this. Another day was over, you say. In the soft dark, the cotton truck slipped the pickers out and roared out of the yard with a sound like a giant's fart. The workers stepped around in circles for a few seconds as if they had found themselves unexpectedly in some unfamiliar place. Their minds sagged. In my mama's merchandise store, the men's faces were the most painful to watch. But I seem to have no choice. When they tried to smile to carry off their tiredness as if it was nothing, their bodies told a completely different story. Their shoulders drooped even as they laughed. And when they put their hands on their hips in a show of jauntiness, the palms slipped the thighs as if they were waxed, as if the pants were waxed. The women's feet had swollen, the discarded men's shoes they wore, and they washed their arms at the well to dislodge dirt and splinters that had accrued to them as part of the day's picking. I thought them all hateful to have allowed themselves to be worked like oxen and even more shameful to try to pretend that things were not as bad as they were. You tell this story, and then you tell another how your mama on pain of punishment had taught you and your brother Bailey to be impeccable in the way you addressed your elders and your betters. Show respect. Do not bring shame to your family. But as for what you have called po-white trash, they'd call your mama by her first name despite the fact that she owned the very land that they lived on. If there's any justice in this world, you say, and I know why the caged bird sings, God should strike them dumb at once, but God never did. God just watched. God just watched when one time a group of these po-white trash girls came to your front door and your strong, proud mama was there, and they surrounded her with mocking laughter and stuck tongues out at her and crossed their eyes at her. And all your mama did was him hum church hymns. She never looked at those girls. She just kept humming tunes to Jesus. You were watching all of it from inside your house, and you say this. You say, I wanted to throw a handful of black pepper into their eyes. I wanted to do that. I want to throw a lie on them to scream at them that they are dirty, scummy peckerwoods. But I knew that as clearly they were as clearly imprisoned behind the scene as the actors outside were confined to their roles. We were imprisoned. This is what you say, Maya. You tell these stories, Maya. And they break my heart wide open. And this one, too, which is not so much about black, southern life as it is about the kind of personal tragedy that could happen to anyone, black or white, rich or poor, it does not matter. It happened when you were around eight years old. Your biological mother, who had sent you to live with your grandmother, she wanted you back. So you went to live with her in St. Louis, but it lasted only a short time because your mom's boyfriend raped you. And when word got out, he was killed. I thought I had caused his death, you say, because I told his name to the family. Out of guilt, you say, I stopped talking to everyone except my brother Bailey. I decided that my voice was so powerful that it could kill people. But it could not harm my brother because we loved each other so much. You stayed mute for almost five years, Maya. Oh, Maya. Several years ago, one of my colleagues, Reverend Wayne Robinson, was lucky enough to have met you at a Writers' Conference in Santa Barbara. He says you were a powerful presence, six feet tall, strong, deep of voice, a force to be reckoned with. And there at the conference, you were sharing some of those stories that I'm bringing up here, stories of abuse and poverty and racism and sexism. And when you finished, you opened the floor to questions. And that's when my colleague asked, Miss Angelou, how did you go through all of that without becoming bitter and angry? And you answered, oh, young man, you've confused two very different things. I am still angry, very angry at the kind of things that happen to me and are still happening to way too many people in this world. But my anger is part of the drive I have to change things. But I am not bitter, for bitterness is corrosive. Bitterness does not motivate you to try to do something, to change the world. Bitterness does not motivate you to do anything. It causes you to sit, and it causes you to stew. And that bitterness just eats away at your soul. I am not bitter, you said. But yes, I am angry. My mission in life, you have said, is not merely to survive but to thrive and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style. And then in a poem, you sing pretty women, wonder where my secret lies. I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size. But when I start to tell them, they think I'm telling lies. I say it is in the reach of my arms, the span of my hips, the stride of my step, the curl of my lips. I am a woman phenomenally, phenomenally woman. That's me. How did you learn to be phenomenal like this? When the harshness of your life constantly threatened to crush you, what gave you the reach in those arms of your, the span of your step, the curl of your lips, tell me about the changes that made you into a butterfly. Perhaps we are back to the ancient nature versus nurture question. How much of your resilience is something you were simply born with? And how much of it came from aspects of your environment? Definitely in Caged Bird, you make the Ubuntu principle plain. I am because we are. You could have grown so bitter. But here's something your mama would do for you at least twice a year. She would see a known whiner, a known complainer in the community coming straight for the store. And once she was sure that you would be in a place to witness things, she would ask that known whiner and complainer, how you feel today? Ah, Sister Henderson, I tell you, I just hate the winter. It makes my face crack and my shins burn. And mama just say, uh-huh. And then she would look at you. And as soon as that person would leave, mama would say, Sister, come right here. You'd stand right in front of her. She'd say, there are people all over this world who went to sleep last night who did not wake again. Their beds have become their cooling boards. Their blankets have become their winding sheets. They would give anything for five minutes of what she was complaining about. Maya, you could have grown so bitter. But people like your mother, your mama, they didn't want your soul to be lost. You were a phenomenal woman because she was phenomenal for you. Same goes for your biological mom. Now, you would agree heartily that she was a terrible mother for young children. She had abandoned you and your brother simple as that. But you distinguish between two kinds of parents. There is the person who can be a great parent of small children, you say. They dress the children in these sweet little things with bows in their hair and beads on their shoestrings and nice, lovely little socks. But when those same children get to be 14 or 15, the parents simply do not know what to do with them as they grow breasts and testosterone hits the boy. That's exactly when your biological mother stepped up. When you became a young adult and she was phenomenal for you then. You tell about the time she found out you were pregnant. You were just 17. I can't imagine a more vulnerable moment where everything depends on what is said next. And what she said next was, all right, run me a bath please. And that was really a very nice thing to say in your family, a very nice thing for someone to ask you to do. And in all your life, she had asked you to do this only one or two times. And so you ran her a bath, and then she invited you into the bathroom. She sat down in the bathtub. She asked you, do you love the boy? You said, no. Does he love you? You said, no. Well, there's no point in ruining three lives. We're going to have us a baby. That's what she said. Your mother, who had abandoned you in your early years, came through with flying colors in your later ones. You have said that throughout your life, she has liberated you, liberated you constantly, respected you, respected what you tried to do, believed in you phenomenal woman. And so you became phenomenal yourself, beautiful butterfly in a life of many high points. Perhaps the highest was in 1993 when you recited your poem on the pulse of mourning at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton, becoming the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at President John F. Kennedy's inauguration of 1961. And this is part of what you said. History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived. And if faced with courage, need not be lived again. Lift up your eyes upon the day breaking for you. Give birth again to the dream. Women, children, men, take it into the palm of your hands, mold it into the shape of your most private need, sculpt it into the image of your most public self. Lift up your hearts for each new day, holds new chances for new beginnings. Do not be wedded forever to fear, yoked eternally to brutishness. The horizon leans forward, offering you space to place new steps of change. Maya, we need these words now, so much going on to make us bitter, the harshness of life, the racism, the sexism, the poverty, the abuse which goes on and on, it has not stopped at all. The latest incidents of gun violence in Kalamazoo, Michigan, just last night, this time where black lives are brutalized, a time when we must say black lives matter, political election insanity unfolding around us, unfolding right before our very eyes. But fill us with your courage, Maya. Help us to be angry in a way that burns for a better world for all. Clean angry, clean anger, not dirty with resentment. Help us to be angry like that, like that. Lift up our eyes upon the day breaking for us. Give birth again to the dream. History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived. And if faced with courage need not be lived again, let our unitarian universalist mission in life be like yours, Maya. Not merely to survive, but to thrive and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style. For myself, I know that I cannot possibly be a phenomenal woman, but let me be a phenomenal man. Let us be phenomenal for each other because we know that through family and friendship and community, we are supported and strengthened as we go through the messy changes that make us into butterflies, ourselves. Here on the pulse of a new day, you're right. You may have the grace to look out and up into your sister's eyes, into your brother's face, your country, and say simply, very simply, with hope, good morning, my dear Maya, good morning to you, beautiful butterfly, sincerely and with much love. Wasn't that a treat? In the spirit of becoming phenomenal, we will now share our offering and our gifts with the world. Our offering today is going to be shared 50-50 with the Lucia Community Education Center. It's a welcoming, green-built factory on the far side of Madison. And if you'd like to know more, then please look into your order of service. So it's annual campaign time, which is everybody's favorite time of year. Okay, seriously, it is one of my favorite times of this year because this congregation has been so amazingly welcoming to me. And now I get to hear all kinds of stories about what it means to you and why you support this congregation. And I'd like to welcome our own Kurt Stege to talk about why he gives his time and treasure. Good morning, and thank you, Nancy, that was beautiful. I'm Kurt Stege, and last October, Michael Shuler called me and asked that I serve as the Interim Church Business Administrator, filling what used to be Andy's role, until FUS conducted a search to fill a position with a permanent hire. Michael justified his request, in part, by referencing the relatively broad knowledge of the society's operations that I had gained since my wife and I joined FUS in 1981. I'm currently a Bible-Odean teacher for fourth and fifth graders. I'm on the board of the foundation, was active on the building committee during this edition, and have a variety of other roles in my past that I won't bore you with. Except I will say that I really enjoyed cleaning the stones that were used on the addition as well. I like to get my hands dirty. Now, as you may know, it's not easy to say no to a request from your minister. I'd been in retirement for a couple of years, but as a humanist, I decided, and in order to avoid divine retribution, I said yes. Well, turns out my 35 years of experience as a member, volunteer, and contributor financially, they were helpful. But once I started on the job, it immediately became apparent to me that the scope of this institution was way more extensive than I had anticipated. What I thought I had known really turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. First, I concluded that the FUS campus was a lot more extensive and a lot more active than I'd realized. Something like 800 events here per year. All kinds of programs, interrelationships with lots of other organizations and suppliers of goods. This is a complex place and a very complex organization and operation. Secondly, I was struck by how those of us sitting in these chairs in the auditorium on Sunday can be unaware of how much work is going on by staff behind the scenes. We have very dedicated employees here. These are people who really care about this place. They are absolutely necessary to keep this building, member services, and our programs all operating. Coordinating all the components of FUS is much more complicated and extensive than I'd realized. But remember, we just don't see the staff unless we look or we really think about it. I found it to be a real privilege and a great experience to work here. It may be even more proud of what this institution does and of those who do it. Early in January, my employment ended and I'm real pleased that Monica Nolan has been hired to fill the church business administrator position. Once again, I'm retired. But I learned a lot during my brief stint. My message today is that from where you are now sitting, I hadn't adequately understood what goes on here day to day and week to week. I hadn't realized how much this institution relies on a very dedicated staff. I hadn't realized how many of our staff work outside of our field division, keeping it all together. So when you think of FUS and certainly when you make your pledge this year, remember that you are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. And by the way, there is an easier way than working here for a couple months to get a better feel for how much does go on here. Check out the website, bookmark it. And above the only photo on that homepage, there are a series of links. Check out site map. It happens to be just to the left of the donate to FUS link. Spend a little time, explore the site. Working from the site map really gives you a helpful perspective on all the aspects of this operation. Again, you can also check out the radio station, your radio station, WMUU. Think Wisconsin, Mattis, Unitarian, Universalist. Receptions available within a radius of about three and a half miles of the capital. Call letters are or call number is 102.9 FM. So enjoy your exploration. I hope you gain a fuller appreciation for each one of the staff here and for everything that goes on behind the scenes or as part of that iceberg that is under the waterline. Thank you. Great to be here today. Thank you for your warm welcome, your hospitality. Thank you. Back to you guys, back to you guys. So for the benediction, something that I do in my home congregation is we join hands and I wanna invite you to do that if you feel comfortable doing so. Wanna welcome our visitors once again, welcome. We really hope that you got some good soul food today. It's gonna feed you today all week long. I wish that for all of us here who are present, who are in this space. So now my love stir in this place, in our hearts, in our families, in our city, in our nation, in our world. We need that love, that transformative love that saves us, that heals us. There's so much hurt in this world. So I wish for that love to stir among us. This love which puts to flight all fears, which reconciles all who are separated. This love, it is what Unitarian Universalism is all about. Love are one source. Love are one destiny. No one left out of that love. I wish that love for you today. The worship is over and now our service in the world begins. Go in peace.