 Please join me for a few moments of centering silence, and now please remain seated as we sing our in-gathering hymn, number 1058. The words appear in your order of service, but the music appears in your teal music book. Good morning. Welcome to the First Unitarian Society of Madison. This is a community where curious seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical, and social issues in an accepting and nurturing environment. Unitarian universalism supports the freedom of conscience of each individual as together we seek to be a force for good in the world. My name is Karen Rose Gredler, and on behalf of the congregation, I would like to extend a special welcome to any visitors who are with us this morning. We are a welcoming congregation, so whomever you are and wherever you happen to be on your life's journey, we celebrate your presence among us. Newcomers are encouraged to stay for our fellowship hour after the service and to visit the library, which is directly across from the middle doors of this auditorium. Bring your drinks and your questions. Members of our staff and lame ministry will be on hand to welcome you. You may also look for people holding teal stoneware coffee mugs. These are FUS members, knowledgeable about our faith community, who would love to visit with you. First guides are generally available to give building tours after each service, so if you would like to learn more about this sustainably designed addition or our national landmark meeting house, please meet near the large glass window on your left side of the auditorium immediately after the service. We welcome children to stay for the duration of the service, however, because it's difficult for some in attendance to hear in this lively acoustical environment. Our child haven and the commons there and back behind the auditorium are excellent places to retire if a child needs to talk or move around. The service can still be seen and heard from those areas. This would be an excellent time to turn off all electronic devices that might cause a disturbance during the hour, especially cell phone ringers. I'd now like to acknowledge those individuals who help our services run smoothly for this service. We have Peter Daley on sound, Tom Boykoff as our lame minister, as Greeter Mary Elizabeth Conkle, and our ushers are Daniel Bradley, Carolyn Benforado, and Nancy Daley. Back making coffee and maybe something else are Sandy Plish and Chip Cuade. Please notice the announcements on the red floors insert in your order of service, which describe upcoming events at the society and provide more information about today's activities. I would like to make one additional announcement, call attention to it, the Farley Center for Peace and Justice hosts a farm, Los Jalapenos, which will be delivering CSA farm shares for a second season to FUS members who sign up for a share. Farm shares are delivered to the landmark on Sunday mornings, available after services until 1 p.m. You can find more information in the red floors. Thanks for supporting CSA farm shares at FUS. Again welcome. We hope today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart, and stir your spirit. We stop, we pause, we pay attention, we center ourselves, we free ourselves from the compulsion of projects to finish, work to be done, things to accomplish. We leave ourselves alone for a time. We journey deep down into that quiet center where no voice is heard. We live for a brief time on an island of peace. We apprehend the world from a quiet center. Here is the center of the world. In this instant are centered the whirling orbs, the movement of earth and sky. In this fragile moment of time is the culmination of all that has been and the promise of all that shall be. Here in our grasp in this moment is the center of the world. And if you will rise now and body your spirit to join together in the words of affirmation printed in your order of service, may unity and peace abide within us. May wholeness and joy touch our hearts. May kindness and compassion fill our universe and reverence fill our days. May we see the light that shines in all. And before we join together in song, if you'll take a moment to turn and greet your neighbor, one would like to come on up front to join me for our story today. Come on up. Hey, guys. Hey. Good morning. Oh, very cool. Hey, guys. Hi, everybody. How are you? Good. Are you liking this weather? You getting outside? Yeah. It's really what? All right. Well, our story today, Sean's going to put it up front so everybody could see because the pictures in this book, it's a book called The Cloud Spinner. And the pictures are really cool. And for those of you who can see the pictures, it's also important to keep your eye on the clouds because they do some pretty amazing things sometimes. Birds. What else? All right. Well, there once was a boy who could weave cloth from the clouds. He had a spinning wheel and a loom on top of a hill. As the clouds passed with a whir of the wheel, he would spin them into thread. Hold in the morning with the rising sun, white in the afternoon and crimson in the evening. Just as his mother had taught him. Then with a clickety-clack of his loom, he would weave the thread into cloth. And as he worked, he said a simple phrase that his mother had taught him, enough is enough and not one stitch more. The boy was wise. He spun just enough thread and wove just enough cloth to make two scarves, one of pure white. He wore over his head when it was hot to protect him from the sun. The other he wore when it was cold. It was a twist and twirl of gold and white and crimson, soft as a mouse's touch and warm as roasted chestnuts. His mother had taught him well. Now one chilly market day, the boy walked down the hill, a basket in his hand and his scarf around his neck. The market was full of great excitement. The king was on his way. Do you see him? Soon the king rode grandly by, hardly noticing the curtsies and cheers. It is a really big horse, isn't it? But what his greedy eyes did notice was the wonderful scarf of gold and white and crimson. Tell me, boy, where can I get a scarf of such fine cloth? The king is really big too. He is. His horse is kind of a giraffe. The king came in riding a giraffe. No, it doesn't have the same. Nowhere on earth, the boy replied, then how did you get yours, snapped the king. I made it, said the boy, then you will make another for me, a longer one, much longer for I am the king. But the boy said, it would not be wise to have a long scarf made from this cloth. Your majesty does not need it. How dare you tell me what is wise? I order you to make my scarf. So the boy went home to the top of the hill and with a whir of the wheel began to spin. He spun the clouds as they passed in the morning and were gold with the rising sun. He spun in the afternoon as the clouds sailed past white as snowdrifts. He spun in the evening when the clouds were crimson. Then with a clickety-clack of the loom, he wove the thread into a long, long scarf. The king was overjoyed, you see him, that must be his happy dance. His scarf was soft as a mouse's touch and warm as roasted chestnuts. Now make me a cloak of this glorious cloth and dress his galore for the queen and my daughter, the princess. But the boy shook his head, it would not be wise to have so many clothes made from this cloth. Your majesty does not need them. What do you think, mad? I think that's a mad face, isn't it? The king's face was a twist of scowls. I want those clothes and I order you to make them. So the boy went home to the top of the hill and with a whir of the wheel began to spin. He spun the clouds as they passed in the morning and were gold with the rising sun. He spun in the afternoon as the clouds sailed past white as snowdrifts. And he spun in the evening when the clouds were crimson. He spun and he spun and it was harder and harder for soon what's happening to the clouds. They're disappearing. There were fewer and fewer clouds. At last, with a clickety-clack of the loom, the boy began to weave the thread into cloth beneath a cloudless sky. And as he worked, he sadly said, enough is enough, not one stitch more. The king was delighted. He put on the wonderful cloak and the queen and the princess each put on a beautiful flowing dress. Surely, he boasted, there is no other king as magnificent and wise as me. Not one, said the queen. The princess said nothing. But day after day, as they wore their marvelous clothes, not one drop of rain fell from the cloudless sky. Your majesty, pleaded the villagers, our animals are thirsty and our crops are dying. There's nothing I can do, shouted the king, walking this way and that, his cloak trailing behind him. Why are you moaning to me? The princess said nothing. But that evening, she quietly slipped out of the palace. She wore a simple dress and in her arms was a bundle, soft as a mouse's touch and warm as roasted chestnuts. What does she have? All the clothes, right? She crossed the dry, dusty gardens and the brown fields beyond and she climbed to the top of the hill. Stepping forward, she knocked at the boy's door. Is it too late to undo what has been done? The boy smiled and said simply, there is still time. When the king awoke the next morning, he could not find his wonderful cloak. The queen could not find her beautiful dresses. They searched the palace for the clothes that the boy had made but they were gone. While outside, the villagers danced for joy as the rain began to fall from the clouds in the sky. It rained and rained and rained. The king and queen looked out and wondered and the princess with a smile as bright as a rainbow stood on top of the hill and said, enough is enough and not one stitch more. Yeah, there they are with their short little scarves, which was really all they needed. So sometimes we think we need more and more and more and more, right? At my house, I always say, how many Legos could you possibly need? Does anybody else hear that at home? Oh, there we go, yeah, mm-hmm, we're saying it, right, mama? That's right. Ben, you have a lot of Legos at your house? And does mom ever say, Ben, Sam, how many Legos do you possibly need? So sometimes we think we need more and more and more and sometimes we have to realize that what we have and where we are is enough. So we're going to stay together and we're going to listen to the choir sing one more song and when they're done, then you can head off to class. Pastor of a small inner city Lutheran church. She has an enormous heart and an infectious laugh and multiple sclerosis. Her faith and courage are inspirations to all who know her. Because of her illness, violet cannot drive. She must use public transportation to get around Philadelphia to perform her ministerial duties. Last winter, she wrote this letter. The work I do brings me into town. I get there by way of suburban station at 17th and market. I could probably do a review of all the bathrooms in the city and I can tell you that the women's bathroom in suburban station is one of the worst I have ever seen. Pipes are exposed and it's always dirty. There's graffiti and the plumbing rarely works. When I complained about this bathroom to one of the station agents, his response was, you shouldn't go in there. It's too dangerous. Now I could take his advice and avoid that bathroom altogether, but you see there's a problem. For a number of homeless women, that bathroom is the only place where they can change their clothes and wash up. For these women, that bathroom is part of their home. I suspect that this is part of the reason the administration doesn't clean it up. Cleaning the bathroom is not an acceptable solution, so I intentionally continue to use it. Last Monday, as I prepared to leave for my meeting in the bitter December cold, I thought of that bathroom and the women who would inevitably be washing and changing when I got there. I knew I couldn't do much about the conditions of the bathroom, but I had this crazy idea. I wondered what would it be like to go unshopping? What would it be like if instead of going out to buy things, I was able to share some of the many things that I had already bought? I took out a shopping bag from Straw Bridges and went into my closet. I chose two sweaters that were almost new, carefully folded them and put them in the bag. When I got to the station, I went directly to the bathroom. In the corner was a woman eating a meal by the heat. She wore a thin denim jacket. At first she seemed afraid that I was going to chase her away. I used the bathroom and after washing my hands, asked her if she would like a sweater. Without hesitation, she said, yes. I laid the sweaters out for her and she carefully chose one. Like a child, she lifted her arms out to me. I helped her put on the sweater. She thanked me and I thanked her for allowing me to share this with her and then I left. I was only a few feet away from the bathroom when she came out and modeled the sweater for a man who had come up to her. I walked back. It seemed that he too had been living in the streets. He asked the woman about another woman, one whose feet and shopping cart I could see sticking out of the stall. I decided this might be the recipient of the second sweater. I walked back over and asked the woman I had just met if she knew of someone who could use the second sweater. The man looked at me and the woman and pointing to the bathroom said, Mary needs a sweater. Mary needs a sweater and I wondered if his name might not have been Joseph. I handed the sweater to the woman and she went to help Mary put it on. It took almost nothing for me to go unshopping. I gave away two sweaters. But in return I received the vulnerability and trust of the woman who had so graciously allowed me to dress her. And in return I had a face-to-face encounter with Mary and Joseph and I dare say Jesus present in the rot and filth of a train station bathroom. And if you will rise now and body your spirit and join in our next hymn which is number 307 which my family and I were in Fond du Lac so that I could lead services at the open circle UU fellowship and we could spend time with friends who live there. These friends have a daughter about the same age as our oldest son and they asked if he would tend religious education classes there with her. Sure I thought he went yesterday but he won't mind going again. Yeah, the poor minister's kid. When the service was over the kids made their way out of class and ran over to tell us what they talked about and show us what they had made. That Sunday they were learning about the creation story in Genesis and Sam had made a book consisting of seven pages and on each page he drew images of what had happened on that day. My favorite was day seven which was filled with images of a blue sky, a bright yellow sun, green grasses, trees, flowers, animals and a person lying in the grass with a word bubble above the head that said, ah. So I looked at Sam and I said wow, this one, I love this one. Tell me more about the person and he said, oh, you know, mom, it's that moment when you know that you've done enough, when the world just feels right and you lie down and go, I don't think he has any idea how right on his image was. We're in the Hebrew scriptures on that seventh day when the Creator rests, the word for rest can literally be read and God exhaled. You know that feeling, don't you, when you rest your head knowing that today was enough, that you are enough, that just for this moment it is well and truly good. Or maybe you haven't felt that way in a little while. We seem to live in a different land, a land of not enough, never enough. It may seem to us that our world has gone a bit mad with more choices, more activities, more stuff. In a world of overload, we overestimate what we can do, build, fix, care for, or make happen in one day. We overload our expectations of self and others, take on more and more responsibilities in excess of what we can reasonably achieve and maintain health and balance until our bodies and minds finally collapse under the relentless pressure of impossible demands. When do we exhale? The world gives us the message that we must look outside of ourselves, that we must look out for ourselves, our own interests, that life is a race to be won and we must never rest, that we must be the smartest, the fastest, grab as many resources as we can because there's a finite amount of wealth, goods, happiness, and love. Each of us is on our own to gather for ourselves all that we need and more. In a world such as this, finding enough is a subversive act. This desire for more can affect even the most spiritual of us. I love this poem written by Wayne Mueller that's called, Bronze Buddha for Sale. I almost bought a Buddha. Green cast bronze, suggestive, abstract, lumping shape of earth sat so long, so still, all elements over how many years time fused as one. I thought it would look great in my house, a fuse some deeply missing spiritual fragrance or something that I suddenly knew I so desperately needed. I wondered how much it would cost. I looked at the price, can afford it I thought, but then there I stopped. Nothing at once it was the quiet I wanted, the stillness inside, the not moving for so long. What had been inside this Buddha had become one with everything good and soft, everything sharp and aching, some impossible alchemy of time and needing no thing, peace had rendered all life still. No movement was required. Nothing need move anywhere ever again. How much I wondered would that cost? We buy more, consume more, search for and acquire that next thing that we think will bring us wholeness, happiness, peace. When what we really want isn't the thing itself, but the feeling of contentment, the stillness of knowing we are whole and broken, good and lovely and we need no thing to find this sense of peace. Thomas Merton, the trappist monk once said that there is in all visible things and invisible richness, a hidden wholeness. Merton repeatedly taught that all beings carry within them a deep and luminous font of inexhaustible sweetness and purity. Most importantly, this inner perfection is a quality so deeply embedded within us so fundamentally strong that it cannot be tarnished by our suffering, diminished by our fears or fractured by our tragedies. In short, it is a part of us that cannot, does not, will not break. All of us have a capacity to be our own worst critic. To judge ourselves and our actions as not enough. We often judge ourselves without mercy. This kind of thinking does a violence to the soul. Over the years I have sat with many who are held hostage by the hollow, relentless ache of self-judgment that defines us as broken, defective, unworthy, a failure, useless, of little to no value. Yet Jesus said, you are the light of the world. When he spoke these words to a large crowd on the top of a hill, he was making a bold unheard of statement simply because you are alive on this earth, a vital child of creation, born of dust and spirit. You are the light of the world. He wasn't addressing the most faithful at the time, the most knowledgeable people of his day. When he spoke these words, he was talking to the general public, those largely uneducated or just ordinary, everyday folk. And his teaching didn't come with any fine print. There were no disclaimers, no exclusions, nowhere did he tack on, but only if you worship regularly and save lives and cure cancer and never commit any wrongs and solve world hunger and end climate change. Jesus was as usual clear and to the point, you are simply this, the light of the world. You carry within you a spark of divine fire. The Buddha also taught that we have within us this very same wholeness, what he called natural perfection. Many Native Americans speak of some manifestation of the great spirit who infuses all beings with this same vitally sacred life force. For Hindus, the atman or soul of the world is everywhere in all beings and all things. And the God of the Hebrews declared that the most essential truths of life and love are inscribed on our hearts, reside within us, as a still small voice that speaks in the quiet recesses of our souls. But for all these teachings showered upon us from the wisdom traditions of the world, how many of us, when we wake in the morning or when we retire in the evening, feel that we are truly the light of the world. Or do we wake thinking of all that needs to be done and head to sleep thinking of all that is unfinished or all the ways we messed up yet again? What if we woke and moved through our days actually feeling, sensing, knowing with unshakable certainty that no matter where we go, no matter what situation we walk into, we are enough to have enough trust and faith in ourselves and our abilities to know that there is a reliable strength and wisdom within. How would we think? How would we act? What would we choose? How would we respond to the world around us if we lived from a place of undeniable belief that who we are, what we do is wholly sufficient, simply and completely enough. It is good for us to pause in our reflections and recognize how privileged we are to be able to carefully reflect on this essential question of what is for us enough. There are millions in this world for whom the issue of enough isn't a Sunday morning meditation but a daily challenge of life and death. So the ways in which we honestly respond to this question, what is enough? Have a direct impact on the lives of these children and families and communities. Whenever we fear we do not have enough, we tend to hoard what we need. Peace of course limits the resources available for others. So as we feel our way into enough, we are learning how to find that place within us, that sense of peace and wholeness that no thing can ever bring. And we are doing this not only for ourselves and our families but our global human family. Much like happiness, finding enough is an inside job, something we need to do in our own lives every day. When we can begin to find a sense of enough, a sense of fullness and contentment that comes from recognizing the goodness and power and strength within, then we can go out from that place and work to create a world where all can find enough. Reese Fullerton shared the following story about his time on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. When I was on the commission in the 70s, I worked with a team studying the dynamics and responses to busing and school desegregation in Louisville, Kentucky. We interviewed everyone who had anything to do with the experience. On the day I went to interview individual students, both African American and white, who were attending a previously all-white high school, the teacher who was coordinating my time sent me to my surprise, not individuals one at a time, but a group of 12 white students. I had already prepared my questions, but instead I asked them about their experience in the past and what had changed with busing and desegregation. The answers were very clear. Everything before was fine. Now it was awful. The description of the African American students was horrific, dumb, rude, uneducated, as bad as you could possibly imagine. One sophomore girl was particularly caustic in her hateful racist comments and seemed to enjoy using every moment of her time to set the record straight about these terrible lowlifes. The mood in the room had reached a near fever pitch when a knock on the door was followed by my next group to be interviewed, 12 African American students. The hush in the room was instant and palpable. The white students all got up to leave and I said, no, no, you can stay, please sit down, which they did. I then proceeded to ask the newly arrived students the exact same questions I had asked those before. The stark reality of the answers. We had no books last year. Our school was filled with litter. Everything was broken. Our teachers were not like the teachers here. The cafeteria was awful. These answers corroborated the answers of the white students except that instead of racial stereotypes here was the very tender human side of these new grateful students. I realized there was a stifled noise to my left. I looked over and saw the sophomore girl, the same one who had been so filled with hate crying, tears streaming down her cheeks. She stood up and said there was something she needed to say. Between her deep sobs, she told the African American students what she had just been saying about them. Saying word for word. Everyone in the room started to engage in the conversation with much of the support given to the sophomore girl coming from the African American students themselves. The discussion turned rigorously honest, courageous and real and it forever changed the hearts of each one of us. It was enough to meet each other and tell the truth, to hear each other's stories, enough to learn how profoundly, how undeniably we are the same, so unquestionably connected. When the teacher came to reclaim her students, they sent her away so they could continue talking until they felt they had reached a point where they were done for now. And when they walked out to face the rest of the world, they walked out together. The world gives us the message that we must look out for ourselves if we are ever to find enough. That our security and our safety and the best hope for our future come from the acquisition of things, of storing up our wealth and resources for ourselves. But our real security, our real safety and our best hope for the future, I say, lie in authentic community and relationship. Religious communities hold a unique role in society. Users of faith hold within them what sociologists call an alternative imagination, an ability to posit a different future from the world we know today. Unitarian universalism describes a future in which all people are free from want and oppression, fear and despair. Our faith calls us to bring that world into being because we believe it to be possible. We come together each week, not just to heal our own souls, but also to offer healing outward to the world. Here we learn what it means to be a courageous people, walking together, working together for the common good. Enough is never a static measurement, for we and the world are always changing. Our experience of enough is relational. It is about being engaged in passionate conversation between who we are, what the world has become and is becoming. Enough then is a verb, a conversation, a collaboration, a dance. It is not a static state, it is relational, punctuated by wonder and surprise. It demands that we stay connected and stay awake to the world around us, making our choices carefully for our own lives and the lives of all. Then whatever we choose brings with it a sense of sufficiency, arriving with an exhale, a sense that this for now is enough. Here's the final thing we must know. We carry within us a fierce grace that will not be extinguished, does not break, will never leave us alone. This life force lives in us. If we trust ourselves to be enough, then we can stand passionately and honestly before one another and offer our most deeply, impossibly suffering hearts fearless, honest loving kindness. And it is from this shared kindness, this compassion for ourselves and for others that we find in relationship some tender budding beginning of enough. May we be so. And now may we join together in a spirit of meditation as we hold the joys and the sorrows of our loved ones, our community and our world in our minds and our hearts. Let the difficulties of the week take their Sabbath now, their brief and simple rest. Let the worries of the week lay their heft gently onto the dark earth, below these red floors, which can bear them with greater ease than any one of us can by ourselves. Let the tangle of feelings, the pull and push of these last days sit still for just a minute. Stop writhing in our hearts and come to rest. Let there be stillness in our hearts for a moment. As we bring into our circle all those quiet joys and sorrows that live in our hearts and move in our days. May the compassion of our hearts bring healing and solace to each of us, our loved ones near and far and our bruised and hurting world. And I now invite you into the giving and receiving of today's offering, which you will see as a shared outreach offering with mentoring positives. You can find out more about them in your order of service, and we thank you for your generosity. Good morning, I'm Sandy Eskridge. I've been a member of this congregation for a little over 20 years. When we came to the Madison area, well when we relocated and we're looking for a new community, the community needed three things, well four if it included job, but it needed to be a university community, it needed to have excellent public schools, and it needed to have a Unitarian church. So over 20 years ago we moved here with three little kids, and my kids went through the religious education program and through the choir, and I think Heather and I and my kids spent every Wednesday night together for at least 10 or 12 years. And now today they are young adults and they are true universalists, Unitarians. And so I'm very appreciative to this community for that engagement that my kids had from you to learn to be in part who they are. During that time, I spent a lot of time teaching religious education, and eventually I kind of fell into a seat on the board of trustees, and during the several years that I was part of the board and the board's work, we did some pretty impressive things with this very, this congregation of generous people that we have here. We built this facility, and the other thing we did was we really revolutionized the governance structure of our organization, and we went about it very intentionally, and some of the people in this room were on the ground floor of that in saying, how do we intend to grow and develop this congregation to be as powerful as it could possibly be? And so we reorganized how we do things. Today we have a board of seven members. We have some board committees that look at things like finance and personnel and human relationships and how we deal with our people who work here and the people who are here. And finance, personnel, and governance to keep us true to our intentions in how we try to govern our organization. We also have a nominating committee. And as sort of I think the evolution of being a member of this community, I think Karen Gustafson used to say this, used to draw these circles and she would say, we start out because this serves a purpose for us. This organization, we come here because we are in effect a consumer of what it has to offer to us, and that might be religious education. It might be adult education. It might be our choirs and music program. But with time, we begin to recognize that the organization is much more important to us than the product it provides or the service it fulfills in us. And I think of that when I think about our capital campaign this year, in that investing in the power of all of us. Because as we know in all of our walks of life, the power together we are much more influential and bigger than many of us could be as individuals. The role of the individuals on the board and in the board committees is not to run the church. We have very capable, wonderful staff who run the church. But is the role of the governance structure, lay leaders, is to discern what it is that we in this organization value. And where we want to invest our resources in growing our congregation and having the influence that we choose to have in the world. It is asking what is this congregation called to do? And so I would say to you that if those kinds of conversations are interesting to you and you'd like to be part of that broader vision setting. Consider talking with Betsy Houser, with Rob Savage, with me, with many of the other people in this room, Dave Weber, who understand our governance as an organization together. So the reasons that we come here are individual. I mean, every week I come here and the things that I hear and the things that I engage in with you all help me be a better person in the choices I make every day in my work. I'm a public school educator and for 25 years I was a school psychologist. And now I'm a building administrator of a middle school. And if I didn't hear reinforced to me the inherent worth and dignity of every individual, again and again and again and again, I wouldn't trust myself to do that job. And I shouldn't have ever trusted myself to do those jobs. So the things, the values that we hold here are the values that make us who we are when we walk out into the world on Monday through Saturday when we're not here in this room. And to me, that's the value it might serve to me as an individual. But I have to value this place for the value it serves for us as a force and as an influence in the community with which we all live. So if you have not completed your pledge, please do. If you have, thank you. And if you're interested in those broader conversations, please let us know. Talk to one of us or hit the link on the website. Thank you. Thank you, Sandy. And if you all will rise now and body your spirit to join in our closing hymn number 121, leave this community of the spirit. May we remember the difficult lesson that each day offers more things than we could ever possibly do. May we do what needs to be done, postpone what does not and be at peace with what we can do and be. In this way, may understanding go with us and peace too. That we may live together in compassion and joy. In this spirit, let us go individually and together forth from this place to live and love and create a world of peace for all. Blessed be, go in peace and please be seated for the postlude.