A Festival of Light

This morning you should feel a little extra proud of yourself.

You’ve just made it through the longest night in winter, and the shortest day. From here on out it’ll be bluer skies!

Or at least less dark skies, even with a Master’s in Divinity, I can’t guarantee good weather.

Even though this day happens every time our planet completes a circle around the Sun, still there is something a little special feeling about it.

It could be our psyche reaching back into our childhoods, back to a time when we were afraid of the dark.

It could also be more current.  Just a few weeks ago a friend invited us to the IL-List poetry slam at the State Theatre, and then she asked us to walk her to car because it was dark out.

There is something about the night that frightens us.

As modern people we have beat back the night with electricity.  Thomas Alva Edison, who spent his childhood in the town where my parents now live, Port Huron, Michigan where his Dad was a supply master for the military base that was once there. Thomas Edison as you know likely know, perfected the light bulb, and revolutionized human life.

Well, most of human life.

Okay, truth be told, your life has only been revolutionized if you’re in a first world country. You know, the kind of place where there is cheap, drinkable water, reliable electricity and most people have a comfortable bedroom to sleep in at night.

That sounds a little bit like us, doesn’t it?

Time was, not so very long ago, that the night was more real.

When darkness fell, it fell, and all you might have is a small fire with which to beat it back as it closed all around you. And in the dark there was both real and imagined danger.

It’s often easy for modern people to scoff at the superstitions of the past. This is an especially rewarding activity for a lot of people who think of themselves as free-thinkers.

Yes, now it may seem silly that people 400, 300 or even 200 years ago were afraid in the night. So afraid that they made up tales to teach their children to also fear the darkness.

But part of those stories were based in real-life experiences.

The night, until very recently, and really only in small pockets around the globe, has always been a very dangerous place.

Our vision is not as good as the night vision of some other animals. We are not nocturnal by nature, and so we did not, generally speaking, develop good night vision. Our species did not rely on night time feeding, and so those who hunted better at night did not display that natural adaption that got passed along to the following generations, as Charles Darwin suggests.

But other predators have had to rely on nighttime hunting, and they can see better than we can.

And unless we are safely behind 4 walls of something, in a dog-eat-dog kind of a world, we are at a disadvantage.

My own great-grandfather recorded in his journal that in the jungles of Mexico when he was a boy, his family was forced to sleep in trees to avoid falling victims to wild boars in the night.

The danger of the dark was and is real, unless you have enough money and resources to protect you from it.

And even then, nothing can make someone completely safe in their own home.

So our ancestors told stories to their children to try to keep them safe. Some stories are grand and some not so much.  And no matter the story I think that we moderns owe it to the ancestors who told these stories, who kept their children safe long enough to have children of their own, these people who became the very people whose genes live in our body, we owe it to them to be a little gentler with the way they viewed the world.

They told stories of an oil lamp that had only enough oil for one night, but lasted 8!

This is of course the story of Hannukah, and it’s origins are from the 2^nd Century Before the Common Era.  Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple (the Second Temple) in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire.

This morning, we light a menorah, even though Hannakuh was early this year, in honor of this story of fighting back the night.

(Menorah lighted.)

Stories were told of a baby, born in a manger, a very humble beginning.

This of course is the story of Jesus of Nazareth. His birth was meant to have been announced by angels to shepherds, a star in the east guided three wise men to his cradle.

This morning, we light an advent candle to symbolize waiting and anticipation. Every person who has loved a woman who is pregnant knows this anticipation. The hopes that all will be well, that the baby will be healthy, that the mother will be healthy.

(Advent candle lighted.)

Picture with yourself on a grassy hill on the longest night of the year.

Imagine you can see dozens of such hills as they stretch into the distance. Atop each hill is a grand pile of wood, waiting to be lit. In turn, on this longest night, each pyre is lit in gratitude and anticipation that the next night will be shorter, and the day longer. That with the lengthening days will come spring, new life, new warmth, a new beginning.

This morning we light our Yule log in gratitude that the Earth turns in her dance with the Sun, bringing us seasons of plenty.

(Yule log lighted.)

You may not personally believe in the miracle of the lamp, of the baby, or that lighting a fire on the longest night of the year actually invites the Sun to come back.

But surely you can identify with the hope that each of these stories represents.

“It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”

This quote was kind of hard to research. It’s become a quote that most of have heard, and are a little familiar with. It’s origins, however, are not so clear. It has been credited to everyone from Confucious to John F. Kennedy to a Men’s Group called “The Christophers,” a group founded by a Catholic priest from San Francisco.

Eleanor Roosevelt is also said to be the originator of this statement “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”

This is some good advice, whether it was first written by Mrs. Roosevelt or not.

This morning we have lit four candles. Our own chalice, a symbol that began with social justice, the menorah, a candle of Advent and a Yule log.

We have also lit candles of that represent sorrows.

There is clearly some deep truth about candles and hard times.

It doesn’t take a belief in the super or extra-natural world to understand why humans have such an attachment to the light of day.

In deference to, what I think of as Mrs. Roosevelt’s wisdom, I encourage to re-direct your frustrations.

The easy thing to do, the default thing to do, is to assume the stance that the world is going to Hell in a hand-basket, whether we actually believe in Hell or not.

It is easier to set your jaw to clenching, and your lips into a frown, hunching your shoulders down, than it is to hold up hope as your guide.

There are times when hope, to be perfectly fair and clear, there are times when hope is hard to find. “And I’ll bring you hope, when hope is hard to find. And I’ll bring a song of love, and a rose in the winter time.”

 As the song implies, your companions will bring you hope, a song of love, and a rose in the winter’s time.

Sometimes you are the recipient of that gift of a candle in the darkness, sometimes you are the one who is the bearer of light yourself.

As Albert Schweitzer wrote “At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person.  Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”

As we emerge from the longest, darkest, and wouldn’t it be great if it were the coldest, night of the year, here is my challenge to you.

Even in the most difficult of times, we have an ability to light a candle, metaphorically or in reality. We have some people in this congregation who have had some VERY rough times, and some very difficult times as recently as this week.

If you find yourself in such a state that it would take more strength than you can muster to light a candle for yourself, ask someone who cares about you to do it for you. I know that to ask for help is difficult for us, particularly when we are feeling vulnerable, but to reach out for help is really offering a gift to your companions in life. It will give them an opportunity to help.

An opportunity that we all yearn for.

When I am asked to lead a memorial service, it is of course a great honor. I know that I have a role to play in that service and in that ritual. That seems obvious to even the most anti-clerical and anti-authoritarian among us.

To use language that might cause a little bit of a stir here, from ancient times it has been the role of the priest of priestess to aid in the transition between life and death. This is one of the ancient responsibilities that comes with being the spiritual leader of a group of people.

And it is a deep honor that I take very seriously.

The family who has lost their loved one also has a role to play in the ritual. They are to be the bereaved.  If they cannot be still on the day of the memorial, if they cannot allow the people who loved, admired, worked beside the loved one they’ve lost, they are keeping the community from a very important step in the mourning process.

To tell someone who has lost their mother, “I’m sorry for your loss, I was a great admirer of your Mom,” allows your Mother’s co-worker to participate in the ancient ritual of the funeral. They can not do this, they cannot complete their own cycle of mourning, if the family isn’t there, prepared to receive this affection.

In this exchange, each person, the co-worker and the grieving child, light a candle for each other. The candle says “We have loved and lost together,” even if the two surviving people have never been in a room together.

It is better to light a candle, then to curse the darkness.

Change what you can change. If the room is dark, it is better to bring light into the room than it is to complain with bitterness.  If you cannot bring light yourself, seek the help of someone who can.

When Adlai Stevenson addressed the United Nations after Eleanor Roosevelt’s death in 1962, he said "She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world."

Peace in the Family

There are places that only the bravest venture into.

Alexander Pope, in his 1708 piece An Essay on Criticism: “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

Shakespeare wrote about fools in many of his plays, and in a lot of literature; they are the ones who speak the truth.

Because of the place they occupy at the Royal Court, Fools and Jesters can say what no one else dare say, since they live both inside and outside the system.

Families, they warn you in seminary, are dangerous territory. One of the first things they teach you is to NOT try to be the minister in your own family. It will never work. To your Mom you will always be the kid who cut their teeth on the coffee table, to your Dad you will be the who kept borrowing tools and not putting them back, etc.

There is always more to a family than you can see on the surface. People, myself included, have blind spots around their own family, and there are hidden influences everywhere.

Some of you may remember that I have shared a little youtube video called “Friedman's Theory of Differentiated Leadership Made Simple”[1] with the Board and one of last year’s Church council’s meeting. Edwin Friedman was a Rabbi and a family therapist who studied family systems theory. Friedman studied under a man called Murray Bowen, who was an American psychiatrist and one of the pioneers of family therapy, systematic therapy and in the 1950’s began working on a systems approach to family dynamics.

In the last two years I have attended trainings on family systems theory with a student of both Bowen and Friedman, called Bob Diddle. He and a small group of students of Bowen and Friedman have a formed a group to continue the academic study of their teachers. These students have been meeting for over 30 years, and many of them knew and studied with Murray and Ed.

I’m going to share Friedman’s version of Cinderella with you.

 (Insert Edwin Friedman's "Cinderella" from Friedman's Fables)

The moral of the story is that all the world loves a charmer, but nobody remembers the responsible person’s birthday.[2]

Here are some of the questions that are razed by Friedman by way of his re-telling of Cinderella.

How did Cindy’s Stepmother get herself stuck with all this responsibility? What is it in her own past that got triggered by this doting widower who was going to be rarely home, who was going to stick her with raising his kid?

What is it that the stepmother is always considered “mean” and the natural father always “nice”?

Does Cindy’s stepmother have a right to treat her as if she were her own child?

Is discipline more important than affection in parenting?

What does the popularity of the original, romantic version say about society’s avoidance of dealing with issues?

As Irish novelist Maeve Binchy wrote “Everybody is a hero in their own story if you just look.”

I’d like to invite you for a moment into reflection about your own story. How might one of your siblings or cousins tell your story differently? How about one of your parents?

What Bowen and Friedman are inviting you to do is to look at the story of your family from a systems perspective. They want you to ask questions like how does your birth order effect the way you walk in the world.

Are you the oldest son in the family and also the first-born? Then chances are pretty good you’re going to be in some kind of a leader position your whole life, because it’s what you learned as a small toddler. Are you the oldest girl in your family? Well, then you’re probably a Mom figure. Are you the oldest girl, but the second born? You’re probably still going to be a Mom figure.

Are you the youngest? Chances are you’ll take bigger risks, see your oldest sibling as a stick in the mud who cares more about responsibility than fun.

I don’t agree with all that Bowen and Friedman put forth, but it is a tool that can be used to ask questions about the way you navigate in the world.

You may recall that I was in Oregon earlier this year, and this was so that I could attend these trainings on family systems.

While the people I met there were very nice, the system sort of put a burr under my saddle.

And right now, because you’re the middle child, you’re wondering if once again, you’ve been over looked and forgotten. Don’t worry, you haven’t been.

So back to Oregon…

There was something that just sort of bugged me about the system. And then one presenter said “The ideal marriage is between an oldest son and a youngest daughter who has older brothers.”

Now I want you to know that I had been a very good student up to that point.

I was in a room with 26 other ministers at this workshop. All of them were various flavors of Christian; all of them heterosexual and all of them white as the day is long.

Putting a multi-racial, gay, non-Christian minister who believes, perhaps somewhat radically in a Love that transcends all boundaries, into a room like this is pretty much like setting a kitchen timer.

Eventually, there’s going to be a very loud ding.

“The ideal marriage is between an oldest son and a youngest daughter who has older brothers.”

This was the moment when I went “Uhm, what?”

And there you have three days of responsible studentship, sunk in a moment. Foolishly, or perhaps with a Machiavellian genius that I do not possess, the presenter said “Do you have a question, Joe?”

“The best possible marriage for whom?” I asked. “For a man who doesn’t like to be challenged? For two people who want to blindly perpetuate the patriarchy?”

Like all tools, the Bowen/Freidman theories have their spots that they don’t address, but they can be a good at getting one to consider the role you play in your own family, and how that role promotes or discourages peace.

Peace in the family.

And once you take a hard, long look at your role, how do you want to change your own behavior to promote peace with the ones you live with?

Here are three simple examples.

Can you stop being the bossy older brother, and just try to be the older brother who listens? 

Can you be the youngest sister who goes against the narrative her family has built for her and clearly demonstrate your leadership style?

Can you be the middle child who doesn’t keep score?

By better knowing ourselves, we are more able to become the kind of people we admire. By questioning our behavioral habits, and figuring out what’s behind them, we can break old systems of frustration and create peace in our homes.

It’s a long journey, I know, but you’re on a journey through your life anyway, why not make your journey that of an awakened, alert and intentional person?

I know you can do it. I have faith.

---

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgdcljNV-Ew

[2] Friedman, Milton, Friedman’s Fables, © 1990.

The Spiritual Practice of Gratitude

There is something in the American psyche that defaults to dis-satisfaction.

I figured that was a better opening line than saying “We are a nation of mal-contents.”

All kidding aside, though, I have spent a lot of time wondering about just why that is, and how this is a core value to the American way of life.

We are a forward-looking people, who sometimes look back into our past, and the image we see is almost always more photogenic than reality. And this brings up a conflict for us.

In the past, our lives were better. We have the “good old days,” and from that false projection of the good old days, we forecast that today is not as good, and the world is just going to you know where in a handbasket.

I read a book once called “The Way We Never Were,” that sort of brought this idea to mind. I read easily over a decade ago, and so it is in storage back in the Mid-West, so I can’t quote it directly to you, but the gist of the book is that we have this false idea about who we used to be as a nation, and we liked that version better.

This happens to each generation in turn. Some long for the days before “horseless carriages” were everywhere, some long for a world that looked like Leave it to Beaver.

Personally, I’m hoping that my own generation will be cooler than that, but evidence to date shows that we are no better than anyone else,

so at the very least I’m hoping we long for something cool, like Rubik’s Cube or something.


It seems to be in our genetic code that live in the tension between nostalgia and pushing forth into a new world that we create, in which we can find greater happiness.


The very arrival of Europeans onto this continent was a giant experiment in “there must be something better, somewhere.”

For both commercial and spiritual reasons, Europeans risked weeks over an ocean to come to a place unknown to them. The Mayflower voyage, for example, was 66 days from England to the sighting of land at Cape Cod, which as you probably know, was not where they actually settled.

These dissenters who broke away from the Church of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth the first in a little village called Scrooby… these dissenters are part of our own theological ancestry.

I know it may be hard to hear for some, but we descend, in large part, from the Puritans. Theologically, we are very different from that group of ancestors, but in behavior, not so much.


Our Ancestors the Dissenters and the Puritans were so called because they led a movement within the Church of England to purify the church. They were trying to return the church to a “more pure” form of Christianity. To them the Church of England looked too much like that Church in Rome.

Having found the church of their youth so untenable, they left that church behind them and sought a new way of religious life.

Does that sound familiar to any of you?

They, like us, did this in part because of the pursuit of happiness and well-being. They were looking for a way to live their lives that would put them more in concert with their understanding of God’s will, a way to live that they could be grateful for.


Now, it’s fairly likely that your own definition of understanding the will of what is Holy, that which is of ultimate importance, is quite different from the understanding of William Bradford, the author of “Of Plimouth Plantation,” which records the journeys of the Dissenters from Scrooby to Plymouth, Massachusetts.

But your desire to live a life that is in concert with your values is likely VERY similar.

And you may not have left your home, moved to a foreign country for 17 years, and then left for an unknown land to bring the bright beacon of a City on the Hill into being, but you’ve made your own journey.


And now, like the Pilgrims who arrived at Plymouth Rock, we are in a new place.

We no longer have to be tied to a life directed by a tireless pursuit of happiness. We no longer have to look to the mall for guidance about what makes a good life.


As Rev. Meg Barnhouse sang to us during the offering, We have been thinking Mango thoughts in this meatloaf town.  When I say “this town,” of course I don’t mean Modesto. You know how much I have enjoyed living here. “This town” refers to our whole culture.

Meg’s song is a song of joy and gratitude. She wrote this song for her Unitarian Universalist congregation, and it fits all of us.

She could’ve written a song about how much consumerism stinks. About the seemingly endless treadmill of advertisements offering us a new, quicker way to happiness.  But she’s smarter than that.

Meg knows that a big part of happiness is looking around you and really loving what you’ve found.

And this can be a big challenge for people.

Even on regular days there are all sorts of things that can upset your apple cart. People drive poorly, people do horrible things to each other around the globe. The news is filled with misery.

And there are also sometimes internal forces that one has to deal with. Depression, a blue day, a broken heart.

But what I hope Meg’s song will get you to think about is how the everyday can offer you so much to be grateful for…if you can just see it in the ordinary.


In this very room there are dozens of things to be grateful for. There are people that we care about, and people who care about us.

Believe me, when you’re feeling friendless and alone, a room like this is a miracle.


Today’s sermon is called “The Spiritual Practice of Gratitude,” so I assume you guessed that you’d get some pretty concrete ideas about how to make this happen.

It’s very simple, really.

Take time to notice all the blessings of life around you.

In her Contribution to This I Believe, Mary Chapin Carpenter’s wrote:

One morning, the young man who rang up my groceries and asked me if I wanted paper or plastic also told me to enjoy the rest of my day.  I looked at him and I knew he meant it.  It stopped me in my tracks. I went out and I sat in my car and cried.

 What I want more than ever is to appreciate that I have this day, and tomorrow, and hopefully days beyond that.  I am experiencing the learning curve of gratitude. 

A moment that took Mary completely by surprise, the kindness and authentic wish that some stranger would enjoy the rest of their day, brought her to tears. Tears of gratitude.


You’ve already come so far from the Standard American Life of orthodox religion, stepped away from mindless consumerism, you think about the earth when you recycle. You are more awake to the world than many of the people we know.

This doesn’t make us better, of course. Being awake comes with it’s own price.

But being awake also comes with tremendous benefits.
One of those benefits could be a focus on gratitude.


Just like when you buy groceries, you make choices that are best for your body, and the body of those you love. So you can, at every instance, choose a path of gratitude.

When you take a walk around your neighborhood, instead of noticing that your one neighbor hasn’t taken care of their yard in the way that you would, focus on something that brings you joy.


You may remember back when I gave that sermon on Wonder Woman.  During my research for that sermon, I came across an article that said “If you want to have the confidence of Wonder Woman, stand like she does. Your body will respond chemically to that stance, and you will, in fact, feel more confident.”

In a similar way, if you want to live a life deep in gratitude, you only need to assume the position of gratitude. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.


Here are a few hints about what you might do to help you walk in gratitude.

At the end of the day, spend 5 minutes recording the good things that happened each day. Make a bullet list, or if only one good thing happened today, write about it great detail for 5 minutes.


If you’re like me, though, that practice will last about 3 days. I’m not a good journaler.

So now I do make a mental list while I brush my teeth before bedtime.

Though I can offer no scientific proof, I think this also helps me to sleep better.

When I wake up in the morning, I spend 5 minutes, after I let the dogs out, to sit in my quiet home and think about what makes me feel grateful.

This week while I’ve been doing this practice, there has been peppermint soap curing on the dining room table, so my nose is filled with one of my favorite, fresh clean scents.

These two, small, simple practices can take you a long way toward a greater awareness of the gratitude swarming around you.


If you get really ambitious, you might even try to take time during your lunch to notice what you’re grateful for. Or at dinner.

Denis and I say grace pretty regularly at home. It’s a grace that he introduced me to.

“Bless the Sun and the Earth and the marriage in between. Bless those who plant, those who sow, those who reap, those who buy, sell and transport this bounty which we are about to eat. May we take the energy from this food and use it to make good in the world.”

There are slight variations in it most days, but that’s the general idea of it.


If you want to live a life of radical gratitude, you must find a way that works for you, that brings gratitude to mind.

You can choose the default position of “what I have is not, and will never be enough,” or you can discover that in your life that which is enough.

And you can sigh with happiness.


I’d like to recommend one more radical act of gratitude, and that is to express it to others.

Don't think of gratitude as something you share only with yourself, as something that is only internal.

Think about what happened to Mary in that grocery store. Imagine what it would be like for a clerk at O’Brien’s for you to say to them, every time you see them, “Thank you. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day,” and you really, really mean it.

Amen.

Conversation, Not Conversion

It was sort of a brisk April morning in Chicago, and I was a little nervous. We had been dating about 6 months when Greg asked me to go to church with him, as he thought I might really like it.

I had been going to a gay-friendly Presbyterian church near my apartment up to this point. I’d chosen it because for a brief period my family had attended a Presbyterian church when I was growing up, there was a rainbow flag on their church sign, and it was close enough that I could walk to services. On days I was feeling fancy, I would even stop into the Starbucks and get a mocha latte, and still be in the sanctuary in time for the prelude.

It’s true that I had to skip parts of the Apostle’s Creed, and I never took communion there, but the people were nice, and still being fairly new to Chicago, it was nice to be around people since I hadn’t really made many friends yet.

But this morning I was going to a different church, a church I’d never heard of. The First Unitarian Society of Chicago. I supposed it would be somewhat like the Presbyterian church in that there would be things they would believe that I didn’t, but that I would just skip over the parts that I didn’t want to say.

And it isn’t that I didn’t want to say them out of some sense of moral high-ground. I just didn't think it was polite to lie in someone else’s church just to fit in.


After our breakfast, we walked to church in Hyde Park, up to this big stone, cathedral-looking building. We walked in through the double doors and into, what I learned later was a replica of a 14th century Norman cathedral. It looked very high church, and I got even more nervous.

But then the greeters said Hello, and Greg and I sat down, and the funniest thing happened.

Well, actually it didn’t happen, and that what was funny to me

Nobody paid us any attention.

Nobody shot us, a gay couple, dirty looks.  Nobody fell all over themselves to show how liberal and accepting they were.

We were boring! We were just regular and every day to these folks.

And to me, in 1996, that was amazing.



Like Starr King School for the Ministry, here in the East Bay, my own seminary is part of a collection of seminaries, where you can take classes. So I took classes at the Lutheran School of Theology, the University of Chicago Divinity School and so on. This also meant that students from other schools could take classes at our school.

Meadville Lombard is a small school, and the student to professor ratio was about 6:1 in a class. This meant that you could not “pretend” to have done the reading, because there was no sitting in the back of the classroom.

I had a class there on theatre arts in worship. There were four of my classmates there and…. four Lutheran seminarians. We were like the Jets and the Sharks, but only theologically, and there was no dance music.

One afternoon in class, after we’d been together a couple of weeks, one of the women from the Lutheran school asked us about our conversion experiences. Because by now, it had become clear to her that we were not going to be Christian ministers in any way, at least not by her definition, and in genuine curiosity, she asked about our stories.

She told us that at 14 she had welcomed Jesus Christ into her heart, and then a little bit about how that worked in her life. The other three Lutherans told earnest stories that were largely similar.

And the Unitarian Universalists began to sweat.

As each of us told our stories about how we found our way, each as adults it so happened, to Unitarian Universalism I began to notice a pattern.

Unitarian Universalists don’t have “conversion experiences, I think,” I told our classmates. “We have coming home experiences. We spend our whole lives looking for people who are like us, who agree that there is more than one truth, one path, one way to live. We try this group and that church, and then one day, we find ourselves at the door of a Unitarian Universalist church, we sit down, and for the first time, maybe in our lives, we well, we exhale as if we’ve just come home.”

We realize that we have found our people.

Here it doesn’t matter if your people share your ethnicity, the color of your skin, the way you define gender, or your affectional orientation. These are your people.

And like all extended families, you have the weird uncle, you have the aunt who insists on kissing your cheek when you see her. You have ancestors of whom you can be very proud, and some you wish had made better choices. There are the cousins who are too loud, and the ones allergic to peanuts.

But they are your people.

They become your people by conversation. By sharing narratives of lives, by telling their stories about theological journey, and then them asking you about yours.

And here’s the funny part: they listen. It’s not just a polite dance of expected small talk.

And conversation by conversation, event by event, week by week, you go from saying “I can agree with the philosophy of what Unitarian Universalism is about,” to “I am a Unitarian Universalist.”
Conversion by conversation.

There are people among us today who have made this journey from “I agree” to “I am.” It is a privilege to be companions on their journey and to welcome them into Fellowship with us.


If you happen to be a visitor to our congregation this morning, don’t worry, there won’t be an altar call! There’ll be no pressure for you to sign up and join us. These folks have agreed in advanced to join us, after giving it a lot of thought, and going through several afternoons of discussion about what it means to be a member here. Or we were just lucky enough to have them move up here from San Diego where they were members there.

But this is almost universally how we become Unitarian Universalists. We find others who agree that all life should be valued, that each person has inherent worth, and deserves dignity. We believe in an honest search for meaning in the world. We know that no matter what your theological inspiration, Christian, Pagan, Buddhist, Atheist, Hindu, Agnostic, Mystic or some combination, we have only our own hands, and the hands of our fellow travellers, to create a world a place for more fair, more just, and more loving.

On this lovely, crisp morning we welcome new members into our covenant. They by signing our membership book, and then we as a whole, now larger body make verbal affirmation of this, our shared journey.

I hope you’ll forgive me if I get a little religious at a moment like this, but I’m the minister, and I’m somewhat pre-disposed to it.

Will those who are present and who are joining our Fellowship, please come forward?
(after they come forward)

May your individual journey with this Fellowship be long and fruitful. May you come to know that these people will love you deeply, warts and all. That they will comfort you when life is hard. They will bring you food when you are sick, they will cry with you when someone you love dies.

They will celebrate your victories with all of their hearts. They will protect your children as their own.

They will teach you and your kids, by example, how to live a life in concert with your values.

They will challenge you, and push your buttons. They will happily and without complaint accommodate your aging bodies.


Please join me in a spirit of prayer.

Spirit of Love, look upon us this morning. Swim among and between us. So often we rush from moment to moment in this life, help us to pause for this one moment so that we may recognize its deep meaning,

and celebrate the homecoming of these lovely people.

Amen.

(c) The Reverend Joseph M Cherry