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Gathering Music Welcome & Announcements Centering Prelude Meditation on "Prayer for This House" by Robert N. Quaile Performed by Mary Bopp Introduction to the Service First Reading Musical Interlude Chalice Lighting and Opening Words Opening Hymn #1 "May Nothing Evil Cross This Door" (Also known as "Prayer for This House") Words: Louis Untermeyer Music: Robert N. Quaile Led by David Klotz May nothing evil cross this door, and may ill fortune never pry about these windows; may the roar and rain go by. By faith made strong, the rafters will withstand the battering of the storm. This hearth, though all the world grow chill, will keep you warm. Peace shall walk softly through these rooms, touching our lips with holy wine, till every casual corner blooms into a shrine. With laughter drown the raucous shout, and, though these sheltering walls are thin, may they be strong to keep hate out and hold love in. Joys & Concerns Musical Interlude Offering For the month of September, our Community Outreach offering will be shared by two organizations: Power Up brings much needed visibility to the ongoing realities of racism in Manchester and surrounding communities. Some UUSE members and friends have participated in Power Up's pantry, after school programs, rallies, protests and other actions. Manchester Latino Affairs Council The Manchester Latino Affairs Council (M.L.A.C.) was established in January of 2007. Its current mission is to address social issues with a focus on diversity, inclusivity and equality within Manchester's Latino community. MLAC sponsors Manchester's annual Hispanic Heritage Day, and is looking forward to its first public "Three Kings Celebration" in January and a "Latina Heart Health Walk" next April. Offering Music "Longing to Belong" by Mary Bopp Second Reading Musical Interlude Homily in Three Parts Jane Penfield and David Klotz Greg Dupuis Congregation Closing Hymn #128 "For All That is Our Life" Words: Bruce Findlow Music: Patrick L. Rickey Led by David Klotz For all that is our life we sing our thanks and praise; for all life is a gift which we are called to use to build the common good and make our own days glad. For needs which others serve, for services we give, for work and its rewards, for hours of rest and love; we come with praise and thanks for all that is our life. For sorrow we must bear, for failures, pain, and loss, for each new thing we learn, for fearful hours that pass: we come with praise and thanks for all that is our life. For all that is our life we sing our thanks and praise; for all life is a gift which we are called to use to build the common good and make our own days glad. Extinguishing the Chalice and Closing Words Closing Circle May faith in the spirit of life And hope for the community of earth And love of the light in each other Be ours now, and in all the days to come.

In late September, the Aesthetics Committee will be mounting a new triptych. The current exhibit will come down to make room for autumn-themed artwork. The first exhibit was such a success, we are limiting this one to a single submission for each person. Members who are poets may wish to enter an original poem. As with artwork, poetry must be framed in order to be hung on the exhibit rails. If you would like to participate, please email Carolyn Emerson. Include the following information: Your name, title of artwork or poem, framed size, phone, email price or NFS (not for sale). Questions? 860-646-5151.

04/01/12 The Rev. Josh Pawelek Video here In his new book, A Universe From Nothing,[1] cosmologist Lawrence M. Krauss attempts to definitively answer an ancient question: “Why is there something, rather than nothing?” I’d like to play around with this question this morning—the question of creation. How did the universe, our planet, and life on our planet come to be? How did it all begin? This question lies at the heart of the religious imagination. This question lies at the heart of the scientific imagination. But perhaps it’s most accurate to say, simply, this question lies at the heart of the human imagination. I say this because most of us, at some point in our lives—or at many points in our lives—have experiences wherein we encounter some feature of our surroundings in a special or unique way—whether by seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting or touching—something takes us by surprise, something takes our breath away—as if we’re encountering it for the very first time—we become awestruck, and we wonder: how did all this all begin? These shining stars, this blazing sun, this waxing and waning moon, this solid, green earth, these rolling oceans, these towering mountains, this moist air, this newborn baby, these breathing lungs, this beating heart: how is it possible all this exists? I suspect most of you have asked this question in some way, have wondered about our origins in some way, at some point in your lives. How did it all begin? Why is there something, rather than nothing? I also assume most people wonder for a few moments, ask the question—how did this all begin?—and then realize the answer is pretty much beyond the capacity of the human mind to fathom. The wondering ends as they go back to whatever it was they were doing. Except there have always been some people who, for whatever reason, can’t let the question go. They keep wondering. They say, “no, this is not beyond our ability; we can figure this out!” They try to make their human minds fathom creation. They are usually either scientists or theologians. And I notice that, for them, the question mutates a bit. It’s not just, “Why is there something, rather than nothing?” It becomes “Did the universe arise out of nothing?” Or “Did the universe arise out of something?” Something from nothing? Or something from something else? The theologians argue amongst themselves. The scientists argue amongst themselves. And of course, as they argue amongst themselves, the theologians—at least the more conservative ones—contend that the scientists are utterly wrong. And the scientists—at least the more secular ones—contend that the theologians are utterly wrong. For a traditional theological example of the debate over creation from nothing or something, if you were to open a Bible and turn to the very first word on the very first page of the very first book—and if you were reading in ancient Hebrew—the word you would encounter is bereshit. In English the typical translation of bereshit is “In the beginning.” The whole sentence is typically rendered as “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth.” But another translation is possible. The sentence can also be rendered as “When God set out to create the heavens and the earth.” For centuries, if not millennia, in a variety of languages, theologians have debated which version is more accurate, which version might be more akin to how the ancient Israelites understood it, or which version is more in keeping with the latest church doctrine. It might not sound like an important distinction to our modern ears, especially to those with modern liberal religious ears, but it turns out there’s a lot at stake in how one translates bereshit. In short, the more common translation—“In the beginning”—suggests the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo—creation out of nothing—the doctrine that God existed first, before anything else, and that God caused all material to come into existence in order to create the heavens and the earth. The other, less common translation—“When God set out to create”—suggests the doctrine of creatio ex materia—creation out of material, out of stuff, out of things—the doctrine that something existed before God, and God used it to create the heavens and the earth.[2] Turning to science, consider Krauss’ book, A Universe From Nothing. Full disclosure: I have not read Krauss’ book, and I probably won’t read it unless Fred Sawyer purchases a sermon (which he has) and asks me to preach on it. I have read Columbia professor of philosophy David Albert’s recent review of the book. Apparently Krauss argues that the laws of quantum mechanics provide “a thoroughly scientific and adamantly secular explanation”[3] of the origins of the universe. In short, the universe emerged from a quantum vacuum state, which Krauss defines as nothing, hence the title of the book, A Universe From Nothing. It’s a scientific version of creatio ex nihilo. Albert, who is also an expert in quantum mechanics, flatly rejects Krauss’ thesis, saying it’s “just not right”[4]—though he doesn’t offer an alternative answer to the creation question in the book review. But fear not! Another book I haven’t read—and won’t read unless Fred Sawyer asks me to—is Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang by physicists Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok.[5] They propose the “Cyclic Universe” theory which suggests “the Big Bang was not the beginning of time but the bridge to a past filled with endlessly repeating cycles of evolution.”[6] A scientific version of creatio ex materia! The universe is recycled from the material of countless prior universes. Again, I think it’s kinda funny and even provocative that the theologians and the scientists are having the same debate within their respective fields. What they talk about and how they get there are radically different, but it comes down to the same two conclusions: creation from nothing or something. Our ministry theme for April is creation. I admit we did not choose this theme so that we could spin our heads around theological and scientific arguments about the origins of the universe. We chose this theme primarily to match the season, the beginning of spring in New England, the time in the cycle of the year when Earth’s creative energy is immediate and sensual to us; the time in the cycle of the year when the smells, sights, tastes, sounds and the feel of new life are immediate and sensual to us: the fresh air, the first flowers pushing through the barren ground; the first buds on trees and bushes and shrubs; blooming forsythias, azaleas, daffodils, tulips and dogwoods dotting the land; soil turned over and ready for planting; bird-song chiming in the pre-dawn hours; earth worms digging; moles tunneling through our lawns; mice and voles rummaging through our basements, or garages or sheds; grease ants traipsing through our cupboards or across our kitchen floors; mud after the first spring rains; warmth after the long, grey winter. In the words we heard earlier from e.e. cummings, it is the time in the cycle of the year “for the leaping greenly spirits / of trees / and a blue true dream of sky; and / for everything / which is natural which is infinite / which is yes.”[7] It’s a heady season: impetuous, adolescent, lusty, exhilarating, earthy, feverish, sexy and creative. Yes, spring is Earth’s season for creation. When I started putting my thoughts together for this sermon, I imagined I was going to say something different about creation. Well, not just different—something really cool, hip, clever, maybe a little quirky, but definitely unexpected and outside the box of the usual ways of answering the question of creation. In our weekly UUS:E eblast I even suggested I would offer a new question entirely. My intuition told me there’d be a new question come Sunday morning. But it never came. I don’t have a new question. It turns out I have deeply partisan convictions when it comes to the debate over creation out of nothing or something. But late Friday afternoon I was still trying to figure it out. Do you remember Friday afternoon? It was beautiful. Having already kicked the boys outside to play in the yard before dinner, I decided to join them. Intuition told me that getting away from the sitting-at-the-computer-trying-to-make-my-brain-fathom-where-the-universe-came-from mode and spending some time outside in the dirt with children might help. The Outdoor Car Tournament Track! When I arrived outside, Mason ask if we could hold a “car tournament.” To hold a car tournament we first have to build a track for our Matchbox and Hotwheels cars. Once the track is built, we race the cars down it one after the other. If they fall off the track, they’re out. If they make it all the way down, they move onto the next round. There are fewer and fewer cars each round. When there’s one car left we have a winner. Then we start over. When we do this outside, we build the track out of pieces of wood from an old swing-set/play-scape that I store under the shed. We prop it up with bricks, buckets and other junk we have lying around. It takes a while to build because the long, flat pieces of wood need to line up just right so that the cars can drive over them seamlessly. We really get into it. We lose ourselves in it. And there we were, lost in it, building our track with the bright sun beginning to set in the western sky; dust rising around us from our busy work on the track; the azalea and forsythia bushes in full bloom all around us; spring’s fragrant, fresh air smell in our nostrils; bees buzzing; and the sounds of other kids playing in other yards echoing around the neighborhood—an utterly different experience from sitting-at-the-computer-trying-to-make-my-brain-fathom-where-the-universe-came-from. It’s hard to find words, but I’m trying to describe a full-bodied, sensual experience—as in all five senses engaged. This is the poet cummings asking “how should tasting touching / hearing seeing / breathing—lifted from the no / of all nothing—human merely / being / doubt unimaginable You?”[8] This is a physical experience, a bodily experience, a yoga experience, an embedded experience, a grounded experience where instinct matters more than thought, where the present moment outweighs the past and the future, where the need for play subdues the need for work, and where creativity abounds—not only in our play, but in the color, the fragrance, the energy, the returning life flowing through everything around us. Spring is Earth’s season for creation. And this is what I observe: we create out of the materials at hand—pieces of wood, bricks, buckets, junk. We do not create out of nothing. And the Earth around us creates out of the materials at hand—water, soil, sunlight, air; not out of nothing. In this little dell at the bottom of our hill, where the ground is soft, where the water runs to after the rains, where moss will blanket the ground by the middle of May—in this little Eden—everything is created from something. I don’t offer this observation in order to win an argument over the correct way to imagine the origins of the universe. I don’t need to win that argument and besides, the words imagination and correct don’t really belong in the same sentence anyways. I suspect some physicists and theologians alike may object to this, but to some degree all our efforts to answer the questions of creation are acts of imagination. So it strikes me that in addition to physicists and theologians, we also need to consult storytellers and poets for their insights. When we do that a picture of our origins begins to emerge—not a proof, not the findings of literary and linguistic Biblical analysis, not the results of rigorous tests of scientific models, not even something we can say is true in any objective sense—but a picture of what resides in the collective human imagination: creation arises out of something. My search this week has not been exhaustive, but I cannot find a creation story from any culture—ancient or modern—where creation arises out of nothing. So often creation arises out of some massive explosion, some obliterating flood, some destructive catastrophe that ended an earlier age. I read to you earlier a brief version of “Icanchu’s Drum” from the Wichí people of northern Argentina and Southern Bolivia. The new world arises out of the ashes of the previous world, specifically out of a charcoal stump Icanchu is using as a drum. “Playing without stopping, he chanted with the dark drum’s sounds and danced to its rhythms. At dawn on the New Day, a green shoot sprang from the coal drum and soon flowered as Firstborn tree, the Tree of Trials at the Center of the World. From its branches bloomed the forms of life that flourish in the New World.”[9] In other stories, creation arises out of a kind of disordered, ominous, dark chaos. The Boshongo people of the Congo speak of a primordial, watery darkness in which the God Bumba sleeps.[10] Some of the Chinese origin myths involving the God Pan Gu speak of a big, gooey mess surrounding a large, black egg.[11] Even the Biblical book of Genesis speaks of a wind moving across the face of the waters prior to God’s first act of creation. From our story-telling selves, our poetic selves, our intuitive selves, the picture of creation that emerges is ex materia. Creativity, to become real, to have some physical result in the world, must act upon some thing. Judging by the stories we human beings have told ourselves over the millennia, we have a collective hunch that the universe arose out of something, not nothing. Friday night one of my best friends in the world called from Boston. His wife had just gone into labor—their first child. I took the call as an affirmation, a sign, a reminder of yet another way to look at origins. None of us came into the world out of nothing. We came as muscles began to contact; we came as a jolt, a bump, a wind, a cut awakened us from our primordial slumber. We came out of the dark, still waters of our mother’s womb. We came into the world in a gooey mess of blood and amniotic fluid. In the end, the stories we tell of creation (as distinct from our scientific and theological analyses) are not meant to be factual. That’s why we call them myths and poems. They are meant to tell us something about ourselves and the universe we inhabit. But even if we’ve never heard them, our bodies seem to know: however it all began, a creative drive lives at the heart of the universe and lives in each of us; and it is, like spring, heady, impetuous, adolescent, lusty, exhilarating, earthy, feverish, sexy. When we set out to create, our bodies know even if our minds don’t, if we want our creations to be real—if we want them to manifest in ways we can see, hear, taste, smell and touch—then we must create out of the materials at hand. I’m not sure there’s any other way. We must create out of some thing. In this light, creation out of nothing is just hard to imagine. Amen and Blessed Be. [1] Krauss, Lawrence M., A Universe From Nothing: Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing (New York: Free Press, 2012). [2] I found two blogs that explain the difference between creatio ex nihilo and creatio ex materia. Check out: http://www.religioustolerance.org/crebegin.htm http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=3507 [3] Albert, David, “On the Origins of Everything,” New York Times Book Review, March 25, 2012, p. 20. [4] Ibid., p. 21. The full quote is: “But that’s just not right. Relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical vacuum states—no less than giraffes or refirgerators or solar systems—are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff.” [5] Steinhardt, Paul J. & Turok, Neil, Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang (New York: Doubleday, 2007). [6] http://endlessuniverse.net/. [7] cummings, e.e. “I thank you god for most this amazing day” in Singing the Living Tradition (Boston: Beacon Press and the Unitarian Universalist Association, 1993) #504. [8] Ibid. [9] Sullivan, Lawrence E., Icanchu’s Drum: An Orientation to Meaning in South American Religions (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1988) frontispiece and p. 92. [10] Dawkins, Richard The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True (New York: Free Press, 2011) p. 161. [11] Ibid., p. 161.

Rev. Josh M. Pawelek Unitarian Universalist Society: East Manchester, CT September 17, 2023 Our ministry theme for September is welcome, a fitting theme for the first month of the congregational year when we welcome each other home; when we say words and sing hymns of welcome, invitation, entering and rejoicing, returning, joining together, gathering the spirit. I love the words we say to new members of our congregation: We welcome you as companions in the search for truth and meaning. We invite you to share in our mission of caring for one another, encouraging each other in spiritual growth, working for justice and peace in the wider community, and living in harmony with the earth. We join our gifts with yours, trusting in the power of community to bring freedom, healing, and love. And it feels so appropriate, every Sunday morning, to offer all of you, but especially visitors and newcomers, a warm hearty, heart-felt, enthusiastic, joy-filled, boisterous, raucous welcome. Sometimes I add “ebullient” to the mix, but I’m never sure if I’m pronouncing it correctly. And whether or not we pronounce any of the words correctly, the welcome that begins our worship and extends through Sunday morning, into the afternoon, into the coming weeks, months, years—that welcome is genuine, real and enduring. It is not contrived, not cosmetic, not simply a surface feature. It lives at the heart of our congregational life and it lives at the heart of Unitarian Universalism. So, welcome! And if you know me well, if you’ve been taking in my message over these past two decades serving as your minister, you will not be surprised to hear me say also that our welcome is far from perfect, that it has limitations, that we stumble, that changing our congregational culture so that it appeals to a greater range of people is difficult, decades-long work. Perhaps most obviously, we remain a largely White congregation. This is no secret. We know this. It begs the question: How do we increase and expand our welcome to People of Color who are looking for a non-traditional, liberal, religious community that includes atheists, humanists, agnostics, pagans and other kinds of theists, and takes the results of science seriously, as ours does, yet whose congregational life is less Euro-centric and more multicultural, as ours is not? How do we increase and expand our welcome to people whose first language is Spanish or Portuguese or American Sign Language—people for whom English isn’t an option? I might add that this year our Social Justice / Anti-Oppression Committee plans to explore how we might begin using Spanish-language resources more regularly in worship and in all the ways we present ourselves to the wider community. If you can contribute to that exploration, please connect with the committee co-chairs, Maureen Flanagan and Monica Van Beusekom. How do we increase and expand our welcome to people with disabilities? Can we imagine accessibility beyond assisted listening devices, handicap parking spaces and our low scent guidelines? How do we increase and expand our welcome to people living with or in recovery from mental illness? I should also point out that plans are afoot—or will be later this year—to reinvigorate our mental health ministry in partnership with the Greater Hartford Interfaith Action Alliance. If you have an interest in that ministry, please feel free to connect with me. How do we increase and expand our welcome to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, nonbinary and queer people, especially in this era of legislative assaults, harassment, denial of health care and violence—even here in blue Connecticut, in Tolland where residents and the local Congregational church have been harassed all summer long by anti-gay hate groups? As a largely middle and upper middle class congregation, how do we increase and expand our welcome to poor and working class people? You likely haven’t heard me ask this question: How do we increase and expand our welcome to people who are seeking an engagement with Jesus—not necessarily the Jesus of Christianity, but the Jesus of first-century Galilee who offered that basic, enduring moral guidance from the grounding of his Hebrew tradition: “Love your neighbor as yourself?” I’m inspired in my thinking about this particular welcome by my colleague, the Rev. Carlton E. Smith, who currently serves on the Congregational Life staff at the Unitarian Universalist Association. Last year he published, Try My Jesus: Daily Reflections to Free Your Mind, Deepen Your Faith, and Invite Universal Love Into Your Life.” He writes from a Black, queer, Post-Pentecostal, UU perspective; and say “I especially hope [this book] finds its way into the hands of people who could benefit from an opportunity to see themselves inside the Jesus story—an affirmation of his authentic humanity as well as of his divinity, and of their own.” How do we increase and expand our welcome to people who value and want to hold onto their Islamic heritage, their Hindu heritage, their Jewish heritage, their Sikh heritage, yet who are also seeking a liberal, and liberating spiritual community that deeply values religious pluralism, and understands the United States not as an Evangelical Christian nation, but as a religiously diverse nation that maintains a clear separation of church and state? There are so many ways we name this work of increasing and expanding our welcome within Unitarian Universalism. In the 1990s when I began working for the Unitarian Universalist Association and studying for the ministry, we used the language of “Creating a Jubilee Word.” Later we referred to building an antiracist, anti-oppressive multicultural identity and practice (I still use that language). In recent years we’ve used the language of centering, as in centering the voices and life experiences of historically marginalized peoples in our congregations. We’ve used the language or addressing or confronting our own white supremacy culture. We’ve used the language of “decolonizing our faith.” We haven’t used the language of “diversity, equity and inclusion” so much here, but it’s certainly in the mix. We definitely use the language of “building the beloved community.” Those of you familiar with the proposal to adopt an 8th Unitarian Universalist principle know that work is also very much about increasing and expanding our welcome. Over the past two years I’ve grown attached to the language of “Widening the Circle of Concern,” which is the title of the 2020 report from the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Commission on Institutional Change. As a congregation we are still at the beginning stages of implementing recommendations from that report. That is work I hope we will continue for many years, though I imagine the words we use to describe that work will continue to change and evolve. My point here is that we offer a warm hearty, heart-felt, enthusiastic, joy-filled, boisterous, raucous, ebullient welcome to everyone; and we are simultaneously called to recognize the limitations of that welcome, and to do the slow, intentional work of increasing and expanding that welcome. I think of it as a manifestation of the Universalist side of our spiritual heritage. We genuinely mean it when we say “all are welcome,” or that we respect “the inherent worth and dignity of every person”—this is the legacy of our forebears’ Universalist theology that says “all are saved.” But we know it doesn’t happen just because we say it. So we commit to the work of making it so. **** In light of the Jewish High Holy Days, which began with Rosh Hashanna at sunset on Friday, I went searching for a Jewish voice who might inform our thinking about welcome, hospitality, generosity of spirit, openness to the other, etc. As is often the case, my search led to Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, who was ordained through the Jewish Renewal movement, serves a Reform synagogue in western Massachusetts, and writes poetry and blogs as the “Velveteen Rabbi.” I loved her poem, “2021 / 5782: Anew,” which I shared at the beginning of our service. This poem got me thinking about our mission, especially since I knew this morning we would be welcoming new members to “share in our mission of caring for one another, encouraging each other in spiritual growth, working for justice and peace in the wider community, and living in harmony with the earth.” In her poem, which she wrote two years ago in Elul—the month in the Jewish calendar in which Jews prepare for the High Holy Days—she offers her own, simple mission statement. Given, she writes, that “sometimes we’re afraid,” that “we can’t know what choice to make to keep anyone safe,” that “uncertainty’s a bear,” “All we can do / is seek out sweetness everywhere we may / and work to fix what brokenness we find.” “All we can do / is seek out sweetness everywhere we may / and work to fix what brokenness we find.” It has become cliché at this point for clergy of all sorts to tell their parishioners that we live in challenging times. But cliché or not, I am saying it: we live in challenging times. You know the litany of challenges. Everyone who enters this meeting house on Sunday morning or at any other time during the week, and truly everyone we encounter through the course of our comings and goings, feels at some level, experiences to some degree, the ripple effects of global pandemic; or stress and worry over political polarization, marked by the rise of fascist ideology and hate inexplicably directed toward society’s most vulnerable people rather than at the people who are hoarding wealth and power to serve their own selfish ends; or the now regular climate catastrophes across the planet; not to mention every possible personal struggle and uncertainty with which a person may be living. I’m mindful of that quote—also a cliché at this point—appearing in a thousand slightly different versions, attributed to a thousand different people, but most often associated with the ancient Greek philosopher Plato: “Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” An even simpler mission statement. “All we can do is seek out sweetness everywhere me may, and work to fix the brokenness we find.” Sweetness in a warm greeting as we enter the meeting house; sweetness in a caring gesture after we’ve shared a painful truth; sweetness in the art work on the walls; sweetness in the music, the singing, the improvised piano melodies, the achingly beautiful violin; sweetness in the children we so desperately want to shield from the challenges we face; sweetness in the weekly rituals, the chalice flame, the sharing of joys and concerns, the closing words, the love of the light in each other; sweetness in the hospitality, the coffee service, the occasional snack left over from the reception at a Saturday memorial service or leadership retreat; sweetness in the friendships that blossom over time; sweetness in a congregation that makes its way, imperfectly, toward beloved community; sweetness in the weekly reminder of the things that matter most in our lives; sweetness in the way those reminders go forth with us, encouraging us to care for ourselves, to rest in the calming silence and the nurturing darkness, to breath—always to breath—to stretch, to pray, to drink from our deepest wells; sweetness likewise, in the way the reminders extend out through and from us, small waves of kindness, generosity, caring, compassion, love, advocacy, democracy, justice-making, community-building. Sweetness everywhere: an ongoing yes attempting to fix the brokenness of the all-too-frequent no. An ongoing gratitude for life attempting to fix the brokenness of a larger culture that caters more and more to death. An ongoing solid ground attempting to fix the brokenness of bearish uncertainty. An ongoing appreciation of nuance and complexity attempting to fix the brokenness of that oh-so-seductive black-and-white, us-and-them narrative that succeeds only in driving people further apart. An ongoing creativity attempting to fix the brokenness of everything in our era that numbs the human spirit. **** We invite you to share in our mission of caring for one another, encouraging each other in spiritual growth, working for justice and peace in the wider community, and living in harmony with the earth. In the Rabbi’s simpler language, “seek out sweetness everywhere we may, and work to fix what brokenness we find.” I send you forth this morning, hoping as I do every Sunday that you will take this mission to heart no matter how it is expressed. I trust, I believe, that as this mission seeps into us, embeds itself in us, guides us and nurtures us, that our welcome, as imperfect and limited as it is, will continually increase and expand. Amen and blessed be.

Sorry. Maybe try again tomorrow.

Gathering Music (Mary Bopp) Welcome and Announcements (Rev. Josh Pawelek) Centering Prelude "Berceuse" (lullaby) by Gabriel Faure Ann Stowe, violin; Mary Bopp, piano Chalice Lighting and Opening Words "2021/5782: Anew" Rabbi Rachel Barenblat Opening Hymn #188 "Come, Come, Whoever You Are" words adapted from Jalāl al-Dīn Muhammad Rumi music by Lynn Adair Ungar Come, come, whoever you are, wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving. Ours is no caravan of despair. Come, yet again come. Welcoming New Members Introductions (Membership Committee co-chairs) The Charge (Minister) As you take up membership in the Unitarian Universalist Society East, I charge you to share with us who you are. Share your creativity, your experiences, your questions, your doubts, your beliefs, and all your discoveries of life's meaning. I charge you to shake us up with your ideas, to stir us up with your conscience, to inspire us with your actions, and to stimulate our hopes with your dreams of what life can be. Congregational Welcome (Congregation) We welcome you as companions in the search for truth and meaning. We invite you to share in our mission of caring for one another, encouraging each other in spiritual growth, working for justice and peace in the wider community, and living in harmony with the earth. We join our gifts with yours, trusting in the power of community to bring freedom, healing and love. New Member Affirmation (New members) We join the Unitarian Universalist Society East out of a desire and willingness to participate in a liberal religious congregation. We pledge to share our time energy and gifts; to diligently seek our spiritual truths; and to strengthen the bonds of community. Responsive Hymn "What Is This Church?" words adapted from Eugene Sander Music by Jean Sibelius What is this church? A place of love and gladness. Where all may meet, to seek the common good. A source of strength, to face each doubt and sadness. Where every dream, is known and understood. What is this church? Ask those who came before, And found themselves by crossing through its door. Joys and Concerns Musical Meditation Offering For the month of September, our Community Outreach offering will be shared by two organizations: Power Up brings much needed visibility to the ongoing realities of racism in Manchester and surrounding communities. Some UUSE members and friends have participated in Power Up's pantry, after school programs, rallies, protests and other actions. Manchester Latino Affairs Council The Manchester Latino Affairs Council (M.L.A.C.) was established in January of 2007. Its current mission is to address social issues with a focus on diversity, inclusivity and equality within Manchester's Latino community. MLAC sponsors Manchester's annual Hispanic Heritage Day and is looking forward to its first public "Three Kings Celebration" in January and a "Latina Heart Health Walk" next April. Offering Music "Nigun" from Baal Shem, Three Pictures of Chassidic Life Ernest Bloch Ann Stowe, violin; Mary Bopp, piano Sermon "Sweetness Everywhere" Rev. Josh Pawelek Closing Hymn #1011 "Return Again" by Shlomo Carlebach Return again, Return again, Return to the home of your soul. Return to who you are, Return to what you are, Return to where you are born and reborn again Extinguishing the Chalice Closing Circle May faith in the spirit of life And hope for the community of earth And love of the light in each other Be ours now, and in all the days to come.

Emmy Galbraith is our new Director of Children and Youth Ministry! The CYM Committee is overjoyed to have Emmy join us and is looking forward to working closely with her! Back to School Pictures: Our annual All Congregation Homecoming Service is coming up quickly on September 10! We would love to include ADULTS too - Your first day of school counts! PLEASE send pictures to uusecym@uuse.org by September 6. We are especially looking for folks to help out in our classrooms who HAVEN'T had experience with our CYM program yet. There are so many rewarding opportunities working with our children and youth! Please contact uusecym@uuse.org to earn more! CYM Registration: If you haven't yet, PLEASE REGISTER your child for the 2023-2024 CYM program: REGISTER HERE. CYM 2023-2024 calendar: Here is the link for the 2023-2024 CYM Calendar! Please contact us at uusecym@uuse.org with any questions.

Gathering Music Welcome & Announcements Centering Prelude "Come, Come, Whoever You Are" by Lynn Unger arr. by Mary Bopp Introduction to the Service First Reading "I Want to Be with People" by Dana E. Worsnop Musical Interlude Chalice Lighting and Opening Words "So That We Might, Together, Shine" by Erik Walker Wikstrom When we light our chalice everyone focuses on the flame. Yet it is the paraffin of the candle, the cotton of the wick, the potassium chlorate and sulfur of the match, and the oxygen in the air around us that makes that flame possible. As leaders we are not called to be a lone beacon on a hill. Rather, we are meant to work together so that we might, together, shine. Opening Hymn #128 "For All That Is Our Life" Words: Bruce Findlow Music: Patrick L. Rickey led by Sandy Johnson For all that is our life we sing our thanks and praise; for all life is a gift which we are called to use to build the common good and make our own days glad. For needs which others serve, for services we give, for work and its rewards, for hours of rest and love; we come with praise and thanks for all that is our life. For sorrow we must bear, for failures, pain and loss, for each new thing we learn, for fearful hours that pass: we come with praise and thanks for all that is our life. For all that is our life we sing our thanks and praise; for all life is a gift which we are called to use to build the common good and make our own days glad. Joys & Concerns Musical Interlude Offering For the month of September, our Community Outreach offering will be shared by two organizations: Power Up brings much needed visibility to the ongoing realities of racism in Manchester and surrounding communities. Some UUSE members and friends have participated in Power Up's pantry, after school programs, rallies, protests and other actions. Manchester Latino Affairs Council The Manchester Latino Affairs Council (M.L.A.C.) was established in January of 2007. It's current mission is to address social issues with a focus on diversity, inclusivity and equality within Manchester's Latino community. MLAC sponsors Manchester's annual Hispanic Heritage Day and is looking forward to its first public "Three Kings Celebration" in January and a "Latina Heart Health Walk" next April. Note: This year's Hispanic Heritage Day happens on September 16, from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM indoors at Leisure Labs at Manchester's Mahoney Recreation Center at 110 Cedar Street. The theme is Familia/Family. The event will feature live music, dancing, food trucks, vendors, crafts and resource tables. Offering Music "You've Got a Friend" by Carole King sung by Sandy Johnson and Jeannette LeSure Second Reading "Experience Connection" by Peter Morales Musical Interlude Homily in Three Parts Sheila Foran Sandy Karosi Congregation Closing Hymn #360 "Here We Have Gathered" Words: Alicia S. Carpenter Music: Genevan Psalter led by Sandy Johnson Here we have gathered, gathered side by side; circle of kinship, come and step inside! May all who seek here find a kindly word; may all who speak here feel they have been heard. Sing now together this, our hearts' own song. Here we have gathered, called to celebrate days of our lifetime, matters small and great: we of all ages, women, children, men, infants and sages, sharing what we can. Sing now together this, our hearts' own song. Life has its battles, sorrows and regret: but in the shadows, let us not forget: we who now gather know each other's pain; kindness can heal us: as we give, we gain. Sing now in friendship this, our hearts' own song. Extinguishing the Chalice and Closing Words "Be True, Be Well, Be Loving" by Cynthia Landrum We leave this gathered community, But we don't leave our connection, Our concerns, our care for each other. Our service to each other, to the world, and to our faith continues. Until we are together again, friends, Be strong, be well, be true, be loving. Closing Circle May faith in the spirit of life And hope for the Community of Earth And love of the light in each other Be ours now, and in all the days to come.

Gathering Music (Mary Bopp) Welcome (Rev. Josh Pawelek) Announcements Centering Prelude Arioso from Cantata No. 156 (J.S. Bach, arr. by H. R. Kent) Played by Andy Caruk Chalice Lighting and Opening Words "A Spacious Welcome" by the Rev. Shari Woodbury spoken by Lilly Coleman and Rev. Josh Pawelek Opening Hymn #361 "Enter, Rejoice and Come In" Words and Music by Louise Ruspini Enter, rejoice, and come in. Enter, rejoice, and come in. Today will be a joyful day; enter, rejoice, and come in. Open your ears to the song ... Open your hearts ev'ryone ... Don't be afraid of some change ... Enter, rejoice, and come in ... Welcome and Charge to our New Director of Children and Youth Ministry BACK to SCHOOL Slide Show Blessing of the Backpacks Joys and Concerns Musical Meditation (Mary Bopp) Offering For the month of September, our Community Outreach offering will be shared by two organizations: Power Up brings much needed visibility to the ongoing realities of racism in Manchester and surrounding communities. Some UUSE members and friends have partiipated in Power Up's pantry, after school programs, rallies, protests and other actions. Manchester Latino Affairs Council The Manchester Latino Affairs Council (M.L.A.C.) was established in January of 2007. It's current mission is to address social issues with a focus on diversity, inclusivity and equality within Manchester's Latino community. MLAC sponsors Manchester's annual Hispanic Heritage Day, and is looking forward to its first public "Three Kings Celebration" in January and a "Latina Heart Health Walk" next April. Note: This year's Hispanic Heritage Day happens on September 16, from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM indoors at Leisure Labs at Manchester's Mahoney Recreation Center at 110 Cedar Street. The theme is Familia/Family. The event will feature live music, dancing, food trucks, vendors, crafts and resource tables. Offertory Music "Boat on the River" by Styx Performed by Will Alexson, mandolin & vocals Our UUSE Covenant We will strive to ... Treat each other with respect Foster an encouraging and supportive congregational culture Engage each other with love, compassion, kindness and forgiveness Listen with an open heart and mind Speak our truths thoughtfully, openly and directly Acknowledge and recognize conflict as an opportunity for growth and understanding Welcome, accept and care for one another Nurture generous spirits Be sensitive to dynamics of power and privilege as they relate to race, class, gender, sexual orientation, ability and age Be accountable to one another and honor our commitments Maintain and encourage a sense of humor Learn and participate in Unitarian Universalist Society East's established system of due process and governance If any of the above fails, we strive for forgiveness. Our Children's Covenant Be respectful of people and space. Treat others how you want to be treated. Be kind (and use kind words!) Use materials appropriately. Listen when others are talking. Follow the principles. Participate. Do your best! If we forget, we begin again in love. Our Congregational Commitment We come together as companions in the search for truth and meaning. We share in our congregational mission of caring for one another, encouraging each other in spiritual growth, working for justice and peace in the wider world, and living in harmony with the earth. We join our gifts together, trusting that a gathering of diverse souls, united in common endeavor, has the power to bring freedom, healing, and love. We renew our pledge to share our time, energy and talents with this congregation; to diligently seek our spiritual truths; and to strengthen the bonds of community. Chant "Love Is the Spirit of This Church" words by James Vila Blake; music by Mary Bopp Love is the spirit of this church and service its law. This is our great covenant: To dwell together in peace. Love is the spirit of this church and service its law. To seek the truth in love, and to help one another. Love is the spirit of this church and service its law. Reflection (Rev. Josh Pawelek) Closing Hymn "Spirit of Life" by Carolyn McDade #123 in Singing the Living Tradition Spirit of Life, come unto me. Sing in my heart all the stirrings of compassion. Blow in the wind, rise in the sea; move in the hand, giving life the shape of justice. Roots hold me close; wings set me free; Spirit of Life, come to me, come to me. Extinguishing the Chalice Closing Circle May faith in the spirit of life And hope for the community of earth And love of the light in each other Be ours now, and in all the days to come.

04/16/23 Rev. Josh Pawelek Our ministry theme for April is resistance. I recognized early on in the planning for this morning’s service that it would be very easy for me to preach to you about the ways we resist unjust systems and institutions, the ways we resist abuses of social, economic and political power, the ways we resist as participants in movements for social justice, environmental justice, racial justice, gender justice, worker justice, GLBTQIA justice, justice for people with disabilities, justice for immigrants—you know the list. I note there’s a whole heap of resistance happening in Tennessee right now. It started as a demand from ordinary citizens that the state legislature strengthen gun control statutes in response to the March 28th mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville. It escalated when three legislators added their voices, with bullhorns, disrupting legislative business as usual—an action which looked very much to me like nonviolent, civil disobedience. Two of those legislators, both young black men, were expelled from the Tennessee House of Representatives on April 6th by a vote of their colleagues. The third, a white woman, kept her seat by one vote. So much has happened. So much resistance. Incidentally, last Sunday, the expelled Memphis state representative, Justin Pearson, did indeed preach the Easter sermon at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the River in Memphis. If I have my facts correct, Rep. Pearson’s father, the Rev. Jason Pearson, leads a church that is in the process of moving into the Church of the River and worshipping there on Sunday afternoons. The two congregations are building a close relationship. They had already planned to worship together on Easter Sunday. After the junior Pearson was expelled from the legislature, the elder Pearson suggested to Church of the River’s minister, Rev. Sam Teitel, that his son would be a wise choice to preach at their joint Easter service. It’s a powerful sermon.[1] It’s no overstatement to say that resistance to injustice has been a central dimension of our shared ministry during the twenty years I have served as your minister. Of course, resistance for resistance’s sake has never been the point. Working towards a shared vision of a kinder, more fair, just, liberated and loving society is the point. Resistance is a tool, a method, a tactic we use in the service of that shared vision. Resistance is the fire that clears away those aspects of society that wound, oppress, exclude, detain, underfund, under-educate, under-employ, under-house, incarcerate, pollute, and kill; the fire that, in its aftermath, leaves space for the emergence of new structures, new social, economic and political arrangements, new laws, new cultural norms that better serve and sustain all people and, indeed, all life on the planet. That’s the easy sermon! Not that this kind of resistance is easy. It’s not. I’m remembering the first time I stepped into a street to block traffic in June of 2015 with Moral Monday CT, calling attention to the Black Lives Matter movement, protesting in solidarity with the people of Ferguson, MO. That was resistance in the form of nonviolent civil disobedience, which is used specifically to create tension in the public sphere. Martin Luther King, Jr. writes about this in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. I understood it. I was excited. I was proud. And, once we were in the street, once we had stopped traffic, once drivers were clearly angry at what we were doing, once the police arrived, the tension overwhelmed me. My body started resisting me. I started feeling sick—dizzy, mostly. I almost left the action, but ultimately stayed and was glad I did. I realized later, this was my body’s way of telling me it did not like the tension, even though my mind thought it was the right action, the right way to advance the Movement for Black Lives in our state. That’s the sermon I really want to preach this morning. I want to name the way our bodies resist what we know is right. This resistance lives very naturally in us. If we give into it, it can prevent us from growing, maturing, creating and changing. If we give into it, it can prevent us from becoming the next best version of ourselves. At the beginning of our service I shared with you a poem from James Crews entitled “After the Fire.” He writes: Let me endure whatever fires must pass through here, must scorch my skin. And if I have to feel the heat, let me also trust that like the lodgepole pine, the fire will open the parts of me that are still closed tight, releasing seeds I’ve been clinging to, hoarding for years. Let me thrive in this new clearing made at the center of my life, seeing now how the necessary flames melted away my resistance, revealing all that once lay hidden, asleep inside me. This poem reminds me we humans are creatures of habit. We grow very attached to our daily routines and patterns, our favorite foods, our level of activity, the medicines we take, the shows we watch. They become sources of stability, familiarity and comfort in our lives. We don’t let them go easily. Even when we live with a variety of discomforts and we know we need to make changes, our bodies resist—sometimes before we have a chance to think about changing. I suppose the most obvious examples have to do with the ways we do or don’t take care of ourselves. Are we willing and able to change our diet to live more healthily? Are we willing and able to cut back on alcohol, on caffeine for the sake of our health? Are we willing to follow our doctor’s good advice? Our therapist’s good advice? Our minister’s (occasionally) good advice? Even when we know intellectually that we need to change our ways, something in us resists. We are creatures of habit. The prospect of any big life change engenders a certain amount of resistance. We might resist leaving a job that doesn’t suit us because we’re attached to the salary, the benefits, the co-workers, the familiarity. We might resist retiring, even when we should have retired a long time ago, because so much of our identity is tied to our work. Think about the big life changes you’ve experienced. How often was it smooth sailing all the way through? How much internal resistance did you need to overcome before you were able to make the change? Sometimes we resist because there’s something we need to say or do, and we know it’s going to create tension. We know it’s going to cause conflict. I gave the example of conducting nonviolent civil disobedience, but it could just as easily be realizing that a special, prized relationship is breaking down and the breakdown needs to be addressed if there is to be any chance of repair and reconciliation; or realizing that a friend is an addict and the addiction needs to be addressed; or realizing that a relationship is abusive and it needs to end; or realizing, as we were naming a few weeks ago, “I am struggling, and I need to ask for help.” My point is not that we don’t speak our truths when we need to. And in fact I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that some people are very comfortable with the tension their truths create. My point is that, for most of us, it is natural to resist saying and doing things that will create tension and conflict. I suspect many of you have had the experience of needing to say something hard to a loved one, yet you don’t want to say it. It feels too disruptive. It will create too much tension. It will rock the boat. We know we have to speak our truth, but something in us resists. It can make you sick. I also want to name that at times we resist the things we are most passionate about. There’s something we want to pursue, but we don’t pursue it because we’re not sure how to make space for it in our lives. We fear our pursuit may interrupt our regular routines and patterns, that it may seem selfish to start something new. We fear we may not have the necessary skills or talents to paint, to sculpt, to dance, to write, to speak, to preach, to coach, to train, to run for office, to lead. We fear people won’t take us seriously. So again, something in us resists. We set the passion aside for the time being. James Crews reminds us there is much that lays hidden, asleep inside us—our truths, our passions, our recognition that we need to live differently for the sake of our health. I’m reminded of another poet who said something similar, though he used far more grandiose language. Walt Whitman, the 19th-century American poet, a student of the Transcendentalist movement, one wrote: Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)[2] This is from Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself, 51.” I haven’t studied it. I can’t speak to what he meant by these words, but it makes sense to me that the thing we’re resisting feels like a contradiction. It goes against our grain, our habits, the patterns to which we are accustomed. Whitman cheers us on. Very well then I contradict myself. I contain multitudes. In order to access them, in order to liberate them, in order to let them live, I must contradict myself. I somehow need to overcome this resistance. I contain multitudes. You contain multitudes. We contain multitudes. There is a vastness within us, an expansiveness, a generosity, even—though it must be said with humility–a greatness in us; and we resist it. It’s not just the poets who name this. It’s the scientists too. I read to you earlier from the late molecular biologist Darryl Reanney who reminds us that we are kin to the stars, that the hydrogen atoms in our bodies are continuous with the hydrogen atoms that first emerged in the moments following the big bang, what he calls the Genesis event. These bones, this hand /star-ash. Though he writes poetically, and his words at times sound metaphorical, this is not metaphor. We are literally star stuff. Reanney says our true age is not 24 or 43 or 56 or 81, but 15 billion years. Indeed, we contain multitudes. Yet, we resist. And there is so much that lays hidden, asleep inside us. Back on the street in 2015, feeling sick and dizzy, I went to talk to the medic on our team. He did his best to assess me. He had no idea what was wrong with me. He said, “You seem fine, you’re probably just nervous. It’s up to you whether you want to go back out there.” I did want to go. I had trained for this. I had done my spiritual purification. I thought about how bad I would feel if I didn’t finish the action. So I went back out in the street and took my arrest. Sitting in the police van I sudden felt relaxed and peaceful. My resistance had burned away. The poet writes: Let me thrive in this new clearing made at the center of my life, seeing now how the necessary flames melted away my resistance, revealing all that once lay hidden, asleep inside me. I don’t know what power burns away our resistance to doing what is right, saying what is true, living well. Maybe the fire comes when we pray for it to come. Maybe the fire comes unbidden, grace bestowed by a loving divinity we never asked. Maybe the fire comes because we finally brace ourselves, clench our fists, and work up the nerve to do what we have to do. Maybe the fire comes because we recognize our current routine is unsustainable, and we no longer have any choice. Here’s what I believe: in those moments when resistance rises up in us, the necessary flames are always there, ready to burn, ready to open the parts of us that are closed tight, ready to clear a space for growth, creativity, maturation, for the next version of our best self; ready to clear a space for the multitudes to come forth. The flames are there. Our task—and I say it’s a spiritual task—is figuring out how to let them burn. If you’re concerned about that task, remember that we know something about fire. Remember that we are kin to the stars. Remember that the atoms within us are consistent with the atoms that emerged as that primordial explosion began to cool. The most ancient parts of ourselves know what it means to come through fire. Surely, we can endure whatever fires must pass through here, must scorch our skin. Surely all that lays hidden, asleep inside us, can be revealed. Amen and blessed be. [1] Watch the entire Church of the River Easter service at https://www.churchoftheriver.org/resources/virtualservices?fbclid=IwAR3UTbJdr5wkvc_YiBnVWq-5kMVY5SGmVpThoMLYcPlrK0uCyVBQutw00y4#CQ0Gk2MAvtQ.

02/05/23 Calling The Quarters excerpts from “Quarterdance” by Mary Bopp and Josh Pawelek Spirit of the East, we invite your presence. Come air, come breath, come knowledge. Spirit of the South, we invite your presence. Come fire, come heat, come turning. Spirit of the West, we invite your presence. Come moisture, come water, come mystery. Spirit of the North, we invite your presence. Come earth, come roots, come wisdom. Introduction to Imbolc Rev. Josh Pawelek and Peggy Gagne Josh: In early February we arrive at at a cross-quarter time—halfway between solstice and equinox. In the ancient Gaelic calendar, this is the time for the celebration of Imbolc or Oimelc—Imbolc meaning ‘in the belly,’ or ‘fire in the belly,’ pregnant; Oimelc referring to ewe’s milk,’ because the sheep are pregnant, ready to give birth. The milk is beginning to flow. Spring is coming. Among pre-Christian Celtic peoples, as well as in many current-day pagan communities, the celebration of Imbolc—typically on February 2nd—is associated with Brigid or Bríd, the ancient Irish goddess: the exalted one, keeper of the flame, guardian of home and hearth, patron of bards and crafters, a poet, a healer, a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the ancient Irish tribe of gods. In Catholicism February 1st is the feast day of St. Brigid, who was likely a fifth-century Irish nun, remembered for founding monasteries and churches. Catholics attribute a number of miracles to her. Her blood was said to have healing properties. She’s rumored to have turned water into beer. Many historians of religion argue that over time, Brigid the Catholic nun took on the characteristics of Brigid the pagan goddess. These arguments ring true to me. Because the people would not—perhaps could not—give up their goddess, the church Christianized her, elevated her, venerated her. Thus the more ancient patterns and meanings remain to this day, even if they reside in the shadows. Peggy: Imbolc is a cross quarter on the Wiccan calendar, which means it’s between a solstice and an equinox. It’s a time between. It comes after the dark and cold time of contemplation following Yule at the winter solstice, but well before the renewal of Ostara, which comes with the return of the light at the spring equinox. Can you imagine the sun peeking through a winter forest? That’s an Imbolc image. It’s a time of slow awakening, just like the groundhog sticking its head out of its hole. It’s a time of brushing away cobwebs and cleaning out what no longer serves us. In the Wiccan practice, Imbolc is a time to replace our old ritual candles with fresh ones. Some say Imbolc gives us the idea of spring cleaning. When my instructor told me Imbolc marks the beginning of spring on the Wiccan calendar, I told her she had obviously never lived in Maine, where there is usually still several feet of snow on the ground! Apparently the Celtic parts of the world had milder winters! Meditation “Imbolc” By Erin Williams and Madeleine Breault It is no longer Christmas, or Yule, or Hannukah- our family’s traditions have been packed away into boxes And stored in the basement until next year. Many days are still gray and cold, but it isn’t really Winter anymore, it isn’t as dark, the days stretch longer, sunlight extends into the evening now. And yet, it is not Spring. This is a time of waiting. This is a turning time, an in-between time, A liminal time. Imbolc means Fire in the Belly, What is yet to be born, What is still gestating, Ruminating- My fire is Making art, walking in the woods and swimming in the lake, My fire is sitting in the sun, or watching the stars My fire is the projects I want to do and the stories I want to write. What projects are you imagining? What trips are you planning? What exciting spark is dancing around inside of you? Who are you becoming? Imbolc is Brigid, Goddess of healers and poets Goddess of the forge where tools were made in fire Goddess of the wells and waterways, where the earth provides us with nourishment- The ice is melting now, and the water trickles into the yawning earth- The seeds are waiting. This is a time of pausing, checking in, This is a time of questioning Are you ready to go outside on this cold morning? To feel the sunlight And Know how much you are loved? Or is that too much, Are you like the groundhog, seeing your shadow, needing more time- To ruminate, to sit at the hearth of yourself? Sometimes things seem so uncertain, but I know that the seasons are circles, And I trust that endlessness. I know that there is fire inside all of us, And that is our potential, that is how much we can love- So even during these in-between days I Celebrate the pause, I Trust the circle, I Remember that the sun is returning The ice is melting The earth is stirring There is a purple crocus bravely Showing her face And I am returning her smile. Reflection “Hope” by Peggy Gagne The early Celtic version of Imbolc was not all that different from the festival in early medieval times, when Christianity was taking hold in Ireland. One of the goddesses the Celts worshipped at this festival was Brigid, (and you will see that spelled and hear it pronounced in a multitude of ways!). She was the daughter of Dagda (the chief Celtic deity) and one of the Tuatha De Dannan, the first inhabitants of Ireland. She is associated with many things, most significantly poetry and fertility, but also such activities as healing, smithing, arts and crafts, and tending to livestock. Making foods with a focus on milk, such as cheese or custard were and are still popular. In celebration of her, it common to write poems and try out various crafts. One popular craft is the making of a Brigid’s Cross, now known as a St. Bridget’s Cross. (Hold up picture) It is traditionally made out of plants called rushes, but these days can be made out of whatever material that works. It is hung above the entrances to dwellings to invoke the help of St Bridget in warding off disease. Even in mild winters like the one this year, I find it can be easy to get a little depressed by the shorter days with less light. But as Imbolc approaches, I can feel not only the lengthening, but also the strengthening in the light, and it seems to give me a little strength too – to just hold on a little bit longer and we’ll be through this and spring will be here. I can almost taste it in the air – and occasionally hear the hopeful song of an early spring bird. I start to go out for more walks in search of the light and notice the early buds setting on some trees. I notice shoots of early spring plants just starting to break ground. I also find smudging the house lightens the feel of everything, since it’s too early to open the windows yet. And my thoughts start to turn to the projects I’ve had in the back of my mind, both for my home and myself. I start to look at day trips I might take with bus companies or night classes I might be interested in. I start to look forward to being around people again. New seeds of ideas to plant as the world becomes brighter and warmer. If I had to sum up Imbolc in one word it would probably be HOPE. Hope that the cold and dark will continue to recede. Hope that the ideas and thoughts that I have come up with in these quieter days will take root and grow when I plant them at Ostara. And hope that I and those around me will continue to move towards the light and encourage others to do so as well. Thank you. Reflection Imbolc by Sudha Sevin For me, celebrating the Celtic holiday of Imbolc is a very practical way to get through the post-holidays winter months. It’s an antidote to cabin fever. Imbolc is just one of the Celtic seasonal holidays I mark. I have found that celebrating these special days, which are about halfway between the solstices and equinoxes, aligns me to the earth and the celestial energies that are emerging at the time. By marking them, I harmonize with those energies. It is also a way to connect to cyclical time, which I experience as a spiral of present moments rather than clocks and calendars. Or you might think of it as “stepping out of time.” The Celts love to celebrate the liminal, whether it is faerie mounds, the dawn, or the threshold of your home. How do you convey what Imbolc is? It’s vast. Its traditions have many different aspects and regional variations. I have to make choices about what to focus on. I could tell you Imbolc means this or that, but so much of it is subtle. Much of it is only known through experience. Still, I would like to try to share my experience of Imbolc with you. So, this is our moment, right now, to mark Imbolc together. I invite you to close your eyes or gaze at a candle and let these words, which I wrote for you, wash over you. Perhaps from this, you’ll have your own experience of the magic of Imbolc. Imbolc Through the dark each of us has carried forward a tiny flame Each has found a way to nurture that seed of light, enduring black, cold passageways in faith that ‘round the next curve, or the next, a lit circle of entry shall show itself, Tell us, we’ve made it to the surface. The powers of Light are waxing and the thin, hibernating bear shall reappear. Remember that once bejeweled August harvest? And then the aging stalks and vines—we tugged and composted—returned to hushed earth? Now so close is renewal, pushing up from earth’s womb. The birds await your return. In equipoise the trees hold the unsheathing of their leaves. Come back to us, Lady! Helpless lambs are born from your red blood and white milk a miracle The sun’s light grows, a toddler yet to be sure, but soon strong and able to warm the bones of the dead. So much promise, that new one. Do we not live by dreams? Candlelight reflections in the waters of the sacred well is the shine of our souls. Reflection “Pagan at Heart” Rev. Josh Pawelek I am pagan at heart. I wonder if you are too. Some pagans have direct relationships with the goddesses and gods who were known to the ancients. Among Unitarian Universalist pagans, especially those who observe the eight sabbat rituals of the neo-pagan wheel of the year, including Imbolc, which we’re exploring this morning, many of those gods and goddesses are Celtic in origin, such as Brigid. Others are Germanic. Some are Norse. Occasionally UU pagans explore the Greek and Roman pantheons. Occasionally they look beyond ancient Europe. I haven’t talked about this much from the pulpit, but one of the goals of my study leave this past summer was to read non-European, non-White science fiction and fantasy writers who weave earth-based deities into their story-telling—Tomi Adeyemi and Nnedi Okorafor, both Nigerian-American writers, often work with West African deities, the orishas. S.A. Chakraborty, a Catholic-born convert to Islam, tells tales of Middle Eastern Djinn in her Daevabad series. Rebecca Roanhorse, a mixed race, Pueblo and African American writer, draws on the religious world-views of Pre-Columbian American civilizations. There’s more. My point for this morning is that paganism comes in millions of variations—some highly structured, some entirely spontaneous—and it exists in every corner of the planet where human beings live and, especially, as they interact with their natural environment in spiritually significant ways. Paganism comes from the Latin word paganus, which refers to peasants, rural people, rustic people. Over the millennia ‘Pagan’ has become a word of derision in the lexicon of larger, organized religions, like Christianity and Islam, religions that sought (and still sometimes seek) to convert the people from their traditional folk ways, folk practices, folk religions, often in the context of conquest and colonization. While many indigenous cultures across the planet have held onto their Earth-based spiritual practices throughout centuries of colonization, in recent decades, many non-indigenous people, especially in the West, have reclaimed Paganism as a positive, powerful, meaningful spiritual identity. Today Paganism points to something that was lost or stolen generations ago: a recognition of the sacredness of the Earth; an understanding of the interrelatedness of all life; and a desire to engage spiritually with nature. For some pagans, at least some of the time, the deities are very real. In my experience Brigid speaks to many people across Northern Europe and North America, especially at Imbolc. Something about her seems so real and accessible. At other times, the deities become metaphors for certain natural life forces or human lifeways – love, healing, fertility, birth, death, planting, harvesting, etc. Brigid is associated with the home and the hearth, bards, crafters, poets, brewers, and healers. At other times the deities become associated with the elements—earth, air, fire, water. Brigid is the keeper of the flame. I am Pagan at heart. I don’t have that immediate, direct relationship with a deity (though if I had to choose one, I would probably choose Brigid; or as a person of German – Scandinavian – Polish heritage, I might feel called to do research and find a deity who aligns with that heritage.) But I’ve never felt called in quite that way. When I say I am Pagan at heart, I mean I live with a constant, sometimes muted, sometimes blaring, sense that the natural world is magical, enchanted, breathing, listening, observing, and even at times, conscious, knowing. It’s not an intellectual construct. It’s not something for which I have any scientific evidence. It’s not something I can prove. It’s not exactly rational. It’s a sensation, a feeling, an intuition, a spiritual inclination. When we arrive at Imbolc, and I hear that translation “in the belly,” referring to pregnant sheep, or Oimelc, referring to ewe’s milk, I get a flash of recognition: of course, we are six weeks out from spring, and signs of spring are slowly revealing themselves. Nature follows its seasonal patterns, winter slowly recedes, spring slowly approaches. I feel it. The term Imbolc affirms the feeling. I’ve preached previously about the connections between Imbolc and Groundhog Day, the descendent of that ancient, Northern European tradition of using animal divination at this cross-quarter time to discern when to plant the first seeds. I see all the campy media attention given to Chuckles here in Manchester, or Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania. It’s a bit corny. Fun for kids. But secretly my heart leaps out of my chest. Of course they know when spring is coming! It probably has nothing to do with whether they see their shadow, but of course they know. They are Earth creatures beholden ancient instincts; Earth creatures embedded in the patterns of Nature even if they live inside museums. Of course they know when spring is coming. And if they could talk to us, they’d probably ask us why we talked ourselves out of this knowledge. They would probably ask us why we have educated and industrialized and technologized ourselves out of this knowledge which actually still lives inside us and is our birthright as Earth creatures like them. They might even warn us: all life on the planet is now in peril precisely because you humans no longer know how to live in concert with the natural world. Imbolc is one among many opportunities to get back in touch with that ancient knowledge, those ancient Earth creature instincts. Lighting fires of purification and cleansing? Blessing candles for the year’s rituals? Letting go of that which no longer works for us and is really just producing mental clutter? Getting ready for spring cleaning? It all seems to fit with this moment in the wheel of the year; it all seems to connect back to the way the Earth begins preparing itself for bursting forth in spring splendor. So I say yes to all of it. I am Pagan at Heart. Even if you don’t use the word Pagan, I suspect, at least in some way, you are too. Amen and blessed be.

01/08/23 Our ministry theme for this first month of 2023 is Finding Our Center. It has always been abundantly clear to me that the practice of shared ministry lives at the center of our congregational life—meaning our life here at the Unitarian Universalist Society: East in Manchester. Given that, as a way to begin talking about this theme, I want to share my thoughts on shared ministry. Full disclosure: I preached a version of this sermon at the Unitarian Society of Hartford in October. A number of UUS:E members were in attendance. Afterwards, all of them said some version of “You have to preach this sermon in Manchester.” I am taking them up on their suggestion. I call this sermon “What Shared Ministry Means to Me.” The short response is: it means everything. When I say “shared ministry” I’m referring to all the ways in which a congregation—the collective of lay people—shares, collaborates, partners, cooperates, or teams up with its professional staff: its minister or ministers, its religious education professionals, music professionals, membership professionals, etc. And of course, not every congregation has that full array of professionals. Not every congregation has a minister. So then the question becomes, how do the lay people share ministry among themselves? And a further question, which is somewhat beyond my scope this morning, though not completely absent: how do the area congregations with the same denominational identity share ministry? And even further beyond my scope, though not completely absent: how do congregations of all denominations and faiths in a particular region share ministry? Ministry is never a solo act. Even if one person visits you in the hospital, the congregation, by some means (which is not always visible, which is often taken for granted) has authorized that person to be there; while it has also authorized, by some means, someone else to prepare worship for Sunday, someone else to attend the interfaith coalition board meeting, someone else to volunteer in the nursery, someone else to make the coffee, someone else to greet people as they arrive for worship, someone else to edit the newsletter, someone else to chair the board, someone else to handle the technology so that people can participate safely from home. And behind all that authorization (which is an admittedly bureaucratic term), giving rise to it, is a beautiful, sometimes messy set of very human relationships, human conversations, human covenants, human love and multiple avenues for connection to all that is holy in our lives. The ministry is shared. We share ministry because we are human in relationship with each other and with divinity understood and experienced in a multiplicity of ways. Our sharing means everything. The best way for me to illustrate this in more detail is to tell you the story of my encounter with shared ministry here at UUS:E. As you know, I am serving in my 20th year as your solo professional minister. While UUS:E is not the only congregation I have served as minister, it is the one I have served for most of my career, and thus its conventions around shared ministry have shaped me far more than the conventions of any other institution in our Unitarian Universalist Association. The first thing to know about our model of shared ministry, something which we don’t often name explicitly, but which becomes apparent to Sunday guests after about a month of visiting, has to do with how my time is structured. I am a full-time minister; however, I am a part-time preacher. I lead worship and preach, on average, twice a month. I sometimes co-lead a third monthly service—what we call an all-congregation service, where the children’s ministry worships with the adults. We do that at least once a month. Some of those services are staff-led, some are lay-led; some emerge out of a lay and staff partnership. One or two Sunday services each month are lay-led. This model developed out of necessity. The congregation called its first full-time minister, the Rev. Arnold Westwood, in the 1970s. Very quickly they ran out of money to pay him full-time, so he started splitting his time between UUS:E and the UU congregation in Amherst, MA. So, for us he was a part-time minister and a part-time preacher. And, out of necessity, lay people began leading worship on the weeks when Arnold was in Amherst. The congregation liked this arrangement, so much so that it became a central part of our identity. To this day, the lay people of the congregation share the worship ministry with the professional minister. Allegedly—I don’t have the full story—the minister who succeeded Arnold in the 1980s didn’t like this model and, among other things, was overheard saying, “Wait until they hear a real minister preach; they’ll get rid of this model.” That minister moved on a few years later. The sharing continued. Fast forward to the spring of 2002. I am the candidate for the minister position at UUS:E, getting ready to succeed the Rev. Connie Sternberg. Not once, not twice, but three times before I show up for what we call “the candidating week,” the chair of the search committee, Fred Sawyer, calls me to ask: “Are you sure you are OK with preaching only twice a month? You’re not gonna get into the position and then tell us you want to preach every week, right?” There was a lot of anxiety around this question. Was I just saying I liked the model so I’d be sure to get the job? Carol Simpson, Nancy Madar, Malcolm Barlow and Sylvia Ounpuu were members of that search committee. I trust they can vouch for what I am telling you. That anxiety was quite palpable. I really liked the model, and wasn’t entirely sure how to convince the search committee that I really meant it. On the surface, I liked the model because I struggled with writing sermons. I think I prepared pretty good sermons, but the process took me forever. I didn’t relish the idea of sitting down every week, week in and week out, to prepare worship. The thought of doing that was exhausting. I knew that by the end of every congregational year, full-time preachers were tired, burned out, out of ideas, bone-dry, desperate for some down-time. I didn’t want that in my life. But that was mostly my anxiety, which is common to many new ministers—a need to be perfect, undergirded by a secret, hard-to-share knowledge that we are not perfect, undergirded by a fear that our imperfections will be discovered, undergirded by a nagging question: do I really have what it takes? I also knew from experience that if I had, on average, two weeks to prepare a sermon, it would inevitably be better than if I had, on average, one week. Two weeks allows time for ideas to gestate. Two weeks allows time for more research. Two weeks allows time for more editing. Two weeks allows time to get the rhythm and the poetry of the words just right. But this was just the surface of my embrace of the model. This was me struggling with the mechanics of worship design and sermon writing. There was much more underneath, though I understand it much better now than I did then. Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase “the prophet-hood and the priesthood of all believers?” This concept emerged in Europe during the Protestant Reformation—mid to late 1500s, early to mid 1600s. There is a complex history to it which I won’t share here. Suffice to say, the concept meant that the people in the pews had some agency in matters of the spiritual life and the conduct of the church’s ministry. They are not passive recipients of spiritual ministrations; they are active participants in the ministry. “The prophet-hood and the priesthood of all believers.” Although we weren’t really using that language anymore, I took the concept seriously. I had always wondered: in a faith that values the individual’s spiritual search, the individual’s hard-won personal theology, the individual’s evolving set of spiritual practices—in a faith that values personal experience as a source of truth and as a primary ground for meaning-making and theological reflection—where does any of that find expression in the life of the congregation if the minister preaches every Sunday? This question had been nagging at me ever since I had begun working in congregations in the mid-1990s. The answer wasn’t clear to me and, frankly, I was afraid to ask. I won’t tell you how many times colleagues of mine have said demeaning things about lay-people in the pulpit, but I will tell you that I’ve learned to push back hard when I hear it today. I found an answer to my question when the UUS:E ministerial search committee presented this model of shared worship ministry to me, saying “this is central to who we are,” saying “we want to hear from you, but we also want to hear from each other,” saying “this is a fundamentally democratic way of being church.” I said “yes!” I meant it, and I’ve never looked back. Of course there are many other ways of sharing ministry. This one, admittedly, is big. It’s rare. Professional ministers are trained to lead worship. Lay people, generally speaking, aren’t. How is it even possible? Well, it requires a huge commitment, not to mention a lot of enthusiasm, from lay people. It’s certainly not for every congregation. It works splendidly for UUS:E. It works splendidly for me. Here’s why. I love preaching. I love creating worship. But that has never been all I wanted to do in ministry. A long time ago, before I landed at UUS:E, I wrote a personal mission statement for my ministry, which hasn’t changed much in the nearly 25 years since I first wrote it. “I am a theistic Unitarian Universalist; an aspiring antiracist, feminist, queer ally; a liberal, suburban American minister practicing a modern version of New England’s old ‘congregational way;’ a loving husband and father; and a spiritual leader dedicated to transformative preaching, teaching, healing and social justice ministries.” And precisely because I don’t have to come back every week and create a liturgy for Sunday worship; precisely because I don’t have to come back every week and spend the 10 to 20 hours it takes to create a decent sermon, let alone an excellent sermon, I have time to be very present to our people who are in crisis, who need pastoral care, who need a listening ear. I have time to teach. I have time to meet with visitors and newcomers to the congregation. I have time to supervise our staff. Most importantly for me (although the pastoral care is very important), I can engage in social justice and antiracist organizing in the wider community. I have time to serve on the strategy team of the Greater Hartford Interfaith Action Alliance, and then share that ministry with UUSE members and friends as they participate in our GHIAA core team, on GHIAA issue teams, or in GHIAA trainings and actions. I can serve as a partner with Moral Monday CT and Power Up CT on Black Lives Matter organizing, and then share that participation with members and friends of our congregation. I can serve on the Coordinating Committee of Recovery for All. I can serve as a clergy leader with the Domestic Worker Justice Campaign and the HUSKY for Immigrants Campaign. I can serve as a leader with Equality Connecticut’s new interfaith clergy organization in their effort to maintain and advance the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning people across the state. Over the last twenty years I have had time to bring Unitarian Universalist principles into the public arena in what I believe is a very potent way, precisely because, most specifically, I share worship ministry, but also pastoral care ministry, administrative ministry, social justice ministry, and many other ministries with the lay people of UUSE. Is it perfect? No. Do we have trouble finding volunteers? Yes, all the time. Do I invite sharing only to be met by crickets filling the summer evening silence as they rub their scrapers together? Yes. Do I fail to respond to lay people who want to share some ministry with me? Absolutely. It takes work, discipline, intentionality, and a tolerance for conflict. We often miss the mark. But on the whole, I have the time in my calendar to fulfill my entire ministerial call, to live out that personal mission of pursuing transformative preaching, teaching, healing and social justice ministry. I have this time because, at the heart of our model, lives a belief in the prophet-hood and priesthood of all believers. I have this time because, at the heart of our model, lives the belief that ministry is never a solo act, that it emerges out of a set of very human relationships, conversations, covenants, love and avenues for connection to all that is holy in our lives. Whether we know it or not, we share ministry with each other. I say it works better if we know it. It works better if we can name all the ways we share ministry, understanding that this is what it means to be in covenantal relationship with one another, understanding that this is how we manifest the principles of our faith, understanding and believing as my dear colleague, the late Hope Johnson said in her meditation we heard earlier, “we are one,” understanding and believing that our capacity to share ministry means everything. Amen and blessed be.