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Gathering Music (Mary Bopp) Welcome and Announcements (Rev. Josh Pawelek) Centering Prelude "Rainbow Fantasy" by Harold Arlen arr. Mary Bopp Chalice Lighting and Opening Words "Broken Glass" by Sarah Poutre Opening Hymn #1002 "Comfort Me" by Mimi Bornstein-Doble Comfort me, comfort me, comfort me, oh my soul. Comfort me, comfort me, comfort me, oh my soul. Sing with me, sing with me ... Speak for me, speak for me ... Dance with me, dance with me ... Comfort me ... Free At Last Players: Reflections Joys and Concerns Offering During the month of June--Pride Month in the United States--the recipient of our community outreach offering will be Trans Voice and Visibility-365. Managed by our friends at the Metropolitan Community Church of Hartford, TV-365 is a ministry dedicated to uplifting and supporting the wellbeing of transgender individuals in Connecticut by providing basic human needs, information and referral, service coordination and support to individuals. Their emphasis is on those most under-served, neglected, victimized and oppressed. This includes, but is not limited to, transgender women and men of color, those with disabilities, youth and elderly, immigrants (documented and undocumented), low income and victims of crime. Offering Music "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by Yip Harburg Sandy Johnson, vocals Free At Last Players: "The Purple Brick Road" Closing Hymn #1057 "Go Lifted Up" by Mortimer B. Barron Go lifted up, Love bless your way, moonlight, starlight guide your journey into peace and the brightness of day. Extinguishing the Chalice Closing Circle Free At Last Players: Talk Back

Welcome and Announcements Prelude "The Older I Get" by Alan Jackson performed by Jenn Richard, vocals & guitar Chalice Lighting Call to Worship Hymn #1010 "We Give Thanks" Words & music: Wendy Luella Perkins Oh, we give thanks for this precious day, For all gather'd here, and those far away; For this time (food) we share with love and care, Oh, we give thanks for this precious day. Introduction to Service Speaker #1 Sandy Johnson A Time for Sharing: Introductions, Joys & Concerns Musical Response Speaker #2 Ellen Castaldini Hymn #1007 "There's a River Flowin' in My Soul" Words & music: Rose Sanders There's a river flowin' in my soul. There's a river flowin' in my soul. And it's tellin' me that I'm somebody. There's a river flowin' in my soul. There's a river flowin' in my heart... There's a river flowin' in my mind... Offertory "This Must Be the Place" by Talking Heads performed by Jenn Richard, vocals & guitar Speaker #3 Joe Madar 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.

Dear UUSE members and friends: On February 14th, the Unitarian Universalist Association released a statement on the war in Gaza entitled “UUA Condemns Violence Against Gaza, Urges Immediate and Total Ceasefire.” I find it to be a very sensitive and nuanced statement that is worth reading. You can access the statement at here. If any of you are interested in further dialogue about this statement or the war in Gaza, I would be more than willing to convene a small group for that purpose. Please feel free to contact me at minister@uuse.org. In love and faith, Rev. Josh Pawelek

Updated May 17, 2024 Do you need Childcare for the meeting? - https://www.uuse.org/post/do-you-need-childcare-for-this-sunday-s-annual-meeting Discernment Letter - https://3ce23514-62b3-4167-a04a-ad0b131b09e9.usrfiles.com/ugd/3ce235_638d44fcc09b4a639052c9e235c7d365.pdf Side By Side (Updated May 17, 2024) - https://3ce23514-62b3-4167-a04a-ad0b131b09e9.usrfiles.com/ugd/3ce235_a649a4dd76744db9a7b694b674abe007.pdf Slate - https://3ce23514-62b3-4167-a04a-ad0b131b09e9.usrfiles.com/ugd/3ce235_b5362f7963f4404197b79cf0bc28b18c.pdf Budget - https://3ce23514-62b3-4167-a04a-ad0b131b09e9.usrfiles.com/ugd/3ce235_49cad73f6d6c43a7aa02b14fb6c6796b.pdf Call letter with absentee and proxy ballots.pdf - https://3ce23514-62b3-4167-a04a-ad0b131b09e9.usrfiles.com/ugd/3ce235_d03f98593c1340a4a4c54ca1bd3cccb7.pdf Gift Policy - https://3ce23514-62b3-4167-a04a-ad0b131b09e9.usrfiles.com/ugd/3ce235_04523911bdde4e849c42f72c82ace46b.pdf Endowment policy - https://3ce23514-62b3-4167-a04a-ad0b131b09e9.usrfiles.com/ugd/3ce235_8c46870199b84675bb3b5c62ed4062a7.pdf

Welcome and Announcements Processional 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... Centering Prelude "The Chrysanthemum" by Scott Joplin performed by Dorothy Bognar Chalice Lighting and Opening Words Story: "The Flaming Chalice" Music "Andante Cantabile" "by unknown" Performed by Dean Gonzalez, euphonium Joys and Concerns Musical Interlude Offering In keeping with our congregation's 2018 resolution to become a sanctuary congregation, our community outreach offering for May is dedicated to two important immigrants' rights groups in Connecticut. Hartford Deportation Defense say "we are an immigrant-led mutual aid collective that fights for the rights of all immigrants in the Hartford area, so that we can all have access to a dignified, peaceful, and joyful life. Unidad Latina en Accion or ULA, was founded in New Haven in 2002, with the goal of building grassroots immigrant power across Connecticut to win economic and racial justice. Offering Music "Intermezzo" by Heinz Provost Anhared Stowe, violin; Mary Bopp, piano Story: "Righteous Among the Nations" Hymn #8 "Mother Spirit, Father Spirit" words and music by Norbert F. Capek Mother Spirit, Father Spirit, where are you? In the sky song, in the forest, sounds your cry. What to give you, what to call you, what am I? Many drops are in the ocean, deep and wide. Sunlight bounces off the ripples to the sky. What to give you, what to call you, who am I? I am empty, time flies from me; what is time? Dreams eternal, fears infernal haunt my heart. What to give you, what to call you, O, my God? Mother Spirit, Father Spirit, take our hearts. Take our breath and let our voices sing our parts. Take our hands and let us work to shape our art. Story: "Flower Communion" Flower Communion Ceremony Closing Hymn #12 "O Life That Maketh All Things New" Words by Samuel Longfellow Music: Thomas Williams's Psalmodia Evangelica, 1789 O Life that maketh all things new, the blooming earth, our thoughts within, our pilgrim feet, wet with thy dew, in gladness hither turn again. From hand to hand the greeting flows, from eye to eye the signals run, from heart to heart the bright hope glows, the seekers of the light are one: One in the freedom of the truth, one in the joy of paths untrod, one in the soul's perennial youth, one in the larger thought of God; The freer step the fuller breath, the wide horizon's grander view, the sense of life that knows no death, the Life that maketh all things new. 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.

i can see the galaxies / take me with you honestly / leave behind the color fleet / be my feet, be my feet—lyrics from Luke Harper’s song, “Star Trek.” Luke: Thank you so much for sharing your music this morning. It is not easy for anyone to share their art with a community that is still very new to them, especially when that art is as personal and probing as your songs are. Luke sent me an explanation of this song and its inspirations, including a line-by-line analysis, some of which I will address because it is relevant to our May ministry theme, pluralism. However, I’m not attempting to address the full scope of the song’s meaning, especially since Luke intentionally uses words and phrases that have multiple meanings and thus lend themselves to multiple interpretations. Bottom line: there’s far more to this song than what I am addressing here. I suspect very few of you  have never heard of Star Trek, writer and producer Gene Rodenberry’s global science fiction juggernaut that began as a fringe television series in the 1960s, and expanded over the decades into eleven more television series, thirteen films, video games, novels, action figures, comic books, etc. Luke describes his father praising Star Trek, essentially for the racial and cultural diversity of the crew on board the Starship Enterprise. I remember my father, in the 1970s, praising Star Trek for the same reasons. In my assessment, Rodenberry was attempting to do two things with his diverse cast. First, he was channeling a central tenant of the American creed from the Declaration of Independence, “all men are created equal,” and using it as cultural and social criticism. That is, if we as a nation were really living our creed, then our neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, congregations and corporate boardrooms would look like the Enterprise crew. Second, he was projecting into the coming decades, proclaiming, “this is our future, and the sooner we get there, the better.” Rodenberry’s initial vision was even more radical for its time than what viewers saw on television. He recognized that the language of “all men are created equal” was in desperate need of an update. In the original pilot, which NBC rejected, the first officer, Number One, was not Spock, but a human woman, played by the actress Majel Barrett. NBC executives couldn’t accept a woman serving in this second-in-command role. A diverse cast operating a starship, yes. But a woman with real power? The execs said audiences weren’t ready for that. Rodenberry was forced to compromise in order for NBC to air the show. Barrett was demoted to a non-officer role. She played Nurse Chapel in the sick bay, assistant to Doctor Bones McCoy. i can see the galaxies / take me with you honestly / leave behind the color fleet / be my feet, be my feet. As much as the Star Trek franchise envisions a grand multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic, anti-sexist, antiracist future, it is also a stinging reminder that the vision does not match our current reality. It didn’t match reality in the 1960s, and although our society has changed markedly since then, it doesn’t match reality today. For some of us, that’s easy to forget. In praising and celebrating the diversity of the Enterprise crew, we can succumb to the false impression that the presence of diversity equals the presence of equity. It doesn’t. Luke’s song takes “the perspective of someone who wouldn’t have the privilege of manning [a starship] or even being invited onboard, a dangerous alien perhaps.” The song speaks to the reality that “some are afforded the fullness of their humanity and some are left behind.” But the person left behind is intensely, even painfully aware of this crew journeying boldly into the unknown—an experience they don’t get to have. i can see the galaxies. The person left behind expresses a profound longing to join the mission, to go on the journey. take me with you, honestly. The person left behind is keenly aware of the barriers, not only to joining the crew, but also to the flourishing of their full humanity, and so they plead: leave behind the color fleet. The person left behind is also aware that the only way for them to join this galactic journey is for the crew members to use their power and privilege to break down barriers, to expand their welcome, to protect those who are vulnerable, to recognize, honor and invite the flourishing of everyone’s full humanity. In other words, please, please, please use your power and privilege on my behalf. Be my feet, be my feet. And maybe I’ll get to visit the galaxies too. Our ministry theme for May is pluralism, which refers to multiple groups of people co-existing peacefully, working together productively, respecting each other, being at ease with each other, even piloting a starship together. I want to talk specifically about religious pluralism.  Unitarian Universalist congregations are religiously pluralistic, meaning that on any Sunday morning you’ll find a great variety of religious seekers including pagans, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists, Humanists, Christians, Jews and—less numerous but certainly present in our congregations—Muslims, Hindus, people with Confucian and Taoist heritage, people with indigenous, First Nations heritage and practices, yoga practitioners, tarot-card readers, animal psychics and Reiki specialists. Furthermore, most of us mix and match two or more of these spiritual identities, similar to the way feminist spiritual writer and vegetarian cooking guru Carol Lee Flinders once described her practice: not “Buddhist,… Hindu or Catholic or Sufi, though I feel that in a sense it is all of these…. I meditate as best I can on Native American prayers and Taoist verses, on passages drawn from the Bible or the Upanishads, on passionate love songs composed for the One Beloved by a Spanish monk or an Indian princess-turned-minstrel.”[2] Given our internal religious pluralism, and given polarizing trends in the early 21st-century American religious and political landscape, specifically the rise of Christian Nationalism, I say Unitarian Universalism is not only uniquely situated—but uniquely called—to offer a faithful and robust defense of religious pluralism. In short, there are many minority religious traditions—many of which have arrived on American shores with recent immigrants—who see galaxies, but who need an already established crew to be their feet. Oddly, Star Trek, despite the diversity of its cast, despite the way that cast onboard the Enterprise (and all the other franchise starships) implies a pluralistic society back on an imagined future Earth or throughout an imagined future Federation of Planets, despite the way the cast reminds viewers of an implicit equality among persons regardless of race, gender, culture, etc., there is one major aspect of pluralism missing from the franchise: religious pluralism. This past Wednesday, freelance pop culture journalist, Dylan Roth, in a review of a recent episode of “Discovery,” the current Star Trek TV series, points out that “Star Trek’s future is a secular one. Franchise creator Gene Roddenberry was an avowed atheist, and the series and its spin-offs have routinely criticized organized religion as manipulative, illogical, and detrimental to the evolution of a society.”[3] He suggests Star Trek’s anti-religious ethos has softened over the years, but even so, religious identity remains at best a very thin layer of Star Trek’s celebrated pluralism. Even as a child in what he called “a supernatural” household, (meaning a Christian household), Rodenberry gravitated toward atheism. [4] As an adult he joined the American Humanist Association. Although I am not aware of a specific connection for Rodenberry, I note that the first Star Trek episode aired in September of 1966. Five months earlier, Time Magazine had famously asked the question on its cover, “Is God Dead?”[5] That cover story profiled the ‘Death of God’ movement which was flourishing primarily at liberal divinity schools and seminaries in Europe and the United States. Of course, the rest of the world never got the memo. Despite data showing the overall decline of organized religion in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, human religiosity, spirituality, spiritual practice, faith, worship, ritual, and the continual creation of religious and spiritual communities has never waned. I still remember when one of the leading “Death of God” theologians, former Harvard religion professor, Harvey Cox, announced in his 2010 book, The Future of Faith,[6] that he had been wrong, that religion had exploded globally in ways he could never have anticipated in the 1960s. And I still love Boston University religion professor Stephen Prothero’s description of the world as “furiously religious.”[7] By “furious” he didn’t mean angry or violent. He meant passionate, diverse, influential and growing. But today we witness the rise of a truly furious global religious identity, Christian Nationalism. To be fair, there are many versions of this identity, some more moderate, some more extreme. The more I research it, the more I conclude it is difficult to pin down with one, sweeping definition. It takes many different forms and has many different spokespeople, though clearly its most ardent proponents in the United States envision our nation not as a modern democracy, not as a constitutional republic, but as a Christian theocracy grounded in a very specific reading of the Bible, aligned explicitly with white supremacy ideals, and planning to enact into law—if it can gain sufficient power—some of the most extreme conservative culture war goals: a national ban on abortion with no exceptions; retrenchment on LGBTQ civil rights and cultural visibility; the teaching of a dishonest and racist interpretation of US history at all levels of the educational system; and the positioning of conservative, evangelical Christianity legally and culturally as the one true religion, thereby diminishing and devaluing religious pluralism and the many non-Christian faith traditions that Americans practice. This is not Gene Rodenberry’s Star Trek. This is Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. But more to the point, it is un-American. Confession: the original version of this sermon was 2,000 words about the place of religious pluralism at the founding of our nation. I took a deep dive into the Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom, how the effort to insert ‘Jesus Christ’ into its preamble was defeated; and how, in Thomas Jefferson’s words, the statute was ‘meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination.’”[8] I came across a somewhat random comment from George Washington who, while searching for “a carpenter and bricklayer to help at his Virginia home … explained that the workers’ beliefs—or lack thereof—mattered not at all: ‘If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mahometans [Muslims], Jews or Christian of an[y] Sect, or they may be Atheists.’”[9] All of this was context for passage of the first half of the first amendment to the United States Constitution which states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” For background on the complexities, the political expediencies and the limits of this founding vision of American religious pluralism, I recommend 2013 book, Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an: Islam and the Founders,[10] from the American scholar of Islamic history and Middle Eastern Studies, Denise Spellberg. Our Unitarian and Universalist forebears were present at the nation’s founding. The Universalist medical doctor, Benjamin Rush, signed the Declaration of Independence. Unitarians John Adams (also a signer) and John Quincy Adams served as the second and sixth United States presidents. They helped establish the American creed: all of us are created equal. They didn’t achieve it. We know this. The United States was established to protect, serve and advance the interests of wealthy, white male property owners. Some of those who most clearly articulated a vision of religious pluralism were also slaveholders. It was a limited vision. But somehow they laid the groundwork for a more inclusive future, even if they didn’t fully imagine it at the time. And we will not abandon that future now. We Unitarian Universalists are ourselves a small religious minority, but we also have power and privilege stemming from our history, stemming from our cultural whiteness and our middle and upper-middle class social location; and stemming from the way in which our principles and values overlap with the ideals of the American creed—equality, liberty, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, religious freedom. The existence of other religions poses no threat to us. We welcome it. We celebrate it. We eagerly engage in interfaith relationship building and social justice activism. We are proud of the way religious pluralism seeps into our pews and into our hearts. So many people, so many communities, so many religious minorities feel vulnerable in the United States, feel at risk, invisible, threatened. Yet they see galaxies too. They long to belong to and in this modern democracy which promises to make no law respecting the establishment of religion of the free exercise thereof. That promise remains unfulfilled, but we intend to keep it. Again, I say Unitarian Universalism is uniquely called to offer a faithful and robust defense of religious pluralism. Perhaps we’re like an established starship crew—not as diverse as we want to be, but we’re on our journey. Can we bring others along? Leave the color fleet behind? be their feet, be their feet? The answer is yes. Amen and blessed be. [1] There is a wealth of information about the “Star Trek franchise at the official “Star Trek” website: https://www.startrek.com/. [2] Flinders, Carol Lee, At the Root of This Longing: Reconciling a Spiritual Hunger and A Feminist Thirst (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998) pp. 24-25. [3]Roth, Dylan, “Star Trek: Discovery boldly goes where no Trek has gone before by saying religion is... OK, actually,” Polygon, May 8, 2024. See: https://www.polygon.com/24151113/star-trek-discovery-religion-whistlespeak. [4] See the text to Gene Rodenberrry’s 1991 interview with “The Humanist” magazine at https://thehumanist.com/features/interviews/humanist-interview-gene-roddenberry/. Some may also appreciate this article on Gene Rodenberry as a pantheist: https://www.pantheism.net/paul/history/star-trek.htm. [5] Elson, John Truscott, “Is God Dead?” Time, April 8, 1966. See: https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,835309-1,00.html. [6] Cox, Harvey, The Future of Faith (New York: HarperOne, 2010). See Introduction. [7] Prothero, Stephen, God Is Not One (New York: HarperOne, 2010) p. 4. [8] Ragosta, John, “Thomas Jefferson and Relgious Freedom,” April 16, 2018. See: https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/thomas-jefferson-and-religious-freedom/#fn-src-9. [9] Spellberg, Denise, “Our Founding Fathers Included Islam,” Salon, October 5, 2013. See: https://www.salon.com/2013/10/05/our_founding_fathers_included_islam/. [10] For an overview, check out Spellberg, Denise, “Our Founding Fathers Included Islam,” Salon, October 5, 2013. See: https://www.salon.com/2013/10/05/our_founding_fathers_included_islam/.

Gathering Music Welcome and Announcements Centering Prelude "Bad Kids from Out of Town" by Luke Harper Chalice Lighting and Opening Words "Come One, Come All" by the Rev. Ian W. Riddell Opening Hymn #1023 "Building Bridges" Words: The women of the Greenham Common peace occupation in England, 1983 Music: Contemporary English Quaker Road Building Bridges between our divisions, I reach out to you, will you reach out to me? With all of our voices and all of our visions, friends, we could make such sweet harmony. Time for All Ages Musical Interlude Joys and Concerns Musical Interlude Offering In keeping with our congregation's 2018 resolution to become a sanctuary congregation, our community outreach offering for May is dedicated to two important immigrants' rights groups in Connecticut. Hartford Deportation Defense say, "we are an immigrant-led mutual aid collective that fights for the rights of all immigrants in the Hartford area, so that we can all have access to a dignified, peaceful, and joyful life." Unidad Latina en Accion or ULA, was founded in New Haven in 2002, with the goal of building grassroots immigrant power across Connecticut to win economic and racial justice. Offering Music "Star Trek" by Luke Harper Sermon "Longing to Belong" Rev. Josh Pawelek Closing Song #162 "Gonna Lay Down My Sword and Shield" words and music: African American spiritual led by Luke Harper Gonna lay down my sword and shield, down by the riverside, down by the riverside, down by the riverside. Gonna lay down my sword and shield, down by the riverside, gonna study war no more. (Chorus) I ain't gonna study war no more, I ain't gonna study war no more, ain't gonna study war no more (2x) Gonna lay down my burden down by the riverside ... (Chorus) Gonna shake hands around the world, ev'rywhere I roam ... (Chorus) Gonna lay down my sword and shield, down by the riverside ... (Chorus) 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.

Gathering Music Welcome and Announcements Centering Prelude A melody performed by Members of the Manchester Women's Sacred Singing Circle Service Introduction Chalice Lighting and Opening Words "We Gather" by Rev. Dr. David Breeden Here, gathered, breath mingling, thoughts intersecting, we seek the simple press of presence, open, earnest. Here, we strive to live into knowing. Our presence is sacred, our connections divine. In the clasp of hands, in a shared glance, we claim our place-- beyond thresholds that too often refuse to yield In words, in silence, in music and stillness-- the performances of our existence call to the beauty etched in every being. In a world too often afraid to reach out, we gather, here, in the teeth of hierarchies, in the face of walls built of lies, we rise in wisdom. Our presence is sacred, our connections divine. Opening Hymn "Come, Come, Whoever You Are" #188 in Singing the Living Tradition Words adapted from Rumi, Music by Lynn Adair Ungar Come, come, whoever you are, wanderer, worshipper, love of leaving. Ours is no caravan of despair. Come, yet again come. Reflections from Janice Knotts Hymn "Meditation on Breathing" #1009 in Singing the Journey Music and Lyrics by Sarah Dan Jones Led by The Manchester Women's Sacred Singing Circle When I breathe in, I'll breathe in peace. When I breathe out, I'll breathe out love. Joys and Concerns Reflections from Nancy Thompson Offering Continuing our practice of sharing our gifts wit the community beyond our walls, fifty percent of our Sunday plate collections for the month of May will be split between Hartford Deportation Defense (Colectivo de Defensa Hartford) and Unidad Latinas en Accion. Offering Music "Journeys" Original Piece by Mary Bopp Reflections from Ellen Williams Closing Hymn "When Our Heart is in a Holy Place" #1008 in Singing the Journey Music and Lyrics by Joyce Poley Chorus: When our heart is in a holy place, When our heart is in a holy place, We are bless'd with love and amazing grace, When our heart is in a holy place. When we trust the wisdom in each of us, Ev'ry color ev'ry creed and kind, And we see our faces in each other's eyes, Then our heart is in a holy place. Chorus When we tell our story from deep inside, And we listen with a loving mind, And we hear our voices in each other's words, Then our heart is in a holy place. Chorus When we share the silence of sacred space, And the God of our Heart stirs within, And we feel the power of each other's faith, Then our heart is in a holy place. Chorus Extinguishing the Chalice Closing Words "Less beautiful without you" by Tess Baumberger This place would be less beautiful without you, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jew, Hindu, Humanist, and Earth-centered, too. This place would be less beautiful without you, Your heart honed by hardship, grief, illness, Seeking solace and comfort here among us. This place would be less beautiful without you, Filled with joy and gratitude, Seeking celebration of life's bounty. This place would be less beautiful without you, Curious, inquisitive, asking questions, seeking transformation emerging from within. This place would be less beautiful without you, Striving to resist a world that tells us We are so much less than we can truly be. This place would be less beautiful without each of us, Borne here in this morning to seek heaven's fire In each other's souls, our own flames rising to meet. 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.

A Meditation on Grace (Rev. Josh Pawelek) Where are my keys? I gotta go. I gotta go. Have you seen my keys? Did you look on the key hook in the coat closet? They’re not there. Did you look in the junk drawer? Not there. Did you look on your desk? Yes, not there. Have you tried your pants pockets? Thanks honey. Bye. Love you! Grace is like that. Not a gift from on high you don’t deserve. Not a light shining down reserved for just a few lucky souls. Not a way for the faithful to trust they’re saved from some depravity they’ve been told is who they are. No. Grace is like finding your car keys, which were never really lost. You’d just forgotten, for a moment, where they were. Grace is like clear sight after the rain. You just needed to wait out the storm. It needs to be said, grace is for everyone. The fount of every blessing. The great spirit resting in us always, at all times. The love that guides us always, at all times. We don’t have to wait, anxious, fearful, wondering, “will we ever measure up?” “Will we ever get it right?” Will we ever deserve it?” Grace is already ours. The gifts of this world – people, creatures, nature, beauty, creativity, love, compassion, generosity, star fish, trees, oceans, mountains, faith – already ours. We don’t have to wait for something beyond us to act. We just have to remember, the grace of the world is already ours. Amen and blessed be. Shine (Rev. Josh Pawelek) “Woah. Heaven let your light shine down”—a lyric from the 1993 hit song, “Shine,” by the Georgia-based (and, in my view, somewhat derivative) rock band “Collective Soul.” I’ve always liked the song, never loved it. But then, country music superstar Dolly Parton—not, in my view, derivative at all—heard “Shine” on the radio, loved it, and recorded it on her 2001 album, “Little Sparrow.” For that performance she won a Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal performance. As I pay very little attention to commercial country music—that’s a different sermon—I never knew Dolly Parton had recorded this song or that she’d won an award for it. It only recently came to my attention as the soundtrack to the closing scene of the final episode of the fourth season of the HBO series, “The Righteous Gemstones,” which follows the fortunes and, more specifically, the misfortunes of an evangelical Christian family who operate a successful mega church, somewhere in America. The fourth season aired this year. Again, that’s where I heard Dolly Parton’s version of “Shine” for the first time, twenty-two years after she recorded it. I recommend “The Righteous Gemstones.” Our family loves it. It’s funny. It’s raw. It’s touching. Trigger warning: it’s exceedingly crass and does at times feature some of the typical and unnecessary HBO prurience.  It stars John Goodman as Eli Gemstone, the wise though flawed family patriarch, a televangelist with a sordid past, aging and trying to retire, but very reticent to leave his still-thriving church empire to his three completely dysfunctional adult children. The Gemstone family struggles. They fight with each other. They threaten each other. At times they hate each other. They each in their own way grieve the untimely death of the family matriarch, Eli’s late wife, the children’s mother, Aimee Leigh Gemstone. Extended family members jockey for access to the Gemstone’s wealth and power. Church staff and others in the wider world jockey for the same access. Other mega church families compete with them. Eli’s children rarely respond well. They make mistakes but aren’t sure how to apologize. They cause harm, but aren’t sure how to acknowledge and atone for their actions. They are flawed people who know how to say the word ‘redemption’—know how to preach it—but don’t quite know how to actually be redeemed, aren’t quite aware that what they preach might actually apply to them. They are lost, wandering, searching, struggling, arrogant, even broken people who need some grace. Spoiler alert: in that final scene, though none of their issues are fully resolved, though they still have a lot of work to do, a lot of healing to do, a lot of relationship repair and building to do, they are, at least for the moment, reconciled to each other. They are together, enjoying each other’s company, loving each other, momentarily redeemed, experiencing at least some temporary grace. Aimee Leigh’s spirit is visually watching over them as they take turns driving a church-owned Monster Truck called “The Redeemer” across a field on their property, and Dolly Parton’s “Shine” plays in the background. None of them got what they wanted, really. But somehow they got what they needed. I cried. Heaven let your light shine down. That’s how I landed here this morning, talking about grace. The song sparked the idea. The song is our sacred text for this morning. I originally called this sermon “Grace for Unitarian Universalists,” though now I just call it “Shine.” In my newsletter announcement I wrote “Sometimes we get what we don’t deserve … and it’s wonderful. One traditional religious term for this phenomenon is grace, though Unitarian Universalists typically don’t embrace this term, [not in its traditional sense]. Given that, what might grace look like for UUs?” Please know it was entirely unconscious on my part to plan a sermon on grace for UUs for this particular Sunday, but I confess to you how strongly I feel we here, in this UU congregation, right now, we need some grace. Over the last year we’ve had a challenging discussion about proposed changes to Article II of the Unitarian Universalist Association bylaws. Not everyone has been directly involved in the discussion, but for those who have, relationships have been strained, some perhaps broken.  We need some grace. Heaven let your light shine down. And now we’re approaching our Annual Meeting in May, at which we will consider changes to our UUSE Constitution, some of which refer to our institutional relationship to the Unitarian Universalist Association. Our Policy Board has been operating in good faith, trying to make the best decisions possible about how to structure that meeting, while also experiencing fairly intense pressure on multiple fronts to structure it in specific ways. Most of you are not involved in these discussions, but there are certainly rumors flying around about them, and some inaccurate information. Without getting too deep into the weeds, I’ll give you one example: there’s a rumor that one of the votes we’re considering for the Annual Meeting would end our congregational affiliation with the UUA. This isn’t true. The taskforce that worked on the package of proposed constitutional changes has been very clear there is no proposal for us to end our affiliation with the UUA. The proposal in question would make it easier to end affiliation in the future if the congregation feels it is necessary. Some are concerned this is still too much too soon and prefer a discernment period. There’s a lot of gray. For those involved, this experience has strained, perhaps even broken relationships. We need some grace. Heaven let your light shine down. I remain completely confident that everyone who wants to speak at our Annual Meetinng will have an opportunity to speak, and every item that people want to vote on will come up for a vote. And a congregation-wide discernment process about our relationship to the UUA will commence sometime this spring. The Policy Board’s process, as messy as it has been, has gotten us to the point where I can feel this confidence. I know—believe me, I know—the Board’s decisions are unsatisfying to people on all sides of these various debates, but they are solid decisions and that’s why I feel confident. I commend the Policy Board for its work. Though understandable under the circumstances, it’s also not normal for UUSE Policy Board members to feel such pressure in relation to setting our Annual Meeting agenda. The pressure exists because people care deeply. That’s a good thing. But it makes governance very difficult. We need some grace. Heaven let your light shine down. We need some grace because none of it will end with our Annual Meeting. The UUA General Assembly will vote on the proposal to change Article 2 of its bylaws in June. Whatever the outcome, I suspect it will create more tension, anxiety, and possibly conflict here. Heaven let your light shine down. And then in June of 2025, the UUA will publish proposed changes to the rest of its bylaws. I suspect those proposals will create more tension, anxiety and possibly conflict here.  We need some grace. Heaven let your light shine down. I’ll stop saying that now. It’s a nice metaphor once or twice, but at some point it begs the theological question, “Heaven?” Totally legit question. Many answers. For example, some of you are sure there is no Heaven. Some of you will speak of Heaven, but limit your speaking to a vision of Heaven on Earth. Some of you won’t rule out Heaven; you’re convinced the standard depiction of angels, clouds, harps and pearly gates is a fiction; but you’re not sure what images will adequately replace that standard. Some of you wonder about and lean toward the notion that a spiritual realm beyond this physical realm exists, that there is some continuation of our essence after we die, even if our consciousness ends. My late father, a highly regarded molecular biologist who published more than a hundred articles in major scientific journals, an agnostic UU Humanist, deeply grounded in the scientific method, was convinced of the reality of an enduring spiritual realm beyond this physical realm. He called it Heaven. When we start digging into the metaphor from the song, there’s a lot there to consider. But it it’s not just a consideration of Heaven. What about the light? Is there a light that shines down? If so, what is its source? What is its power in our lives? Does it shine down, i.e., are we sure Heaven is up? Might it shine around? Or within? Or between? And perhaps most importantly, who’s doing the shining? And if they are shining their light down on me, why me, and not someone else? Or why us and not some other people? What did we do to deserve it? Is there something special about us, or did the shiner just randomly pick us? Or—Universalism—doesn’t the light shine on everyone, and we just forgot that minor theological tidbit from our religious heritage? But if that’s the case, then the lyric shouldn’t be “Heaven let your light shine down.” It should be something like, “Let me – or let us – remember Heaven’s omnipresent light.” Theology’s fun! All this is a set-up for talking about grace. Here’s a traditional Christina definition of grace from Van A. Harvey’s A Handbook of Theological Terms, a little reference book I acquired during my seminary years. “Grace is perhaps the most crucial concept in Christian theology because it refers to the free and unmerited act through which God restores his estranged creatures to himself.” [1] In other words, Heaven let your light shine down. Though most Christian churches accept this formal definition, how grace actually works and what it achieves are topics they’ve heatedly debated for two thousand years. If I may make a very general statement, it is my impression that for Unitarians, Universalists and Unitarian Universalists, over the last century, but stemming back to the 18th-century influence of the European Enlightenment on our faith traditions (the de-emphasis of the supernatural and the emphasis on reason in religion) traditional understandings of grace haven’t meant very much to us. The fact that this gift from God—this light shining down, whatever it may be, is unmerited, is a problem for us. “Unmerited” is a tricky word. Too often implies that we don’t actually deserve it. Our human flaws, foibles and fragilities, our weaknesses, our losing it from time to time, in this traditional theology, are signs of an innate depravity or sinfulness. God’s grace is a gift we don’t deserve. But this is not how religious liberals have understood humanity and human nature for the past three hundred years. Yes, human beings have flaws. Yes, human beings have proven capable of astounding cruelty and evil. But that does not mean there is some innate depravity, some enduring, inherent sinfulness from which we must be saved by some power beyond us who thinks we don’t deserve it but is willing to grant us grace anyways. No, we liberal religious people perceive and honor the inherent goodness in people. That’s our starting place. We try to nurture and develop that goodness in ourselves and our children. We fully realize that people make mistakes, cause harm, abuse power, but we do not confuse that with innate, inescapable sinfulness, or with human destiny. We believe each human being holds a spark of the divine. Though we articulate many different understandings of that spark, that divinity, that sacredness, that holiness, what our Unitarian forebears called that “likeness to God,” that inherent worth and dignity, it is non-negotiable for us. And it is universal. So we don’t intuitively recognize a divine judge determining whether or not we merit reconciliation with him. Most of us have rejected what I call vertical notions of the divine: God transcendent, distant, distinct, and up above, handing down grace we don’t deserve with no explanation. Our liberal theology tends to be horizontal. The divine is not above, but amidst; not beyond, but within; not distant, but immanent; not inscrutable, but deeply knowable—knowable in the person sitting next to you, right now. That person sitting next to you is a source of divine grace. It is knowable in your neighbor, your co-worker, your teacher, your student, the one you help and in the one who helps you—all sources of divine grace. You are a source of divine grace. When our text for this morning says “Love is in the water / Love is in the air,” or “Teach me how to speak / Teach me how to share,” it is much more in line with how we as liberal religious people experience grace: the gifts of an immanent divinity—infused into the world around us and manifesting in people, creatures, nature, art, creativity,  music, beauty—life-giving gifts always available to us if we pay attention, always accessible to us if we remain open; gifts sometimes coming to us in surprising ways, serendipitous ways, ways we never expected, ways that feel novel, new and clear now that the rain has gone, but gifts which were actually always there, waiting for us to remember, waiting for us to wake up, waiting for us to come home. Come, thou fount of every blessing. Great spirit come and rest in me. Friends, we need grace. Let us remember we are gifts to each other, and gifts to the world. Let us remember those around us are gifts to us, that indeed the world is a gift to us. Grace abounds, even if the metaphors don’t always line up. Heaven let you light shine down. Or maybe we make it more simple. Shine. Shine. Shine. Amen and blessed be. [1] Harvey, Van A., “Grace,” A Handbook of Theological Terms (New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1964) p. 108.

Gathering Music Welcome and Announcements Centering Prelude "I Can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash Jennifer Richard, guitar and vocals Chalice Lighting and Opening Words "We Receive Fragments of Holiness" by Rev. Sarah York Opening Hymn #126 "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" Words by Robert Robinson and Eugene B. Navias Music by John Wyeth Led by Jennifer Richard Come, thou fount of ev'ry blessing, tune our ears to sing thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise. While the hope of life's perfection fills our hearts with joy and love, teach us ever to be faithful, may we still thy goodness prove. Come, thou fount of ev'ry vision, lift our eyes to what may come. See the lion and the young lamb dwell together in thy home. Hear the cries of war fall silent, feel our love glow like the sun. When we all serve one another, then our heaven is begun. Come, thou fount of inspiration, turn our lives to higher ways. Lift our gloom and desperation, show the promise of this day. Help us bind ourselves in union, help our hands tell of our love. With thine aid, O fount of justice, earth be fair as heav'n above. Silence Meditation Hymn #15 "The Lone, Wild Bird" verse 1 Words by H. R. MacFayden Music: William Walker's Southern Harmony Led by Jennifer Richard The lone, wild bird in lofty flight is still with thee, nor leaves thy sight. And I am thine! I rest in thee. Great spirit come and rest in me. Joys and Concerns Hymn #15 "The Lone, Wild Bird" verse 2 Words by H. R. MacFayden Music: William Walker's Southern Harmony Led by Jennifer Richard The ends of earth are in thy hand, the sea's dark deep and far-off land. And I am thine! I rest in thee. Great spirit come and rest in me. Offering The recipient of our April community outreach offering is the Interreligious Eco-Justice Network (IREJN), Connecticut's only faith-based environmental non-profit organization. Committed to justice and grounded in hope, IREJN is a unifying voice dedicated to positive, hopeful action on behalf of the earth, the one thing we all share and the one place we all call home. Their mission is to inspire and equip Connecticut's religious communities and their spiritual allies to protect our planet through education, engagement, and advocacy. Offering Music "Shine" by Ed Roland (and Collective Soul) Jennifer Richard, guitar and vocals Sermon "Shine" Rev. Josh Pawelek Closing Hymn #131 "Love Will Guide Us" Words by Sally Rogers Music: traditional, arr. by Betty A. Wylder Love will guide us, peace has tried us, hope inside us will lead the way on the road from greed to giving. Love will guide us through the hard night. If you cannot sing like angels, if you cannot speak before thousands, you can give from deep within you. You can change the world with your love. Love will guide us, peace has tried us, hope inside us will lead the way on the road from greed to giving. Love will guide us through the hard night. 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.

Gathering Music Welcome and Announcements Centering Prelude "Big Yellow Taxi" Words and Music by Joni Mitchell performed by Andy Ricci Chalice Lighting and Opening Words "As surely as we belong to the universe" by Margaret A. Keip Introduction to the Service Opening Hymn #1064 "Blue Boat Home" Words: Peter Mayer Music: Roland Hugh Prichard, adapted by Peter Mayer Though below me, I feel no motion standing on these mountains and plains. Far away from the rolling ocean still my dry land heart can say: I've been sailing all my life now, never harbor or port have I known. The wide universe is the ocean I travel, and the earth is my blue boat home. Sun my sail and moon my rudder as I ply the starry sea, leaning over the edge in wonder, casting questions into the deep. Drifting here with my ship's companions, all we kindred pilgrim souls, making our way by the lights of the heavens in our beautiful blue boat home. I give thanks to the waves upholding me, hail the great winds urging me on, greet the infinite sea before me, sing the sky my sailor's song: I was born up on the fathoms, never harbor or port have I known. The wide universe is the ocean I travel, and the earth is my blue boat home. Story "Change Sings -- A Children's Anthem" by Amanda Gorman, ill. by Loren Long spoken by Emmy Galbraith Joys and Concerns Musical Interlude Offering Our community outreach offering for April is dedicated to the Interreligious Eco-Justice Network or IREJN. IREJN is Connecticut's only faith-based environmental non-profit organization. Committed to justice and grounded in hope, IREJN is a unifying voice dedicated to positive, hopeful action on behalf of the earth, the one thing we all share and the one place we all call home. Their mission is to inspire and equip Connecticut's religious communities and their spiritual allies to protect our planet through education, engagement, and advocacy. Offering Music "Hymn to Gaia" by Mary Bopp Homily Janet Heller with words from Cory Clark, Nancy Madar and Laurel Hennebury Video "Won't Give Up" by Pattie Gonia, Yo-Yo Ma, and Quinn Christopherson Congregational Sing: "Won't Give Up" Chorus I won't give up for a minute Never giving up on you Never giving up on you We won't give up for a minute Never giving up on you Never giving up on you Closing Words Excerpts from "Earthrise" by Amanda Gorman 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.

First Part: Interdependence as a Fact of Life Our ministry theme for April is interdependence. This term has been capturing the spiritual imagination of Unitarian Universalists and grounding our spiritual actions—especially actions related to Earth stewardship and addressing climate change—since it was adopted as the heart of the seventh Unitarian Universalist principle in 1985. That principle is “respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” I note that the proposal to change Article II of the Unitarian Universalist Association bylaws identifies interdependence as one of the enduring Unitarian Universalist values. The accompanying language says “We honor the interdependent web of all existence. With reverence for the great web of life and with humility, we acknowledge our place in it.” I am not preaching about Article II. I am simply naming that from the last quarter of the 20th century through this first quarter of the 21st century, interdependence has been a central, guiding spiritual idea for Unitarian Universalists. I anticipate it will continue as a central, guiding spiritual idea for us for generations to come. As many of you know, when I give the tour of our building during the “Introduction to Unitarian Universalism” class (which I will be doing this afternoon), I show people the mechanical room on the garden level that houses our geo-thermal pumps. In 2008 and 2009, when we succeeded in raising sufficient funds to install our geo-thermal system—so that no fossil fuels would be combusted on our premises, so that we could do our small part in reducing greenhouse gas emissions to address the negative impacts of climate change—we were demonstrating our commitment to the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. We were faithfully living the principle. I sometimes refer to those geo-thermal pumps as the spiritual crown jewels of our meeting house. This is not hyperbole. That’s really how I experience them. I hope you do too. Interdependence is a fact. Not a theory. Not a metaphor. Not a new age book title (Twelve Steps to Living an Interdependent Life). It’s a fact. No individual life exists independently of other life. I did not create the air I breath. I depend on the sun and photosynthesizing plants, algae and bacteria to produce that air. This is a fact. I did not create the food I eat for sustenance. I depend (primarily) on farms to produce it (not to mention soil, sun, rain, rivers, aquifers, pollinators, animals, etc.). This is a fact. Mindful also that our human bodies cannot function as carbon sinks—that is, cannot filter excess carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and sequester it—we depend on forests, soils, the deep ocean, tidal marshes and sea grasses to function as carbon sinks, so that the planet doesn’t heat up to the point where its life-supporting systems begin to fail. This is a fact. And, all life as we currently know it on Earth depends on human beings living and organizing our societies—especially our systems of energy production and usage—in ways that do not harm all the photosynthesizing, carbon-sinking plants, trees, soil, oceans; living in ways that do not harm the natural systems involved in food production; living in ways that do not pollute, do not release CO2 into the atmosphere beyond the planet’s capacity to sequester it, do not poison natural habitats. In this moment, all life as we currently know it on Earth depends on human beings living as human beings and their precursors have lived for hundreds of thousands of years: in harmony with the Earth and its local environments; in intimate, connected relationship with the Earth and its local environments; as careful, thoughtful, humble stewards of the Earth and its local environments. Not as pillagers, extractors or dominators, but as partners, sustaining a balance that sustains all life. Second Part: Hints from the Quantum World I am not a scientist, though I do enjoy reading popular science from time to time—an interest which comes from being the child of a micro-biologist. My occasional forays into popular science include explorations of quantum theory. Those explorations suggests to me that I—that we—are not only interdependent with all life, but with all existence—all matter, all substance. Everything. I don’t for a minute pretend to fully understand interdependence at this level. It is murky (Alfred Einstein called it spooky.) I don’t have training in physics and am therefore confident I don’t fully understand the pertinent theories. But I read what I read, and I cannot escape the conclusion that subatomic particles, at least at times, appear to behave in ways that could be described as interdependent. One prominent theory is known as quantum entanglement. I’m quoting here from an article on the website Space.com called “What is Quantum Entanglement,” subtitled “Quantum Entanglement is One Seriously Long Relationship.” The writer is Jesse Emspak, a freelance journalist who focuses on physics and what he calls ‘cool technologies.’ (I also read an article titled “Quantum Entanglement for Dummies,” which probably should have been titled “Quantum Entanglement for people who at least hold a bachelor’s degree in physics.”) Here’s the Emspak quote: “Quantum entanglement is a bizarre, counterintuitive phenomenon that explains how two subatomic particles can be intimately linked to each other even if separated by billions of light-years of space. Despite their vast separation, a change induced in one will affect the other. In 1964, physicist John Bell [who was from Northern Ireland] posited that such changes can be induced and occur instantaneously, even if the particles are very far apart.”[1] I understand this is confounding to physicists because, if it is true it means that information is travelling between particles many times faster than the speed of light, which shouldn’t be possible. Einstein actually called it “spooky action at a distance.” Emspak points out that in 2015 “three different research groups were able to perform substantive tests of Bell's Theorem, and all of them found support for the basic idea.” I don’t want to overstate the case for interdependence in response to quantum entanglement. I understand that the theory has a lot to do with how physicists measure certain properties of subatomic particles, and with the concept of superposition which is a rabbit hole you will thank me for not going down. The "Quantum Entanglement for Dummies” article cautions against appropriating this phenomenon for spiritual purposes. The quote is, “Worse still, the Deepak Chopras of the world, who clearly do not understand the physics involved, are bastardizing this phenomenon in ridiculous fashion.”[2] I really don’t want to do that. What I note is that, at least in theory, a subatomic particle on one end of the universe has a measureable relationship to a subatomic particle at the other end of the universe, and a variety of different tests have confirmed this relationality. There’s something there worth holding onto. If nothing else, the tiny, individual pieces of stuff that make up the substance of the universe are not isolated from each other. They relate to each other. I know this about me: I prefer a universe full of relationship. I prefer a universe whose essence is interdependence. Third Part: How Quickly We Forget The fact of interdependence, the idea of interdependence—the word itself, interdependence—rings true to the members and friends of this congregation, rings true to Unitarian Universalists. I note further how so many religions embrace some notion of interdependence, whether they use the word or not. Often it is the more mystical practitioners of a religion who speak of interdependence, or interconnection, or union with the divine, or the cosmic Christ, or interbeing, or ayn sof[3]; or any pantheistic understanding of God or the divine as the totality of all existence—“The Oneness of Everything,” to quote UU songwriter Jim Scott. All related to all. What amazes me is how quickly we, for all sorts of reasons, forget our interdependence, how quickly we revert to living more or less as if we are independent agents, completely self-determining, masters of our own destinies. In my April newsletter column, I wrote about the very natural human tendency to put the world and its things into either/or categories: Right/wrong, good/bad, urban/rural, red/blue, conservative/liberal, immigrant/citizen. I said religions are the most adept at drawing rigid, divisive lines: sacred/profane, saved/damned, virtuous/sinful, good/evil, believer/unbeliever, wheat/chaff. There’s a purpose to this. Categorization and either/or thinking help us to understand and navigate our relationships and our surroundings. But they also feed the illusion of our separateness, and thus they ultimately undermine the well-lived spiritual life. Either/or thinking divides people from people, alienates people from nature, even from our own bodies. It erases the gray areas, the middle ground, the commonalities. As such, it leads us to forget our interdependence with the whole of life. In his Love Letter to the Earth, from which I read at the beginning of our service, the late Vietnamese Zen Master, global spiritual leader, poet, and peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh, said it more simply: “Sometimes I forget. Lost in the confusions and worries of daily life, I forget that my body is your body, and sometimes even forget that I have a body at all. Unaware of the presence of my body and the beautiful planet around me and within me, I’m unable to cherish and celebrate the precious gift of life you have given me.” [4] And in response to his forgetting, he prays: “Dear Mother, my deep wish is to wake up to the miracle of life.” And then he makes a vow: “I promise to train myself to be present for myself, my life, and for you in every moment. I know that my true presence is the best gift I can offer to you the one I love.”[5] Just as we naturally break the world up into categories, so we need a natural practice of breaking down the categories, of naming our relationships across the arbitrary divisions we create, naming those relationships to ourselves and out loud to others. We need a practice of naming our connections to people, land, trees, animals, air, water, even the carbon sinks—naming them to ourselves and out loud to others. We need a practice of waking up to the miracle of life, of remembering how all of it is sacred, holy, divine, a practice of remembering our interdependence. Such a practice can take many forms, and really needs to take many forms. The exercise we held earlier, inviting the children—and the adults—to name out loud all the different institutions they are a part of—family, school, neighborhood, girls scouts, church, sports, theater, band, orchestra—and then identifying how each of those institutions shapes who they are, and how they shape those institutions in turn—that’s a way of remembering our interdependence. Another way we remember is through participation in worship here—and in all the other ways we worship, holding up things and matters of ultimate worth to ourselves and others: words, music, art, meditations, prayers, sharing joys and concerns—all of which break down either/or thinking and lift up our interdependence. We need to hear words like those of Thich Nhat Hanh, ““Dear Mother: wherever there is soil, water, rock or air, you are there, nourishing me and giving me life. You are present in every cell of my body. My physical body is your physical body, and just as the sun and stars are present in you, they are also present in me. You are not outside of me and I am not outside of you. You are more than just my environment. You are nothing less than myself.”[6] We need such words in our lives, waking us up, reminding us, revealing interdependence. In searching for such words this week, I happened upon a poem from the 13th-century Sufi poet Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, entitled “Say I am You.” The translation reads in part: I am dust particles in sunlight. / I am the round sun…. / I am morning mist, and the breathing of evening. / I am wind in the top of a grove, and surf on the cliff…. / I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches. / Silence, thought, and voice. / The musical air coming through a flute, / a spark of a stone, a flickering in metal …. / I am all orders of being, the circling galaxy, the evolutionary intelligence, the lift, and the falling away. / What is, and what isn't…. / You the one in all, / say who I am. / Say I am You.[7] We need the daily, worshipful repetition of such words, such music, such art so that we can remember, so that we can wake up to our interdependence and the knowledge that just as we depend on the earth, so the earth depends on us. And once awake, then we can make our own vows, our own promises—to be present, to be kind and compassionate, to move gently upon the land, to be good stewards of the planet’s resources, to reduce, reuse, recycle, to engage in the tasks of healing and repair, to be good ancestors to all those who are coming after us. Let us remember, let us promise. Let us remember, let us promise. Let us remember, let us promise. Amen and blessed be. [1] Emspak, Jesse, “What is Quantum Entanglement” at Space.com, May 16th, 2023. See: https://www.space.com/31933-quantum-entanglement-action-at-a-distance.html. [2] ZapperZ, “Quantum Entanglement for Dummies,” Physics and Physicists (website) April 22, 2015. See: https://physicsandphysicists.blogspot.com/2015/04/quantum-entanglement-for-dummies.html [3] From Jewish mysticism. The name by which Kabbalists refer to God’s essential nature is Ayn Sof, which means boundless, or without end. [4] Thich Nhat Hanh, “Love Letter to the Earth,” (Parallax Press, 2013). See: https://www.parallax.org/product/love-letter-to-the-earth/. Also visit Emergence Magazine at https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/ten-love-letters-to-the-earth/. [5] Visit Emergence Magazine at https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/ten-love-letters-to-the-earth/. [6] Visit Emergence Magazine at https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/ten-love-letters-to-the-earth/. [7] Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (Jelaluddin Balkhi), Barks, Coleman, tr., “Say I Am You” The Essential Rumi (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995) pp. 275-6.