12-2-12

Ring the Bell

Welcome: Matt Marshall

Good morning and Welcome to the Boulder Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. My name is Matt “The Mitten Man” Marshall. I will be your Worship Associate today. No matter your age, your size, the color of your hair, your skin, you are welcome

here.No matter whom you love, or how you speak, or whatever your abilities, you are

welcome here.No matter where you live or how you make your living, you are welcome here.Whether you come with laughter in your heart or tears, you are welcome here.

If you come here with an open mind, a loving heart and willing hands especially if you are carrying mittens to donate, you are welcome here.

I extend a special welcome to all visitors today, and hope that you find here a place that both nurtures your spirit and inspires you to help heal our world. If you are new to our Fellowship, and haven’t already done so, please stop by our Welcome Table at the East entrance to the building and pick up a newcomer packet and sign our guest registry. This helps us welcome you and connect you to our community. We hope you’ll find meaningful ways to engage your heart, mind and soul here. All are invited to stay for coffee and conversation following the service. Each month, Intern Minister Sarah and lay leaders host an informal ‘chat’ for anyone wishing to learn more about the Fellowship or Unitarian Univeralism. This month, it will be Dec 16. We’ll meet here on the dias, following the second service coffee hour, and

then go back to a quieter space to talk. The theme this month of December is waiting. We will explore the wonder, growth, joy and sometimes pain to be found in waiting. We will also kick-off this wonderful season of lights and celebration by decorating our Mitten Tree – a much beloved and anticipated BVUUF tradition that benefits the Emergency Family Assistance Association (EFFA).It is our practice to give ½ of our plate away each Sunday to groups that help bring our values into the world. Today’s we are giving all of our plate to EFFA You can read

more about them in your order of service. I’d like to introduce Beth Bowman from EFFA who is with us today. You can learn more about their group during Unity Plaza. We like to get to know all of our newcomers. If you are new and would like to do so, I invite you to stand and introduce yourself and tell us if you are a gloves or mittens kind of person so that we might better get to know you following our service. Are there any new people that would like to introduce themselves? Take the bowl May the sound of the bowl draw you deeper into the present moment. Ring the Bowl again.

PRELUDE “Return Again,” “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”

Opening Words

ITTLE treelittle silent Christmas treeyou are so littleyou are more like a flowerwho found you in the green forestand were you very sorry to come away?see i will comfort youbecause you smell so sweetlyi will kiss your cool barkand hug you safe and tightjust as your mother would,only don't be afraidlook the spanglesthat sleep all the year in a dark boxdreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,put up your little armsand i'll give them all to you to holdevery finger shall have its ringand there won't be a single place dark or unhappythen when you're quite dressedyou'll stand in the window for everyone to seeand how they'll stare!oh but you'll be very proudand my little sister and i will take handsand looking up at our beautiful treewe'll dance and sing"Noel Noel"

HYMN “O Mitten Tree” (see insert for words; sung to “O Christmas

CHALICE LIGHTING

FOR ALL AGES EFAA Mitten Tree and Holiday Music Eneid

a Larti and BVUUF Kids

HYMN “Go Now in Peace” Go Now in Peace, go now in peace.

May the spirit of Love surround you, everywhere, everywhere, you may go.

CANDLES OF COMMUNITY Please limit your sharing to brief, personal joys & concerns.

PASTORAL PRAYER

Spirit of Life, we come with prayers for wholeness and gratitude for the many possibilities that fill our lives; some are challenges, some are opportunities. We are reminded of the preciousness of each life, the truth that all souls are sacred and worthy and the call for us to be courageous in love, standing for all that is life affirming. This is how we may witness salvation in this life, as we pursue healing and redemption not just for individuals but for the communities and systems that we live within and which we both shape and are shaped by. Sometimes it feels like we are waiting--waiting for answers, waiting for opportunities, waiting for pain to end. Wait with us, Spirit of Life, Walk with us, and Grow with us. //Blessed Be.

HYMN “Meditation on Breathing” #1009 (led By Ellen and Larry)

Sermon: Possibility, Healing and Mystery:

Rather than implying inaction, waiting implies an expectancy and investment of energy and interest.

Waiting has the energy of gestation, of seeds planted. Like waiting for Christmas eve when you were a kid,

waiting was also decorating the tree, wrapping presents, and baking cookies. Just as our minister, Rev. Lydia, is

engaged in a special kind of waiting during her sabbatical over the next four months, so too are we, waiting. What we do while we are “waiting” may make all the difference

when the waiting is over. As individuals and a community, we may find ourselves in a cycle similar to that of a

garden. We cultivate our soil and create a rich environment in which to grow the seeds of ourselves and our community. As growth develops, we tend our garden,

watching each plant carefully, tending its growth and noting its needs. And then, as we harvest our results and enjoy the bounty, we remember to plan for the next

season—to keep seeds for replanting, to add compost and rebuild beds, to plan new areas of the garden and maintain the tools we need to continue our work,

sometimes investigating new ways to garden and new ways to harvest. Then we rest and wait.

Patience and waiting are part of this cycle—each piece is a preparation for the next. I am going to describe the

garden cycle of this community and invite you to think about where your gardening is feeling most fruitful and germane—and where do find yourself in need of sustenance and new sunlight, where do you need water or better tools or more time? It might seem funny to talk about gardening in the late fall as we edge toward winter, but it is exactly what we do in the seemingly “fallow” times that prepares us for the season of greenery and growth. Leaves fall and become rich, natural fertilizer; so much happens that we can’t see but which is preparation for what comes next. It’s this way with us, too. When we are still and waiting, we are also preparing in unseen ways. Today I offer a small reflection of expectant waiting I see in the community and congregation; as you find yourself in this reflection I hope you’ll see where your own garden needs tending and which tasks make most sense for you and for our community now.

Are you waiting for enlightenment? We are seekers, planting seeds we hope will germinate. Many of us are

hoping for a deeper understanding of ourselves and of our purpose, both as individuals and as a collective; as we

wait we find ourselves here on Sundays, looking for nuggets and clues in sermons, in music, in conversation and education, in connection with each other. Pregnant

with possibility, we are nurturing our souls with an expectancy for goodness and light. And since, we don’t

want to do all of this alone—indeed we can’t—we invite new people to join us, welcoming diversity and company,

and re-invite each other into the possibilities of enlightenment. We may not be able to see yet what we

are growing, but we know we need to offer conditions that will nurture and enhance our growth.

Are you waiting for the world to change? We plant seeds. We are servant leaders, offering ourselves in service to one another and the greater community. We connect through our neighborhoods and offer each other help when needed, through life’s many challenges. We offer each other sustenance and sustaining hope through meals, and rides, and visits, and child-care, and assistance with things like shoveling snow or doing dishes. We have also engaged in helping a broader set of neighbors, too, learning the stories of immigrant families, walking with them in solidarity, and supporting the dreams of their children; looking for better solutions to health care roadblocks and the needs of those challenged by mental illness; examining the economic distress of our community and its origins to find opportunities for progress; speaking out for GLBTIQ rights and need, advocating a queer theology that honors all lives and identities and the full spectrum of human relationship and needs; supporting organizations in our community that are already doing amazing and salvific work for ordinary lives.

Theologian Paul Rasor, in his book “Faith Without Certainty” posits the idea that “my self is not just

connected to the other, but completed in the other” and that “this form of self understanding tells us that we are

called to account by the other who co-constitutes us.” We honor each other and our community with presence and witness while looking for ways to engage. I agree with

Rev. Rebecca Parker and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the assertion that “Obligations to love and care for one

another are implicit in life, not add-ons. We are bound together in an ‘inescapable network of mutuality,’ as Martin Luther King Jr. would say…What injures one

diminishes all” (Parker 129). Piercy’s image of the garden mirrors this truth, telling us to “weave real connections,

create real nodes, build real houses…keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in” (Seven of Pentacles).

Are you waiting to share yourself and your gifts with others? We are stewards. We know that this community and the work it does needs us to contribute our time—whether we do this in greeting one another each Sunday, making coffee, decorating our Fellowship “home” or cleaning up after meals; whether we serve on a committee or chase prairie dogs from the playground; we see these actions as ways to deepen our connections with each other and to find the holy in the ordinary. We make a spiritual practice out of our sharing, lovingly working

together to make this space and the ministries that move through this space a vessel for transformation and healing. We know that there is a time for rest and renewal; that there is a time for re-engaging and deepening; a time to re-evaluate our gifts and our calling; a time to step up and a time to step back.

We share our time and our money, the fruits of our labor, to support a place that supports us, and supports what we care about. Whether it’s sharing our personal resources by pledging to the Fellowship, sharing our plate offerings,

cooking for shelters, gathering mittens or food or other needed items, or insuring our carbon footprint is as small

as it can be,our contributions make a difference, both visible and integral to the health and continuity of

organizations (ours and those in the community) that attempt to shape and affirm our lives in love. We invest

our energy now with hopes that each small investment of money and time and energy will collect and create

momentum that moves us and everything around us into healing and right relationship, growth and abundance.

This is what waiting looks like in our community; we are waiting together, knitting a new world with mittens for all! When we welcome newcomers and offer our plate to courageous organizations we take a step into new work and new lives. This is because, as Rev Rebecca Parker says: “what is truly natural—what is given in the nature of

things—is interdependence. Because we are all connected, oppression, exploitation, and abuse touch everyone, not just some. Right relationship matters for all” (Parker 135). We share the conditions of growth and flourishing as well as the conditions that cause us to shrivel and blow away—rain or drought, sunshine or clouds, rich soil or leeched and contaminated soil. Our roots contribute to their nutrients underneath the surface, build new conditions for growth. This work results in a rich harvest, says Rev. Parker—this is an eschatology that says that “heaven [can] be found in this world wherever love prevails and the gifts of life are stewarded with reverence and respect” (Parker 10).

As Rev. Rebbecca Parker also says, “we are already standing on holy ground” (12) which requires us to live

differently in the garden and in relationship to one another. We don’t have to wait to live in paradise; we might already

be in paradise—this view allows us access to new understandings of our responsibilities to each other. As

Rebecca Parker says, “We come to the world as paradise when our hearts and souls are reborn through the arduous and tender task of living rightly with one another and the earth. Generosity and mutual care are the pathways into knowing that paradise is here and now” (17). I propose

that it is this view which brings us into intentional community despite our cultural individualism and tendency

toward atheistic independence. We recognize that we are called to act on behalf of the whole, on behalf of our own

yearning for wholeness and healing.

If you believe, as I do, that Jesus was human more than divine, or no more divine than any of us, then the real question is: What is stopping us? What does love call you to do, to offer, to transform for yourself, for this Fellowship and for this world that you are an integral part of? Take a look at your neighbors here and everywhere you go today and this week. How might you act in concert with one another for a better world for all of us? Paul tells his disciples in First Corinthians these lines (13:4-7), so often used in wedding ceremonies: “love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” This is spoken into community more than to married couples, however—it is about enduring in our commitments to covenanted relationships and to loving together, loving as a community response to difference and violence, as an act of salvation on each other’s behalf, on behalf of the whole community.

It is also about honoring those day-to-day commitments that seems so ordinary we forget they are part of our

integrity and wholeness and people and a community of

people. Laundry and dishes, lawn work and cooking; finances and planning. We tend to the vessel that holds

our dreams and possibilities, too, waiting for transformation as we dry dishes and hug each other.

Marge Piercy writes: “Live as if you liked yourself and it may happen: reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in. This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always, for every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting, after the long season of tending and

growth, the harvest comes” (Seven of Pentacles). It is in this place of expectant waiting where we will live into “what

comes next,” one breath at a time, one task at a time, together.

Blooming Sweet PromisesAnd why not a rose?soft petal, sweet scentopening daily, dropping petals.Green next to redreachinghidden centerunfurling. Some sharpness:this love is not a weaponis not a mirroris not a fruitis not a dried leaf crackling. We entwine but grow separately.We remind each other of blossoming’s sweet promises.We entangle with vivid writhing, engaged,and the thread connecting us is invisible and chaotic,its origin unseen,its length unknowable,its end hidden. Like rocks embedded in claywe are separated by texture,somehow together.We are temporary:we long for permanence,we long for a knowing gesture,we long to be known,we long to be knowable. Buds closed tightlybut the sunlight encourages us

to opento be opento be opened. We long to be grounded.We long to be the earth,and someday we will returnseeds and dead leavespetals gone brittledust of rocks worn by rainthorns forgotten. Today a rose:someday a rosebush,someday a rose garden,someday a garden. We share what makes uswhat sustains uswhat allows us to grow. Still we bloom on different schedulesmore or less sand. And why not a rose?And why not a garden?

OFFERTORY “‘Raindrop' Prelude Op. 28, No. 15” by Frederic Chopin

POSTLUDE “Blue Boat Home” #1064

BENEDICTION “Return Again”

The cycle of life is the cycle of a garden; even when we cannot see green shoots of life emerging from the ground, we can begin to prepare the ground, we can take a deep breath and sing into the possibilties of green shoots in our future, composting leaves and raking together. Waiting is a kind of expectancy, and investment of our interest and initiative. What will you do while you are waiting with us?