#UUCLV #UU #UnitarianUniversalist #UnitarianUniversalism #UUCLVEvent #SundayService #sorry #love #sorrylove #apologize

Introduction and Zoom Orientation
Ringing the Bell
Invocation 
Chalice Lighting
Opening Reading
Now we will have our Opening Reading, words by Reinhold Neibuhr, read by Bruce Turner

Welcome

Pastoral Reflection  
Embracing the Double-Edged Universe
By Kyle Johnson

A dark treeline against a light grey sky
Mystery of the Universe –
You who some think of not as a being among other beings,
But as the very Ground of Being Itself –
Thank you for this day,
For another sunrise,
Another chance for us to witness the wonder of Creation.

We know that yours is a Creation that is truly double-edged –
A “yin-yang” Universe –
For it is indeed one in which the life giving flame can also burn.
But it is also one in which the dark, cold, misting rain
Gives re-birth to spring.
And it is one in which, paradoxically, our acquaintance with pain and sorrow can help us better appreciate pleasure and joy.

Help us, then, to have the courage and strength to embrace it All,
To embrace what is.

Help us – we, who are similarly double-edged,
Whose love for those closest to us
Can so easily provoke our own tribal instincts and prejudices;
Whose own pain, rather than fostering empathy and compassion,
May turn us inward,
to dig moats, to build walls, rather than bridges.

So help us to embrace this double-edged, yin-yang Universe
with courage and strength,
But above all, help us to do so in a spirit of love and compassion –
For this, it seems, is our eternal challenge,
As it is also the wellspring of our eternal salvation.

About the Author
Kyle Johnson holds a Masters of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. He serves as a lay minister at Follen Community Church (UU) in Lexington, MA.

Hymn # 123 Spirit of Life
Of Our Hearts 
A Time for All Ages: “Rituel” a video   

Offering and Silence 
Sermon:  “Love Means Having to Say You Are Sorry” by Bruce Turner 
In the time for all ages, we watched a girl go through a ritual that taught her to understand and like the creature that she had initially thought of as a monster. When she learned to understand the creature, she came to understand his point of view and felt that it was worthwhile. When the creature realized that she had now knew this, he had taught her his most valuable lesson. He gave her the golden ring--or bracelet--showing that she had achieved a caring understanding that we call empathy. When the creature shoved off the boat taking her back to her world, he knew that he would be turned to stone. He sacrificed himself in an act of ultimate empathy.
 
Empathy—When we think of it, it seems normal to think about things that we have witnessed. But what are we talking about, anyway? What IS empathy and how far does it extend? How big should we make our world of caring? And how much should we care?
 
Let’s start small. There is caring by making amends. I was in line in a gelato shop in the evening. The weather had cooled just enough to make a stroll under the trees in the adjacent park desirable, especially when there were so many neighbors and friends to talk with along the way. Everyone was in the gelateria, in all sorts of dress, from guys in coveralls just coming off their construction shift, to kids and parents in shorts and flip-flops, and one elegant vintage couple. He was wearing a tuxedo and she had on a floor-length evening dress. As they turned to go, holding their cones high in front of them prior to administering the first lick under the trees, a little girl tripped. Suddenly his immaculately creased pants leg had a long, bright streak of white goo from knee to cuff, with the main cone melting in the center of his perfectly shined shoe. The little girl looked up at the elderly man and her lower lip experienced an earthquake. She was remorseful in her belief that there was no atonement that could make up for her evil act. She had done a bad thing that marked her as irrevocably exiled from the community of humanity—and she had lost her own gelato.
 
A tear trickled down her cheek. At any moment, the storm would burst. The old man eyed her with a gentle smile, squatted down eye-to-eye with her and, taking her fingers, wrapped them around his own cone. Her mouth dropped open and she looked at him with the sense of seeing something new and wondrous in life. He smiled, inclined his head to her as he stood up, and walked away into the park with his wife, each taking alternate licks from her cone. There was a ripple of applause from the line, but he may have been too far away under the trees to hear it. The little girl, with her looks, was saying that she was sorry; the man-made amends.
 
There are other forms of micro empathy.
Most of the time, when I have been on the receiving end of empathy, it is because I made a mistake. I made one oblivious mistake and a man took me in and made me a colleague in laughter.
 
More years ago, than I like to admit, I lived with my family in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, capital of the Cherokee Nation. Dad was a Deacon in the First Presbyterian Church. There on the western edge of the Ozarks, it was reputed to be a hotbed of leftist ideas. The church lounge was said to have copies of the New Republic and The Nation on the end tables. I was at home alone one Saturday night. Mom and Dad were gone, at some university function and would be back really late. I was happy in my solitude that evening. In the days before DVDs or even Beta, an Oklahoma Saturday night was special. The Oklahoma Educational Television Authority (OETA) showed old movies, usually something classic like Casablanca and then a comedy, often Laurel and Hardy or the Marx Brothers. I don’t remember what was on, but it was a great double header and as I watched I got thirsty. There was grape juice in the refrigerator, and I started to drink it. By the time Mom and Dad got home around 1:00 am, I had drunk it all. Dad looked in the fridge and at the empty bottle in the sink and said, “Where is grape juice for tomorrow’s communion service?” Oops! I felt really bad—a dumb 17 year-old-mistake. Boy, was I embarrassed! And sorry.  
 
There were no 24-hour groceries in those days and certainly none open on Sunday morning, so early in the morning, Dad phoned Pop Squyres, who owned the IGA supermarket near the church. Pop was a member of the church and he met us there around 8:00 am and unlocked the store. While Dad was getting the juice, Pop asked me what had happened. When I told him, he put his head back and laughed, loud and long. He was a big guy and you could hear it echoing through the empty market. His laughter took the sting out of things, and I found myself laughing with him. Then he put his hand on my shoulder and predicted that I would remember the story for the rest of my life. As you see, he was right. From being a dumb teenager, I was now a member of a tiny secret society—the Pop and Bruce laughter league.
 
Empathy can be practiced in several ways. Sometimes it is given back to you when you aren’t expecting it. Face-to-face empathy with street people can be really hard. How do we look at someone who really needs our help without being condescending? Dave was an expert at that. My friend David Yancy and I worked together at RTC for 28 years and often travelled around the country on transit business. We were at a conference in New Orleans on one trip, learning the latest Federal Transit Administration requirements for our upcoming reports. As we came out of our French Quarter restaurant in the evening, a panhandler came up to us. He was dirty, as you get when you sleep in New Orleans alleys; he was missing several teeth, and he was in need of a bath. Dave focused all his attention on this man and for 10 minutes listened to stories about his life and discussed how he might consider getting off the street. Dave had a theory that everyone who asked him for money had a story, but that you had to listen long enough to get over the prepared spiel they gave everyone and get them to talk genuinely about what was really at the heart of their life story. Dave nodded, laughed when the man told jokes, and didn’t take his eyes off the man’s face the whole time. At the end of 10 minutes or so, Dave handed the man a $5 bill. The man took out a small, dirty wad of bills and carefully peeled off 4 one-dollar bills. Then he handed the $9 back to Dave. “I need 27 a day and I got 31 today. Next time you meet somebody like me, give them whatever you normally would and then add these $4 and tell them who it came from. There are people worse off than me.” Dave allowed that man to feel human and respected—more important than mere money. Dave’s empathy allowed the man to feel empathy and was reflected back. And yes, Dave passed the $4 on to a woman in Chicago.     
 
Those are examples of immediate empathy. How do we show empathy to people or groups farther away from us? Though we will hear many denials this election season, one of the most powerful tools of empathy that man has created is government.
How we legislate shows how we view others. Do we have empathy for the people who have lost their identities with their jobs; who live in places where they can see no hope? Or are they just losers who have made poor personal choices. Some people DO make poor personal choices—usually in response to the options they are given. If your family is hungry and you can see no other way to make money, selling drugs may be the only choice. If you, at mid-life, have lost the job that sustained your family, that made you feel respected, and you are prescribed opioids for a job-related injury, you MAY seek oblivion from the hopelessness around you in harder drugs. It is difficult to look at the individual situation and not see a victim, but instead a collaborator in their own downfall—someone that we, as right-thinking middle-class people can’t really approve of. How do we get around this?
 
I was given a clue by my boss. I worked as a research contractor for the State of Wisconsin Bureau of Alternate Care, a social service agency that looked at community-based solutions to problems of the disabled. Keeping the developmentally disabled at home rather than placing them in a remote institution was our goal. My boss was a Brooklynite named Tony Bruno. He was short and square-built, loud, with a gravelly voice that was all Brooklyn all the time. He had a PhD and 30 years’ experience dealing with the developmentally disabled, from babies to seniors. He was practical and unsentimental. Regarding the people who needed our services and who might have some pretty difficult problems, his philosophy of empathy looked forward and backward. What needed to be done to take care of the immediate crisis and what should be done to prevent such problems in the future? As Tony put it, “You gotta get ‘em out of the ditch and THEN you gotta fix the road.” Fixing the road” means taking care of the long-term problems. That won’t help the victims in the short term, but it will prevent problems in the long run.
 
So, what can we do to proactively help people in situations to give them the chance to AVOID “making poor choices?” We need to have faith in the people we are trying to help—they just might know what they want better than we can.
 
First, we have to give them an equal chance at life from the beginning. Public schools must be good and equal. We need to recognize that for this to occur, poorer school districts must have the resources to equal the middle-class districts. This may mean that they must be subsidized to an extent that sometimes, the dollar amount per pupil will be higher than those middle-class districts. This is difficult to envision and hard to legislate. It requires empathy. We need to figure out how to do it.
 
Empathy is not love, but it is a necessary part of love. Take marriage. We need to understand the most basic hopes and fears of our partner and try to anticipate them; to make them dissipate BEFORE the need for active empathy. Empathy is most effective when it is proactive and not noticed. We can apply this at larger levels.  
 
Another part of empathy is to realize that people are not always just like us. We need universal job training, free for anyone who wants it. You should not HAVE to get a university degree to be a valued member of society. And that job training should be something that people can drop into at any time in life, where they choose what skills they want to hone, or what new ones they want to learn. Recent job training for out-of-work coal miners lacked empathy. It assumed that they would all like to be computer programmers. Not everyone would. AND many of them were later laid off as innovations in software made many of their skills redundant.
 
If we love enough to have practical empathy, we must show our sorrow for our individual and group transgressions by saying that we are sorry. Love is understanding—the ultimate companion of empathy. When we give love, we must acknowledge those places where we have fallen short of complete empathy. True love means letting those we wish to show our empathy to see that we know we need to do better. And that, as a part of our empathy at whatever level, we will work to improve the effectiveness and the degree of our empathy.
 
This brings us to the idea of love meaning that you have to say you are sorry. Some of you remember the 1970 movie “Love Story,” with the famous quote, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” It was bilge then and it is bilge today. So how do we say we are sorry to society in general?
 
I think that the best way to express sorrow for one’s actions is to look to the future; to make amends through improving the chances for everyone. Support and vote for candidates and programs that will give everyone an even chance and enable them to choose their own path. That is making amends, that is practically expressing sorrow for our previous obliviousness. That is love, and at its base is empathy. 

Let’s Talk About It 

Closing Song: Hymn: #16 “Tis a Gift to be Simple”        
‘Tis a gift to be simple, ‘tis a gift to be free,
‘tis a gift to come down where we ought to be,
and when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘twill be in the valley of love and delight.


When true simplicity is gained,
to bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight,
‘till by turning, turning we come ‘round right.
https://farfringe.com/stlt16-tis-a-gift-to-be-simple/​

Extinguish the Chalice 
Closing Words 
Postlude Music

Ringing of the Bell
Invocation & Opening Words
Prayer
So Far Apart and In This Together
By Erica Rose Long

"I am only one
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something.
And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do
the something that I can do."
—Edward Everett Hale

Everyone's cries sound different on the phone. Over the phone I cannot see how their faces change, how their bodies tighten as they try to hold back tears and relax when they finally surrender and let the tears fall. That’s what I’m used to.

Now, I listen over the phone as children play in the background, as dishes are washed, as the woman I’m speaking to turns on her blinker so she can park her car and cry. When I talk to someone on the phone, they continue to do whatever they were doing before I called. Their surroundings stay the same while their life breaks open in grief. We don’t have the comfort of the family room in the hospital—a neutral space we can share, and they can then leave forever—to share a horrific moment. Now, they’re at home and I’m in my room—the same room I will try to sleep in tonight. Everything changes, and nothing changes.

I never thought it could be possible to be “work-sick.” I miss my desk. I miss the elevators in the hospital. I even miss my commute. I miss all the little annoyances that separated my work from my home. Without those boundaries of time and space, I feel my heart struggling to maintain boundaries.
I tell the woman crying on phone, “This is my number; call me anytime.” I wouldn’t have done that six months ago. But I do now. The boundaries are so wide and so thin. We are all so far apart and yet we’re in this together. I stay on the phone and I cry with you. I hang up the phone and I pray for you.
Every day things change. Every week things change. I miss the way things were, and I know they’ll never really be the same. And yet, while everything is still so tender and uncertain, I am grateful. I’m grateful that this is my job. I’m grateful that you picked up the phone. I’m grateful that I get to live another day, and I get to do it with you.

Prayer
That Which Is Holy and Loving and True, hear our prayers: prayers for healing, kindness, resiliency, and courage. Prayers that our bodies and our spirits will survive this time of unimaginable loss. Thank you for giving us each other. Thank you for giving us hope. Amen.

Offering and Invitations

Sermon: “The Fruit of What's Gone” by Mary Phillips

When I showed up here in 2016, I had just experienced a loss that I believed was insurmountable. I had lost more than I thought I could survive losing. I would have done very nearly anything to prevent it. And yet--

And yet look at me now, addressing you, my friends and cohorts. I look back now at the life I was trying to salvage, to fix, or even to bear, and realize it was filled with despair, hopelessness, and fear.

We like to say, sometimes, “If only I had known then what I know now, I could have made better decisions.” Or, “I could have been more at peace.” But, friends, I will tell you now, that even if I had known then what I know now, I still would not have chosen it.

I would not have suffered that loss willingly. It was too hard. The pain was too dire. Even while swimming in the waters of fear and despair, I would not have chosen the terror of letting go of a sinking ship, on the slim chance I might make it to shore.

It was one of those situations where the consequences just seemed too dire to even contemplate--where the loss was incalculable and the consequences irreversible.

And yet, here I am. And maybe more importantly, I realize that my grief was not timely. By the time I was grieving, the actual loss had long since happened. I did not grieve at the actual time of my loss.

I'm not here to talk about me, though, only to show how our personal struggles can inform our understanding of the other grief we experience.

As a congregation, maybe to a lesser extent, but as a congregation, many of us have grieved the loss of Reverend Rachel, and the pit of uncertainty in which we found ourselves after our hopes were raised and then dashed in the first round of ministerial candidates.

We had no back-up plan. We felt bereft. Without. And yet--

And yet we find ourselves today looking toward growth in new directions. We find ourselves energized, and optimistic about our prospects of fulfilling more of our aspirations, more of what we wished we could accomplish, but toward which we did not yet see the path.

Again, though, that loss had already happened. That loss had already happened when Reverend Rachel Baker signed her contract. It was already arranged that she would move on, but still we grieved. We would not have chosen to lose our first prospects for ministerial leadership. The consequences for this congregation seemed too dire.

I could stop here, and it would be a comforting picture. The realizations in my life, about being willing to contemplate hope, even when I can scarcely conceptualize it, can barely imagine it, those concepts have easy correlations to the life of the congregation.

Today, though, in this nation and on this planet, compassionate people and people of conscience are in great pain. Our grief and fear can feel overwhelming. Our nation is facing crises in leadership, culture inequality, healthcare inequality, certainly justice inequality.

How can I apply my personal epiphanies to these crises? I look at George Floyd. None of us would have wished that fate on him. None would wish to add the weight of the consequences of centuries of institutionalized cruelty to the burden he bore due to others' inability to honor his humanity. We would not choose it. The pain is too deep. His death is too high a price to pay. The consequences are too dire. And Yet--

And yet, consider please the sheer weight, the critical mass of outrage which was catalyzed by his unjust and inhumane suffering. The Black Lives Matter movement has achieved a shape and a momentum that we could scarcely imagine just a short time ago. We could wish for it, but it seemed so distant. We yearned for, but could not believe it could be so soon, so close. People from various and sundry populations, communities, and cultures (even countries) have taken up the cry that Black Lives Matter. The light has been shone on the pervasive nature of a system which never meant to allow equality in the “inalienable rights” to which we so often like to refer.

And again, we grieve for George Floyd, and for ALL the George Floyds. If we started naming the victims of our unjust system, we would never stop. We grieve now, but of course the cause of that unjustified murder had already happened. The flaws in our system had already taken the lives of too many people to comprehend. Again we are too late in our grief, but still we grieve.

Politically, the lack of clear leadership causes many of us pain. The system caters mercilessly to those who already have, for the benefit of nothing more than a decimal on a balance sheet. No one hungry is fed because of the windfalls of the greedy. None are housed. We grieve the selfishness which has found its way to the very heart of our country's principles. And Yet--

And yet there is the possibility on the horizon that a portion of us, more in number, certainly, than ever before, are willing to contemplate a government that functions FOR the people...but this time ALL the people. It is certainly a moment of political catastrophe, no doubt, but civil unrest and healthcare disparities and insufficient pay for the workers actually most ESSENTIAL to the functioning of our daily lives, all these have served to shine lights into dark corners of our systems. More and more people see the inequity that SOME of our American family have always known and understood and suffered.

I borrow heavily from the poet Langston Hughes when I say, If we grieve too late for the American Dream, it is because we allowed ourselves to believe we lived in an America that has NEVER YET existed.

Finally, I grieve for our planet. The damage we have done is obscene. The territorialism of our species is obscene in its quest to divvy up land which belongs to the Earth, in order to keep things away from those of Earth's inhabitants which require them. We hire security guards to protect empty buildings while other humans in our midst are without shelter. Because of our alleged LOVE of nature, we build and change and ruin land that separates essential pieces of the natural world from the resources they require to continue. Human beings are responsible for 75% of all plant and animal extinctions since the year 1500. In the last 50 years global average temperatures have risen by at least 170 TIMES more than any natural rate ever discovered in geological data. We have acidified the oceans to a degree NEVER seen in the geological record of any period. We have suffered a biodiversity loss only ever observed during natural mass extinction events. We have filled the oceans and its creatures with plastic.

We cannot, we did not, people of compassion and people of conscience would not, could not choose the level of destruction and peril into which we have plunged our planet. And Yet--

And yet, we have just the gift of immediacy at our feet. Every generation that has been told that their grandchildren may not have a natural world to enjoy, has somehow been willing and somehow able to kick that can down the road to the next. There is none of that left. Scientists don't disagree. We've tipped the scale, we've engaged the inevitable feedback loop. Prevention is no longer possible. Mitigation is the emergency which can no longer be disguised. We grieve!

What do we do? How do we live every day with the fresh horrors of our personal, our congregational, our national, and our global crises, failures, and loss? On this hand is political catastrophe, systemic inequality based on pretty much any discriminator you can imagine, global climate atrocities which only can multiply—and on THIS hand you have....”And Yet?” How can I reconcile these things?

We grieve at the wonders and tragedies of this world. We are in mourning. Let us take the jagged daggers of our grief and turn them into the means for change, toward what remedies are left us still to honor what's gone.

I pray, when I pray, for the courage to love my family enough, my congregation enough, my country enough, and my planet enough to search out and to honor the fruit of what's gone, every day—to grow the memory tree into something beautiful and sustainable that feeds our hunger for justice. May I find the courage. May we.

I grew up in the Judeo-Christian Tradition, I rejected its literalism fairly early, but I am still comforted by its poetry and metaphor:

In the Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah spoke of the last days when the Word would come forth from the highest peak to settle disputes for many people, and among mighty nations.

Isaiah, Book 2, Verse 4 reads:

“They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they learn war anymore.”

Blessed Be and Amen.

Let’s Talk About It
1. Is there a time you're willing to share where one loss brought another, unexpected gain?
2. Is there something you heard today that reminded you of something in your life?
3. Do you have a grief or a gratitude you need to share?

Closing Reading
By Michael A Schuler

An ending, or merely prelude to more glorious beginnings?
We have reached the end of this time
For the gathering of memory
And for letting the imagination play with future possibilities.
We have enjoyed magic moments and edified each other.
Shall it be concluded, then?
Or will this adventure, now commenced, continue?--
Our separate paths converging, meeting, merging
In the unending quest for love more perfect,
The joyous struggle for meaning more sufficient and life more abundant.
Is this ending to be an ending,
Or merely prelude to new, more glorious beginnings?
I pose the question;
In your hearts lies the answer.

Closing Prayer
"I am only one
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something.
And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do
the something that I can do."
—Edward Everett Hale

Chalice Extinguishing

VOTING:
​What is up is down, what is down is up.
Aug 16, 2020 @ 10:30 AM Pacific
A Lay-Led Worship Service with Mark Bergtholdt

Come worship with the UU's!
​

An exploration of how we need to reshape our thinking on elections to live our UU values.

Ringing the Bell 
Invocation & Opening Words
     Let us begin with words by John Lewis: "Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself."

​(Chorus)
Come build a land where sisters and brothers,
anointed by God, may then create peace:
where justice shall roll down like waters,
and peace like an ever flowing stream.
We’ll build a land where we bring the good tidings
to all the afflicted and all those who mourn.
And we’ll give them garlands instead of ashes.
Oh, we’ll build a land where peace is born.

(Chorus)
We’ll be a land building up ancient cities,
raising up devastations from old;
restoring ruins of generations.
Oh, we’ll build a land of people so bold.
​
(Chorus)
Come, build a land where the mantles of praises
resound from spirits once faint and once weak;
where like oaks of righteousness stand her people.
Oh, come build the land, my people we seek.
(Chorus)

Chalice Lighting
Welcome
Of Our Hearts
     "Participating in the political process does not require us to sink to dirty politics or reduce our vision to sound bites.  As our circle of compassion has expanded so have our capacities to keep ego from dominating the world, to build movements based on distributed power, to listen deeply to the fears and the hopes of those we are trying to reach, and to choose language that communicates our common humanity and aspirations." -Sarah Ruth Van Gelder

Sermon: VOTE
Our fifth principle is “The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.”  As I have said before, I believe that this is the most important principle because it is the glue that holds all the others together.  Like the others it is a difficult principle to live up to. It requires time not only to do the act of voting but also time to educate ourselves about the issues before us.  Many of us, including me, sometimes take the easy way and not take the time to educate ourselves.  It may be because we have too little time to study the issues and candidates, or it may be that the issue in front of us is too difficult to deal with on any number of levels.  We may also think that the practice of democracy feels like Don Quixote tilting at windmills or worse, a fool’s errand. 
 
I think that as a nation, state, and local community we are on the precipice of losing our democratic processes.  We have either been moving in that direction for years, or we are finally waking up to the truth that has always been.  Those with money make the decisions.  So, what are we to do?
 
I believe we need to do three things.  First develop our stories, second educate ourselves about the issues third hold anyone we elect accountable to those issues.  Today we as a group if you wish will start with developing our stories. I start my story with why am I inspired to vote.  It starts with my first experience when I was seven years old. We had this Volkswagen van that we used as a family car.  It was cherry red with a white, it broke down frequently, usually somewhere far away from the nearest service station.  On that van sometime in the in the late summer of 1972 my parents put two bumper stickers on the back of it. One was Come home, America, vote George McGovern, the other was Bring us together, vote for Shirley Chissom.  The us was the abbreviation for the united states (U.S.).  When we visited friends, I remember my parents having conversations about why those two were on the bumper.  Dad was supporting McGovern, mom Chissom.  Then before school on November 14, my dad and I walked to the local polling place. On the way I remember talking to him about what he is going to do and why. We stood in line for a few minutes outside a garage of a house in the community where we lived.  He was given some paper and I remember him marking his ballot by punching out those little pieces of paper called chads in the ballot card. I thought it was amazing that you could mark a paper and that paper led to electing the people on the ballot. After he voted we walked back home, and I caught the bus to go to school. To this day, I still enjoy the ritual of walking to my polling place, contemplating my decisions and casting my vote, by pulling some levers, punching paper, filling in bubbles, or touching a screen. It is also when I feel the most patriotic. As a side note, my favorite method of voting was pulling the voting machine.  It always ended in a ringing of a bell when you moved the lever that both pull the curtain back and casted your vote.  
 
Now I would like you to take a few moments and right down your thoughts on why you are inspired to live the value of the fifth principle.  What you write should be personal and yours. Sky will now play some music for us as you think and write.
 
Why do we choose not to vote? I hear stories that people who don't vote because they believe that their vote will not count.  When I hear that my first thought is to wonder how many more people didn't vote for the same reason and could that have had an effect on the election. I have seen many news stories where a tie was decided by random draw from a deck of cards. And I share with them my story with how I witnessed a measure fail by less than five votes.  It was a measure to pass a bond for libraries and it needed a super majority to pass.  It missed that supermajority by five votes.  If five more people voted for the measure, it would have passed.  I knew one of those disaffected voters, so I am sure that there were more out there.  These were local elections.  Local elections are the most.  Not only does your vote count more because there are fewer folks in the voter pool, but it is also where our back bench of leaders is created.  The other thing about local elections is that you have more say in how the candidate will act when they get to office.  In the local elections, even if your candidate does not make out of the primary, you can still hold the primary winner accountable for your vote for the general election, by letting them know that while you did not support them in the primary, you will support them in the general election and will hold them accountable. I have done that, and it was very effective at pulling the primary winner more in the direction of the people I was working with. 
 
There are also other reasons folks don't vote, I hear that there is too much to educate myself on and I don't have the time research and vote for each issue.  My response to that is, educate yourself about an organization that matches your values who endorses candidates and look to their endorsements for answers.  Many groups spend much time talking with the various candidates and endorsing them.  Once you found a group you like, get out and vote.  Folks also don't vote because of those nasty voter suppression tactics.  Here in Nevada those cards we keep getting is a form of voter suppression.  If your card is returned, you are de-listed.  Yikes, you could show up at your polling place, and have to cast a provisional ballot because the postal system made an error in the delivery of your card.  There are other methods, that are used.  This is tougher issue to deal with, but all I can say is educate yourself on candidates and issues that do not support suppression and fight that suppression by getting out and voting.  If there are enough folks who want change, we can do that. Here is some interesting history that I have discovered.  Our countries covenant, the constitution, has been changed through 27 times through amendment. If you throw out those that were included in the bill of rights and the one that was ratified in 1992, the period between amendments is an average of every 13 years.  The last amendment before 1992 gave suffrage to 18 to 20-year olds.  It was ratified in 1971 nearly fifty years ago.  This 50-year period of no amendments is only exceeded by a 61-year period between ratifying the 12th and 13th amendments, that period started before the civil war and ended after the civil war ended.  Now I ask that you take a few minutes and contemplate on how you can acknowledge and address why people don't vote.    
 
As I have said, democracy takes a lot of work to do it right. It requires each voter to be educated on the issue and to understand where the candidates stand.  That can take a lot of time.  For the past year, I have been active in my union's political organizing committee. We have spent countless hours developing questionnaires for the candidates of the various state, county and national offices and questions for the slate of judges. And interviewing each of them to understand where they stand on various issues.  We then decide on whom to endorse and after endorsing, publish that list.  It took a lot of time to go through all of the candidates, but it does have an impact.  Those folks if elected will know that they have a block of voters to count on.  It also helps the union because it will have the capability to hold those office holders accountable. This has been one the most rewarding experiences that I have done as a citizen.  Through the process I discovered something very interesting about how we vote here in Nevada.  I knew that the most important vote were those down ballot races.  What I discovered is that all of those judges that are elected are very important.  You are more likely to interact with one of those individuals than you would your senator, congressman, state office holder even you city council.  All of those judges make decisions that change the lives of those that appear in front of them.  No other elected official has that effect on people. Now I would like you to finish your story.  Take a few minutes to contemplate and write down what you will do to educate yourself about the issues in the upcoming election.
 
Now that you have returned, I hope you were able to share and improve your story.  Use it in conversations so that we can all get out the vote this coming election.  If you are interested in being even more active, please see me as there is an opportunity in our faith to organize in getting out the vote. 
 
As I have grown older, I look at elections as a way to change our society to how we want it to be.  We cast our ballots like everyone else and end up selecting as a group a person to represent us.  In our system, it is an unfortunate fact that we are left with a binary choice.  That leads to either a centralizing of the ballot or a polarization of a ballot.  These are some interesting times that we are living in.  We are in the midst of a pandemic, an environmental catastrophe a recession and who knows what in the coming months.  As a result, we are all under some stress that is making life difficult, making participation in the democratic process even hard.  Together, we all can vote and make this world a better place. 
​
Let’s Talk About It

Benediction and Extinguish the Chalice
     "Our time together ends
     In the days before we come together again
     may our actions match our words
     may our thoughts be filled with love
     and may we truly make a difference in a troubled world.
     -Jim Wickman

     "Be the good heretics you are and do good trouble."
​     -Reverend Gordon Bailey and John Lewis

On Black Unitarian Universalist Theology
and the Uprisings This Time
Aug 9, 2020 @ 10:30 AM Pacific
with ​Special Guest Speaker: Gregory C. Carrow-Boyd

Come worship with the UU's!

Reflecting on a still emerging explicitly Black Unitarian Universalist theology and the nonstop uprisings across the country since May of 2020 will equip us to lean boldly into the demands that are being made of us a people of faith. Further, clearly stating our shared beliefs and how they align with or run counter to these demands is essential for the work ahead of us. Come worship with us as we consider some of the groundwork necessary to fully articulate a Black Unitarian Universalist theology that allows us to participate accountably in the uprisings this time and next.

About Gregory C. Carrow-Boyd
Gregory C. Carrow-Boyd, MEd, CRE–ML is a Master Level Credentialed Religious Educator and Aspirant for Unitarian Universalist ministry. He serves on the Board of Trustees of our Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). In this time of physical distancing, Greg misses spending time with his mother and godson and going to movie theaters. Greg also works as the Coordinator for More Than Sex-Ed, a Greater LA-based sexuality education collective that brings the UUA- and United Church of Christ comprehensive sexuality education curriculum, Our Whole Lives, to schools, home school groups and the greater community.

Photo: DC Protests - June 6, 2020 by Kyle T. - CC BY 2.0
https://www.flickr.com/photos/87605170@N00/49982532872/

#UUCLV #UU #UnitarianUniversalist #UnitarianUniversalism #UUCLVEvent #SundayService #BlackUnitarianUniversalistTheology #BlackLives #BlackLivesMatter #theology #GregoryCarrowBoyd #GregBoyd #uprising #protests

Opening hymn, “Eyes on the Prize”, a song made popular in the Civil Rights Era but is even older than that. The all-female African American musical group Sweet Honey in the Rock performs this version.
Singing Together: “Eyes on the Prize”
Paul and Silas bound in jail, had no money for to go their bail.
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Hold on, Hold on, Hold on,
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Paul and Silas began to shout
The jail door opened and the walked out
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Hold on, Hold on, Hold on,
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Got my hand on the gospel plow, wouldn't take nothing for my journey now.
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Hold on, Hold on, Hold on,
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
The only thing that we did wrong stay in the wilderness for so long.
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Hold on, Hold on, Hold on,
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
The only thing that we did right, was the day that we began to fight.
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Hold on, Hold on, Hold on,
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on

Chalice Lighting
You are welcome here​
Of Our Hearts​
Pastoral Reflection & Silence
Story for All Ages - “Something Happened in Our Town”
Story by Marianne Celano, Marietta
Collins and Ann Hazzard. Illustrated by Jennifer Zivoin
https://youtu.be/DzVkf2UpyqM​
Pastoral Hymn: #396 “I Know This Rose Will Open”
https://youtu.be/xB62-Hjh1VI
Offering and Invitations
Offertory
“How Can I Keep From Singing” Words Traditional, Tune by Robert Lowry - Performed by the NYC Virtual Choir and Orchestra
https://youtu.be/VLPP3XmYxXg
Reflection/Sermon with Gregory C. Carrow-Boyd​
On Black Unitarian Universalist Theology and the Uprisings This Time
Closing Song: #108 “My Life Flows On In Endless Song”
Words Traditional, Tune Robert Lowry, Verse 3: Doris Plenn, Performed by Glen Thomas Rideout
https://youtu.be/WSIaTQRR1dQ
Benediction and Extinguish the Chalice