November 12, 2006 Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley
Ever wake up tired? Finish a meal and feel unsatisfied?
Get frustrated and reach for a treat?
Are you ever too pooped to pop?
We’re a society going 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week.
Of course, we can’t sleep at night.
One indication of this pandemic sleeplessness is all those advertisements.
Countless pills flutter as butterflies over pillows,
like good fairies, sprinkling sleeping dust.
Studies abound on our sleeplessness.
Facts are found even in church newsletters.
I read of a member’s illness, wanting help with her trouble sleeping,
and requesting tapes of the minister’s sermons.
The website “
Everything you wanted to know about sleep
but were too tired to ask” reports a good night's rest increasingly
loses out to the internet, e-mail, and late-night cable.
Lack of sleep reduces brain power, lowers performance,
damages health, speeds the aging process,
stimulates the appetite hormone and depresses the satiety hormone.
We don’t feel full. We eat more.
Under-sleeping, overeating. Brain strain; performance drain.
Being on the go leads to fast food and restaurant eating.
Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Huts pollute the planet,
increasing our disease and dis-ease.
By day’s end, people fall exhausted onto couches.
Go to bed but have trouble sleeping.
Wake after a few hours, tossing and turning,
reliving the day, all that was said, dreading what’s ahead.
Morning comes and widespread,
folks trudge and tread through their days.
What’s going on in the wider world
produces despair, anger, cynicism.
We end up, dragging and sagging.
We can’t delight, excite, or ignite.
We pass on our plight to our kids.
Ugh.
But, but… our spirits long to be made whole.
I ask for blessings of health and promise, energy and purpose for you!
Now is a time of turning.
Leaves are turning from green to golden and rust.
Day light is turning into dusk.
Stars are rotating in the heavens; earth is spinning.
I hope this week you slept a little easier,
woke up with a little more spring in your step
and hope in your heart.
Beautiful week to be alive!
Tuesday morning felt ripe with anticipation and excitement.
I loved walking to my precinct polling place and voting.
I love the act of participation, of choice, voice, influence.
The citizens say brings a breath of fresh air, a sweet breeze.
This is a time of promise, of hope, a motion in the great turning.
Now is the time for turning our attention in new ways to Iraq,
to respectful right relations with the world,
to reducing global warming.
Now is the time to turn toward a living wage, health care,
accountable leadership.
At this time in the life of the world,
full of crises, full of opportunity,
wonderful time to be alive!
This is the time,
ecological philosophers like Joanna Macy and David Korten,
call the Great Turning.
We have a deep yearning for turning from mud slinging to earth saving,
from competition to cooperation,
from loneliness to community,
depletion to sustainability,
domination to partnership,
from despair to the audacity of hope.
We start right here.
I want us to turn to one another, eyes and ears open,
ready to see each other for who we are and who we can be;
to turn inward and see commitment and compassion at our core.
I want us to turn toward our front doors and, as a spiritual practice,
welcome in strangers;
to turn outward to bring our values, voices, and involvement to the world.
May our turning renew our health, vitality, and energy.
May this turn for the better spin forth our new ideas
and attract new people.
May we welcome them, “Hello, life!”
Still, exciting and thrilling as a great turning is,
any change can be disorienting, disrupting, scary.
What is known and familiar can seem preferable
to anything unknown and new.
One of our ministerial colleagues
suggests a spiritual practice for congregations.
Each Sunday do something differently.
Don’t always have everything setting exactly in the same place.
Don’t always have exactly the same order of service.
We break ourselves of saying, “But we’ve always done it
this way.”
We ready ourselves for life with its surprises, with its changes.
External sameness should not be the source of our internal stability-
because if one thing is certain it’s that everything’s changing.
Let’s be grounded in who we are and what we hold dear.
The core values we celebrate as a congregation
can be our compass, our north star,
leading to health and wholeness,
calling forth your energy and engagement,
your commitment and compassion,
turning the earth.
Your presence here can make an immeasurable difference—
the singing more rousing, the service more energetic,
the congregation more powerful,
more able to bring the good news of justice and love to the world.
Being a part of something larger than yourself gives you meaning and purpose.
When I first went to serve a new congregation in Salt Lake City,
there were twenty-some members.
It felt like such a struggle to go from double digits to triple
to hit that 100 member mark and then go beyond!
Luci Malin was active in the larger community,
and she kept inviting everybody she knew.
She’d say,“This church is different.”
Alice Carlson was at the front door every Sunday with a welcoming smile,
and people would say she made the place feel like home.
Luci and Alice were bearers of our Unitarian Universalist good news.
We have values worth sharing, values that can help turn the world.
It is equally hard to move beyond
this congregation’s long time plateau of five hundred members.
Be inviting, be welcoming, be a bearer of our good news.
For several years here Maryann Simpson and Cynthia Asprodites,
were the only out gay people. They kept coming.
Because of their resolve, there are now many gay and lesbian members
who make this congregation their religious home.
What a life-giving difference it makes to have these new members
bringing new ideas, growing the congregation.
What a life-giving difference it makes to have a community
where you can be yourself,
where you can hear religious language that includes and blesses you.
Talk to anyone here and you’ll hear great life stories.
I want to tell you parts of two people’s stories.
Recently this congregation celebrated the life of Bill Ulp,
who died at the age of ninety.
Bill was active in this congregation all his adult life.
Bill had chaired everything and done it all
from leading the pledge drive to cup washing, weed chopping,
kitchen scrubbing to singing in the musicals.
Bill and Grace raised their daughters Luana, Elaine, and Kathleen here.
For forty years, Bill sang his heart out in the choir,
with Grace and eventually his daughters by his side.
Many people say Bill was the first person to offer a warm embrace,
and the clasp of hands. Bill made people feel like somebody.
People say Bill visited them and next thing they knew
they’d increased their pledge, felt good about doing so, and had
a new friend.
During a much younger church member’s seven months of chemotherapy,
Bill made weekly calls uplifting the man’s spirits.
Bill’s whole way of being seemed to say,
“There is fun to be had here at church. There is steadfastness
and security and love.”
In his last year, when Bill had dementia,
what a model the family was, bringing Bill to services,
showing us how to offer tender loving care and dignity
for an aging and ailing beloved husband, father, and churchman.
Bill would arrive on the arm of a daughter,
slowly walking into his church with a smile and a wink.
Though he was unable to carry on a conversation,
Bill made his way tottering down the aisle, eyes sparkling,
saluting everyone, saying, “Howdy do.”
Though he no longer recognized family members and friends by name,
he could recognize familiar hymns, and he would joyously sing.
“My life flows on in endless song…how can I keep from
singing!”
People were touched by Bill’s life and by his death
because he was such a part of this community.
Now I want to tell you a little about Michele Voilleque.
When Michele first started coming to this congregation,
she was often the youngest person in the room. She kept coming.
She met Andreas Kathol at the young adult group.
They were married in this sanctuary.
Their first child was conceived in the village of our Partner Church in
Transylvania.
Michele has led projects, served on the Board of Trustees and as President.
Michele’s beautiful voice shines in worship.
She leads singing and directs our Youth and Children’s Choir.
All the kids stand up on the chancel, their eyes focus on Michele.
Their parents sit in the first pew, mouthing along the words of the song,
beaming and cheering their kids.
These full of life kids, who run wild just before the service and right after,
stand and sing like angels.
Maryann and Cynthia, Bill, Michele, the Youth and Children’s Choir…
We could all name people.
A flood of names and faces come to mind.
So many people show up here, give of themselves and receive.
So many bear the Unitarian Universalist good news
and increase the odds on their own and the planet’s health and well-being.
Their lives are testimonies to this community of hope and faith.
This year we have an amazing Coming of Age class.
I recently visited this class of 7th and 8th graders.
These twelve and thirteen year old youth each wear a stole.
Posted on the wall is the covenant they created of right relations.
The kids speak in unison opening words as they light their chalice.
Each lights a candle, sharing something about themselves.
They listen to one another’s joys, fears, concerns, hopes.
I was impressed with their participation and earnestness.
I know that those whose attendance is sporadic
will think the process of coming of age is artificial.
The odds are so much greater that for those who come regularly, religiously,
the ritual will become real and meaningful.
Who among them will become a Bill Ulp?
Who will some day lead a youth and children’s choir?
Who will welcome strangers and grow our congregation?
Who will someday vote or run for office?
Who will bring Unitarian Universalist values to the turning of the world?
There’s a well-researched and statistically proven program that
increases the average life expectancy of children by 8 years,
significantly reduces their use and risk from Alcohol, Tobacco and Drugs,
dramatically lowers their risk of suicide,
helps them rebound from depression,
dramatically reduces their risk for committing a crime,
improves their attitude at school and increases their school participation,
and provides them with a life-long moral compass.
The program takes only a couple of hours a week. The program is “active
congregational participation.”
In study, after study, after study,
children who actively engage in a faith community on a regular basis
are rewarded with significantly reduced likelihood of problems
and significantly improved odds of a happier, healthier, longer life.
And it’s not just for kids.
These studies show the same results for adults.
[from Too Good to be True (But It Is)—The Life Benefits of Regular Church Attendance by Neil MacQueen]
Want to increase your odds on sleeping tight, eating right,
on delight,
on having a congregation grateful for your life?
Show up—
no matter what’s going on in the service or in your lives,
no matter if the sermon is boring, the coffee cold, the singing a bit off.
even if someone hurt your feelings.
Make real relationships sustained through ups and downs.
Make the congregation your home.
What I want to say to you is—
to get what you want in life, come, week after week.
Come religiously.
I know that if you show up every Sunday, there’s a cumulative effect.
Your circle of community widens.
As you get to know people, really know them, you care for them.
And they care for you.
When you show up regularly, your life is more balanced, more whole.
Your despair and grief for the world can be lessened when we act together
for justice in a sphere in which we can have some influence
and make a difference.
Sometimes we think we’re so busy; we can’t possibly slow
down and rest.
We can’t fit in one more thing.
Though we would like to, we have no time for church.
But, when we do, the pause in the week
makes it possible to go on with our lives,
to gain perspective.
We are renewed and energized.
You know, we can keep searching around for the perfect place forever
and never find it.
Ironically, when we commit to the congregation, imperfect as it is,
we usually find that for which we are longing.
When you are faithful and steadfast,
when you show up, the congregation is there for you.
Dear friends,
on this spinning sacred green earth, under the wide and turning sky,
in this sanctuary and beyond these walls,
be alive,
giving and receiving,
meaning and purpose,
energy and engagement,
commitment and compassion,
life’s gifts, for ourselves and our beautiful and wounded world.
Be the good news-welcoming, caring, loving.
This is what our Unitarian Universalist movement can give,
a fresh breath, a sweet breeze, a song passed from one generation to another,
a motion in the great turning.
Yes, Yes, oh, yes. Amen.
♦