Why are you here this morning? I mean, what got you up this morning - what motivated you to get up, dress and travel whatever distance between your home and here? I guess, more basically, I am asking, why do you come to church? What is it in this gathering of folks, THIS gathering of folks, and the many other activities that go on here throughout the week, that draws you?

I want to suggest to you that what brings you here on Sundays, and to the other gatherings of this church, is far deeper than what you first imagine. I want to suggest that it is more profound than you may be able, or willing, at first, to admit.

One of my ministerial mentors, Rev. Tom Owen-Towle, recently retired minister of the First UU Church in San Diego, a 900 member congregation, Tom used to say that religion is concerned with two fundamental dynamics: Ultimacy and Intimacy. Today I want to focus on Intimacy. Intimacy in community. More than anything else I can name, intimacy is the essential yearning that draws us into community. Furthermore, I believe, it is the primal glue that holds community together.

Poet Anne Hillman captured the delicacy of our yearning for intimacy in a wonderful short poem I want to share; the poem also reveals the essential transience of reality and our deep human capacity for meeting life on its terms through a psychic creativity and inner revolution that is grounded in the central experience of love. Though it is often frightening to do so, what is alive in us, what is real, turns always toward the new, turns always toward what is seeking to emerge - and what our aliveness seeks is further connection and greater receptivity. We always, however, always extend ourselves into our lives, and into love, within a sleeve of vulnerability. The human venture is enormously fragile. But let Anne Hillman speak it; she writes so well:

We look with uncertainty Beyond the old choices for Clear-cut answers To a softer, more permeable aliveness Which is every moment At the brink of death; For something new is being born in us If we but let it. We stand at a new doorway, Awaiting that which comes ... Daring to be human creatures. Vulnerable to the beauty of existence. Learning to love.

"For something new is being born in us / If we but let it." At a heart level what these lines affirm for us is that intimacy is a choice. And it requires skillful means; it requires that we learn to be skillful in approaching others, and that we learn to be skillful in nurturing and encouraging our own hearts to open to others and to life. It means that we must learn to use the power of our own assertiveness to risk opening our hearts to what wants to be born in us; what wants to be born over and over and over again. And that is ... love; care; and deep, deep respect.

"Daring to be human creatures. Vulnerable to the beauty of existence. Learning to love." Now there is a trinity I can believe in! And that trinity says more about the value of community than just about any other set of words I can imagine. Because ... what community does is support the possibility of living out those dynamics in the fullest possible ways.

Part One of this little Trinity: "Daring to be human creatures." That means daring to be our selves. Daring to share who we are with others, even though we may be afraid to do so. Daring, also, to follow, with zest and enthusiasm what interests us. It means daring to speak our truths, even if unpopular, or somehow discordant. It does not mean being abusive; and, it does not mean not being angry, but it does mean expressing our anger cleanly. Where better than in the embrace of community can we do this?

Part Two of the Trinity is: "Vulnerable to the beauty of existence." God . . . what a powerful statement. "Vulnerable to the beauty of existence." You see what that means? It means letting ourselves be moved, deeply, deeply moved; and that happens when our hearts open, that happens when we are willing to let ourselves respond. And to what? What IS beautiful, after all? Whatever it is, ultimately, it is authentic. What is beautiful is what has integrity. What is beautiful is what is without artifice. And we respond to all of that, because that is what we are, at our cores: virtuous, candid with life, authentic, principled and in some unnameable way, unsullied. Where better than in the affirming surround of community can we do this?

Now the third part of the Trinity is: "Learning to love." We are, as Darcey likes to say, "always learning." Always learning to love. Now I think we easily recognize the more extroverted and upbeat forms of loving: caring by caring for, wanting to be in the company of the ones we love, acting in authentically selfless ways. And those are all so important, but there is another dimension that I also want to lift up this morning when it comes to community.

Islamic intellectual, Salman Rushdie said there are only a few things that people need to make a community: "Any community worthy of the name needs what I call the family virtues - acceptance, tolerance, compassion and forgiveness." A good and profound list. A list also rooted in a fundamental sensitivity to the fragility of we human's capacity to muck it up. For you see, the "always learning" aspect of loving means we are not going to be error free, ever. In fact, we are going to be error prone - because loving is the greatest human task we are given, and the simple enormity of it means that we will never be able to get it all, nor to get it right. One of the beloved elder members of this congregation, Bill Capron, who is in the last weeks of his life, has reached a place of profound contentment, and the contentment has come, in large measure, because of the wonderful surround of love he is experiencing, from his family and from you all. Does his coming into contentment only now mean that the love he had before was inadequate - I don't think so. I think it has to do with love opening and opening, to ever new and ever deeper and more rich domains of authenticity and freshness - and that it meets us where we are in life, and gives us what we need, if we but let it. Where else but in community, striving for honesty, authenticity and courage, can all of us do this?

When we enter community, commumnity touches us. That touching is generative. It generates love. A love we are only barely aware of. A love that percolates through our resistance and anxiety, drawing us into an ever and ever fuller embrace by community. For many of us, it is a new love. Here the great Sufi mystic poet, Jalalludin Rumi, leads us on into new understandings. Listen to Rumi speak, as only he can do, about love. Listen as he exposes our resistance, and sets out the strategies for getting free, for becoming ever more available to loving and care. Listen as he shows us one of the deep places we will be led by love, if we but let it.

Inside this new love, die. Your way begins on the other side. Become the sky. Take an axe to the prison wall. Escape. Walk out like someone suddenly born into color. Do it now. You're covered with thick cloud. Slide out the side. Die, and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign that you've died. Your old life was a frantic running from silence.

The speechless full moon comes out now.

That speechlessness, that silence means something bigger than ourselves, something mysterious. This is what we are led by, for that is what we are led to when we love. And that is what leads us in community, and that is where it leads us: to experiences that we cannot easily, or ever, name, but are real, substantial, and life-giving, never-the-less.

However, even though there is something unnameable about what is at the core of community, there are some very practical things we can do to make community and its mysterious core deepen and grow, to make it workable in very practical ways. Let me tell you about small groups in this congregation. They are what really sustains the deepest intimacy of this church.

First, every community has some kind of governance process. In this church, as in most UU congregations, that is primarily carried out by committees. Some consider them the bane of UU life, others see them as our holy communion. Although we most often have very definite boundaries, the usual unspoken boundaries that get set up between humans, about the degree of intimacy appropriate on committees, they never-the-less bring us together in small groups where communication is direct and face-to-face and where the power of our personhood becomes central to the work.

Church committees function optimally when they have a clear mission, when their goals are achievable, where successes occur with some frequency - -and, and these next points especially mark the difference between a committee that sludges through its work, and one that turns its "work" into authentic growth opportunities both for individuals and the group itself (as an entity in itself) - church committees function best when there is open respect among the members, where leadership is shared, where the committee's successes are frequently and happily celebrated, where most meetings are framed with some form of conscious solemnization of the deepest values upon which the committee is based and by which the members of the committee live (like having an opening chalice lighting and reading, and closing similarly). Many successful committees have also found that including breaking bread together, even if the bread is snacks, brings a certain connection and nurturance to the time members are together.

At last count there were approximately 42 functioning committees and over a dozen more activity groups and adult programs in this church of around 400 persons. They are listed in the Church Membership Directory, given free to new members, and a mere $.50 to all others.

Among the adult programs - the Elders group, Brown Bag Books, two Meditations Groups, the Men's Groups and the Women's Spirit Groups, as well as the In between Jobs Group, the Empty Nesters Group - and, of course, the UUCPA Choir - and a few others I am not able to keep track of - among these groups, the level of intimacy, of contact that engages us in our personhoods quite directly, is high. This is a good thing. A very good thing. These forms of gathering are, ultimately, what really make a church community vibrant and fulfilling. If they are not done well, they will finally overwhelm folks until they reach burnout.

This morning, in addition to all that I've mentioned, I'd like to tell you about a new small group experience growing here at UUCPA that focuses on some of the more successful patterns of forming and sustaining groups while adding some new elements to group structure and process. This particular small group phenomena has the potential, I believe, to transform our UU congregations in ways we only dream of when we think about authentic community.

I'm referring to Covenant Groups. Quoting Glenn A. Turner one of the foremost leaders of the Covenant group phenomena within Unitarian Universalism, "When people are asked what they seek in a church, these reasons are the most common: religious community, inspiration, intellectual stimulation, friends, shared values, support for their spiritual journey." He goes on, "They don't expect conformity, in fact, they often welcome and expect diversity. But they do expect respect for their integrity, and are willing to grant it to others." Joe has shared with you, in his reflection, how important his participation in Covenant groups here at this church has been for him. In order to find out more about the specific structure of Covenant Groups, I refer you to one of the inserts in your Order of Service. What I want to do, now is to say one thing more about Bill Capron.

Bill joined UUCPA's first Covenant Group several months after it was first formed, when they began to add more members. (That's one of the things Covenant Groups covenant to do, to grow, and then to split into two groups.) What Bill shared in that group is held in confidence by each of them, that is one of the powers of Covenant groups - what is said there remains there: it gives members the freedom to explore their own lives, their thoughts and feelings, without worry that it will come back to them from beyond the boundaries of their caring company. But ... Bill did tell me how deeply meaningful it was for him to be in the group, how he was able to speak honestly about so much that had happened in his life. He also told me how very important it was to have the whole Covenant Group visit him in his home after his diagnosis of terminal cancer and the decision to forgo any further medical intervention. I could hear it in his voice, the calm, the appreciation, the gratitude for how large the circle of intimacy had thus grown in his life - and how because of the intimate and authentic relationships that had been established in this group, its members made a humble pilgrimage to have a last group sharing with him.

This is the power that sustains community. This is the intimacy that we seek. There is a responsive reading that expresses this need quite powerfully. It expresses what the many small groupings of persons offer to this community - and it echoes the call to intimacy that is so central to the human heart. Would you turn to Reading # 468 now.

We Need One Another by George E. Odell

We need one another when we mourn and would be comforted.

We need one another when we are in trouble and afraid.

We need one another when we are in despair, in temptation, and need to be recalled to our best selves again.

We need one another when we would accomplish some great purpose, and cannot do it alone.

We need one another in the hour of success, when we look for someone to share our triumphs.

We need one another in the hour of defeat, when with encouragement we might endure, and stand again. We need one another when we come to die, and would have gentle hands prepare us for the journey.

All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us.

All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us. What a blessing that this community is living out the wisdom of that reality by offering ways for intimacy to flourish. What a blessing that you have all chosen to be here.

Ashé-Amen-Ameen. Shalom. Blessed Be.
Namasté.

What is your reaction to this sermon? Please send comments to Reverend Kurt Kuhwald