A Circle of Hands

Celebrating UUCPA at the start of the Membership Renewal Campaign

Reverend Amy Zucker Morgenstern
January 29, 2006
Palo Alto, CA

Chalice Lighting

May this flame be for us the beacon of truth, guiding us safely out of storms of confusion and illusion.

May it be the warmth of compassion, keeping our hearts soft and open to everyone’s story.

May it be the burning brand of justice, leading us boldly towards a better world.

May it be the chalice of mystery, coming from we know not where, disappearing we know not where, yet with its beauty reminding us to abide in beauty.

May this flame be for us the hearthfire of home, welcoming us into the warmth of family and friendship.

Centering Words – adapted from Starhawk

Together, we are going home to some place we have never been — a place half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Our church community. Here, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Here, a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. This community, the community we are creating here together, means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free. By our loving intentions and good work, so may it always be.

Sermon

Canvass time puts me in mind of an old Doonesbury strip featuring Alice, a recurring character who lives on the street. She approaches a stranger: “Can you spare some change?” and he says, “I’ve given to three homeless people already this week. When do I stop? I mean, really, what’s enough?” “Ah,” she says, “I know what you need. For $20 you can get a badge that says you’ve given your share to the homeless this month, and none of us will bother you for the rest of the month.” He gladly hands over the $20 and takes his badge.

Whether it’s from people on the street or from organizations that send us envelopes, the appeals come and we’re seldom sure whether we’ve given generously or not. So, not having a badge, here’s how I decide how much to give.

Two years ago, I started to tithe, to give away ten percent of my income. Actually, to be precise, I use a formula suggested by the Unitarian Universalist Association: I take my adjusted gross income, subtract the year’s costs in medical care, child and parent care, and my education, and then give ten percent of what remains.

It was a plunge; before that I’d given maybe three, four percent, and I was a little nervous. But it seemed right to me that of every ten dollars that flows into my life, I should direct one — just one! — to people who need it more than I do, or who are doing the work in the world that I value so much. I want the world to be kinder, fairer, healthier, more beautiful, happier — and this is one way I can help make it happen.

Three things have happened as a result. One, and most important, I am making a difference in a way that I never would if I spent every dollar on myself and my family.

Two, I have realized much more abundance than I knew existed in my life. I have always worried about money, and I wondered how I would manage on less. That ten percent turned out to be just like my tax contributions: it’s a part of my budget, slated to flow through my hands instead of sticking to them. Just as I can live just fine without the 12.9 percent that goes off to the Social Security Administration, I find that my life is bountiful on nine-tenths of my earnings. I literally do not miss the other tenth.

Three, I have the most delicious feeling of being my own foundation, with a potful of money that I must give away each year. Philanthropy, it turns out, is fun. The decision “how much” already having been made, I give freely through the year. In the fall, I look over the year’s contributions and see how much I can still give before I’m over ten percent (which also would not be a bad thing). This year, when fall rolled around, I saw that I had given less than I thought, so I had a lovely afternoon in which I looked at many of the organizations that send me appeals and decided which ones change the world in ways that cheer my heart and give me hope. One thing that I did was to write a thousand dollar check to the Unitarian Universalist Ministry for Earth. I felt like Amy Carnegie Getty Rockefeller.

And the organization I give the most to by far is this one. UUCPA receives half of what I give away: five percent of my income. This is not because I work here — in fact, that’s a complicating factor. Some ministers decide it is too messy and they support Unitarian Universalism in some other way, by giving to our Association or the Church of the Larger Fellowship, our international “church without walls.” But after much reflection, I decided to join the church I serve and to pledge generously, and the reason is not because you are my employers but because we are the community I long for. I want the world to be more like the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto. I want UUCPA to continue to be a force in the world and in my life.

Communities create themselves by the stories they tell. At the all-day self-assessment held here on January 21, Robert Mittman, the facilitator, helped us to create a community of joy and celebration. He invited us to begin with an hour of “sparkling moments”: the things about our church that we delight in. We each wrote ours on index cards, and before long the floor was strewn with cards reading “Thanksgiving dinner” “the choir,” “the Coming of Age program,” and dozens more. In the past two Bulletins, Darcey and I have each shared ten “sparkling moments” from our congregation’s recent history. This morning, Bryce, Susan, Edith and Meghan are telling their stories of sparkling moments in our church, and I’m telling a few more. You will hear others during the next few Sundays.

The stories we tell here, the community we create here, can change reality. We can make the world more like the one we want to inhabit, the one we want our children and grandchildren and everyone we care about to inherit. We, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto, can be a flaming chalice lighting the path to that world: calling, Come, follow us, join our circle, be a circle of hands holding one another the way we hold each other’s hands.

In the world in which we live now, elderly people who don’t have family living close by often have no choice but to go into assisted living — even though they can mostly live independently and want to stay in their own homes. It doesn’t have to be like that. It can be more like our church.

An elderly woman in our church who lives alone fell and hurt herself not far from here. Another member of UUCPA saw her and brought her to church. Someone else got the first aid kit and cleaned the scrapes. Someone else sat and talked with her. Someone else brought her to the hospital and waited there with her. Other members of UUCPA spent the night at her house so she would be safe, and made meals to share with her so she wouldn’t be lonely. She said that if it weren’t for this church, she would have had to leave her home. In Starhawk’s words, we are arms to hold her when she falters.

We all falter, and we need more of UUCPA in the world.

In the world in which we live, people die and their loved ones often feel abandoned, with no one to mourn with them or listen them into healing.

When someone dies who is a member of UUCPA, or who is dear to a member of UUCPA, we respond with our compassionate presence. A member of our community died recently, and ministers and pastoral caregivers called to offer support. Some members of the Caring Network let the community know so that cards and good thoughts would flow to the family. Some others planned the reception for the memorial service so the family didn’t have to worry about that stuff; someone quietly showed up to run the sound system.

We make time in our Sunday service to hear each other’s losses and respond with love. In Starhawk’s words, we are a circle of healing.

We all suffer loss, and we need more of UUCPA in the world to heal us and care for us.

In the world in which we live, people suffer the wounds of unfairness and cruelty and poverty and violence. We know that as Gandhi said, we must be the change we wish to see in the world. Here, we seek to mend those wounds and be that change. We have no fewer than five groups that are wholly or partly devoted to walking the walk: the Peace Umbrella, the Social Justice Committee, Peninsula Interweave, Peninsula Interfaith Action, the Green Sanctuary Committee. We organize voter registration drives, fundraisers to help those struck by disaster, political movie nights to inspire activism, carpools to lighten our impact on the earth, membership drives for the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. We work for everyone to have access to health care, for everyone to have access to marriage, for children to receive the education they need. In Starhawk’s words, we seek and find here the strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done.

We are all saddened by the injustice and violence we witness, and we need more of UUCPA in the world to make it a better place.

In the world in which we live, there are all too few groups in which we can share our ideas openly, sharpen our minds in exchanges with thoughtful people and speak the wonderings of our hearts. Here we gather in book groups, in the Forum, in covenant groups and WomanSpirit groups and men’s groups and Elder Journey, in classes and meditation circles, at Round Robin dinners and Circle Diners — all opportunities for us to know each other and see our worth reflected in each others’ smiles … Even in committee meetings, we begin with a reflection on our deeper purpose so that we go beyond business when we think and speak. In Starhawk’s words, we are a place where we can speak with passion, where voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power.

We are all on a search for truth and meaning, and we need more of UUCPA in the world to listen us into knowing what we think and believe.

Our church is not perfect. We fall short of all these aims, and must aim again. But we sparkle; with thousands of such moments every year, we sparkle. This is why I love our congregation. This is why I need our congregation — why the world needs us. This is why I belong to this church and give generously when my pledge card arrives: so that the circle of hands will be strong.

Closing Words

Please take the hands of the people next to you.

The spirit is in these hands. It is the warmth that moves from hand to hand, from heart to heart, from smile to smile … in a hug, in a hand squeezed in comfort, in a glance of understanding, in a shared laugh, in eyes that light up as we enter.

If you can feel it, if you want to feel it, if you want us to gather it up and harvest the power, let me hear you say Amen.

AMEN!