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When we were young, history was taught to us as a fait accompli, a thing that has already happened. It was and was being shared with us from a textbook, printed by the hundreds of thousands and carried by us daily to and from our lockers at school. It could be poorly taught as a series of dates and battles, with statistics about how many people died, how many ships were lost, and what territory was gained, if temporarily, by which side. Though I’m an avid and lifelong avocational historian, I never cared much for military histories. But history is literally the story of people; the word story is right there in it! It’s a soap opera drama, but without the organized chaos of a room full of writers. There’s no agreed upon story line that happens over months and years. Our lives unfold, and anyone who has lived long enough to gain a little wisdom can tell you that our stories don’t always follow our will. It's the responses to life not following our will that makes the story so rich and fascinating. While I have certainly lived in places where Europeans lived longer than 400 years, having moved to Massachusetts this year, and 400 being a nice, round number, I am keen to learn the history of this place where I now live, the ground on which I walk in the mornings. I’m also keen to learn the history of this congregation, which begins in 1959. I want to know more than the names of the ministers, I want to know the story of the people who gather in this fellowship. If you want to tell me what you know about our history, let me know, I’ll gladly make us some tea for a conversation! Knowing the names of the ministers was the old way of learning history. It was decided who were the important men in the story, and those were the names we learned. We might, were we lucky, even read some of the very words they composed as they did whatever great feat it was they did. But history is far more nuanced than that. History is about relationships between entities. Between people, between people and the land, between the land and time itself. Our understanding of history is wider and more complex, and is being revealed more every day. I recently heard this phrase, and I can’t credit the author I’m sorry to say. “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.” What can we learn about our individual and collective histories that can help us to create a poem of beauty rather than repeated mistakes?

Time was when we'd live in a place forever. We might never travel more than 8 miles from home in our entire life, but those times have gone for most of us. Now, instead of having a more or less ready made community, we find ourselves having to create one for ourselves. When we were little it seemed like the nearest convenient kid our own age became a good friend. Our world was limited to where our little feet could take us, and that made the pickings somewhat limited. As we grew, and life offered us more options, making friends became harder for some. It could be a combination of schedules, commitments, and even past traumas that have wizened and hardened us the longer we’ve been in this adventure called Life. One of the many lessons that many of us have learned in the past 18 months or so is that human beings are profoundly social animals. Even those of us who have never loved big, loud crowds have discovered how deeply troubling loneliness can be. And right now we are living along the tension wire of this virus, which makes the thing we need the most, human contact, potentially dangerous. It’s an evolving story that none can claim to know it’s end, if it will end. It may never end, and only become in the future some minor annoyance. It’s hard to know. During this time of pandemic safety behavior, we’ve had to really wrestle with how we cultivate relationship with the other humans. The old ways are, if temporarily, gone. How have you learned to cultivate relationships in the last months? Have you found ways that are satisfying to you, or are you stuck with ways that don’t feel quite complete? I think that this pandemic hasn’t brought us much that is new, it has just brought the struggles we already had into sharper focus. When we were little kids, we used our imagination as a way of focusing on the world around us. We created stories, of vet clinics, or space ships, or kitchens where we baked amazing cakes! As we think about how we might cultivate relationships in our own time now, as either adults, or adults to be, I invite you to use the full power of your imagination, to bring the full force of your creativity, to ways that cultivate new relationships and celebrate life long ones.

My prayer for you today is that you understand that you cannot be and say everything. That you are a light, a lamp in the night to help people find their way, but you cannot be their way. Remember also that a steady lamp by which others may guide their own journey, is a gift from and to the universe. Be steady, but do not deny your own humanity. Do not forget to take breaks. Do not let your desire to be that steward of that lamp keep you too long from your own journey. Share the burden Share the responsibility Share the honor with others. - The Rev. Joseph M. Cherry

If we have any hope of transforming the world and changing ourselves, we must be bold enough to step into our discomfort, brave enough to be clumsy there, loving enough to forgive ourselves and others. May we, as a people of faith, be granted the strength to be so bold, so brave, and so loving. - The Rev. Joseph M. Cherry

I invite you now to touch your pet, Take their paw, their claw, Metaphorically take their fin through the water, And smile at them. Touch them. Pet them as you’re able, and while you are petting them, Focus love energy into them. They are like and not like us. They depend on us to feed and care for them. We depend on them for companionship. They teach us life lessons Lessons about responsibility Compassion Empathy. So many wonderful lessons. While continuing to focus on your love for them, repeat after me. Dear One, My love for you is like no other. There will never be another you in my life You are unique You have your own story. You have your own will. You have your own way of loving me. Dear One, I am grateful for our time together. I am grateful to come home to you I am grateful to wake up in a home where your heart beats, too. You make your own mistakes You make your own adventures You have your own way of seeing life. Dear One, Some time in the future, our time together will end. This fills me with great sadness. I don’t know if you know this, but I do. And this reminds me to treasure you now. Your ability to love Your ability to forgive Your ability to play Dear One. You teach me so much You are one of my teachers And I am grateful. - The Rev. Joe Cherry

Unitarian Universalists are a covenantal people. Covenants are agreements that are entered into voluntarily, without coercion. In an ecclesiastical context like a religious body, a covenant is defined as “a solemn agreement between the members of a church to act together in harmony with the precepts of the gospel.” The gospel in our case has historic roots in the textural analysis of the Christian Bible. From this study, our theological ancestors developed two main understandings: One being the the rejection of the teachings of the Holy Trinity, since there is not text proof in the Bible of this teaching. The second main understanding that separated our ancestors from the more orthodox Christians was their rejection of the teachings of Hell and eternal punishment. They saw these teachings as being in conflict with the very nature of the Divine, and they also used text from the Bible, lifting passages to demonstrate the root of their understanding. Whether they were Universalists or Unitarians, both traditions were rooted in covenant. As Unitarian Universalists these covenants are core to our understanding of how a community comes together, particularly as a congregation. We are a religion that, because of our habits and traditions of self- examination, are classified as a Liberal Religious Faith. It has nothing to do with our politics. There are UUs of all political leanings in our larger covenant, and that kind of diversity makes us a more robust people. It is our habit to examine our beliefs, to test them out against new information revealed to us either by our own study, or by the advancing of human knowledge. And, if we are living intentionally, when new information comes to us, we must examine our assumptions and relationships to this new understanding. This includes our covenants. As our understanding of the world has grown and changed from our earliest faith ancestors to today, we have had to come together in our congregations to recommit ourselves to our covenant. We are not the people we were just 9 months ago. The world we knew 9 months ago is gone. We are learning new information about this microscopic threat to the entirety of humanity, and we are learning that new information sometimes hourly. In response to the coronavirus, we have had to learn all manner of new ways to engage with each other over technology that before March, very few of us used with any regularity. There has been a global shift in humanity and the ways in which relate and come together. Amidst all these changes, it is good to reexamine and renew our covenants with each other. It is good and holy work. It is also the right time to do this, at the beginning of what may well turn out to be an entire church year without worshipping in person. And certainly, even if we do get to a safe place of worshipping in person, it will not be the way things used to be. I encourage you to spend some time thinking about your relationship with our congregation. Think about the ways that you can renew and recommit to our covenant, our solemn promise to act together in harmony.

Compassion has really taken a beating in our country for the last several years. Our nation is increasingly and destructively divided into two main camps, and this shows up in all manner of issues. Access to safe abortion vs. “Pro-Life.” Blue State vs. Red State. Mask wearers vs. MAGA hat wearers. And all the while, the things that could bring us together lie on the side of the battlefields, suffering and ignored. There is such a thing known as compassion fatigue. "Compassion fatigue is a state experienced by those helping people or animals in distress; it is an extreme state of tension and preoccupation with the suffering of those being helped to the degree that it can create a secondary traumatic stress for the helper," says Tulane University’s Dr. Charles Figley. I think some of us are suffering from a version of this. This, in combination with a something known as Learned Helplessness, which is a behavior exhibited by a subject after enduring repeated aversive stimuli beyond their control. It was initially thought to be caused from the subject's acceptance of their powerlessness: discontinuing attempts to escape or avoid the aversive stimulus, even when such alternatives are unambiguously presented. I know that I experience this. I know that when I must go out, either for groceries, or to deliver help to someone in need, I feel this visceral anger when I see people who are not wearing masks, or an irritation when I see people where their masks covering only their mouths, and not their noses. I just keep thinking to myself “Do you NOT care for the other humans!?!” And to have this wrapped up in a political and cultural war between those who are happy to deny basic rights to others, but feel oppressed because they are asked to wear 3 ounces of fabric on their faces...it just brings up in me more of both the compassion fatigue and the learned helplessness. This is the moment when I reach deep down into my sense of spirituality and I look for ways to approach people rooted in our Seventh and First principles. We are ALL connected through an undeniable network of mutuality in an interdependent web in our existence. At times, now, this sometimes frightens me in a way that used to comfort me. And I consider our First Principle, rooted in our historic Universalism. Every person has worth and deserves dignity. This can be hard to sit with in times such as these. But a spiritual life is one that sometimes demands that you work hard. No person is beyond love, and perhaps it is their own lack of feeling love that makes them respond in the ways they do. Perhaps if they truly felt loved, they would care about the children in cages along our Southern border. They would care about the People of Color (and others) who feel fear when they open carry weapons that are not designed to hunt anyone but human beings in war. They might care that people need food. They might see that their choice to not wear a mask is not about state rights vs. Federal rights (being seen right now in an obverse and perverse twist.) Perhaps. But right now, it’s all I can do sometimes to go outside, wearing my mask, and exchange companionable looks with others who are also wearing masks. We can no more control the people on the other side of these issues than we can be controlled by them. We can no more reason with them than they can intimidate us with their messages of fear bourne of their own privilege. But we can love. It’s a hard job, I know. But we can reach past our own despair, our own fatigue, our own sense of fear, and we can do as former First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama has taught us: “When they go low, we go high.” This is our choice to make every day. Make the choice that best suits your own spirit, choose the next right thing, choose the road of compassion.

People often ask me, when they find out that I’m a minister in a faith that has no central teaching or creeds, no requirements of belief or unifying theology, people often ask me in wonder “How do you manage to have church together?” A few years ago when I invited a Rabbi to preach in my pulpit on a Sunday morning, he was initially thrilled at the prospect of being able to teach/preach on anything in the world in a religious setting. “Anything?!?,” he asked me? “Anything,” I said. A few weeks before his guest appearance he called me “Anything is too much! How do you choose when there are no limits?” One of the great blessings and therefore challenges of our religious tradition is that we don’t come together in a finite intersection. If we had one sacred text, one holy writ that in which we rooted the expression of our highest values I could simply go back to that well, week after week, dip my proverbial cup into that well, and reflect on that portion of the water that came up. True, there would be an ability to deeply examine, year after year, the same sources of inspiration. Christian ministers have a lectionary that takes their teachings and reflections on a three-year journey through the Hebrew Bible and their own New Testament. Their lectionary, their guide, comes in Year A, B & C. Our Jewish Friends read the Torah from beginning to end each year, and then begin over. This allows for a decades’ deep understanding of a text. Because you can think back to the time you last read this scripture, you can read what others have written about this scripture, and you can place your own thoughts into this mixture. When one returns again and again to the same source material, this method allows for deep reflection. But we are a religion of constant revelation! We are free to both consider the holy texts of the past and the texts that may...may...someday be revered in some future century. Where our more orthodox friends have already centuries of thought behind their theological work, we are continually looking into larger circles, farther reaches, trying to make sense of the universe around us. Each system, when our hearts are open, opens us to the enormity of the universe, or the comfort of the familiar in differing senses of what is sacred. Humans, as I’ve said before, are meaning makers. In our faith we are free to work within the confines of the familiar as well as breaking new ground, where the edges of meaning are still forming. In this month of December, with its long nights of holy darkness, may we be reminded to search for what is larger than ourselves. May nights of reading under a blanket or hot tea fueled conversations with friends help open us to what is large, what is broad, what is enormous. And may we be aware enough to face the expanse with gratitude and awe.

The weeks leading up to Christmas can be very taxing and daunting to a member of the clergy (even if Christmas isn't actually their holiday.) Something happened this week that has really restored my faith in humanity and thus my energy, and I want to share it. The congregation I serve is the closest UU congregation to the Cleveland Clinic, and sometimes I get calls from colleagues who have congregants going to the Clinic. They ask me to stop by and check-in, offer some support, or something similar. I am happy to do this. I got an email from a lay-person saying a UU friend of hers was coming to the Clinic for 3 days of tests, and could we help out this friend. I sent out a call to action to two churches and got a dozen responses! Every appointment, every commute, every meal: covered!!!! People, you can sometimes break my heart. And then other times you show your true capacity and beauty.

When I started working in high school, the manager of the restaurant I worked in had a set of keys to the store. Each manager did. The key not only gave them access to the “store” but allowed them to control the cash registers. Those keys became the symbol of power and authority for me. I saw that set of keys as some sort of affirmation of earned responsibility. Perhaps in the way many people who take up smoking see it as a “grown up” activity, I saw those keys as a trapping of adulthood. And I really wanted a set. There are a lot of keys I’ve wanted over the years: the key to my first car, my first apartment, the key to a certain man’s heart. And yes, even work keys. I’ve developed quite a key-ring over the years. Until yesterday. Yesterday I gave back the keys to my house; my congregation; my friends’ keys for when I would cat-sit (three sets); the keys to my seminary, too. I have one key left--to a seven-year old Honda Civic with 118,563 miles on it. My life is in transition right now. I believe that everyone’s life is in transition at this very moment, but sometimes it’s more obvious than others. Like when all of your possessions fit into a car because you’ve given up everything else. There was another time in my life when everything I owned fit into my car, and I had only one key left. It was a far less happy time. For a period of a couple of months, after my brother and I lost our apartment, we were homeless. My car became my shelter, my storage locker, my way of moving from place to place. It was a very scary time for me. With help I was able to recover from it, but it took years and years to repair my credit and has left me scarred for life. This time, though, is much different. For the next 24 months I will be in transition. Moving from Chicago to Dukinfield UK and then to Amarillo, Texas and then back to Chicago, with a potential summer 2010 in Germany. Whereas before I looked at my single key as a symbol of powerlessness, this time my single key is empowering. I have chosen to have only one key this time. I have leapt full-force into the future, with few guarantees. It’s different this time because I have faith and a goal, and faith in my goal.

This morning I took a walk with a beloved friend to Lake Michigan. In the neighborhood where I live for now, there is an artificially created point into the Lake, known as “the point” locally. She and I have walked dozens of times to the point and back home again. This was to be our final time. We talked the whole way about Life and the questions and challenges it brings. It was a good conversation. And then I stood at the edge of the breakwater for a while, alone. I watched a seagull gracefully floating along the water. I saw two little birds playing tag. I heard the waves crash against some rocks, and I looked at the water intake station, a mile out. And I began to cry. In a class I took in seminary, I was introduced to the idea of God as the God of a certain place. That a place itself is sacred, because God was there. I believe that God is everywhere, but that doesn’t make this place, this City any less sacred to me because it shares God. This is the place I came, or more accurately, ran away from home to, when I was 28. I have been here a long time. Here is where I became me. And I am tied to this place. To the Lake, to the neighborhood of Hyde Park. I tried to soak up as much of the Lake as I could this morning. Deep breaths through my mouth to taste the moist air. Eyes, made blurry by tears, trying to memorize the glorious wonder and size of Lake Michigan. It’s rare that we know we’re doing something for the last time. I tried to take advantage of it. As I was standing there at the edge of the water a single word entered my consciousness: exile. Self-imposed and temporary, only 12 months, but exile none the less. Forced out of my home for academic training. Every step on the way evoked memories. Here’s where Greg and I, young and in love, had a picnic. This is where I first met Wallace, and here’s where he died at age 94, almost 95, 8 years later. Here’s where I lived with Karen and Stephanie. Karen died 8 years go at age 33. Here is the church where I found my spiritual home and path. The very path that is leading me away, walking slowly in grief. Before my friend and I left the Point, we met an African-American woman, no odd occurrence in Hyde Park, who was also leaving the Park. She commented on my friend’s sweatshirt and we got to talking. She’s not from here, but from Ohio. She’s here with her daughter, who is dealing with 4th stage breast cancer at the University Hospital. Ministry calls. We spoke for a while. Her daughter’s name is Carole. I said a silent prayer for Carole and her Mom, who never gave us her name. As I had experienced during my chaplaincy, a person needing an ear to hear them is a gift to me. The Universe is saying “You can help this person, remember your purpose.” And so, in a morning of grieving and thinking about all I am losing, it's a little reminder that I have a place in the world. Even if that place isn’t the neighborhood I’ve come to love. God is everywhere, and God is Love.

Gardening is an act of faith. When we plant seeds, we know there is no guarantee that flowers will grow, or bell peppers. We work in concert with the Earth, we tend, we weed, we water as necessary. But we can not force a plant to grow. I invite you now to close your eyes and settle for a moment as you are comfortable. Take a moment and figure out, what is your most precious hope? Imagine that you and your hope are a tiny seed, planted in the spring’s dark rich earth. Visualize your hope growing from tiny seed, it starts with the cracking of the shell of the seed. Before there can be growth, there must be a disturbance. As the rain comes from the sky through the earth to your seed, sometimes not often enough, sometimes too frequently, your hope grows. The roots of your hope grow strong in the earth, as this precious little seedling pushes it’s way up to the surface. Up toward the Sun and sky. Once your hope is visible to the rest of the world, you may notice several things. You are not alone, there are others nearby. And they and you are not the same, there is beauty in your diversity. And as you grow, you in turn, produce seeds within your own being. And these seeds become the hopes of tomorrow. As you grow, within you and your hopes, grow the hopes of tomorrow.