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Rev. Erin Walter
April 27, 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We continue the celebration of Earth Day and April’s worship theme (joy) by exploring the role of hope and pleasure in movements for climate justice. Join Rev. Erin Walter in a service that shares some of the latest strategies for Climate Justice and invites us to bask in the beauty of the earth and the possibilities of a thriving planet.

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us. Giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily. and I must return the gift.

– Robin Wall Kimmerer

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Reading

from NATURE AND THE SERIOUS WORK OF JOY
by Maria Popova

It is time for a different formal defense of nature. We should offer up not just the notion of being sensible and responsible about it, which is sustainable development, nor the notion of its mammoth utilitarian and financial value, which is ecosystem services. But a third way, something entirely different, we should offer up what it means to our spirits, the love of it. We should offer up its joy.

Sermon

NOTE: This is an edited ai generated transcript.
Please forgive any omissions or errors.

Since my own band can’t be with me today. I’m gonna invite you all to be in Parker Woodland today. So what I’m gonna invite you to do as we start the sermon about climate hope and justice is to make a heartbeat with me. It’s just two beats.

The spell that we’re casting.
Demands a reckoning, a reckoning.
All this greed needs a sacrifice.
Now or never
Leave it all behind
Building spaceships
Wasting time
I don’t think we’re getting out alive.

This greed needs a sacrifice
All this hate claims your soul in kind,
marching armies
selling you their lives,
looking down from up on high
I don’t think we’re getting out alive.

Thank you. That’s a piece of a song I wrote called “The Reckoning” and some of you remember the Reverend Jonalu Johnstone who was my co-minister in 2022 and 2023 and when she first came to see my rock band do that song in full electric at the Parlor, a pizza place over here. She came up to me afterwards and she said, “I don’t think we’re getting out alive, yikes!”

The song is a lamentation, which is a spiritual practice. And there’s a part in the song that says, “Is this the last sunset we’ll ever see? How will we know it’s enough? How will we know it’s enough? And that’s the question that’s on my heart all the time when it comes to climate justice and the earth.

This greed, this hate that’s claiming our souls and that’s numbing us to the needs of our planet and the needs of each other, I absolutely wrote that song with Elon Musk in mind a couple years ago where that line about building spaceships and wasting time. I don’t want to get out of this planet alive. I want this planet to thrive.

So I know that I’m known for what I like to call a hope orientation and when I started serving here I requested the title of Minister for Joy and Justice. So not everybody is expecting a song like The Reckoning which is really heavy also in its full rock form.

But there is so much to lament and the practice of lamentation where we name what is wrong and we are honest and we lift it up to the all or to our community and then we declare a trust that something someone will answer our prayer is a very important sacred practice. And there are unitarian Universalists like the Reverend Derek Jackson who lead lamentation practices.

I believe your new Incoming Minister Reverend Carey Holly Hurt also has a workshop and a service around lamentation and I’m excited to check that out sometime, but it’s a very important practice and I was surprised and elated when I was researching this service to find that there is actually a movement for more joy in climate justice work, and in fact that researchers and scholars are insisting that climate justice and happiness can be intertwined.

So that’s some of what I want to give you glimpses of today, because I dearly need hope and I know you do too when it comes to this climate work because if you were at the Capitol with me during the Hands-Off picnic You heard me say there is a bill in our Texas legislature from Senator Hughes that would have the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality testing at water treatment plants for chemicals in urine associated with abortion, birth control, and health care for trans people.

That’s our environmental commission. Everything is connected. It’s connected to our bodily autonomy. It’s connected to LGBTQ rights, to women’s rights. So we need everybody to be paying attention to what’s going on in climate justice. That’s just one example. And We need joy to do it because otherwise we’re not going to make it through, otherwise it’s going to be too hard. Thankfully, there were a lot of really good options around how this work can bring us joy.

UU National did a climate justice revival in the last year and they asked these questions. How can our climate work be less isolated and more connected, less anxious and more nourishing, less limited and more visionary? But first, what are we talking about when we’re talking about climate justice? That term in particular? This is a definition for you from that UU climate revival.

They say climate change has the same root causes as health disparities, poverty, criminalization, and most of our society’s problems. Extractive systems like the fossil fuels industry take from the earth, destroy our communities with pollution, disproportionately harm marginalized communities, and increase the inequities that drive racism, sexism, classism, and more. So to shift from an extractive age to a new era means we must reject the broader systems of harm in capitalism and white supremacy to realize a future where all communities thrive. This rejection of systems that take, destroy, and harm necessitates a shift toward connection, nourishment, and communities of care.

That is what we’re trying to do here in our church. And so before I go any further, I want to thank those of you in this congregation who’ve been doing the hard and often thankless work of environmental and climate justice over decades. If you identify as one of those people who has been doing this work for a long time, would you raise your hand and let us see you? Thank you. (audience applauding) Thank you.

It is serious work. And the research is showing us that if we want to see more hands go up next year in the week of Earth Day, for example, one way we might have more folks is through more humor. One of the great sources of human joy.

So an article in Fixed Solutions Online, the headline says “Laughter is the ultimate unifier – can it work for climate action.” And this quote is tough but you’re gonna know you’re gonna understand. It says:

Researcher Sarah Yao says, “Environmentalists have long received criticism for being preachy or taking ourselves,”
(and I will put myself in this)
“ourselves, too seriously, in some cases becoming the butt of a joke, Al Gore being a perfect example. And when a joke has a butt,” Sarah Yao says, “It can actually act as a social wedge, further consolidating in-group and out-group.”

and what we want is for everyone to be in the group Climate Justice.

So here’s a joke for you this week being Earthday and on Friday was April 25th.
In the movie Miss Congeniality, Does anybody know that one? there’s a scene that’s now a favorite online meme where William Shatner’s Miss United States pageant emcee asked contestant Miss Rhode Island in an interview,
“Describe your perfect date.”
Do you know what she says? “April 25th.”
She says, “That’s a tough one. I’d have to say April 25th because it’s not too hot and it’s not too cold, all you need is a light jacket.”

So when I saw that meme this week, it, of course, got me thinking immediately, I laughed, and then I started to think, “Will we ever have April weather again in Texas with climate change and it’s gut-wrenching?”

So, we need to engage more people and get more people to change their beliefs about climate justice and climate change is what the researchers tell us. And Sarah Yao, the science researcher at University of Utah says, “Humor may make people receptive to information they disagree with.”

So there are several climate justice and science comedians out there that I am going to recommend to you, this researching the sermon was so fun. There’s someone called Kasha Patel, formerly a NASA, with NASA’s Earth Observatory now running science-themed comedy shows in DC. You can find those online to share with your friends. As Patel says, “Comedy can transcend different educational levels and backgrounds, which is so important. And we can use that for science.” Then we have Raleigh Williams, a comedian, does comedy and education on a YouTube show called Climate Town, and Brooklyn eco-rapper, Hilla Perry, who dresses up as the Earth for her act.

So those are some options for you, but we’re not all comedians, so what else can we do? There’s a project called Happy Climate that’s on a mission to show all of us small steps we can take to reduce our carbon footprint. And I’ll just tell you I was one of those people. Just last week I was telling my guitar player, “This is really about corporations, this is really about what you know governments and corporations can do – like what can what can we do?” And so I stand corrected because what the research for this very sermon taught me was that what we do personally does very much matter in addition to the systemic changes that we need to make.

We’ve got a little video that I’m just gonna give you just a snippet of and then we’ll talk about it. We’ve got a researcher named Jay-Z not the musician and her colleague Elizabeth Dunn who are studying the intersections of climate justice and happiness. Here’s a taste.

So my name is Liz Dunn, and I do research on how we can increase happiness. Hello, my name is Diane Zhao, I’m a JZ, and I do research on how to reduce carbon emissions. And recently, we’ve been bringing these two seemingly disparate areas of research together to try to identify what we call sweet spots. That is, behavioral changes that would both increase individuals’ happiness and decrease their carbon emissions. Now, as behavioral scientists, we can tell you that changing behavior is hard, so we are not here to flight-shame anybody or to try to compete for the very lowest carbon footprint. Instead, we’d really encourage you to take kind of a playful, curious mindset and just sort of brainstorm the ways that you might be able to change your own life in order to increase your happiness and decrease your carbon footprint.

An important premise here is that our actions matter. They matter not only because they show our commitment to sustainability, but also they signal to other people that we care. Our actions can instigate a ripple effect for collective actions to tackle a grand challenge like climate change. Now having said this, I should say that individual change should complement, not substitute, broader institutional structural change. So we do recognize the need for climate funding policies and infrastructure. In this session, we will focus on individual behaviors in a sweet spot between carbon reduction and happiness promotion. We’re going to take you on a whirlwind tour of the science of sweet spots. And we’re going to hit on four key areas, driving, flying, eating, and shopping.

Okay. I wanted to show you the whole video, but here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m going to put it in the newsletter, and I’m gonna tell you a little bit about, I’m gonna give you a little summary, but I was so impressed by the program that they’ve put together that the Texas UU Justice Ministry is gonna look at offering it to all of our congregations.

I’ll tell you some of the things that I learned. They shared, of course, this won’t surprise you, that biking and carpooling to work increased happiness if you can do it.

• Carpooling, because you get that social reinforcement in addition to reducing your carbon footprint. And that could be true not just for work. That could be true for coming to church. Is there someone you haven’t seen in church lately? And maybe they’re having a hard time getting there, but you could offer to carpool with them to church, then you have the benefit of helping someone connect with their community of care and reducing a carbon footprint. The same for if you’re going out socializing, if you’re going to a concert, something like that.
• When it came to food, I didn’t know necessarily that cheese had as much of a carbon footprint as beef and lamb. I know, whoa, the vegans are excited for me to tell you this. If you can go without beef, lamb, and cheese at lunchtime or, you know, choose what is workable for you, that reduction will help.
• When it comes to fashion, the two folks that you saw in that little video, they committed together as friends to only shopping for clothes twice a year. Which makes sense, right? It’s seasonal, you know, maybe you’re shopping based on the weather needs. And they said that the carbon, I’ve been looking forward to telling you this all day, the carbon impact of shoes, jeans, and jackets is the worst. The carbon impact of underwear is the least. So they said you don’t need to worry about skimping on underwear. love my job.

So that’s some information for you. There’ll be a lot more, a lot more in the videos, but it also made me think of my mom whose motto is “no special trips.” So if you are going to get something, think about where else can I go? Or do I really need this thing today? Can I wait and go with several other things, no special trips. They also talk about if you’re gonna go on a work trip and you really need to go, think about could I see people I love on that trip to get some social emotional needs met because the grief and the anxiety of the climate crisis is real and we need to nourish ourselves so that we can stay in all of the justice work and all of the care that we’re doing just to survive and thrive in this world. So that’s another thing to think about. 

There’s a lot in there and I’m really looking forward to talking with the team at the Justice Ministry about bringing this happy climate workshop to UUs in Texas. There’s also a carbon calculator and one of the things that they said is people criticize carbon calculators for shifting too much emphasis away from systemic changes. And you know with the Justice Ministry, we’re real big on systemic changes and that is huge. But Jay-Z says, “There’s no evidence that if I do more as a person, I’ll become less active civically.” In fact, the research suggests that the opposite is true.”

So if you’re making these commitments in your daily life and in your community you’ll be even more, your word will also mean more when you go to testify and you can speak from personal experience about what it means to find joy in making these changes in your life and holding our leaders to account as well.

Should we take a breath? Thank you, Air. Sometimes we just need to do that. Another piece of claiming our own actions is that it affirms our agency. It is very easy to feel like there’s nothing we can do, and it’s simply not true. And we can do more when we do it together.

So psychiatrist Allison Wong says the climate crisis is real and labeling it, that was that lamentation, and figuring out how to manage your experience without letting it overwhelm you is so important. So one of my asks for you today as people of faith living on this planet Earth is to find ways to not let it overwhelm you. We cannot do everything and we can do some things. Ask each other about the things you’re doing and celebrate the things you’re doing. Say thank you to those folks that you know have been in it a long time and ask them what’s one thing I can do to support the systemic work you’re doing and what’s one thing we could do together that’s a personal thing we can be doing. That’s part of our UU faith of interconnectedness and of believing that we can be the change.

Another thing that’s going on is that as temperatures rise, we’re seeing more conflict. Temperature increase is correlated with a 10.8 % increase in conflict and a 16.2 % increase in violent crime. So I’m also asking you to think about how we advocate for things that can reduce that, how we not let those increasing stressors also make us a more policed state and a more fascist state.

We need more health care, we need more mental health care, and if you’re not sure about how to be advocating for that, I see David Overton from your social justice team. Would you like to wave? There is a social justice team right here that And he is sending out meaningful actions on the daily almost right now. So if you’re not getting those, please get on that list.

What one of the researchers, Susan Clayton from the College of Wooster says, “I try to make meaning from the process, not just thinking about the outcomes of the work that I’m doing.” And as the pandemic, so aptly demonstrated, behavior patterns can change rapidly. Do you remember, we changed our, we didn’t want to, but we changed our behavior rapidly and the earth came alive. Even a little bit of that would be so welcome right now. And it is reason to have hope. We can turn things around. And one of the best ways to decrease anxiety about the earth is to engage in empowering actions.

All right, the last thing I want to leave you with, a little bit from Monia Arellis, from the Hitchcock Center for the Environment. She names, first of all, what all of us in UU Ministry name a lot, which is that, and rightfully so, that Black womanist theologians and writers have been naming that Joy is an act of resistance that we need imagination in climate justice, and author Adrienne Marie Brown in particular, her books, including Pleasure Activism, are fantastic guides. If this idea that we can find joy in climate justice or activism is new, then I commend Adrienne Marie Brown to you. Monia says, “I find joy in dreaming what a future world could look like. No homelessness or poverty, an abundance of food available to anyone who needs it. A government where every person has a voice.”

This imagining is another part of climate hope. And Adrienne Marie Brown is quoted in the same piece saying, “I believe all organizing is science fiction, that we are shaping the future we long for and have not yet experienced.”

And so Rehla’s went out with six-year-olds at that Hitchcock Center and they found a fallen tree. Now I want you to imagine your six-year-old self if you can, and bring a childlike wonder to this fallen tree that we’re gonna imagine together. She says, “We started climbing across the tree’s fallen trunk, and I asked the kids why trees are so important.” The students had amazing answers. They were fun to climb on. They were beautiful. They made forests they gave shade We talked about the carbon cycle. How humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon and trees do the reverse.

The students all began puffing out exaggerated breaths Can you do that with me some exaggerated puffy breath? “We’re feeding the trees,” one of them exclaimed joyfully. Sometimes climate hope is complicated and sometimes it’s as simple as that. Appreciating your own breath and the beautiful ways you and a tree can care for each other.

In that spirit friends as we go forth today I ask you to keep an eye out for those earthly joy moments. Share them with each other and remember that your actions matter and our actions are amplified together and we can We can do our part for this place. We call home.

Extinguishing the Chalice

We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we hold in our hearts until we are together again.

Benediction

This joy that I have
The world didn’t give it to me.
Oh, no,
This joy that I have,
The world didn’t give it to me.
Don’t you know that
this joy that I have
The world didn’t give it to me
Oh I said the world didn’t give it
The world can’t take it away

This joy that I have
The world didn’t give it to me
Oh no,
This joy that I have,
the world didn’t give it to me.
Don’t you know,
This joy that I have?
The world didn’t give it to me.
Oh, I said the world didn’t give it,
The world can’t take it away.
The world didn’t give it,
The world can’t take it away.

Amen.
Go in peace.

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Erin Walter
April 13, 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Who has time or energy for joy these days? Scholars, activists, artists, and theologians offer us paths to seek that spark of life, even in seasons of struggle. Rev. Erin Walter explores this month’s spiritual theme – joy – and how it can enliven our daily lives.

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Intonation: T A Tailor called Sorrow (Brent Baldwin)

Call to Worship

JOY IS HARD
Rev. Joe Cherry

Joy is hard.
Joy requires us to feel safe enough,
to be safe enough,
to open to vulnerability.
To feel joy, you must be brave.

Joy walks into a room after the space has been cleared.
Cleared of shame,
Cleared of doubt,
Cleared of self-recrimination.
Joy is hard.

Joy is hard
and joy is worth the hard work of preparation.
Preparing oneself and setting down all the defenses
all the shoulds and could’ves,
all the should not haves and might haves.

Joy is worth the work.
You are worth the work.
You can start small:
the simple pleasure of your favorite tea,
the grand freedom of a full belly laugh.
Invite joy to be your companion.

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Prelude: Te Deum, pt. 1 (Arvo Part)

Reading

INVITATION
Mary Oliver

Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy
and very important day

for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles
for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,
or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender

Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air
as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine
and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude-

believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.

I beg of you,
do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant,
when he wrote:
You must change your life.

Anthem: Te Deum, pts. 2, 3, 4 (Arvo Part)

Sermon

NOTE: This is an edited ai generated transcript.
Please forgive any omissions or errors.

An excerpt from Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights.

It astonishes me sometimes, Know often how every person I get to know Everyone regardless of everything by which I mean everything Lives with some profound personal sorrow – Brother addicted – mother murdered – dad died in surgery – rejected by their family – Cancer came back – evicted – fetus not okay, – everyone, regardless, always, of everything. Not to mention the existential sorrow we all might be afflicted with, which is that we, and what we love, will soon be annihilated. Which sounds more dramatic than it might. Let me just say dead. Is sorrow the true wild, and if it is, and if we join them, your wild, to mine, what’s that? For joining, too, is a kind of annihilation. What If we joined our sorrows, I’m saying, I’m saying, “What if that is joy?”

I heard somebody out there go, “Ooh.” And that is what I said. That is heavy. Joining is annihilation, and that is joy. I thought to myself, “Okay, Ross gay and the little book of delights.” Woo! I had to squint at it a little bit, but here’s what I think he means by joining as annihilation. 

When you join with another, you must let go of the myth of bootstraps or that we can live this life well alone, we join ourselves in community, in love, in making music, in being friends or family for the chance at greater joy than we can ever have in isolation. I feel that in church, in Zumba, in my band, in justice activism, none of which is easy, but all of which brings me the greatest joy. So like many spiritual traditions, for joy, for collective liberation, we are being asked to let go of some of the self and individualism.

I don’t use Facebook as much as I used to for obvious political reasons, but you’re there a lot of you and I love the community that I’ve built with people so I like to ask when I do go there for your input on a subject. And I asked what’s bringing you joy right now and what’s holding you back from joy.

First, just in case I get struck by lightning in the next 60 seconds, I want to tell you my favorite answer first. My seminary classmate and colleague, the Reverend Misha Sanders said, “Middle-aged flirting. It’s hilarious. Our all-night phone conversations go on until, like, 9 PM.” I feel that deeply, Misha. Thank you.

And then we got all the music answers. And I don’t think that’s just because I’m friends with a lot of musicians. I think music is a Universal language of joy for folks. I’ll give you our board president Gretchen Riehl who wrote “Singing always brings me joy and worry holds me back. One of the reasons I like singing in the choir is that I simply cannot think about anything but the music during rehearsals and performances My focus is solely on the music and harmonizing with my friends.” Amen. Amen.

This feels like a good time to tell you that I read in the Friday email that Brent Baldwin is welcoming you to come up and talk to him or email him about getting involved with the adult choir, the youth choir, all the musical programs of the church. So if you would like more joy in your life, you have been invited.

I have some science to go with that. A 2010 depression study from the University of Oaxaca said, “Feeling blah, try some Bach.” The implication of this new, at the time, depression research out of Oaxaca found that folks who did a study between talk therapy, which I am not disparaging, also really helpful, and music therapy. The folks who did the music therapy had 2 .5 times the positive results in addressing their depression and their mental health challenges. Interestingly, this was classical music. Imagine if you chose the genre, but it was classical music and even though not all of the participants were classical music fans at the outset, by the end of the study, many of them were asking where they could find good classical music. Pretty cool.

So I invite you in this moment, just maybe 30 seconds of quiet to think about what is a piece of music that you could turn to when you’re having a hard day? I mean that one song, I was having a good day, but then it took my day way up there. And when I’m having not such a great day, that one song better when I’m dancing goes so far for me. So I’m going to be silent for a second and let you think about might there be a piece of music or art that does that for you and I want you to take it from your brain and put it in your pocket.

Later on when we’re out in a coffee or feel free to take that song out of your pocket and tell somebody about it There were other answers that you gave that we’ve heard before. Reminders to resist the urge to reinvent the wheel and to lean into the spiritual practices and joys that are timeless for a good reason. Nature, animals, babies, good food, community building, honoring our ancestors. Sometimes you combine them.

Michelle Baines, who may be here today, said that her mom’s garden brings her joy. She planted it when she was caring for her, and even though it’s been five years since her mother passed, the growing of the garden, the blooming and especially the flowers this time of year bring her joy and she says each a love note in honor of my mom.

We also have some ancient wisdom that when I was looking back on one of my first services with you in interim ministry back in 2022, I felt it was time to share, again, in this Passover season, this time of contemplation and reverence as Holy Week leads toward Easter’s spirit of miracles. We talked about an excerpt of the Poverty and Justice Bible, which is the one that I’ve come to use in my role as the Executive Director of the Texas UU Justice Ministry. And we talked about in Exodus when the Israelites are on a long, hard journey from slavery to the Promised Land. They’re in the wilderness.

And in this piece, chapter 16, verse 20 through 24, we find out that after the Israelites had walked safely through on dry ground in the desert, Miriam, the sister of Aaron, who was a prophet, took her tambourine and led the other women out to play their tambourines and to dance, then she sang to them. And we talked about the chapter ahead for this church. Some of you are new, but if you would imagine going back with me into a time of great transition and uncertainty, and it was 2022. So COVID was also really fresh in our experience.

There were a lot of unknowns and so the joyful audacity of this sacred text to remind us that when you are going into the wilderness Things are unknown. You don’t know where food or water would even be coming from. Your female prophet brings a tambourine and invites everyone to sing and dance. That joy, that never dancing alone, is an important part of the journey. And Miriam does not wait. She does not wait to get to the other side of that 40 -year journey. She’s prepared with that tambourine and she trusts that the Holy or the community will provide water, food, sustenance, enough to have room in that pack for the tambourine. Please keep that with you.

I know Reverend Carrie is going to bring all kinds of tambourines to this ministry. I’ve been so grateful for the tambourines that Reverend Michelle Le Grave and Reverend Chris Jimmerson and the staff and everyone have brought over these years of transition. And I have one more service with you later this month, so this is not my goodbye.

So in the interest of time, I’m not going to give you all the things. But I do in this service where we’re kicking off a month of joy focus want to leave you with this that I told you in 2022. I said, as your interim minister, I get to ask you to be patient and bring a spirit of abundance and ask myself to do that too. I get to invite you to make room for joy and don’t hoard it till the end. We will ask hard questions and try to be patient, especially when a sense of urgency bubbles up that might not be so truly urgent.

Today I celebrate that you all have done that. I talked to the other ministers, I talked to the staff, we talked about what has it been like, and you all have done that. It’s amazing. I asked you to be curious and patient and willing to try new things, and you did, and we have.

So I’ll leave with you today before we sing ourselves to the end of the service and into coffee hour with the top five things I hope we remember about joy for this year. And I said, I’m telling you so I can remind myself. And now here they are.

• One, save room for joy and do it on purpose.
• Number two, don’t wait until everything is complete or perfect to dance.
• Invite others in. That was number three.
• Number four, be open to new ways of joy, never shaming others for theirs.
• And number five, and we have been doing this, joy accompanies us on the journey toward justice.

Thank you for the ways that you have been living joy all this time, not just this month, but we’re gonna celebrate it and amplify it together.

Extinguishing the Chalice

We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we hold in our hearts until we are together again.

Benediction

Where you are feeling joy. May you share it. May you invite others in.

Where joy feels impossible may you open your heart even the tiniest bit to bear witness to the joy of another.

May we live our lives like this is the one we’ve got because we’re not sure but we know, we know we have today and it is hours to live fully, joyfully and in beloved community.

Amen, Ashe, blessed be and may we go in peace.

Postlude: Te Deum, pt. 5 (Arvo Part)

SERMON INDEX

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Rev. Erin Walter
March 30, 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

On the eve of Trans Day of Visibility, Rev. Erin Walter and Bis Thornton bring wisdom and beauty from diverse trans leaders, within and beyond Unitarian Universalism, as well as reflections and learnings from the recent All In For Equality Day and Texas UU Justice Ministry day at the Capitol.

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

THE INFINITE DIVINITY
by Rev. Jami Yandle

The chalice is lit
And in the flames the memory of
Our trans and non-binary ancestors
Do a dance of freedom and liberation
Reminding us that
We are whole and holy
We are loved beyond all measure
And in our refusal to accept anything less
May we know we are rooted
In the infinite divinity
Not relegated to the outskirts
Of the web of all existence
But enshrined at its core
Enfleshed with stardust and fairy dust
An intentional creation of space where our many Gods live

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

NOTE: This is an edited ai generated transcript.
Please forgive any omissions or errors.

Video

Hi, my name is E. Ciszek. I am a member of First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin. I’m also a professor and a scholar.

In spring 2025, the United States remains deeply polarized with ideological conflicts shaping public discourse and policy. The second Trump administration known for its aggressive stance on social issues has exacerbated these divisions, targeting the rights and lives of trans individuals. Mainstream and alternative media outlets amplify anti-trans narratives, framing them as central to America’s cultural and moral battles. Globally similar trends are unfolding as nations grapple with their own political and cultural upheavals. the hardline rhetoric of the Trump administration has emboldened conservative movements worldwide, leading to policies that marginalize trans populations. For parents of trans youth, this means confronting an onslaught of restrictive laws and hostile media narratives that undermine their ability to support their children in an increasingly adversarial public arena.

As we know, parents serve as the first and most consistent support system for children. When a child expresses a gender identity that’s different from their assigned sex at birth, parents become crucial decision makers and advocates. They have to balance their own emotions and uncertainties while ensuring their child receives care and acceptance and protection. This journey often reshapes their relationships, sometimes leading to estrangement from relatives or faith communities unwilling to accept their child’s identity.

Educational advocacy becomes a constant battle as parents work to secure their child’s rights to recognition, their access to appropriate facilities and protection from discrimination. Yet, shifting policies of political rhetoric create confusion, allowing schools to justify inaction or exclusion. Trans Students are often denied access to bathrooms, locker rooms, sports teams, not always due to explicit bans, but because administrators fear backlash or misinterpret evolving legal guidance. As a result, parents find themselves in ungoing struggles with school officials, filing complaints and sometimes pursuing legal action, all while trying to shield their children from the emotional tool of being treated as political controversies rather than students.

Medical decision-making, though highly visible, it’s just one aspect of this fight. Parents must navigate a shrinking landscape of gender-affirming care as clinics close under legal and political pressures. Many are forced to seek care across state lines or rely on underground networks. Beyond advocating for their children’s right to life-saving treatments, they also have to contend with the alarming reality that healthcare providers themselves are under constant threat, harassed, and even forced to shut down.

The current political climate places an extraordinary pressure on these parents, pressures that are magnified for non-white families. Some states have attempted to classify gender-affirming care as child abuse, exposing families to child protective services investigations or even the threat of family separation. For black, brown, and indigenous families who are already disproportionately surveilled and criminalized by the child welfare system, these risks are amplified by a long history of racialization and racialized state violence. graphic displacement is a reality for some as families might relocate to states with stronger protections, creating medical refugees who leave behind careers, extended families, community ties in order to access care.

Yet not all families have equal access to mobility. Those most affected by intersecting racial and economic injustice often face the fewest viable options for safe relocation. The idea that families can just move to safer states or countries to protect their trans children presumes access to wealth documentation and freedom of movement. This acknowledgement demands a recognition that some individuals are fixed in place by racial capitalism settler colonialism or migration status. And so when thinking about these families and these children, we need to think also about the liberatory infrastructures where people are, not just where they might flee to through the creation of networks of solidarity, of care collectives, and local resistance that accounts for immobility as a structural condition, not as a personal failure.

Meanwhile, parents who speak publicly risk harassment and political attacks with their private medical decisions subjected to public scrutiny and debate. This surveillance is especially acute for families of non-white trans youth whose bodies are frequently rendered hyper-visible by the media as symbols of social crisis, of deviance or moral decline.

Parents choosing to stay out of the limelight, particularly black, brown and indigenous families, not because they lack care or engagement but because visibility intensifies the dangers of violence and exploitation. When anti-trans rhetoric intensifies, these families are among the first to feel its consequences. Their navigation of healthcare, education, and social systems exposes the systemic gaps and barriers that affect other marginalized groups as well.

As Reina Gossett, a queer transgender artist asserts, visibility is a trap, it creates an illusion of inclusion while intensifying vulnerability for those already marginalized. She speaks to the dangers of hyper-visibility for racialized trans people, dismantling the notion that visibility, for example, media attention or legal recognition automatically equals safety, is dismantled especially in volatile climates where black and brown trans bodies are surveilled, criminalized or politicized. Gossett really encapsulates why silence may be chosen over speech. When public attention increases surveillance and vulnerability, silence becomes a refusal to be consumed, to be co-opted or criminalized.

In a climate where schools and governments and media monitor trans kids and their families, silence can resist being co-opted, criminalized or sensationalized. Choosing not to testify, choosing not to post online, choosing not to speak publicly about a child’s identity or medical care isn’t passivity. It’s a strategy. It’s about refusing to feed systems that refuse, that reduce their lives to political battlegrounds. Silence becomes a form of care shielding trans youth from state media or public scrutiny. It’s also an act of refusal of the demand to always explain to justify or expose trans existence to satisfy cis normative curiosity or political debate.

By withholding information, parents can be carving out safer spaces for joy, transition or growth away from hostile visibility. Silence helps preserve dignity when the public sphere reduces trans-lives to spectacles. Silence is a counter surveillance tactic controlling what’s shared and with whom on whose terms for surviving in a landscape of hostile visibility. It’s not a retreat but a protective pause, a boundry around trans-joy transition and growth. Strategic silence can be a powerful tool of world-making, one that resists force visibility, embraces care and cultivates alternative ways of being and belonging in the face of trans antagonistic systems. It says we don’t owe you our child’s story. We’re busy building a better world for our child. And this is strategic invisibility as boundry-setting. It resists the assumption that transness must be made legible or palatable to audiences in order to be protected or valid.

Reading

ASKING FOR HELP
by Quinn Gormley

“It is revolutionary for any trans person to choose to be seen and visible in a world that tells us we should not exist.”

-Laverne Cox

I locked myself out of my car recently. I called a garage and they sent a technician. Apparently, he tried to call me on the way over and I missed it. He left a voicemail, which meant he heard my message: “Hello, you’ve reached Quinn at the Maine Transgender Network.”

My trans status isn’t a secret. Being public about it is part of my job. But being public and being out to random men on the side of a quiet, rural road are very different things.

He arrived and we wrestled back into my Subaru. After handing over my insurance card, he got quiet for a minute. Nervously he asked, “You do the rainbow thing?”

It took me a second to put the pieces together. I froze for a moment. This question doesn’t usually end well. Tentatively I answered, “Yeah, I do the rainbow thing … Is that a problem?”

He shook his head and took a deep breath. And then he started to talk.

His kid came out a few nights ago and wants to transition. He’s very worried. He watches the news. He knows how trans kids get treated. i do too. I was a trans kid. I released the breath I’d been holding. This was a conversation I know how to have.

We talked for a while about how cruel the world is, about how his kid might very well get hurt. Lots do. He’s afraid to let them transition. But then we talked about how we can’t control the world. His kid is different and might get hurt either way. “So why not let them control what happiness they can? You can teach them how to handle the rest.” We talked about how happy kids are safer kids, because happy kids have adults they can ask for help.

A hug, a trading of numbers, and a few tissues later and he was on his way to the store to buy his son a clip-on tie and those Spider-Man shoes he didn’t give him for his birthday.

Sometimes the story does end well.

Video

ALL IN FOR EQUALITY DAY
By Joelle Espeut

My name is Joelle Espeut. My pronouns are she/her, also high girl, icy girl, city girl, material girl, and I am privileged to hail all the way from Houston, Texas.

And I just wanted to say I am a woman of many things. I am a community advocate. I am an around-the-way girl. I’m a fashionista. I’m an unapologetic black trans woman. Just a name a few. We are in Uncertainty Dark Con. Yes, yes, it’s real tricky right now. But that is not what I’m here to talk about. I’m here to speak about joy, hope and possibility-models.

Joy because even in the face of adversity and darkness and despair, we absolutely deserve to experience joy.

The hope that we lean into is the hope when we envision and imagine and think expansively about what our world can look like because we absolutely will prevail.

And possibility-models, because I, a black trans woman, will continue to stand and be a possibility-model for what can happen when you stand unapologetically and authentically in your trans-ness and in your identity.

And so because of that, and because of who we are, I want everyone here to lean into joy, hope, and possibility-models because that is where we will find liberation. Not just for trans people, but liberation for all.

Thank you.

Extinguishing the Chalice

We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we hold in our hearts until we are together again.

Benediction

The challenges that we face, the work that we face, will be like eating an elephant. But I tell people that the way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. One bite at a time and we will win. So to recap, it will get better, stand together, unite, take care of yourself, take care of your community. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. When I say we’ve always been here, you say hell yeah, we’ve always been here, hell yeah, We’ve always been here! We’ve always been here!

– Anna Nguyen

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 25 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776