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Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
April 19, 2026
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave.
Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

A Volunteer Appreciation Service
Our theology teaches us about the inherent worthiness of all and the beauty of our interdependence. In this church, when we put those beliefs to work, we generate beautiful things both inside the church and outside the church. Together we nourish each other, we journey with each other through transformation, and we do the work of building the beloved community. This Sunday we celebrate all our volunteers who keep our church alive in a million different ways and make it possible for us to live into our mission!

Welcome

Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt

Prelude

“Running Up That Hill” (Kate Bush) – The First UU Youth Singers; Chantel Mead, Director

It doesn’t hurt me (yeah, yeah, yo)
Do you wanna feel how it feels! (Yeah, yeah, yo)
Do you wanna know, know that it doesn’t hurt me! (Yeah, yeah, yo)
Do you wanna hear about the deal that I’m making! (Yeah, yeah, yo)
You
It’s you and me
And if I only could I’d make a deal with God
And I’d get Him to swap our places
Be runnin’ up that road
Be runnin’ up that hill
Be runnin’ up that building
Say, if I only could, oh
You don’t wanna hurt me (yeah, yeah, yo)
But see how deep the bullet lies (yeah, yeah, yo)
Unaware I’m tearin’ you asunder (yeah, yeah, yo)
Oh, there is thunder in our hearts (yeah, yeah, yo)
Is there so much hate for the ones we love! (Yeah, yeah, yo)
Oh, tell me, we both matter, don’t we! (Yeah, yeah, yo)
You
It’s you and me
It’s you and me
Won’t be unhappy
And if I only could I’d make a deal with God
And I’d get Him to swap our places
Be runnin’ up that road
Be runnin’ up that hill
Be runnin’ up that building (yo)
Say, if I only could, oh
You (yeah, yeah, yo)
It’s you and me
It’s you and me
Won’t be unhappy (yeah, yeah, yo)
Oh, come on, baby (yeah)
Oh, come on, darlin’ (yo)
Let me steal this moment from you now
Oh, come on, angel
Come on, come on, darlin’
Let’s exchange the experience (yo), oh, ooh, ooh
And if I only could
I’d make a deal with God
And I’d get Him to swap our places
I’d be runnin’ up that road
Be runnin’ up that hill
With no problems
Say, if I only could I’d make a deal with God
And I’d get Him to swap our places
I’d be runnin’ up that road
Be runnin’ up that hill
With no problems
Say, if I only could I’d make a deal with God
And I’d get Him to swap our places
I’d be runnin’ up that road
Be runnin’ up that hill
With no problems
Say, if I only could I’d be runnin’ up that hill
With no problems

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 we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

RIVER CALL
Rev. Manish Mishra-Marzetti

Between rocking the boat
And sitting down
Between stirring things up,
And peaceably going along,
We find ourselves here, in community
Each called from many different journeys,
Life paths, onto this river road
Some are here because the rocking of the boat has been too much:
too much tumult, too much uncertainty, too much pain
Some are here with questions about where the boat is going, how best to steer it,
where this journey ends.
Others are here
as lovers of the journey, lovers of life itself
Here in front beside behind
each a passenger, each a captain;
doing the best we can.
“Rest here, in your boat, with me,” the river calls;
Listen to how I flow,
the sound of life coursing all around you”
Let the current hold you,
let the current guide you;
the river that gently flows through your soul, whispers:
“Come, let us worship.”

Affirming Our Mission

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

Anthem

“Another Day of Sun” (May J.) – The First UU Youth Singers; Chantel Mead, Director

I think about that day
I left him at a Greyhound station, west of Santa Fe
We were 17, but he was sweet and it was true
Still I did what I had to do
‘Cause I just knew
Summer Sunday nights
We’d sink into our seats
Right as they dimmed out all the lights
A Technicolor world made out of music and machine
It called me to be on that screen
And live inside each scene
Without a nickel to my name
Hopped a bus, here I came
Could be brave or just insane
We’ll have to see
‘Cause maybe in that sleepy town
He’ll sit one day, the lights are down
He’ll see my face and think of how he used to know me
Behind these hills I’m reaching for the heights
And chasing all the lights that shine
And when they let you down (it’s another day)
You’ll get up off the ground (it’s another day)
‘Cause morning rolls around and it’s another day of sun
I hear ’em everyday
The rhythms in the canyons that’ll never fade away
The ballads in the barrooms left by those who came before
They say, “You gotta want it more”
So I bang on every door
And even when the answer’s “No”
Or when my money’s running low
The dusty mic and neon glow
Are all I need
And someday as I sing a song
A small-town kid’ll come along
That’ll be the thing to push him on and go go
Behind these hills I’m reaching for the heights
And chasing all the lights that shine
And when they let you down (it’s another day)
You’ll get up off the ground (it’s another day)
‘Cause morning rolls around and it’s another day of sun
And when they let you down
The morning rolls around
It’s another day of sun
It’s another day of sun
It’s another day of sun (sun, sun, sun)
It’s another day of sun
Just another day of sun
It’s another day of sun
The day has just begun
It’s another day of sun
It’s another day of sun

Blessing of Volunteers

Reading

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
Rev. Soto

I wish the knowledge were easier to come by, that individualism is just a scam, that you are always the butterfly wings. You are always the storm. Edward Lorenz, a weather scientist from MIT, Is sometimes misquoted on this, as the premise that the flap of a butterfly wing can cause a hurricane in a different part of the world. Shorthand that isn’t all that close to a representation of the math-turned-weather scientist’s work.

He proposed that, Should we make even a tiny alteration to nature, we will never know what would have happened if we had not disturbed it, since subsequent changes are too complex and entangled to restore a previous state. Which is to say that you have an immeasurable effect on the system, It will change and you will shape its DNA

You must not believe the lying lie that you do not matter, that whatever change you can organize is so insufficient as to not be worth your time, your energy, your life force. You must be willing to dream a dream that carries forward your community. This is how we rise.

This day is polluted with a mistrust of truth, fertile and warm medium for unchecked cruelty and power. You must choose to scream the truth until every leaf and stone bears unrepentant witness to what happens when you try to cage and smash, to pin and frame a butterfly and their thousands and thousands of fabulous, flamboyant friends.

Centering

Music for Meditation: “Rises the Moon” (Liana Flores) – The First UU Youth Singers; Chantel Mead, Director

Days seem sometimes as if they’ll never end
Sun digs its heels to taunt you
But after sunlit days, one thing stays the same
Rises the moon
Days fade into a watercolour blur
Memories swim and haunt you
But look into the lake, shimmering like smoke
Rises the moon
Oh-oh, close your weary eyes
I promise you that soon the autumn comes
To darken fading summer skies
Breathe, breathe, breathe
Days pull you down just like a sinking ship
Floating is getting harder
But tread the water, child, and know that meanwhile
Rises the moon
Days pull you up just like a daffodil
Uprooted from its garden
They’ll tell you what you owe, but know even so
Rises the moon
You’ll be visited by sleep
I promise you that soon the autumn comes
To steal away each dream you keep
Breathe, breathe, breathe

Sermon

How many of you have ever found yourself in a position of explaining Unitarian Universalism to the uninitiated?

Its so hard, isn’t it.

I’m much better now that I have a whole master about it but it can still be hard to fully explain to people why we all come together week after week.

My biggest fear is that people will somehow get the idea that there is no there.. there.

That we are religion were any and everything goes.

Unfortunately, too many people have the idea of us. Which I get.

I mean

We don’t have a creed.

You will not find the Nicene Creed at this church. In fact, the Council of Nicea did not go well for us.

No creed for us.

No common deity or one way in which we come into our own search for truth, meaning, and beauty.

We are proper pluralist
a church made up of theists and atheists
Of pagans and humanists,
We are a hyphenated people – UU and Muslim, and Jewish,
and Buddhist

We come from different places, generations, and different world views.

And somehow we all keep showing up.
No deity
No creed
AND No promise of eternal reward or threat of eternal punishment.

We keep coming back, as have generations before us.

And not only do we keep coming back – so many of you make sure that we have something to come back to.

That is because we do have some really strong common beliefs.

Like that, we all matter, That it is right and good to have a voice in how we function, – (quick plug for the pre-congregational meeting today at 1pm)

We share a common belief that growth, spiritually or personally, is good.

That connection is good.

That we have a responsibility to one another and to this church.

Unitarian Universalism is set up on the premise that all of that is true.

We are a congregationalist polity…. This simply means the way we are organized is that the members of this church are responsible for it. There is no equivalent of the Vatican or an assembly of elders… no one to direct us, put a minister here… no one bail us out.

The members of this church, direct the culture and the focus They work together to create the mission, our values, and prioritize what we focus on. And Rev Chris and I help guide that process and make sure systems are in place for the work to happen.

Now a cynical person might look at what I have laid out and say…so you have nothing that holds you together, no eternal reward, and you are super responsible to hold yourself together. What is the upside?

Well, I’ll tell you… fictional cynical person. Its because of what we get from this church and from one another.

Some of us were lucky enough to have been raised UUs. You all were born straight into a tradition that already saw the spark of the divine inside of you.

Some of us came here because we wanted a church home but not one that hurt or reject us like our old.

Some of you had a perfectly fine time in the religious tradition of our youth but it just didn’t align any more.

And some of you came here knowing little to nothing about church life but just felt a pull to seek shelter with like hearted people.

Or maybe you just wanted your kids to get a solid progressive religious education.

And some of you have stories that I haven’t heard yet, but i would love to.

I think most, if not all of us, came here because we wanted something bigger than ourselves.

Somewhere we could have a free and responsible search for truth, meaning, and beauty.

A community.

And that is what, at least I hope is what, you have found.

If you have found it, its because of the engagement and the work of the people in this church that give not just of their treasure, but their time AND their talent.

Who volunteer in religious education. Who facilitates small groups or monthly large groups.

Who sit on committees and look at excel sheets until they just can’t any more.

Board members and members of the stewardship committee that keep us solid.

Its the people who clean off tables in Howson Hall so our space is inviting.

It is the counting and depositing of the offering.. year after year.

It’s our greeters, ushers, and choir members….

All of those who make beautiful music for us to enjoy.

Its the people who show up and paint our sidewalks. Direct traffic.

Its the caring companions and creators of caring bridges.

Its the person who hangs back after service and straightens the backs of the pews.

It is so many people so many things… too many things for me to try to name them all.

But all of it…all of it is in the effort of keeping us alive so that this congregation can minister to all of us.

So that this church can be a shelter and a launching pad.

Thank you to all of you who have said yes to the work of this church.

we are so deeply grateful.

But, as someone who has been known to volunteer from time to time I know that this is not without reward.

I reached out to a random sampling of our volunteers to get their feedback on what they have gotten out of volunteering.

I heard about connection, living into values, transformation, spiritual growth…

Karen Neeley, Wendy Erisman, and Toni Wegner told me about the deep connections and long-lasting friendships that have come from their volunteer work.

E Cisnek said “I volunteer at First UU because it gives me a greater sense of purpose and connection during times where I have felt alone in this world.”

A few told me about how volunteering helps them to live into their values, like David Nuhn, who sees his work as an extension of his spiritual beliefs. Or Suzie Riddle who volunteers because she feels “its important to make a contribution” to her community.

Volunteering is also a way to explore not just other parts of church life but also other parts of who we are. Tomas Medina told me that volunteering was transformative for him. He changed the way he saw himself and how he engages with the world.

And almost everyone to a tee, said that volunteering has deepened them spiritually. Ernest and Mariko Baumann told me that volunteering gave them the spiritual boost they needed to get through these times.

Ann Edwards said, “volunteering is nourishment for my soul.”

I received so many beautiful messages over the last two days, I wish I could read them all to you.

But the take-away is that volunteering, even though it is giving of your time also has so many transformational gifts for us all.

The work of the church is the work of our spiritual growth.

And there is so much to be done. If you haven’t volunteered here before, please know there is always room for you to enter into this good work. And please know its not intimidating…. Leo Collas told me that not only does it see his volunteering as selfish in a spiritual sense. But also that he has taught him that he doesn’t have to know exactly what to do, just doing the thing is a gift to other. “That’s something I can do even when I’m not 100% sure what i’m doing.”

Volunteering is powerful and its important

Because We keep our church alive.

We are an unusual group of people. We have no creed, no common deity. We come from a variety of backgrounds

We have no eternal promises…

No We have so much more

We have a religion that provides us the space to responsibly explore truth, beauty and meaning.

We have a community where we can learn, grow, and heal and be held We have a faith that motivates us towards justice and holds us even in the ambiguity and uncertainty of life.

We have one another.

We benefit from those who came before us We continue to build a shelter for those who will come next Sunday and years from now And all of it is made possible because so many of you have said yes

If you will would you please stand up or raise your hand if you are a volunteer.

Thank you, thank you!

Now, if you haven’t gotten engaged in this good work yet, that’s totally fine. That just means there is an opportunity to engage and many ways to grow. Many ways to say yes.

Yes to the work of nourishing souls, yes to the work of transforming lives, and yes to the work of doing justice to build the beloved community.

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

Before we go and spend a different kind of sacred time with one another Be blessed
In all that you do
May you feel a lightness even in heavy times
May you held even when you are alone
And may you know that who you are and what you do matters

Go in peace

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 26 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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
March 8, 2026
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

What do you do when the onslaught of bad news floods our nervous system and causes us to feel shaky in our faith? Rev. Carrie explores that question and leads us through a practice of lament.

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 we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

GOOD GRIEF
– by Andrea Gibson from You Better Be Lightning

Let your
heart break
so your spirit doesn’t

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

YOU ARE NOT WRONG
by Rev. Julián Jamaica Soto

I need you to know
that there is nothing wrong with you.
if you find the world congealed and unwieldy.
You were never meant to serve money.
to give loyalty to unprincipled power,
to spend your joy
frantically soothing yourself
in order to tend wounds of being
constantly dehumanized.

I need you to know
that your sense of injury and anger is not overdeveloped
You are meant for love and beauty
You belong where you are known
and where your future is not just a resource,
but a promise,
which you begin to fulfill
by being unmistakably,
irrevocably yourself.

Sermon

Whew… Well, I’ll just be honest I am missing hell something fierce these days.

For those of you that don’t know, I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian – a religious perspective that over-indexed on the eternal lake of fire. I have been deconstructing and reconstructing for decades.

It has taken so long to finally let go of the trauma of hell.

But now, that as I am waking up to daily heartbreak, I find myself missing hell. And that doesn’t feel great.

It makes my faith, my values feel a little shaky.

Any one else? Anyone else finding its a bit hard to center love?

Am I losing my religion?…..I mean do we really believe in the inherent dignity and worth of everyone?

Of everyone?

Those who violently dehumanize and try to erase trans people.

Those who are terrorizing and brutalizing immigrants or any one that “looks like they could be an immigrant.”

Those who perpetuate Genocide in
Gaza
Sudan
Congo

Those on the Epstein list

Those in power whose silence is deafening on it.

And then Iran!

Iran! We are in another unjust war propped up by lies.

It’s the worst kind of de jeja vu

The anger, rage… and frankly loss of control I feel has got me missing the certainty of hell.

Which goes against all of my values and beliefs. Everything that I have deconstructed.

Hell is the antithesis of my Unitarian Universalist values and faith.

But it sure is enticing to think that people who might never get their comeuppance on this side of the dirt will on the other…..

Ugh, Universalism is hard!

All that we are experiencing and seeing has our nervous systems Swinging from fight to freeze.

Making it hard for us to stay grounded in our values.

But as a people who believe in justice, in a better world for everyone That truly do believe in the power of centering love To be ground in our values. To regulate ourselves as best we can is important.

Its important for our health and wellbeing For our relationships Its important for what we are called to do in this world.

In their poem, Wellness Check, Andrea Gibson writes

In any moment
on any given day,
I can measure
my wellness
by this question:

 

Is my attention on loving,
or is my attention on
who isn’t loving me?

Where is my attention?
…is loving 
or is my attention on all that is in direct opposition to love.

What a refocusing

It’s not a pollyanna statement. It’s not a dismissing of the harm, the violence the injustice.

But rather helps us to put our heart and our minds on those who are being harmed and on the type of world we work for – the beloved community.

But to do this kind of wellness check we need to tend to our heart. To our spirits. And the only way I know to do that is to get grounded in our spiritual practices.

Because our spiritual practices

• Give our nervous system a rest
• They helps us to connect to our core self, where the spark of the divine resides
• They give us resilience that we need to do the work of justice and the beloved community. To keep from having our spirits broken

And ultimately they help us to connect to others, to see others. even those who do great harm… as the beloved children of the universe that they are.

Now if that last bit seems like a bridge too far…I think it’s good to have aspirations and to know when you haven’t gotten there just yet.

A helpful phrase for me is “I know God or their mama loves them.. I’m still working on it.”

Spiritual practices are so nourishing because they help us to see our own and others humanity in a way that is more loving.

They help us to see those feelings and call them love as Andrea Gibson taught us.

Gibson told their friend

“Open your heart to love. Everything that you are feeling right now, if its fear or sadness…everything that you are feeling… name it love.”

What I am feeling… what many of us are feeling… is love, even my misdirected desire for the certainty of eternal damnation comes from love. My deep grief, pain, and anger I feel at all the violence, violation, and pain is love. Is there because of love.

I just wasn’t putting my attention on love but rather on those that are acting without love.

But just because I name it love, doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Earlier this week I was seriously considering just sitting on these steps and saying

“I don’t even know. I’m so sad, mad, and exhausted.”

Thankfully, I realized, as uncomfortable as those feelings are, sad, mad, and exhausted are the expressions of love. But I can’t just know it, I need to give voice to it. I need to lament.

TO LAMENT. Means to weep, to wail, to moan.

And the way its used in the Hebrew bible, especially in the book of Psalms is moan to God. To cry out and say dang it, this is wrong and I’m angry and I am going to need you to fix this.

The laments in Psalms are so powerful because these people living in a complete different context and time from us are also saying… what is happening isn’t right and I demand change. And my faith is strong enough that I can yell about it. That I can do some holy complaining about it.

Lament has been and is a powerful spiritual practice for the kind of pain we are all facing today.

So let’s, in this sacred space with this holy community, lament.

So that we can take our values, our faith.. our religion that might feel a little shaky and remember that it is hearty.

That to pull love into the center of our lives is to be aligned with who we are and the impact we want to make in this world.

SO LET’S WRITE OUR LAMENT.
We are going to go through 6 steps.

1) Address
Think about who or what we are going to address.
Some of us might just use God… its a good shorthand for the mystery or the divine. Spirit of life, God of many names… Goddess.
Or something else entirely.

If god language doesn’t resonate with you, speak directly to the systems or ideas that are letting you down… like democracy.

2) Your Complaint.
Name the grief, the anger, and how you are feeling about it..
Lay it all out.
Name all your emotions. You may want to just focus on one aspect or one issue.. goodness knows we have a lot to contend with.
You can always do this again later… as many times as you need.

3) Confession of Trust.
This is where we reground in our faith and values. It’s saying what should be while also acknowledging that it isn’t.
Rev. Diana Smith wrote:

“This doesn’t mean giving a too-soon declaration that you have hope or optimism. Rather, it’s about noticing and writing down what inspires you to keep going or what helps you imagine something better.”

4) Petition:
What are you seeking?
What do you want to happen?
It doesn’t have to be something that is realistic, allow the beautiful liberatory part of your imagination free.

For example, I want everyone to have access to safe shelter, healthy food, and abundant love.

5) Hope
What would happen if your petition is met?
What would the world or people’s lives look like if that petition was met?

6) Gratitude.
Rev. Diana Smith writes:

“Sometimes you might not be feeling gratitude in the midst of your pain, and that’s okay and normal. This [part is] about remembering the deep sources of gratitude that we hope to connect with again.”

And now you have your lament.

You can turn it into a booklet and place it on your alter or meditation area if that is part of your spiritual practice. Or maybe in your journal or besides your bed. I will put mine in my god box.

Or you may want to give it back to the elements by burning or burying it. Just be careful.

The pain, the anger, the grief we are experiencing… are completely valid responses to the horrors that we are seeing. That we are learning about and that some of us are facing.

It is normal to feel those thing… and we can name it love.

We can let our religion, our faith, our values hold us in that love.

Hold us so it can make us resilient.

Resilient enough to live in this world… that so often crushes our heart

Resilient so that we can allow our hearts to break so that our spirit remains unbroken.

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

May you be held
May you be held in your joy
May you be held in your heartbreak
May you name it all love
So that when your heart breaks
You can let it mend and mend again.

Go in peace

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 26 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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
February 8, 2026
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Fear is the reason we are here. It is a tool for survival but it can also get in the way of living into our values and meeting the moment. Join Rev. Carrie as she explores how we might honor our humanity, listen to our body, and live in alignment with our values.

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 we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

HERE WE ARE
by Austin Channing Brown

I wish i had something profound to tell you today. Something that could erase the sense of dread you feel right now. I wish I had the words that could carry as a shield around your heart and not feel the daggers of bitterness and disappointment. I wish my sentences were strong enough to carry your frustration. I wish you didn’t have to log off to preserve your mental and emotional health. I wish I could save you from feeling. Except I don’t want to save you from feeling because those feeling make you human, and we are going to need to hold tight to our humanity.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

From HOW SALVATION COMES
by Rev. Anna Blaedel

When our prayer is, “What the actual [heck]!” The answer to prayer is: Whatever sphere of influence you have, use it. Witness and name what others seek to ignore or normalize. Refuse capitulation, fear, threat. Resist dehumanization, a vicious cycle which trades life for lives, and will always fail to honor the sacredness of each life, each life a demand for protection, nourishment, survival. Which is to say: Practice love. Tend Lifeforce. Enflesh care, fierce and tender. Cultivate courage. Root in collective movement. Find your people, organize, and access the power that comes only by coming together. This is what prayer looks like. This is how God moves. This is how salvation comes.

May it be so. Or, as Octavia Butler wrote, “So be it! See to it!”

Sermon

It’s 6:00ish AM in the morning. A most unholy hour. I’m blurry-eyed, making breakfast for my youngest when she comes out of her room and says “Mama there’s a bird in the house.”

Just then I see that my cats are laser-focused on…a bird in my house.

Grab the kid and the cats, put them in a room and start closing doors. I open up the back door.

All the while fear is building.

Because after I get everything in place I have to face this bird.

Turns out, which I hadn’t know until then, I am terrified of birds in my house.

Gentle Broom, lots of flapping, and lots of me covering my face But I think, it flew out!

Great!

I start to let my cats out, and just as one is walking out, I see from the corner of my eye something flying.

She has not flown out, but rather is huddled at the end of the hall on the floor.

The same floor my very excited cat is on.

So now its my cat where I can’t get her, scared me, and tiny terrified bird. I hate this.

This fear is real. This fear is physically manifesting in my body.

Every time I go near the bird its like a hook has me around the middle and pulls me back.

Every.
Single.
Time.
I get to the same spot
Just a few feet away
And everything in my body
Said “NOPE”
And I scurry down the hall.

I cannot push past this fear.

I finally swallow my pride and call Russell, ask him to come home from the gym.

The cat, the bird and me continue our stand off. When I think he should be home I call him and say “ETA” to which he relies “I’m walking out of the gym now.” Expletive! (hand sign: slams phone down)

He eventually gets home, the bird is out of the house within a minute, I’m relieved. This knot of fear has left my gut, and then ..of course… I go on to do many brave things that day…

Fear
Fear is real and it is visceral

My brain,
My reason that could have said, “You are 100 times bigger than that sweet little bird”… went completely offline.

Some deep primal instinct completely took over, and made sure that I wasn’t getting anywhere near that bird.

it’s really quite impressive how quickly and powerfully our bodies reacted to danger.

And thank goodness it does. We would not be here if it wasn’t for fear. Fear that told our ancestors. “Run from the growly thing with sharp teeth. Get shelter before dark. Pay attention to those weird dark clouds.”

Fear is a visceral thing, that has kept us going as a species for at least 300,000 years.

But If fear can show up that strongly in a situation that is nowhere approaching dangerous, what do we do when it shows up because something is actually dangerous. AND we need to respond.

When there is no Russell to call.

There is only us. We are the only ones coming to save us.

Right now, that fear is showing up as we read or watch news of the the brutality of ICE and the complete disregard for humanity, the murders at the hands of ICE and Border Patrol of people like Keith Porter, Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres, Heber Sanchez Dominguez, Renee Good, Alexi Pretti, and so many others.

• The imprisonment of adults and CHILDREN and BABIES.
• The occupation of American cities,
• The complete disregard for any human and civil rights from the highest office in the land.

The ways in which these actions are happening as if the constitution was never written.

This fear is valid.
Is rational.
And can be used a tactic to keep us quiet and pre-complying.
Its a powerful tactic.

And IT’S ONE THAT WE CANNOT SUCCUMB TO.

On January 15, I answered the call for faith leaders to go to Minneapolis. To stand in solidarity with our colleagues and with the good people of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Y’all, I was terrified. I was so terrified.

I signed several things saying that I accepted the risk.
I attended an info session where they told us that since the murder of Renee Good, ICE agents had started routinely pulling out their guns and pointing them at people’s heads.

It’s a powerful tactic.

I made sure my affairs were in order.
I wrote my memorial instructions…. because I still have opinions even when I’m dead.
And I got on a plane.

Now you may ask how can a woman who couldn’t get a bird out of her house do something that was actually dangerous.

Its because of my values and my hopes and dreams for us, and for my kids and all the kids.

I believe with my whole heart in liberation… collective liberation. I believe in our humanity. I believe in justice. I believe in a world where people get to live their one precious life unimpeded by racism, sexism, ableism and all systems of supremacy.

I believe in a more loving and kind world for everyone. And I believe that I have a moral obligation to use my one precious life well.

So with my values strongly in hand,
What becomes more terrifying than standing up to ICE agents and Border Patrol,
is what it would mean for our future if we did nothing,
If we did not speak up,
If we did not stand up.
If we allowed this cruelty and violence to become normal.

That is more terrifying than anything I was preparing to face.

I want my kids to live in a world where all of this, all that is being unveiled – all the cruelty, the harm, the gross violations of humanity, are just a bad bit of history they talk about, rather than their lived reality.

I want so much for this to end with accountability, justice.
That it ends in a way that leads us to build something much much better than what we have.
Because none of this came out of nowhere.

The roots of what we are experiencing go back deep into the colonization of this land.

• The genocide and the continued oppression of indigenous folks.
• Salvery, the slave catchers that manifest today
• in the police murders of black people
• To the Texas Rangers, taking land and lynching Mexicans and Tejanos.
• Internment camps for Japanese Americans in the 2nd world war.

None of this is new.

And so when the fear became overwhelming and started to grab me around my middle… tried to physically take over, I reminded myself of the world I want. I got grounded in my values.

And when I didn’t have that in me, I borrowed. I borrowed it from my family, my neighbors, and friends, from my roomie in Minneapolis and dear Friend, Michelle Venegas Matula.
and I borrowed it from you.
I took all y’all to Minneapolis. (Shows her stole signed by the congregation)

Fear breeds in isolation.
Community is the antidote.

When I joined with the other hundreds of spiritual leaders from all over America – Christians ministers and pastors, buddhist monks, rabbis, Sikhs, and a whole lot of Unitarian Universalists – I felt peace.

I was surrounded by people, showing up in their values. Which was a beautiful reminder that we are many and they are few.

And we are seeing this same bravery coming from the grassroots, hyper local, leaderful organizing that is happening on the ground in Minneapolis.

Every day people coming together armed only with a whistle and love their neighbor trying everything they can to protect one another.

There is so much work to do, and it’s only going to work in community,

And its only going to work if we also allow our community to hold us.

Carolyn Grimminger reminded me a few weeks ago that Rev. Meg used to say

“Social Justice work is not a Sprint, but a Relay…. when you get tired, you don’t quit, you hand the baton on to someone else, and you rest, and join up again in the work after.”

Finally, fear grows with inaction. To do nothing but watch the horrors unfold is to let fear dictate how we will live. To let fear dictate how this story will unfold.

We have to act.

But we do not all need to act in the same way,
All of us going to Minneapolis doesn’t make sense.
All of us doing just one of anything doesn’t make any sense.

If we are going to pull apart the tapestry that is this “filthy rotten system¹” then we are going to have to do what is ours to do. We are going to have to look at the skills and talents we have and bring them to one another.

The people engaged in the resistance to this occupation In Minneapolis are doing all kinds of things.

• Some are alerting their neighbors to the presence of ICE.
• Some are showing up and blowing whistles and honking horns to try to get ICE to leave.
• Some are putting their bodies on the line.
• And some are raising money for rent assistance and food.
• Others are drive kids to and from school.
• Others are picking up and doing their neighbors’ laundry so they don’t have to make themselves vulnerable at the laundromat.
• Some are packing and delivering food.
• Some are donating breast milk to the babies whose mom’s are taken.

There is so much work to do – all of it valuable – and every single one of us has something we can offer. Something we can do.

Some of us are called to stand at the front line, to stand in between harm and our neighbor.
And others of us are called to organize those people, the food delivery, the whatever.

Some of us are called to provide care.
To sit unflinchingly with someone in their pain.
Community care is foundational to the work of liberation. I am beyond grateful for our caring companions.

Some of us are called to lead songs.
Listen, If you want to take care of your nervous system: Sing.

If you want to feel brave, sing in a group. We need song leaders.

We figure out what we are good at. What it is that we are called to do and we do it.
“Because that is our sphere of influence” as Rev. Blaedel said in our reading.

Bringing your beautiful and precious life into the service of community.
Into the service of your values makes us Brave
It empowers us. And gives us hope.

I don’t know what is coming. I know what is happening in Minneapolis is terrifying

What is happening here is terrifying. To say it’s unjust is an understatement.

It’s awful and scary.

And it just is that bad as what we are seeing and probably worse.

I wish there was a way around it.

But we are a people of reason and logic and so to tell you anything different is to insult your intelligence.

But I do know we can do it.

We can face our fears.
We can hold our values close,
We can rely on one another – for comfort, for encouragement, for safety to take the baton when needed.
and we can do the work that is in our sphere to do.

We can take action.
We got this. No matter what comes our way, we got this!

And as long as the birds stay out of our houses, we will be okay”

1. Quote by Dorothy Day

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

As we go back to our normal lives, as we leave this sacred space, may you hold your values close, may you lean on community, and may you sing through your fear.

Go in peace.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 26 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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
February 1, 2026
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

To paraphrase Parker Woodland, “The world’s on fire, and we are still going to find joy.” Joy that nourishes us and joy that sustains us. In that spirit, please join us to bless the beloved animal companions in our lives. In these challenging times let us honor our animal companions who are such a vital source of our joy and resilience.

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 we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

THE STATE OF BLISS
excerpted from Blessings of the Animals: Celebrating Our Kinship With All Creation
– by Reverend Gary Kowalski

Don’t animals teach us about blessing, about joy! They remind us to be satisfied with what we have. Not one of them is worried about the stock market. Not one of them wants to run for Congress or govern the animal kingdom. None brags that their religion is better than their neighbor’s. Each is satisfied with just a little: fresh water, healthy food, and enough room to nest or den. None needs a passport or travel documents or immigration papers, because they don’t live in a state like Arizona or Texas that cares about such things. They live in a state of bliss.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

– by Henry Beston

We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creatures through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion.

We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, we greatly err. For the animals shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.

They are not brethren, they are not underlings, They are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.

Prayer

– by Albert Schweitzer

Hear our humble prayer, O God, for our friends the animals, especially for animals who are suffering, for any that are hunted or lost, or deserted or frightened or hungry; for all that must be put to death. We entreat for them all thy mercy and pity and for those who deal with them we ask a heart of compassion and gentle hands and kindly words. Make us, ourselves, to be true friends to animals and so to share the blessings of the merciful.

Sermon

For the last six or so months, when someone asks me what my theological argument is for say…trans people, queer relationships, a world in which no one is exploited, really anything that that person is struggling to understand because it was outside their own narrow context.

• I simply say Platypuses. – Y’all, we live on a planet with platypuses,
• Echidnas
• Superb Bird of Paradise, So beautiful some one called them Superb!
• Star nosed mole
• Octopusi – they can squeeze their body in the tiniest spots.
• Manatee,- Will hug you
• Elephants – gather apples in a pile so they can go back and have a party when they ferment
• Tardigrade, also known as water bears
• and don’t even get me started on the animals that lived before us….

The creatures on this planet are proof that life is beautiful, interesting, weird, and diverse.

But for some reason, our species, us mammals, we Homo sapiens, want to make things boring And of course #notallhuman – But so many want to – Narrowing down what its supposed to mean to be our kind of animals. Refusing to see the beauty and creativity of creation, of which we are a part.

And so while today is a blessing of the animals, I want us to remember that we are also animals and because of that, let us learn from these precious members of creation.

Our dog friends who when we stare into their eyes both of our bodies flood with oxytocin – Teaching us that we are meant to be connected.

Our cat friends – often distributed to our homes by the universe’s cat distribution system – confidently and gracefully making your home theirs. Teaching us about taking up space and being true to ourselves.

And I know its not just cat and dog friends – We have so many animal companions, and I bet you could tell me about the blessing they are to you. About what they teach you.

Maybe you would tell me of the ways they bring joy into your life. Maybe they teach you about love, care, and how to have fun.

Animals invite us to see the beauty and diversity of this planet we all depend on, They teach us what it means to be present, to listen to our bodies, to love or, if they are anything like my cats, to communicate how they want to be loved.

They are a blessing and so for all they do. For all they are we bless them.

But first we gawk. Now is the time for the animal parade.

ANIMAL BLESSING
by Rev. LoraKim Joyner

May Blessings Flow…..
From our hearts and minds into our hands,
May blessings flow.

Around and around this circle of friends
May blessings flow.

For all you do and all your teach us
May blessings flow.

Around and around our beloved earth
May blessings flow.

For all beings,
may blessings flow.

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

For all the animals in this room and online, with fur, or feather, or scale, or just us, the relatively less hairy humans, may we all find joy today, joy and companionship. And may we all be present today to that companionship, but also to the beauty and the mystery that is all around us. And most importantly, may we all be held by love.

Go in peace.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 26 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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
December 28, 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Storytelling is a powerful way to connect with one another, to understand ourselves and the world around us, and it just feels really good. Rev. Carrie explores the power of a good story.

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

A story communicates fear, hope, and anxiety, and because we can feel it, we get the moral not just as a concept, but as a teaching of our hearts. That’s the power of story. That’s why most of our faith traditions interpret themselves as stories, because they are teaching our hearts how to live as choiceful human beings capable of embracing hope over fear, self-worth and self-love over self-doubt, and love over isolation and alienation.

– Marshall Ganz

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

Matthew 2:1-12

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “in Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet: And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel.”

Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star appeared; and he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” When they had heard the king they went their way; and lo, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy; and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

Sermon

I love a good story, don’t you? Stories are fun and entertaining. And because they are fun and entertaining, they can be used as powerful tools.

Tools to help us connect to other people, other cultures, and other ways of understanding the world Because they help us to understand things from a different perspective And can help us to strengthen or even develop our values.

That is because stories engage our brains in a completely different way. When we hear stories, our thinking shifts from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex.

Meaning stories make it possible for us to move out of the part of our brain that is mostly concerned about our survival, which tends to shrink our world into a part of our brain that is open and creative and empathetic.

From this place, when we hear or read about another being’s experience, our brains are flooded with feel-good hormones like oxytocin and dopamine. Leading us to connect to them, even if they are fictional.

Does anyone have a favorite fiction character? Me too.

Storytelling is such a powerful tool because it expands our understanding of what it can look like to be a person on this planet. Which is why some people find them dangerous Dangerous enough to try to ban them.

Stories are just that powerful!

One person who saw the power of storytelling to connect us and develop life-changing empathy was the Unitarian writer Rod Sterling. Rod Sterling had seen and experienced a lot of horrible things during World War 2. When he left the military, he turned to writing to help him process his anger and all he was feeling. That got him into writing for television. When Emmitt Till, a black boy, was killed by white supremacists, he wanted to write TV scripts about racism and the atrocity of what happened to Emmitt Till.

The TV producers and censors did not like that.

So eventually he figured out that the way to do what he wanted, write TV shows that would tell a powerful story and make people think about big issues in our society, was to make it science fiction.

This is how he created the TV show The Twilight Zone, a popular, powerful, and often still relevant TV show. The beauty of the Twilight Zone is that both the oppressed and oppressors liked to watch it even though there were important messages about oppression. Because it was a story, it helped people enter a creative, empathetic space to examine larger issues, like prejudice. Even if they didn’t realize that was what was happening.

Stories are also way to communicate many important messages in an entertaining way. It’s often easier to grasp a big ideas through a story than through a list of facts because a story can squish in a bunch of concepts while you are in an open space.

For instance, the story that Margaret just read for us about the Magi is a pretty good one It’s a little weird.

Maybe it left you wanting to hear more or just left you confused. Maybe it was so familiar that you kind of tuned it out.

What if I told you that that story would have been way more powerful to you if you were a Jewish person who lived 2000 years ago?

The story of the Magi, sometimes called the three kings or the three Wise Men, was in a book in the Bible called Matthew. This book was about Jesus, and it was probably written about 50ish years after Jesus died.

The primary purpose of the book was to share Jesus teaching and to make an argument that Jesus was the rightful king, the Son of God, and that his death meant something.

The audience for this book were the Jewish people who were following the path of Jesus or who might come to follow it.

When this book was written, these people had been run out of their homeland by Rome, the empire who had been oppressing them for a long time had destroyed their temple and all of Jerusalem, and enslaved many people and other horrible things.

So if you are a Jewish person in the first century and you heard or read Matthew’s account of the Magi it would have probably been very exciting.

First of all, you would have grown up knowing about the Parthian Empire, and the religion Zoroastrianism. And you would have known that the Parthian empire was bigger and more powerful than Rome at the time.

So when the story says that the Magi come from the east, those early readers or hearers would have understood that Matthew was trying to say that an empire even more powerful than the Roman Empire saw the importance of Jesus.

And not only that, they would have understood that the magi were Zoroastrian priest, which meant they knew the truth, because their religion was about receiving the truth. The truth, they told Herod, that the King of the Jews had been born.

These important details mean that for these ancient readers and now us, these aren’t just men who seem vaguely important coming to give strange gifts to a baby.

Rather, they are symbols that say this baby is as important as Matthew says he is and he is bigger than Rome, and really any empire.

This would have been a powerful message to people who had endured the pain of living under an empire. And is still powerful for many people living under empire today.

Secondly, in the story we learn that the Magi are coming because of a star. If you were living in the 1st century you would have known that these men were coming from a part of the world that had the best astronomers. – People who watched and tracked the night sky and could interpret what they saw – and they could do it better than anyone… even the Romans. Having the star be a part of the story would have probably said to them two things.

First, it would have made you think of the story of the prophecy of Balaam, In that story it is said that the star would signal that the Messiah or Christ had come.

The Messiah is the person many Jewish people had been and still are waiting to come and bring salvation and liberation. And Matthew believed and wanted others to believe that Jesus was that Messiah.

But not only that, Matthew wanted people to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Which was a title that the Roman Emperor Augusta had claimed for himself after seeing a comet. Augusta had a comet, but Jesus had a star, A star so powerful and steady that it could lead a group of important priest to his home….

And of course there are those weird gifts. I mean who brings myrrh to a baby. What is myrrh anyways?

If you lived in the ancient world those gifts would have signaled to you the whole of what Matthew was arguing.

Those ancient people would have associated Gold with Kingship Frankincense Gods and Goddess because that is what was burned in the temples.

And finally myrrh was to remind people of Jesus death. Myrrh is a very strong smelling oil that was used throughout that area on a body after someone had died.

There are tons and tons of thing that those early readers and hearers would have caught that we don’t catch, but when we give stories, especially stories that aren’t from our time or our culture the respect they deserve, we can get a greater insight than if we just insist on viewing things through our own lens. Because stories can expand our world.

When I try to look at this story through the lens of the people it was intended for I have a deeper understanding of the story and I understand why the story was told the way it was told. I don’t have to believe it as fact, but I do develop empathy for that ancient audience.

But we know that not all stories are meant for our good. For example, we know that the bible, where this story came from, has been used to do all sorts of harm.

The story of Noah in the Hebrew Bible was used my many Christian ministers to justify slavery in this country. It was used to justify colonization, misogyny, segregation, homophobia, and so much more.

Those things could be justified because there were already stories out there that said men were better than women, that Europeans were better than others, that Christians were better than others, that able-bodied people are better than disabled people and on and on.

These stories are old and have done so much damage and they are still around.

So what do we do when stories are such powerful tools AND can be used to do harm?

Well, I think we have to be wise when we listen to stories. For me this looks like holding my values close. Like the Equity value that we have in Unitarian Universalism, that says:

“every person has the right to flourish with inherent dignity and worthiness.”

So if I hear a story that pits one group against another, I can step back, apply my values to it, and see how it holds up.

Stories are such powerful tools that we need to make sure we use our wisdom when we hear them, and if something sits wrong with us, it’s a sign to investigate that.

It might be that you are picking up a lesson from a story that is harmful…. or it could be that you are having to evaluate your own values and beliefs.

Unlike those ancient people reading Matthew, we have access to so many stories… every single day. Often told in less than a minute.

We have to make sure that what we let in, helps us grow and live more deeply into our values.

Storytelling can expand our world by helping us to see outside our limited experience and understanding.

Stories allows us to literally let out brains relax making it easier for us to step into another person’s shoes, to experience things that we ourselves haven’t and might never will. It makes us more empathetic and more connected.

And when we listen with wisdom, it can help us to understand ourselves and our values in a deeper way. So this is your call to action:

• Tell your stories
• And ask each other for stories
• Fill your world with stories from other people, other times, and other places So that you might be more connected
• More empathetic
• And have a more expansive life.

And make sure that whoever’s story you are listening to… even if they are the ones you tell yourself, that they are stories that are seeking the truth and beauty and wisdom of what it means to be a human on this planet.

Because storytelling is a powerful tool.

May we listen well.

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

As we leave this sacred time of community,
of fun,
of comfy cozy togetherness,
May you feel inspired to tell your story,
May you feel eager to hear others,
with wisdom,
and may the telling and the hearing connect us.

Go with a good story!

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
December 14, 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

It’s the season of peace or so they say. What does peace mean when there is so little of it in the world? Where do we find our peace? Rev. Carrie explores peace and how we might think about it in times of chaos.

Prelude

“Cantata 140: Wenn Kommst Du, Mein Heil & Zion Hort Die Wachter Singen” (J.S. Bach) – Jihee Han (soprano), Robert Harlan (bass & Beth Blackerby (violin); The First UU Adult Vocal Ensemble & Orchestra; Brent Baldwin, conductor

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

RIVER CALL
by Rev. Manish K. Mishra-Marzetti

Between rocking the boat
and sitting down;
between stirring things up,
and peaceably going along, We find ourselves here,
in community.

Each called
from many different journeys,
Many different life paths,
onto this river road.

Some are here because the rocking of the boat has been too much: too much tumult,
too much uncertainty,
too much pain.

Some are here with questions about where the boat is going;
how best to steer it;
where this journey ends.
Others are here,
as lovers of the journey, lovers of life itself.

Here in front
beside,
Behind each a passenger;
each a captain;
doing the best we can.

“Rest here, in your boat,
with me,” the river calls;
“Listen to how I flow,
the sound of life coursing all around you.” Let the current hold you,
let the current guide you;
the river that gently flows through your soul,
Whispers:

“Come, let us worship.”

Affirming Our Mission

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

Music

“Cantata 140: Mein Freund ist Mein” (J.S. Bach) – Jihee Han (soprano), Kelan Latimer (bass) & Julianne Webner (oboe)

Reading

THIS HOLIDAY SEASON
by Rev. Addae A. Kraba

Let this holiday season be a time for engaging heart to heart.
For those who, like the innkeeper, turned us away;
For holidays that didn’t live up to our expectations.
For ghosts of Christmas past that haunt us;
For those who gave us gifts, but never their presence.
For gifts we yearned for, but did not receive;
For things we received, but never wanted.
For those who offered us cheer when we needed comfort;
For those who offered us love that we could not accept.
For those we rejected, offering no room in our homes or hearts;
For ourselves, who could not give through fear.
For the times we saw a star in the East. but failed to follow it;
For times we followed the star, but it did not lead where we hoped.
For miracles gone unnoticed,
For wise men and women, whose gifts we rejected.
All these we remember, we forgive, we love.
In doing so, may we be granted an abiding peace.

Meditation Music

“Sunrise on the Hills” (Brent Baldwin) – The First UU Orchestra & Brent Baldwin (pedal steel)

Sermon

Peace, peace; when there is no peace. We are in the season of advent, which invites us to spend time thinking about hope, faith. joy, and PEACE.

Which is why back in September I picked peace to preach on today. Honestly, at the time it seemed like an easy lift.

“But, NO!” the universe said.

You see every time I’ve thought about this sermon my brain went right to this scripture from the Hebrew Bible:

“Peace, peace; when there is no peace.”

This is from the book of Jeremiah. You see Poor Jeremiah has the misfortune of being the prophet who has to tell Judah “Change your ways, or the Babylonians are coming for ya”…Which does end up happening.. For 70 years there is an exile, The temple is destroyed.

Of course because Jeremiah is a prophet no one is listening to him which makes him cranky. Or maybe he is cranky so no one is listening to him. I love prophets but they do have a reputation.

But, of course, we can’t really blame him for his crankiness. A prophet is just someone who is standing around observing the world, Putting two and two together and speaking the uncomfortable truths.

So I totally get cranky.

I think a lot of us are watching Project 2025 roll out when they said it never would… are feeling pretty cranky. So, here I am cranky and having to preach about peace!

My cranky is heightened by the holiday, because of the whiplash of the season. One minute I’m reading and seeing images of violence and destruction, of people being stolen off our streets by the government and the next moment Mariah Carey is crooning her Christmas list at me.

She wants you, by the way.

There is tinsel and holiday ads and the state is kidnapping people and separating families, at such a rate that they have had to create three “tender age” detention centers in South Texas alone. Those are detention centers for babies and children under 13.

Peace, peace; when there is no peace.

Now I do have a part of me that has gladly taken on my annual, seasonal, part-time job of creating Christmas magic for my children. The same part that is getting giddy about our no-reversal christmas pageant next week.

And There is a part of me that wants to have a full on melt down and scream back at Mariah “stop gaslighting me.”

“All is not holy and jolly, in fact.”

It’s the disconnect between the reality of what is happening to people and the yearly pressure to perform the trappings of the holidays.

It is whiplash and it makes me cranky.

And maybe I think that must nave been now Henry Wadsworth Longfellow felt when he wrote this poem we sang- “I heard the belis on Christmas day.” He wrote that poem on Christmas day 1863. He was grieving his wife who died horribly. He was worried about his son who had been horribly wounded in battle. And he was living in a country that was two years into a brutal and bloody civil war.

And so when he heard those bells, ringing like they always rang before he had his own melt down. “There is no peace on earth, hate is strong and mocks the notion of peace.” He calls it out. He was lamenting. He is pointing out that things are not okay and pretending otherwise is wild.

Yes, Longfellow and I am with you! I feel that lament. I feel the urge to call it all out. And am thankful my faith and my religion supports me in that.

One of the most beautiful and humanizing aspect of Unitarian Universalism is our ability to be human and the encouragement to do so with eyes wide open. Our religion encourages us, to look past the illusion and delusion of the times we live in look past our own limited experience of the world so that we can understand what is happening. So that we can fully embody what it means to be interdependent. So that we can embody transformative justice. So that we can lament the pain, the violence, and the hurt. And by doing that we might build our hope on the vision of the world we are working towards. Not the one we are being sold.

i love that about us. I can’t imagine being more aligned to stay awake to all the world, to have empathy for those suffering, and then to allow our values to flow into action in response.

But lets be honest, that’s hard.

To open ourselves up to the pain of the world. To open ourselves up to caring about others. It’s hard.

And in a society so tailored to individualism it can be isolating.

For some of us, we feel attacked by pop stars.

But I think it is in this struggle, this struggle to stay aware that inevitably leads to lament, which allows us to move more deeply into our own spirituality, and to the peace it brings.

In Longfellow’s poem, we see a condensed version of this moving from lament to peace. First, he allows himself the lament. To say, “No, christmas you will not gaslight me I know things are bad. The world is on fire and your bells are ringing.”

But then, as the 19th Century Unitarian that he was, he finds peace in his faith. He asserts his belief that the “wrong shall fail, the right prevail. That peace will come.” For him this hope is that God is acting in this world.

Some of you might really resonate with that sentiment. Its the perfect time of year for it.

When I put my UU translator on, I resonate with it.

Part of the connective tissue that ties our pluralist community together, is that there is something. And that something holds us, guides us and is a source of our peace.

For Christians this peace in the salvation that Jesus brings. For me it is the message that is told over and over again and contained in this story of Jesus that gives me this peace. That love cannot be killed, and that when we act out of love, that when we are in solidarity, we can move mountains.

It is the peace that the beloved community is something that we work, because it is the way forward and when we work for it we bring it into the lives of each other in the here and the now.

Maybe that’s orchestrated by a God or Goddess, The Universe Spirit Or maybe it just us. Maybe its the assurance that comes because of the prayers we make with our own hands and our own feet. The prayers we make with our action.

The beautiful and sometimes baffling thing about our religion is that we don’t have to agree on the force behind it, but it is a part of our DNA to believe that there is something. And that something will enable us to bend that arch towards justice. Something that tells us that evil will not long endure. It is something that gives us this knowing and that is what helps to bring us peace. A peace that can and does exist, even in the chaos, even when “there is no peace.” It is the peace in the center of us. So deep that the storms can’t touch it. But close enough to our heart to guide us and move us to action. To make us brave enough to keep our eyes open to the suffering.

What is that something for you? And how does it hold you to both be awaken to the world And have the peaceful assurance, the hope that we do not work or hold our values in vain? What gives you peace, even when “there is no peace”?

For me there is peace in living in alignment with my values. There is peace in staying aware of what is happening. There is even peace in the lament because it means I am connected. And my peace comes from an assurance that the arch will bend. And It will bend towards justice.

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

– Rev. Abhi Jamamanchi:

May all beings be safe and free from harm.
May all live in peace and in wholeness of body, mind, and spirit.
May courage arise where there is fear,
and compassion where there is pain,
May those behind walls know they are not forgotten,
and may the work of justice be guided by love.
Peace within, peace among us, peace for all,
Peace within, peace among us, peace for all,

Go in peace

Postlude

“Cantata 140: Gloria sei dir Gesungen” (J.S. Bach) – The First UU Adult Vocal Ensemble & Orchestra; Brent Baldwin, conductor; Orchestra: Julianne Webner, oboe; Suzanne Segredo, oboe; Jennifer Bernard, English Horn; Beth Blackerby, violin; Christabel Lin, violin; Ames Asbell. viola: Anna Park, cello: Andrew Potter, bass: Valeria Diaz. organ & harpsichord

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
November 16, 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We are people who have beautifully joined ourselves to the work of building the Beloved Community, but what does that look like in a fractured world where some have more than they will ever need and some will never have enough? Rev. Carrie explores the role of solidarity in our work and in our 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.

Call to Worship

Let me tell you why I come to church. I come to church and would, whether I was a preacher or not, because I fall below my own standards and need to be constantly brought back to them. I’m afraid of becoming selfish and indulgent, and my church, my church of the free spirit, brings me back to what I want to be. I could easily despair. Doubt and dismay could overwhelm me.

My church renews my courage and my hope. It is not enough that I should think about the world and its problems at the level of a newspaper report or magazine discussion. It could too soon become too low a level. I must have my conscience sharpened, sharpened until it goads me to the most thorough and responsible thinking of which I am capable. I must feel again the love I owe to others. I must not only hear about it, but feel it. In church, I do. I am brought toward my best in every way toward my best.

– A. Powell Davies.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

If you deny any affinity with another person or kind of person, if you declare it to be wholly different from yourself as men have done to women, and class has done to class, and nation has done to nation, you may hate it or defy it. But in either case, you have denied its spiritual equality and its human reality. You have made it into a thing to which the only possible relationship is a power relationship and thus you have fatally impoverished your own reality.

– Ursula K. Le Guin

Sermon

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

You may have noticed that on my forearm, I have this hormone neuropeptide, it’s oxytocin. I find it fascinating because it helps me to think about love.

Oxytocin plays many roles in our body and in our relationship. It’s released when we hug or when we’re intimate. It’s released when you stare into your dog’s eyes. It’s released in both of you when you stare into your dog’s eyes. It is about bonding and building trust. It even helps to lessen pain. It’s called the cuddle hormone, which is adorable.

But the best example of love for me is when it does its job at birth. Oxytocin is what causes contractions. Now, if you’ve ever experienced those, or have you ever seen someone experience those, you know that this is not feel-good times. This is not cuddle time. The role of oxytocin at that point is taking you into a place that you’re not sure you want to go, quite honestly. And that’s what love does. It pushes us to do things that we are scared to do. Love makes us brave. And because it bonds us, love makes us brave in community, which is exactly what Reverend Chris preached about last week. Bravery comes from community.

Love is powerful and it is actionable, and it is only right and good that we have now articulated it as what is at the center of our work and our faith. It’s the only thing that’s going to get us to beloved community, because it’s the only thing that’s going to make us brave enough to do that work, which is to love the hell out of this world, as Reverend Joanne Fontaine Crawford told us.

The hells of racism and sexism and ableism and all those other horrible isms, the hells of hunger and war and constant fear, the hells of disconnection and marginalization and incarceration.

If the beloved community is the mission of our church, then love must be what we rely on to do the work. And that’s good because love is powerful stuff. Love is what can meet this time of so much cruelty and so much violence. And honestly, it’s what keeps me coming back, even if I wasn’t preaching.

Just as A. Powell Davies told us:

The church is where I come to remind myself to be centered in love. It’s where I come to sharpen my own conscious and redouble my commitment to the collective liberation.

It’s beautiful because there’s so many wonderful things that we can do in community. And systems of supremacy have gotten us so messed up. Just as I can get motivated at what we can do together, I can also get really overwhelmed at the vast gulf that exists between where we are and where love calls us to be.

As we’ve heard over the last four or a few weeks, over 40 million Americans are on food assistance, a program that has recently been used as a cruel political tool, as if people don’t need to eat, as if food isn’t a basic human right, as if we aren’t all just spinning on the same blue planet with the same basic needs.

But instead of remembering that, that we do live on the same planet with the same needs, we have a system that allows people to go unhoused and unsheltered. 18 out of every 10,000 people in the U.S. go unhoused. And to add insult to injury in Texas, that can become a crime, and it has the full backing of the Supreme Court. We have the most medical debt. We have the highest maturnal mortality rate, we have the highest incarceration rate compared to other rich nations. I could go on and on, but y ‘all, y ‘all know this. You all know that the state of things is far from love. The gulf between where we are and love is huge. It’s huge.

And yet it’s that brave making love that calls us to do the work, calls us to narrow that gulf until it doesn’t exist anymore. That’s the beloved community.

Let’s ask us to stop participating in hierarchies that keep systems in place. And one way to do that is to unlearn our charity mindset and move to a solidarity mindset.

Charity mindset is how we’ve been taught to address unmet needs. Now meeting unmet needs is a really good thing. I would never say to stop doing that. But if we’re doing it with a charity mindset, the problem is that that mindset perpetuates the status quo. Because it is designed to exist within systems that perpetuate the problem without critically addressing the reasons those problems exist in the first place.

Matthew Desmond in his book, Poverty by America, writes:

When we don’t own property, or we can’t access credit, we become dependent on people who do and can, which in turn invites exploitation because, hey, it’s capitalism and in capitalism, a bad deal for you is a good deal for me.

This comes, has come into sharp relief this last few weeks as the nation has been talking about SNAP and how we have learned that the majority, three quarters of the people who receive SNAP, are in full-time employment.

Now, I don’t think that you should have to work to be worthy of food. You are worthy for food because you are living. But what the statistic tells us is that our system is about exploitation. That big corporations can hire people and become incomprehensibly rich, while the people whose labor is making them rich are struggling to meet their most basic human needs.

When we have a charity mindset, we don’t do that drilling down. We don’t look at the systems of exploitation, but rather we do what we’ve been taught to do, which is to put the focus on the individual. And they’re pitiful or tragic reasons that they are the way they are. We’ve taught to see them as the problem.

But if we unlearn this, if we take a solidarity approach, we look past the individual into the larger systems.

This is captured so beautifully by Bishop Desmond Tutu when he said there comes a point when you need to stop pulling people out of the river and you need to go upstream and find out why they are falling in in the first place.

Now it is a good point in the sermon to say. I am not saying to stop providing for people’s basic needs. We must go upstream and find out while people are falling into the river and we must challenge those systems and change those systems to stop the problem from even happening.

And in the meantime, we also need to keep pulling those people out of the river. Because people still need safety. People still need warm clothes, people still need to eat. Please continue to donate to the Capital Food Bank and your local free fridge and or your neighborhood buy nothing group. And if you’re someone that needs food, rely on your neighbors for it.

While we are working to tear down these systems so that beloved community can be built, we need to join with each other and take care of each other. This is mutual aid. This is us in solidarity. A shift to a solidarity mindset that says, I am not beholden to systems, I’m beholden to you.

And it breaks down those hierarchies and inequalities because solidarity operates on the same premise that we do, which is the inherent worth and dignity of all people.

A charity mindset is intertwined with systems of supremacy, which mean that it gives more weight to those that systems of supremacy say are most important, are deemed most worthy.

A solidarity mindset breaks those hierarchies down and says
Everybody should eat.
Everyone should have access to shelter.
Everybody should be safe.

It also says that those are most impacted are the ones that know best how to change those systems. A very powerful example of this are the 12 black women who created the reproductive justice framework back in 1994. They were fed up with how the issue of reproductive rights was framed. They said that black women in this country had never since 1619 had a real choice about when it came to and if and how they were going to bring children into this world.

With this shift, they gave us a deeper and more beautiful framework in which we could think about bodily autonomy and child bearing and child rearing. And up until then, reproductive rights have been framed mostly by financially secure, able-bodied, white women who assumed that everyone else had the same choice. They weren’t wrong, they were only operating in their narrow lens. But it ignored the systemic issues that made real choice for so many people impossible.

Moving from a charity mindset to a solidarity mindset is critical to the work of liberation because it gets more people involved. And when we get more people involved, we can have a fuller understanding of what we need to do to change. What we are growing towards.

Solidarity is centered in love, and it is the foundation of liberation. It is the foundation of the Beloved Community. And we get there by shifting. We get there by shifting away from seeing our work as charity to one of solidarity.

But to do it, we must believe that change is possible. We must stop accepting defeatist attitudes that tell us stupid things like the poor will always be with us. I hate that saying so much. Rather, we must believe that another world is possible and work like it is. And we have to examine the way that we are contributing to exploitation. Poverty benefits most of us.

Matthew Desmond writes:

The duality of American life can make it difficult for some of us who benefit from the current arrangement to remember that the poor are exploited laborers, exploited consumers, and exploited borrowers precisely because we are not. After all, how do we get filthy rich corporations that can pass down low, low prices if that’s not the arrangement?

But these things are sneaky, because we are not usually having a nationwide conversation about SNAP, because we usually are not looking at images of genocide in the Congo, a genocide that is directly related to the cobalt in our phones and in our electric cars.

And we don’t have to feel shame about that. We do not have to get defensive about that. Shame is a massive impediment to our growth. But if you’re feeling uncomfortable, believe me, I feel uncomfortable too. But you know what? That’s okay. Love’s goddess.

Like our living tradition, we are allowed to grow and change. We are allowed to unlearn and do better going forward.

This afternoon, we have the opportunity to learn about the boycott, divest, and sanction movement that allows us to stand in solidarity with Palestinians who are being crushed under the weight of apartheid. I hope you’ll join me. It’s actionable, just like love. When we center solidarity, we have to tear down the false walls between us and them.

And it’s a very human thing to build those walls in the first place. Just try to say, you know, we’re not like them. That would never happen to me. I would never be in that situation because, you know, just never could.

How many have you all done that thing where you hear about someone’s horrible tragedy and you almost immediately start asking questions to try to distance yourself from them? I’ve done it. I’m very guilty of it. Like, what piece of information am I going to receive that’s going to allow me to feel safe from what they’re experiencing?

It’s such a human thing to do. Many of us have never learned to be comfortable with other people’s pain or suffering. And many of us have taught rugged individualism. And so we rush to distance ourselves from the other person. It’s completely understandable. We’re trying to conjure up a sense of security. But y ‘all, it’s an illusion. There is no difference from the person with the tragedy than me. There is no difference.

In 1886, Tolstoy wrote: We imagine that their suffering are one thing and our life another.

The truth is that we are part of the web of existence, that our lives, whether lived in comfort or a war zone or under a highway, are all woven together, which means that our lives and our liberations are completely interlocked. There is nothing. There is nothing that separates me from the person holding a sign on the side of the road. There is nothing that separates me from the person going bankrupt or going hungry or unhoused or running from bombs. There is nothing, but maybe, therefore the luck of the draw, go I, that separates me from another human being on this planet.

We shift into a solidarity mindset when we break down those false walls that separate us.

When those walls start to break, we can act. We act with the convention that things can be different. We believe people and we start to act on what they are telling us. We begin to live in community with all sorts of people, relying on them.

We work hard to break our addiction to individualism and start to see what we do as mutual aid, breathing into our bones that it is okay and right and absolutely necessary to ask for help. In a healthy community, we ask and we ask for help and we give help. Because we are all spinning on the same blue planet with the same basic needs. We give and we receive.

Next Sunday, at 2:00, we’re going to do what we can to figure out how to work more in solidarity. We’re going to do some asset mapping so that we can be a part of building the beloved community in a more actionable way. It’s going to be revolutionary work, and only the coolest revolutionary people will be there.

Can’t wait to see you all.

Y’all love is not being centered in our world. Cruelty is, supremacy is, and the gulf between the beloved community and where we are right now, it is huge.

We know this, but that powerful, brave-making love calls us. It calls us out of our comfort. It calls us out of our fear, and it calls us into the work. It calls us into solidarity. It points us to one another. It bonds us and builds trust and puts us together so that we can build something more beautiful.

May we let her in.

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

As we leave the sacred time of holding and being in community, I want to leave you with a blessing of sorts from adrian marie brown.

You aren’t the first,
You won’t be the last,
and you are not alone.

Go in love.
Thank you.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
November 2, 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Loss is an inevitable part of the human experience, and yet we often give ourselves so little time to acknowledge it or to spend time with our grief. This Sunday, we will spend some time acknowledging the loss we have experienced and the grief that has shown up in its place. Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt leads us through a ritual of acknowledgement. She will mention many forms of loss, from the climate crisis to the loss of a loved one.

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

“BE NOT AFRAID OF LOVE: LESSONS ON FEAR, INTIMACY, AND CONNECTION”
– by Mimi Zhu

“I do not believe that grief ever disappears. Grief morphs and shape-shifts as we honor it, as it begins to entwine with the contours of love. At times, it can tug at your heart and break it, especially on days when you feel vulnerable and tender. On other days, it can fill your spirit with immense gratitude for a life that was shared and a life that continues…. Our grief transforms […] into an energy of love.”

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

THE CURE FOR SORROW
by Jan Richardson

Because I do not know
Any medicine for grief,
But to let ourselves
Grieve.

Because I do not know
Any cure for sorrow,
But to let ourselves
Sorrow

Because I do not know
Any remedy,
But to let the heart break,
To let it fall open, then
To let it fall open
Still more.

Because I do not know
How to mend
The unmendable,
Unfixable,
Unhealable wound
That keeps finding
Itself healed
As we tend it,
As we follow
The line of it,
As we let it lead us
On the path
It knows

Because I do not know
Any solace
But to give ourselves
Into the love
That will never cease
To find us,
That will never loose
Its hold on us,
That will never abandon us
To the sorrow
For which it holds the cure.

Sermon

For the ancient Aztec and Celtic people, this time of the year was a time to acknowledge the loss of their loved ones. These ancient people created rituals and rich systems of beliefs that have evolved into the traditions of Dias Dia de los Muertos and Samhain. And today, November 2nd, many Christians around the world will observe a tradition dating back to the early Middle Ages called All Souls’ Day. Also, a practice of acknowledging lost loved ones. I am sure there are people in this room or online that are participating in one of these traditions.

Spending time acknowledging ancestors can be found in many traditions all over the world and throughout the year. Each tradition unique to its specific culture and people but all with the focus on stoping. On acknowledging our loss.

This is such a powerful and beautiful way of giving grief some of our intentional attention. Something that is hard to do in a society where productivity is the highest values. Where our lives feel like one full on run from one task to another.

In my experience, Grief comes into our lives and it hands us a package of all the deepest human emotions, joy, gratitude, sadness, anger… all of it But in our busy world we don’t often feel safe enough to sit with these emotions. We don’t feel safe to go inside with grief and allow it to nourish us.

And so grief gets pushed down. We repress it. We ignore it. We judge ourselves for having it.

But it’s never really gone. It comes out in all sorts of strange ways. Seemly out of nowhere, while we are walking down the grocery store aisle. While we are brushing our teeth. And sometimes it can come and completely knocking us off our feet.

Most, if not all of us, are carrying around some level of grief.

Grief is inevitable because loss is inevitable. And it isn’t just people that we grieve. We grieve the climate, we grieve lost opportunities, or ways in which we thought our lives would unfold. We grieve the safety, security, and protection that we should have been given but weren’t. And we have the grief we inherited, our ancestral grief that shows up in our bodies even when we didn’t know the ancestors or their stories.

To be human is to have grief. It is to be given this packet of all human emotion as a way of connecting us to our love, to help us understand our loss, to teach us in a thousand different ways how to be here right now on this planet with those we love. And those things we care about. It grows us and stretches us, it might even humble us.

After a long time of trying hard to repress it, I see grief as my friend. And because of that I know I need to be intentional about spending time with my friend.

Not to try to “heal” Not to try to “get over it” but to let it be. To let it reaffirm my humanity. What better way to affirm my connection with myself, my values, and those that I love. My friend grief brings so many gifts.

But so often we miss out on this aspect of grief because it doesn’t fit into the fast pace of our lives, and it certainly doesn’t fit into the larger narrative that is so grief-adverse.

So today is a day to ritualize and practice giving our grief some intentional attention in a safe community of love and support.

I do want to note that some people experience complex grief, that kind of grief needs more support. If this is you, please reach out for help. Both myself and Rev. Chris are available as are many qualified professionals.

Here is this place, where we are working towards the beloved community We can practice turning toward our grief through a time of reflection and ritual.

As we enter into this ritual of acknowledgment…. I want you to know that I am not asking you to go to any place in your heart that would feel unsafe. You can go as deeply or as shallowly as you like. As you feel safe.

The goal is to practice being intentional. To practice turning towards our grief with the confidence that it has something to offer us. To remind ourselves that because we are human we experience grief.

Please take your small slip of dissolvable paper. We will enter into a time of reflection as the music begins to play.

If you have joined us online, now would be a good time to grab paper and pen so that we can turn towards our grief and give it some attention.

Maybe its showing you a memory or an image

Maybe its showing up as a feeling in your body

Maybe it’s tears or a lump in your throat

Maybe it’s something else entirely.

Whatever it is there is no judgment, just attention.

(Music begins)

And now you can either transfer some of what you are holding onto the paper symbolically by pressing it to your heart or by writing a word or phrase on it.

And when you are so moved make your way down the aisle to release your paper into one of these containers of water.

As the music continues we will hold sacred silence as we move through the ritual.

As the paper hits the water, it will dissolve.
It reminds us that no feeling is forever.
That when we sit with our emotions, they will come, they will rise, and they will dissolve.

(Music and Ritual)

PRAYER

That which calls us home to ourselves, that calls us to one another, that calls us to deep love.

Bless the grief that has come up. Bless us as we continue to turn intentionally towards it.

May we be able to return to ourselves. May we be able to make space for our grief. May we allow the gifts and lessons that grief has to offer us.

Bless this water that is showing us how we are held. Bless this water that is showing us that no emotion last forever and that is showing us that all of us – our joy, our sadness… our grief are held. By life itself.

May we allow it.

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

In a few moments, we will leave this sacred time together And I will return this water to the earth.

May you leave this place feeling held.
May you leave this place feeling connected.

As Jan Richardson wrote…
“And may you know that love holds you,
A love that will never cease.
To find us, That will never loose
Its hold on us,
That will never abandon us
To the sorrow”

Go in peace

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
October 26 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Play is the most natural state for children, but it somehow disappears from our lives along the way. But it doesn’t have to be this way! Rev. Carrie explores the power of play.

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

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

– 17th century proverb

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

SUMMER DAY
by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean –
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
The one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down,
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Sermon

Happy almost Halloween!

I love this time of year. Halloween is my favorite holiday. It doesn’t have the stress and commercialism of Christmas. It doesn’t make me feel ethically weird like Thanksgiving.

And its way more fun than trying to fall asleep while listening to fireworks.

And … You get to dress up.

And… You get to give candy to people who are dressed up.

All the cute costumes, the funny costumes, the handmade costumes….the scary costumes.

I love it!

And don’t even get me started on all the movies, the books, and podcasts that are perfect for getting you into the season.

But I think that the number one reason I love Halloween is that is about play.

Its a use-your-imagination-and-get-into-your-joy-kind of night, and we need that. We need play.

Play is pressure relief valve and who isn’t feeling pressure right now.

Whether its school, relationships, or the daily deluge of news, things are a lot right now.

Playing can help us manage how we respond to the world And it connects us. It connects us to ourselves, to one another, and to a what we want.

And because of this play is a powerful spiritual practice.

A powerful spiritual practice for everyone! – because it heips relieve stress and build resilience.

When we play we release endorphins, which are hormones that make us feel good. Play also helps to reduce our cortisol levels, which is a hormone our body makes when we are stressed …and when our cortisol levels are really high for a long time, that starts to hurt our bodies and our brain.

Play, like the breathing which just did, helps regulate our nervous system. Helps us to calm down.

And that improves our overall well-being and makes us more resilient. Unicef found that Play even protects children “from the negative impacts of prolonged exposure to stress”

And Lynn Barnett found that “Highly playful adults feel the same stressors as anyone else, but they appear to experience and react to them differently, allowing stressors to roll off more easily than those who are less playful,”

Stress regulation and resilience is so important to our spiritual well-being.

If we aren’t regulating ourselves. If we aren’t making time to boost our mood and decrease our stress levels then we are essentially just ping ponging back and forth from one news item or one stressful event to the other.

That is a recipe for burnout. Which makes it harder to live in alignment with your values. And it certainly doesn’t help you answer that question Mary Oliver asks us, about what we will do with our “one wild and precious life.”

I mean I guess the answer is that “I allowed all the sad in the world to jerk me around” but …. do we really want to do that?

This is why play is a spiritual practice. Our spiritual practices are those things that help us to feel centered, that help us slow down so that we aren’t just reacting in life but rather being intentional. Play’s stress-relieving properties also helps us to put things into perspective.

Play does that and so much more.

Like to connect.

When we play we are connecting to ourselves. What do I like, what don’t I like” Does this work for me or not” What does it feel like to dress up like this and feel powerful, or scary, or sweet” What does it feel like when my body moves this way or that way.

Listening to all the musicians today, I can imagine that finding the sounds that felt good or interesting to them required some level of play.

When we play we are learning what we like to do and who we are. And this process happens throughout our lives if we let it.

When i was a kid, I would spin forever and ever and it was just the best thing. Now, that feels more like a punishment.

We learn about ourselves when we engage with play. Even if we learn, thats not a fun thing for us any more.

We also connect with others when we play.

We have a big impact on each other’s emotional state. If I’m stressed, its probably going to stress out my kids and vis versa. But when we play together,

• we are bonding with each other,
• experiencing joy and building trust with one another,
• releasing endorphin together…

And all that leads to co-regulate. Meaning we can work together to bring ourselves into a more positive and joyful place.

Finally, play helps us connect to those things that are bigger than ourselves, like our vision of the future.

I’m thinking about how we spend time dreaming up the world we want and how that can be a form of play. Marsha P Johnson, a trans and queer activist who may have thrown the first brick at Stonewall used to gather up her friends, and they would pull their money together so they could rent a room just for a little while so they could dream about the future they wanted. A future that was full of joy and freedom. They were playing together and in their playing together they were dreaming.

And of course lately there are the frogs. Or at least the people in the frog costumes that have been protesting in Portland. These people in big silly blow-up costumes standing in front of very intimidating-looking people in riot gear.

Their use of play and playfulness is doing so many things.

• First, its giving all of us a sense of joy and hope.
• Secondly, it highlights how weird this all is.

The juxtaposition, the way that the silly frog costume is so opposite of the intimidating federal agents, is a way to use play and whimsy to highlight that the federal govemments response is absurd. According to L.M. Bogdan 

“These outfits are just the latest iteration in a long history of using whimsy and humor in political protests, known as “tactical frivolity.”

But what I find really beautiful about this playful form of protest is how it brings the world we are hoping for, 

• a world where our nervous systems are regulated.
• where joy is abundant.
• Where humor is easy to come by.

All because we are living in a just and beautiful world So when those people don their frog costumes or their axoloti costumes, they are bringing a vision of that world, that one we are working so hard for, to come to us in the here and the now. All through their “tactical frivolity.”

Connecting us to one another and pointing us to the higher thing we are working for – A more beautiful – A more just – And a more playlul world.

Now I hope I have convinced you of the power of play and that is indeed a spiritual practice. But I know that some of you are probably feeling a bit uncomfortable, especially if you are like me and find play really challenging.

I was so good at it as a kid but as work and responsibilities filled more and more of my day, play started fading away.

But I don’t think its gone, I think that play is just different throughout your life and I think, we have to be more intentional about carving out space for it as we get older.

My least favorite question is when someone asks me what I do for fun. Because, I feel a lot of pressure to say something that will sound acceptably fun to them. Luckily, I like to rollerskate, so I got that going for me. But its often very hot so l don’t do it very much. So I hate that question because it reminds me of how little I do the one thing that people might actually identity as fun.

But here is the thing, play is just anything that, according to the National Institute for Play ….and no, I did not make that institute up.

The National Institute of Play says,

“Play is a state of mind that one has when absorbed in an activity that provides enjoyment and a suspension of the sense of time. …and (that it) is self-motivated so you want to do it again and again.”

So play is anything that feels good, brings joy, helps you to focus on that joy, and something you want to do.

So while I do love skating…. I also find sense of joy, pleasure, and I will lose sense of time when I am reading a good book, or letting myself think about big questions like “Do we have UU saints? – And if so – Who? – and if not – Why?”

I feel joyful and motivated when I am spending time with certain friends. And very often, I get in the zone of focus and joy when I am writing sermons. Not always – but often. So even sermon writing can be play to me.

Aren’t I lucky!?

Play is powerful and it’s personal. One girl’s fun spinning is another woman’s terror, so to speak.

So find what works for you so you can gain all these beautiful stress-relieving, resilience-making, connection-creating benefits.

And do it often.

Because your nervous system needs it.

And you need it.

As People who are committed to a more just and more beautiful world, we need it.

We need it to imbue our lives with what we are trying to create.

May we find ways to bring play it into our lives so that we might live our one wild and precious life to the fullest.

Amen

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

May you, even in the midst of so much stress, stop to play.

And may your play bring you back to yourself.

May it fill your cup, and may it give you strength and resolve in spades.

And may it remind you of all that you are working for.

Go and play.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
October 12, 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Anger, like all our emotions, can be a powerful tool for awareness, motivation, and value creation, but it has also been misused and abused. So what do we do with all this anger, and how do we disentangle it from all its baggage? Rev. Carrie explores anger and how we can cultivate a healthier relationship with it.

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

“But anger expressed and translated into action in the service of our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification. For it is in the painful process of this translation that we identify who are our allies and those with whom we have grave differences. Anger is loaded with information and energy.”

– Audre Lorde

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

BLESSING IN THE ANGER
by Jan Richardson

Let it be no stranger.
Let it be visitor, teacher, guide.
Let it be messenger.
Come to tell us what we most need to know,
hard though its words may be to hear.
Trust Even when you cannot believe it,
that it will carry its own constellations,
that it knows what to do with what has shattered.
Trust that the other face of anger is courage,
that it holds the key to your secret strength,
that the fire it offers will light your way.

Sermon

Before I begin this sermon, I want to let you know that I am going to be talking about anger and some of that includes a discussion of abuse. I want to encourage you to take care of yourself. If you need to get up and walk around, leave, come back, not not come back…Please do not hesitate to tend to yourself.

I also want to remind you about our caring companions and that both Rev. Chris and I are here for you if you need pastoral care.

Now with that said, How many of you have uttered “I am just so angry.”

I have said this so many times lately and I have heard it so many times lately “I’m just so angry.”

When I hear this, I affirm and bless that anger.

I’ll say, “Yes it makes a lot of sense that you would be angry.” “Yes, anger is the appropriate response to the dismantling of our democracy.”

• To the scapegoating.
• To all the oppression, violence, marginalisation, and erasure.
• To the absurdity of calling good things bad and bad things good.

Yes, to your anger! 

And because of that I wish that this sermon could just be…. Your anger is holy because it is pointing you to action, its helping you hone and refining your values and skills, and it means you still have hope.
Blessings on you.
Blessing on your day.
Let’s go have some coffee.

But while anger is holy, and it does those things It also carries a lot of baggage and we have to acknowledge that baggage before we get to blessings and coffee.

Anger is holy …except when its policed.

The Harvard Kennedy Center did a study that showed that, and I quote,

“expressing anger decreases influence for women and African Americans but does not decrease the influence of white men.”

First off – duh!

Secondly, this is a pretty milk toast way to say that for marginalized groups… and I’m going to say that this includes most anyone who isn’t a white, cis, hetro, male … for those of us, anger is policed, it is policed differently depending on our set of identities, but it is policed and that can lead to real world ramifications.

For example, Bryan Stevenson, who by all measures is successful. Harvard Law Graduate, won cases before the supreme court, has received award after award often has judges assume he is the defendant because he is black. And when he corrects them, he has to be polite and not show his anger.

He said of one particular horrible encounter when the judge and prosecutor were mocking him he had to tell himself “you can’t get angry, you are going to have to smile” because he knew if he got angry, which would be a reasonable response. If he got angry it could impact the outcome for his client, which is exactly what the Harvard study showed.

Anger is policed differently depending on your unique identities but all of this policing is about power and control. Its about keeping you in your place – often with a threat attached to it.

Anger is holy but not everyone can express it freely and safely. And when we can’t express we trap our anger. It gets stuck.

Lama Rod Owens, wrote “If I am afraid of my anger and not dealing with the energy of anger, …that energy keeps cycling in our experience with no way for it to be expressed or metabolized.” It builds up and as we know what we push down, what we repress hurts us. It causes mental health issues like depression or even physical health issues like autoimmune disease.

And because white supremacy and patriarchy hurt everyone.

For white men, anger is often the only emotion that is socially acceptable to express. Not sadness, not hurt, not fear but anger. Thats what’s allowed. What awful feeling that must be.

Which brings me to my next point. Anger is holy… unless it’s protecting the wrong thing.

A few months ago I was doing that horrible ritual of doom scrolling when I came across a post from a relative that said “Y’all need proverbs not pronouns.”

My first thought was “Y’all is a pronoun”…kind of famously.

My next thought was… I’m going to comment that. That’s funny and its going to make this person look so stupid….

Y’all, my anger can make me mean and trust I was angry! And then, mercifully, the angels of my better nature closed my laptop.

Sometimes its easier to be angry then hurt, or scared, or sad. I wanted to lash out, to take this energy that came with the anger – blame that person for my feeling but something deeper knew that wasn’t going to help. I need to, as Lama Owens teaches, turn towards my woundedness. Or as Rev. Chris preached so beautifully last week, I needed to meet myself with compassion.

While anger can often be protective, it might actually be protecting us from something a bit deeper. Something we need access so that we can metabolize and process it.

For me that something a bit deeper was my sadness and grief. Grief over not getting a loving and supportive extended family. Grief over the state of the world. And the sadness and fear that I feel about how trans, non-binary, and intersex people are treated in our society.

I have a lot of sadness and grief that I am dealing with these days… and I know I am not the only one.

Anger is holy but sometimes it’s protecting the wrong thing. It’s preventing us from those other emotions that might feel too big or too scary to face.

Finally, anger is holy… except when it is used as an excuse for abuse.

For many people and probably some in this room, the anger of a parent, a partner, or even a random stranger has led to abuse. To pain, to violence both emotional and physical.

For those of us in this room who have had to shrink, had to do the impossible task of controlling everything so that their parents or partner wouldn’t get angry, wouldn’t hurt you. I am so sorry.

That should have never happened to you.

If you have complicated feelings around anger, yourself, or others, I completely understand.

I can understand how anger can be scary and unstable. I can understand how you might have felt the need to suppress your own anger and/or how you would have really complicated feelings around it.

But abuse isn’t about anger. Anger is often the excuse used but abuse is using behaviors in order to maintain power and control in a relationship. Abuse is about power and control.

Abusers weaponize anger as an excuse to exert their power and control. They take anger, which is an innate emotion and they weaponize it.

If you have experienced or are experiencing this, please know we are here for you. And If you are the person who has or is committing the abuse, please know we are here for you as well. You can reach out to a caring companion after service, or to me or Rev. Chris. We are here for you.

Anger is holy, but not when it has been weaponized for abuse.

If anger has been weaponized, it can be difficult to feel safe in yours or others feelings of anger. I get that.

And I still believe anger is holy.

I believe it is holy because it is an innate emotion and our emotions – all of them – pleasant and unpleasant are there to tell us something.

If we come to a place with our anger. If we can recognize all the ways anger has been misused and abused and start to separate that from what we are experiencing, I believe we can begin to listen to what it is telling us and use it as a tool.

One of the things that anger tells us, is that what is happening goes against my values. When we find ourselves faced with atrocities and we feel our anger rise, that is a powerful thing.

Because It helps us to hone in what we believe. As, our call to worship from Audre Lorde told us: “Anger is loaded with information and energy.” And right now, having a strong and clear understanding of your values is of the utmost importance because our values guide our actions and actions are what are needed right now.

Anger can help us activate to help others or even to protect ourselves and our loved ones… Like standing up for someone who is being harassed.

But I think that the reason we are sitting with so much uncomfortable anger these days is that there aren’t any immediate actions we can take.

Like when we watch videos of families being ripped from each other hundreds of miles away or we read dehumanizing proclamations about ourselves or our loved ones.

So what do with that anger then?

I don’t have all the answers – I have way more questions than answers, but I think that these instances, this activating anger, can be a way to motivate us into either the actions we can take.

For those big instances of injustices like what is happening with ICE or the dismantling of democracy, there is always something we can do, but there probably isn’t anything you can do alone.

I believe our anger calls us into community. Calling us to take our energy and our focus and place it with others. Whether through donating or volunteering, its calling us to join something bigger than ourselves that is holy work. This is the work of this church!

But let’s be honest, there are a lot of atrocities and donating to an organization isn’t exactly going to expel all that energy.

Which is why we need to, as our kids taught us, work to become aware of our anger. When we can listen to our bodies and name our anger we start to have agency over it. This skill, this building a relationship of agency with our anger is such an important skill for us to have.

And maybe, like our kids taught us, once we identify what’s going on we choose to move that energy throughout by moving our body or tearing up some paper. or another action.

And sometimes, anger might be calling us to learn to sit with our discomfort.

The work of transforming lives, doing justice to build the beloved community, isn’t going to be comfortable work, especially if we are doing it right. Sometimes we are going to have to sit with our anger.

And the good news is that if we acknowledge it then its not going to get stuck in us, cycling with no way to metabolize. When we acknowledge our emotions we can watch them like we would a wave, rise, peak and fall.

And from a place of agency we can learn from our anger. We can ask it- “Is it that there is a deep woundedness and I need to address? Is there some action i need to take?”

Or could it be that I am just human, having a human experience and my heart is open and because of that this is what I am feeling at this moment.

Finally, your anger means you still have hope. Because, even if you don’t feel hopeful, anger is a sign that you do believe that change is both necessary and possible.

Right now, we are experiencing a barrage of injustices. I believe the all the actions and messaging are to make you feel helpless and in despair. But I will not comply with despair. And we are not helpless.

Not a single word of the future has been written.

And so to remain hopeful when everything else is trying to make you give up, is to take back the narrative and act in a way that will write a different future than the one they are so desperately trying to sell us.

My friends, Your anger is holy, It is pointing you to action, It is honing and refining your values and skills, and it is full of hope.

May the fires it offers light our way.

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

 

Our benediction today comes from Robert Monson.

I pray that love finds you today.
Love that reminds you that there is more than enough room in this world for nuance, for beauty, for grace overflowing.
And I pray that unconditional love and care and support be the anchor that holds you when the cruelty comes.
I pray that beauty and love show you how to be brave.

Go in peace.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
September 28, 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

This church has so often stood against the societal tides of dehumanization and marginalization. We have been a soft place to land for those of us who did not fit in and have felt alone in our opposition to the dominant messaging of oppression. This church has been and will continue to be needed by those here now and by those to come. But what does that say about our role and responsibility to one another and to those we will never meet? Rev. Carrie explores who we are, what we are about, and how Living Love can help us.

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

COMMUNITY MEANS STRENGTH
by Starhawk

We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been, a place half-remembered and half-envisioned. We can only catch glimpses from time to time, community.

Somewhere there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere, a circle of hands will open to receive us. Eyes will light up as we enter. Voices will celebrate us whenever we come into our own power.

Community 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, some place where we can be free.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

WE HOLD HOPE CLOSE
by Reverend Julianne Jamaica Soto

In this community, we hold hope close. We don’t always know what comes next, but that cannot dissuade us. We don’t always know just what to do, but that will not mean that we are lost in the wilderness. We rely on the certainty beneath, the foundation of our values and ethics. We are the people who return to love like a North Star and to the truth that we are greater together than we are alone.

Our hope does not live in some glimmer of an indistinct future. Rather, we know the way to the world of which we dream, and by covenant and the movement forward of one right action. And the next, we know that one day we will arrive at home.

Sermon

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

I think this church is a miracle. Not a miracle in parting the Red Seas or Buddha levitating over a river, but rather a miracle in that after years of people in this country tending towards isolation and disconnection and loneliness. At a time when we use the word epidemic for loneliness, this community exists.

This community bucks the trend by staying strong and growing. To me this is a miracle and it’s deeply needed. This church has always been a place That’s been needed and it will always be a place that’s needed. A community. And not just a community, but a community with an ethos of being about what is right. About opposing the harmful status quo.

Now we might not do that right perfectly and we definitely don’t always get it perfect. We are still growing and we have a lot to go until we are safe space for everyone who could come and find comfort here. But from what I understand of our recent history, we have been a place where many people who feel a deep resistance to the dominant culture or who have experienced marginalization because of the dominant culture could come and find community.

For example, this church has supported queer people since the 1970s by either providing space for things like the National Conference of Gay Liberation in 1971, providing dances for lesbians, my favorite, for partnering without you so that queer kids could have a safe and fun prom.

This community has done the right thing. It might have taken some coaxing every once in a while, but it did do the right thing. And it did it at a time, which feels a lot like this time, when homophobia was celebrated, encouraged throughout society and into the highest levels of power, where queer people face violence, where our government allowed AIDS to ravage the community when discrimination was the reality for so many people. It wasn’t popular and it wasn’t what most churches were doing, but then again that’s not what we’re about.

We aren’t about what most churches are doing. We aren’t about, or at least we try hard not to be about, those this close that harm, hurt and dehumanize. Instead, our mission is about one another, about humanity, it’s about liberation.

This church has taken a firm stance for the rights and dignities of people. We have a commitment to dismantling systems of supremacy in ourselves and in our church. Right now, Our values and commitments are in direct opposition to the powers that be.

Because of that, this church is positioned to be a community for those of us whose souls and hearts grate against the pervasive dehumanization that are the structures of this society. A place for those who have been deeply hurt by their spiritual houses of worship.

For so many people in this church we can be a place of belonging and healing. Now has it always done that perfectly? Nope. That’s because this church isn’t some removed magical thing. When I say this church or when I say this community I want you to hear you.

It’s you, church is you, and it’s me, it’s we. And it is the people that came before us, and it is the people that will come after us. All of us throughout time are this church. And because we are all people, we are not perfect. We are human, we have faults, but we seek to be better, we come together to be better.

My prayer is always that may we have more clarity than our ancestors, and may our descendants have more clarity than us, may it always be so.

So our religion has a polity, and it’s just a word that means organizing philosophy. It stretches way back to the 17th century, it’s called the congregationalist polity. Which just means that we, the members of this church, create and we maintain and we direct what we do as a body. So we don’t have a presbytery or a bishop or a pope that sets over us that dictates what we should do or how we should believe.

This is why we say we come together not by creed but by Covenant. We try to make good promises and have good boundaries so that we can create the kind of church that will set out to do the important work of our mission. And through living into these promises and commitments to one another, we keep this church alive.

We press against the marginalization and dehumanization out there. We make sure that those who need us can find us, and hopefully start to feel as though they have found their way home, or at least are on the right path. It’s us. We do this. And it’s the beautiful interplay of the individual and the communal.

It’s Leo Collas who’s created Easter eggs all over this church so that we can be inspired by those who came before us. People like Paul Kirby, who bought the poster that’s just right outside the sanctuary. It has the seven principles when the seven principles were first passed in the 1980s. Paul Kirby, who also, while being sick himself, helped organized doctors and nurses in this church to get vital and life extending medication to AIDS patients. To take the medication from those that have passed and to give them to those that were still alive.

To me, this story exemplifies how we, with our beautiful and precious inherent dignity, bring our hearts and our talents and our resources to this place and then we do the work with others to make beautiful and wonderful things happen. Those doctors and nurses they were at great risk for what they did but what they did was beautiful.

They weren’t supposed to be helping people with AIDS the way they did but it was the right thing to do. It was a compassionate and humane thing to do even though what they did would have been considered a crime but they understood that the bigger crime was to let people die when medication was available.

They acted justly and they acted at great personal risk and they were able to do it because they acted in community. Together, they ensure that people who needed medication got medication. And decades later, Leo is sharing their story with all of us, beautifully moving the past and to the present as a way to model and fortify us for the work that’s ahead of us. A beautiful dance between the individual and the collective. It shows just how much we need one another, how much we need each other to show up in all of our fullness.

When we bring ourself to this place, when we bring our talents and our hearts, our commitment and our resources to the collective, we do important and needed things, Things that will impact lives now and reverberate well into the future, just like those doctors and nurses. And because of this, we have a great responsibility to this place, to this community, to this church, to one another.

As Mary told you, today is Commitment Sunday. It’s the official kickoff to our pledge drive, and we are going to be hearing a lot about it between now and October 19th, about committing our pledges to this place. We do this every year and I bet for some of you it might be a little off-putting. I’m looking at you people who stream when NPR is doing their fundraiser.

How about some of you have been taught that talking about money is crass or rude? It’s not. It’s just a necessary tool to doing the work of living love.

There was a time in our country for our proto-Unitarian churches where there wasn’t a need for pledge drives. The state would just sponsor the churches. And while that seems way easier than what we’re doing right now? It wasn’t very UU. The separation of church and state are such a fundamental value to us, and rightfully so.

But the part about that separation is that it becomes our responsibility to keep this beautiful community that gives us so much going. It’s our responsibility to nourish those things that grow us that help us to live into our values so that they can continue to exist for us for each other and for those that we haven’t even met yet.

And money, because that is the way of the world is a major part of how we do this. Money is the reason that we have a building That even occasionally has air-conditioning. Money is the reason that we can buy curriculum and food and pay musicians so that we can nourish souls. Money is the reason that we can transform lives through things like supporting amazing work of the Texas Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry or the Austin Sanctuary network. And it allows us to provide spaces to life-saving organizations like PFLAG.

And money is the reason we can meet week after week and we can stream week after week. It is the reason we have a computer program that is frankly very useful to reach people and share news and opportunity and rapid responses all in an effort to do our part of building the beloved community.

Money is also part of our values. And I wouldn’t say it’s even part of our shared theology. As Unitarian Universalists, we are committed to distributive justice, meaning we believe that people should be paid fairly for their work, paid a wage which allows them to live without struggling. We have been working hard to pay our staff up to the UUA’s standard, just like Mary told you. And my hope is that we can make it happen. I would love to see it happen this go around.

Because I want our staff, who do the everyday, sometimes challenging and often mundane work necessary to keep this place going, to be paid equitably. Money matters because it’s how the world operates, but most importantly, it matters because it’s how we make our missions happen.

And ultimately, living into our mission is what it means to live love. To live love is to do the very real and very tangible work of nourishing souls, transforming lives, and doing justice to build the beloved community. To live love means we put our focus and our resources on those things that will benefit each other and those we haven’t even met yet, or may never meet.

As these next few weeks unfold, I hope that you will not numb out, I hope that you will not start streaming your podcasts, but rather that you’ll think about the ways that you’ve been impacted by this place, the ways that you want to impact the world, and the ways that this community, this church, makes it possible. And then think about what makes sense for you based on your life and your other responsibilities.

Because we are needed. We’ve always been needed, and we will always be needed. The work we do is built on a foundation of those who’ve come before who felt responsibility to this place.

And the work that we do now, the contributions that we make of our time, and our talents, and yes, our treasure, will be the foundation that those who come after us will build from.

All of us, throughout time, dreaming of a more beautiful and just world, and all of us doing the tangible work to bring it into reality, so that, as Reverend Soto says in our reading, by covenant and movement forward of one right action and the next, we know that one day we will arrive at home.

May it always be so.

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

As we leave this sacred time of community, know that you are loved, know that you are held in love, and know that what you do matters, and know that we are needed. May we always remember that. Go in peace.

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