{"id":141430,"date":"2026-03-24T13:23:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T19:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/?p=141430"},"modified":"2026-03-24T13:23:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T19:23:14","slug":"ceremony-of-firsts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/ceremony-of-firsts\/","title":{"rendered":"Ceremony of Firsts"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_4884\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-141430-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2026-03-22_Ceremony_of_Firsts.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2026-03-22_Ceremony_of_Firsts.mp3\">http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2026-03-22_Ceremony_of_Firsts.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2026-03-22_Ceremony_of_Firsts.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/?powerpress_pinw=141430-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2026-03-22_Ceremony_of_Firsts.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"2026-03-22_Ceremony_of_Firsts.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Rev. Chris Jimmerson and Sol Cornell<br \/>March 22, 2026<br \/>First UU Church of Austin<br \/>4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756<br \/>www.austinuu.org<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Everybody has to start somewhere. We tend to focus more on our endings, though; what we&#8217;ve accomplished, what we&#8217;ve lost. But what if we turned our attention back to the beginning? What if we held our first steps and awkward starts with the same honor we do our successes? This Sunday, we&#8217;ll pause to notice these beginnings and to appreciate them for getting us where we are.<\/p>\n<hr align=\"center\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"4\" width=\"300\" \/>\n<p align=\"center\"><i>NOTE: This is an ai generated (edited) transcript.<br \/>Please forgive any omissions or errors.<\/i><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Good morning. Whether you are joining us online or here at the church, welcome to First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin. We are a spiritual community dedicated to a free and responsible search for truth, meaning, and beauty.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">I&#8217;m Reverend Chris Jimmerson, lead minister. I am white in my early 60s. My pronouns are he, him. It is a joy to be with you this morning.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">I especially want to welcome you if you&#8217;re new to the congregation, if you&#8217;re joining us online, and if you can, please say hello in the comments. If you&#8217;re with us here in person, please join us for the social hour after the service. Either way, we&#8217;d love for you to go to austinuu.org, click on worship, and then scroll down to the link to our online visitor form. If you would fill that out, we would love to get to know you just a little bit better.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Today, we have a very special service featuring a new Unitarian Universalist ritual called A Ceremony of First, created by our very own Sol Cornell.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Sol&#8217;s Ritual is going to be published by the Unitarian Universalist Association so that other churches can use it also. So welcome to this first Unitarian Universalist celebrations of first services and ceremony.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">We welcome everyone here. Every beginning and path, every beautiful expression of human flowering, all pronouns, all the ways and ones we love, all abilities or disabilities, each and every one of you. You are welcome here. You belong here.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">We come from a long tradition of sensing an ocean of divine love that flows through each of us. And it&#8217;s in this tradition that I invite you to greet the holy among us this morning, either in the comments on line or by turning to those around you here at the church.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Call to Worship<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">Sol:<br \/>Today, we gather to honor &#8220;Firsts&#8221;. These might be life changes, milestones, or new beginnings.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">One of our Unitarian Universalist values is transformation, and all transformation begins with a first step. This new tradition, The Ceremony of Firsts, gives us an opportunity to support and uplift the members of our community experiencing transition and change. It is a gift to collectively witness each individual&#8217;s sacred path through their lives.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Chalice Lighting<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">THE END IS THE BEGINNING<br \/>&#8211; Katie Sivani Gelfand<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">We call forth the life of our faith by igniting our chalice. This spark of new beginnings invites us into a sacred space to reflect where we have been and where we are going. Even knowing that this particular flame will intentionally end with our ritual extinguishing, we fear not its end. For we know, with brave hearts, that from every ending of our lives, We are sent forth to make a new beginning.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Anthem:<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>&#8220;Anne Sexton&#8217;s Glasses&#8221; &#8211; Thor &amp; Friends w\/the First UU Adult Vocal Ensemble<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Affirming Our Mission <\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.<\/blockquote>\n<p><b>Music:<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>&#8220;Heathen Spiritual&#8221; &#8211; Thor &amp; Friends w\/the First UU Adult Vocal Ensemble<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Meditation:<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>Sol:<br \/>Your lifetime has been a series of new experiences. Every day you are born anew.\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Take this time to hold all of your past selves and the first steps that they took. Honor your courage to begin over and over to reach this moment. Each first you have experienced and each one you yet will is sacred. We now enter into a time of music and sacred quiet together, remembering that we also hold the sounds of small children and noisy adults.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">As we enter into this time of music and quiet meditation, I invite you to keep in your mind and heart members of our community who are ill or in sorrow and those who are celebrating joys. Entering the meditative quiet as our music plays, let us hold the meditative quiet throughout, including when our music comes to an end.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">&#8220;Good Riddance \/ Time of Your Life&#8221; (Green Day) &#8211; Brent Baldwin, vocals &amp; guitar<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Homily:<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">Sol:<br \/>When I first imagined a celebration of firsts, it was in response to an anonymous survey. NEAT &#8211; The National Emerging Adult Team was asking emerging adults in UU congregations how we could be better served in Unitarian Universalism.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Emerging adult isn&#8217;t a super widely used term, so for a quick definition, it is a sub-set within young adulthood, specifically 18 to 24 years old. This division between emerging and young adults was created in response to frustration expressed by the younger end of the spectrum. Young adult groups often define their age range as 18 to 32 and sometimes even higher. A 32-year-old is, of course, not old or even middle-aged, but they&#8217;re likely in a very different life stage than a fresh 19-year-old.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Many have noticed the UU young adulthood gap, that period of time after bridging in which many young UUs fall out of their church community. I think this is especially true during the emerging adulthood period when young people often find themselves suddenly lacking the support and resources that they might have been offered as a teen and burdened with more and bigger responsibilities than they&#8217;ve ever had to navigate before.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">I had the same experience myself. I grew up attending RE classes right here, found incredible support and meaning in the high school youth group, and then I was an adult. And honestly, I kind of felt like I had been suddenly dumped onto a very lonely island.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">I didn&#8217;t lose my friends, but I did lose access to the space that connected us. Worship services often didn&#8217;t feel particularly relatable, and other than my fellow graduates, I was surrounded by capital A Adults, who seemed to be living in a very different world from mine.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">I wrote the Ceremony of Firsts Ritual with the intention of providing congregations, with a practice that, while applicable to all ages, acknowledges and honors one of the most defining features of the emerging adult, change newness and first experiences.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Firsts don&#8217;t have to be the culturally traditional milestones. We might imagine those might not apply to you and that&#8217;s okay. A first can be many many things as there are so very many things to experience in the world. Some firsts are hardly noticeable while other things may rock us to our core. A first can be joyful and celebratory or harrowing and traumatic. All of these, every first step you have ever taken, is worthy of compassion and sacred space.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">If you feel that you&#8217;re awkward in your newness and clumsy in your firsts, your growth is not any less beautiful. If your new experiences are painful or grief-ridden, the you that exists in the wake of them is worth being. And if you&#8217;re just tired of the uncertainty, I promise you that you will find your footing someday. Your firsts are holy, and you are holy for living them.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Chris:<br \/>Today we gather to celebrate firsts, those moments when something begins. A first step, a first love, a first day away from home. A first time saying yes to something new or goodbye to something familiar.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Firsts are sacred. They mark the boundary between who we were and who we will be. Sometimes we move through them with joy. Sometimes with fear. Sometimes without realizing until much later that something new had begun.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">As Unitarian Universalists, we affirm that every person&#8217;s journey is sacred. We honor the unfolding of each life as a unique expression of truth and meaning. Our firsts are a part of that unfolding. For young people firsts can feel especially powerful as these moments help build the foundations of identity. But no matter our age. Firsts continue to arrive. Life keeps inviting us to begin again every day, every moment.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Ceremony of Firsts:<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">Sol:<br \/>Not every first is a joyful experience. Sometimes the celebration is less in the experience itself and more in the survival of it. These firsts are welcome here too, and they are just as worthy of being held and honored as those we meet gladly.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">In front of us is a bowl, a vessel to hold a collective stories of new starts. Beside it is a collection of seeds, small things that carry within them the possibility of life. Each seed begins in stillness, unseen beneath the surface, holding everything it needs to grow. Just like our own beginnings, each carries mystery and promise, struggle and hope.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Chris:<br \/>All who want to honor a first in their lives will be invited to come forward and place a seed into the bowl. That first might be something big or something small, something joyful or something uncertain, a new chapter, a change of heart, a step forward, something meaningful.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Online participants, if you would like to type your first into the chat, this community would love to celebrate, mourn or simply be present with you. As we add our seeds together, may this bowl become a symbol of our shared courage to begin again and again.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">May it remind us that each start, no matter how humble contributes to the larger garden of our community and the unfolding of life itself. I&#8217;ll invite you to come forward to take a seed and add your beginning to the bowl.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Let our Ceremony of Firsts begin.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Closing Words<\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Sol:<br \/>The seeds in this bowl represent a beginning, something new that has taken root in our lives, moments of courage, moments of change, steps toward growth, toward love, toward becoming more fully ourselves. Though each beginning is personal, together they form a garden, a living symbol of how our individual stories weave into the shared story of this community.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">May these seeds remind us that beginnings need care and patience, that growth is not always easy, but it is always sacred, and that we are never alone as we begin again.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Chris:<br \/>Now let us bless these Firsts together and in doing so, bless each other.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><u>Minister:<\/u> For all the beginnings that fill this bowl<br \/><u>Congregation:<\/u> We give thanks.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><u>Minister:<\/u> For the courage it takes to start something new<br \/><u>Congregation:<\/u> We offer our blessing.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><u>Minister:<\/u> For the growth that will come in its own time,<br \/><u>Congregation:<\/u> We hold hope.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><u>Minister:<\/u> For all our firsts, and all our nexts,<br \/><u>Congregation:<\/u> We begin again, in love.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">For all the beginnings that fill this bowl, for the courage it takes to start something new, for the growth that will come in its own time, for all our firsts and all our nexts. May it be so.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Extinguishing the Chalice<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">We now extinguish our chalice. Intentionally ending this particular flame, Making room for the next, And sending us forth into a new beginning.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Benediction <\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">Sol:<br \/>Thank you for blessing and honoring some of the firsts of our community today. Holding and loving one another through transitions, be they in joy and excitement or in grief and sorrow, is a sacred act. Not a single one of us came into this world alone, and we need not move through it alone either. The support of those who we surround ourselves with is what makes our new beginnings possible. and what encourages us to change in the first place.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">As you leave this space today, I invite you to think about who in your life might be experiencing something new right now, and how you might be able to remind them that they&#8217;re not alone as they move through it. Something as small as a few kind words, some encouragement, or even just a hello can make the new and unfamiliar feel a little bit less scary.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Chris:<br \/>For bringing us this new Unitarian Universalist ritual in service, may the congregation say, bless you, Sol.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">And now say Amen.<br \/>And blessed be.<br \/>Go in peace.<br \/>Create new Firsts.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<hr align=\"center\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"4\" width=\"300\" \/>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/category\/sermons\/indexes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>SERMON INDEX<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">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.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/podcast\/first-unitarian-universalist\/id372427776\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>PODCASTS<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above. Rev. Chris Jimmerson and Sol CornellMarch 22, 2026First UU Church of Austin4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756www.austinuu.org Everybody has to start somewhere. We tend to focus more on our endings, though; what we&#8217;ve accomplished, what we&#8217;ve lost. But what if we turned our attention back&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19,27,18,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-available","category-chris-jimmerson","category-guest-speakers","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141431,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141430\/revisions\/141431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}