{"id":20601,"date":"2017-12-03T18:12:45","date_gmt":"2017-12-04T00:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/?p=20601"},"modified":"2017-12-10T15:41:11","modified_gmt":"2017-12-10T21:41:11","slug":"my-actions-are-my-only-true-belongings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/my-actions-are-my-only-true-belongings\/","title":{"rendered":"My Actions are My Only True Belongings"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_7167\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-20601-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2017-12-03_My_actions.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2017-12-03_My_actions.mp3\">http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2017-12-03_My_actions.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2017-12-03_My_actions.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/?powerpress_pinw=20601-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2017-12-03_My_actions.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"2017-12-03_My_actions.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p align=\"left\">Rev. Meg Barnhouse<br \/>\nDecember 3, 2017<br \/>\nFirst UU Church of Austin<br \/>\n4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756<br \/>\naustinuu.org<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><i>As the days grow darker, nature&#8217;s energy goes to the roots of growing things. The five remembrances of Buddhism direct our attention to the radical (meaning root) question of what in life has lasting value.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9-nQRatbojw\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr align=\"center\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"4\" width=\"300\" \/>\n<p align=\"left\">Text of this sermon is not available. Click the play button to listen.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Call to worship<\/b><br \/>\n<i>-The Rev. Barbara Wells<\/i><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">O Spinner, Weaver, of our lives,<br \/>\nYour loom is love.<br \/>\nMay we who are gathered here<br \/>\nbe empowered by that love<br \/>\nto weave new patterns of Truth<br \/>\nand Justice into a web of life that is strong,<br \/>\nbeautiful, and everlasting.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Readings:<\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">The Summer Day<br \/>\n<i>-Mary Oliver<\/i><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Who made the world?<br \/>\nWho made the swan, and the black bear?<br \/>\nWho made the grasshopper?<br \/>\nThis grasshopper, I mean&#8211;<br \/>\nthe one who has flung herself out of the grass,<br \/>\nthe one who is eating sugar out of my hand,<br \/>\nwho is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down &#8212;<br \/>\nwho is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.<br \/>\nNow she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.<br \/>\nNow she snaps her wings open, and floats away.<br \/>\nI don&#8217;t know exactly what a prayer is.<br \/>\nI do know how to pay attention, how to fall down<br \/>\ninto the grass, how to kneel in the grass,<br \/>\nhow to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields<br \/>\nwhich is what I have been doing all day.<br \/>\nTell me, what else should I have done?<br \/>\nDoesn&#8217;t everything die at last, and too soon?<br \/>\nTell me, what is it you plan to do<br \/>\nWith your one wild and precious life?<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">When Death Comes<br \/>\n<i>-Mary Oliver<\/i><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">When death comes<br \/>\nlike the hungry bear in autumn;<br \/>\nwhen death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse<br \/>\nto buy me, and snaps the purse shut;<br \/>\nwhen death comes<br \/>\nlike the measle-pox<br \/>\nwhen death comes<br \/>\nlike an iceberg between the shoulder blades,<br \/>\nI want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:<br \/>\nwhat is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?<br \/>\nAnd therefore I look upon everything<br \/>\nas a brotherhood and a sisterhood,<br \/>\nand I look upon time as no more than an idea,<br \/>\nand I consider eternity as another possibility,<br \/>\nand I think of each life as a flower, as common<br \/>\nas a field daisy, and as singular,<br \/>\nand each name a comfortable music in the mouth,<br \/>\ntending, as all music does, toward silence,<br \/>\nand each body a lion of courage, and something<br \/>\nprecious to the earth.<br \/>\nWhen it&#8217;s over, I want to say all my life<br \/>\nI was a bride married to amazement.<br \/>\nI was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.<br \/>\nWhen it&#8217;s over, I don&#8217;t want to wonder<br \/>\nif I have made of my life something particular, and real.<br \/>\nI don&#8217;t want to find myself sighing and frightened,<br \/>\nor full of argument.<br \/>\nI don&#8217;t want to end up simply having visited this world.<\/p>\n<hr align=\"center\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"4\" width=\"300\" \/>\n<p align=\"left\"><i>Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/podcast\/first-unitarian-universalist\/id372427776\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Most sermons delivered at the First UU Church of Austin during the past 17 years are available online through this website. You will find links to them in the right sidebar menu labeled Sermons. The\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/category\/sermons\/indexes\/\" target=\"_blank\">Indexes<\/a>\u00a0link leads to tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on the topic to go to a sermon.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rev. Meg Barnhouse December 3, 2017 First UU Church of Austin 4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756 austinuu.org As the days grow darker, nature&#8217;s energy goes to the roots of growing things. The five remembrances of Buddhism direct our attention to the radical (meaning root) question of what in life has lasting value. Text of&#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":[19,16,2,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-available","category-meg-barnhouse","category-sermons","category-video-available"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20601","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=20601"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20621,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20601\/revisions\/20621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}