Sermons

READING - Hard, Brave Choices, by Martha Durkee-Neum, https://worshipweb.uua.org/braverwiser/i/309b5385c0b21d9fae3fb347166871d7/hard-brave-choices

When I was a youth, the young adult fantasy series by Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials, was an important source of spiritual guidance for me. Something I love about being a Unitarian Universalist is darwing sacred texts from places such as the shelves of the middle school library. In the final book of the series, one of the young protagonists has a decision to m ake, upon which possibly the fate of our world and the next world hangs. Before he decides, he evaluates his options as if they are lit candles before him.

This short passage returned to me recently when I was faced with a hard, brave choice. I saw all my options in front of me as lit candles. Waiting there for me, representing different things. Different paths. All looking particularly enticing and bright and shiny and glittery and some maybe a little frightening and all of them on fire.

Before I chose, when all my options were still in existence, I felt attached to all those candles. I didn't want to choose, and snuff out all my other options. Eventually, I made my choice but I still grieved the candles I had blown out.

This is a year in which hard, brave choices will be required of all of us. Our world is changing, so much is in flux. Increasingly we are faced with questions and decisions about our money, our time, our place in history, how we act, how we don't act, what matters, what we give our attention to , what kind of world we're building. We cannot afford to linger in front of all the candles aflame in front of us. Will had to choose, after all.

It takes courage to blow out the candles of the roads we will not travel. But in this moment, our task is to find this courage and lift it up and - lucky for us - we have each other. We do not have to do this alone. And on the other side of that decision, we can travel forward together, with our one remaining candle to light the way.

So come and find me. Travel alongside me. Bring me your courage, because Lord knows I don't have enough on my own. Together we can blow out the candles of the roads not taken. And then we can go forward side by side.

READING - Mercy and Justice by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, from an address delivered on April 14, 1875 at the centennial anniversary of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.

What we need today in the onward march of humanity is a public sentiment in favor of common justice and simple mercy. We have a civilization which has produced grand and magnificent results, diffused knowledge, overthrown slavery, made constant conquests over nature, and built up a wonderful material prosperity.

But two things are wanting in American civilization - a keener and deeper, broader and tenderer sense of justice - a sense of humanity, which shall crystallize into the life of the nation the sentiment that justice, simple justice, is the right, not simply of the strong and powerful, but of the weakest and feeblest of all God's children; a deeper and broader humanity, which will teach [people] to look upon their feeble [siblings] not as vermin to be crused out, or beasts of burden to be bridled and bitted, but as the children of the living God, of that God whom we may earnestly hope is in perfect wisdom and in perfect love working for the best good of all.

PRESENTATION - Introduction by Colleen Fitzgerald

This morning we are happy to welcome Lisa Lutts, the Executive Director of the Castine Historical Society. She will share with us a part of her talk on the history of Castine.

I have been thinking a lot about history and the troubling political times that we are living in. Someday, scholars and students will read about the tumultuous years faced by Americans in the early 21st century. They may ask, "What were they thinking?" and hopefully try to understand us the way we try to understand the early residents of Castine.

Our history, our story, is being written/recorded everyday. Someday, future members of the UUCC may read about and appreciate the work that Gil Tenney did in bringing about the film Building Hope. They may wonder about the generosity of No Neighbor Left Behind. And, they may marvel at how such a small group of people could have such a big impact on their neighboring communities because they believed in the interconnected web of life making the survival and growth of every individual an important part of who we are and what we are striving to achieve.

So, welcome Lisa, and thank you for helping us to understand that history is not the stories of those people but of people like us who were doing the best they could to live in a challenging world.

Lisa Lutts gave an abbreviated talk and slide show. The entire talk may be viewed on CHS's YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts3wZwBR6Ug.