Many say that our souls hold our "essential self" -- that part of us that connects with the ethereal eternity. Others say there is no such thing - that what we see as our essential self is merely an accumulation of interacting chemicals in our brains that came into existence during and following our gestation and end when our life ceases. What do you think -- a piece of the Infinite? Or merely brain chemistry?

 The creative process has a central role in process theology. The focus of this sermon will be the spirituality of creativity. From the arts to our family life to our work, we all have ample opportunities to be creative. Unleashing the creative spark in all of these and other aspects of our life can lead to a deeper, more meaningful and more beautiful life.

 The preceding sermon will lead into an understanding of divinity embraced by much of process theology: God is love. This God is not static but is ever-changing, ever-moving. It’s more of a verb than a noun.

 My annual sermon series will kick off with a general consideration of process theology. Process theology offers a strong critique of the idea of God as almighty and all-knowing. But rather than dispensing with the divine altogether, it provides a fresh and (for me at least) attractive alternative view. This sermon will also touch on the question of why bad things happen.

 Why is it that our own blunders are so GLARING to us, and why do we have such a hard time letting them go? In this service, we will talk about the crucial (and difficult) spiritual practice of forgiving ourselves.

 This is December's Big Question. Another way to put is this: Where do we find authority for our beliefs? Possible answers are abundant. A sacred book, a spiritual tradition, a teacher, our own experience, our own reflection—these are just a few of the possibilities. I’ll explore possible answers to this Big Question, and offer my own (as of December 4-5, 2010).

 This sermon title is from a verse of “Enter, Rejoice and Come In.” As the Fellowship continues to grow, the changes keep on coming. We can especially see that in our building campaign, our re-envisioned Wellspring and social justice ministries, changes in our worship life, and my upcoming sabbatical. I’ll reflect on change, where the Fellowship is headed, and where I am after twenty years of ministry with you.

 Eleven years ago Roger gave a sermon urging the Fellowship to consider entering into a partner church relationship with a Unitarian congregation in Transylvania. That partnership has been transformative -- for us and for our partners in Deva. In this service, Karon and Roger, with considerable help from Lee Boeke Burke and Vickie Milde, are going to urge us to enter a second partner church relationship. We believe the opportunity to partner with the Unitarian Universalists in Mabuhay in the Philippines is another opportunity for transformation. So we'll consider: Who exactly is in our UU family? How are we related?

 In true UU fashion, I believe the answer depends on your world view. How does someone answer this question if they believe in a strong code of ethics? What if someone feels the path of history ultimately leads to peace and harmony or chaos and ruin? What if someone views the universe as amoral and without a grand plan? How would you answer this question? Is there a universal answer?

 The old saying goes that you can pick your friends but not your family. Often we find ourselves at odds with family members, whether it is about politics, religion, child-rearing or caring for an aging parent. Intern Minister Karon Sandberg will explore ways in which we can we navigate through the trouble waters of family dynamics with love and respect for our individual differences.

 This sermon continues a 200 year-old tradition of UU ministers commenting on deeper issues and themes underlying election campaigns in a non-partisan way. In this election cycle, the Tea Party has loomed large. Why? And what does it mean?

 Over the spring and summer we have re-imagined our social justice ministry. My hope is that our new structure will better fit a large congregation and help us do even more to build a better world. I’ll talk about our new social justice ministry and explore why the work of building a better world is so central to the Fellowship and Unitarian Universalism.

 We are often reminded that in order to understand the experience of another, we need to "walk a mile in their shoes." In this service, we will journey with those who deal with poverty every single day of their lives. Importantly, this is also the weekend of the Fox Valley CROP Walk, which offers us an opportunity to show our care for those whose most basic needs are in doubt. Please join us for this weighty and meaningful conversation

 This weekend kicks off our year-long worship and Wellspring Wednesday focus on the Big Spiritual Questions. These questions -- questions like "Are People Inherently Good or Out to Get Each Other?" and "What Happens After We Die?" --will also be the focus of our Coming of Age program. Every year we have our Coming of Age program, many adults tell us they wish we had a similar program for adults. Now we do--all you have to do is come to the first service of each month and our Wellspring Wednesday programs which will focus on the question explored at the first of the month sermon!

 As we kickoff the capital campaign to help make Fox Valley a larger and more welcoming space, we will reflect on how and why giving generously to our religious community helps us grow as well. The Rev. Don Southworth is the acting Executive Director of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association and is one of the most powerful and compelling preachers in our movement.

 The Green Day song "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" captures the sense that so many Americans have of walking alone in life. As the President of the UU Association asserts, we Americans are the most disconnected people who have ever lived on this earth. Here at the Fellowship we have found an antidote to this disconnection: spiritual community. Nurturing this sense of community may be the most important thing we do -- for each other and for everyone who might find a spiritual home here.

 The Pursuit of Happiness. We all want it. Many eternally "chase" it. Recognizing the joys within us and determining how to tap into that happiness can be a bit like trying to hold onto water, OR...it can be a natural state.

 Three musicians shared a beautiful piece at one of the Oshkosh Fellowship Wednesday programs last year. It was a lament for a beloved dog who had died. This reminded me that our pets give us lessons even in their deaths: the deaths of pets are some of the most formative and significant experiences of death we have. We'll acknowledge these lessons our pets teach us--and we'll do so in a way that celebrates their lives, not just their endings. The service will be far more about gratitude and ongoing gifts than endings. And yes, it will be designed for all ages, and all species.

 The annual "This I Believe" service has become a much anticipated part of our summer service line-up. Come and hear several members of our community share about their deepest and most cherished spiritual beliefs.

 During the first half of the 20th century the majority of Unitarians considered themselves Religious Humanists. So what role does Religious Humanism play in our congregations today, 100 years later? Join me in gaining a deeper understanding of this very important part of our UU heritage.

 A sermon raising awareness of domestic violence/partner abuse in the LGBT community by the Rev. Dottie Mathews. This message will also examine the tendency toward violence in society and within each of us.

 A friend gave me a brilliant book of poetry by Maurice Manning called Bucolics. He addresses every poem to God and calls God "Boss". This got me thinking...

 Nic Cable is a young adult Unitarian Universalist who is heading toward the UU ministry. He has been a member of Unitarian Universalist Church West in Brookfield, WI, and is entering his senior year at DePaul University. Reflecting on his UU upbringing and his experiences as an interfaith scholar at DePaul, he'll explore the Fourth Principle—"a free and responsible search for truth and meaning"—and our theological commitment as UUs to interfaith engagement and the importance of embracing those in faiths other than our own. To make this engagement work, we need to risk vulnerability and discomfort.

 We each have a story to tell of a loved one dying, but seldom do we share those stories. Matthew Nelson, an ordained minister with the United Church of Christ and member of the national board of Compassion & Choices, will share his story of his fatherʹs death and his experiences as a volunteer for Compassion & Choices. His work with end of life choices began in Oregon where he twice voted to let the citizens of Oregon have the right to die peacefully in the face of a terminal illness.

 Spirituality is a key component of the Twelve Steps path of recovery from alcoholism and other addictions. Finding a way to incorporate spirituality into recovery has been a challenge for many UUs who seek recovery. Our panel of UUs in recovery will share how they have overcome this challenge.

 World religions live in part via holy real estate, whether Chartres or the Himalayas, in Mecca or in the Black Hills. And live in rituals, whether millions going to the Hajj, or holding candles at midnight 12/24, or joining each week in a host of weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, memorial services, dedications, christenings. Yet for all of this that is seen clearly, spiritual power and its influences are largely unseen. And they are the basis and a first cause for all those religions. And inform the heart of science. And drive the pulse of healing. And reside in family and community. And deserve honor by our best reflections and richest metaphors. So this service will consider the wonders unseen underground, and how what is above ground grows, and how patterns have power to enrich and embrace.

 Seminary Student, Karon Sandberg explores the definitions of love found in First Corinthians 13 and the difficulties and gifts of the dance of life shared between a father and daughter.

 Prophethood is not something that you choose. It is something that arouses with elemental power and compels you to walk a path, an adventurous path that is sometimes joyful, sometimes painful, and often both. But it is YOUR WAY, and you can't do otherwise. It gives you strength, for it is coming from the SOURCE OF LIFE. This sermon invites us to get closer to the memory of Balázs Ferenc (1901-1937), Unitarian minister of Mészkő, Transylvania. He was a man with vision, a world traveler, a writer, a poet, a community builder, a parent and husband, and a misunderstood prophet. His wife Christine went on to become a founder of our Fellowship, and their daughter Enika is a friend of our Fellowhsip. The Rev. Balint is the minster of the Unitarian Church of Mészkő, and is the Balázs Scholar at Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley.

 The Question Box Sermon comes to prime time! Because of the visit of a Transylvanian minister next month, I decided to move the Question Box sermon forward into four-services-a-weekend territory. Come with your questions! At the beginning of each service, I’ll invite folks to write questions they have for me on index cards; my spontaneous responses to these questions will be the sermon.

 Life is ever and always in flux. The only constant (we have learned over and over again) is that things will change! Births, deaths, teens leaving for college, elders moving into assisted living facilities, job changes, relationships beginning and ending -- adapting to all these is one of the biggest challenges of human life. What might help us welcome the transitory nature of life with grace, rather than struggling against it?

 The beloved member and former Fellowship Choir Director Cynthia Stiehl returns for another musical collaboration with Roger. Cyndy (accompanied by Dan Van Sickle) will sing and Roger will reflect on six seventeenth and eighteenth century Japanese haiku set to music beautifully by Steven Mark Kohn. Haiku offer brief and moving glimpses of truth. The truths we’ll hear about have to do with letting go, the insights of humor, and the futility of building monuments to the self. Like most haiku, the natural world pulsates through the poetry.

 We come, as Unitarian Universalists, from a long, proud line of heretics and blasphemers, people whoʹve said no to orthodoxy, hypocrisy, oppression. But to what do we say yes? In what do we place our faith? What do we love, and live for, live by? The Rev. Safford has been Minister of White Bear Unitarian Universalist Church since 1999, following a ten-year ministry at Northampton, Massachusetts. She is widely regarded as one of the premier preachers in Unitarian Universalism today; both Roger and Dottie would put her right up at the top of their lists.

 As a child I was fascinated by Yellowstone National Park. It’s a place that has remained equally fascinating to me as an adult. In addition to its spectacular and unusual beauty, Yellowstone reveals a lot about our planet’s history—and our planet’s future. It offers plenty of lessons that I have found useful in my spiritual path.

 The famous theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote a simple prayer that became known as the Serenity Prayer in the midst of World War Two. It says a lot about the time in which it was created, and it continues to speak to many people—particularly in the Twelve Steps community which has made the prayer a familiar mantra of recovery.

 Come and hear the wisdom of the high school teens who have experienced being a part of our Fox Valley Unitarian Universalist Community. Our active group of teens are wonderful representatives of the UU principles both here at the Fellowship as well as in the wider community.

 In one of the stories about Ra, the Sun God in ancient Egyptian religion, Ra dies every night and is resurrected each morning when the sun rises. We’ll explore the meaning of this story as well as the story of Jesus’ resurrection in this Easter sermon. This is a service for all ages.

 Whatʹs it like to step into eternity? Bliss? Nothingness? New Form of Energy? Everlasting Peace? This "mighty" question has been pondered and pontificated upon since the beginning of time. We will come together this weekend to think about and honor the question.

 The Atonement—commonly understood as the idea that God and humanity are reconciled through the life, suffering and death of Jesus—continues to be a central feature of Christian theology and doctrine. Early Universalists like Hosea Ballou recast the Atonement in a universalist light, asserting that it the Atonement is not inconsistent with their belief that everyone is saved regardless of creed or deeds. Interest in what the Atonement means continues to surface here—most recently in my Question Box Sermon last spring. What is the Atonement? Can it be seen in a universalist light? What might it mean to us?

 Joseph Priestley is an important and fascinating person in our pantheon of UU spiritual ancestors. In addition to helping found Unitarianism first in England, and then in the United States when he fled here after his home was burned by an angry mob in 1791, Priestley was also famous as a pioneering scientist and an outspoken political dissenter. His contribution to our faith continues to help light our way, two hundred years later.

 Internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter, painter and cultural activist Magdalen Hsu-li returns to the Fellowship to team up with Roger for another service. Her piano based rock/folkmusic has a cool, edgy, tender, insightful blend that has made her a mainstay on the alternative college music scene. Self-identified as Chinese-American and bisexual, many of her songs explore the spiritual challenge of finding one’s identity. Roger’s thoughts on identity will be interlaced through the sermon.

Music and Lyrics by Magdalen Hsu-Li © Smash The Celing Music 2010

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 Having a single afternoon service allows us a rare opportunity to experience our community all together in one room. Roger’s and Dottie’s sermon will focus on a poem by Rumi with the theme of “What do you think will happen?” and explore exciting possibilities of what might happen at the Fellowship in the coming months and years.

 Revs. Bertschausen & Mathews

 Prometheus and many other of the characters in Greek mythology suffer considerably at the hands of the gods. Some might onclude that it pays to do what the gods (or whoever the powers that be are) say and to be subservient to them. But I think it’s possible to discern the opposite wisdom in Greek mythology. This sermon will also touch on the question that every religion or philosophy must answer: Why do bad things happen?

 One scholar of mythology calls the Odyssey the Parts Department for Western Literature. The Odyssey may also be the Parts Department for Western spirituality. One of the epics great spiritual themes is the return home. From The Wizard of Oz to Coming Home, Cast Away, and Cold Mountain, this theme continues to be mined. Each in our own way, we face the same challenge Odysseus faced in Homers great work: How do we find our way home?

 Each of us faces a fundamental spiritual challenge: figuring out who we really are at the core. To lead an authentic life, we continually need to answer the question “Who are you?” This was a very frequent theme in Greek mythology. The ancient Greeks have some hints about this spiritual challenge.

 I'll kick off my sermon series with an overview of ancient Greek mythology and its foundational place in the Western imagination. I'll also explore how Greek myths might continue to speak to us about our lives and spiritual journeys three millennia later.

 This Goddess of Compassion is known by many names in many cultures and many religions. By whatever name she is called, she is the emblem of mercy and lovingkindness, and she offers us an example of the true strength available at the core of an pen-heart.

 Many within our community are impacted by mental health issues, either by personal experience or loving someone who deals with these issues. FVUUF member Karen Schiller and her mother will join Dottie to offer information and hope about this very important topic.

 Society tells us that the winter holiday time is meant to be joyful for everyone. Many of us, however, are aware that the holidays can be anything but a time of celebration. Join us as we explore the "space between" to find peace and, perhaps, joy as the world bustles around us.

 Join us for our annual Winter Solstice service as we celebrate the darkness of this time of year as well as the beginning return of the light.

 The season of Advent, the Winter Solstice and Christmas largely focuses on mystery: the mysteries of hope and expectation, darkness and light, and new life born in the bleak mid-winter. Amidst all of the hustle and bustle of December in America, I hope that contemplating the illuminating, fascinating, beautiful mysteries that underlie the season will help spiritually ground our experiences of the holiday season this year.