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.

 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.

 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.

 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.

 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.

 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.

 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.

 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.

 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.

 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.

 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.

 This sermon kicks off our thematic focus for the new Fellowship year: Endings and Beginnings. The idea of pilgrimage is a good lens for looking at life's transitions.

 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.

 Healing seems in largest part the task of dealing with life's intrusions and crises. While there is a graded set of plateaus that walk us into adulthood (and beyond!), more time living means more adversities. The core spiritual challenge within growth and healing is how to change, all the while welcoming the stability of one's nature, warts and all. This sermon will look at plateaus, crises, and the power of equilibrium. And becoming more and more like yourself, but different...

 The spiritual writer Evelyn Underhill notes that "we spend most of our lives conjugating three verbs: to want, to have, and to do." How can we free ourselves from being dominated by these three verbs? What does spiritual freedom look like?

 We go through so many transitions in our lives: our own birth, going to school, leaving the nest to go out on our own, maybe having kids of our own, and returning care to our parents when they get older--to name just a few. These transitions in our lives will be the focus of our Wellspring theme of "Endings and Beginnings" in October.

 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?

 Idolatry is not a word we use much in Unitarian Universalism. What is idolatry, especially in the context of liberal religion? I'll share my definition. Then I'll share the places where I think we UU's may be most susceptible to idolatry.

 There's a fascinating concept in Buddhism that predated by a couple millennia modern psychology's concept of the shadow. The Buddhist concept of "near enemies" acknowledges that there are shadows to our greatest virtues, and it helps us figure out how to live in a way that minimizes this shadow.

 In the collective American psyche we avow that, here, people get what they deserve. Or, at least, our laws are designed to create a level playing field. You work hard, you get ahead, right? Let’s look at the reality. And reaffirm that the pursuit of this dream-world can still lead to happiness.

 There are indications that immigration may well be the next highly controversial issue in our state. Immigration is not only a political issue, but also a highly spiritual issue. It has to do with soul -- the soul of individuals, the soul of our nation.

 Our ministers and Director of Religious Education will lead a service celebrating ordinary miracles and Easter.

 Aging well: Benjamin Franklin offered that the only things certain in life are "death and taxes" but he didn't quite tell the whole story. The other inevitability for us all is the process of human aging, which everyone must navigate to the best of their abilities. Scientists from several disciplines have recently identified what enables people to age successfully and well. Please be with Rev. Alexander as he explores what it takes for us to age well, no matter how far along life's journey we each may be.

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 What’s on your mind? Are there questions you have about the spiritual journey, theology, ethics, the Fellowship, life in general, or a thousand other things? This is your chance to ask! Your questions will be the focus of my sermon. Bring them on!

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 This service is the culminating event of the year-long Coming of Age program. Come and hear our youth share about the program and share their credos. A credo is a belief statement—the Latin root means that which you give your heart to. This is always a very moving and inspiring service.

 An awakening of conscience involves a transition: an old understanding is replaced by a new understanding. And new understandings help us live our lives differently. This month I'll use my mid-winter sermon series on race and racism as a focus on this kind of transition. I'll explore race and racism in my own life, in Unitarian Universalism, and in our larger society.

 It's been a little over a year since my mother died. I'll reflect on the challenges and learnings from my journey through grief.

 The Rev. Cheryl M. Walker is the Minister of the UU Fellowship of Wilmington, NC. She served as the Assistant Minister of All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City prior to being called to Wilmington. Before that she spent twenty-five years working in technology and on Wall Street. The Rev. Walker co-chairs the continuing education committee of the Unitarian Universalist Association with Roger Bertschausen.

 We have a long and extensive history in Unitarian Universalism of both racism and anti-racism. Every major achievement in anti-racism has been supported by some Unitarian Universalists, and opposed by others. An awakened conscience requires that we honestly assess our history.

 This sermon is about well-meaning men—the good guys who never would be violent towards a woman or girl. The problem is that well-meaning men have all too often stood by silently in the face of not just violence from not-so-well-meaning men, but also the remarks and jokes and other more subtle actions that sow the seeds of our culture's devaluing of women. Well-meaning men speaking up against violence is a huge part of the solution to domestic violence.

 Our prison system is a striking example of how racism can become institutionalized and perpetuated. How did this happen? What does it mean? What can we do to end Jim Crow in our prison system?

 Each time we come to the Fellowship, we stand upon a strong foundation, a foundation that was laid for us by the foresight and generosity of many who came before us. Our Fellowship foundation is physical and theological; it gives us a place to meet, and it tells us stories of who we are and where we have been. For those of us who are here today, what will our legacy be? What foundation will we leave for those who come next?

 Experiences in nature can teach us about wildness--not just wildness in nature, but in ourselves, too. Our pets--though domesticated--may, like us, also have traces wildness in them. We invite you to bring your pets to hear this message, too!

 I spent a lot of time in my youth trying hard to avoid failure. Even as a young adult, I often navigated my life to avoid things that might cause me to experience failure. Now in middle age I have begun to see failure much differently, as a teacher, as an opportunity and even a muse. Failing at something often creates a transition, a change of path or plans. How can we embrace failure as a wise teacher who may really be opening a new window?

 Religion is about values in action. So is work. Each of us has a calling, a voice inside that we balance with financial need and personal circumstance. How might liberal religion help us to resolve our calling to meaningful work? What spiritual wisdom or tools exist that can help us to navigate tough economic times? Transitions related to work will be the focus of "Endings and Beginnings" in November.

 We'll shift our focus from Unitarian Universalism to our Fellowship and to our individual lives: How can we translate an internal commitment to anti-racism and multiculturalism into action in our Fellowship and in our lives beyond these walls?

 As we embark on our search for a second minister, it will be important for us to consider what conscious or unconscious biases we may be carrying. Are we thinking that our new second minister should fit a particular category (e.g., a particular gender or age or sexual orientation)?

 There are obvious and subtle transitions in our spiritual journeys as we grow from children to adolescents to young to middle-aged to older adults. Some of our members grew up UU, so they've experienced most or all of the maturing of faith as UUs. Many more of us grew up in a different faith, and so had the significant transition of leaving our childhood faith, finding UU-ism, and making it our own.

 Finding the divine in eating. Sister Caroline Sullivan is the dynamic Executive Director of the Bridge Between Retreat Center in rural Brown County--a retreat center frequented by many Fellowship members and friends over the years.

 We'll celebrate the start of the new Fellowship year with our annual "Mingling of the Waters" ceremony. Everyone is invited to bring water from your summer adventures near and far to share during the ceremony. Our message will lift up hope and peace even as we recognize the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Weather cooperating, the service will be held outside in the footprint of our sanctuary-to-be. A pot-luck brunch will immediately follow the service. You are invited to bring a chair for the service and a meal to pass for the brunch.

 As we embark on our search for a second minister, it will be important for us to consider what conscious or unconscious biases we may be carrying. Are we thinking that our new second minister should fit a particular category (e.g., a particular gender or age or sexual orientation)?

 We live today in what can seem like an endless battle of ideas. Every day we see people vigorously defending their opinions, distinguishing themselves from their perceived opponents. This is the essence of modern democracy, it seems. Or is it? Has democracy always been about choosing sides? ... about battling it out? What is a person to do when dialog and civility seem so strained? How might liberal religion help us to keep our balance?

 This will be a follow-up to my sermon last month examining possible false idols in Unitarian Universalism and the Fellowship. This sermon will explore where our nation might be guilty of idolatry. I'll talk about Wall Street, the Pentagon, and much more.

 The focus of our April "Endings and Beginnings" theme is identity. Who do we understand ourselves to be? I'll focus in on one important area of self-identity: our sexual identity. Our individual sexual identity unfolds through our lives as we grow from children to adolescents to adults. Our journey as sexual beings appears to be much more fluid than we once thought. This sermon will examine transitions in self-identity--particularly sexual identity--through a spiritual lens.

 With humor, inspiration and some insight from Jesus' teachings, Rev. DeLong will preach about her experience of going public as a Lesbian in a committed relationship, about presiding at the Holy Union of two women in love, about the challenges and triumphs of undergoing a Church Trial, and of the deep peace which comes from living authentically.

 Anti-Trinitarianism runs deep in our Unitarian history. I want to depart from this tradition and take a sympathetic look at the Trinity.

 This will pick up this month's Wellspring focus on transitions in identity and explore the "T" part of the LGBT label. I will share my understanding of transgender, and I'll ground this in our Unitarian Universalist principles. I'll explore how our Fellowship can be inclusive of transgender as well as LGB folks.

 This sermon explores the endings of romantic relationships--through breaking up, divorce, and death. Of course relationships end in all sorts of ways, and with all sorts of very strong feelings. This may be the scariest theme I've taken on yet!

 Getting sick, getting better, getting a terminal illness: these all involve life significant transitions. So does aging, which overall is an arc in life leading from generally better health to generally poorer health. We'll wrap up our year-long focus on spiritual transitions with a focus on sickness, health, and aging.

 Goodwill CEO Bob Pedersen will share about Goodwill of North Central Wisconsin's experience of having a beloved employee embezzle a large sum of money--and the journey of restorative justice that followed.