On this Easter Sunday, we will explore the wildness of emerging from oppression, control, stagnation, and loss. We will mine the traditional Easter story for modern-day meaning, wondering how a story of deep oppression and loss turned into one of wildness, freedom, and hope. How does chaos become a community? How can empowerment emerge from oppression? How can loss fertilize new life?

Do you remember the jingle “Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down” used to advertise the annoyingly predictable egg-shaped children’s toys that wobble when touched, but always come back upright? Could it be that human beings are just as predictable – that being out of balance is part of being in balance? We used to say that First Church is a place to find and keep your balance. I believe that movement, even if wobbly, is an inherent part of finding and keeping our balance and that’s OK.

When we come together in community and in the larger society, we can make choices about how to be together. Do we want to compete for status, value, and resources? Is living in the community and in the world necessarily a zero-sum game, where some people win and others lose? Or is there a third way, beyond binary choices and into synthesis, interconnection, and win-win-win? Please join us as we explore how we intend to be together on this Sunday when we will celebrate the close of our stewardship month with a ritual of throwing our lots (pledge cards) in together. Remember to bring your pledge cards!

The Rev. Don Foerster wrote that our lives swing like pendulums between and among polarities; that we swing between the desire “to serve the cosmos that commands us to become more” and the longing to “be our genuine selves, content with what we are.” How does the balance between outer pull and inner need show up in your life? Are you saving the world or savoring it? What kind of practice would help you feel more in balance with yourself, or more content with where you are now? Join us in this service that will explore personal practices for paying attention to each moment and listening to what is calling you now.

This year’s annual youth service will include songs, testimonials, and readings from our youth to follow our theme of Change: Practice What You Preach. The youth group is challenging you to take action for standing up for what you believe in! In this New Year, the youth have resolved to start fighting back while raising awareness on three subjects they feel passionate about diversity: the environment, and immigration. It will be an inspirational service you don’t want to miss!

What happens when we don't know what's coming next? Which is pretty much true all the time, though we pretend it's not. How do we step up to our fear of the unknown and trust the unfolding future? Perhaps faith can help us do that and thereby open us to more imagination and creativity in our family life, community life, and justice work.

Faith is not only an individual orientation, it is also a collaborative creation and a collective experience. Faith moves in the space between us; it is something we create in a relationship. Join us for this service that includes a covenant with our Pledge Drive Team and explores how loving relationships of trust and truth allow individuals and communities to flourish.

Here’s the idea: Oftentimes people look at Unitarian Universalist churches and think of us as places of little faith. I would argue that we have as much as any other religion, but it may be faith in different things than people are used to hearing.

Intention lies somewhere on the road between hope and commitment. How do intentions function in our lives? How do they function in our community? Join us for this service that will investigate the stretching prayer of intentions.

2018/01/14 • The Rev. Jennifer Nordstrom • The Healing is not Done by First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee