Let the Spirit Grow!

Live Oak, September 9, 2007

homily by Rev. Kathleen Ellis

Carole King sang,

My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue,

An everlasting vision of the everchanging view,

A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold,

A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold.

A church is one of the few places where people of all generations come together to weave a rich tapestry of the spirit: to nurture the spirit through care and healing, to grow the spirit through education and experience, and to challenge the spirit through service and action.

The Live Oak spirit is alive and well! Two weeks ago at least 40 of us stayed after church to paint, clean, spruce up, rake leaves, wash windows and woodwork, trim trees, move gravel, and repair little and big things all over this campus. “Many hands make light work,” my mother always said, and the fun we had together kept our spirits up and the work sweet with sweat. We called it Hands on Live Oak.

Next month we will join with other Austin UU churches for Hands on Housing, to clean, paint, spruce up, and repair little and big things on a house in East Austin. This will help an elderly woman stay at home in her own neighborhood among family and friends. She has been pressured by real estate agents to sell, but the best offers are not enough to afford another place of her own. We will be able to help make it livable for her instead of torn down to make space for someone else’s new house. Our own Aaron White and Jon Montgomery, and Wildflower’s new minister Eliza Galaher have already met with the director of Hands on Housing to start planning this important biannual event. Stay tuned!

Last week we celebrated the gift of water in a beautiful multi-media presentation of video, poetry, song, dance, and the flow of people adding a stone or water from home or far away into a community vessel. Thank you, Donna Durbin and Doris Adams for planning a creative and meaningful service.

Today the children and youth begin a new semester of classes and activities. After an unusually cool summer for Austin (only one day above 100 degrees!), we are refreshed and ready for this new season. Let the spirit grow!

Yesterday afternoon High School Senior Eric Wood was recognized in an Eagle Court of Honor for attaining the rank of Eagle Scout. He designed and oversaw construction of the information kiosk at the entrance to the labyrinth so many of us enjoy. Eric’s parents Teresa Carr and Paul Wood were rightly proud, and received pins given to parents of Eagle Scouts.

Both of them will continue to serve as adult leaders in Scouting. And you can be sure, with Teresa and Paul involved, there is no discrimination in their programs! Their daughter Savannah will work toward a Gold Award in Girl Scouting, and Leo will likely follow in his brother’s footsteps to the rank of Eagle. Let the spirit grow!

Multiple women’s groups have reconvened after a summer break, and Tuesday we will resume our fourth round of Fellowship, Religious Education, and Dinner, with the acronym of FRED. You can join a drop-in class or sign up for an eight-week series. Yabba dabba doo!

A number of members have been working on building blocks for Live Oak: Katharine Marvin, on consistency among policies, by-laws, committee process, and leadership roles; Scott Osborne on a proposal for a personnel committee; Larry Smith and Paul Sullivan on a proposal to take a public stand against torture and for peace; Jon Durbin and Katharine Marvin on an endowment proposal. Next week we plan to have a Committee Fair so you can find out all sorts of ways to get involved, such as hospitality, finance, and social action.

If we look around, people forever will gather in community and work toward common goals. They will continue to invite others to join the effort. Even if they never reach their goals, they will have made changes. Things are changing all the time!

We have several missions here—first, to nurture our spirits by renewing a sense of connection and helping one another; second, to grow our spirits by educating ourselves about issues of importance; and third, to challenge our spirits by helping Live Oak make a positive difference in the world.

For all of these undertakings, throughout the years since Live Oak was founded in 1992, members draw on all the resources we have at hand. To “gather in hope, compassion, and strength,” a phrase from our closing hymn, is to believe that we can get through any difficulty into the light of a new day. Hope sustains us in times of trouble; compassion rises when we feel one another’s pain; strength flexes its muscles when we step into roles we had not experienced before.

This is our church! We belong here! And the world needs us! When you consider all the children, youth, and adults, we are over 300 strong! Each of us will change the world through our choices of action and inaction. We will change everyone here through example and relationship. Most of all, we will change ourselves through making a positive difference in a hurting world. May all of us continue to grow in hope, compassion, and strength—“a tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold.” And let the spirit grow!

Amen and Blessed Be