It was said of the 17 century sculptor Bernini who was exceptionally strong until his last illness
at 81, that he worked at his sculpture tirelessly, sometimes for seven hours at a time, and always
with someone at hand to prevent him from falling off the scaffolding. He worked as if in a
trance, and when an assistant urged him to stop and rest, the reply was, "Let me alone. I am in
love." When I am in this building, I am in love. That is the best way to describe how I feel about
this beautiful, historic, venerable structure. Theodore Parker said that "a happy wedlock is a long
falling in love. The golden marriage is a part of love which the bridal day knows not of," and my
falling in love has been a long, now going on two and a half years, and continuous process. How
do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I not only love the beauty, the grace, the symmetry, the
relationship of intricacy and simplicity and intimations of eternity, but have come to love every
ding and dent and nick and scratch and chip and split and scrape, every sign of age. I love also
the wornness, the wrinkles. And I have come to think of it as a kind of burnishing process that
has taken place over these 82 years, that somehow the dross has been eliminated, leaving
something purer. "purer than purest" to put it in the words of e.e. cummings' Christmas poem.

There is hardly a time that I enter this place that I don't find something more to love in its sacred
geography and geometry. Attending the earlier services and sitting on the other side of the pulpit
has given me a whole new perspective. My usual view is of our magnificent organ, your faces,
the historic plaques, (and of course with an eye on the clock), but that now has been
complemented by the beauty of this chancel, the lectern, the pulpit, our table, the candles, the
space, the whiteness, the contrast of the beautiful flowers. The angle of light is different earlier
than now. Several weeks ago as I was sitting in this section I watched a dance of light on this
high pulpit caused by the sun shining through the leaves on these trees. And for me that was a
spiritual experience, another instance of this building ministering to me.

It's hard for me to believe that I am now in my 27th year of full-time religious leadership, my
professional ministry. This congregation has a long and distinguished record of ministry, some
131 years. This edifice is yet another partner in our ministry, having a long and distinguished
record of 82 years of ministering, both to those inside and those outside. I have come to think of
it as a ministry of invitation and a ministry of service, for this is an inviting space, and it has
served those generations who have entered and exited its portals, and it continues to serve and
invite us. Now I know, surrounded by such continual beauty, we may eventually come not to see
it, or to take this building's ministry for granted. Well, having served three other Unitarian
Universalist congregations housed in structures that could be taken to be elementary schools, and
usually were, believe me, I do not take it for granted! It's magnificence only increases.

It's hard to realize today that the summer past was warm, and that it lasted well into the autumn
which we are still in, but one hot day of the summer past, I reached a colleague, Charlie
Magistro, by telephone just as he was packing up, ending an eleven-year ministry at the
Unitarian Universalist church of Central Nassau, Garden City, Long Island, New York 11530. He
had rented a truck to move his thousands of volumes of books, to take them to his summer place
in the Hamptons. Having served that congregation for eight years, I knew the building well. And
I could visualize in my mind's eye just where he was and just what he was doing, where he had
parked his truck in the lot, which door he had opened to access the office. We spoke of the
emotions of leave-taking and some of the people of mutual acquaintance, and Charlie said, "You
know, there's one thing I'm not going to miss at all this building." It has a brick exterior, it has a
lot of flat roofs, it has an elevated roof that's at an angle, with large picture windows in it. But
every interior wall, each and every one, is painted cinderblock. I have come to believe that longterm
exposure to such utilitarianism is hazardous to one's spiritual health and well being. That
structure served admirably in a functional way, but it did not minister to the soul, nor to the
spirit, nor can it be said (in any way that I have been able to figure out) to be inviting. Certainly
the words "beauty," "grace," "presence" were non-applicable. And I would be hard put to think
of that edifice as a fitting home for the human spirit.

Felix Adler once said that "the place where men and women meet to seek the highest is holy
ground." Not only is this the first congregation, the first church I have served which looks, in the
eyes of a common imagination, to be a church, looks like a church, but this is the very first one
that matches up to Adler's claim. In the words of the hymn that we will sing at the conclusion of
the service, "The rightness of a master's art has blessed with grace its every part." And that is so
true. There is a wonderful sense of proportion here which invites us to think of our lives in
proportion to our values, our accomplishments, and our dreams. There is the pleasing symbolism
of graceful arch and column, window and pew. And of course the quality of light in its everchanging
mood, a kaleidoscope, a spectrum, a prism. This space is made holy, I think, by those
of us past and present who come here to seek the highest of which we can conceive, wishing to
lead principled lives. For we are not the people of a particular book or a single creed, but we are
people of principle.

For me this holy ground is very much hallowed by the memory of those who have gone before, a
few of whom I have known, but countless thousands I have never encountered. A recent bride at
whose wedding I officiated told me that she liked the idea of being married at the Renaissance
Mansion up the hill, you know, the bridal present of August Storz to his daughter back in the
Gold Coast days. She liked the idea of being married in a venerable mansion because, she said,
"You know, there's one spot in the floor where if I step there I can actually hear a creak." I felt
like inviting her to our church! For there are not many places I can step here without hearing a
resounding creak. And we are on a "creek" bed, to boot! (I didn't mean to say that, forgive me.)
Now I relate this in my nutty way through association to a saying that was popular at the selling
of indulgences, a great abuse, of course, at which Martin Luther railed and nailed against: "When
a coin into the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs." You see, you could buy others' way
out of purgatory "Pay now, fly later." Now what possible association could that have for me?
Well, every time I hear a creak, I think of it as a soul springing from the history of this church,
springing forth to offer support for our work and for the future. A soul that once was here but is
now a part of that great stream of living souls which one day we, too, shall join. In the words of
Kenneth Patton, "Here we restore our ancestral dreams, enshrined in floor, and wall, and beams."
This is holy ground because it is not only an inviting presence but, in my mind, a holy presence,
the same kind, but in a different way, as that described by the poet Wendell Barry, which I have
shared with you before:

When despair for the world grows in me
And I wake in the night at the least sound
And fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake rests
In his beauty on the water and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
Who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.
I come into the presence of still waters,
And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world and am free.

That feeling in nature to me is replicated here, the resting in the grace of this holy ground, being
held in its arms. Another image is like being in the middle of a large continuous Buddhist prayer
wheel, being enveloped in that continuous ministering message.

This building ministers through a holding presence in other ways, as well, which is one reason
why musicians love to play here, singers love to sing here, speakers love to speak here, because
of the wondrous acoustic qualities. But you may not know (you probably do) that the design of
this exquisite space holds silence equally well. And that's not true of every house of worship.
Many do a better job of holding one or the other. Some have lousy acoustics but have a
wonderful sense of silence, but it's rare that a sacred space holds both equally well. And it is of
such space that Emerson must have been thinking when he wrote, "I like the silent church before
the service begins." And what's usually left off is the last half of that statement, "better than the
words of any preacher." In fact this space holds silence so well that it can be said, paradoxically,
the silence actually speaks. In the words of Louis Untermeyer we just sang, and they are most
appropriate, "Peace shall walk softly through these rooms, touching our lips with holy wine till
every casual corner blooms into a shrine."

And what about the holding of light, even on a day such as this? This sacred space is
incomparable, and its ministry of light has a religious message. If you think about it, the light
doesn't stop here, it doesn't end here, it's not captured, it's not held onto. There is a continual
letting go, a continual passing through. Alan Watts pointed out that if you hold onto your breath,
you will lose it. If you let it go, you will live. We find our lives by losing them. It is in our giving
that we receive. Some of the great spiritual paradoxes of our human heritage.

There is a lesson Jack Perry taught me, and I don't see Jack here today, but please tell him that I
mentioned him from the pulpit, not in vain. Jack Perry once spoke about the experience of being
here in this church during a service and what it meant to him. He said that the words were
important, the music was important, but he also said the experience of just being here was
important. And he talked about the imperfect image and imagery viewed through the imperfect
glass of our windows.

We do not seek to shut the world out with stained glass that lets in the light but not the real
world. Our clear glass evokes not escapism; we do not extrapolate some better future world
populated by heavenly hosts with saintly halos. To me these portals evoke not escapism but a
kind of realism, reminding us that the world is out there. It's at our feet, at our doorstep, and we
have a continuous relationship with it. And yes, it is an imperfect world. It is not perfect, we
know that. This morning as I was seated over there, I thought, "What is that I'm looking at out
the window?" And I finally figured out it's an American flag, and it brought to mind our
electoral process and the imperfection of it. It's not a perfect world, yet we will live through this
tortuous process, and somehow I think our nation will be strengthened by it, if only in the
reforms that may, and hopefully do.

It is an imperfect world, and as we know that and are reminded of it, we are brought back to our
Unitarian Universalist principles justice, equity, and compassion in human relations, the goal of
the world community with peace, liberty and justice for all. And there are echoes here, if not of
eternity, certainly something greater than the ephemeral in the inheritance of other cultures.
There are echoes of Greece here in this Georgian revival architecture. You may not know, but the
Greeks were especially concerned about the exterior of their temples, making them beautiful.
Why? Because that's where the people worshiped. They weren't allowed inside where the god
was with his minions or his ministers or his acolytes. Well, we look at things differently,
recognizing that we have God-like powers, we have God-like responsibilities, we are the
meaning makers. And so it's only appropriate that we have grace and beauty in our spiritual
homes, as well as outside them.

And I think it's significant that the capitals of these columns (I didn't know that's what you call
them until I did a little bit of research; the scroll decoration on top is called capitals, and there
are many different names for all the other parts), I think it's significant that the capitals of these
columns are neither Doric nor Corinthian but Ionic not ironic but Ionic. You know what
Corinthian capitals are, those really super-decorated leafy things, the most ornate, in keeping
with a dissipated licentiousness of the character of Corinthians, which is why the Apostle Paul
had to keep writing all those letters to the churches there. "All right! No! It's not this way; it's
that way! If you can't control your passions, then go ahead and get married!" This is what he
said.

Now the capitals of the Doric columns conveyed a proud, reserved, massive strength, and a
severe simplicity (I think maybe those are our exterior capitals, although I didn't follow through
and check on them), as compared to the Ionic, which are seen to be expressive, supple,
sentimental, elegant, with a love of delicate detail. There is one other cultural echo as well,
which was probably not intended, but which I am reading into. You know, some Trinitarian
churches have three doors, appropriately, as entrances. Synagogues, if you have not noticed,
typically have five doors, one for each book of the Torah, the Mosaic Law. It is literally a house
of the Book. When you enter through the doors, you study Mosaic Law. Our entrance has a
single opening, in keeping with our Unitarian philosophy, but if you will notice there are five
arches on either side of our sanctuary. And if you put them together (this is really a stretch) you
end up with ten, the number of, as someone said for Unitarians, the Ten Suggestions.

In his book The Poetics of Space, the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard suggests that houses
make us feel at home because they shelter us in three important and different ways, and this is
what our sacred space does for us. Both protect our solitude by providing places where we can
dream, they protect our intimacy with others, and they give our memories a home. During this
season in which a crude shelter is such an archetypal experience (and I speak of the stable in
Bethlehem), it is good to be reminded that we are blessed with such a sacred space which evokes
ultimacy and engenders intimacy, enabling us to be both a community of memory and a
community of hope.