Sermon- March 1, 2026

“I See You”

Many years ago, when Tom, Mark and I lived in Vermont, there was a small ice cream stand on an open and rural corner heading into the next town. Going to the grocery store was not just getting in the car and driving a mile or two – it was an ordeal! So often, especially in the summer, we would stop for some of the best soft ice cream around. Creamy and delicious, with those chocolate and cherry dips that hardened on the ice cream.

On one particular day we stopped at the stand, and Mark had a Nantucket Nectar glass bottle in his hand. He was young – somewhere around 7 or 8? And he was swinging that glass bottle back and forth, back and forth. At some point, the bottle slipped out of hand on the upswing, flew through the air, and crashed in 1000 glass pieces in the parking lot. Tom and I looked at him, a bit in surprised, and without missing a beat, Mark said “that wasn’t me! I didn’t do that!”

I’ve been thinking about that story a lot lately – in preparing this sermon, but also there seems to be a lot of that going around these days. Especially in our government. Don’t believe in what your eyes are telling you. Believe in what I am telling you. At a very early age, Mark learned that lesson…let me try to gaslight you. I’ll throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. I can assure you that it did not stick!

The other reason I’ve been thinking about this story has been to reflect on what it really means to see someone. What does it mean to be fully present to another person, to validate their existence and let them know that they matter?

Morgan Day Cecil, a Feminist Embodiment Coach, writes in her poem “Just Be Here with Me”:

Just Be Here with Me.

“Signed: The moon. The stars. Your still-hot-cup-of-coffee. Your daughter. Your son. Your spouse. Your heart. The green grass. The wildflowers. The waters you long to swim in. The color yellow. The color blue. Your favorite poem. Your favorite blanket. The wind in your hair. The waves on the ocean. The mountain air. Your dad. Your mom. The rain. The ice-cream cone. The butter sizzling with garlic in the frying pan. The grocery clerk with sad, kind eyes. Postcards waiting to be sent. The city squirrel. The country squirrel. Jupiter. The photo album. Your grandmother’s rosary. Your favorite song. Ink and paper. Your best friend. The money in your wallet. The fork in your hand. Brushes and paint. Downward Facing Dog. The color turquoise. The almost invisible shade of pink. God. The skyline. The earth beneath your feet. A hammock. The shade of a giant tree. This moment, right here, now. Your bones. Your belly laugh. Your breath. Your breath. Your breath.”

Sometimes it feels as if our lives have become this cacophony of noise and sound. Of screens and keyboards. Of Zoom meetings and soccer practice. We certainly don’t need to “Carpe Diem” the heck out of every moment of every day. But we do need to remember and be thankful for these moments and days. When we are able to pay attention to the blessings around us, those are our holy moments. Those are the goose bump or lump in the throat moments.

Early Unitarians placed great value on the presence of the divine or the presence of the holy as a guiding force in our universe. Sermons and essays from figures like Channing and Emerson invited people to find the divine in the order of the universe, in moral intuition, and in acts of justice and compassion, rather than only in special revelations or sacraments. This theology turns everyday perception into a spiritual task: paying attention to beauty, truth, and goodness as places where the sacred shows up. In contemporary UU practice, this lives on in services that celebrate science, poetry, and ordinary kindness as “texts” through which the holy is encountered. (Soul Matters, March 2026)

Our Shared Value of Pluralism tells us that we are all sacred beings, diverse in culture, experience and theology. And we promise to support and encourage each other on our own quest for what is sacred to each of us. And that takes work. That takes being present, that takes truly seeing someone.

A few weeks ago, I headed down to New Jersey for a Celebration of Life for a very dear friend of my family. We lived across the street from each other growing up, they had 4 kids, we had 4 kids, each approximately the same age. Our families have been friends for over 60 years, true, lifetime of memories together friends. One of the daughters was diagnosed with cervical cancer about 2 months ago, was going through chemotherapy, developed an infection, and passed away. It was very sudden and unexpected.

This daughter - I’ll call her Pat – was a complicated person, with a multilayered life. She was tough and edgy, passionate, and blunt. I wouldn’t say a difficult person, but a tough person to love. She was also fun and funny, joyful, goofy had a laugh that would knock your socks off. The celebration was in a local restaurant, one of Pat’s favorite watering holes. The family asked me to say a few words, perhaps a prayer, and open the floor to anyone who wanted to share a memory or a story.

The restaurant was packed with family, friends, and colleagues. The stories that emerged, the laughter, the tears, the truly heart-felt connection that went through that room was goose bumpy and throat lumpy. It was so evident to me that Pat was seen and loved, with all of her thorns and prickers. I thought to myself all of us should be that lucky!

Paying attention to the beauty in the world, and seeing our own beauty, is the greatest gift we can give to each other, and the greatest gift we can give back to the universe. As the choir sang earlier, it is the Love That Will Not Let Us Go.

So, as we’re all swinging our Nantucket Nectar juice bottles through the air, and we accidently let go and it crashes into 1000 pieces of glass, my hope is that your people will say “oh jeeze – what an accident! Here, let me help you clean that up.” That we pay attention to the people and beauty around us. That we remember who we are as Unitarian Universalists and we commit ourselves to just sitting with each other and seeing each other. That we are able to – at least occasionally – scrape away all of the noise and the buzzing and the distractions, and glimpse the holy, in whatever form that is.

Annie Dillard writes “We are here to abet creation and to witness it, to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach, but we notice each other's beautiful face and complex nature so that creation need not play to an empty house.”

May our lives be a testament to seeing each other clearly and with love. And when the time comes, may we be remembered as beautiful creations of the universe.

May we make it so.