People, we have hit the big time! The day before the Sunday morning worship of our national conference, Tom, Harpur, our country’s most prolific and well-known writer on religion, writes an article in the Toronto Star that might as well be an advertisement for our faith. He says, among many other things, that there are "hundreds of thousands of Canadians currently looking for a spiritual home…" and that Unitarians, "Canada’s most unusual religion" "face a unique opportunity to fill the growing spiritual vacuum." If I hadn’t been out at a coffee house kind of late last night, I would have phoned up Tom Harpur myself, both to thank him and to invite him to church this morning!

Where I come from up the Ottawa valley, kids spend hours in the summer trying to catch minnows with a little net that you pull up and small pieces of bread that you use for bait. As anyone who’s ever tried knows, this is a two person job; one to chase the minnows into the net and the other one to pull it up at just the right time. Well folks, Tom Harpur just sent a giant school of minnows swimming in our direction. The question is, what will happen when they get there?

I ask this because in some ways, this is the heart of why we are gathered here, getting to know one another and the world we serve as religious people. We are gathered this weekend - to learn and grow, to inspire and inform, so that when we go back to our own congregations, we have a message for our city or neighbourhood that is so compelling that people will not be able to resist taking up our song.

There’s only one challenge that I can see, and that is that we are the Canadian Unitarian Council. That means (for those of you who haven’t had your coffee yet) that we are both Canadian, and Unitarian. (And by the way before I go any further, I’m just going to say that what ever term I use, Unitarian, Universalist, Unitarian Universalist this morning… I mean the same thing… Just like how "mankind" includes women, and gentlemen, when we say ladies, we mean you, too!)

It’s true that Canada is a beautiful spiritual country, a land where if we had written the story, the holy spirit would be not a dove, but a great blue heron; and the rock upon which we built our house a beautiful piece of Canadian shield with a red pine tree growing from it. This is Canada, the country where your dog gets a free timbit at the Tim Horton’s drive through, the country who answers Santa’s mail, for heaven’s sake, as long as you get the postal code right HO HO HO.

But this is Canada, where when the CBC holds a contest to come up with an expression for Canada similar to "As American as apple pie" the winning entry is "As Canadian as possible under the circumstances." Writer Margaret Atwood says that the dominant theme of Canadian life is "survival." There’s a rallying cry for you! I know life can be hard in this tough land, but is that really the best we can do? When I was a hospital chaplain, "failure to thrive" was a euphemism for having (as we also say up the valley) "one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel." It’s barely surviving. Is that who we are, more importantly, who we want to be?

On top of that, we’re Unitarian. And I want to tell you a story that illustrates what I believe has stood between our religion’s worthy goals and the kind of vitality of which Tom Harpur speaks.

Once upon a time a young Rabbi was called to a new congregation. During the Friday service, half the congregation stood for prayers and half remained seated; with both sides shouting that theirs was the true tradition. Nothing the young Rabbi did could break the impasse, so finally, in desperation, he sought out the 90 year old Rabbi who had been a founding member of the synagogue.

"So tell me," he pleaded, "Is it the tradition for the congregation to stand during the prayers?" "No," answered the old Rabbi. "Ah, so then it is the tradition to sit during the prayers?" "No," answered the old Rabbi. "Well," the young man responded, "what we have now is complete chaos! Half the people stand and shout, the other half sit and yell." "Ah, Yes" said the old Rabbi "That is our tradition!"

Too long, too long, people - as Unitarians has this been our tradition… and too long as religious people, has this been our tradition, and too long – My God, how long, since the beginning of time – has this been our human tradition? Absolutely no later than now must we seek a new way… we owe it to the world to start a new tradition…because O Siem, we are one family, we sing with one voice, we gather under one sky and look up at the same stars.

Do you remember the first time you saw that incredible picture of the world taken from the moon or space? Everyone is in the picture! The photographer didn’t even have to say "OK, guys, squeeze in." We’re all in it. People, now is the time when we must meet each other beyond the field of right and wrong. The fate of our world and our planet depends on it. This kind of radical vision, radical love was best expressed for me in the words of Bill Laferla of this congregation, words I find so moving - who endured with good nature, as he said, years of being our "token gay" male…. When we were walking our church through the steps of becoming a Welcoming Congregation Bill said "We have to make room for the people who are still uncomfortable with me." That is the place we need to meet.

Our meeting this weekend is one way of meeting there. As Canadian UUs, gathered here at our National Conference, welcoming friends from far away… we have come from across the country to form "One Warm Line" like the Stan Rogers song says, "through a land so wild and savage."

And our religion chooses to bend that warm line into a circle that expands ever outward, including all who would share in a vision of One World… because you see, it doesn’t interest me whether you are a fellowship of 50 or a church of 500…it doesn’t interest me whether you are old or young… and it sort of doesn’t interest me whether you are a Unitarian or a Universalist, a Christian, a Pagan or a Humanist, a Muslim, a Buddhist or Jew, and it doesn’t interest me whether you call it God or Goddess, Spirit of Life, Human Conscience, Mother Earth or the Universe… I just want to know how you are going to stand in the service of something greater than yourself, and make your life matter… I just want to know (like Mary Oliver) "what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life."

A. Powell Davies, the minister of All Souls church, our congregation in Washington DC said in a sermon once: "Do you belong to a religion that says that humankind is not divided, except by ignorance and prejudice and hate; the religion that sees humankind as naturally one and waiting to be spiritually united; the religion that proclaims an end to all exclusions – and declares a brotherhood and sisterhood unbounded! The religion that knows we shall never find the fullness of the wonder and the glory of life until we are ready to share it, that we shall never have hearts big enough for the love of God until we have made them big enough for the worldwide love of one another.

As you have listened to me, have you thought perchance that this is your religion? If so, do not congratulate yourself. Stop long enough to recollect the miseries of the world in which you live; the fearful cruelties, the enmities, the hate, the bitter prejudices, the need of such a world for such a faith. And if you can still say that this of which I have spoken is your faith, then ask yourself this question: What are you doing with it?

UU Edward Everett Hale said "I am only one. But still I am one. Je ne suis que moi, une suele personne. Mais quand meme, je suis une personne. I cannot do everything. Je ne peux pas tout faire. But still I can do something. Mais je peux quand meme faire quelque chose. And because I cannot do everything… Et parce que je ne peux pas tout faire… I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. Je ne refuserai pas de faire ce que je peux faire."

As Canadian Unitarians, we are a statistically small group of people. In fact, we are tiny. OK, actually, you need an electron microscope to see what we are doing most of the time. But that is no excuse in the world of faith, which is after all an ephemeral endeavour; I know it disappears like the water on the road along the Trans-Canada Highway; the nearer you try to get, the less you can see it, but that does not matter. Things like love and justice, hope and meaning cannot be measured on any scale yet invented. We cannot do everything, but we can do some things, and because we cannot do everything, we cannot refuse to do the things we can do.

Lieutenant Romeo Dallaire (who knows a thing or two about what you can and can’t do) said when he spoke here in Hamilton… that we have a unique role as Canadians to be a Middle Power… it’s not an extravagant claim, but there is resolve and strength, humility and grace, flexibility and persuasion in being a Middle Power. We are not burdened by the costs (fiscal and otherwise) of being a superpower, nor are we under-resourced like peoples struggling to survive. We have middle power as Canadians and we have it as Unitarian Universalists – and it is the responsibility to do that one thing we can do.

We begin by claiming our power as Canadians and as Unitarians… and we do that by not playing small, by starting a new tradition. Marianne Williamson says ""Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure… We are all meant to shine, as children do…It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. Your playing small doesn't serve the world." Our playing small as a religion doesn’t serve the world. So we need to dream bigger dreams if we want to really "be the change we want to see." What does your congregation need to do to dream big dreams for its ministry? And who and what are standing in the way, and what do you need to do to change that?

The world needs our help, because it is a strange place these days. Maybe it always was, I don’t know, but it seems even stranger these days. It’s a strange world for people who value the democratic process; a world where we voted to keep our country together with an overwhelming 50.6 % victory, and ten years later…support has swelled to a tie! A world where the one with the least votes gets to be President of the most powerful country in the world, and 5 years later opts out of every peacemaking body and covenant we have - the United Nations, the International Court, The Kyoto Accord – and still claims to have the monopoly on democracy, peace and freedom in the world.

This is not the freedom to which our values speak - our religious values – all of the religious peoples of the world’s values. True freedom is freedom from hunger, freedom from exploitation, freedom from isolation, freedom from poverty, freedom from fear. These freedoms comprise our religious vision of a world made fair, with all her people one.

This is a strange world for people who value living together in peace with their neighbours of every stripe, glorying in natural and human diversity, marveling at difference with the curiosity and joy of a child. I remember a few years back a wonderful bumper sticker that said "My karma ran over your dogma!" I thought that’s the way the world was going. But no, it seems that somehow the dogma is running over the karma again. Theocracies are popping up here and here, …down there, and I don’t mean hell (south of here, but still north of hell) - where our good- hearted UU friends are often wringing their hands…saying what one thing can we do in this place, in this time?

There’s a culture of fear afoot in this world that wants to unlearn every good lesson, undo every tie that binds, loosen the threads that hold us together, destroy every bridge we’ve built. Your world needs you to hold out something different, shining, resilient. "Courage my friends," said Tommy Douglas – it is not too late to make a better world." This is the reason of cities, of homes, of assemblies in the houses of worship.

I know you are only one, but if you ever doubt the impact that one independent-minded, stubborn, eccentric human being can have in this world, think of Lotta Hitchmanova, or Tommy Douglas, (who was responsible for Universalist health care – thank you Tommy!) think of Terry Fox, or the lone student in Tiannamen Square facing down the tank; think of Jesus of Nazareth, or Nellie McClung, (who made me a person, thank you Nellie!) Think of Bonnie Cappucino, or for that matter think of Chuck Cadman, next time you say to yourself "But I am only one…."

Do the one thing you can do, or even as Eleanor Roosevelt said, sometimes you must do the thing you think you cannot do.

I don’t know what your one thing is; but that’s your job, that’s your one thing - to figure it out.

And this Unitarian community exists to companion you while you find out what it is. And even if you’ve already done a lot, I’m here to remind you as a wise one once said "If you ask me when your task on earth is finished, the answer is – if you’re alive, it isn’t."

I don’t know what your one thing is. Maybe like Susan Walsh, it’s visiting Ethiopia, Mali or Bangladesh to put your cherished values into action one person, one farm, one clinic at a time. Maybe it’s trying to sew the world’s longest rainbow banner and sending it on a bus all the way from Calgary, and carrying it like the ribbon of grace and affirmation that it is, and laying it down with the preciousness with which we hold each other.

Maybe it’s singing your heart out at a coffee house, or connecting with your Unitarian brothers and sisters from Budapest, Boston, or Cuba, or reaching out to your interfaith neighbours across the street to say "Isn’t there more among us than between us?" Isn’t it one God, one world, one light shining through all our windows, one source of Love?

I don’t know exactly what justice and equity look like where you live, but you do. I just know that the Cree of Northern Quebec and the Innu of Labrador, the Iranian Doctor driving cab in Toronto to feed his family…the aboriginal community in Saskatoon, and the women of Vancouver’s East Side, are in need of it, and if that’s where you live, making justice there could be your one thing.

Maybe it’s a very small thing, a tiny random act of kindness or senseless act of beauty that will make all the difference in someone’s life – and you may never even know how or why, because we’re all just passing it around anyway, and it doesn’t matter, except that you do it. There IS more love somewhere; if we create it, we will find it.

Emily Dickinson who lived her whole life circumscribed by the boundaries of home, garden and church, wrote: "If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Into his nest again, I shall not live in vain."

I don’t know what it is you need to do; I only know that we need each other to get through this life, because it’s a wild ride; life is a wild ride. It takes you from the sublime to the ridiculous, from the sacred to the mundane, often in dizzying order, and you know exactly what I mean, those of you who stood in silence a few minutes ago, and those who didn’t. We live and reason between a world of order and chaos, a world that’s messy and frayed and torn around the edges, and you never know what is around the corner. You lose your job, you lose your way, you lose your mind… you find a friend, you find hope, you find a lump…you try your hardest and fail, and are dealt the unthinkable diagnosis, the irreparable tear, the seemingly endless defeat.

But somehow, somehow, some radical Love finds you in your family of friends, in your spiritual home, in the world community and calls to you, and because you cannot do everything,

you cannot refuse to do the thing you can do.

We UUs do not claim to know the answers to life’s most perplexing questions, or as I say to my Christian colleagues in my local clergy group "Hey, we could all be working for a boss who doesn’t exist!" Or maybe not, you know. But the good news of this faith is worth sharing with the world… the good news that everyone’s love is worth celebrating, that people are essentially good, that a spiritual mosaic is more beautiful than a spiritual monolith… the good news that all people on this earth are seeking the same truth - seeking that One Truth that both transcends and includes all truths – that it is not only found on the cross, by zam zam or under the Bodhi tree, but in every human heart and in every particle of the universe..

When we unwind the warm line we have formed this weekend, and you go back to your people, and look for that Blue Heron heading out over open water, I hope you will take with you a radical hope, a radical vision, a radical love for this faith of ours and for this world. I hope that you promise to do the one thing that you and your people can do.

UU Minister Ralph Waldo Emerson said… "To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded." When all the people of the world join in this song – that’s when we’ll be free. So may it be, and Amen.