There are times in our lives when it's helpful to pause and take stock. Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living; Emerson told us to pass our lives through the refining fire of thought. But how often do we step back and reflect on our lives? When do we ever get the time?

I teach a class on prayer here at the church, and in that class I teach a prayer that encourages this discipline of reflection. It's called the "prayer of examen." It's a simple prayer, usually prayed at night; you can sneak it in just before "Now I lay me down to sleep. ..."

It's really a guided meditation of your day from the moment you woke up until the present, but during the meditation you're supposed to notice particular things about your day: When were you grateful? When did you feel tinglingly alive? When did you feel disconnected and shut down? Was the work you accomplished this day fulfilling and meaningful? What about your interactions with loved ones and colleagues? Did you treat others as people of worth and dignity, as children of God? Or did you treat them as means to an end? When did you catch a flash of grace this day, and when did you experience its opposite?

These are the kinds of questions the prayer asks and then, after you've taken yourself through the whole day, to complete the prayer, you do three things. You give thanks for the gifts of the day; you forgive what needs to be forgiven for the day and, as you whisper your 'amen' you commit to begin again in love.

Implicit in a prayer like this is a belief central to Unitarian Universalism that amidst the stuff of our daily lives we can encounter the sacred. It's a faith that we can come face-to-face with divinity on our lunch break and that revelation can occur sometimes on the subway home from work. It all depends on how you see your day. What I've discovered is that when practiced regularly, this prayer can dramatically affect the quality of intention that we bring to our living. I commend it to you.

If you can't find time to do it daily, perhaps you can do what Robert Fulghum does. Every once in awhile when he needs a little perspective, this popular author and Unitarian minister will drive out to a hilltop cemetery where he has bought his burial plot. He brings a little folding chair with him and he sets it up right on the little piece of land where he's going to be buried one day and there, in close proximity to his morality, he takes stock of his life. He looks back on time that's past and forward to the future and makes sure that his life is properly ordered given the precious little time we are given. He calls this his ritual of reckoning.

Five years ago this month, you invited me to be your Senior Minister and a lot has happened over those five years. It seemed to me that now might be as good an opportunity as ever for us to do a little reckoning of our own, to look back on where we've been over the last years together so that we might better focus on where we're going as a community of faith.

I wondered, as I prepared for this sermon, if I were to close my eyes and prayer and pray my own prayer of examen for the last five years and ask the questions that I asked earlier in this sermon, what moments would jump out at me as moments infused with grace and with holiness? And so I did that in preparation for this sermon. I prayed that prayer. I want to share with you some of the things that came to me in that prayer.

The first thing that came to me and this was probably no surprise, are the events of September 11, 2001. That was the day I learned what church was for. As people learned of the news and were released from work, many stopped by the church -- remember public transportation was shut down; people were walking home, so people were coming down Sixteenth Street, stopping at the church -- and asked how they could help. We decided to have a service that night and folks got on the phone and called everyone in the church directory. (It was a lot smaller back then, but it was still a lot of names to get through.) They called everyone in the church directory to check in on them, to invite them to the service that night. And that night we lit candles here in the darkness and sang "Finlandia," the song of peace. [Singing] "This is my song, oh God of all the nations, a song of peace for lands afar and mine. ..." That day I learned what years of seminary failed to fully teach me, that a church is a community in which people care for one another and for the world, a community that lifts up the possibility of life in the face of death, the possibility of peace in the face if violence and war.

That memory led to another -- a blurry memory of the many peace marches that we've marched in over the last few years. I don't remember which march it was but I distinctly remember a little band of us marching down Pennsylvania Avenue, singing "Spirit of Life." I remember thinking that that seemed a more appropriate expression of peace than all of the shouting that was going on that day.

The other thing that came to me in my prayer were a lot of memorial services and the faces of those whom we remembered at those services. I can't even begin to name them all, but I remembered Roy Atherton and David Corprew and Bob Myers and Anne Casey Bryant. Louie Russell. And as painful as those services are, I've come to cherish the memorial services that we celebrate at All Souls. I've come to see them as one of the most significant expressions of our faith for not only are they beautiful expressions of our love for the deceased, but inasmuch as they tell the stories of lives well lived, they bear eloquent testimony to the things in life that we value most. If I were an archaeologist and wanted to go back and understand what a people loved most, I'd read the eulogies and I'd look at the orders of memorial services. They are our rituals of reckoning.

I remembered lots of times as well when a laugh or a smile was an instrument of grace in our time together. I thought of the Christmas pageant and how the heavenly host, played each year by the infants in our nursery, how each year they're late for their cue. I've come to count on it now.

Three years ago, we started a church retreat at the YMCA camp on the Chesapeake. We wanted a place for folks to get together outside of church and get to know one another better. My job every year is to organize the intergenerational water balloon toss, where we pair a child in the church with an adult who is not their parent so they can get to know one another a little bit. I'll never forget the first year, when Henry Tate, for many years our head usher, was paired up with a little five-year-old boy. The two of them were among the finalists in the balloon toss. On the last toss of the tournament, the little boy reared back and threw the balloon at Henry who took it right in the face. The balloon exploded and Henry was soaking wet, and what I remember is how this five-year-old boy and this seventy-something-year-old man stood side-by-side and laughed and laughed and laughed.

I remember fondly some of the earliest baby dedications at the church, but now when I see those children and notice how old they are, I suffer from a different feeling. Really, there are too many memories to recount. That's why you're supposed to do this prayer every day and not every five years.

Knocking on doors to organize tenants. Doing get-out-the-vote in minority communities in Tampa during the 2004 election. Taking a silent meditation walk around Walden Pond with the youth group. Watching the Kuumba Players in the first production of "Free to be You and Me." And then just countless moments here in this sanctuary when the music in this church has made me want to shout "Halleluiah."

Were there any difficult memories? Oh yeah. The church's rapid growth has created a heavy strain on the staff and on our resources. We've had our difficulties because of some of that. And there have been conflicts about lots of things. There've been money shortages some years, but fewer than in most churches. It's about what I bargained for.

Why don't you just take a moment now, though, and do your own prayer of examen. Close your eyes just briefly and pick out the one or two experiences in your history with this church that stand out for you. Just reflect on them for a moment; see what you learned. [Silence] And then, as we always do at the end of this prayer, let us give thanks for those things for which we are grateful, let us forgive all that needs forgiving, so that we may begin again in love.

With that affirmation of beginning again in love, we are brought to look ahead to our future together. I want to share with you a little bit of where we are headed as a congregation so that we're all on the same page.

Some of you have had a chance to read about some of these things in the newsletter, but then, what I've come to realize is that not everyone reads their newsletter, so you have to say things over and over again. So let me briefly share with you some of the places that I think we're going. These are visions that come out of now a year-long process of planning that's gone on here at the church with the Long-Range Planning Committee and the Board. I want to just lift up some of the highlights.

The first thing that we are committed to as we go forward is to take seriously our name, All Souls. Now this means a couple of things. Let me tell you a story. You don't have the same view that I do on Sunday mornings at church. Most of you are looking forward, but I get to look toward the back and here's what I've seen on a few Sundays. Right after 11:00 when we're singing the opening hymn, or just after that when everyone's sat down again, I've watched people come up the front steps of our church and I've seen them get to the back door and look in. They might even crack the door open and peek around a little bit, and they can't find a place to sit.

This is the most heartbreaking thing for a minister to see. Then I've watched them turn around and walk back down the steps of the church and go home. I've seen long-time members do this as well as visitors. On many Sundays we are overly crowded in church. I'm looking, for instance, to the side pews here and noticing that there are a bunch of people I can't see because they're right behind the pillars. There are lots of obstructed-view seats here in the All Souls sanctuary.

In order that we will not turn away those who seek the ministry of this church, in the fall of 2007 we will be adding another Sunday morning service to our Sunday line-up. We'll have two services on Sunday morning to accommodate all of those who wish to seek our ministry. I made a promise when, after having been turned away from a bunch of churches myself, that I would never participate in a church that turned people away. If we are to be true to that promise -- if I'm to be true to that promise and we're to be true to our name -- then this is something that we must do. That's the fall of 2007; we're giving you lots of time to transition and get used to this idea and get ready to make changes.

Some people are concerned, though, that as we grow in numbers, we will lose our sense of community. That's something that we hear a lot. So something else that we are committed to, friends, is that as we grow in numbers we will grow in our ability and opportunity to find intimate community here at the church. We're going to expand the number of covenant groups that we have in the church, small groups of 10 to twelve people who gather together for spiritual growth and fellowship. We're going to expand the number of adult spiritual development classes that we have. We're going to expand the number of opportunities for you to find community here at the church even as we grow larger. I want to assure you of that. The research says that, ironically, as churches grow bigger, people actually find more opportunities for intimacy in the church.

Sometimes though, the barriers to the vision of All Souls are not just physical. Here I want to speak to our vision of building a multi-racial, multi-cultural, diverse community at All Souls. A multi-racial identity is central to the identity of All Souls Church. One of the things that happened when the church hired me as their minister, it was like, okay, now you've got a white guy who's up here preaching on most Sundays and we're going to have to be really intentional about what it means to build a multi-racial, multi-cultural church here, week after week. This is something that we are committed to, going forward, something that we are going to devote a lot of resources and time to, to continue to build the multi-racial, multi-cultural character of this congregation.

You know, we're part of a denomination for better or for worse that is historically a white denomination. And so we need to go the extra mile to reach out and welcome all peoples to this church. And that is something that I am absolutely committed to doing. We've got a group at the church that, taking a phrase from Dr. King, they call themselves the "Building the Beloved Community Team." They're looking at a range of possibilities and opportunities for growing our diversity at All Souls. I invite you, if this is something that you're passionate about, to join them in their work.

The numbers are against us, let me say, in this regard. Six percent of congregations in the United States are multi-racial congregations. Six percent. Eleven o'clock is still the most segregated hour in America. And many of those six percent are Catholic congregations; it's even less among Protestant congregations. This will be our most significant challenge, but it's a challenge that we must be committed to and, with faith and commitment, I believe that we can achieve that goal.

Compared to building a multi-racial church, the next big issue and the last that I'll mention today that faces us, seems easy. We need to renovate our building. I know this isn't scintillating sermon stuff right here, but I had to take a little bit of time to say this, folks, so, for those of you who are visiting today or are newcomers, I'm sorry for the housekeeping that I'm doing right now. Every once in awhile, the preacher needs to do this. We need to renovate our building. Our building is inaccessible to those who are disabled, to those who are elderly even. Each week, I watch people struggle to climb up the front steps of this church. We have no elevator, no way to get from floor to floor.

Our church, in places, is dingy and unwelcoming and there's not much we can do about it by just cleaning because it's old. And frankly, our children inhabit some of the most dingy and unwelcoming places in our church. Some of you may not have gotten down to the lower level recently, but it needs some work. Just about all of the systems -- plumbing, electrical, whatever other systems there are; they didn't hire me to know that! -- whatever the other systems are, I'm sure they need to be replaced! 'Cause they're old!

Last month, some of the members of the board, and some of the members of our Development Ministry Team and I met with a capital campaign consultant, to just get a sense of what that planning process might look like. It was a very helpful meeting and I want to let you know that we're starting down that road of planning that capital campaign. I think it's going to be a couple of years still before we ask you to support that capital campaign, but the plans are going to start happening and you're going to be invited to participate in those plans, because we need to shape the future of this building together.

So, let me just recap. Two services, so that we do not turn away people from the ministry of this church. A growing program of small group opportunities so that we do not lose a sense of community and intimacy as our church grows in numbers. A commitment and strategy to continue to build a multi-racial, multi-cultural, diverse congregation here at All Souls and a capital campaign to renovate our building.

This is a lot of change. It's left some of us feeling a little anxious right now. But I believe that if we keep our eyes on the future and on that vision, that we will achieve all that we set out to achieve. Because really friends, the points of some long-range plan are not really what's important here. What's important here is the vision. As I see it, the big picture, the vision, is this: We live in a world where racial prejudice, where ethnic hatred, where bigotry and prejudice of so many kinds are dividing our city, dividing our nation and dividing our world. The world needs more communities that can model how we can come together in community across our differences. The world needs more communities like this.

And furthermore, we live in a world today where religious fundamentalism, where religions that worship a God of some souls, not all souls, are threatening to tear us apart, using God to divide the human family, rather than to bring us together. We see all across our nation and our world where fundamentalism threatens peoples' lives, peoples' sense of dignity. We need to lift up to the world this vision of a God who calls all souls, "mine."

Let me just finish then with one final story. This is one of the last images that came to me during my prayer of examen for the last five years. And again, this vision is taking me back to the fall of 2001, to a Sunday morning here in church, after September 11, after the anthrax scare, but right in the middle of it all. And for our closing hymn one Sunday, we sang the song, "Glory, Glory Halleluiah." You know the song, "Glory, glory halleluiah, since I lay my burdens down. Feel like shouting halleluiah since I lay my burden down. Feel like dancing, halleluiah, since I lay my burden down. Life is sweeter, so much sweeter since I lay my burden down." And that Sunday we sang that song like we'd never sung it before. The drum set was going and everyone was clapping because we really needed, that Sunday, to lay our burdens down.

After that service was over I went down to the front and I gave the benediction and I sat down in the front pew next to a little girl from the Children's Choir which had sung earlier that day, and I listened to John play the postlude. During the postlude, the little girl bent over and whispered into my ear, "Rob, what's a burden?" And I said "Sweetheart, it's a little bit like a care or a worry, something that weighs you down. She nodded her head and turned and whispered to a little boy next to her, "It's like a worry." And then he passed it on because none of the children had known what a burden is.

That was a crystallizing moment for me, because it won't be long before our children and our children's children know all too well what a burden is. And when that time comes, it will be our job to pass on to them a faith that will help them carry that burden, help ease its load, and maybe even sometimes help them lay their burden down. What we are doing today, friends, is not just for us. It's not about me or you, or just all of us here today. This church is about the two centuries of history that came before us. And it's about the generations that will come after us. We have been given a great gift. We must be stewards of that gift, passing on to our children and our grandchildren a church and a faith that is worthy of the name, All Souls.

Amen.