FLIPPING THE SCRIPT

The first time I ever came to Fremont was to buy a used car. It was an unseasonably hot spring day in 2008, and I was just wrapping up my ministerial internship at the First Unitarian Universalist Society in San Francisco, and getting ready to marry Nicole and move back east to the small town on Cape Cod where she was serving a UCC church. After running the numbers we determined that it would be only marginally more expensive for me to buy a car and haul my stuff back east than it would be for me to pay to have it all moved. Plus, I needed a car. So that day, as I pulled off of 880 South and onto Automall Parkway, I had nothing but Subarus on my mind.

As is often the case, I fell head over heels for the first car I saw, but in an attempt to at least appear level-headed, I resolved to drive around to a few other less-promising listings I had found earlier on Craig's List, for comparison's sake. I can't tell you the exact route I took, but I never strayed far from 880 in any direction, and the impression I had after this first foray in to Fremont left me underwhelmed. Just as a local friend of mine had joked when I told him my destination that day, it appeared to be a town made for the highway-bound consumer, made up solely of strip malls, big box stores and gas stations. I saw no culture, no local flavor, no neighborhoods, or signs of native life.

Fast forward two years, and I was finally in search for a congregation. As much as we loved our time back east, Nicole and I both agreed that the west coast was the place for us. So my search focused entirely on congregations in Washington, Oregon, California and Arizona. After sharing with my longtime mentor the list of congregations I had chosen to show interest in, she strongly encouraged me to go back through the list of congregations in search to see if there were any more I had unreasonably neglected.

As soon as she said that, one congregation in particular came to mind: Mission Peak UU. The truth was, the bay area was exactly where both Nicole and I wanted to be, but the only congregation searching at the time was in Fremont, that town I had confirmed for myself had nothing going for it. But my mentor is a wise woman, so I took her advice and decided to pretend that I knew nothing about the town and to do a little unbiased research. And, wow, am I ever glad I did!

I remember clearly the first thing I hit on in my google search. It was a link from the city's own home page and it was all about Lake Elizabeth and the surrounding Central Park. I remember this so clearly because it was in such contrast to the mental image I was carrying about Fremont, that it was all cement and strip malls. But this looked totally different. To begin with, it was clearly a huge open space, with grass and water and walking trails. But beyond that, it was obvious from the few pictures on this page that it was well used.

Buoyed by this new image, I continued to explore. Quickly I discovered another incredible piece of info on that city home page: by the metric of languages spoken in the home, Fremont CA is the most diverse city of any size in the entire world. Holy cow! I later learned that out of a population of around 220,000 people, Fremont counts 165 languages spoken in its homes. Considering that Queens NY, the city usually considered the world's most diverse, only has 135 languages spoke among its 2.2 million residents this statistic really becomes incredible.

Obviously you know now what happened. I saw enough from my online exploring to let the search team here know that I was interested. And when I came out to visit, I saw a very different town than the one I had thought I saw the first time without straying more than a few blocks from the highway. I took a hike at Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge and smelled the fresh air off the bay, I drove through Niles Canyon and saw the old railroad tracks, I ate incredible Indian, Mexican and of course Afghan food. I learned about the Niles neighborhood and its history with Charlie Chaplin and silent films. I watched Washington High School empty of students one day and marveled at the diversity I saw pouring out of those doors.

By the time I left, the script had been flipped. The place I had thought Fremont to be had been completely obliterated and replaced by this fascinating town that I wanted to know more about. And this was before I had really met any of you, the people who truly would convince me that I couldn't be luckier to end up anywhere else but right here at Mission Peak UU.

The truth is, so much of our life is just like my experience with Fremont. Many of us carry around what I call 'depleted stories.' These are stories that have cherry-picked the worst information out of a story and constructed a truth that is ignorant of any possible abundance. It is the ultimate glass-is-half-empty version of a story. We tell ourselves these stories all the time. A big part of what we have been able to shake free from this year at Mission Peak UU is a depleted version of our story. It had to do with a nice amount of money we were able to squirrel away into an account we called the "special fund". We watched it grow over several years through people's generosity from nothing to almost one hundred thousand dollars. It was like the opposite of what people expect. We had this huge wad of cash just burning a hole in our pocket, begging to be spent. All of this money had been given in such a way so that it could not be put towards normal operating expenses; it was expressly intended for doing something new and big out in the community. But, oddly enough, any time we got close to an idea of how to spend it, people quickly got intimidated by the idea of touching it.

Although we knew in our hearts that money was supposed to be spent, we couldn't do it. This summer, when myself, Rev. Barbara Meyers and several other leaders from this congregation headed to Sacramento for the Leap of Faith kick-off event, that money remained completely unspent. On the second day of that experience our leadership team was deep in conversation with the leadership team from our mentor congregation in Boulder CO when their minister Rev. Howell Lind said to us, "Are you afraid of spending that money because you know whatever you do wont be perfect?" And wooooosh! Like a pin-prick deflating a balloon, his question burst forth our collected anxiety over spending this money.

Never having been faced with anything like this before, we were sure we would mess it up somehow, and one hundred thousand dollars felt like a significant-sized opportunity to mess up. No one wanted to be responsible for such a disaster. We were living in a depleted story even though we were surrounded by abundance!

"But wait a second," Rev. Lind said. "What if there was no way you could screw this up? What if you are just telling yourselves the wrong story? You already have been given the trust, the honor of one hundred thousand dollars of people's precious treasure. That is the hard part. Unleashing that money on the world should be the fun and easy part." He reminded our Mission Peak UU leaders that they had been chosen by the congregation to lead. It sounds obvious, but it is hard when it comes to really new things like this. But they really heard Rev. Lind and took his words to heart. They started to tell a new story: we are doing this money a disservice by letting it sit in an account. This money was meant to help Mission Peak UU help the world. This money was given to be put into the world through outreach efforts, so let's do it.

Simply by changing the story they told themselves about that money, they changed the story here about leadership as well. Flipping the script on a depleted story and making into one of abundance is a powerful thing when it happens. Since that moment in August, we have boldly stepped into a big community garden project, partnering with the local Fremont non-profit organization LEAF, and we have hired a Outreach Coordinator to help this and other outward-focused projects become a reality. Our story of abundance is off and rolling.

This is an amazing example of what I spoke about last week in my sermon, proof that even on the system level, we can change the story we tell about ourselves and free ourselves to move into the future we long for. Now I want to invite you into a time of silent searching. I want to create some space and time for each of us to get quiet and centered and to see what comes up for us around this idea that we are each carrying depleted stories that we can transform into stories of abundance. So please get comfortable, and centered and take a few deep breaths and see what comes up for you.

[Sound of the bell]

As you come back, I want you to pair up with someone nearby and take a few minutes to check in about what came up for you. I will ding the bell and remind you to switch who is talking after a little while.

Does anyone want to share what came up for you?

These can be very powerful stories, and we are all holding them. Now today is also our canvass kick-off, which means the beginning of the time we spend offering some of our treasure to Mission Peak UU for the coming year. Of course, when we start to think about our own treasure and especially the idea of sharing it, it can be very easy to fall into the idea of scarcity, the depleted story we tell ourselves about our financial life. But the magic of spiritual community is what happens when we each share what we can, the way our generosity multiplies and grows into our dreams for the future. Obviously, some of us have more treasure to share, while others have more time or talent. We value everything that is shared to keep this community going and growing. But as you take some time on your own or with the person you make financial decisions with, to think about your pledge for the coming year, I invite you to take a bold step with your pledge to Mission Peak UU this year.

Of course I would never ask you to do something irresponsible for you or your family, but I would ask you to go a little farther than you have before. One of the most important ways to get grounded in what we have is to share it with others. I hope you have seen a lot in the past year here at Mission Peak UU to feel good about. We have some wonderful energy and momentum going. I hope we have a truly abundant canvass this year so we can keep doing that. We want to grow our Children's RE program, with more hours for our Director, and new curriculum and supplies. We want to continue to improve our worship experience, with a new musician and more fabrics and candles and lights. We want to build on the steps we have taken this year to grow out into the larger Tri-Cities community. There are so many ideas bubbling up all around. To keep all the wonderful things we have going while we also make room for new ideas and growth, it will take more generosity from you.

As you continue to explore your personal depleted stories and imagine how you may flip the script on them to abundance, I welcome you to make your commitment to Mission Peak UU a part of that as well.