Before I begin my sermon, I would like to offer you a tiny cup of lavender potion. Please hold your potion until I direct you to sip it. We will sip potion four times this morning. The ingredients are natural ­ yogurt and grape juice mostly. If you have any food allergies, each potion passer has a list of all the ingredients, and can give you the list. I ask you not to sample the potion until the time comes for us all to sample it together. Some of you may ask, "Why a potion? Why something thought to be medicinal, magic, or poisonous?" I can think of several reasons ­ perhaps to turn this sermon into "performance art." Perhaps to offer those among us who live too much in our minds a reminder that we have bodies, too. Perhaps, to be playful. Perhaps because I have fallen under the spell of Harry Potter, about whom I'll speak in a moment.

This morning I address endings, feeling like "there is nothing left to hold on to." Endings are the beginnings of transitions. The best book I know of on transitions is this one: Transitions, Making Sense of Life's Changes, Strategies for coping with the difficult, painful, and confusing times in your life. It was written by William Bridges twenty years ago. It remains a classic. If you are interested in reading this book, you may borrow or buy a copy after the service. If you're buying the book, please put $14 in the basket. If you're borrowing the book, please put a label from the basket on the cover of the book.

I speak of endings today because I have resigned as New Congregation Minister of Community Unitarian Universalist Church. I sent a letter to each member and friend regularly attending church on Thursday. If you haven't already read my letter or if the informal communication channels haven't gotten the news to you yet, I apologize for the shock of hearing this news from the pulpit. Perhaps you may even join me in feeling teary. If so, there are tissues on the stand with the books. You're welcome to use them.

If you're brand new to Community Church, let me give you a brief synopsis. This congregation began as an idea in 1996. It became a reality in 1997, when it began offering public worship and other programs. In December, 1997 I was appointed New Congregation Minister by the Unitarian Universalist Association, and my appointment was affirmed by all but one of the members of Community Church who voted that first Sunday of December, two years ago. My partner, Patricia, and I moved from Seattle to Daytona Beach in January, 1998. I began my ministry here two years ago on February 1.

So, dear visitors, I speak today of specific transitions ­ this congregation's and mine. But in reality our experiences are an example of a process common to us all. As you listen you will notice that the same stages apply to many transitions you have experienced or are experiencing in your life.

So, let us speak of endings.

Last month I read the first book in the Harry Potter series, written by J.K. Rowling. It's called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I wanted to find out for myself what all the fuss is about. I found it a delightful, imaginative read. I have no more concern about children trying to cast magic spells after reading a Harry Potter book than I do their trying to walk on water after having read Matthew 14, or Mark or John 6 ­ the Christian Bible passages where Jesus asks his disciples to walk on water. I am grateful to Harry for popping into my life right at this point. My hope is that Harry Potter may supply some gentle humor to this otherwise sad occasion.

Of course, by introducing Harry Potter into this sermon I have further complicated a sermon which was perhaps already complicated enough. Let me explain a little bit about Harry ­ briefly. Harry is an orphan wizard being reluctantly raised by his abusive aunt and uncle and tormented by his older cousin. Happily for Harry ­ and his readers ­ we learn in Chapter Four that Harry is to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a boarding school. If that were the end of it, the book wouldn't have seventeen chapters and several sequels. At Hogwarts Harry has challenges that far surpass those of his early childhood, both in their imaginative character and in their potential for danger. Therein lies the tale.

As Harry is to discover, as William Bridges defines, and as I said when I began, every transition begins with an ending.

Bridges writes that there are four aspects to endings: disengagement, disidentification, disenchantment, and disorientation. He compares his four "dis-es" with the five-stage grief sequence Elisabeth Kubler-Ross identified in her terminally ill patients: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. One can begin anywhere and proceed through the rest in any fashion, perhaps circling back to certain ones several times. However unless one experiences all of them, one doesn't truly end, and, therefore, can't truly begin again. So let us take each of Bridges' "dis-es" and apply them to our present situation.

Disengagement

Disengagement is a frequent theme in stories of the ancient and modern world. Jesus had his forty-day journey in the wilderness. Harry Potter leaves his foster home to go to Hogwarts. I am leaving Community Church. To disengage means to break with a familiar social matrix. It is the part of an ending where we most experience loss. What's interesting is that even if these losses were anticipated, they are still losses to be grieved. Each attachment we have gives us something, and when we no longer have these attachments we lose something.

While living with his aunt and uncle, Harry Potter never had to prove himself. At Hogwarts he was expected to play a sport while flying on a broomstick, help hatch a dragon, and foil the evil plot of the sinister Voldemort.

As minister and congregation we have provided for one another. Our disengagement means that you shall have to prove yourselves in ways you haven't before, and I shall have to prove myself in ways I haven't before.

At this time of disengagement I don't know what the future holds for me. I do know that I shall feel the loss of the certainty of this ministry to which I've given a large part of my life. When I have awakened in the morning I have not had to wonder what I would do with my day. I have never had to wonder whom or what I served. You provided the flesh and blood answer. You have been the mirror that has reflected back to me my progress as a minister.

For me, now all that has changed. And also for you.

The end of our partnership means the end of my involvement in your lives. In another congregation, shortly after I arrived to serve as minister I received a telephone call from a long absent member. His wife was dying of cancer. Would I come to visit them and help them plan her memorial service. There was no question for this man whom to call in this instance ­ his minister ­ even if that minister were someone he had never met. When the Minister (with a capital "m") leaves, whom to call is not so obvious.

The end of our partnership leaves a Sunday morning vacuum. Instead of 20 Sundays a year, the Worship Committee will be responsible for 52 Sundays a year. Not an easy task, even for a well-organized and well-staffed committee.

Outer change is often a signal of inner change as well. Disengagement ­ the disappearance of an old system ­ means that old ways of knowing ourselves gives way to the new. As long as we are together, as long as we operate out of the "cue-system" we have created together to tell us who we are and how we shall behave, we will not discover alternative ways of knowing ourselves, alternative identities.

And so disengagement brings the loss of a familiar social matrix, the grief process with all its stages, the need to prove ourselves anew, the loss of certainty, the loss of our dependable relationship, and more work for all of you, especially the Worship Committee. Let us take our first sip of our potion -- to disengagement which holds the possibility of a new way of knowing ourselves.

Disidentification

William Bridges calls disidentification the inner side of the disengagement process. As Harry Potter disengages from his foster home, he also disidentifies as poor, picked-on, much abused Harry.

Social identities are important to us. Many of us use nouns to identify ourselves ­ teacher, student, minister. Some of us use modifiers ­ divorced, single, married, partnered. Some of us have what Bridges calls "participial" identities ­ mine are reading, knitting, writing.

My professional identity has been New Congregation Minister of Community Unitarian Universalist Church in Daytona Beach, Florida. As I enter my transition I lose this identity.

For some of you and for some of the world, Community Unitarian Universalist Church in Daytona Beach, Florida has been identified as the congregation served by the Reverend Barbara Morgan. As you enter your transition you lose this identity.

It is for you to discover your new identity, just as I have to discover my new identity. No one can do it for us. In the meantime we suffer the discomfort of social limbo ­ a church without a minister! a minister without a church! Fortunately for you, in Unitarian Universalist circles it is not unusual for a congregation not to have a minister. In the Florida district, nearly 60% of our congregations are served by ministers. Of these, three quarters have full-time professional leadership and the remainder are served by their ministers on a part-time basis. More than 40% of all congregations in the UUA Florida district do not have professional religious leadership. So you will be in good company. And remember these figures. When your Baptist or Lutheran or Catholic neighbor asks you why this congregation calls itself a church when it has no minister, say to them, "It's not unusual in our religion for congregations to be lay-lead. In fact close to half of all the Unitarian Universalist congregations in Florida have no ministers."

A minister without a pulpit or a congregation is another matter. Hard as it has been to acclimate myself to being a resident of Daytona Beach, it has been much easier to think of myself as your minister. I grieve the loss of my identity as your minister at the same time that I look forward to many exciting and new possibilities.

As William Bridges says, "[I]t is important to remember the significance of disidentification and the need to loosen the bonds of who we think we are so that we can go through a transition toward a new identity." Like the sign on the saloon out west says, "I ain't what I ought to be, and I ain't what I'm gonna to be. But I ain't what I was!" It's time for a second sip ­ to Disidentification!

Disenchantment

Remember when you discovered there is no Santa Claus? Or that your parents sometimes do things they tell you not to do? Or when you discovered that your best friend, or your spouse, or your lover was not who you thought they were? That's disenchantment.

As unsure as Harry Potter was about his ability to succeed at Hogwarts ­ or even to find Hogwarts ­ he was definitely disenchanted with his foster family! Who wouldn't be willing to trade a flying broomstick for a closet under the stairs!

Some Community Church members have been disenchanted for some time. Several members have resigned over the last two years ­ four of them in the last month. When Bill and Margaret Bailey resigned, we lost our oldest member ­ Bill Bailey. When Joe and Mary Claire Lennartz left, taking their children with them, we lost our youngest child ­ Connor Lennartz.

However simple and self-evident the aspect of disenchantment seems, it is more complicated than it looks on the surface. William Bridges puts it this way:

The lesson of disenchantment begins with the discovery that in order to change ­ really to change, and not just to switch positions ­ you must realize that some significant part of your old reality was in your head, not out there. The flawless parent, the noble leader, the perfect wife, the utterly trustworthy friend are an inner cast of characters looking for actors to play the parts.

You were looking for the perfect church, and you found Community Church. So you called Community Church "perfect". In truth, Community Church never was, is not now, and never will be perfect.

You were looking for a wise minister, and you chose me. So you called me "wise." In truth, I never was, am not now, and never will be constantly wise. I may have my wise moments, but I also have my inept, foolish, and awkward moments as well.

My disenchantment focuses on the notion that all conflicts can be resolved. I forget that attempts to resolve conflicts can bring irreparable damage. It is with a true sense of disenchantment ­ a knowing that my staying could inflict more destruction than can be repaired ­ that I resign as your minister.

Let us "look below the surface of what has been thought to be so." To Disenchantment!

Disorientation

We live in four dimensions ­ we live in time and in space. At a time of ending we become disoriented both in time and in space. Bridges describes this aspect of ending as feeling like "shipwrecked sailors on some existential atoll." We don't know where we are and we don't know if we're ever going to go somewhere ever again.

For Harry Potter, finding Platform Nine and Three-quarters, said by all responsible people not to exist at all, became a real test. To suddenly be presented with all sorts of things he wanted to learn collapsed what used to seem like endless days to him into minutes.

When I move out of my office, you will have an empty room, a clear indicator that you have no minister. As critically short as your storage capacity is, I urge you not to turn what was once a closet back into a closet again. Let the emptiness of the space speak to you, inform you, help you fathom the depths of this ending.

For me, Suite F at 1124 Beville Road will become off limits, rather than a place where I do my ministry. No longer will I answer the phone with a 26-syllable tongue twister. No more will I go through the familiar motions of tilting back my chair as I talk with you, either in person or on the phone ­ or as I read or think. I will never again explain to people that I work west of Office Depot, north of WalMart, and east of Shurgard, at the north end of the Nova Village parking lot, behind the Centerfold Lounge. I'll miss shocking people by alerting them to the reality that a church can survive and thrive within a long stone's throw of what some think of as a sinful place!

Our sense of time will be disoriented, too. We have no future together. We may each even wonder if we have a future separately. It's not for sure that I will continue in parish ministry. It's not for sure that this congregation will survive such a rocky start. Yet we each have gifts ­ gifts that will once again point to a future. But for us, this day, time has stood still, and we face emptiness. Bridges says,

The problem is not that we don't want to give up a job or a relationship, or that we can't let go of our identity or our reality; the problem is that before we can find a new something, we must deal with a time of nothing. And that prospect awakens old fears and all the old fantasies about death and abandonment.

A little later, when he describes the middle phase of a transition, called "the neutral zone," Bridges quotes Leo Tolstoy. It is from this passage that I have chosen the title of this sermon. "'I felt,' [Tolstoy] wrote, 'that something had broken within me on which my life had always rested, that I had nothing left to hold on to"

Your life and mine has not always rested on our relationship, yet our relationship has been a big part of my life and for some of you, yours too. Now that relationship is over.

Let us take our final drink ­ to Disorientation, that important feeling that reminds us we must first have nothing before we can have something new. To Disorientation!

Conclusion

If you have received a letter from me, I urge you to read it. It includes some important information you'll need in this transition. If you never received a copy or have misplaced your copy, there are extras at the front desk.

This sermon is the first of three sermons in a series. Next week I will talk about the Neutral Zone, and in my final sermon on January 30 I will speak of Beginnings. I will preach in DeLand on January 23. On February 6 and 13 I will visit the Church School. Effective February 14, Valentine's Day, I will no longer serve you as your Minister.

As we end this morning's exploration of Endings, I want to say thank you. You have taught me much, not the least of which is that for your church and my ministry to be saved, our relationship must die. It takes not just courage, but love to bring an end to our union. Love is powerful. To paraphrase J. K. Rowling's words, from the first Harry Potter book, to have been loved so deeply, even though the person or persons who loved us are gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in our very skins.