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Holidays often mean gatherings of extended family. Sometimes this is great, other times it is a trial. At this time of year, friends and family get-together.

And I find myself agreeing with the 20^th century British playwright Dodie Smith: "The family, [is] that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor in our innermost hearts never quite wish to."

This time of year can be particularly difficult for single people, or for people who are far away from the familiar. People in college, people who have moved for a new job. You may be happy or sad, to be or not to be, with extended family.

Holidays are often a time of nostalgia. And frequently, the nostalgia doesn't actually hold up to scrutiny.

Gordon Rupp, President of Rice University and former Dean of Harvard Divinity School, warns against succumbing to powerful bouts of nostalgia. He says we idealize that wonderful bygone age where people knew each other. They had shared values. They trusted each other. They treated each other with respect.

Rupp reminds us those small communities were often narrow-minded. They insisted on conformity; had lots of conflict, struggle, and violence. To be blunt, he says, no idealized past age of intimate community ever existed. (Rupp, Commitment and Community (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 100).

But we also know that strong intimate, diverse, relationships nurture us and help us grow.

Until about 1965, the people of Roseto, a small town in the eastern part of Pennsylvania, seemed all but immune to heart disease. They smoked as much as the folks in nearby Bangor. They ate similar food, and they relied on the same doctors and hospitals. Yet their death rate from heart attacks was significantly lower.

Why? Roseto's most striking distinction was its tightknit social life. Founded in 1882 by southern Italian immigrants, it was full of three-generation households with strong commitments to church and family.

But when those traditions eroded in the 1960s, so did Roseto's health. By the mid-'70s, the residents were as mobile and anonymous as other Americans - and just as prone to heart disease. The Roseto effect had vanished.

In the olden days, you married the girl next door. Now, we don't even know the people next door. In the last 10 years I have married a lot of people. Some met in college; others met at a bar; still others met through a dating service or through a personal ad– in the newspaper, and now on the internet.

But someone named Craig came up with the idea that strangers with common interests might like to meet up, even if it wasn't for a "date."

There are giga-loads of people out there who are looking primarily for friendship, and they are aching for an end to their loneliness. That's why Craig has his List. It started in the San Francisco Bay area, but there is a St Louis web page, too.

So now, if you're looking for a companion to share a meal or a movie you can go online and find a friend — if you're on Craig's List. Craig's List is a Web site of free online classifieds with sections like Strictly Platonic, Activity Partners and Events. In these sections, people post messages like "Lunch anyone?" ... "Bored at work," "Dim Sum with travel lovers" ... and even "Looking for Best Friend."

"To read these queries is to realize how needy people are," writes Libby Copeland in The Washington Post, "even if they express it only under a cloak of Internet anonymity."

Is there no fate worse than being alone? She says that near midnight on a Saturday, a guy in Ashburn, Virginia, posts this online message on Craig's List: "Looking for some conversation to help pass the rest of the night." Wow.

So, if you desire companionship, you can get on Craig's list. But you might also consider Bill's list. What is Bill's list? Bill's list is the list of members and friends of Eliot Unitarian Chapel. Bill's List refers to William Greenleaf Eliot, after whom this church is named.

Last week, I was out at Mount Vernon, Illinois. And they have a small group of brand new Unitarians out there. About a eight of them I think. So, we talked about what makes Unitarian Universalism distinctive, and how to talk about your faith.

After the service, they asked me some questions. They want to know about marketing and advertising. I told them we didn't have much experience with that. They wanted to know whether or not to stress membership, should they make it a big deal? Or should they downplay it? Should they have a list or not?

This is an interesting question. On the one hand, consultants say that people no longer join denominations. Most people don't care all that much about whether a particular church is Methodist or Episcopalian. That's why lots of new churches don't have a denominational label in their name. Instead, they're called Community Church or Neighborhood Church. Or something like that.

On the other hand, there are certain denominations which are very distinctive. For example, Seventh Day Adventists or Unitarian Universalists.

Furthermore, when you join a Unitarian Universalist Church as a member, you connect with a lot of different things. For example, there is our larger history.

In our larger history, you can see the emphasis on religious freedom, reason, tolerance, and love are woven throughout. The generations of successful social justice efforts also looms large. For example, the liberal religious effort toward the abolition of slavery, the work of desegregation, making prisons and mental hospitals more humane.

There is also the more local history. William Greenleaf Eliot came to St Louis in 1834, founded a Unitarian church, Washington University, and was successful in a host of charitable and civic efforts. Eliot Unitarian Chapel began here 45 years ago and is named for him.

There are some members of Eliot, we don't see here very often. And some we do. But most want to make sure their name is in our books as a member.

For some people, it is kind of like the idea of the public library. They may not visited every week, but they want to support it, to make sure it is there. Not only for themselves, but for the public. They remember that we were all strangers here once upon a time; they want to make sure newcomers can find a place, just like they found a place when they were a newcomer.

Eliot Chapel is a place of liberal religion– there is no creed, there are no bishops, there is no excommunication. Instead there is freedom of conscience, the free pulpit & pew, and a common search for truth and meaning. This is a rare and beautiful thing. Sometimes, it is seen as dangerous.

There are people who want to make sure Eliot Chapel continues to function & grow. Because the church represents their values. That church existed before they came along, and hopefully will exist long after they are gone.

Being a Unitarian Universalist congregation– we permit and even encourage a wide degree of latitude on all sorts of matters. So, there are some folks who participate at Eliot who refuse to put themselves on Bill’s list.

Sometimes they tell me, that they are not joiners. I merely nod my head, and ask them how long they have been coming here. Usually, the answer is measured in months or years, not weeks or days. That’s fine but sometimes there is a glitch.

Which brings me to the Eliot Unitarian Chapel telephone directory. This is Bill’s List. Our printed telephone directory is a directory of members and friends of Eliot Unitarian Chapel.

It is a handy thing to have, because naturally, people who meet each other here, find friendship, find common interests, and end up working on various projects together. They need to get in touch to coordinate.

Our religious education program has teams of teachers. Out of a team of five, perhaps two teach on a given Sunday. Naturally, the teachers, and sometimes the staff, need to be in touch with one another. So the telephone directory comes in handy.

We have over 500 adult members, and about 300 kids involved here at Eliot Chapel. In any given year, some people will join as new members, and others will move away, or find a new church.

And every year, we have to figure out how many members and friends we have. Members are people who have joined the church. Friends are people our bylaws say are “regularly associated” with the church.

We need to know how many and of what kind our people are because we structure our budget, we figure out our staffing needs, we think about the kinds of programs– choirs & covenant groups-- we should have, and we pay dues– regional and national dues-- based on these numbers.

And every year, in the spring, we send out a pledge card. This card serves two purposes. One, it asks people to think about their financial pledge to the church. Two, it's our way of finding out, whether or not, members and friends still want to have a relationship with Eliot Chapel. From the cards that come back, we see who has signed up to be on Bill’s list, and who wants to be taken off the list.

Every year there are a half dozen folks or so, who return a pledge card with a zero dollar amount. That’s fine, and we announce that’s fine every canvass. Sometimes, people are out of work, or in graduate school, or emerging from a messy divorce or something else and they find it very difficult to think about making monthly payments beyond their mortgage or rent or what have you because of what they are going through.

That is normal and expected. Sometimes when people are stuck, we’ll write a check from the Minister’s Discretionary fund to help them out. Sometimes people get a little embarrassed, but we say hey!– that’s part of why we are here– to help each other out. They still want to be on the list– the fill out the card– they put down their financial commitment, and we move on. We know where we stand.

So you can see, how someone who simply refuses to fill out a pledge card or other form, someone who refuses to be put on the list, can make things difficult for the staff and lay leaders.

If you fill out a pledge card, you get in the telephone directory. It’s that simple. That’s how we know who our members and friends are. To get into the telephone directory, you need to fill out a pledge card. Every year, even if you pledge zero, which is allowed. But some people won’t do it, and they won’t say why.

Also, every semester, we ask parents to fill out a registration card for their children. This is for planning purposes, and for the children's own safety. And every semester, there are people, who plainly refuse to put their children on the list. But they still come to church. Or sometime on and off. But we never know. Because they won’t tell us.

And every year, our staff gets asked why So-and-So is no longer in the phone directory. They know that So-and-So is still around– they’re on the same committee, they go to social events, etcetera. And we have to say– uh, well, uh you see, uh, they won’t return our calls or letters– and us being a Unitarian church– where we insist people speak for themselves– uh, well, uh, Hey! how about a donut?

Frankly, this intrigues me. I wonder why, people who are here and are active– people I see most Sundays, I might add– won't put themselves on the list.

Now for some people, it's because they're mad or they're unhappy – and this is their way of letting us know it. And so we follow up, and we try and heal the relationship. Fair enough, things happen, people get their feelings hurt. We make mistakes. We try and repair the relationship. As it says in our hymnal, "we begin again in love."

But there are people who are active here, who won't fill out the cards we send them. I wonder why that is. They know that all they have to do is put a zero in for the dollar amount, if money is a problem. They can do that on the pledge card, we can do that on their children's registration form.

They don't even have to fill out the form, if they don't want to. They could just send an e-mail, or make a phone call. Or they could tell someone else to tell us. They could just wiggle a finger– mind you, I'm not saying which finger, but they could do something – anything to let us know that they know that we are all in this together.

I have even approached people directly about this, but I never get a straight answer. I don't like to put people on the spot. But I understand my staff's frustration, too. After all, they have to put together the phone directory. Are you in? Or out? What do you want? You want to be on the list?

Putting your name on the list, means you are in relationship. You make a commitment of time, talent, and treasure. It is completely up to you, how much depth you want to give in those areas. There are no guilt trips, there are no blame games. The minimal requirement is that you put your name on the list. But some people refuse. Why?

Some people will register their kids for the Eliot Chapel Nursery School during the week, but not for the Eliot Chapel Sunday School. They won't do it, and they won't say why. I have a hard time understanding that, and I would like to understand it. I'm in the dark.

But we still need to know who says they are a member or friend and who doesn't. And when people refuse to speak, we end up guessing. We don't want to guess their intentions, we don't want to gossip, but when people won't return our phone calls or forms; what to do? We have to guess.

I can understand why people don’t want to make commitments. From adolescence to my mid-life crisis, I didn’t want to get to close to “commitment-land.” I understood Zhou Enlai’s answer to a reporter who asked him what he thought of the French Revolution. He said, “it’s too early to tell.” Uh-huh.

We can try and stay commitment-free in order to be open to whatever opportunities may drop in our lap at the last possible moment. But that comes at a price, too. As the British politician Aneurin Bevan put it: We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run down.

Or instead of picking nothing, we can try the related tack of picking everything, as a way of not making a choice:

There is the story of the young man who walked into a card shop looking for an appropriate card for his girlfriend. He asked the store clerk to pick out something for him that would express his very deep sentiment .... She picked out the best-selling card and gave it to the young man .... It said simply, To the only girl I have ever loved. The young man said, Terrific! Wonderful! I'll take six of those!

But as we grow older, we know that we have to choose, and that not-choosing is itself a choice. It is good to ask questions, but eventually you must offer answers. The journey is important, but there ought to be a destination in mind– even if it changes frequently.

After all, if you don't stand for something, you can fall for anything. And if you keep your mind too open, your brains will fall out.

I spent many, many years of my life avoiding commitment. I know what that’s like. I didn’t want to be on anybody’s list. I didn’t want to give up my scarce talent, my scarce time, or my scarce treasure. After all, it was scarce!

But after a brush with Death, I realized– deep in my bones– that one day, I was going to die. And that if I did not make commitments– if I did not sign up on some list or another– I would die alone: unloved, unwanted, unknown, unimportant, and quickly forgotten.

The solution was to be willing to make commitments, to be willing to be generous to and with other people– to be the kind of friend that a friend would like to have.

Folks at Eliot don't know each other so much through jobs and houses and shopping excursions. We know each other through our activity together. And we know each other through our contributions of time, talent, and treasure.

When you sign up on Bill’s List, you join so much more than a free ad exchange for going out to eat dim sum with travel lovers. You open up a Book of Life.

You open up opportunities for free religious thought, chances for spiritual growth, and occasions to act for social justice. You join fellow spiritual travelers– to have fun, to improve yourself, and to improve the world. What more glorious adventure is there?

Say Amen! Somebody.

Let us Bring Many Names, #23 to Bill's List.