Dear Bill and Bridget,
First, let me thank you both for your wonderful sermons. I've been listening religiously (excuse the pun) for quite a while now and felt that it was important that I thank you via email for your work. I am thankful for you both and I am very grateful that my path (albeit digital) has crossed with yours.
Secondly, if you ever wonder whether your sermons are connecting with people, I want to tell you that my ability to write this email in the first place was due to your sermons. Let me explain. I have tried to write this "thank you" email over the last several months. I emailed a "thank you" once before when I first started listening to your podcasts. I was so excited to have found Unitarianism and the fact that I had wonderful podcast sermons from your church to listen to was a blessing for me.
More recently however, I have felt the need to thank you both for what you DO. And those personal kinds of thank you's, especially from someone across the Atlantic who listens to your voice radiating from a computer while staring at a purple screen saver needs just the right wording. "I really wish they knew how much their sermons mean to me, and I really wish I could tell them so," I would say to myself. "But, I can't get personal, that would, God forbid, seem...creepy. Um, maybe, its more...businesslike, I don't want to sound silly to these very intelligent people."
So, with my brain on spiritual lockdown, I'd start to email you but never seemed to find the right words. I mean, "thank you" seemed so insignificant for the good that you do. And well...I'd close the email, and think "maybe the words will come later." Hence, another day, without a thank you to someone who truly deserves it.
Second attempt: Same thing. Third attempt... And so on. I was paralyzed. Letting my head get in the way of doing something. Until, I realized after a while that, like the man on the stretcher you mention in your book Bill, I needed to "get up and walk", and like your sermon Bridget about doing good deeds the birthday cake for John, I realized that it doesn't matter how eloquent the thank you is. Its just important that I say it.

So... I'm up, I'm walking... and thank YOU so much!

Texas Lynne