“Dear Human: You’ve got it all wrong. You didn’t come here to master unconditional love. That is where you came from and where you’ll return. You came here to learn personal love. Messy love. Sweaty love. Crazy love. Broken love. Whole love. Infused with divinity. Lived through the grace of stumbling. Demonstrated through the beauty of messing up. Often. You didn’t come here to be perfect. You already are. You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous. And then to rise again into remembering. Love doesn’t require the condition of perfection. It only asks that you show up. That you stay present and feel fully. And do your best.”

~~ Courtney Walsh, inspirational poet, blogger, author

 

 

 

Our November/December worship theme was: Covenant
as inspired by the "Five Smooth Stones" of James Luther Adams' religious liberalism

excerpts from Covenant sermons....

 

from "the bumper sticker sermon"

.......You see, religions are responses…..Then they are lived out in the world and they become paradox, and in the paradox, if we are fortunate, and brave, we become more human.  The ancient Hebrew people lived in a certain time and place, and under a certain system of interior and exterior domination and even humiliation.  They responded.  They decided that the world was not chaos. They decided that the world was not hostile.  They decided that the world was not amoral. They decided that they could covenant with the Elohim, the great god – make a promise to be people who had made that decision, and in return the Elohim would love them and lead them into liberation, over and over again – liberation from other people, liberation from their own failings and foibles.  They would wrestle angels if they had to, they would know God, if it meant they could live in a world where being good, and receiving good was possible.

Ancient Christianity was a response to empire.  It was a response that said, we admit that we are David against Goliath with nothing but our pocketful of 5 smooth stones, but we will bring this empire down. They made a new covenant – they decided that the world was loving. They would covenant with the new son of God, who knew how to love in the face of hate, who knew how to love rather than revile, rather than ignore, rather than judge, rather than defend, rather than flee.  They would make a new covenant with this Teacher, and he would lead them into liberation – from their own terror, and from the terror of the Roman empire. They would die and live again if it meant that love was possible in the world.

Eventually that ancient Hebrew tradition became Judaism. Its covenant met the world, and it changed it, and advanced human goodness in ways never known before. Paradoxically, the world has thrown its most amoral, unethical, death-dealing behavior at the people of this tradition….

The ancient Christian tradition met the world with its new covenant.  It defeated empire, and then, paradoxically, it became empire. The new covenant, as it turned out, was a good way for Constantine to stay Emperor. Eventually Catholicism with a capital C arose with its increasingly massive hierarchy. The church got richer and the people poorer.  Protestantism, the protest, developed, and down came the stained glass…..but the influence of Empire was never eradicated. The creed was set. The covenant was displaced.

Unitarian Universalism is a response to the primacy of creed.  It is a response to a corporate bumper-sticker world. It is a religion of radical resistance, and the power of, as MLK said, the creatively maladjusted. It is a response that makes this covenant, a paraphrase of the words with which James Luther Adams articulated it for us in the 1970’s: 1) humans become more human by making promises. 2) then we break them, because we are human, and the process of being with each other in that brokenness and remaking the covenant, over and over again is TRANSFORMING, 3) this covenant of transformation into wholeness is both individual as well as collective. We are not only responsible for who we become, we are responsible for the entire character of our given society.

We decided we would let go of all the answers if it meant we could search for the truth. We would give up all security and absolutes, if we could believe in a world filled with hope.

from "Our Comprehensive Covenant"....

The body is a huge problem for religions.  Man.  Huge.  This, really, is what all of the fuss is about, isn’t it? This is the place where religions begin to differ. Somewhere inside of you is that pure essence of being, and it shares the same worth of that pure essence of being that is within me, and we are already in covenant, always. Every religion recognizes this, and we have our ways of reminding ourselves and one another – the golden rule, Namaste, the hongi, the first Principle…we could exist this way, you know, in that pure energy form, pure breath, pure light….But, we don’t.  We’re stuck in these great gallumping forms, feet in the clay, head in the clouds, senses and emotions throbbing in all different directions all at once, and most of the time lost to one another entirely.

Covenant meets world.

So, what to do about this?  Many renounce it. Humanity has a long history of trying to redeem, and if it cannot redeem, renounce, the body and all its evils.  The female body, in particular, is a problem, but, really, all bodies have got to go. On earth the best you can do is regulate them – try to make them all the same. Your culture has a norm, try to fit into it. Try to be the RIGHT size, shape, color, ethnicity, gender and of the very correct sexual orientation, whatever that is. Don’t deviate, and we’ll all make it through that way in one piece.  The next life will do away with all of this fuss, and we’ll be able to see one another again. This life is a test, or it is just plain hell, depending on your faith, and the body is part of the problem. Don’t think I’m just speaking about the Kingdom, or Samsara, I’m talking about the religion of the American secular consumerist dream as well.

Deny the body.  Deny the body and keep the covenant, that’s one way to go.

We go another way. We do not have the creed the kingdom or Samsara….We have Our Whole Lives, which is comprehensive human sexuality education for all ages. We call it OWL, though I have to admit that more than a few 8^th graders have told me it’s their own personal hell, and if we're going to be making laws it should be about outlawing it.

OWL says this: Only through the body can you keep the covenant. Nothing about you being in a body is an accident, everything about you being in THAT body, is on purpose. Everything about you is on purpose.  You will have to be your spiritual self with and through that bodily self. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. We do not renounce. We embrace. We embrace all the thoughts, feelings and behaviors around being born into that body, being born male or female, being born both, being born neither, needing to make our way in a new category. We embrace our desire to be attractive to other people, to be in love, to find pleasure, to satisfy skin hunger, to accept who we are and how we look and how we move and what we think. We embrace the vulnerability that comes with intimacy – that to be known for who we are is a risk, that to care for others, to share with them, to really like the people you spend time with and want to be liked in return is a risk. We embrace that risk.  We embrace the reality of all the rules and roles around gender identity and sexual orientation – we know we are told who to be, who to love, and how. We embrace challenging those messages, we embrace breaking out of those rules and roles. We embrace the rainbow spectrum of bodies, genders, sexuality, desire, and family systems. We embrace the frailty of our bodies, we are responsible for our own physical health. We are responsible for the physical health of others, especially those we engage in intimacy with, and our own children, and our family members. We embrace the difference between pleasure and power, between attraction and coercion. We are responsible for the behavior of our bodies, at all times, in all situations, and we do not exploit the bodies of others, and yes, there’s that one aspect of being human where some bodies can make babies with other bodies, and that should be done with reverence and with love and with consciousness and as a decision that two grown people make together.

You want to know why our youth groups hold together the way they do? OWL. Try talking about this stuff with a group of 12 other people every year, year in and year out, and see if you don’t stick with them for the rest of your life.

Because, our brains are hardwired to think about each other all of the time.  Stew did his super sleuthing, and we found out from social scientist Matthew Lieberman that thinking about our relationships with other people is our brain’s favorite activity, and, actually, our default mode. It’s not that we’re interested in other people, and their attraction to us, and so we think about them. It’s that we are, all human beings, hardwired to think about other people’s thoughts, feelings and goals as our baseline of existence on the planet. In other words, the second you are not thinking about the task at hand you are back to thinking about other people and your connection to them. This is true in infancy, becomes almost unbearable in the teenage years, especially if adults think they can get in the way of it, and continues after the brain and body have reached full maturity until the day we die.  And I’m thinking, maybe this is why, in the very center of every religion, there’s this shining little promise about being really and truly good to yourself and to other people, all of the time. Do bodies get in the way of that? Maybe they are the very best vehicle for returning to covenant over and over and over again.

Maybe if each of us can learn to accept how perfect our imperfect bodies are, how good our imperfect lives are, that yes, through the wonder and maze of senses, emotions, conflicting desires, heartlongings and terrifying truths about who we are and what we look like and what we long for and who we love, we can learn to accept how perfect other imperfect people are, too. The other way looks good sometimes – know what the pretty little norm is and stick to it – but it’s dangerous. Everything interesting about everyone just goes underground. Sometimes it rises again and flowers, but sometimes it rots, and you cannot keep covenant from such a broken place – not in an individual relationship, not in the relationship of a nation to its people, or one nation to another. You can’t ask people to lie about who they are and what they feel and what they want, and then ask them to keep promises with YOU…No, we need the authenticity that embracing our bodies and our bodily differences allows. The world is yearning for this authenticity – for our perfectly imperfect selves.

Covenant is embodied in a faith that is free. My promise to you is to you on your worst day – with a head cold and a broken heart and no sleep feeling that everything that is unacceptable about you is hanging out for the world to see. That’s when we’ll be closest to the truth, that’s when we’ll know if the hope we are offering the world is worth anything, when we need it for ourselves.  I will practice these moments of vulnerability with you......

One of the many great sources for these two months of worship services is and has been Victoria Safford. Her book is out of print, but you can get the Kindle version on Amazon!

For many of the services we were making reference to our UUA Action Issue for 2012-2016: Reproductive Justice. I encourage you to read up on this important piece of our faith. I've also referenced Our Whole Lives comprehensive sexuality education, which you can learn more about on the UUA website. We offer OWL here at First U for teens and pre-teens each year.

 

For more on human beings being "hardwired" for connection, check out the research -much of which is going highly mainstream these days!

Go to www.delanceyplace.com and search "delanceyplace.com 11/12/13 - our brain's favorite activity " for more from Matthew Lieberman

And, anything and everything by Brene Brown, including The Gifts of Imperfection and Daring Greatly

 

To explore an essential understanding of the ancient Hebrew tradition, read Huston's The Illustrated World's Religions.  For an exploration of Christianity against empire, try Horsley's Jesus and Empire. To read James Luther Adams' theology for yourself, try "The Essential JLA"

 

 

Finally, here are a couple of the poems that we read for our Song of Songs Sunday. Many thanks to everyone who offered up their favorite love poem for inspiration and enjoyment.

 

'This much I do Remember' by Billy Collins

 

It was after dinner.
You were talking to me across the table
about something or other,
a greyhound you had seen that day
or a song you liked,

and I was looking past you
over your bare shoulder
at the three oranges lying
on the kitchen counter
next to the small electric bean grinder,
which was also orange,
and the orange and white cruets for vinegar and oil.

Alll of which converged
into a random still life,
so fastened together by the hasp of color,
and so fixed behind the animated
foreground of your
talking and smiling,
gesturing and pouring wine,
and the camber of you shoulders

that I could feel it being painted within me,
brushed on the wall of my skull,
while the tone of your voice
lifted and fell in its flight,
and the three oranges
remained fixed on the counter
the way that stars are said
to be fixed in the universe.

Then all of the moments of the past
began to line up behind that moment
and all of the moments to come
assembled in front of it in a long row,
giving me reason to believe
that this was a moment I had rescued
from millions that rush out of sight
into a darkness behind the eyes.

Even after I have forgotten what year it is,
my middle name,
and the meaning of money,
I will still carry in my pocket
the small coin of that moment,
minted in the kingdom
that we pace through every day.

- Billy Collins

 

With That Moon Language

 

Admit something: Everyone you see, you say to them, "Love me."

Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise someone would call the cops.

Still though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect. Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye that is always saying, with that sweet moon language, What every other eye in this world is dying to hear?

-Hafiz

Our September/October Worship Theme was: Revelation

James Luther Adams' first of the "5 Smooth Stones of Liberal Religion": the truth is never closed, but continues to develop as being human, and human beings, develop, thus we are ever on our search for truth and meaning...

 The sermon/service "The Second Revolution" or ("that Mary sermon"), is the culmination of years' long exploration we've been engaged in about identifying as UUs and claiming our faith.  This exploration has been based, in part, on James Fowler's Stages of Faith:

http://www.usefulcharts.com/psychology/james-fowler-stages-of-faith.html

If you enjoyed the meditation/prayer service, try this one, too:
http://www.meditationoasis.com/2010/01/05/opening-the-heart-guided-meditation/

John O'Donohue on prayer

One of the most tender images is the human person at prayer. When the body gathers itself before the Divine, a stillness deepens. The blaring din of distraction ceases and the deeper tranquility within the heart envelops the body. To see someone at prayer is a touching sight. For a while they have become unmoored from the grip of society, work and role. It is as if they have chosen to enter into a secret belonging carried within the soul; they rest in that inner temple impervious to outer control or claiming. A person at prayer also evokes the sense of vulnerability and fragility. Their prayer reminds us that we are mere guests of the earth, pilgrims who always walk on unsteady ground, carrying in earthen vessels multitudes of longing.

To sit or kneel in prayer is visually our most appropriate physical presence. There is something right about this. It coheres with the secret structure of existence and reality, namely that we have a right to nothing. Everything that we are, think, feel and have is a gift. We have received everything, even the opportunity to come to the earth and walk awake in this wondrous universe. There are many people who have worked harder than us, people who have done more kind and holy things and yet they have received nothing. The human body gathered in prayer mirrors our fragility and inner poverty and it makes a statement recognizing the divine generosity that is always blessing us. To be gathered in prayer is appropriate. It is a gracious, reverential and receptive gesture. It states that, at the threshold of each moment, the gift of breath and blessing comes across to embrace us. http://thewhiffofgod.blogspot.com/2011/02/john-odonohue-on-prayer.html

I have been looking for you. No special reason, just wanting to see how you are. And not an idle curiosity, not a passing politeness to ask without real interest, but a willingness to share in a moment of joy with you or offer a word of support if needed. The strength we all need can often be found in such simple acts, tiny moments of sharing, of caring, of listening, of offering. So I have been looking for a chance to just say you matter, you are needed, and loved. And how funny that we meet like this, when you have been out looking too. - the Rev. Steven Charleston 

inspirations and sources for "The Possibility of Angels":


http://www.amazon.com/The-Possibility-Angels-Literary-Anthology/dp/0811815307

Archangel by John Updike

ONYX and split cedar and bronze vessels lowered into still water: these things I offer. Porphyry, teakwood, jasmine, and myrrh: these gifts I bring. The sheen of my sandals is dulled by the dust of cloves. My wings are waxed with nectar. My eyes are diamonds in whose facets red gold is mirrored. My face is a mask of ivory: Love me. Listen to my promises:

Cold water will drip from the intricately chased designs of the bronze vessels. Thick-lipped urns will sweat in the fragrant cellars. The orchards never weary of bearing on my islands. The very leaves give nourishment. The banked branches never crowd the paths. The grape vines will grow unattended. The very seeds of the berries are sweet nuts. Why do you smile? Have you never been hungry?

The workmanship of the bowers will be immaculate. Where the elements are joined, the sword of the thinnest whisper will find its point excluded. Where the beams have been tapered, each swipe of the plane is continuous. Where the wood needed locking, pegs of a counter grain have been driven. The ceilings are high, for coolness, and the spaced shingles seal at the first breath of mist. Though the windows are open, the eaves of the roof are so wide that nothing of the rain comes into the rooms but its scent. Mats of perfect cleanness cover the floor. The fire is cupped in black rock and sustained on a smooth breast of ash. Have you never lacked shelter?

Where, then, has your life been touched? My pleasures are as specific as they are everlasting. The sliced edges of a fresh ream of laid paper, cream, stiff, rag-rich. The freckles of the closed eyelids of a woman attentive in the first white blush of morning. The ball diminishing well down the broad green throat of the first at Cape Ann. The good catch, a candy sun slatting the bleachers. The fair at the vanished poorhouse. The white arms of the girls dancing, taffeta, white arms violet in the hollows music its ecstasies praise the white wrists of praise the white arms and the white paper trimmed the Euclidean proof of Pythagoras' theorem its tightening beauty the iridescence of an old copper found in the salt sand. The microscopic glitter in the ink of the letters of words that are your own. Certain moments, remembered or imagined, of childhood. Three- handed pinochle by the brown glow of the stained-glass lampshade, your parents out of their godliness silently wishing you to win. The Brancusi room, silent. Pines and Rocks, by Cezanne; and The Lace-Maker in the Louvre hardly bigger than your spread hand.

Such glimmers I shall widen to rivers; nothing will be lost, not the least grain of remembered dust, and the multiplication shall be a thousand thousand fold; love me. Embrace me; come, touch my side, where honey flows. Do not be afraid. Why should my promises be vain? Jade and cinnamon: do you deny that such things exist? Why do you turn away? Is not my song a stream of balm? My arms are heaped with apples and ancient books; there is no harm in me; no. Stay. Praise me. Your praise of me is praise of yourself; wait. Listen. I will begin again.

War Dance - the struggle and triumph of a school in Uganda - their voices and dance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UATS5K9IZT0

I trust you, do you trust me?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D40FnLs1g-k

My favorite angel artist who followed her inner promptings to Chartres, France
http://imagesleslie.com/
http://kabuika.freehostia.com/wordpress/?m=20110607

Hebrews, 13.1-2
Let brotherly love continue.
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

A tiny preview of our first Adult Pilgrimage to Transylvania is available on my Pilgrimage & Mission page...Look for worship services that focus on this experience in both September and November.

Can't wait to see you on Sunday, September 8th at Ingathering - bring your sand! - Rev. J.

My thanks to everyone who was willing to play this word game with me and inspire today's worship service.  It's wonderful to see the diversity in our community, as well as the similarities in thought and feeling. More on Mercy & Compassion next year, I'm sure.

If I say 'compassion' you think:

Essential
Love
caring for others
the feeling
To Love one another as you Love your family & friends
deep caring
caring
empathy
consciousness, light
Love
Love
Love
hug
fruit
empathy
love
Jesus
Christ has risen
kindness
Love
deep feeling heart to heart
caring
being able to perceive & put yourself in other's place
this word has been floating in my mind - so, compassion made me think of kindness
mercy, caring, love, kindness
Buddha
understanding kindness
reaching out to help someone
Love and interest
caring
Help
love & SAFE
Love
Love
relating to others, empathizing with others, deep love for humanity, sensitivity to others and surroundings
Healers, teachers, First responders

If I say 'mercy', you think:

Have some
Forgiveness
forgiveness
the action
merciful & mighty
elevation of another who may be faced with challenges
kindness
forgiveness
divinity, love
being sorry
forgiveness
kindness
forgiveness 
begging
hospital, angel of mercy
forgiveness
Jesus
...not justice
a change of heart
forgiveness
caring action regardless of previous action or behavior
have mercy on your soul
showing kindness/forgiveness to another
...and mercy gave me gratitude
forgiveness, compassion
sisters of
forgiveness with acts that reflect understanding
hospital/2nd, 3rd and 4th chances
love
Peace
Thank you
Love
Forgiving
being blessed, being given help and strength when needed, being 'spared'
Forgiveness, Parents/family, power

We were in Portland's Pride Parade this past Saturday. I took M&M, and it was great, the questions it raised in our family. There were a lot of dancing superheroes, in spandex, and platform heels, and mostly men dressed as women and women dressed as men - it's pretty fun to watch one's own children put their values about celebrating diversity to the test. It's pretty fun to watch what's happening inside my own head....It was a day to be proud of being at First U, and very proud to be living in Maine.

 

And, things are changing with regards to the equal rights that all Americans should have, and the puritanical male-female-either-or that it's time to leave behind with regards to our understanding of human sexuality, gender and love....Apparently, even the Boy Scouts are starting to march to a different tune in Utah:

 

http://news.yahoo.com/two-boy-scout-leaders-membership-may-revoked-marching-220431746--abc-news-topstories.html

The article ends with a very displeased Boy Scout of America spokesperson insisting that these Troup leaders "disobeyed": "It is unfortunately that these individuals chose to use a youth program to seek attention for themselves and to advance a personal agenda. When individuals inadvertently or willfully choose not to follow BSA regulations, we remind them of Scouting's policies and that to simply disobey a rule because you disagree with it is not an example to set for youth." That would be an unfortunate example to set for youth. On the other hand, if what you're doing is teaching youth that the amazing range of human diversity is no accident, and that to celebrate the true nature of other people allows room for your own soul to grow and bloom, and that, by the way, it's un-American, unconstitutional, and non-biblical to discriminate against people who are different than you, well then, that might be a really good example to set.

Some folks would like to know "What does our Minister DO?" :)  Please see my Beloved Community page for musings on that question, and others - JE

The Illuminators: Fear

I know you’re afraid, because I’m afraid, too. And it isn’t just my childhood terror of spiders, or even the post-partum response I had to my first child being born when I used to get up in the middle of the night and check all the locks on all the doors. It’s more fundamental than that, more persuasive and more pervasive. One of my heroes, Father Gregory Boyle, says that we all live steeped in fear, and so our response to life is to scramble for people to like us, agree with us, or be intimidated by us. We think this will hold off the fear, and keep the pain from overwhelming us – whatever that pain is that seems to be on its way.

The drive to have everyone like us, agree with us, or be intimidated by us causes spiritual atrophy, and it causes more fear. Michael Singer, writer of The Untethered Soul asks us “how long have you been hiding in there, struggling to keep it all together?” He says we’ve build a protective model around ourselves, psyches so complex and awkward that they resemble stone fortresses we’re all carrying around with us. When I meet you and shake your hand, in this modern era, in this modern country, with all of our glib words and fast choices, I have to reach my hand out through walls as thick and dark as the Middle Ages themselves, and you do the same to reach back toward me. This is what we’ve built to protect ourselves from what we fear, from the pain we fear, from how fragile we are when everything we do is based on making sure we are approved by others, and have all the things we’ve ever been told we should want. “How long have you been hiding in there, struggling to keep it all together? Any time anything goes wrong in the protective model you built around yourself, you defend and rationalize in order to get it back together. Your mind does not stop struggling until you’ve processed the event or somehow made it go away. People feel their very existence is as stake, and they will fight and argue until they get control back….There is no peace and there is no winning in that struggle…..If you continue to cling to what you built, you will have to continually and perpetually defend yourself (134).”

The Buddhist path urges renunciation.  I resisted this path hard and fast for a very very long time. I clung (exactly!) to the argument that since I already had children when I became ready to face fear that I could not follow a spiritual practice that asked me to let go of my attachments and my passions, since my most passionate attachments were all wrapped up in parenthood. Nope. Not for me.  But then I went on pilgrimage, not choosing the trip for the place, but for the practice; the practice of letting go of all my roles, of others expectations of me, of my expectations of myself, of all my little addictions and routines and all the things I was sure I could not be ME without, including a child clinging to each leg. I actually felt depressed, sad, like I was witnessing my own death, but then that passed, and I found that, having let go of having a very particular ME, I was free to be myself for the first time since…well, I don’t know how long it had been. Perhaps I met me on pilgrimage for the very first time. And the best part is that there was nothing to fear. No particular me to uphold and defend, and nothing to fear. Now I listen to the call of renunciation with different ears. Chögyam Trungpa wrote, “renunciation means overcoming that very hard, tough, aggressive mentality which wards off any gentleness that might come into our hearts. Fear does not allow fundamental tenderness to enter into us. When tenderness tinged by sadness touches our heart, we know that we are in contact with reality. We feel it. That contact is genuine, fresh and quite raw…..[and we begin to give away, and to stop indulging in pleasure for entertainment’s sake.] We are going to kick out any preoccupations provided by the miscellaneous babysitters in the phenomenal world.”

There is tremendous pressure to believe that these “babysitters in the phenomenal world” are the source of the good life, and will keep us from pain and ease our fears. Tremendous pressure to believe that we are in control, or could be, and that if we procure the right partner, career, car, house and college education for our children (or ourselves) that we will have the answers and be protected, be safe. That if we are physically attractive, drink the right drink, eat at the right restaurant, have enough friends, vacation often enough, have enough money in the bank…. This path toward safety, which includes making sure that others approve of us, agree with us, or are intimidated by us and what we have, this path beckons from every corner of America. And, it is a lie. If you embrace reality, if you embrace all the illuminators we’ve been talking about – that which is meek and mild, even awkward and overly polite, if you embrace our vulnerable bodies and all our illnesses and disabilities, if you embrace how short our lives really are, and what a blessing those short lives really are, and then take in the diversity of pain and hope in this world and every sacred story created from that hope and pain – then you know that fear teaches us the greatest thing of all: that we are not in control. Never were, and never will be. You are not in control. And the source of life, the ground of our being, is not ourselves, nor our corporations, nor anything else we can create with money or natural resources. And life is not here to make you comfortable, and other people aren’t either, so let go.

Let go, and no matter what happens, have fun anyway.

The opposite of fear is not happiness, it’s delight.

The illumination is that we are afraid whenever we have a false Source. Believe in whatever source you choose – the collective unconscious, the Spirit of Life, the well-spring of love that guides what’s best in humanity, our Buddha nature, Great Spirit, God. As long as your source is bigger than you or what you can buy or sell or otherwise accumulate, as long as you cannot write it down on a resume, then it will lead you out of the tricks of your own psyche and away from fear. When we are unafraid, delight enters our lives, and we focus on the person in front of us, the project in front of us, the natural world in which we live – our hearts are expansive, we are full and capable and passionate on behalf of others, and it comes easily

What is the greatest gift?
Could it be the world itself-the oceans, the meadowlark,
the patience of the trees in the wind?
Could it be love, with its sweet clamor of passion?

Something else-something else entirely

holds me in thrall.
That you have a life that I wonder about
more than I wonder about my own.
That you have a life-courteous and intelligent-
that I wonder about more than I wonder about my own.
That you have a soul-your own, no one else's-
that I wonder about more than I wonder about my own.
So that I find my soul clapping its hands for yours
more than my own. – Mary Oliver

 

This is the 99% BatSignal. It’s part of a public art and social protest movement that I became aware of months after I watched the tents from Occupy Maine go up and then come down in Portland. The name of the van that the artists and activists drive around so that they can project signals like this one is called The Illuminator, and these young people are the inspiration for this entire worship theme. One of them, Mark Read, was raised by folks in this congregation.

Here’s what I think about what we’re doing here – here in church and here on the planet, and James Carse explains all of this best, and in the language I’m going to use, in his book The Religious Case Against Belief: There is religion. There just is. People can’t live without it, or at least, we never have. Religion is about the big questions human beings can’t answer. Your religion can be practiced anywhere – in the pews, on the mat, in your studio, in your weekly meeting, in the car on the way to hockey practice with your kid - because religion has no beginning and no end. Religion is interested in and holds the space for paradox, it is unresolved, it exposes our deepest self-contradictions and so demands that we keep our hearts open no matter what hurts or how much, or even if we feel so full of delight and awe and mystery that we don’t think we can take anymore. As Carse says, religion belongs to the poets, it belongs to the artists – because continuing to ask questions that have no definitive answer is often “much more disturbing than…comforting or amusing…the recognition that our boundaries are merely arbitrary can be deeply unsettling (p. 207).” Back to Father Greg, who says, from his Christian perspective, “so we walk into a room and try to figure out how to get the gathered to like us, agree with us, or be intimidated by us. I suppose Jesus walks into a room and loves what he finds there. Delights in it in fact…making a beeline for the outcasts, chooses them, and chooses in them to go where love has not yet arrived (Tattoos on the Heart, p.155).”  All our boundaries are arbitrary. We. Made. Them. Up. And that is how we learn, if we are truly faithful: Build up our constructs, learn from them, tear them down again, take a step forward. Never stop. Never ever stop. That’s religion.

This is religion. This is poetry. This is delightful. I see no answers here, I see and hear a multitude of questions:  Why are the wealthiest 1% of Americans in control of 40% of America’s wealth? And what are they doing with it?!  Because, suburban poverty is now higher than urban poverty, mothers and fathers on welfare get $21 a WEEK per child for food stamps, 1 in 4 children in the US live in poverty, and in Portland 22.5% of students in elementary school don’t have enough food at home to ensure their success in school. Where is the love, is a question I see here. Why are we so afraid, is another one. Hungry children in America – that’s not about lack of resources. That’s about fear. This (BAT SIGNAL) is an invitation to a conversation – one that never stops, one that is and will be deeply unsettling, one that will lead not to answers, but to deeper and deeper questions. Along the way, fear will be replaced by love. This is religion.

What we’ve got a whole lot of in our culture is not religion, it’s belief. Belief is all about boundaries. You answer questions, you figure out very quickly who agrees with you and who does not, make your circle, create your us and them, and then defend your new little empire of “truth” at all costs. The conversation is over, there will be no more questions, the decisions have been made, the fighting to keep control of the floor of debate begins. Fear runs rampant. Delight disappears. We don’t even know what that means anymore….

I know you’re afraid, because I’m afraid, too. I know that if I engage in the real conversation, if I admit I have no answers, but only question after question, after question, and if I admit that I delight in these questions, that I’ve given up having anything to defend, then that makes me vulnerable. Exposed. It means that I’m telling you the truth about myself and I’ve created a space where you’re going to tell me the truth about you, and either one may make me uncomfortable, may bring us both pain. But I find that I care enough to try, and I care enough to fail. I’m pretty sure that no matter how afraid I am I can learn to love you, and our problems, and our questions, again and again and again, but I’m not sure I can live blockaded behind structures of belief and judgement and some sort of exclusive truth that is so brittle I have to use all my energy defending it. I have a sneaking suspicion that the powers that be are keeping me in line this way, using my fear, and so I’ve decided to be an artist, and a poet, and a Unitarian Universalist; I have decided to perceive all my failures as successes, because at least I tried. And most importantly, I am becoming myself, and making space for others to do the same – that fresh, raw, tender contact, just slightly tinged with sadness, that opens and nourishes the heart, and is the genuine gift we have to offer one another. The intimacy we are afraid of, the same intimacy that takes fear away.

We do not become healers.
We came as healers. We are.
Some of us are still catching up to what we are.

We do not become storytellers.
We came as carriers of the stories
we and our ancestors actually lived. We are.
Some of us are still catching up to what we are.

We do not become artists. We came as artists. We are.
Some of us are still catching up to what we are.

We do not become writers.. dancers.. musicians.. helpers.. peacemakers. We came as such. We are.
Some of us are still catching up to what we are.

We do not learn to love in this sense. We came as Love. We are Love. Some of us are still catching up to who we truly are. – Clarissa Pinkola Estes

---

[i] [i] I am grateful for the many sources of inspiration for this sermon, and paraphrase and quote liberally from some books you should really read, namely:

Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle

The ReligiousCase Against Belief by James P.Carse

The UntetheredSoul by Michael A. Singer

 

And thanks to Stew Guernsey for lots on renunciation, including  http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/candy.html

and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche: "The ground of fearlessness and the basis of overcoming doubt and wrong belief is to develop renunciation. Renunciation here means overcoming that very hard, tough, aggressive mentality which wards off any gentleness that might come into our hearts. Fear does not allow fundamental tenderness to enter into us. When tenderness tinged by sadness touches our heart, we know that we are in contact with reality. We feel it. That contact is genuine, fresh, and quite raw. That sensitivity is the basic experience of warriorship, and it is the key to developing fearless renunciation."

"For the warrior, renunciation is ... giving away, or not indulging in, pleasure for entertainment’s sake. We are going to kick out any preoccupations provided by the miscellaneous babysitters in the phenomenal world."

Our Call to Worship came from Michael Leunig, care of Sarah Witte:

there are only two feelings, love and fear:
there are only two languages, love and fear:
there are only two activities, love and fear:
There are only two motives, two procedures,
two frameworks, two results, love and fear,
love and fear.

 

http://www.leunig.com.au/index.php/poems

 

As for The Illuminator, and poverty in America, check out these links:

http://theilluminator.org/videos
http://thelinemovie.com/

My favorite TEDtalks these days, including the one by Janine Shepherd that inspired, and was quoted in, last week's sermon on illness and disabilities as illuminators:

Pure inspiration (thank you, Cindy, I've sent this first one everywhere!)
http://www.ted.com/talks/kid_president_i_think_we_all_need_a_pep_talk.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/charity_tilleman_dick_singing_after_a_double_lung_transplant.html

Janine Shepherd - A broken body is not a broken person (Brian Green turned us on to this one - hooray for Worship Weavers!)
http://www.ted.com/talks/janine_shepherd_a_broken_body_isn_t_a_broken_person.html

Lonely or feeling a bit trapped?  Irritated or disappointed with your spouse, kid, minister, church, best friend, self?? Watch this TEDtalk sent to me from Rebecca Rundquist on one of my very bad days, and then come talk to me!
http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

Lots of ways to get involved in church right now!  Join us at Preble Street on first Tuesdays - See my Faith In Action page for more details. And, for a deeper experience of faith in action, join us on pilgrimage this summer to Transylvania - details on my Pilgrimage & Mission Page. Also, I'm looking forward to seeing all of you at our 2nd Maine Farm Supper on Saturday, February 9th....read all about it on our new Facebook page!!!

For a debrief about my December sabbatical, please see my Beloved Community page. For worship info and sources, read on! - JE

 

The Illuminators Hope you're enjoying our January/February theme, The Illuminators, a theme that gives us a chance to speak to one another about what we often consider to be the frailties or negatives of human existence - meekness, grief, illness, death, fear - and to see those parts of our personalities and our experiences in a more positive light. All of these things can light our way home to wholeness - as individuals, as a church community, as a faith - if we allow and participate in the process. Here are a few sermon excerpts, and the sources that made them possible.
 
Sunday, 1/20/2013 - MLK Jr. Sunday - Rosa Parks
 

Call to Worship - You may not think the world needs you, but it does. For you are unique, like no other that has ever been before or will come after. No one can speak with your voice, say your piece, smile your smile, or shine your light. No one can take your place for it is yours alone to fill. If you are not there to shine your light who knows how many travelers will lose their way as they try to pass by your empty place in the darkness.

Reading - The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation’s development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution of the spirit, the forces which produced the iniquities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration. It is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy and human rights. There has to be a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences of desire, ill will, ignorance and fear.  - by Aung San Suu Kyi

excerpt from the Morning Message -

"Before King there was Rosa Parks,” then apartheid leader and later South African President Nelson Mandela later explained. “She is who inspired us, who taught us to sit down for our rights, to be fearless when facing our oppressors.”

We have many of Rosa Parks’ notes and journals. She asked herself the question, who will take the first steps? She always believed it would be the churches. She loved church. She would quote novelist Richard Wright who said that going to church on Sunday was like "placing one’s ear on another’s chest and hearing the unquenchable murmur of the human heart." In her case, that the churches would lead the charge in ethnic integration in America. In our time, what? For what will be sit down and refuse to be moved? For what will we use our meekest nature – for what will be we be quiet, humble, thoughtful, and so sure in our hearts that we are right that we cannot be moved? For what will you, in your life, get meeker, and meeker, quieter and quieter, until you overcome? For what as a church shall we do the same? Where is the arrogance that inevitably accompanies a culture as strident as ours taking us? Why aren’t the whiz-bang special effects working, and when are we going to realize that they never will? I’m tired of all the loud voices, and the accusations, and the glittery subplots that keep us all distracted and distressed. Why can’t we feed our people? Why can’t we eradicate the violence of guns and the twin oppressions of poverty and mental illness? When will our children be safe in school? When will our teenagers know only dignity and thus be known for making kind and gentle choices? What’s the long and thoughtful relationship we’re willing to have, the deep education we’re willing to submit to in order to be part of lasting change? In order to actually be able to sit in the silence and be part of what’s true? We should be exhausted by all that is happening, by all that still hurts and rings false in our ears, but our exhaustion is part of the answer. Maybe in our exhaustion we will finally have the strength to sit still and make things right. Because, it is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy and human rights.It has not been enough. We have to resist fear. Best done from a centered being and an open heart.

Let us not eradicate from ourselves what is quiet, and humble and private and even shy and a little bit stiff and formal. Let us celebrate it. Let us look to Rosa. Let us be meek and of good heart, and we shall overcome.

The morning message was inspired by, and all quotes are from, Rosa Parks: A Life by Douglas Brinkley....If you were there and heard the rest of the sermon you'll want to read Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

Sunday, 1-27-2013, Grief

Reading - Beannacht ("Blessing")

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

John O'Donohue ~

excerpt from the Morning Message -

....Death causes grief, and so does illness, but so does divorce, moving, growing up in a dysfunctional family, becoming addicted, recovering from addiction, losing your job, retiring from your job, watching that last kid leave home, losing trust in a friend, losing your faith…In fact, according to John James and Russell Friedman, from whom I learned the most about loss and grief, grief is the conflicting feelings caused by the end of or change in a familiar pattern of behavior and so grief is pretty much a daily part of life, because life is changing all the time. Relationships change all the time.

According to James and Russell, we are taught, in our culture, how to successfully acquire, but not how to successfully lose stuff. Praise, toys, good grades, friends, when we are younger. Acceptance, faith, good job, home and hearth and lovelife as we age. All of these are things we are taught that we need in order to be whole and happy. There will be much talk and celebration when these things are acquired in a life, but when they are lost, and they will be, we’re not so good at talking about that. Our reactions to one another often reinforce the cultural ideology that we should not even acknowledge loss, let alone become adept at dealing with it. Loss is embarrassing, even shameful. We say things to one another like, “What’s done is done….You have to move on……Don’t burden others with your feelings…Don’t cry….Get a hold of yourself…He’s in a better place…Time heals all wounds....and my personal favorite as of late: There are plenty of fish in the sea.” 

Most of us, by the time we reach adulthood, have internalized six unfortunate myths about grief: Don’t feel bad. Replace the loss. Grieve alone. Just give it time. Be strong for others. Keep busy. (James and Friedman)

Do these things and remain embarrassed about change, loss and the resulting grief. Do these things and we will trip around in our grief, carrying it like an old-fashioned coat that is too big for us. Carry a heavy heart around in your chest, one that feels more numb than anything, like the spirit, the breath, the life just can’t move through it anymore….Grief doesn’t have to be this way. Grief is a great illuminator. It can actually be that cloak of love that helps you mend and mind your life.

The first gift grief gives us is the opportunity to be honest. All relationships – with those living and those now dead, with parents, friends, children, beloved pets, places of worship or work or home – all relationships are both positive and negative. If you are getting all of one and none of the other, you are not in relationship. (Come see me). And what we want in the good and the bad is to be able to be ourselves and to be heard. When we lose a relationship, for whatever reason, this need remains. We want to have natural, honest expression in our grief. We want to rage, we want to cry, we want to stay in bed and give up, we want to ask questions, lots of questions, we want to laugh, we want to scream, but most of all we want to tell each other what we wish had been different, better or more. And we want someone to hear us say it. This part should have been different, and I’m sorry. This needed to be better, and I forgive. This part was really wonderful, it made my world, and I wish there could have been more of it. I feel that loss. It hurts me.

When C.S. Lewis’ beloved wife Joy Davidman – whom he wrote of as “H.” -  died he found himself drawn to and resisting the urge to make her perfect in his mind and his memories. Over and over again in his rage and his grief he returns to honesty as a balm for his pain. “H. was a splendid thing; a soul straight, bright and tempered like a sword. But not a perfected saint. An [imperfect] woman married to an [imperfect] man; two of God’s patients, not yet cured. (Lewis, 42).” As he reveals what could have been different, better or more in his much-awaited and all too short time with Joy, he finds that this honesty serves him well, “Looking back, I see that only a very little time ago I was greatly concerned about my memory of H. and how false it might become….And the remarkable thing is that since I stopped bothering about it she seems to meet me everywhere. Meet is far too strong a word. I don’t mean anything remotely like an apparition or a voice. I don’t mean even any strikingly emotional experience at any particular moment. Rather, a sort of unobtrusive but massive sense that she is, just as much as ever, a fact to be taken into account (ibid, 51).”

When we turn away from loss as embarrassing or shameful and turn to what could have been different, better or more in our relationship, the relationship ends but what we learned, what we loved and what really mattered we get to keep – those gifts meet us everywhere, palpable and insightful - and both the brokenness and the gifts make us whole human beings, truly aware, as Madelein L’Engle writes, “that that which has been created with love is not going to be abandoned. Love does not create and then annihilate (ibid, xv).”

This is the second of grief’s gifts to us: Love. Grief is the way we make sure our heart works. If you love you will grieve, and, thank all the gods, if you grieve you will love again. If you trust, if you relish, if you rejoice, if you long for, if you cherish, adore, triumph, succeed, build up and bind to you, you will also lose, and you will grieve, and then you’ll know that it was all true. You wanted to know, didn’t you, that you could feel all of that, that all of that actually happened to you? What an amazing life this is, and what an amazing person you are in it, that you could feel all of that, that you could participate in that much love, in that much fun, in that much hope and help and delight. When it changes and you fall from those heights, that’s when you know you reached them. Grief is actually what catches you, and sets you gently back on the ground. Then you have a choice – focus on the pain or fill up with the love. Here is grief’s third gift – did it happen to you, or did it happen with you, and what will happen now? Grief, the great illuminator, gives us repeated chances to be faced with playing the victim, to believe in our pain and sorrow that someone or something really has THAT much power over us, to MAKE us feel such and such a way, …..the repeated chance to choose instead to be vulnerable and thus to take responsibility, and remain active participants in our own destinies. To realize that change is inevitable – in ourselves, our partners, our communities, our church, our children, our home – and that all we have to do is acknowledge our regrets, ask forgiveness and give it, and move on to the next chance to love and to build. If we love, we grieve, if we grieve, we love again.

Do cry. When change comes, and you hurt, or you’re excited, do cry. In public, walking down the street, preferably and then we'll have a UU emotional intelligence revolution going on here...No, don't start there - start with a friend. At least cry and grieve with a friend. Let weakness overcome you, feel awful, allow yourself to be empty, don’t do anything to replace the loss, and just cry, cry, cry. Time will not heal your wounds, but this expression of your loss will. In ancient alchemy these tears of ours were part of the operation of solutio; they are the softening, the melting of all that is in us that has become hard and inflexible. They shed bitterness, and in doing so, they allow for wisdom. What could have been better, different, or more, my friend? Tell me from your heart. Because, in the same moment we were promised life and became that promise, we were promised loss, and grief became our guide. It is very old, and very wise, and wants nothing more then to guide us back to ourselves again and again. Let it light the way.

 Three wonderful sources made this sermon possible, and I suggest all of them for further reading, reflection, and grief recovery, as well as for referencing all quoted and paraphrased material herein.  Please remember that The C.S. Lewis work is theistic, so be ready for that. The Grief Recovery Handbook requires a partner.  I suggest that, whether you know it right now or not, you have a friend or relative who would be happy to join you in this work, but if you do not, I would be happy to be your listener.

The Grief Recovery Handbook by John W. James & Russell Friedman

A Grief Observed by C.S.Lewis

and to learn what I've used here about tears, and more, take a look at The Book of Symbols

January & February: The Illuminators

Check this out! Here's the link to our original inspiration for our deep winter theme of the Illuminators http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qcj-F_37HU

excerpt from Sunday's sermon:

...what the priests of Zoroastrianism believed was that God was all good, and that was and should have been enough to scare King Herod half to death. The star on the rise was one of theological and social revolution in which a great goodness was the ultimate power and authority. A great goodness, a care for the meek and mild, a sweeping love and acceptance of human nature as essentially full of light and hope was about to bloom in the world. If such a power had been made manifest, says Matthew, a power that id not depend upon military might, or the influence that extreme wealth brings, then the Romans would be hard-pressed to fight it. It's difficult to fight a power that connects human beings one to another, across boundaries and distinctions that used to divide them. It's difficult to fight something so good, so loving, that it need not fight back....

Reading from Sunday (Remember to bring in your own favorite poem about the duality of light and dark for our Poetry Sunday on January 13th!)

Lines Written In The Days Of Growing Darkness by Mary Oliver
Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends

into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing, as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?
I don’t say
it’s easy, but
what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?
So let us go on

through the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.

by Mary Oliver, from New York Times, Sunday, November 7, 2010