Black Lives Matter

My favorite entertainer is British comedian Alan Carr.  Alan has an evening chat show on BBC called Chatty Man and as he enters the stage at the top of the show he says, “What a week it has been!” and then makes light of headlines.

I say to you this morning, “What a week it has been.” In early summer thousands of Unitarian Universalists from around the country attended a conference in Portland, Oregon. The conference takes place in an American city every summer and is called General Assembly. At this particular General Assembly all Unitarian Universalists received a call to Action of Immediate Witness.

I quote:

• The 2015 General Assembly calls congregations to action, in order to become closer to a just world community . . urges congregations to engage in intentional learning spaces to organize for racial justice with recognition of the interconnected nature of racism coupled with systems of oppression that impact people based on class, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability, and language . . .; encourages congregations and all Unitarian Universalists to work towards police reform and prison abolition, which seeks to replace the current prison system with a system that is more just and equitable; and . . . recognizes that the fight for civil rights and equality is as real today as it was decades ago, and urges congregations to take initiative in collaboration with local and national organizations fighting for racial justice against the harsh racist practices many black people are exposed to.

What a week it has been.  Having sat with that call to witness, I made the decision to relay the call to action to our Congregation in a sermon entitled Black Lives Matter, just as our sign advertises. I had prepared a homecoming sermon entitled Gather the Spirit, but scrapped it because we have more urgent matters at hand.

We advertise the sermon title each week on our sign by the street and when Black Lives Matter was placed I wondered if we would be victim to vandals as many other Unitarian Universalist congregations had been across the country, their Black Lives Matter signs defaced, torn down, and mangled. The concern was smaller than the message that we needed to share so the title went up. 

We were doing just fine until this past Friday morning when our office administrator, Barbara, discovered our sign vandalized. Vandals broke into the sign damaging the locks and other mechanisms and placed a sign that read WHITE over the word BLACK making the sign read White Lives Matter. The police were called and were concerned and offered us much support. Then came the Palm Beach Post, Newscenter 5, and CBS which became a whirlwind of telling our story.  It is most troubling that the vandals placed the word WHITE over the word BLACK. Usually signs are changed to read ALL Lives Matter. Using the word WHITE was blatant racism. 

The whirlwind of press was important to us because we are the liberal voice in South Florida and we are Unitarian Universalists, which gives us the responsibility to speak up and out and to tell the story of oppression. We were handed that legacy by those who came before us. I mention that legacy because I needed to call on my Unitarian and Universalist ancestors this week to guide me, to hold me, and remind me to be brave.

In times like these I ask myself, What would Theodore Parker do?  Parker was an outspoken 19th-century Unitarian minister followed by many and ostracized by his Boston colleagues.  More remarkable is his brave position as an abolitionist who sheltered slaves seeking freedom in the North.  Under the rug under his desk where he wrote his sermons was a door leading to a space where slaves would hide when their southern masters came looking for them.  Parker eventually needed to keep a weapon on his desk as he received so many threats for standing for justice. Parker did the right thing knowing it wasn’t popular, it would be difficult, and his well-being was at risk.  He stayed true to his call to ministry and to justice.

And so despite the hate emails and phone calls, warnings from the police, and being labeled cop killer and racist, I decided to stay true to my call to ministry and honor my promise to this Congregation to lead us through difficult times and to let our community know we are a justice-seeking people.

Many of you probably wonder why do we have to say BLACK LIVES MATTER? Why can’t we say ALL LIVES MATTER ... because they do. Black lives matter doesn’t mean that we think that black lives are more important than other lives.  It’s not to be viewed as a threat to the lives of others. It is a rallying call of black people to no longer be devalued or dismissed as they have been for centuries in our country.  All lives matter co-opts powerful language and diminishes the voices of color that have gone unheard for so long.

I wondered why people were so threatened by the slogan?  What would cause someone to believe that black lives mattered more and that they were under attack?  Yes, its racism but that’s too easy of an answer. That's when I returned to a book I’ve been studying entitled The Compassionate Mind by Dr. Paul Gilbert.  Dr. Gilbert explains that compassion is seen as a weakness in societies that encourage us to compete with each other. Striving to get ahead, self-criticism, fear and hostility toward others seem to come naturally to us. The book reveals the evolutionary and social reasons why our brains react so readily to threats.

Our brain gives more priority to dealing with threats than pleasurable things. We are hard wired to a system of self protection. Threat can be activated for us if a goal or something else we want is perceived to be blocked. We begin to fear being hurt or destroyed, fear of having no control over our life, meaning, or purposes, and the fear of being unwanted, marginalized, ignored, excluded or isolated. Such fears live within us. Remember that your threat and self-protection system was designed to protect you. That primitive design, which has served many species for millions of years, is powerful. But we live in a modern world and we need “new minds” to contain them. Societies have evolved, but our hard-wired systems have yet to catch up and prepare us for the modern world. We may even feel under attack but have forgotten the reasons why we respond with self-protection and fear of being marginalized, producing a hostile response. And so to understand why people feel threatened when we say black lives matter it is because they are experiencing a primitive response and primitive responses help you buy into oppression. A new mind, adapted to the world of today is called for.

Let us move on to Black Lives Matter as a movement or campaign. The phrase “Black Lives Matter” was created following the death of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of his killer in 2013. It gained national attention after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson in 2014. Black Lives Matter has also called attention to the death of Eric Garner in New York in 2014 and the killing of Tamir Rice in 2014.  Black Lives Matter has gained the most attention for protests against police brutality and concerns about the justice system and other issues that affect communities of color. The work of the movement, or campaign, was a match for our Unitarian Universalist values at its inception.  Since then it has lost some credibility, being accused of promoting anti-law enforcement messages.

Those claims were not real. Not until the Minnesota State Fair protest this summer where a leader of the Black Lives Matter campaign was videotaped chanting, “Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon” which then became the chant of the group of activists. Activists claimed it was an inside joke between them and the police. The perceived reality was that the activists were advocating violence against law enforcement. I’m neither judge nor jury, but if I am to be honest the incident raised an eyebrow for me. Could I lead a congregation to align itself with a movement that is perceived to have evolved into advocating for violence?

I sat with that question and decided that the Black Lives Matter campaign has become the scapegoat and is unfairly being characterized as cop killers when it is against police brutality, not law enforcement. Again, against police brutality not against law enforcement. That’s an important distinction. However, the Minnesota State Fair incident happened as the Huffington Post explains, “the Black Lives Matter campaign or movement has no formal leadership structure and is subject to the buffoonery of free speech.“  Author Torri Stuckey had this response to the pigs-in-a-blanket incident: “A large part of me wanted to scream "IMPOSTERS!" But who am I that I may denounce a group's authenticity? I'm not at liberty to speak to their struggle. I am no more entitled to the Black Lives Matter movement than any other person who feels connected to its intrinsic value.” The issues are so much deeper than just the institution of law enforcement.

Racism is deeply embedded in our criminal laws and law making, which precipitate bias in our judicial system. Yes, activists are angry and their anger cannot be dismissed as illegitimate; for doing so would be a direct denial of the black experience in our country. Does Black Lives Matter have a public relations problem? Absolutely, but not one that should water down their message. The movement has a problem with police brutality. They should make it clear through their speech and behavior just as they expect from law enforcement. The movement is imperfect.

Now… to acknowledge, as I think we must, that there is a serious racial discrimination problem in American policing, as well as in other aspects of the American judicial system, is NOT -- and please hear this loud and clear friends –- this is NOT to single out the brave men and women who serve our society in law enforcement as somehow being uniquely racist or wrong … they are not. There surely are countless law enforcement officers –- the overwhelming majority certainly -- who regularly apply the law fairly, justly and equally to all.  And I, as all of you, have been profoundly shocked and saddened by the recent cold-blooded murders of several police officers over recent days, as they were working to protect the communities they bravely serve.  I join hearts with those who say “BLUE LIVES MATTER”, for they most certainly do.

How do we begin to purposefully address this pressing social and cultural problem that has become so obvious with all the recent deaths?  We answer the call to action. Unitarian Universalists strive for justice, equity and compassion in human relations; have a goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all and allowing injustice to go unchallenged violates our principles. We continue to support Black-led racial justice organizations. We answer that call to action to become closer to a just world community. We commit to engage and organize for racial justice with recognition of the interconnected nature of racism coupled with systems of oppression that impact people based on class, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability and language. We recognize that the fight for civil rights and equality is as real today as it was decades ago and take initiative in collaboration with local and national organizations fighting for racial justice against the harsh racist practices to which many black people are exposed.  

No matter who you are, black lives matter, and a system of fair, transformative, and restorative justice that is accountable to communities is something to which each of us has a right. Unitarian Universalists and our greater society have the power to make this happen. We are Unitarian Universalists for whom every person is a person of interest. Regardless of race, color or background, everyone has inherent worth and dignity we must cherish and protect.  The very center and soul of our faith revolves around the affirmation of the irreducible worth and beauty of every human being, no matter how different from us they might at first seem. 

What a week it has been.  I leave you with the words of Audette Fulbright Fulson:

• Do not think we are finished — oh no we will never be finished, never just done until the light of justice is lit behind every eye. Do not think we will be silent— no there will not be silence until the world has sung the names of the dead with full throats, and still we will sing on.  Do not think fear is the end of us — oh you are broken in mind and heart if you even imagine that our fear is the end of this story. We are braver than you have ever conceived and you will not be the end of us. We have come to take back the world, the world that is the inheritance of better children, better lovers, better days. There will be love again, but justice is our demand now. You will not take us down.  We are endless, firelit, and determined.

May it be so.

Text of a sermon entitled Black Lives Matter, delivered by the Rev CJ McGregor at 1stUUPB, Sep 6, 2015.

One Morning

One morning we will wake up and forget to build that wall we’ve been building, the one between us, the one we’ve been building for years,
Perhaps out of some sense of right and boundary, perhaps out of habit.

One morning we will wake up and let our empty hands hang empty at our sides. Perhaps they will rise, as empty things sometimes do when blown by the wind. Perhaps they simply will not remember how to grasp, how to rage.

We will wake up that morning and we will have misplaced all our theories about why and how, and who did what to whom,
we will have mislaid all our timelines of when and plans of what and we will not scramble to write the plans and theories anew.

On that morning, not much else will have changed. Whatever is blooming will still be in bloom. Whatever is wilting will wilt.
There will be fields to plow and trains to load
and children to feed and work to do. And in every moment, in every action, we will feel the urge to say thank you, we will follow the urge to bow.

One Morning, a poem by Rosemerry Trommer as read by Paul Ward at 1stUUPB, June 14, 2015.

Swimming in Our Love

When we first fall in love, the powerful force of possibility grips us and pulls us along deeper and deeper into the days.

When first shaping the bonds of love, we look at each other with incredible freshness and appreciate who is before us. We stare into our new lover's eyes the way we might an overwhelming painting in which we imagine the secrets of life have been stroked thickly.

Inevitably, though, as we grow intimate, we begin to lose sight of each other, and there comes a day when we no longer see our loved one as others do. Now we see the inside of their face, up close. Now we swim in each other like a mysterious river in which we sometimes see ourselves, and sometimes soothe ourselves, and sometimes drink of each other.

Eventually, we climb into the painting we once stared at with our pounding heart, and from inside the painting, we can forget there ever was such a painting. This is how we can take each other for granted. This is how we can imagine that the magic is gone.

But, as the reward for being drawn to the sea is to swim with the waves, the reward for being drawn into the depth of another is to feel each other rather than to see each other.

This is the paradox of intimacy. On the way, we see what we dream of feeling, but once there, we feel from the inside what we can no longer readily see.

Swimming in Our Love, from The Book of Awakening, by Mark Nepo, as read by Larry Stauber at 1stUUPB, June 14, 2015.

Waking Up

Are you all awake? As I look around, it looks like most of you are awake but are you conscious? Are you really conscious about what is going on around you? Are you making decisions and making choices consciously?

Today, I am going to invite you to be more conscious and I hope to show you how.

As Sam Harris wrote in his book Waking Up, A Guide to Spirituality without Religion, “consciousness remains notoriously difficult to understand or even to define.”

According to neuroscientist Adrian Owen of the University of Western Ontario, “Consciousness refers to two quite distinct things — wakefulness and awareness. But the problem for people working on consciousness is that none of us can agree on what it actually means.”

I have many academic definitions in my files, but today I want to keep it simple. I am going to describe being conscious in three phases: noticing what is going on around you, setting intention, and acting responsibly.

Let me share a story about Mahatma Gandhi. 

"One day Gandhi stepped aboard a train as it started to move, and one of his shoes slipped off and dropped on the tracks. Unable to retrieve it, he calmly took off his other shoe and threw it back along the track to land close to the first. When an amazed passenger asked why he had done that, Gandhi smiled and said, "The poor man who finds the shoe lying on the track will now have a pair he can use." With the eyes of his imagination, Gandhi saw a man with bare feet, saw him coming across a lone shoe and desperately searching for the other, and saw the disappointment on his face when he didn't find it; seeing these things, Gandhi did what he could to help."  (Donald McCullough in Say Please, Say Thank You)

Gandhi was noticing what was going on around him.

So, NOTICING is about becoming wide awake, it is about waking up, waking up to what is going on round you.

So, what are you noticing? As you look around you today, what do you see? What are you sensing? Sensing is about listening deeply using all the senses; being alert to changes in our environment, in people, and in ourselves; recognizing the need to stop what we are doing to be mindfully aware of our surroundings without judgment. Conscious people see more and they exclude less.

I want to invite you to really notice what is going on around you. This is going to be the audience participation segment of this morning’s service but it will be a silent participation. In a moment, I am going to invite you to stand, not yet, in a moment. I am going to ask you to find a partner, next to you, in front of you, behind you, wherever you find a partner and if that person is sitting down, sit with them. I am going to ask you to look deeply into each other’s eyes without speaking; to notice what is going on.

So, let’s do it. Stand if you are able, find a partner, -- have you found a partner – now, without speaking, look deeply into the other’s eyes. Notice what is happening. Keep silent… Keep looking… Keep noticing. …  Okay, when you are ready, thank your partner and sit back down.

Thank you! Now, I am going to ask you some questions. Answer them inside, there is no need to speak. So, what did you notice? What did you notice in your eye-gazing partner? What did you notice happening to you?  Be curious. Learn from the experience, be fully aware of what is going on around you. Be in the moment, live in this moment.

I imagine you noticed a lot…
I hope you were practicing our first UU principle, noticing the inherent worth and dignity of the person into whose eyes you looked. I invite you to keep noticing what is going on around you.

So noticing is about sensing what is going on, using all your senses; it is about learning, being curious, and it is about being mindful, being in the present moment. But noticing is not sufficient, Gandhi was mindful of losing his shoe, but his intention was that the person finding his shoe would benefit and have a pair of shoes, and he acted responsibly.

Let me tell you about the surgeon and the burglar, a Story of Intention from Christopher Titmuss in Mindfulness for Everyday Living.

The surgeon, working in the operating room on a major operation, and the burglar, stealthily going from room to room, have something in common. Both show an extraordinary degree of mindfulness from one moment to the next. Both remain completely absorbed in their work. What separates the surgeon and the burglar is the intention — and that intention makes all the difference, even though in both cases the quality of focused attention is extraordinarily high. The burglar generates suffering that even an insurance policy cannot redress. The surgeon, on the other hand, works to relieve suffering for a patient.

Authentic mindfulness takes into consideration the intentions behind our actions. Intention matters as much as mindfulness. Together they have the power to transform our lives. Our intentions act as a governing force behind our actions. Even if we make mistakes and the results do not work out the way we want, we can take note of our intentions. If we know, deep in our heart, that our intentions are wholesome, then we should take comfort in this knowledge.

I am reminded of the saying attributed to Plato or Philo of Alexandria: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is engaged in a great struggle.” What did you see as you looked into your partner’s eyes this morning?

So, for me, SETTING INTENTION is about possibility thinking – Thinking positively; believing in possibility not obstacles, in abundance not scarcity. It is about exploring opportunities and being purposeful.

It is also about committing to action -- clearly defining intent; committing to acting responsibly.

I would like to share a poem…

Are you a Reason, a Season, or a Lifetime?
Reason, Season, or Lifetime
People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
When you figure out which one it is, you will know what to do for each person.
When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed.
They have come to assist you through a difficulty; to provide you with guidance and support; to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend, and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be.
Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done.
The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.
Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has come to share, grow, or learn. They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it. It is real. But only for a season.
LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons; things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person, and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.
— Author Unknown

Today, notice with intention, the people who are in your life, whether it be for a reason, a season or a lifetime.

Setting intention means clearly defining our intent and committing to action. Let me share some personal experiences.  

Let me share a personal story

While attending a spiritual retreat a few years ago, I experienced one of those rare moments of real awakening. Despite being intensely goal-driven at times, my awareness of a long-practiced habit was heightened dramatically during one of the meditative exercises, a habit of running away. 

I suddenly realized the number of significant situations I had run away from: I ran away from home; I ran away from the church that was an anchor during my formative years; I ran away from a failing marriage; I ran away from numerous jobs that had become unexciting, some might say I ran away from England. It was not always easy to leave and, in leaving somewhere, I was always heading towards another place but, all too often, without a purpose other than getting away from a bad situation.

Our lives are full of transitions but are we running away or are we running towards something?  I am not saying don’t run away but I am saying, ‘start running towards something.’ In any case, running away or running towards, we need to know why. This takes me the “big why” -- our purpose or calling.

My friend and guide Richard Leider, in his book The Power of Purpose, writes: “Purpose is fundamental to human life. Purpose gives us the will to live or to persevere. It gives us the reason to get up in the morning. Purpose gives us courage.” We all have a purpose whether we know it or not. Have you discovered your purpose? Can you describe your purpose in ten words or less?

Neale Donald Walsch, known for his Conversations with God, says, “There is no blackboard in the sky on which God has written your purpose, your mission in life. That blackboard just doesn’t exist. Your purpose is what you say it is, your mission is the mission you give yourself.”

Running towards our goals is so much better than constantly running away. Living purposefully is what gets you out of bed in the morning.

Linda Linder in her book, Waking Up, says: Telling the truth compels responsibility. Taking responsibility requires taking authentic action. When we can speak truthfully and take action our lives unfold, blossom, ignite and we “Wake up!”

So, with clear intent, we can then move to the third phase of being conscious and that is acting responsibly. This means speaking candidly, practicing integrity, and taking responsible action.

Three Kernels of Corn Parable (author unknown)

Three young men were once given three kernels of corn apiece by a wise old sage, who admonished them to go out into the world, and use the corn to bring themselves good fortune. The first young man put his three kernels of corn into a bowl of hot broth and ate them.

The second thought, I can do better than that, and he planted his three kernels of corn. Within a few months, he had three stalks of corn. He took the ears of corn from the stalks, boiled them, and had enough corn for three meals.

The third man said to himself, I can do better than that!
He also planted his three kernels of corn, but when his three stalks of corn produced, he stripped one of the stalks and replanted all of the seeds in it, gave the second stalk of corn to a sweet maiden, and ate the third.

His one full stalk's worth of replanted corn kernels gave him 200 stalks of corn! And the kernels of these he continued to replant, setting aside only a bare minimum to eat. He eventually planted a hundred acres of corn. With his fortune, he not only won the hand of the sweet maiden but purchased the land owned by the sweet maiden's father.

And he never hungered again. I think he became a conscious capitalist!

Acting responsibly is an opportunity for us all. We can act responsibly first for ourselves; remember, the airline requirement to put your mask on first before you help others.

We can then act responsibly for those we are in relationship with, for the people we care about, and for the causes we care about.

So, I invite you to combine the consciousness practices we have explored this morning
NOTICING, SETTING INTENTION, ACTING RESPONSIBILY -- all the time

I believe this reflects our 7th UU Principle: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

So, at least for today, I invite you to:

Notice what is going on around you, listen deeply with all your senses

Clearly set intentions for your actions, get clear about your purpose

And act responsibly by speaking with candor, practicing integrity, and taking responsible action.

May it be so.

Waking Up, a sermon delivered by Paul G. Ward at 1stUUPB on June 14, 2015

Measure a Year

There are 525,600 minutes in a year. That answer is right for most calendar years.  A leap year (with February 29 tacked on) has 527,040 minutes. But the time it actually takes the Earth to travel once around the Sun is about 525,948.76 minutes. (That translates to 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds.)  So what?  For me this is the opposite of what comes to my mind when I think of measuring a year.  Try doing research for a sermon tilted “Measure A Year.”  If your research on measuring what matters most you find yourself sifting through measuring performance, investments, marketing, digital measurement plans, wealth, who’s the skinniest, the smartest, the most attractive, and many other self indulgent measurements. 525,600 is a lot of minutes to do something more meaningful with. What have you done with your minutes this past church  year, or today for that matter? How do you measure a year in your life?

A popular song from the musical RENT, Seasons of Love, is probably one of my favorite songs ever because it tells many truths about life, especially how to measure a year in life. Jonathan Larson offers many possible ways to measure a year, but the most remarkable one he mainly focused on was measuring a year in love. Measure your life in love.

 Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
 Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear
 Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
 How do you measure, measure a year?
 In daylights, in sunsets
 In midnights, in cups of coffee
 In inches, in miles
 In laughter, in strife
 In five hundred twenty-five thousand
 Six hundred minutes
 How do you measure
 A year in the life?
 How about Love?
 Measure In love
 Seasons of Love
 
 Five hundred twenty-five thousand
 Six hundred minutes
 Five hundred twenty-five thousand
 Journeys to plan
 Five hundred twenty-five thousand
 Six hundred minutes
 How do you measure
 The life of a woman or a man?
 In truths that she learned
 Or in times that he cried
 In bridges he burned
 Or the way that she died!
 It's time now
 To sing out
 Though the story never ends
 Let's celebrate
 Remember a year in the life of friends
 Remember the  love!
 Share love, give love, spread love

Ultimately, this song is asking how we use our time; our talents; our treasure. How do we find purpose and meaning in our life?  Everywhere we look, people are all trying to sum up a year in the easiest way possible. There are plenty of different ways to go about summarizing. One way is to go over everything horrible that happened. That might be the easiest path and the likely path for many to take. But what do we get out of that approach? Other than an extremely depressing list that could give any sane human being nightmares, not much really.  Or, if you’re going for the more optimistic approach, you go look at only the good things that happened. While this one’s a bit trickier, it’s much more gratifying. This method can give you a more positive outlook on life, but it may not give you a realistic one. That is why you will see a particular picture on the cover of the order of service that reminds us of the mountain highs and the valleys low.  It's realistic and while it may not be the most interesting way to measure it, is the most important.

In some ways, the song's lyrics parallel words in the New Testament: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.”  It is calling us to bear fruit; called to invest our lives in those around us. And we are asked how we will measure our fruit. Yes, on a supermarket scale, but not this time. (That was a joke!) No we will measure our fruit by turning back and asking if those we encountered are better off as a result of time, care, and faith. Can I get an Amen, Chorus?

But life can be long and difficult at times. It is hard to invest in others all the time. It's hard to invest in others all the time. In the passage I just mentioned we are given a hint of how to be consistent in bearing fruit. “Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”  To use another metaphor, bearing fruit is not an individual sport. It’s a team sport. A player on a team needs to listen to the coach, do what they say; not just to get playing time, but to be a better player, to help the team win. To produce fruit we must remain in the vine.
 
525,600 minutes!  525,600 journeys to plan. 525,600 minutes.
How can you measure the life of a woman or man?

We may be best served by focusing on the little things, versus the big things. Everywhere I’ve looked, people are focusing on celebrities and politicians, and what happened in their lives. Instead of focusing on what effected millions of people, why not take a closer look at what happened to just one person? Someone made a friend. Someone got married, and someone else got divorced. A tiny child started kindergarten, and a not-so-tiny child started college. A person was hurt, and a person was healed. Children died in city streets, and a child was born. The poet Mary Oliver tells us that instruction for living a life are to pay attention, be astonished and to tell about it.  I’m not going too deep here as Paul Ward will deliver the sermon next Sunday titled “Waking Up” that will have everything to do with paying attention.

Besides the fact that lyrics of Seasons of Love just kicks my butt emotionally, it made me think of two things…how do I really measure a year, and is it  the right measure?  And second, the things I do measure do not hit the heart (in email, in voicemails, in hours commuting, in meetings, in conference calls, in Powerpoint decks, in airport security lines, in mantras recited to keep from freaking out in overcrowded places, in tweets, Facebook posts, on my smart phone, on my laptop).  Do these mesh with what I really like to measure (nights slept under the stars, days of silence, time, time with the divine and nurturing my spirit, time with my family, time with you in this congregation, time in the pub? Yes, ministers drink beer. Moments such as these will give you the energy and forward thrust to create the kind of life that you want to measure with the right metrics.  Time keeps rolling on … how are you measuring a year in your life?

Let me remind everyone that we measure this time of our year because historically Unitarians and Universalists left their homes in June and flocked to the sea for cooler air and summer revivals. The most famous being the Universalist revivals led by Quillen Shinn in Maine throughout the 19th century. And so we continue that tradition by slowing down, taking stock, and gearing up for a September return when we believe our next church year begins. I return to the question I asked a few minutes ago. What have we done with our minutes this past church year?

I’m elated that the chorus from the Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church in West Palm has joined us. One of their minister’s, the Rev. Kevin Jones, is a dear friend of this Congregation. Our chorus guests are our partners in justice. Francis David, a 16th Century Unitarian once said, You do not have to think alike to love alike.” Our two congregations are proof of that. Though our faith and theology may take different roads we walk together for justice. We’ve participated in and supported PEACE and have made strides in bringing down all that keeps marginalized communities down and have demanded action from our leaders.
 

• This Congregation has packed thousands of meals that were delivered to families in our county who go without eating on a daily basis.
• We’ve offered many grants to community organizations to help support their mission. Those funds came directly from you.
• Some of our members can be seen at St. George’s distributing meals.
• We’ve planted fruits and vegetables as a sign to our commitment to sustainability.
• We’ve disappointed one another but are surely on the mend.
• We’ve increased our ability to grow young Unitarian Universalists in our children and youth.
• Our thrift shop brought in over $17,000 with a handful of volunteers that will support our congregation. A handful of volunteers.
• We offer scholarships not only to people wanting to go to university, but to trade schools and will offer scholarships to those seeking their GED.
• We support women’s health programs.
• We support Haitian efforts to build a well in a community without accessible water.
• We stand up for the rights of all.
• I can tell you we are stronger than we have been in a long time -- committed to loving and leadership.
• We have been transforming ourselves and the work has been intense.  But we’ve past the test.  We’re here.  We’re here.

I’d like you to rise and tell us of a success or challenge you’d like us to hold up from this past church year.
 
(Congregants rise and tell stories of successes and challenges)

We’ve mourned together, we’ve laughed together, we’ve tested one another.  Yet here we are ready to serve the community, honor our Unitarian Universalist roots of freedom, compassion, and reason.

How do we measure a year? Whether it be a church year or your year, we measure it in love. Our impact on the world and on our inner selves are the guideposts that measure the journey of the year. Paying attention, working to understand what is meaningful, nurturing the soil we stand in so we may bear fruit.

Let our 525,600 minutes be filled with love, commitment to change inside and outside of these sanctuary walls. Let our minutes be filled with partnering with others in our community because none of us can do it alone. Let us use our minutes to sit under the night sky and wonder, to stand in that protest, to walk in that march, to hold the hand of our youngest.  Let our minutes be used in developing meaning in our lives. The meaningful life involves difficult undertakings such as stress, struggle and challenges. However, while sometimes unhappy in the moment, we – connected to a larger sense of purpose and value – make positive contributions to society and to this Congregation.

Happiness without meaning is a shallow and often self-oriented life, in which things go well, needs and desires are easily satisfied, and difficult or taxing entanglements are avoided. The meaningful life guides us from the past through the present to the future, giving one a sense of direction. It offers ways to value good and bad alike, and gives us justifications for our aspirations.

From achieving our goals, regarding ourselves in a positive light, to a deep and rich spiritual grounding, a life of meaningfulness is considerably different than mere happiness.

May it be so.

Measure a Year, a sermon delivered by the Rev. CJ McGregor at 1stUUPB on June 7, 2015.

Memorial Day

I spoke with my brother this week who tells me that in New York, where we grew up, the warm days have begun; the breezes that carry with them the scent of flowers and sweet, soothing rain. Summer is coming, we are promised, with every leaf and birdsong that arrives with the morning light. Long hours of daylight and evenings full of gatherings and games are only days away. This is the glory of Memorial Day and its gifts are many. It holds the promise of an extra day off work or school. It marks the opening of swimming pools and gatherings around the grill for parties with family and friends. There are, of course, the requisite parades of scout troops and baseball or softball teams, local politicians and old fashioned cars, marching bands, and in some towns, the reciting of long-ago written words that may or may not mean anything to the sixth graders who memorized them. Memorial Day has come to represent the beginning of summer with a dutiful, but nominal nod to its original purpose.

Since its official inception in 1868, Memorial Day (originally called Decoration Day, for the practice of decorating the graves of soldiers with flowers in honor of their sacrifice) has become year after year, less about those who died in battle and more about the fun and mayhem of the summer months which are waiting just around the corner. The day off has become focused on the logistics of food and fun and our parades have become about determining who walks in what order. For many, Memorial Day has lost much of its seriousness and its magnitude.

“I grew up around military bases,” writes Rev. David Takahashi Morris, “I remember Memorial Day as a time when we went over to the fort for a parade and a picnic, and we kids got to climb around on tanks and little jets. A few years later, I remember playing ‘Taps’ on my trumpet, wearing my Boy Scout uniform, standing on a railing above Punchbowl Crater in Honolulu while a few hundred people listened in the military cemetery on the crater floor. It was a powerful experience, and the solemnity of it resonates for me all these years later.

Things have become complicated since then,” he continues, “Vietnam taught me to look critically at war, and later as I learned about the way in which even the ‘great’ wars were open to question, this holiday lost a lot of its luster for me, as it has for many in liberal circles. For many Americans Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf invasions, and for some even the world wars, don’t represent our country’s best values.”

Maybe Takahashi Morris is right, that things have become too complicated to celebrate Memorial Day with a clear vision and a clear conscience. Maybe we’ve become ambivalent about military service and war in general. Maybe we’ve grown skeptical and uneasy around the idea of young adults, barely adults really, dying in foreign lands for reasons not quite clear to us. Maybe we distract ourselves with sales on grills and wading pools, 2-for-1 deals at the grocery and 0% down at the big car dealership because war itself seems so far away and unreal.

Many of us have no memory, nor a full understanding of what it means to be at war, to live with its reality day in and day out as they do in other parts of the world; where the explosions and gun fire and body count are a daily reminder of how precious and fragile our lives are; where the blood stains take days to wear off the streets or the walls of buildings take years to rebuild. We United States citizens are, many of us, insulated from the gruesome truth of a soldiers’ sacrifice.

Thousands of American lives have been lost in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but those countries are a world away and,unless we personally know one of the soldiers, their deaths are abstract tragedies. Not that we feel no compassion or sadness or anger at the loss of them, but we are not in the desert with them, we are not hunting for a clear enemy through treacherous mountains, we are not there in the makeshift hospital tending their wounds, we are not there in their last moments of living. We witness their sacrifice only through the technology of our time. We may watch the caskets being unloaded, we may watch the funerals, but the grisly truth of their death has been cleaned up by the time we see it, it has been distanced by video and commentary and the political posturing of both sides. David Blight tells us:

The young dead soldiers do not speak.

Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses:

who has not heard them?

They have a silence that speaks for them at night

and when the clock counts.

They say: We were young. We have died.

Remember us.

They say: We have done what we could

but until it is finished it is not done.

They say: We have given our lives but

until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave.

They say: Our deaths are not ours: they

are yours, they will mean what you make them.

They say: Whether our lives and our

deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we

cannot say,

it is you who must say this.

We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.

We were young, they say. We have

died; remember us.

What we have lost in the demilitarization of Memorial Day are the soldiers. We have been diverted into behaving as though this day of memory is more about hot dogs and egg salad than about remembering. Remember we must, for to do any less is a disservice not only to those who gave their lives but to what they gave their lives to protect and to support.

There are many stories that tell of the first Decoration Day. Within the annals of history there are some two dozen cities and towns that claim the origins of the tradition as their own. I share with you two such beginnings.

“This…celebration took place in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1865.  During the war the city had converted the planters’ horse racing track into an open-air prison for Union soldiers, and at least 257 men had died from exposure and disease and been buried in shallow unmarked graves.  As the war ended, local blacks and a few white missionaries and teachers organized a memorial for these unnamed Union dead.  David Blight describes this huge event:

“The “First Decoration Day” … involved an estimated ten thousand people, most of them black former slaves.  During April, twenty-eight black men from one of the local churches built a suitable enclosure for the burial ground at the Race Course.  In some ten days, they constructed a fence ten feet high … and landscaped the graves into neat rows.  The wooden fence was whitewashed and an archway was built over the gate … On the arch, painted in black letters, the workmen inscribed, “Martyrs of the Race Course.”

…On May 1, the procession to this special cemetery began as three thousand black schoolchildren … marched around the [graves], each with an armload of roses and singing. The children were followed by three hundred black women… The women carried baskets of flowers, wreaths, and crosses to the burial ground.  …A benevolent association of black men, next marched in, followed by large crowds of white and black citizens.  All dropped their spring blossoms on the graves in a scene recorded by a newspaper correspondent …

“the holy mounds -- the tops, the sides, and the spaces between them -- were one mass of flowers, not a speck of earth could be seen…”

“[Another] founding story has it that a teenager, Emma Hunter, and her friend, Sophie Keller, decorated Emma’s father’s grave with garden flowers. Dr. Reuben Hunter had recently died serving the Union Army. Nearby, Mrs. Elizabeth Meyer placed flowers on the grave of her son, Private Amos Meyer, who’d died at Gettysburg.

The women got to talking about their loved ones and tending each others’ graves. They agreed that next year they’d decorate all the graves. The following July 4th, the entire town showed up to honor every grave with blossoms and flags. The community drew a clear, bright festival from shared grief and loss.”

It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all. We have to go back to where it all began; back to remembering the brutality and the sacrifice; remembering that as Unitarian Universalists we believe, even when it is difficult to do so, that all life is sacred and worthy of remembering. No one deserves to be forgotten who gave their life to what they believed in and it is our duty to honor their deaths as the gifts to us they are. Like the cloud in our reading this morning, our soldiers gave something dear of themselves for us. We must rediscover a way to speak for them for they can no longer speak for themselves. We must separate our discomfort, unease and revulsion of war itself and those who send our young men and women to fight from our compassion for those who take up arms to defend their values even if they are not our values.

Memorial Day requires us to take a moment and pause in order to honor and remember all those, no matter which side of battle they fought on, who gave what Abraham Lincoln called, “the last full measure of devotion.” We are called to offer no less than our gratitude and our respect for lives ended on the battlefield regardless of whether we believed the war they fought was righteous or wrong. It is then left to us to give their deaths meaning by living a ‘new hope.’ “Let us rise up…” wrote Martin Luther King Jr. in his final speech the spring of 1968, “with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination…Let us develop a kind dangerous unselfishness…And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge, to make America what it ought to be.” And to remember.

May it be so.

Memorial Day, a sermon by the Rev. CJ McGregor at 1stUUPB, Sunday, May 24, 2015

Slow Violence: Commit2Respond

Naturalist Diane Ackerman narrates the fate of a Yup’ik settlement on the western coast of Alaska: “Any day now the whole village and neighboring indigenous communities could begin sinking into the melting permafrost, as if it were white quicksand.” Their options?  Well, U.S. and international laws define refugees as “fleeing violence, war or persecution;” federal disaster relief grants money to repair infrastructure in place, not to relieve personal suffering. The state?  In 1958 the Alaskan government mandated that to build a school the Yup’ik had to choose a site at “the farthest point upriver that a Bureau of Indian Affairs barge could navigate.”  Now the Yup’ik must find somewhere to go with only vague state assistance in building a new community.  Otherwise, as Ackerman writes, they will “join the realm of polar bears and narwhals in rich seams of Eskimo lore,” absorbed into towns and cities, economically disenfranchised, enduring traumatic cultural adjustment.

The winters of 2014 and 2015 brought unseasonable warmth to Alaska.  With ice forming later and melting earlier, fishing and hunting may be very lean again this year.

Ackerman’s imagery stirred to memory words from Dr. Rob Nixon’s Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor: “Slow violence – a violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence typically not viewed as violence at all.  It shapes our inattention to calamities that are slow and long lasting, calamities that patiently dispense their devastation while remaining outside our flickering attention spans -- and outside the purview of a spectacle-driven corporate media.”

Slow violence – climate change. 

Perhaps we do not imagine the looming future.  We’re facing intersections of ecological and climate justice -- communities shaped in “the human age” as we lurch down one of two paths: one continuing to hurtle through such intersections, the other those caught in the middle -- people, plants and animals “…who have done the least to contribute to our surging crisis, facing the most threatening consequences.” 

In bed tonight, lie very still and listen carefully.  Murmurs of slow violence creep across the night air.  Waking to this truth and engaging it is, to me, at the core of being Unitarian Universalist. 

Yes, it’s complicated and challenging.  News flickers around us about changes unfolding in Earth’s environment: Antarctic ice sheets melting, Siberian methane potholes forming, atmospheric CO2 topping 400 and on and on.  What are we slouching towards and will we survive? 

To begin to understand our world, let’s unpack slow violence.

First, climate change outsources violence on a vast scale -- temporal and geographical.  Shredding our planet’s life-sustaining envelope, it’s mitigated only through deep commitment to safeguarding Earth remote from us in both space and time.  We’re called to actively value all life forms 30, 50, 100, even 1,000 years from now.

Second, what does it mean to re-imagine humanity as a force powerful enough to transform Earth’s very strata?  Asking that question might reframe our understanding of human responsibility not only towards our own species, but the whole planet.  Climate change is a critical indicator of our alarming, often reckless morphological power.

Third, this incubus has been haunting us for over two generations as most so-called leaders run the other way. Yes, we’re called to confront the foundations of modern industrial society. Unnoticed, slow violence steers the back edges of a host of environmental crises underway: species extinctions, collapsing fisheries, soil desertification, dying coral reefs, depleted groundwater, dead zones in the ocean, and on and on. Might we find ways to reshape these facts, to begin reimagining and restoring this fragile planet?

Fourth, it is customary to speak about problems with “the environment” and economic inequality as if they were abstract issues separate from us. But these problems are deep inside us -- in how we relate to the non-human world, to each other, and how we structure institutions -- all notes threaded through our 7th Principle.

Fifth, environmental stresses sharpen as food prices rise and production falters -- added challenges given widespread hunger on a hemorrhaging Earth, much of it due to either wars or distribution systems. And current climate models are not encouraging.

And sixth, from global marketing experience, some will revolt against the same things they have revolted against in the past: injustices in the system. Roman Catholic Pope Francis recently told a meeting of Latin American landless peasants: “Climate change, the loss of biodiversity and deforestation are already showing their devastating effects in the great cataclysm you are suffering.” Affected by higher temperatures, long droughts punctuated by intense rainfall, more resilient pests and plant diseases -- events tied to a one degree average temperature rise in coffee growing areas -- barren trees have put people out of work and led to many of the parentless children crossing our border with Mexico.

Responses to such events typically focus on authoritarianism and threats against the poor, but they’re only attempts to keep a lid on what's already boiling over. The more humane answer: find ways to turn down the heat.  To quote editorialist Bill Maxwell: “To start, we must care about one another.”

In Reclaiming Prophetic Witness, Unitarian Universalist theologian Paul Rasor writes, “…religious liberals have been influential advocates for social reform at least since … the early nineteenth century.” Given that the world we are already facing must be met head-on, we should acknowledge Rasor’s language that we are called to be influential advocates, urged to step into the public square.

Grounding this idea is Jeffrey Lockwood of the University of Wyoming in his article Less More, Please at uuworld.org: “Solutions to the world’s environmental problems may not require more of us, but less. We may be required to ask deeper questions rather than seek wider answers…but there is more of one thing that could solve many problems -- humility.”

Acknowledging our contrition, what might we do?  Let’s begin by engaging important and effective resources.

Rooted in the calling Waitstill and Martha Sharp undertook in 1939, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, or UUSC, has for 75 years been a critical component of Unitarian Universalist life. Advancing human rights and social justice around the world, partnering with those who confront unjust power structures, and mobilizing to challenge oppressive policies, UUSC envisions a world free from oppression and injustice, where all can realize their full human rights. Today is an annual UUSC advocacy and fundraising event, usually known as Justice Sunday.  But, understanding the changing world we face, Earth’s dependence on water, and recognizing the inequalities and human rights challenges communities will have to deal with as slow violence marches on, today is Climate Justice Sunday. 

On this planet, water is life.  Without it, nothing flourishes.  Even deep ecologists such as myself recognize that my beloved Florida is wholly dependent on water.  Whether standing in reverence as my garden receives a gracious drink from the sky or edging through cattail north of Brahma Island, I merge with life itself.  But climate change, by effecting regional rainfall amounts, creating heat stress events, and rearranging large-scale weather patterns, threatens waters I’ve always known like the back of my hand.

In this environment, UUSC works to advance the human right to safe, sufficient and affordable water in countries from the Americas and Africa to Asia -- and has significant ongoing efforts in Argentina, Chile and Guatemala. Their small staff is engaged in research to drafting law and policy, supporting civil society organizations in campaigns and litigation, and advocating with national and international human rights institutions. Their technical assistance in shareholder advocacy efforts has resulted in the first human-right-to-water policies at major U.S. corporations, including PepsiCo, Intel, Connecticut Water, and Proctor and Gamble. UUSC staff also played a key role in passage of legislation guaranteeing human water rights in California, and are actively engaged in dealing with massive water shutoff rates in Detroit, one of our most economically-challenged cities.

To me, given current projections, their work on this issue is just beginning.  Many climate models suggest several western states could be entering a period of extended drought events. Meanwhile we’re witnessing overuse and depletion of the Ogallala aquifer, a major source of water for wheat belt states; and Florida – my Florida! – already has more homes platted for development than it can provide water.  Meanwhile, decreasing snowfalls in the Himalayas could threaten Bangladesh, India and China – or worse, start international wars.

All of which convinces me UUSC’s commitment to responding to slow violence is critical, that it becomes more important every day, and we best help ourselves and others to become engaged in supporting this effort.  Today, on “blue bucket” Climate Justice Sunday, we must stand up for this cause.

And you need to be aware UUSC is engaged in an emerging, unprecedented coalition.  The most diverse array of Unitarian Universalist groups ever brought to one table has come together in Commit2Respond -- “People of faith and conscience taking action for Climate Justice.” Launched at the People's Climate March in New York City this past September, Commit2Respond unites a number of Unitarian Universalist organizations in multi-year work. We commit to join together to SHIFT to a lower carbon future, ADVANCE the human rights of affected communities, and GROW the climate justice movement. Together we will expand partnerships and deepen collective impact.  We recognize the role inequality plays in current crises, where marginalized communities are often first to experience the effects of climate change and environmental degradation. Yet never forget: no one will be untouched. As British social critic Raymond Williams put it: “To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.” We must address our inherent challenge: to overcome cynicism and hopelessness, and to quicken many possible alternatives awaiting our creativity.

And what might we here do, personally? Well, we can further systemic changes in our communities by influencing local policy and planning. We can begin building alliances and coalitions with diverse stakeholders to help create appropriate conditions of possibility. Mindful of lurking slow violence, we can discover in both ourselves and other faith communities strength and courage to resist and begin dismantling structural elements, practices and vested interests perpetuating challenges to our water supplies. Bit by bit, relationship by relationship, we can work to put in place the building blocks of a new future, and start transforming our communities into more just and sustainable places.

We can survive what Diane Ackerman would call “understanding our rude evolutionary infancy,” growing into responsible, caring adults without losing innocence, playfulness, or a sense of wonder.  But first we must recognize that we are a very young species, blessed and cursed by our prowess.  Truly empowering this understanding requires we see with the widest vision, recognizing that every step forward is rooted in the ground beneath our feet -- that we and Earth are one, that this is our home, and that to continue to destroy this world digs a deep grave. Rather than filling our days with slow violence, plundering and stomping about Earth, we must root ourselves in commitment to UUSC’s vision of a world free from oppression and injustice, then begin to re-establish our natural place, working together to restore and hand forward a living, breathing planet -- a fuller, more diverse, more complete home amongst the stars. 

This is holy work.  It is who we are called to be.  In hope and wonder, amen and blessed be.

SLOW VIOLENCE: Commit2Respond, a sermon by Robert Keim, chaplain, UU Church In The Pines, delivered at 1stUUPPB on April 3, 2015.