In the Moment

I start today with a story I heard over beers from an old friend from college. My friend was in medical school. We had met each other for drinks on a Friday night and he told me about his current rotation working in the emergency room of a hospital in upper Manhattan. He was doing his psychiatry rotation. He met a man the night before who was distraught. He had financial difficulties and was having problems at home. In short he was anxious and maybe a little depressed. My friend had explored the man's issues and determined that there was no immediate threat, and that the man was safe. He helped calm him and gave him some names and numbers of outpatient therapists and reassured him that he was OK.

The next week my friend and I met again, yes same bar and more beers. This time my friend was excited to tell me what had happened. The same man he had seen a week before had come in and this time he was very agitated and couldn’t sit still. He was looking all around, and acting and talking quite paranoid, He told a story of how for a week, everywhere he went, whenever he left his house he saw a little person following him. He said this person mimicked every move he made and wouldn’t let him do anything without copying the movement. My friend was concerned. He thought the man was having a psychotic break and he needed to help him. He reassured the man and they worked together to get him admitted. When everything was done and they were headed up to the psychiatric ward, they got on the elevator together. My friend told the patient the floor number and the patient went to press the button. My friend looked down the hall as the elevator doors were about to close. There down the hall was a little person making the motion of pressing the elevator button. He stopped the elevator door. The little person turned out to be a schizophrenic who had been at the hospital the week before. He was off his medications and had inexplicably latched on to my friends patient and followed him for a week.

I learn from this story many lessons but today I’d like to focus on two aspects. The importance of being present and in the moment, or mindfulness. My friend was aware enough in a busy hospital to notice the small person. He didn’t reject that reality but instead acted. The other point is that the patient told himself a story of going insane and presented it that way. The story was untrue and he was actually ignoring reality.

I’d like to share two stories of how being present and in the moment has helped me through a difficult moment and another story of how being mindful helped a Unitarian Universalist congregation to which we belonged through a traumatic event.

You may know I have been an outpatient therapist. Much of my professional life I have used DBT or Dialectical Behavioral Therapy as my primary methodology. DBT is a skill-based therapy that teaches functional ways to lead a healthy life. Much of what DBT interestingly draws on is Buddhist teaching. One fundamental lesson of DBT is mindfulness. In The Miracle of Mindfulness, Unitarian Universalist minister Rev. Tim Temerson shares a sense of mindfulness and writes “mindfulness means living in and being deeply aware of the present moment. Mindfulness is a doorway to the here and now -- to a way of seeing and listening and living that enables us to let go of the worry, the anxiety, and the judgments of the past and the future. “

One lesson about mindfulness in DBT that I’ve taught a thousand times is called the Dandelion story. In the Dandelion story, there was a man who had bought a home and he wanted to get rid of the Dandelions on his lawn. He went out to the store and got an herbicide (I know very un-Unitarian Universalist of him). He put it all over his lawn and the Dandelions went away. However in not that long of a period he noticed they were coming back. He also noticed his neighbors had Dandelions. He called his neighbors and they all put herbicide on their lawns, The Dandelions went away, but then not too long after, yes, they came back. Then the homeowner's association hired professional landscapers and they did their work. The Dandelions went away, but you can probably guess they came back.

Finally out of pure frustration he wrote to President Obama complaining, saying with all the resources at his disposal did the President have a way to solve the dandelion problem. He of course didn't expect a response and did it out of pure frustration. So he was shocked when a month later he received a letter from the president. The president said I have the solution to your problem. It’s simple. You just need to learn to love Dandelions.  Interestingly that concept also cuts across many religious traditions, In Buddhism it is radical acceptance. Radical acceptance is feeling the emotions of the moment and then letting them go. When in life we hold on to struggle and pain, we allow that pain to become suffering. Suffering is like a cloud that hovers over us. In the individual that becomes anxiety and depression. In the group it becomes alienation and strife. In the Christian tradition the concept is best expressed in the serenity prayer. God give me the grace to accept what I can not change, the strength to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The first story is of a Saturday morning and how being mindful allowed me to get through a difficult morning. It’s a story of when my children were young. I need to ask you a favor when I tell this story. I ask that you not see it as a dark story full of struggle because for me it isn’t.  I ask that you not feel sympathy or concern because I neither need it, nor is it the point of why I share it. To understand this story you need to understand a little bit about our children. Both of our boys are adopted and both have disabilities. Our son Tony was born with autism and has mild mental retardation. He is high functioning and doing quite well, and again no sympathy needed. Our son Robert suffers from schizophrenia and has had many struggles, but, again, is doing well and has not needed to be in the hospital for years. Again no sympathy needed. We are actually very proud of both of them. 

That being said it was, I believe, a weekend morning, most likely a Saturday, but I’m not sure. CJ was out of town it may have been for work. I was home with the kids and it had snowed the night before. I had gotten up and was going to make breakfast. I asked Tony to go out and shovel the driveway. My phone rang. It was the hospital, Robert had been there for a few days and was in crisis and the nursing staff wanted to give him an injection to calm him down. As I was talking to the nurse I looked out the window and Tony, who was in his early teens was shoveling snow from the front lawn into the driveway. He never was the best with directions. I looked over and our 90 pound puppy Henry had decided it was time to eat the mail. He had half of a check a friend had just sent us for our wedding sticking out of his month. Now this could be an overwhelming moment. I am very proud of what I did. I started laughing. You see Robert was where he needed to be right then and safe, and Henry and Tony were just being themselves. Nothing to worry about. I had the ability to be present enough to see the comical absurdity in my life and to appreciate it.

The last story I will tell is of the First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Worcester, MA. It was the first Unitarian Universalist church that CJ and I belonged to, and is a large congregation with a fairly conservative tradition for Unitarian Universalists. When we were there, the Christian prayer, the Our Father was still read during every service. CJ and I were attending a dinner for all the teachers who had volunteered at the church that year. If I remember correctly they had many religious education classrooms and there were over a dozen of us present. At the party, which was at a member’s home who lived close to the church, someone looked up and noticed the roof of the church was on fire. We all went and watched the fire department put out a major fire that would affect significant portions of a very large historic building and -- for all of us -- our religious home.

The next day volunteers worked tirelessly to set up a makeshift sanctuary in a back space of the building used for plays that had a stage and an open gym area. The following day, Sunday morning, the gym area was packed with hundreds of people. There was not enough seats for everyone and many were standing. I clearly remember the words of Barbara Merritt, the minister. She opened the service with the same words that were used every Sunday and had been used for hundreds of years in that congregation. When she spoke you could have heard a pin drop. She called out in her clear voice “This is a day the Lord has made. Let us be glad and rejoice in it.” The church was rebuilt and Barbara has since retired. She’s an amazing minister and I highly recommend her collection of meditations, Amethyst Beach.  The power of that moment was everyone was fully present and in that moment the words told a story not of hardship but of joy, resilience, and of connection to a community.

Let us as individuals and a Congregation be present enough to recognize the comical and joyful in our lives, and not get caught up in the struggle. Being mindful of the moment without judgment allows us to feel. We must honor and learn from our past, but by being mindful we recognize that our past is not our present and the future has yet to come. By dwelling in the past or the future we miss the joy, the struggle, and the connections that are around us. Mindfulness is the practice of being fully present and paying attention to what is around us. It is recognizing the each others triumphs and struggles. It is noticing, the beauty and the ugly in the world and accepting that it all will pass.

I also said beyond being mindful, it is important how we tell our stories. The stories we tell and how we tell them shape our lives. Our own minister, Rev CJ McGregor, in his sermon Reinterpretation says “Reinterpreting recalls, accepts, reorganizes, and understands the past, instead of abandoning it. To move towards freedom, towards freshness, towards something new and adventurous in our present we need to reinterpret or reconstruct our past.”

Again this is shaped by my professional life, as another form of therapy I’ve been drawn to is narrative therapy. Very simply put. The stories we tell ourselves and others make a difference. On the surface this may seem in conflict with being mindful but I believe they are complementary. We need to look at the past mindfully and be open to all the details and not just the negative.

Since, I came here last August and I heard a narrative of a Congregation that was struggling and that was doomed because the Congregation was too old. I saw and see something different. I looked about and noticed that, for lack of a better way of putting it, new old people were coming every Sunday. I was mindful of the activity going on in the Congregation. This is not a Sunday-only place. I see passion, energy, and talent as well as people struggling with the challenges of aging. I also see strength and commitment.

It is remarkable to see flowers show up on Sundays with no one asking (thank you Margaret Robeson). I see a kitchen that get mysteriously cleaned without a committee to argue about it (thank you June Kleeman). I see someone greeting every Sunday and name tags appearing out of thin air (thank you Janet Fryman). To me these are stories of commitment and caring. We need to be present and we need to tell our story differently. We are an active and involved Congregation with talent and history. We are a Congregation in which things happen because people are committed to the community not because it is their committee assignment.

Let us not hold on to the story of a Congregation that is suffering, and in this moment tell a story not of hardship but of joy, resilience, and of connection to a community. May we realize the wide universe is the ocean we travel and this earth is our blue boat home. Let us heed the words of Mary Oliver “Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

In the Moment, a sermon by Richard Keelan delivered at 1stUUPB on May 11, 2012.

Planting Seeds

All across the country this month Unitarian and Universalists have celebrated Justice Sunday. This is a Sunday where congregations honor and increase our participation in the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. In a few minutes we will hear more about the service committee from John and Betty Richards.

The theme for this Sunday is Planting Seeds. Justice begins by planting seeds. Growing your own food — and having the resources and opportunity to do so — is a powerful act. A time to reflect on food security and sustainability. Our goal is to bring transition and transformation to our Congregation and our community -- to inspire a broad movement involving people from every corner who want healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way.

Much of the food we eat contributes to our ill health. Many of our standard industrial agricultural practices cause unnecessary pain and suffering to farm animals that give their lives that we might have meat, eggs, milk and cheese -- and to laborers who work in dangerous conditions. Many of our practices rob the soil of its health, pollute the land, the water and the air, and rely overly much on non-renewable petroleum products for their production and transportation. Our food system, as it exists today, allows millions to go without food in a world where others have far more than they need, largely, although not entirely, because good, wholesome, nutritious food is either not available or affordable to all. This is not a guilt trip or another sermon about ethical eating. Justice begins by planting seeds and if there is one thing I know about this Congregation is its commitment to service and justice.

There are many sermons that one could preach related to these problems and to their solutions. They can’t all be preached today. Rather this morning, I’d like to begin by looking at these problems theologically. And then I’d like to focus on the issues related to affordability and availability of real food to those who need it.

Recently a colleague pointed me in the direction of a book that was new to me, a book called Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating by Norman Wirzba, who is a professor of theology, economy and rural life at Duke Divinity School. Wirzba talks about food as something that is meant to join us together, intimately and intricately with other people, but also with the entire natural world. The very act of eating is, he says, all of life and with the mystery that is the source of that life. In order for us to live, we must eat. And in order for us to eat, we must take life. Life must give way to death in order for other life to be sustained. And that is an intimate process, which reminds us that we are in fact connected intricately with all life and with all that sustains life … the soil, the air, the water, the sun.

Aware of our interdependence, we acknowledge that eating ethically requires us to be mindful of the miracle of life we share with all beings.

As Unitarian Universalists, we understand this idea of an interconnected web of all existence quite well. Being part of something bigger and recognizing that we belong to it and that we are connected intimately and intricately to others. According to Wirzba, the problem with our current food systems, in theological terms, is that “we live in exile,” which he defines as “the refusal to welcome and accept responsibility for the membership of creation of which we are a part.” This is such an interesting idea to me that we are in living in exile when it comes to our food. We are cut off. We are alienated, isolated, separated. We don’t see the connections between our food and our health, our food choices and the health of workers or the environment, our choices and the fact of hunger.

When I think of these things together … exile, food, hunger … I think also of the other ways we are alienated from our food, our consumption, I think of how people -- so many people -- are hungry these days for connection, for purpose, for wholeness, for health, for sustainability and for good food itself. For Wirzba the act of communion is one path out of that exile. For communion is a ritual of remembering, of restoring that which has been dis-membered, of recalling our connections not only to one another, but to our food and those who gave their labor and their lives that we might eat and live. When thought of in those terms, communion can be a very relevant and powerful act that brings us back into community in the fullest sense of the word. As Unitarian Universalist the word communion might make us squirm. But community, interdependence, and justice are the words we live by and bring us to restoration and wholeness.

A very real justice issue in this country is food insecurity which means people not having access to food and go hungry. Food insecurity is directly related to climate change. As our climate changes so does the type, amount and quality of food available to all of us. It’s one big and scrambled chain of events. Nearly 50 million people in the U.S. are food insecure -- about 1 in 6 Americans. 18 million children are food insecure, more than 2 in 5 children. Florida food banks have been distributing food at disaster levels over the last 3 years with increases of 80% in some areas of the state. Just listen to Florida’s food insecurity statistics:

• Total food insecurity rate (availability of food and one's access to it): 20 percent
• Total number of food insecure people: nearly 4 million
• Total child food insecurity rate: 32 percent
• Total number of children who are food insecure: over 1.5 million
• Some Florida counties claim 25-40 percent of their people are food insecure.

Don’t worry about not remembering these statistics. Just know that food insecurity in our country, in our state, in our county is a very real and disturbing justice issues. Parents in families that never before experienced food insecurity are increasingly finding it difficult to feed their children adequately.

One young couple who lives in our county, Tony and Karen, lived for 12 years in a comfortable home with their two children. Both Tony and Karen lost their jobs over a four-month period. Facing foreclosure, they sold their house for what they owed on it. Now, living in a cramped apartment, Karen’s unemployment benefits have run out, and the  family is struggling to put food on the table. Although Karen wants to feed her children fresh fruits and vegetables, she cannot afford them. Her younger daughter has had ear infections all year and was just diagnosed with anemia -- conditions associated with a chronically inadequate diet. This is happening right outside our door. Their situation is unfortunately common.

We need only listen to our Unitarian ancestor Theodore Parker, who also happens to be my UU hero. He writes "The miser, starving his brother's body, starves also his own soul, and at death shall creep out of his great estate of injustice, poor and naked and miserable.” In other words, the ones who have not, are already blessed. Those of us who are outraged that some go without, are blessed. And those who actually do something about it, who sacrifice something in order that the have nots might also have, they are truly blessed.

I’m thinking of the ways we, as individuals, are called, perhaps, to change our own habits of eating, our habits of consumption, in general, perhaps -- so that others might eat, too. We could, for instance, eat more plant-based, more local, more sustainably grown foods in order to use fewer of the world’s resources to feed ourselves. But I’m thinking also of the ways we are called as a community to fix the brokenness of the system in which we live. We are doing many of those things already! We have a modest garden that we can freely harvest from, we are able to compost here on the Congregation’s property, a few members offer weekly meals at St. George’s. We’ve planted fruit trees that when they bear fruit we will be able to take fruit freely, but we will also invite migrant workers and their families to take freely to ease their food insecurity. We collect food to offer to families who have little, and we pack meals that feed children that rely on school meals to eat, but are hungry when school is not in session. I’d like you to be even more brave and offer a few families who share our concern for insecurity and receive food stamps a plot here where they could garden. They are able to use their food stamps to buy vegetable plants. Among them they will create a co-op between themselves and have access to 4 or 5 times more fresh and organic food. All because you were brave enough to offer a plot of unused land.

One of my colleagues this week was tweeting words of wisdom that he’s picked up from a church conference on mission and outreach that he’s been attending, and one of the many wonderful quotes that he tweeted has stuck with me. It said, “If you really get serious about loving your neighbor, you can make a measurable difference in your neighborhood.” Let us get serious. Let us be brave and create justice for ourselves and our neighbors. Let us plant seeds that will grow to feed our bodies and seeds that will feed our minds, hearts, and souls. Let us build a new way to be in the world and in our community.

I spent a few days with my colleagues from all over Florida this week. You may know by now that I love listening to stories. A colleague told a story about how homicide was increasing in their area. Most of those murdered were people of color and they died alone and without any ritual or any public recognition that this brother or sister has left us and in such a violent way. That was until a Unitarian Universalist congregation assembled an 8-member choir. They would arrive on the scene the day after the homicide had taken the place and sang. They offered their voices to mark the time, the place, and the loss of another. Soon other choirs joined, then community organizations, then people heard what was happening and left their homes, their apartments, their jobs to join in the blessing. Recognition of lives lost and a community coming together to honor that life and seek justice inspired a town to crave justice and work for it. And so they did. The high homicide rate had significantly decreased. 

We’ve already begun the work of planting seeds and have dedicated ourselves to the work of alleviating food insecurity, not only through our programs I’ve already mentioned. Remember the story of the miser who “used his gold to improve the lives of local people,” who “held feasts for his neighbors … which were so enjoyable that they became the talk of the land?” Let us use our gold, our gifts, our green building to feed more souls.

“Love is the spirit of this Congregation and service is its law. This is our great covenant….”  Let us make these words come alive and not simply become weekly recitation.

And so may we continue to support our Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and continue to find new ways to share that spirit of Love with those outside of our walls.

May we find new ways and plant seeds to feed more souls.

And may we continue to be an ever-increasing blessing unto the world.

May it be so.

Planting Seeds, a sermon by the Rev. CJ McGregor delivered at 1stUUPB on April 27, 2014.

Roll That Rock Away

I envy Christian ministers this time of year. When Easter rolls around they can turn to the liturgical calendar and hit upon dozens of messages and images related to Jesus’ resurrection to use for Easter Sunday sermon material.

Then there is the Unitarian Universalist minister. Our tradition doesn’t have a liturgical calendar to consult and how does one reach such a theologically diverse congregation with a single message?  What about a resurrection message?  After all it is Easter -- a memorial of the resurrection since ancient times. For the past ten years I’ve reached deep to bring Unitarian Universalists a meaningful message on Easter, being careful to massage our theological sensitivities and our understanding, and sometimes, our rejection of traditional resurrection stories. I could tell you of the pagan roots of Easter that lie in celebrating the spring equinox, for millennia an important holiday in many religions. The spring equinox is the end of winter and beginning of spring. Biologically and culturally, it represents for northern climates the end of a “dead” season and the rebirth of life or a resurrection. I could offer an Easter message claiming the importance of fertility and rebirth. All around the country this morning Unitarian Universalists are hearing stories of spring, sprouting flowers, and the symbolism of the egg. I’m not discounting these stories. It’s just that as a UU minister Easter is tricky. 

I find the variety of stories and interpretations of Jesus’ resurrection intriguing and sometimes comical. Take, for example the story of one young Unitarian Universalist. His Sunday school teacher was teaching a lesson about Easter and asked her class: “Who knows the story of Easter?” The boy jumped up and down waving his hand as he knew he had the answer. The teacher called on him and he replied:  “Easter is the holiday where Jesus comes out of his cave and if he sees his shadow we will have six more weeks of winter.”

I like this story. It’s a bit misguided but downright funny! It reminds me that each of us has our own resurrection story and more importantly each of us have an opportunity for resurrection, rolling away the rocks that block our healing and wholeness and allowing the warmth and a sudden leap of understanding to happen. The rock is the obstacle between us and spiritual vision. You may share the Christian belief that Jesus died and was resurrected or you may simply see this as one of many stories.  No matter what we believe the proof of victory over death is visible and unavoidable. This season of rolling the rock away and “rising again” allows us to witness the miracles that are around us. The image of "rolling the rock away" represents the undoing of the deceptive obstacles that seem to stand between ourselves and our personal freedom. We undo these obstacles by recognizing that they are real and devastating. Rolling away the rocks that seem to seal us in a dark tomb reveals the life and love that lies beyond us. You know, all of us have rocks that block us from getting where we hope or want. Rocks of fear or pride or lack of confidence. Rocks of arrogance or anger or addiction. Sometimes it is the very little things in our lives that keep what is best in us buried in a tomb.

My colleague the Rev. Mallory LaSande tells us “My life is a series of deaths and rebirths: times when my old life is over and a new life must begin. And the awesome promise of the Resurrection is that it will begin again. I’ve talked about a time of great darkness in my life -- a time when there seemed no future. That was for me a time of hiding among the dead. I didn’t want to be noticed and I couldn’t ask for help, so I withdrew from the fullness of life and hid there in the darkness. That wasn’t the only time I have died and been reborn, but from that time on I have known that however painful it is to be reborn, I will be.” I’ve been in that place a few times. I wonder if you have hid in the darkness hiding among the dead.

Imagine that you are trapped in a tomb hewn out of rock, completely sealed off from contact with anyone or anything. You are utterly alone. It is pitch black; you cannot see a thing. You hear nothing. The air is cool and musty, and an odor of decay permeates the place. You realize that this tomb is your life: a life encased in a separate body cut off from everyone and everything, beset with problems and pain (think of some specific problems and pains that you are facing right now), and marching inevitably toward demise. We are sometimes trapped in the tomb of our lives, and it seems that there is no way out.  We have tried to escape from this tomb countless times in the past, but failed so utterly that we gave up in despair long ago.

Now, you see a faint light approaching. The light grows as it comes nearer until you are at last able to recognize its source. The light is your resilience held by the love and wisdom of true and inner self and those around you here today. You’ve struggled to recognize this light, and in the light, you see your life and your struggle. You see the entrance to the tomb is sealed by an immense rock of solid, impenetrable rock that has trapped you in this dark, miserable tomb for years. Self-compassion, the willingness to be free, have come to help you roll the rock away. You look back and that rock has disappeared and you are standing in your own light and the light of your companions.

We only need to look to the writings of our ancestor Ralph Waldo Emerson to understand the light. Emerson had come from a long line of clergymen. He entered Harvard when he was 14 and became a minister at 26. He was a popular sermonizer. But he abandoned the ministry to lecture and write. He was considered one of America’s foremost orators, and his journals form one of the world’s great documents of spiritual growth. Emerson describes this experience, of light, as a state of consciousness, a state beyond the familiar states of waking, dreaming, and sleeping. That is Transcendental Consciousness. In that natural state, which he describes as “the simplest form of human awareness,” the mind has settled inward, beyond all perception, thought, and feeling. The mind becomes restful yet remains fully awake and alert. “Whenever a mind is simple,” Emerson says, it “receives a divine wisdom.” Emerson teaches us to create and to trust the light from within, relying on our own divinity versus attaching ourselves to a reliance on external energies.

A lesson of Easter is that we can get up every day and go about taking care of what is around us and in front of us. Maybe we can roll those rocks away by caring for what is real. A central teaching of all religions -- Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, paganism, Hinduism. Taoism -- all of them claim that we meet what is sacred when we give ourselves away. When I think of removing obstacles, rolling the rock away, resurrection, and living in hope, my mind and heart immediately race to the hymn We Shall Overcome.  If we pay close attention to the lyrics of the hymn we can better understand our ability to recognize, count on, and experience the hope and trust that radiates from our resilience and our being connected to one another. It is perhaps most famous for being one anthem of the American civil rights movement when both blacks and whites endured the bites of dogs, the lynching of their comrades and loved ones, the burning of their homes and churches, and the murder of their beloved leaders including our very own Rev. James Reeb, a UU minister. They lived in a tomb with no light, no companions, no way out.  They endured because they were able to trust in a turn of events. They trusted that the place they were in was not their destiny. They were able to transcend their oppression and move toward freedom using their ability to transform from within.  Oh, deep in my heart I do believe WE shall overcome some day. WE are not alone. WE shall not walk alone. WE are not afraid.  WE shall overcome someday. It is clear to us that if we rely on the strength and surety of ourselves we will rise above and triumph over the gaps in the road and deep valleys of life’s journey.  It is our understanding of and desire for true resurrection  that guides us towards trusting in being better off, healed, and free of fear. Hope.

Don’t be too sure if you’re struggling with awful certainties of depression or loss or grief or confusion or broken promises or unfulfilled promise or anything to which we humans of the flesh are heirs, or even death. Stay willing to be surprised, open, resilient, responsible (able to respond), supple…like tender green shoots…stay ready to rub your eyes in disbelief…like poet Archibald MacLeish:

Why it was wonderful! Why, all at once there were leaves,

Leaves at the end of a dry stick, small alive

Leaves out of wood. It was wonderful,

You can’t imagine. They came by the wood path

And the earth loosened, the earth relaxed, there were flowers

Out of the earth! Think of it! And oak trees

Oozing new green at the tips of them and flowers

Squeezed out of clay, soft flowers, limp

Stalks flowering. Well, it was like a dream,

It happened so quickly, all of a sudden it happened.

Miracles abound.

We are at our best when we refuse to build walls of rock and truly practice self-care and love and care for what is outside ourselves–our friends and family, our community and our congregation. When the rock is rolled away -- whatever that rock is -- we are free, positioned to be made whole. Let us be witness to the miracle of resurrection and create our own Easter story.

May it be so.

Roll That Rock Away, a sermon by the Rev. CJ McGregor, presented at 1stUUPB, April 20, 2014.

Donkey Walk

I was asked a few months ago if I would lead a service where we could show appreciation for those in our Congregation who have served us well over the past year.  A time to recognize our volunteers and for us to remember that this Congregation and its work is fueled by its members and friends. Naturally I thought the day of our annual meeting would be a perfect day for such recognition. Realizing it was also Palm Sunday I chose Donkey Walk as our service title today.

The most famous donkey walk is when Jesus stood outside of the city walls to Jerusalem and wept because it is said that he knew that only trouble lie ahead and knew his fate. He led his donkey through the gate and into the city where he was met by crowds laying palms on the street before him. Thus Palm Sunday. The stepping down from your donkey or horse, walking, and the laying down of palms is a ritual of respect and honor. In fact this ritual and custom is still carried out around the world on Palm Sunday. Any person, any guest that is to enter and be honored, thanked, or lovingly recognized would have palms laid before them. You’re probably wondering if I am going to traipse a donkey down the aisle of the sanctuary. It was a thought.

Being devoted in love and honoring one another above ourselves is difficult to identify in today’s world. What would it be like if all were willing to lay down palms in honor instead of picking up the sword?  What would it be like if we were people focused rather than focusing on corporations, greed, oppression, and violence?  At the heart of our commitment to our Unitarian Universalist tradition and at the heart of our commitment to one another in this Congregation is being people focused. That is, the visible demonstration of valuing one another. We pledge to give honor to one another through our words and actions, and by committing to each person’s success. Acceptance, worth, dignity, compassion, justice…all plucked from our seven principles. All guide us to seek holiness in one another.

We are neither encouraged nor expected to seek honor and holiness in one another in our world. We are continuously brought back to the feeling that we are required to respond to our primal fear of scarcity and survival. Discrimination against minority voters being allowed by the highest court, eventually 4 or 5 of the wealthiest individuals in our country will control our political system, a woman is considered not equal or worth as much as a man. Fear and elitism, not honor, has set in. We are encouraged to dismiss, forget about, devalue the most vulnerable, the people who are struggling, who are denied equality. How do we honor and seek the holy in one another in this house when all around us dignity and compassion are easily tossed away?

Mark Twain wrote about a man who for one single day in his life was given an unusual gift. Upon meeting complete strangers that man could immediately sense all the hurts and burdens and pains and struggles and secret sorrows carried inside them. And the others knew that their secret sorrows were being revealed to him.

He learned that day that this world is a difficult place, not all that is seems sometimes. He learned that every life, regardless of outward appearance is fraught with its share of sorrow and burden, of sadness and challenge, of secret courage and hidden strength and transcendent, enduring and irrepressible love. And thereafter he looked upon all the he met with a deep respect and a new admiration for all as fellow children in need of God’s love.

This little tale reminded me that compassion is something that we all are in need of and that if we just pay attention to others we will feel compassion for them, we will understand not that others need our pity, or even need us to fix them, to make things right, to do anything more than just be present and with them through the struggles, challenges, sorrows and pains that fall upon all of humankind.

Though we do not require the waving of palms, the shouts, the accolades, we do require the support and love of one another as we lead our donkey down the rough and windy road of truth, justice, and compassion. We are not a people that honor one another simply because the Bible tells us so.  We believe we can save ourselves by bringing a healing to each other and to the world because it is right. Honoring one another goes beyond any golden rule, and any principle for that matter. It’s a practice. Our common UU faith is covenantal, not creedal. Our faith grows from the promises we make to each other. It is about building and sustaining relationships. It is about committing to a supportive and transforming faith community.

One way to think about a UU congregation is as a greater whole that emerges from the combination of all of our connections. We realize that we do not have to do this alone, and we make a mutual promise to commit to and accept each other. By promising to be together relationally, we agree to give one another mutual trust and support. It is in community, in relationship, and in mutuality that people awaken, thrive, and blossom. Acceptance affirms people as they are, and encouragement propels them to what they might become. Acceptance of others is more than mere tolerance. Acceptance is a living promise to liberate and empower each other.  

In 2005, a national commission identified five promises within the UU principles, that are made by committed Unitarian Universalists.

• We promise to live relationally
• We promise to live ethically
• We promise to live pluralistically
• We promise to live evangelistically
• We promise to live globally

These are deeper promises made by a faith that is outward directed to transforming the world. We are not about what we believe, but what we do. We practice love beyond belief.

My colleague, the Rev. Jeanne Harrison, describes our faith in a way that resonates with me strongly. This closely says why I am a Unitarian Universalist:

• In each of us, there is a spark of the holy.
• We can know god, the spirit of life, the great mystery directly.
• Love is the greatest of all energies. It is a primal energy of the great mystery. It holds us reliably throughout all the days of our lives. It calls us to bring our love into the world.
• We are agents for transforming the world. We bear the promise of hope.
• Community matters. We don't have to do it alone.
• We are an interwoven thread in the universal fabric of all that is. We do not stand alone and apart. We are a part of the whole.

Honoring one another is indeed a practice, and I would like us to start that practice here and now.

I have chosen the chalice symbol as it is the symbol of our tradition.  A flame, a light, within each of us. A symbol that identifies us and sets us apart as a community committed to one another.

(chalice pins are distributed, first to the members of the 1stUUPB Board of Trustees, and then among all volunteers.)

Let us step down from our donkey, prepare the palms. On this day let us thank all who have given of themselves to bless this Congregation, this community, and our world.

May it be so.

Donkey Walk, a sermon delivered by the Rev. CJ McGregor at 1stUUPB on April 13, 2014.

Rabbi Barry Silver on Passover

I (am) attempt(ing) to recapture some of my thoughts from last Sunday's sermon that I delivered about Passover.  Although it was a somewhat daunting task, since I do not write out my sermons, I could not "pass over" this opportunity to share some of my comments for those who could not attend or do not remember all that I said (including me). -- Rabbi Barry Silver
  
When I was a kid, we used to have a Passover Seder every night for all 7 days of Passover.  This was a lot of work for my mother.   My father used to say to my mother, "Passover means the end of slavery, but don't you get any ideas."

On Passover Jews used to sacrifice a lamb.  Bulls and ewes were also slaughtered.  Reforms have changed all this and today most Jews regard animal sacrifice as a bunch of bull (and goats).  In the old days they used to sacrifice a ewe at the altar.  Today, the only ewe we sacrifice is the "you" that you are today, for the "you" we could become if we lived up to our highest potential and our highest ideals.  We sacrifice this old "you" at the altar of change...

The word "sacrifice" means to make holy. Today, we realize that there is nothing holy about killing an innocent animal.  We still share our ancestor's desire to make our lives holy, and to approach a power greater than ourselves, but we do this differently today. Rather than sacrificing an innocent animal, we sacrifice our time, our money and our talents to make the world and our lives better.

Passover is the springtime holiday which reminds us of the miracle of nature.  Our species' rampant destruction of the planet is sacrilege, our ruin of Creation is blasphemy, and our desecration of the Earth is profanity against all that is sacred.  These crimes are far more serious than any words that come out of our mouths or any violation of ritual. 

Our species all too often treats the world in an "awful" manner, instead of an "awe full" manner, i.e. full of awe.

Passover occurs in the springtime, when we commemorate the miracle of growth and of agriculture.  To fully observe this festival, we should speak out strongly in favor of protecting the Agricultural Reserve in this county.  If we don't translate the ritual into the spiritual and the actual, then we are just going through the motions of celebrating Passover and we will have "passed over" the most important part of this celebration.  We may gain from the time with the family, and enjoy some nice food, sing some lovely songs, and participate in ancient customs, but without action, we are missing the essential element of this observance... 

On Passover, we seek freedom in all aspects of our lives, including our government. Our government has been enslaved by an influential minority so we now have a government of the wealthy, by the lobbyists and for the special interests. With the recent decision in McCutcheon, which equates money with speech, the United States Supreme Court has told Americans that we have a political system in which "money talks". All Americans should work towards liberating our government from such control at this Passover season.

On Passover we sing the Four Questions. I could not think of a better place to sing the Four Questions than before a Unitarian Universalist congregation, which is devoted to science, reason and the rational mind. I told the children that they should rejoice to be free, on this festival of freedom, from religious indoctrination and free from other types of parents who seek to brainwash their children to believe religious nonsense, and instead are raised to ask questions in an atmosphere where their rational minds are respected.

The great physicist Niels Bohr began his lectures by inviting his students to treat all his comments not as statements, but as questions, to be explored, discussed and evaluated.  If all religious propositions were treated the same way, the world would be a much more peaceful and more rational place.

From a sermon about Passover by Rabbi Barry Silver at 1stUUPB on Sunday, March 6, 2014.

Who has little, let them have less

The hatred of the poor,
is it guilt gone rancid?
That the rich have so much
and still conspire to steal
a baby’s medicine, a woman’s
life, a man’s heart and kidney.
When those Congressmen talk
of people who are counting
their last change for gas or eggs
choosing between cold and hunger
they snarl. How dare we exist?
If they could push a button,
if they could war on the poor
here at home as they do abroad
directly with bombs instead of
legislation, think they’d hesitate?
The righteous anger fermenting
in them boils over in cuts to what-
ever keeps people alive. They punish
those who have little with less:
a vast legal bus to run us over.

Spoken from the 1stUUPB pulpit on March 16, 2014 by Dr. Harry Targ.

Zero Sum

My oldest son, Tony, was diagnosed with autism nearly 17 years ago.  My family found ourselves reaching out to other families affected by autism and organizations for support.  We became very involved in autism outreach efforts and fundraising.  There is one particular fundraiser that stands out in my mind and makes me laugh out loud each time I recall it.  Richard, our two sons, then eight and seven, and I were participating in a walk-a-thon benefiting our local autism resource center.  We were three quarters of the way finished with the walk when my youngest son, Robert, piped up and exclaimed “I’m hot, I’m tired, and I’m thirsty.” Despite my disapproving glances he continued “Why do we have to do this walk anyway?” “Why does Tony get to have a walk?” To this Richard, shall I say, lovingly replied “Robert, when they have a walk for complainers we will be sure to support you and walk that day too.” We finished the walk in silence.

I was once reminded of this funny incident because of a post I received on my Facebook page regarding the devastation in Haiti after the earthquakes and the relief efforts. The post read:

Shame on you America: the only country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed without eating, elderly going without needed meds, and mentally ill without treatment -- yet we have a benefit for the people of Haiti on 12 TV stations. 99% of people won't have the guts to copy and repost this!

My initial response was less than pastoral and I hit the delete button. Once calm I chose not to copy and repost, not because I didn’t have the guts, but because the issues raised needed to be unpacked a bit more before I could wrap my head around them.  I asked myself if this person lived under a rock. Could America seriously claim to be the only country struggling with justice for the homeless, the hungry, children, and people struggling with mental illness? Foreign aid or is often regarded as being too much, or wasted on corrupt recipient governments despite any good intentions from donor countries. In reality, both the quantity and quality of aid have been poor and donor nations have not been held to account. I eventually came to the conclusion that the person who made this Facebook post was asking, not unlike Robert, “Where is my walk-a-thon?” “Why do they get a walk-a-thon and I don’t?” That is, why does Haiti get relief while Americans continue to suffer?

The competition for resources became glaringly evident. There are neither guts nor glory in pitting human beings against one another in a battle for empathy, kindness, concern, and resources. Darwin theorized that if animals -- that would be us -- must compete to survive, then the winners would be those with the strongest traits and those with weaker traits would lose. Those are the theories of natural selection and survival of the fittest. Remember this later today at the auction. The natural desire to compete for resources or to be the strongest has been planted within us. That natural desire becomes stronger, more urgent, and manipulated by being bombarded with fear and the threat of scarcity at the hands of modern technology and the media.  Listen to the examples that I easily plucked from recent newspaper articles, blogs, and other media sources:

Illegal aliens have made America the dumping ground for all their illegal alien children, then we have to school them and give them free medical care.

How long before we are paying for all her babies’ kids? [Speaking of a mother receiving public benefits] Sterilize the whole family — I’ll pay.

Why are women and blacks always getting jobs instead of white men? Women and blacks never give jobs to white men. Yet if a woman or a black does not get the job, women sexist groups and blacks racist groups cry like terrorist Negroes and FemiNazis? Why not send American women and American blacks to the South Pole?

And finally:

At some point compassion has to be limited in order to take care of our own.

Where is the holy in these statements? How do we decide who gets help, and who doesn’t? How do we decide which cause gets the media blitz and the celebrities and which do not? The more important question is: How do we transcend our natural desire for competition and fear of scarcity and move to a place where fear and competition are overcome with compassion and love?

I wish I had a single and easy answer. The notion of transcending our natural desire for competition is ancient and can be found in every religious tradition. Hebrew scriptures warn us by telling us the story of brothers Cain and Abel. Cain’s jealousy over God’s approval of his brother’s sacrifice over his leads him from anger to murder. Brothers Jacob and Esau become victims of competition for their father’s blessing, which leads Esau to plan Jacob’s death, and Jacob fleeing from his family. These stories have been used to modify behaviors for thousands of years.

The Islamic tradition has built in a framework for Muslim life that ensures such transcendence -- the five pillars of Islam. The third pillar being zakat, a tax levied as almsgiving for the relief of the poor. The Quran teaches us that the Prophet Mohammed said “Charity is a necessity for every Muslim.” Charity in Islam is not simply a handout it is bringing justice to the community.

Christian scriptures remind us of the work of the Apostles. They all worked for God's purposes — one of the most important being providing for the entire community and not just one. The Book of Acts tells us “Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the Apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need." Those with money and possessions distributed their wealth to provide for those in need. They did not compete against one another but served one another.

I particularly treasure the words of Hiawatha of the Onondaga tradition. Hiawatha tells his people “My children, war, fear, and disunity have brought you from your villages to this sacred council fire. Facing a common danger, and fearing for the lives of your families, you have yet drifted apart, each tribe thinking and acting only for itself. Remember how I took you from one small band and nursed you into many nations. You must reunite now and act as one. Remember that you are brothers [and sisters], that the downfall of one means the downfall of all. You must have one fire, one pipe.”

What we glean from all of this is the idea of uniting, sharing our physical, spiritual, emotional, and financial resources to benefit not just ourselves or our own, but all. We are reminded that we are connected. Our world truly is one world. What touches one does affect us all. Since receiving the Facebook post in question I solicited opinions from co-workers, family members, and others about the idea of competition. One theory that kept surfacing was the zero-sum theory. In game theory and economic theory, zero-sum describes a situation in which a person's gain or loss is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of another. If the total gains are added up, and the total losses are subtracted, they will sum to zero. Basically, this theory says it all evens out in the end.

So if this is true then we shouldn’t worry about who gets what resources. Sounds good, right? Look closer at this argument.  Author Julian Edney explains “If we have an exchange between two people: if you and I compete, and what you win is exactly what I lose, the sum is zero. This is the zero-sum exchange, and it results in pure inequality. It creates the ‘have’ over the ‘have-not’.” It produces a winner and a loser. But if in the exchange we both gain something, or if you gain, while I suffer some loss and some gain, then the sum is not zero. It looks like we both gain, at least something.

Now in English. If two people are competing for a dollar, one will get it and one won’t. A zero-sum outcome will occur, but it is not serious. But if two people are competing for food, shelter, or medicine that will save their child’s life the outcome is quite serious and can produce emotion, perhaps panic or fury — maybe even a Facebook post! Edney tells us “It gets a little more realistic if that exchange is played over and over. Day after day, a person has to compete just to survive. Every time a person tries, they lose to another person. Dog-eat-dog competition is an example of zero-sum. Only one is going to win. When the stakes are high, zero-sum can be exciting (ball games) or humiliating and despairing (two transplant patients waiting, but there is only one liver). In theory we also start with the assumption all parties are equal. But in the real world one party often starts with an advantage: larger physical size, or extra wealth.” He says the “win/loss can be predicted ahead, which breeds cynicism (contests between rich and poor) and over time these contests are degrading. In the long run, zero-sum exchanges are toxic because they prevent future cooperation. They lead to worsening divisions.”

I’ve abandoned the zero-sum theory that I spent so much time considering. I now am opting for the “ants and bees” theory. This theory breeds (not literally) compassion, cooperation, creates win/win situations, and is grounded in good old fashioned Unitarian Universalist principles. I recently read an article that presented ants and bees as a metaphor for world community (author unknown). When we see ants and bees out in the world, we often see just one, but this gives a false impression of the reality of their situation. More than any other species, ants and bees function as parts of a whole. They cannot survive as individuals; they survive as members of a group, and the group’s survival is the absolute goal of each individual’s life. Often we, as humans, value individualism and often negatively associate ants and bees with a lack of autonomy. If we take a closer look at ants and bees, we can learn valuable lessons about how much we can achieve when we band together with others to work for a higher purpose. The article tells us “In many ways, they are like the individual cells of one body, living and dying as necessary to preserve the integrity of the whole body, not to protect themselves as individuals. In this way, ants personify the ability to see beyond one’s small self to one’s place within the greater whole, and the ability to serve this whole.” Ants and bees can inspire us to fully own what we have to offer and to put it to use in the quest of a goal that will benefit all of us, whether it be responding to local or world crisis, feeding the hungry, or caring for the environment. “When we realize we are one part of a greater organism working to better the whole world, we honor and implement the wisdom of ants and bees.”

Unitarian minister Theodore Parker once said “The miser, starving his brother's body, starves also his own soul, and at death shall creep out of his great estate of injustice, poor and naked and miserable” Parker isn’t talking  about giving more or being selfless. It’s about recognizing that we are one. There is not an us and them. We do not deserve more than others. Our commitment to justice, equity, and compassion as well as our goal of world community calls us to transcend our urges to guard what we perceive to be ours, protect our own, and retreat into isolated groups. We do this by simply responding. Respond to inequity, intolerance, and injustice with all your might — no matter where or to whom it happens; respond when a people are faced with major disaster AND when your neighbor is struggling day to day. Respond by creating a world where our brothers and sisters need not compete for justice and compassion; respond with love ensuring dignity for everyone. Respond by honoring the wisdom of ants and bees.

May it be so.

Zero Sum, a sermon delivered by the Rev. CJ McGregor at 1stUUPB, Mar 9, 2014.