A Way of Life for Seekers

Sweet dreams are made of this.  Who am I to disagree?  Travel the world and the seven seas.  Everybody’s looking for something.  Those words are from a song written by Annie Lennox, the lead in a British pop duo. If you attend our Vesper’s service tomorrow evening you will hear more of Annie Lennox.  The lyrics lead us to a truth that every living thing is searching for something to fulfill itself. The spiritual teacher Shaw Readster asks us, “Can we see how, in one form or another, everything in creation longs to touch and be touched?  Flowers and trees stretch their leaves and limbs up to the sun, just as it reaches down to touch them.  Fields of grain summon small birds to carry away their seeds; every breeze searches for something to move.  Raindrops rush down to slake the thirst of a parched earth.”  As Unitarian Universalists we affirm our Seven Principles. Our fourth  principle grants us the right to be a seeker, “A free and responsible search for Truth and Meaning.” We are indeed seekers who join every other living thing in our search for fulfillment.

I’ve been a pilgrim, a seeker, on long journeys. The most significant was my call to the Unitarian Universalist ministry.  I had been a leader in non-profit organizations for over 25 years and was quite successful.  I had worked for major players in the non-profit world in New York and Massachusetts.  I had easily moved up the ladder in any organization I worked for.  There was one problem.  My ladder was leaning against the wrong wall.  Even though I was experiencing the success, the benefits, the accolades of my work I was dissatisfied.

Richard has spent many hours trying to understand why I was never happy with what I was doing.  I spent many hours asking what was wrong with me and wondering if I would ever find what I was meant to be doing, searching for that fulfillment. During that time I was also the Director of Religious Education for a congregation in Massachusetts.  Again, it was a successful program, we experienced major growth and organization, yet I still wasn’t fulfilled.  In New England religious education for UU children and youth happens in the basement of the church.  When I first arrived here you may have heard me talk about the Religious Education program as “downstairs.”  Late one Saturday evening I was preparing for the lessons the next day.  I was surrounded by glue sticks, curriculum, likely had glitter head to toe, and something changed.  In that moment I experienced revelation. The nagging I had felt for years which I was labeling chronic discontent was actually seeking.  In the basement of a church, sitting alone, I was called to ministry.  I found what I was seeking and the nagging discontent took leave.  I once asked Richard what he thought of all this and he told me that my ministry was the only time he had seen me truly happy, satisfied.  As a pilgrim, a seeker, I was relieved, anxiety and discontent removed.  I am fulfilled by this call, this work.
 
The hidden nature of almost all that we do is the direct, but unseen, effect of that one great unconscious desire to search out what we believe will complete us.  We do experience contentment as seekers, but isn’t it often temporary?  Readster tells us, “Our reward may be a momentary sense of fulfillment that, in most cases, passes from sight as soon as do the temporary conditions that provided it for us.”  We then return to our search.  What are we to do?  Where are we to find a solution to that seemingly inescapable dilemma?

Rumi, the 13th century Persian poet, tells us that if we wish to bring an end to the cycle of our discontent, then we must “find the antidote in the venom!”  Honestly, I spend a lot of time trying to understand what the heck Rumi was talking about.  I adore his poetry but sometimes in bounces off me.  Find the antidote in the venom.  Whenever we dare to stand in the light of some unwanted truth we might feel powerless to change ourselves and the world.  We understand that our present situation and choices cannot lead us to freedom and understand our present choices are secretly what is holding us captive. Venom.  In the same moment we see what doesn’t work and gain the understanding that if we are to succeed in our search for wholeness we require a new and higher order of self-knowledge.  Antidote.  To whom and to what do Unitarian Universalists turn to in our search for wholeness and understanding that our way of life, our way of living of being in the world will transform other lives?

When you need a place that feeds the hungry, clothes the poor, stands beside the immigrant, embraces and holds the other, stands and marches for equality for people of color, the gay, women, supports many grassroots community organizations with their money, that reaches beyond themselves know there is more love, more peace, more joy out there?  When you are battered by the world we live in, are mourning, are celebrating, are in need of a friend or are able to be a friend, where do you go?  Is there a center in our lives where we can all arrive and find our place, our values, where we are accepted for our true selves, where we can raise our children to be in love with the world, its environment and its people.  Is there a home for us where we can live the life of a seeker and be celebrated and encouraged for this way of life?  You are here. You’ve found the place, the potential center of our lives that holds us and those we love in an embrace of acceptance, learning, love, justice, revelation, and transformation.
 
Exodus Chapter 3 verse 5: “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” We are on holy ground.  These walls hold love in and evil out.  We are safe here.  This place prepares us for how we will live our lives as seekers.  Teaching us, challenging us, holding us, we can return again and again and sit a while, exhale, and know that we will leave transformed in some small way.  How do we preserve the way of life for seekers?  We must consider this holy ground, this place, our Congregation, a site of heritage.

Sites of heritage are especially important because they help people learn about the ideas and lifestyles of a civilization.  This site of heritage helps people learn about freedom, reason, and tolerance, our ideas and lifestyles as Unitarian Universalists.  We are the liberal voice in the south.  This must remain the site of our heritage.  We are descendants of Servetus, David, Emerson, Alcott, Fuller, Channing, Parker -- all who concerned themselves with creating a place for the free thinker, the seeker.  We must preserve and strengthen our voice, our Unitarian Universalist way of life in this community and our world.  We are faced with the opportunity to create our legacy.

We are stewards of this Congregation.  “Legally we are the owners, but morally and ethically we do not own it, we hold it in trust for the generations of the past who created and nurtured it over the years, and for future generations, for those people who will be here in the years to come.  We also hold it in trust for other Unitarian Universalists throughout the world.  We hold the name and should honor it so that we maintain its good name for them.  Because they will be judged in part by who we are and what we do.  We hold this Congregation and the name Unitarian Universalist in trust for Unitarian Universalism in general and it is our responsibility to tend it and care for it as we would want others to care for it in our name.”  Unitarian Universalist Elizabeth Leisersin writes, “If we are Aristotle's rational animals, we are the animal that is capable of deep thought, of comprehension of abstract concepts. We are also the animal that is capable of both creation and destruction on a grand scale. Any being, any animal, can create happiness for themselves, but seeing that happiness for the blessing it is and preserving it for others is an ability unique (as far as I know) to humans.”

Let us create a legacy of happiness, seeking, freedom and justice.  What is the essence of a good and faithful life? Not rules. Not beliefs. But Love. Not the kind of love felt in fleeting emotions, the falling in love kind of love but the love we practice all our lives, the love which is an attitude of the heart, a disposition with which we choose to engage life, Our way of life as seekers.  Choose once again.
May it be so.

A Way of Life for Seekers, a sermon delivered by the Rev. CJ McGregor at 1stUUPB, Feb 8, 2015.

Black Pioneers

This morning, as we once again devote this third Sunday in January to honor and remember the great legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we must do so in the terrible and divisive shadow of what is happening in many other angry communities all across the country. King’s leadership in the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama is a well-known event of 1965. Imagine the South in 1964 and earlier, strategies and tactics to promote voter suppression, innocent youth murdered and justice never arriving, and systematic racism permeating the culture.

Oh!  Did I say 1964?  I meant 2015.

I’ve spent a lot of time in reflection on the legacy of King this month.  I recently re-read the book Black Pioneers written by the Unitarian Universalist minister Mark Morrison-Reed. I had the pleasure of spending three days with Reed last fall and our time together has changed my ministry.  Reed tells stories of his black family arriving at a white Unitarian church in the 1960’s.  The book chronicles the lives of black pioneers in a white denomination.

He writes, “The Unitarian Universalist church and others like it will remain largely segregated until there is a twofold transformation: one in society, the other within the church. First, on a societal level, it is essential that Unitarian Universalists and other liberal religionists never forget that political and economic freedoms are the mainstay of intellectual freedom, and that inequities and injustice subsequently undermine all freedom. This realization presses us to take seriously the cliché that until all of us are free, none of us is truly free. It is a 'moral imperative,' then, that we commit ourselves to the establishment of a just society. The result of this endeavor will be the evolution of a society potentially more responsive to Unitarian Universalist values. Second, within the liberal church, the transformation would begin with the strengthening of our spirituality through an enriched story –- a story that exposes our commitment to freedom, shakes up our class bias, sensitizes us to the needs of others, strengthens our sense of human connectedness, and, finally, inspires us to struggle with others for freedom.“ 
 
Unitarians and Universalists haven’t always been on the cutting edge of racial equity.  There is a dark moment in our past that is labelled “The Walk Out.” First, some history.  Two events shook the Unitarian Universalist Association soon after its formation in 1961.  Both were related to the struggle for racial justice, but while one unified the denomination, sustaining its self-image of being on the right side of the struggle, the other shattered this easy assumption and inflicted wounds that still have not healed.

First, in 1965, came the murder of the Rev. James Reeb, a Unitarian Universalist minister, while he was in Selma, Alabama, demonstrating for black civil rights. Second, only four years later, many black delegates and their white supporters walked out of the General Assembly in Boston to protest what they considered a racist vote. What had seemed so obvious after Selma -- that in the fight for racial justice it was “us” (the good guys) vs. “them” (the racists) -- suddenly wasn’t so obvious after all. The line between “us” and “them” no longer seemed so clear.

Why? What had happened?  We’re still struggling with these and related questions. Perhaps the search for answers can help us build on the things we have done right and improve on the things we have done badly since the UUA was formed. The national revulsion at the Selma murders –- Viola Gregg Liuzzo, a UU from Detroit, was murdered in a separate incident in Selma -- led Congress finally to pass long-delayed civil rights legislation. Thus the Reeb martyrdom became enshrined as proof of our racial sanctity, along with the famous story of how the Rev. Theodore Parker kept a pistol in his desk drawer to fight off anyone trying to recapture the fugitive slaves he was harboring. Parker, renowned as the most charismatic Unitarian preacher of the mid-19th century, said of the Rev. Ezra Stiles Gannett, a supporter of the fugitive slave law -- which required the capture of runaway slaves who had fled to free states -- “He is calling on his church members to kidnap mine.” What we recall less often is that Gannett, too, was a Unitarian.

Clearly our hyped unity on the issue of race is not the whole story. Even Reeb’s death did not evoke the same emotions from all UUs. In 1968 Heyward Henry, chair of the newly formed Black Unitarian Universalist Caucus said, “We Unitarian Universalists like to keep saying, ‘But we went to Selma with you ... why are you [blacks] rejecting us?’ he continues, “In Selma, a black man named Jimmy Jackson was killed and at that time you could count the number of Unitarians in Selma on your fingers. A few weeks, later a white man was killed, and all Unitarians ran to Selma. Racism, that’s what it was.”
 
The legend of the 1969 UU General Assembly Walkout goes something like this.  Black UU’s issued demands to organize a Black Affairs Conference and to be funded to do the work of the Council.  The demands were accepted but the General Assembly voted down the funding.  Chaos ensued.  Black delegates left the assembly and their were protests, aggression, and hatred on the floor of a UU General Assembly.  What happened in the following years is chronicled in Reed’s book.  Black Unitarian Universalist leaders seeking equity in our denomination. The history is more complex than I can now summarize but it was a painfully polarized era of the so-called Black Empowerment Controversy. It was also the high-water mark of African-American participation in our churches. Nonetheless, many well-meaning white Unitarian Universalists, some of whom had devoted their lives to racial integration, were deeply offended by black UU’s who caucused separately and, with many white allies, demanded that the UUA do more to address racism within both church and society.

When it appeared the Assembly would not address their concerns and many people of color, hurt and angry, began to leave the floor, Jack Mendelsohn – then minister at Arlington Street Church -- took the podium, announced that he too would leave to commiserate with his sisters and brothers. To consider future options, Jack also invited others to join him at the church.  Therewith, a few hundred distraught delegates -- with tears streaking down faces, walked out. One minister spit in Jack’s face and said, had he a gun, he would have shot him. The events of that assembly were a trauma, the anguish of which is still felt. Many African-Americans, including Bill Sinkford who would later return and became UUA President, left our faith -- many never to return.

I spent a lot of time in airports a few days ago.  I was making my way from the new York/Canadian border to Florida, or from the tundra to paradise.  I sat with the New York times in my lap and on my cell phone and poured over the article and photographs of the  ‘Freedom Journey 1965’ Photographs by Stephen Somerstein of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., from the new exhibition at the New-York Historical Society.  Holland Cotter of the New York Times writes, “Scads of photographers were on the job that day and, inevitably, certain subjects -- political leaders, visiting celebrities -- were the focus of many cameras, including Mr. Somerstein’s. Yet most of the people in his pictures are not stars; they’re rank-and-file participants. It’s from their perspective that we see the march. In one shot, we’re in the middle of it, surrounded by fellow walkers. In others, we’re looking out at bystanders who line the way: white office workers; hecklers; multiracial shoppers; African-American children on porches; women, dressed in Sunday best, on the steps of black churches.  Cotter tells us that “this viewpoint subtly alters a standard account of the event, one perpetuated in “Selma,” which suggests that a small, elite band of high-level organizers were the heroes of the day. They were indeed heroes, but they were borne on the shoulders of the countless grass-roots organizers who paved the way for the march and the anonymous marchers, many of them women, who risked everything to walk the walk.”

When I speak of pioneers I am not necessarily only speaking of those leading, first in line, or those who have their names memorialized.  The pioneers I am speaking of are the people caught in the Freedom March photographs, the people, black and white, walking out of the 1969 General Assembly, the people I marched with yesterday in Riveria Beach celebrating the legacy of King.  These are the pioneers that  operationalized the dreams and the hopes of leaders.  These are the people who were, who are, struck down, these are the people that dare to pursue equality.  Typical, everyday people.  Us.  We are the pioneers in the movement for racial equity today.  I refuse to believe that preaching equality each January, attending a single program on a Thursday night, or a check is enough.  It isn’t.
 
Young, old, and in between we as Unitarian Universalist have our own legacy to attend to.  We cannot offer ourselves passively.  1965 has returned.  We have replaced the martyrs Reeb and Luizo with Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Eric Garner.  How will we pioneer?  How will we learn from our mistakes and bring equity to our communities and sanctuary?    We are the pioneers.  We are the liberal voice in South Florida.  Our hope lies not only in the inner strength that our religion teaches us to nurture, but also in the example of those who went before to show us the way. They built a church for us, and it is ours to hand on to our children and to their children.

“Will we forsake this legacy?”, writes Rev. Scott Alexander.  “On this -- Martin Luther King holiday 2015 -- the 29th year it has been officially celebrated in America -- race relations are at least as strained and endangered as they have been at any other time in our recent national history.  Let us therefore promise ourselves -- this day -- that we will each lend ourselves to being (as the old saying goes) “part of the solution,” rather than “part of the problem.”   Let us focus on cultural transformation” rather than cultural “blame.”  And most important of all, let us keep our hearts open to every last of our fellow Americans -- be they black, white, yellow, or brown, or (as I say every Sunday when we gather) “Some other wonderful shade of what it means to be human.”   Martin Luther King Sunday reminds us -- this year perhaps more than others -- that this work is as important as it is difficult.

So let’s once again get about it … now … together … that America can (one day soon) become true to its promise to all its citizens. May the light of reason, the comfort of kindness, the depth of a growing spiritual life, the outreach of action, and the acceptance of our own goodness and potential always be our inspiration and the source of our continuing gratitude to our founders and to those who have carried the torch that we hold high.   May it be so.

Black Pioneers, a sermon delivered by the Rev. CJ McGregor at 1stUUPB on Jan 18, 2015.

Who Owns the Earth?

When I breathe in, I breathe in peace.
When I breathe out, I breathe out love.

Join me.

When I breathe in, I breathe in peace.
When I breathe out, I breathe out love.

When I breathe in, I breathe in star stuff. Star stuff that’s been here since the Earth formed. Tiny atoms hurled this way by the Big Bang;
That have been cycled and recycled by the Earth, and its plants and animals;
And through many many cycles of life that were here long before I was born.

When I breathe out, I breathe out star stuff.
And do I own it? That star stuff? The air I breathe?
Do I own the air when it;s inside me, and a part of me?
Who owns it when I breathe out? Do I own it only when it’s in my own home?

I took my daughter as an infant to the Northwoods of Minnesota, so the trees that stood in witness to my childhood visits with family could welcome the new generation.
To paddle a canoe in the same lake,
to sit on the same rock,
All the beauty of the lakes and woods,
All the comfort of the sun and the shade,
The water lapping on the shore,
The haunting call of the loons in the sunset,
The experience of all of these things is my legacy to my child.
The greatest treasure I can bestow on her, I do not own.

Ownership is a legal construct that gives a person a bundle of rights in relation to property:
The Right of Possession, the Right of Quiet Enjoyment, the Right of Disposition, and the Right of Use or Control. This last right: The Right of Use or Control allows the owner to use the property for legal purposes like living there, doing business, farming, mining, or choosing to allow the land to remain vacant and unused, and it’s this Right of Use or Control that is in tremendous need of updating.

In 2007 we found out what it means when the regulators of financial markets do not understand the “innovation” in the market.

We are now finding out what it means when legislators do not understand the ecology of the planet. The regulators of our natural resources do not understand the “innovations” in GMO’s and mineral extraction, like fracking.

At current rates of extinction half of all species currently alive on the Earth will be extinct in 100 years. For those of us who did study ecology, this striking loss of bio-diversity is alarming, because bio-diversity is a measure of the health of an ecosystem, and because bio-diversity helps to assure that if there is a cataclysmic event, some of the many species present will have adaptations that allow them to survive. We need bio-diversity to have food security…and we are losing it.

The interdependent web must become a greater part of the dialogue with elected officials, and who better than us to bring it up? With some exceptions, most of our elected officials have been trained in academic silos devoted to anything but science. Many people who hold high office studied law, with its strong emphasis on ownership and property rights.

The hydrology of Florida has been restructured by human hands. What was swamp is now an area drained by canals. The canals were designed to drain by gravity, but, with the sea level rising, 3 canals have already stopped draining. Miami has already spent millions placing pumps on 3 failed canals. And Marco Rubio (with Miami as his hometown) is a climate science denier.

Jupiter has a desalinization plant, and Riviera Beach and Boca Raton have reverse osmosis because sea water has moved through the porous limestone that we live on, and into our drinking water supply. (And the Palm Beach County Commissioners want to allow denser development of the Agricultural Reserve that provides aquifer recharge, and which the residents of Palm Beach County voted to protect in order to preserve our food and water security.)

The problem is that NO ONE owns the Earth.
Billions of people own pieces of the Earth, and now more than ever, corporations with profit as their only incentive, own critical pieces of the Earth.
• It’s this artificial separation of the interdependent web; this divvy-ing up of parcels of the interdependent web to people with competing agendas;
• It’s the different understanding among owners of pieces of the interconnected web that places the management of inseparable ecological processes into separate hands. This is threatening my daughter’s legacy.

The carbonate rocks of the Floridan Aquifer system underlie all of Florida, most of the Coastal Plain of Georgia, and extend for short distances into Alabama and South Carolina. The Biscayne Aquifer flows under the 4 southern counties of Florida. Yet all land use decisions are local. There are permitting requirements through the water management districts in Florida. There is regulation of water use in multiple jurisdictions. But we live in a political system where aquifer recharge zones can be developed, and the primary discussion when their development is being considered is not even about water security! ...It’s about ownership rights. Ownership is a construct of civilizations that divides the control of interconnected pieces of the web of life…to our peril.

If the Earth were an organism, and the humans inhabiting the Earth were considered to be one organism, how would we describe their relationship as it exists today? It certainly could NOT be considered commensalism. In commensalism one organism benefits, and the other is unaffected; like the cattle egrets that thrive on the insects stirred up cows.

In some wonderful places, like parks, botanical gardens, and wildlife refuges, humans are in a mutualistic relationship, where both humans and the Earth benefit, but overall, because human activity is causing shocking environmental degradation, I would have to say that the relationship between humans and the Earth is parasitism. In a parasitic relationship one organism benefits and the other is harmed.

I have reached the conclusion that humans are infesting the Earth. As such, we are collectively harming the Earth. It’s parasitism fueled by fragmented ownership of the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part that is robbing my daughter of her legacy.

So, I’m engaged in a battle for the soul of our planet, because I want my grandchildren to enjoy this Earth as I have, and I’m not alone. The fact of the matter is that people everywhere, who have felt powerless to reverse the degradation of our planet, are finding each other. Coalitions are springing up everywhere, to unify the single voices of concern into a chorus in defense of Earth. 400,000 people can march in the streets of New York.

There are many voices in this choir:
• Voices protecting the environment.
• Voices fighting to remove the disproportionate influence of corporations over the environment and over our political system
• Voices in support of immigrant workers, whose work environment is polluted with the chemicals that threaten them on the job before those
same chemicals threaten our food supply.
• Voices that describe a new paradigm, and shine a light on the many possible futures that we might hope to create, so we can find the will and
reach the consensus that can make a new reality.
• Voices that redesign our built environment and speak the language of engineering and design

We need them all to be all in. We need all voices in the choir.

The current methods of regulating the environment (that we all share) allow for permitting exceptions and waivers that are fraught with influence and politics. Corporate polluters have the resources to hire people who understand complex environmental regulations, and how to circumvent them. And the complexity of the regulatory environment makes grassroots efforts a matter of David and Goliath.

But, just as the NAACP worked in the courts during the Civil Rights Movement, there are organizations working within the courts on Climate. One organization is asking the question “Who owns the Earth?” as a matter of law, in multiple states and in multiple jurisdictions. Our Children’s Trust is an organization that brings lawsuits based on public trust doctrine. Public trust doctrine has a long and rich history of precedent, but is not based on the political discretion of government officials, but rather on their constitutionally-grounded legal duty to protect the common property rights of the people.

The work of the organization Our Children’s Trust is to secure the legal right to a healthy atmosphere and stable climate for all present and future generations. Voices in the choir… in court…

When Rachelle Litt from Organizing for Action went to Washington, DC to convince Lois Frankel, Ted Deutch and Patrick Murphy to join the Safe Climate Caucus, she put out the call to all of the members of our Climate Action Coalition. The Congressmen said they wanted specifics: examples and facts about impacts of climate change in their districts. Because the voices in Palm Beach County have formed a choir, Rachelle was able to share videos, pictures and anecdotal stories that The Climate Action Coalition of South Florida had collected from residents experiencing tidal flooding. We sent email addresses and phone numbers for Homeowners Association leaders. We sent information that only a grassroots organization can collect: stories unique to the place where we live. As a result, Ted Deutch, Patrick Murphy, and Lois Frankel are among the 38 members of the House who have made a commitment to end the conspiracy of silence in Congress about the dangers of climate change. Voices in the choir… in Congress….

The key to joining our voices together is the intuitive realization that we all own this planet’s atmosphere and water. We all breathe in, and we all breathe out. Over half of our body is composed of water. The condition of the air we breathe and the water we drink determines if we will live or die.

There are UU organizations that I’m very proud of, and initiatives that you can join to take action. Many of you in this room already have. I’ve joined the Board of UU Justice Florida, which has the interrelated issues of Climate Change, Immigration, and Democracy at Risk as its core issues. There is a lot going on with UUJF:
If you like to go do things:
• On January 15th there will be an Action at USF to counteract the Koch Bros influence on their campus.
• On March 6th and 7th at the LEED certified First United Methodist Church in Orlando, there will be an Interfaith Climate Conference with participation from UU’s and other faith groups from around the state, under the auspices of The Florida Council of Churches.
• If you want to go to Tallahassee to get trained to speak to legislators, and then go DO IT, that will be happening at the end of March on the 23rd and 24th.

If you’re a slacktivist, you can sign up with UUJF’s Action Network to receive Action Alerts, or Google Commit2Respond and sign up with this new UU initiative to unify our efforts on climate with efforts of other groups, and please partner with our Florida Earth Festival this year in April. Last year Marika Stone hosted a poetry open mic at the festival, and several of you attended tours of LEED certified buildings. This year we will be conducting workshops and training to prepare to chalk 15 miles of line marking the high water line in Delray Beach Florida at 3ft or 6ft of sea level rise. It’s a fabulous project that The City of Delray Beach will be partnering with us on. You can find out more about it on the Faithify website, where we have a crowd sourcing campaign to raise the last few dollars we need to carry out our ambitious UU plan.

For me, being a UU is about joy.
It’s about coming together in safe and respectful community.
It’s about sharing the journey with fellow seekers of truth,
And it’s about the strength of standing together in support of values that are the fabric of our being, and that are the stated values of our Unitarian Universalist faith.
I have decided that WE own the Earth, and that those of us who are listening to her need to be her voice in the choir. I have heard it said that if God had a voice, it would be a cello. The Earth has a voice, and it is us. We will breathe in, and when we breathe out, our voices will be hers.
I’m in a battle for the soul of the planet, and I invite you to stand with me whenever and wherever you can.

Who Owns the Earth?, a sermon delivered at 1stUUPB by Jan Booher, Jan 11, 2015.(The Climate Action Coalition Facebook page is at  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Climate-Action-Coalition-of-South-Florida/605199476162712?sk=timeline)

Fooling Ourselves

THE FIRST PRINCIPLE IS THAT YOU MUST NOT FOOL YOURSELF AND YOU ARE THE EASIEST PERSON TO FOOL -- RICHARD FEYNMAN, PHYSICIST

We readily recognize the biases in the thinking of others. But our own biases? Not so much. Let me start with a bold comment:

Much of what passes for “religion” -- beliefs, rites, statements, commandments, holy artifacts, sacred places, theories, histories, hierarchies, etc. ranges from sheer ranting to misguided, unfounded, warped and sometimes dangerous ideas.

Most of what we label “religious” is self-based and generated -- like urinating in your boots to keep your feet warm. If all the “religious” wars, religious hatreds, religious-generated pain and suffering throughout human history is not convincing enough of such thinking, then we are not thinking.

So, what works with us ? For us?

If a major goal of life is to grow, what in our religion supports that? That’s a good starting thought. All living beings are meant to grow. If consideration feels life giving, let’s be considerate and choose that which achieves consideration. All life is enabled by consideration. Consideration is moral. It supports. Love is often supportive, but it waxes and wanes. Consideration is steadier as a support. What in a religion is considerate, kind, helpful is of value to us all.

We all know what growth is and what consideration is. We do not all know what love is. I do not want my neighbor to love me: who knows what he or she thinks “love” is? One “loves” mom, ice cream, scotch, french fries, bacon, dogs, baseball, wearing masks, being macho, taunting gay people …. the list is endless for each of us and often hurtful. Some feel it a religious duty to defend, fight for or even kill for their concept of religion. Many “love” their guns, or swords or dogmas.

One’s individual faith or belief is generally harmless to others when it is held alone, but often aggressive and potentially dangerous when organized by a particular sect. Some beliefs are merely a form of prejudice meant to elevate the status of the believers, or to foist some kind of behavior upon others. Not so long ago, it was the cry of the New England zealots: “Let us burn the witches to save them.” Salvation by murder!

There is little more unsettling or frightening than to be faced by a Christian bearing down upon you determined to “love” or to “save you”, unless it’s a radical Muslim who sees you as an unbeliever representing the Great Satan of the West, or the teenager in your granddaughter’s school itching to quit and join ISIS for thrills.

Most of us rest rather securely in our beliefs, little realizing that many of our beliefs are not just unreasonable or unfounded, but actually costly and even self-defeating. There are those who believe everyone needs 8 glasses of 8 ounces of water a day, or that so-called “natural” foods are best, or that bottled water is better than tap water (after all it costs about 1500 to 2000 times as much)! To them these things are “common knowledge”.

Knowledge is not wisdom or truth. Much of our “knowledge” is false, misleading. We don’t even know what we see. A 5-year study of the accuracy of eyewitness testimony versus DNA evidence has shown that eye witnesses court testimony is wrong 76% of the time.

There are two things to remember about seeing. We see what we believe, we do not believe what we see; we interpret everything. We have attitudes, reactions, and prejudices.

What is the truth about what we see? Could it be that truth cannot be seen? Therefore: There is always another way to see something. Whenever you get angry or annoyed because of what someone says or does, take a few seconds to see it another way before reacting.

Many believe one should avoid irradiated foods. But the radiation passes through the food and there is no harmful residue and the radiation kills much of the bacteria and helps preserve the food. Some are passionate about organic foods although a 50-year review by the Journal of Clinical Nutrition states that all the research so far shows no health advantage or nutritional superiority in organic foods. But they cost more.

Perhaps we have more passionate beliefs that are just wrong or insignificant about food than almost anything else. 
Here are a few that many are almost “religious” about:
· Sugar makes children hyperactive
· Vaccines cause ADHD or even AIDS

Many of us believe:
· You can boost your immune system with supplements
· Herbal remedies are ancient so therefore they are safe
· Eat a lot of beef, it’s good for you

Some people believe:
· Microwaves alter the chemical composition of food
· Magnets will draw iron from your blood
· Ear candling draws out impurities
· Hypnosis can aid memory, and that
· We use only 10% of our brain


In the 3^rd world, others believe:
· You can get rid of HIV by having sex with a virgin
· Killing a non-believer will earn you a special spot in paradise.

And here at home, many believe:
· An ice bath can treat a fever
· Don’t put an infant to bed on its side
· Playing Mozart recordings for a pregnant woman increases the chance of her having a smart baby
· Farm-raised Atlantic salmon is as good for you as wild Pacific salmon

Knowledge is not benign. Beliefs affect your attitude, your behavior and your health. Are your religious beliefs positive or negative basically? Do they promote growth or decay? Are they considerate, supportive, caring? Are they inclusive rather than exclusive? Are they truer than your beliefs about food?

One way to make your own religion helpful to you and others is to practice gratitude as a belief – even as a “religious” act.

Gratitude helps you heal yourself and forgive others. It leads you to a state of peace. It does what religion ought to do. It teaches us to take responsibility for our thoughts and feelings. Gratitude makes a fine religion, as does consideration.

Your first job is not to save the world or straighten out humanity or even to die on a cross for others. It’s not to spread the truth – whatever that is – or to make others aware of anything. It’s not even to forgive others or accept unkindness or to reconcile with those who have hurt you. No, important as those things are, your FIRST job is always to start with you. First, forgive yourself. Let anger or guilt or grief or disappointment go. Give it up willingly, as fully as you can. Empty yourself.

A religion may instruct you that your first duty in life is to commit your life to a god on high and to praise him always. Well, we creatures do not do “always” very well and, as Henry Thoreau well said: “I do not want to live what is not life for life is too dear and some have somewhat hastily concluded that the chief end of man here is to 'glorify God and enjoy him forever', rather than to let reality that surrounds us drench us.”

Your thoughts are yours. They control you. They can lead you to do unhealthful, even dangerous things. You are responsible for you. If you don’t take good care of you, then you have less to offer, less ability to care or be considerate because you cannot turn outward and grow if you are bound up inside. When you are calm, at peace, grateful, whatever religious attitude you develop will be more healthful and the God you turn to for guidance and growth will not be vengeful, hateful, or discriminating and therefore too limited to be of help. Life is coping with growth and change, not avoiding it through orthodoxy. “Status quo” is Latin for “the same mess we were in yesterday is what we are in today.” Change is the only constant in life, not orthodoxy.

I know that you and I sometimes feel overwhelmed, tired out, defenseless, depressed, denied, scared, hurt. We long for a Big Brother with broad shoulders. Someone to take over and make it all right. Maybe we cling to a loved one, call a friend, pray or go to a comforting place. A place “religious” to us. That’s helpful.

Or we could be bursting with good news, feeling so expansive we could run a mile on the beach. We want to hug someone special, dance, sing, tell a silly story, give thanks, to say or do something “religious”. That’s good.
On a very special occasion we want to get together with others and share an event meaningful to some or all of us. A marriage, a birth, a thanksgiving for the end of a stressful time, or the beginning of a better time. Celebration in a “religious” venue is appropriate.

Religious scripture may teach us ways to think about life, or direct our behavior in mutually helpful ways when it guides us individually. But, when our religious actions are directed by our “religion” we need to be careful. When the noun “religion” controls the adjective “religious” we become puppets, controlled from outside.

In the Middle East, Indonesia and Africa, we are witnessing “religions” directing rapes, abductions, beheadings, wars. No-growth marks the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Sunnis and Shias do not share consideration or gratitude. Passion and hatred characterize “religious” behavior when a “religion” feels stressed anywhere.

When religions become organized, bureaucratic, they become problematic because they tend to become top-down in power, self-absorbed and even prejudiced and cruel.

We learned in school about the Catholic rulers of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, who commissioned Columbus in 1492 to sail westward. We did not learn that on that August 3^rd when he was to leave, he had to wait until the ship carrying the last of the Jews who chose deportation over forced conversion or execution had sailed.

I enjoy joining with Unitarians and Quakers because it is hardly likely that their organizations – such as they are – will ever solidify and turn belligerent in any cause. They encourage growth and they exude consideration. They are pro-human enterprises and the religious actions of their members are individually based. Orthodox religions beheaded people in the West as some now do in the East. So far, Quakers and Unitarians have not done that.

It’s as if they believe in a God who is a good parent who doesn’t force a dogma on them or praise them for forcing others to convert to their dogma. A God who doesn’t care to stamp them with a “religion” but encourages them to be considerate, who fosters their growth as individuals rather than form them up in ranks as “Crusaders”.

I started this talk with the statement about how we fool ourselves and I rambled on about a number of day-to-day beliefs we have that are untrue. “Religious” beliefs are a hotbed of un-truths. When a religion enforces the beliefs about infallibility and the necessity to force others into those beliefs or else, we need to remind ourselves that we don’t know even some basic things we “believe” such as: when Jesus was born or where (Nazareth? Bethlehem?). Even our celebration of Independence Day is wrong -- nothing happened on July 4^th: it was voted upon on July 2^nd and signed August 2^nd!

 So relax and remember:

· When we mix politics and religion, people get burned at the stake, and that

· We should believe the truth seekers, not those who claim to have found it, and that

· God is too big to fit into any one religion, and that

· God’s original plan was just to hang out in a garden with a couple of vegetarians.

May the God of your choice help you grow, to feel gratitude, and be considerate in and with your “religious” beliefs.


Fooling Ourselves, a sermon delivered by Chip Chapin at 1stUUPB, Dec 14, 2014.

Holding On

A few days ago I received a Facebook message from a former congregant from a church I served in Massachusetts. Struggling with divorce, the loss of his 14-year-old son, and other stresses, he was reaching out. He writes, “Some thoughts as I enter the holiday season...It is important to remember that not everyone is surrounded by large wonderful families. Some of us have problems during the holidays and some of us are overcome with great sadness when we remember the loved ones who are not with us. I have no one to spend these times with and I find myself besieged by loneliness. I need caring, loving thoughts right now. I know you may be overwhelmed with giving a moment of support for all those who have family problems, health struggles, job issues, worries of any kind and just need to know someone cares. Do it for all of us, for nobody is immune. I’m sorry this is my holiday message, but it is real and painful. Pray for me.”

I share this with you not to be a drag or to bring you down. I promise to bring you back out of the dark places we visit this morning. I offer this to remind ourselves that this season is sometimes labeled “Blue Christmas” and some of us here struggle this time of year needing our attention and affection.

The Rev. Phyllis Hubbel writes, “Ask yourself about your ideal holiday and you will experience and can almost compute -- your risk for anxiety and disappointment. Would you prefer that your entire family be together rather than separated along the lines of in-laws, divorce constraints, or undeniable geography? What about those we’ve lost or those we’ve lost and struggle to recall. Would you prefer to pick and choose your relatives and how they would ideally behave? What about the state of things all around us? Are there perfectionist “shoulds” shouting their suggestions for your dinner, designs and relentless demands decorating your internal conversations?

Do these days serve as a reminder of things lost and past hurts?” The power of greed, the race to be good enough, our losses of people, our safety and well being, our health, and wealth tries to steal the ingredients that strengthen the magic of this season. Your best shot against being overtaken by holiday disappointment — the shadow side of holiday joy, is to take stock of what you expect, what you wish, what you need and what you desire. If we can shine a light on what we are expecting of ourselves and others, we can modify and lighten up the unwanted cloud of downheartedness that can often get in the way of holiday joy.

One particular family and community we can’t ignore this morning is the family of Michael Brown and the community of Ferguson, Missouri. You will remember Brown as the black youth shot and killed by police and most recently a grand jury decided that the police officer would not be held accountable for his crime. This season will go on Ferguson, Missouri. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal report that the Thanksgiving parade that was canceled due to protests will be rescheduled, the Twilight Tour of Homes will begin December 9^th, shoppers are being rerouted to stores that are away from the hot spots of Ferguson, and decorating has commenced. The decorations are being placed over boarded up and broken store fronts, but the holiday season goes on despite the grieving family, community, and the injustice. We remember them this morning. We hold them in our hearts. And so will the bright lights, greeting cards, carols, parties, and events go on around us though we may be in a space not worthy of celebration.

We cannot easily compare grief. “Some tragedies,” says Hubbel, “are clearly more soul searing, traumatic, than others. What we do know is that tragedy visits all of us. When it comes, it challenges us. Some of us break. Some burdens are too great for any to carry. Some of us are not strong enough to handle even the ordinary heartbreaks that are part of our human experience. God or the universe does sometimes give us burdens too great to bear. Some of us find strength we didn’t know we had. Some of us grow stronger, more compassionate.”

I’m talking about a Blue Christmas. We will all sometime face the birthdays, the anniversaries, Thanksgivings, Hanukkahs, Christmases and New Years with loss heavy on our hearts. Too often, the heartache actually occurred at one of those special times. Even if the heartache didn’t happen near an important holiday, these special times with special memories -- these times when our loved ones are supposed to be with us, when we are supposed to be happy -- bring our loss right back to us. December is especially bad as it is a whole month intended for celebrations with those we love.

“Yes, here come the holidays,” says the Rev. Arthur Severence, “full of unrealistic expectations and psychological baggage heavy enough to choke any airport carousel. Let’s put the fun back in dysfunctional family get-together as so many of us start our regimen of over self medicating for the holidays and counting the days until we can get back to so- called normal when we don’t have to pretend that we’re happy or in good spirits! That’s part of the problem, you see, with the holidays; we’re surrounded by them!” Surrounded by people and songs wanting us to be of good cheer and in the holiday spirit after all, right? Where’s your holiday spirit? someone will ask us if we’re not appropriately happy. That dreaded holiday spirit, mostly in the form of endless songs seems to surround us everywhere we go. It can quickly have the opposite effect!

Severance shares his ten commandments of making it through the holidays. I offer you an interpretation of seven of the ten because three of them were absolutely despairing in my eyes. My apologies to Rev. Severence.

• 1. Remember that Pain is Inevitable; suffering is optional. Accept this at the beginning that there will be a variety of kinds of pain from physical to mental to spiritual -- all connected, by the way -- depression to headaches to heartaches to anger and so on.
• 2. Express Yourself Clearly. Talk about how you’re feeling to someone who will truly listen. Remember what happens when we ASSUME we know what someone is feeling? Remember that your minister reminds you to call him if you feel the need to talk!
• 3. Beware of Nostalgia. Don’t let comparing the past ruin the present, especially because no one can ever bake a pie like grandma use to bake when we were children! At the same time, let yourself enjoy the positive parts of basking in the glow of warm memories. Just don’t expect the present to measure up to your nostalgic past!
• 5. I love #5! Take it easy on yourself; lower your standards. Martha Stewart doesn’t live here and isn’t likely to visit! Don’t compare yourself to the family favorite or success story; be glad for who you are.
• 8. Spend more time with people you love! (and yes, that may NOT be relatives) If you can't, or don't want to, be with family, get with friends, go to church, or volunteer somewhere, but be around people!
• 9. Reach out and touch someone (and be touched)! We need the human touch; we need to be hugged and touched on a regular basis.
• 10. Come to church! You didn’t see this one coming, did you? Cultivate your spiritual dimension that is in community with others and that sense of the divine, however you define that. Relationships are at the core of all religion!

Something that Severence found out during this season as UU ministers share stories, the author of It Came Upon the Midnight Clear, a Unitarian minister named Edmund Hamilton Sears, had had a difficult time in ministry and his song was written as a protest song against the Mexican war, in the 1840’s, but was written after he first had suffered a nervous breakdown! The third verse, especially, sounds like it could have been written yesterday and reflects our times:

But with the woes of sin and strife

Beneath the angel-strain have rolled

Two thousand years of wrong;

And man, at war with man, hears not

The love song which they bring:

Oh, hush the noise, ye men of strife,

And hear the angels sing.

Along with this we look to the celebration of the Winter Solstice which commemorates the night of the year with the most darkness and to celebrate the coming of the light . In this spirit, I invite you to listen to a Blessing for the Longest Night written by the artist Jan Richardson. The blessing is written in the hope that being authentic and honest about our experiences of this season can be part of what leads us — sometimes without us knowing how or why in advance — to a different time, a different place, and a different space in on our journey through this life. And perhaps the pagan practice of choosing to celebrate the “coming of the light” precisely on the darkest day of the year can point us toward the hope that on the other side of even the darkest night, dawn will come. I offer you this blessing:

All throughout these months as the shadows have lengthened, this blessing has been gathering itself, making ready, preparing for this night. It has practiced walking in the dark, traveling with its eyes closed, feeling its way by memory by touch by the pull of the moon even as it wanes. So believe me when I tell you this blessing will reach you even if you have not light enough to read it; it will find you even though you cannot see it coming. You will know the moment of its arriving by your release of the breath you have held so long; a loosening of the clenching in your hands, of the clutch around your heart; a thinning of the darkness that had drawn itself around you. This blessing does not mean to take the night away but it knows its hidden roads, knows the resting spots along the path, knows what it means to travel in the company of a friend. So when this blessing comes, take its hand. Get up. Set out on the road you cannot see. This is the night when you can trust that any direction you go, you will be walking toward the dawn.

This is a season for holding on. No matter where in the darkness you find yourself this season, walk in any direction and you will be moving toward the dawn. Let us stop the rush and allow the spirit of the season to enter our being. Let us clear our vision and deepen our concern. Let it move us away from an isolating concern for self to a relationship of love and care and wonder and joy with all of life around us. May this season of peace on earth, good will to all be one of potential that may be realized in all of us. Let love be born in us, let love never die. May we walk together and love one another. Hold on.

May it be so.

Holding On, a sermon delivered by the Rev. CJ McGregor at 1stUUPB, Nov 30, 2014. 

Giving Thanks

What do we have to be thankful for? I mean, with all that is happening around us, in our families, and with ourselves, why should we be thankful for that which darkens the heart and makes the soul weep? Endless war, death, disease, divorce, absent adult children, heartache, health issues, hypocrisy; financial, friendship, and fulfillment woes. What do we have to be thankful for?

I attended a party last week. I wasn’t invited. I invited myself. I did hang the balloons and streamers and set the stage for the best party of the season. It was my pity party. You may know that I was hospitalized last Sunday afternoon. I’m not sure how you wouldn’t be aware, I mean I’ve been sending emails and posting on Facebook drumming up all the sympathy I could get. I found myself, 45 years old, facing serious cardiac issues. Feeling low, afraid, and confused I relied on my old standbys of anger, defiance, and why me?

Yes the pity party was in full swing and I was on the dance floor refusing to feel anything and refusing to name one single thing that was good in my life. As far as I was concerned there wasn’t anything good. nor would there be anything good in the future. I wonder if you’ve planned or accepted invitations to pity parties? Hey, pity parties work just fine as long as my friends self loathing, denial, lack of control and responsibility are there. Pity parties have usefulness in the short term, but you don’t want to be the last one at the party with the lampshade on your head.

Today, I stand before you stronger than last Sunday, pulling myself out of the demoralizing experience of sudden illness and giving thanks. I’m giving thanks that my family was by my side. I’m giving thanks that my congregation reached out again and again. I’m giving thanks that I left the party. You see, we get confused when it comes to giving thanks. We understand that we should be thankful for the big things, things we want -- not necessarily the small things we need. Seeing only the absence of the things we want, we see nothing to be thankful for.

“It can seem like being thankful, or focusing on what’s good in our lives, is of out of vogue”, says author Beverly Flaxington. Why aren’t we overall more grateful for the gifts we are given in our daily lives? Why do we have to stop and really think about what we can be thankful for? How many things do we simply take for granted throughout our day? Are you breathing right now? Are you sitting up of your own accord? Do you have any friends, family members, or pets in your life? Do you have interests, hobbies, or a talent? Do you live in a country that provides some sort of support to its residents? Do you have a congregation that listens, provides, and loves? Flaxington says, “ It’s amazing to me when I listen to people talk about their “bad day” what that really means to them. It can mean they were stuck in traffic, or late to a meeting, or we become unexpectedly sick. A bad day could be when someone rear-ended your car, or you didn’t get your way or you were just plain bored!” All of us can get so focused on what’s wrong, what we don’t want, that we forget the things going on around us that are gifts and blessings.

How do you practice gratitude? Gratitude might be risky business, depending on your life circumstances, but I would suggest that especially when we might be down on our luck, or in tight financial circumstances, or having phases of ill-health, that it is especially important to engage in regular expressions of gratitude. Gratitude gives us something to hold on to, a way to remain engaged and connected to life. And it is not only positive events ... we can find gratitude in what initially may seem like negative experiences, as these negative experiences turn us on our heads and see the world in new ways.

How do you practice giving thanks? What does it feel like, that sense of wanting to show appreciation, that sense of awe for the amazing realities of being connected to others around you? However, your feelings of gratitude aren’t enough. How do you act on your feelings, how do you demonstrate gratitude? It’s not hard: there is much to be grateful for. We simply need to pay attention.

We might use the words of e.e. cummings: “I thank you, God, for this most amazing day.” “Or, if that doesn’t work,” says the Rev. Barbara Coyne, “I thank you, Great Spirit, for this most amazing gift of a creative and reasoning mind.” Or, “I thank you, Mother Earth, for this most amazing blue sky.”

“I thank you, my children who never return my phone calls, for reminding me of the amazing gift of patience.” “I thank you, my children, who when you do call always seems to pick my busiest times, for helping remind me of my promise that family always comes first.” “I thank you, driver who slows down to allow me to enter the highway, for the difference a courtesy can make.” “I thank you, congregant who just commented on my sermon, for the gift of knowing that I have touched at least one person.” “I thank you, congregant who disagrees with my sermon, for the gift of my exploring more deeply what I really understand and value.” “I thank you, farmers and producers, for the food I am privileged to put on my plate everyday.” “I thank you, architects and builders, for the warm, dry roof over my head.” “I thank you, unbelievable sea for holding my body and raft.” “I thank you, mountains, for being strong and firm and reliable, even when I feel weak and vulnerable.” “I thank myself, for my resolve to live a grateful life.” “I thank you Life, for this amazing gift of being alive.”

In his poem “Envirez-vous,” poet Charles Baudelaire writes, “You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it — it’s the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk. But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But get drunk. And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch in the mournful solitude of your room you wake again drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that flies, everything that groans, everything that rolls, everything that sings, everything that speaks. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: “It is time to get drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue, as you wish.”

Baudelaire isn’t advocating literal drunkenness. He tells us in order to step out of hardship and focus and remember the small, but important, things, we must immerse ourselves in the things we love, the people we love and count them as things to be thankful for.

Henry David Thoreau writes a similar message in “To Live Deliberately” which is Responsive Reading #660 in our hymnal. Thoreau writes, “Why should we live in such a hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. I wish to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life. I wish to learn what life has to teach, and not, when I come to die, discover that I have not lived. I do not wish to live what is not life, living is so dear, nor do I wish to practice resignation, unless it is quite necessary. I wish to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, I want to cut a broad swath, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms. If it proves to be mean, then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it is sublime, to know it by experience, and to be able to give a true account of it.” Thoreau is truly deliberate about living and choosing the essentials of life. This suggests giving thanks is a virtue, a practice, a spiritual practice.

The defining element of our faith must be a practice of some kind. The Rev. Sam Trumbore writes that this is a spiritual discipline. He says, “For Jews, the defining discipline is obedience: To be a faithful Jew is to obey the commands of God. For Christians, the defining discipline is love: To be a faithful Christian is to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. For Muslims, the defining discipline is submission: To be a faithful Muslim is to submit to the will of Allah.” What should be our essential spiritual discipline? As Trumbore tells us obedience, love, and even submission each play a vital role in the life of faith. Ours could be giving thanks. In the same way that Judaism is defined by obedience, Christianity by love, and Islam by submission, I believe that Unitarian Universalism should be defined by giving thanks or gratitude. Giving thanks is fundamental to our Unitarian Universalist theology. “Grateful individuals live in a way that leads to the kind of society human beings long for.” Writes Benedictine monk David Rast.

It is with a grateful heart that we are Unitarian Universalists. Let us raise up the virtue of giving thanks. We have the opportunity on Thanksgiving to begin or deepen our practice of giving thanks. Let this season wake our hearts and minds and guide us on our journey toward wholeness and to be bold enough to embrace the practice of giving thanks. May you and yours be blessed this holiday. I give thanks.

May it be so.

–- Sermon delivered at 1stUUPB by the Rev. CJ McGregor on Nov 23, 2014.

Power

I’ve had the opportunity to reflect on my ministry over the past year with the Board, and with the Committee on Ministry the last couple of weeks. I’m paying attention to not jump into situations or create change without thorough discernment. Through my own reflection I’ve discovered that I want you to have what you deserve. I want you to have the things you’ve waited for and I want you to have them now. There is just one problem. The few times I’ve jumped in too quickly created a “situation” that undermined our shared ministry. In the context of silent power I lost power in these instances. The power of restraint, the power of confidence, and the power of my authentic self, which knows to do the opposite. I hope you’ve learned that I didn’t arrive to mastermind a power grab which, truthfully, stops ministry dead in its tracks. The power I am intentional about is the power of being trustworthy, credible, restrained, non-judgmental, faithful, and honorable. All of these are silent power, power that is revealed and afforded by those around me and only grows when I am centered.

When I say the word “power,” what comes to mind? I wonder if words like oppressive, unjust, controlling, and privileged come to mind. We mustn’t be surprised as this is what our society teaches us that this is what power is and what power must be. Who has the power in our nation, our communities, and around the world? You need only pick up the newspaper and those with power will instantly be revealed, like yesterday’s Palm Beach Post in which a 20-year-old woman was said to be sexually assaulted by the police officer transporting her to where her family was waiting for her, or in the New York Times where big business has the power over our economy AND our government. These are two examples of how we might view power. It’s the abuse of power that comes to mind.

I want to share other examples of power. Power that isn’t necessarily related to oppression, but inward power that we may not understand or know that it even exists. A new kind of power.

Tracy Cochran, the Editor of Parabola magazine, tells us, “new powers may be revealed in beings and situations we judge to be powerless.” I’ve been reflecting on examples from our human history that explain new and revealed power. Believe it or not George Washington and Gandhi fall into this same category. Both possessed revealed power. I’m sure they grew to understand that power, but might have been unaware of it at the starting point. George Washington’s ability to appear as an eloquent statesman was power. Author Linda Kohanov writes, “Jefferson complained that the persistent image of the elder Washington on horseback always seemed to trump spirited speeches and persuasive intellectual arguments anyone else devised in opposition. Without saying a word, the man radiated dignity, compassion, and power.” In his book Quiet Gandhi writes, “I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of truth. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.”

Washington’s mere dignified presence and Gandhi’s passivity was strength, was power. They are excellent examples of silent power. Power that is revealed. Silent power is not “in your face” power. We may not recognize it in others or in ourselves unless we begin identifying and relating to a new idea of power -- not the first words that came to mind when I asked you to think about power minutes ago.

Let me offer an example of being transformed by power we didn’t even know we had. If you haven’t visited our Thrift Store lately, please do. I usually tell Barbara, our office administrator, that I’m going to the Thrift Store to pop in and say hello to the volunteers. Unfortunately, for me, my ability to simply pop in is a farce. I don’t pop in anywhere. I’m a talker. I lose track and apologize to Barbara and she always says, “I know it’s hard for you to get out of the Thrift Store.” My last visit was this past Friday. I didn’t realize who would be volunteering that day. It was Mary Reynolds. Mary and I are the worst possible combination. We are both talkers. Not your average talkers, but major league talkers. We are able to flip from conversation to conversation, topic to topic, and sometimes even finish sentences for one another. This gift of gab is a slippery slope for people like us. I leave with advice, book recommendations, recipes, and enjoy our laughter and storytelling. However, I did leave on Friday with a recommendation from Mary that caused me to rework my already- developed sermon for this morning.

Mary recommended that I watch the documentary titled Buck, and so I did. Buck is a man with a traumatic childhood. He was a blindfolded roper as a child. The first one in fact. His father forced Buck and his brother to perform. If he did not perform in a way that was acceptable to his father he would receive a vicious beating. In fact he would be beaten immediately after the performance, on the way home when his father would stop the truck and beat him, and when he arrived home he received another beating. Buck would never look at his father because his father would rage and ask him what he was looking at and offer a severe beating. Buck was eventually removed from his home by authorities and remained in foster care until he was an adult.

You wonder what happens to a child who endured such a life. Buck thought of himself to be powerless. It wasn’t until nearly 20 years later that his power he didn’t know he had was revealed. Buck was able to tame horses and teach people to tame horses that no one else could tame. You see we often think of power as control or in this case needing to break the spirit of a horse. Some have a need to dominate to feel their power. Remarkably, given his childhood, Buck tamed horses using his power of gentle teaching, earning trust, restraint, and so on. He is a true horse whisperer because of his revealed power. He didn’t know about the power that was inside of him, not until he began working with horses. You see it became power for Buck because everyone around him had been unsuccessful with what comes naturally to him. Buck was capable of exercising an expansive, non-predatory power, one that would transform into mindfulness, courage, and poise. Buck’s capabilities became his power.

Author Linda Kohanov tells us, “Power is discovered … the seemingly more mysterious abilities involved are nonverbal and unphotographable, but not supernatural.” That is, the silent and hidden power we possess is available to all of us to experience. We simply need to take the time and practice for discovery and claim our power. In all the cases and stories we’ve shared this morning, we are, as Lorraine Krhealing puts it, “using power that we inherited as living members of Earth’s community; we are transforming what the earth yields into energy we humans can use.”

Understand that silent power works just as effectively for the immoral. Sometimes we can go into overuse of our personal power to an extent that we act against our values. Think about leaders in our history that possessed a charisma, a silent power so influential that they were able to lead millions. Hitler and Alexander the Great come to my mind. If we think about all of the traits we would expect in effective leadership we would find them in these two men. Here is the problem, they are fine examples of immoral leadership. Humans have the capacity to use their silent power for evil. Both Hitler and Alexander were possessed with the need to conquer, to kill anyone in their way, and use power immorally. So the attributes that are revealed as power for Gandhi are the same attributes revealed as power for Hitler and Alexander. They understood their silent power but used it in opposite ways. The difference between compassionate, disciplined, and moral power and effective yet harmful immoral power.

It’s like I’ve told my children, “If only you could use your powers for good!” It's a funny line but think about how true it is. As Unitarian Universalists most, if not all, of our work is to live our power in ways that heal, support, provide, and build. Personal power is our personal brand -- where we come from a place of strength -- aligning and igniting values, personality preferences and what we stand for with how we behave and live in the world. Power, at its core, is not evil. In fact, it is a standard theological concept dating back to at least St. Augustine that abused power is not power at all, but a falling away from true power. Power needs to be used rightly, which means shared, cooperatively and creatively, for the sake of the common good. We should not fear power; we should fear its misdirection and rely on ethics to direct our personal power. We are on the front lines of teaching the world to divest ourselves from the immoral use of power and work toward justice and transformation; to use our silent powers for good and not evil.

Let us do ourselves a favor and invest some thinking into how we access each of our sources of power -- for good and for evil. Let us become connected to our unphotographable or silent personal power. Eighteenth century American essayist William George Jordon, writes “Into the hands of every individual is given a marvelous power for good or evil -- the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. This is simply the constant radiation of what man really is, not what he pretends to be.”

Let us engage the work that our Unitarian Universalist faith and tradition calls us to do. Let us use our marvelous powers be a beacon of hope and radiate love, compassion, justice, and peace for others to follow. Good will triumph. Good must triumph.

May it be so.

Power, a sermon by the Rev. CJ McGregor delivered at 1stUUPB, Nov 2, 2014.