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20150215_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

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20150412_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

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051002_Chalice_Lighting.mp3

Good morning where kevin and theresa mcgregor. Number 3 dallas cowboys. Number 5 on your ideal. Number 7.

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sermon_082105.mp3

We live in a very complex world have to live with all the people in that world. Putting that portion of our neighbors who call themselves bible-believing christians. I talked about them in a sermon a few weeks ago i can't seem to get. That portion of the neighborhood out of my mind. It's not easy to talk with people like that. Because religious liberals aren't biblical literalist. Which means we have a very different perspective about what's written in the bible. I like to go to a certain hamburger joint called in and out burger. In-n-out burger i have to go all the way down to san ramon to get there. And when i do i get one of these big cooking hamburgers reference. It says. Nikhom blah blah blah. And once i actually took the trouble to take the rapper home look up that reference in the bible. Which was kind of hard because i didn't even know there was a called. But there is it's one of the shortest it's only about two and a half pages long. And when i looked up the reference it said something like. Keep your pilgrim feast judah and fulfill your vows or the wicked will overcome you. Which i guess man eat at in and out burger or you're in deep trouble. We're really doesn't matter what's the written and they hound because i've never thought of it as a source of information in my life after all i didn't even know about it. But in spite of having gaunt. The same is true of a lot of what. Putting the parts in which are taken most of the quotes that are used to condemn. Those who prefer things like being sexual with members of their own gender. 2 * 9 straight sex is mentioned in the bible. Done from the perspective of a nomadic patriarchal traditional people. Time. Very far away from. The kind of world in which. So if we take the bible. Seriously. We got to decide. Weather what it says is still applicable to us not just what it says. Because some of what it says is applicable. And for us that's alright. Because. We don't believe revelation to seal or everything that is. To be sad about everything is there between the books. Perkins. And the person whose help me figure out. What is in that book at this today. Especially when it comes to. Things like gender and sexuality is william countryman. From whom we took this morning's reading countryman is a professor at the church divinity school of the pacific which is one of the schools. Graduate theological berkeley. He's written a book with a great title called sticks. Countryman believes that what the bible says when it comes to the ethics of sexuality and gender. Is something that we have to. Take with a bit of a grain of salt. The salt. It comes with the recognition. That a lot of what's in that ethic. Has to do with things like ownership of a body. A woman's. Men. End. A lot of it has to do. With. Help sure people are. In observing certain kinds of rights. The sorts of rights that set them apart as. The fundamental offense says countryman. It says while it's difficult to say it in modern english but. For them it had to do with dirt. And all that connotes. Like avoiding. Which means doing things. But in hebrew scriptures. What's dirty has to do with a lot more. Princess it has to do with food. People in very cultures have very different ideas about what's nasty or dirty when it comes to. Food. In australia. I discovered that ever original people eat witchetty grubs and they think honey ants are quite a treat. And most of us think bug sorry. And blood. What can be seen as some cultures while in other cultures. What sausage is a treat. And i bet there are a lot of you out there like your steak. Very. Traditional islam. However. Animals are supposed to be killed in a certain way out before. And eating the flesh of cloven-hoofed animals like a. Traditional. Muslim or jew. Button hawaii or. Pixar. Delicacy. And one has to hand over dozens of them if one is going to get a bride. Or if one is going to end. Purity of this kind of ways difficult for us. Because most of us. I raised in a tradition that doesn't have like that in a tradition with such rules like. Reflect a lot of. But for some reason whether it's psychological which i suspected is. Some other reason. There remains this notion among a lot of people. That when it comes to sex there's a lot of what sexual that is. Too deep down dark and dirty to be acceptable. Princess tonight. Tell you that. There's a dirty picture in here. What do you imagine. Imagine it's got something to do with something that's sexual don't look they're really. Or if i say that's a dirty word. You assume that unless it has to do with taking the name of the lord in vain it's about sex or bodily elimination which often gets confused with sex because it has to do with that area of the body. Down there. Countryman says that down through history particularly in this country with our puritan heritage. Many of those who thought of themselves as being religious particularly those who now call themselves bible-believing christians it had the assumption that almost all sex is deep down dark and dirty except. Absolutely necessary. As a part of having children. So people with this frame of reference. Try to teach their children to keep their hands off anyting. Let's down there. Horse covered up. Countryman says that for people like this. Sexual purity means that. If you're going to sexuality is all the way intercourse. That's got to be kept within marriage. Have to be careful about things like. Kissing and holding hands specially if they're not married. He says this isn't just the ethika. Conservative christians. It's become kind of officially acknowledged code of the society as a whole however much we ignored in practice and obviously. It's the ideal for instance. Set underlies the abstinence-only approach to sex education. That's contained and curricula published by conservative christians under such deceptive titles as tina steam. Which is. In a lot of our local schools. The proponents of this approach would like us to return to the days before anyone was out of the closet no matter what that closet was. It's hard to imagine though. How that kind of ethic prevail. And the sort of society. Turn on. Television advertising. Loaded with sexual images. And internet doesn't yet have a chastity belt. But if we're going to have a conversation with bible-believing. Christian's we've got to get the on that sort of understanding. And come to terms with the question of what's biblical. What's not. Because if we don't they're not going to pay any attention to us and the conversation isn't going to go anywhere. Fortunately an investigation of what the writers of various parts of the bible were really concerned about when they talked about sexuality suggests that. What they were thinking about wasn't so much what people did. Estimate meaning. Of what they did. Surfline. Emerson. Your heart. What really. Who wrote the bible were. Actually pretty open their attitudes about sexuality. Define sources beautiful long erotic poem called. The song of solomon. That. Those times. Didn't seem to have any problem with having multiple wives. Or accepting concubines is normal parts of families at least if you could afford them. The story of king david from home you know the line of jesus is supposed to come. He was about as flagrant and his sexuality is henry the 8th. In spite of what it says in the ten commandments the people of this time to prostitution and adultery in stride. Adultery. Even jesus sorted with prostitutes though i don't mean to suggest it. Consorting involve sex. Was open to almost. Everyone. Party member the story about. How does people come. Watering receptions. Jesus. Was willing. To welcome to is to anyone. Yusuf with his compassion and. His love. I don't mean that. There wasn't this height. Old notions of purity. Interpreter paul. But they understood that in that tradition purity had more to do with what it meant to be a jew that it had to do with how to do with one sexuality. The hebrew people. The people by the authors of the hebrew scriptures. Put a lot of emphasis on the things that single them out as jews like. The rejection of images and worship. And their insistence that there was only one god. Assistance. And their concern about the food they ate and how they ate it about. Practices like circumcising their male babies and discouraging. Marrying people already. You seem to be a jew didn't have to do. As much with confessing of faith. Is it good with belonging to a people who were pure in the way they did certain things. Like the way they. Killed the animals they were going to eat. Avoid intercourse. While a woman was menstruating. Can i kill animals in a way that drained them of their blood or to come in contact with the blood of a woman was mistreating what to become involved with something. Dirty meaning in pure. It was to do something done only by those who weren't you. The same was true of confusing things like what it means to be a woman such as. Having a man behave like a woman or woman like a man. And that. Rather than what the two of them might do together. Is what early hebrews thought of. It's wrong. What this means. Is in spite of what a lot of people believe about say the story of. Sodom. That story in the bible isn't meant so much as a condemnation. Ax. As it was for their lack of hospitality. They're unwelcome. And being hospitable. Is one of the marks. So it disturbed god in this story. When was sodomites hospitable. Carrots. Even in leviticus which has all these. 100 600 some. Ross. That involves what it means to be sure it's clear this issue of homosexuality and tracked the issue of sexuality as a whole was a relatively little interest wrote those laws. So the importance to bible-believing christians about. Things like non-straight marital sex about. All that stuff that's. Down there deep dark and dirty. Really has to have come from someplace other than. The bible. Whatever kind of nations. There are of such sexual behaviors in the bible. Behavior is condemned by these bible-believing christians. Almost always appear alongside the condemnation of other things. That seems perfectly acceptable. To the same bible-believing christians. They don't wear certain kinds of underwear. They don't do hardly any. 600 / mini plus. And even is settingdown whatever in those laws had to do with non-straight marital sex. The authors seem more concerned about the cultic practices of rival religious sects. Some of which involved. Backs between priests or priestesses of the same gender. They were about the practices of their own. Not only this. The jews thought of their losses pertaining only to them. And not to the gentiles like the greeks and the romans who had a much more permissive ethic when it came to help people. By the time of jesus. It seems that it was spiritual rather than physical purity. It was on the minds of those who continued and wrote the rest of the scriptures gospel. In the marxist. Whatever enters into the human being from without. Cannot render a person in pure. Because it does not enter into his or her heart but into his or her belly and then passes out into the latrine. It's what comes out. Not in. That's unclaimed. Jesus went even further saying what's unclean is linked to the uncleanliness of the heart and not of the body. Is he jesus was concerned about people's. Feelings of their intentions not the way they express them. I'm talking about how we should behave towards each other jesus said. I want mercy not sacrifice. Jesus followers believe. That amanda longer i had to be circumcised become apart of the people of god and paul said that was true. Neither man nor woman. Should have to give up anything else that defines them. Jesus table. Was open to everyone. Steven paul. This guy who gets blamed so much for his puritanical attitude. Is often criticized for believing people should get married if they're going to have sex so they won't burn in hell. He's more concerned about the depersonalization involved in certain kinds of sexual expression that he is in the sex itself. 1st thessalonians what are the letters that paul wrote. He says those who treat others as of no account. Are despising not a human being. But the god who has put his holy spirit. Into that human being. The god who is put. The holy spirit into everyone. No matter what their sexual orientation or gender. And even when it comes to adultery. For paul the cv isn't making use of another man's property. It's treating another person as though she was of no value. Contraband says that for paul and other early christians. Purity involves not what one do sexually. But trying to get the better of someone else. Which is an ephah. Homosexual ask me it seemed impurity paul because he was raised in the hebrew. But being engaged and them was not something for which people should be. That is as true today. Wrote was contained in the bible. We're living in a time and place. They had no way of knowing the complexities of the kind of world in which we now live. The freedoms that we now take for granted. But they were as concerned about the way we treat one another. As we should. Because that's a concern that transcends time and place. Wrote what's in the bible were trying to communicate. How's those who believe they had been filled with a spirit wanted to live filled with that spirit. Jesus said that. What's a clod of love wanted us to do was loving. Not hateful. Revenge. Jesus rejected. The tribal notion. Lanai. He said love god. Love life. Love your neighbor. As yourself. Countryman sister. If we want to take seriously. We have to understand most of what's written in it. Is the equality of all human beings under grace. Priority of love over all other virtues. If we were to understand this she said. We would know. So we are all children of god no matter how we choose to express. It is children of god. We all have the holy bananas. So we must respect each other and one another's bodies. And that we own. Our own bodies. They don't belong. Finally. No matter what. What the divine wants to prevail in this world. And not hatred. Or venture. So. Jerry. Sexual expression with which were personally comfortable. It's not the way we express our sexuality. It matters. Research. Valid. Scientific research. Makes it clear that some of us just like. Some members of our fellow species are. More sexually attracted to members of our own the opposite sex. No matter what it says some particular passage in the bible. Non-straight. Non-marital sex. Has been around since long before the authors wrote. It's going to be around long after all of us are gone. Understand. We're far less concerned. About the kind of sex in which people. Passion. Hospitality relationships. So it's not even puts it. To deny those who feel this way. The right piece of harming others. Pursue the kind of sexuality that corresponds. Is a perversion of the gospel. Perversion. I believe that those who oppose mutually respectful intimate relationship. Between. Or those. Exist. Between. Missed what's at the heart of what was said by prophets like. Isaiah. Our sexuality. Is one of the richest blessings of creation said countryman. To be received with the light. And thanksgiving. And it's only when our actions. Express this truth. That there is. That is our actions no longer express. That there is something wrong with the. So may we all be graced. With the love out of which our sexuality and all the rest of our lives. Flow. Am i we enhance disgrace. Loving ourselves. And however we relate to ourselves. Other people. Beautiful world in which we live. To do this. Is the only way. Destiny found. I meant.

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20150607_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

So a little while ago david invited us to look at these flowers. And to do so in the spirit of reflection. And as we do so i invite us to think about. The act of budding. When a bud is formed. It's a little new organism that emerges from the existing one. And the bud and the flowers separate only when they are mature. Even though. That departure is planned. It's what is supposed to be. It leaves scar tissue. On the stem behind. So justice when our youth bridge or when our elders died we feel the loss. Despite its place in the natural order of things. Because the bud. Comes from the same root as the limb from which it springs. Deep roots. The tea. Like water. Roots we need in this time. When we are faced with issues like mass incarceration. What routes we need in this time of drought in our water seeking world. In this time when we face loss here in our life together. In times such as these. We could easily easily live in a place of mass despair or mass denial but we. Are gathered here today. Because we choose not to do that. We choose the place of connection and growth. We choose to focus as the nude on the stem. Of our most abiding values. We choose. To renew our connection. 2 rdp. Roots as deep. As those which connect this ritual we are about to share together. To our heritage. As questioners as heretics. As truth-seekers. Roots reinterpreted in each generation. As norbert capek. Reinterpreted ritual for his time. We think of this as a ritual from times gone past. But he invented it. As a ritual for new time. And built through his actions. The largest unitarian church in the history of the world with more than 8,000. Members. Surrey interpreting the truth. About the oneness of god at a time of great upheaval and uncertainty and depression. He invented this ritual. He was soon destined to lose his life at the hands of the same forces. Which would cause our transylvanian cousins. To take their roots their religion underground. And each year. As we contemplate the service. We should ask ourselves whether we would be brave enough. To risk our lives for the faith we love. I know i ask myself.. And i hope. That i would. I know that many among us have not face that choice and we are glad for that. But we know that many. Of the life that we honor now only in memory have given much of their life energy and resources. So that we can be here. Today. And we celebrate the blooms they have seated. And the buds they have allowed. To unfurl. You know weed is easy. To think about this flower festival this flower service. Is flower communion. As a service about the beauty of the flowers. Or a simple idea about community but it's not. And our bridging service is not about just a joyful send-off into an easy world. Or are you. This is a service. About our ability together to create and recreate meaning. In the face of loss and change. In the face of difficulty some more. Larger than we can imagine. This service marks. The most create creative and courageous act. Of embracing the world. As an adult. Embracing the world as a person of faith. This world. Which is a much more flawed gift. And we would choose. To offer to anyone. So this service. And this ritual we are about to partake in together. Is a service about the flowers and it's also about their roots which are unseen today. On this day. We should never forget. The human cost of freedom. The preciousness of community. This community. Of seekers. Together. This is the bud we send forth in our young adults. This is the flower we have to offer. To a world which so needs. And for all of this. We gather. Indeed. Gratitude.

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050918story.mp3

Liked by all the children. How is everyone today. It is called. What is god. Work. i want to be mindful. Great spirit. What is god. You are asking a very big question. Boris. Mountain. Desert farm. Everyone knows wants to know what is god. And maybe we can't really talk about god maybe we can. Or maybe we can't hear mel. Belgard. More likely to feel happy. Maybe god is what you feel. Beautiful view. Maybe it's when you feel you're beautiful music. Loud. Maybe it's. A million. Long ago. Great light. But now we know. Descendants just one star. Whitebeard. Sometimes the thought is a nice old man. Out the window. Maybe god is. Like. Lots of pieces. Is there anyone who can really tell it. All the puzzle. God. Fit together. What's up. We've been able to solve the puzzle. Have the men and women and even children. Places in the world. What is. Still live today. Most of the great teacher. Castor pizza. Casting on. And that's how many religions.. People of the christian religion. People of the. And there are many many more teachers with many many many many. But if there are so many different ways to learn about. A a puzzle. Every. And people of every religion understand.. I want everyone to know what is god and the same way that they understand god. And sometimes people of one religion don't like people of another religion religion is different. Or they don't understand. Sometimes people of one religion starts fight with people of another religion. They don't understand that most religion. Almost. Our most religions alma. Many ways. Everyone thought all the way. Spell buddha. Okay one more. So much. We are going to go out to our class r7. What. I want to draw attention to the fact that we're going to have a big concert next saturday. And i would like everyone here for our first one. Importance of our seventh principle. Right everybody. Adult.

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20150426_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

Far away. In the heavenly abode of the great god indra there is a wonderful net. Which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant taste of deities. The artificer has hung a single glittering jewel. In each eye of the net. And since the net itself is infinite in dimensions. The jewels are infinite in number. They're hang the jewels glittering like stars in the first magnitude a wonderful sights to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected. All the other jewels in the net. Infinite in number not only that but each of the jewels reflected in this one joule is also reflecting all the other jewels so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring. This description. From the american scholar francis cooke. Indra's net. A well-known ancient hindu image. Paints a beautiful picture. Of one of the foundational truths of religions such as hinduism. And buddhism and taoism. That the universe is a single. Undivided enter woven fabric. Infinitely interconnected. In jewish and christian and sufi muslim mysticism. The universe is imagined as an expression of god not an object created by an external divine entity. But an emergence. As an embodied presence of that holy one. These religious images and metaphors for the fundamental unity of all existence like our own image of the interdependent web of existence. Strikingly echo. A growing contemporary scientific understanding. Of the way that all of existence seems to be interconnected as john muir said in our chalice lighting. Just like the elements that make up each of our bodies themselves stardust. Born in the most ancient explosions of the universe's first galaxies and stars. Everything that is. And was. And evermore shall be. Is inescapably entwined in one single ever-growing fabric. Evolving constantly by new interconnections into more and more complex expressions the creativity that drives the emerging universe has even brought forth a being. With the capacity to sit right here in the middle of the whole web. Looking around at all of the other jewels. And the dazzling threads of which we ourselves are one. And saying. Wow. What an amazing. Beautiful. Reality. We are all. Part of. If that does not rise to deserving the word holy. I cannot imagine what would. One absolutely marvelous part of that vast creative web one of which we have been reminded in particular this earth day. Is that. It's not optional. We don't have to believe in it. It doesn't need us to agree to belong. There's no such thing as deserving or undeserving in the interconnected web there's no way to drop out. Of the interconnected web of existence even when we die we are just woven right back in. It just is. It is the reality in which we live. Move. And have our being. There's one expression. Of all of this cosmic interconnectedness though. That is different. And it is in a way uniquely ours. Long ago ralph waldo emerson wrote the whole human family is bathed in an element of love. Like a divine ether. I've come to see that element of love that compassion connecting all humankind as another web. One that is constantly being woven. Broken restored and renewed torn refreshed. And expanded. Unlike the web of creation this one isn't just there. The fabric of this web. The weather compassion and human interdependence is interactive. It is woven out of the threads of all of our own choices and actions. This idea of the web of compassion struck me most forcefully. In a time when i was feeling isolated and lonely myself. Imagining that i had somehow fallen out of the web. That i was march to be outside the circle of enabling love we sung saying about. A few moments ago. And then one day i suddenly found myself looking around. And noticing. Thousands of ways the web of compassion is being woven in any given moment. In countless small gestures kind words caring actions for people in need and as soon as i started paying attention. I realize that the web of compassion is everywhere. It is active. It is happening. All the time. What makes the difference. And whether i feel part of it or not. Is a simple. And profound choice. If i am leaving the web. I can feel it. All around me. If i'm not. It seems to disappear. I say seems. Because i think just like the interdependent web of existence the web of compassion never really vanishes. It's always there it's always going on. Whether i feel i'm part of it or not whether i can feel it or not. Depends on me. Am i weaving the web. Dallas describe some wonderful ways of weaving. In her year of kindness simple actions to make some moment in another person's life easier. More peaceful. More pleasant. We weave the web when we make a call to a friend we haven't seen recently. When we reach out a hand in a moment of disagreement or misunderstanding. Show me offer moments listening or support. Someone who has lost a loved one. Who's going through a hard time with a child. Who's worth struggling with a work dilemma. We weave the web when we celebrate someone's good fortune. When we remember a birthday. When we let someone know we appreciate something they've done. We're weaving the web when we step outside our usual spears of actions. To help out someplace like the trinity center. For the offer our gifts as a tutor for the children of the winter night shelter. For the offering free legal assistance our tax help if that's our skill or just company for somebody navigating the dmv or some social surges service agency. We're weaving when we advocate for a detained immigrants right to a hearing or a visit with her family. Or work for a living wage for service industry workers or stand on a street corner in antioch calling for a ceasefire. In the violent war that seems to be going on in that community. Every time. We actively express our shared humanity. Every time we extend ourselves and care or kindness or solidarity toward another human being. We are weaving the web of compassion. Of course religious communities can be a part of this. Otherwise why would i be here talking about. We act together as a sort of learning community a learning laboratory even a practice round for compassionate connections. One special gift that we have in faith communities. Is the capacity to weave in those who have fewer connections themselves. Or who aren't skilled in reaching out. Communities of faith can be life-saving places for people who urgently need to be held in the fabric because through some catastrophe on our own lives or some pain in our heart we've lost our grasp on our own thread. I witnessed. A remarkable example of this in action a few years ago. In our first year here in this congregation i went to visit an elder who had been living for some years in a board-and-care home. Sometimes didn't remember who she was. Certainly didn't know me. When i said i was one of the new ministers at this church she said. She didn't think she had ever been here. Then she began to receive visits from one of our pastoral visitors. And a copy of the church history. And she showed the woman her younger self. Active. Gauged a leader in the community. And somehow. Just began to chat with her. About. What used to happen in those days. And slowly our member who had lost a sense of herself as part of this community began to be reminded of who she had been among us. And who we had been to her. And slowly slowly she even began to see herself again as a person with a long story. But she didn't always know everything about. But that someone did. And that someone cared enough. To know that story with her. It wasn't a fairytale miracle. But it was an extraordinary thing. To see a person coming home to herself. A glimpse of the web. At its most powerful. Of course ideally the religious community also teaches us to widen our circle of compassion again and again just as the hymn says until it includes and embraces all of the living. And when we get to that point. Maybe you're thinking. This all sounds kind of demanding. As if we should expect to be surrounded all the time by other necessities of other people. And our value and virtue as a human being depend on whether we're meeting all of those needs. How. Exhausting. And it can feel like that sometimes. Especially. If we have come to think that weaving the web is something that we're doing because we should. Because it's good. For someone else. Here's the thing. No. The person who most needs us to weave the web of compassion. Is ourself. These choices. These small and large actions which are the movement of something holy in our lives. No matter how helpful they are. For the person we reach out toward. It make a difference to us. In us. Our pastor visitors the folks who've offered rides or dropped off food or run little errands as part of the neighborhood networks or just as caring people in a church community they often talk about this. I know i've noticed it in my own life. When i reach out and care on a regular basis somehow my own sense of the goodness and joy and possibility of life. Grows. There is a change in the quality of everyday existence that comes when we're engaged and weaving the web. It's not as simple or as obvious as some kind of tit-for-tat exchange. Like an economy of favors know i'll do something for you and you'll do something for me and it all evens out in the end. Not that it's something that comes to life in us. As we experience ourselves as part of this vast. Living. Golden threaded fabric of compassion and connection. That holds and is held by us all. When we leave the web we're taking part directly. In that same continuing unfolding of connection and creativity that gave birth to the rest of the cosmos. It's how everything is put together. I connection. When we choose not to we are surrendering to the forces that drive us apart just like entropy does to the rest of the universe the forces that isolate us. Empty our lives of meaning and purpose and joy. The power the freedom and the responsibility to make the choice it's always hours. Our thread. H pattern. Or color. Is always needed in the tapestry of larger hole and it matters whether we choose to take our place at the loom or not. And weighs small and great. Lives hang in the balance. Starting with our own. The good news. Is this. There is. Something in the universe a power that enables and supports our choice. You may know that power as the love of god. You may know it as the strength of human compassion. You may know it if you are a scientist as just a natural and folding of a universe that's driven by creativity and interconnection. However you name it. It is always there. It calls us it invites us. It meets us. Way more than halfway. Expanding the possibilities magnifying the results of our actions and our choices. Weave the web. In my own best moments this can become like it kind of mantras eddie guiding whisper in my ear helping me with questions that confront all of us all the time. What am i doing right now what do i want to be doing. What am i going to do next. What should our policy be. How should we respond to this action of the social economic and political powers around us. Am i weaving the web. Are my drawing apart from it. Letting it unravel. Does this choice this decision this action increase our human interconnections. Or does it foster separation. Opposition isolation. Are we embodying. Interdependence manifesting the power of love. We have a choice. And when we make the choice we change ourselves. We change our experience of the moment. And in the end we changed the world. It doesn't matter how small are great the impacted one particular choice seems to be. In any given moment. We can't ever know. How far the vibration of one single touched strand in the web is going to travel outward. And in any event. That's not the point. The point is to be as fully as we possibly can what we human beings are. Part of an unfolding and emerging fabric of compassion and creativity in the universe. When we awaken to our place. As weavers. Ourselves woven into an infinite web that binds us all. One single fabric of love. We make our own lives whole. No work is more sacred. Weave the web.

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20150503_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

Good morning everyone. Deeply moved and very honored to worship with you this morning. And thank you for singing. Missy chaos on my native tongue. That me began with the story. Few months ago. I was in asilomar. On the coast of california. Attending. The unitarian universalist ministers association institute for excellence in ministry. Salam name. One of the workshop presenters. Was reverend michael piazza. United church of christ minister. Who is cody rector. Of the center for progressive renewal. At his workshop. Entitled preaching and worship. For the future church. And the future of church. Bylund who faints. The first. One size doesn't fit all. The 2nd. Bo fanfic. I would try to follow. The path outlined by reverend piazza. This is my second visit to united states of america. 20 years ago. I had the privilege. To be the ball off scholar. Starr king school for the ministry. At that time i lived in san francisco. And did not have. Much time. Wander in berkeley. No i take. Advantage of the opportunity. And whenever i'm free. Climb the hills in berkeley. To gaze upon the bay. I admire the ingeniously made bridges. And the eighth inspiring arch of the golden gate. Whenever he's not foggy. It is not easy to overcome. Cultural differences. Between. Disparate countries and societies. I am from eastern europe. And i feel so fortunate. To address of viola read. Audience. Renews more about. Eastern europe and transylvania. Then the average americans do. I know tour the secret hoe. That amongst you. The idea of global partnership. For global church partnership. Is not a new foe. Yep the first pink average americans associate. With my country is count dracula. The vampire hero. He made my life miserable several times. I run into him. Beginning of the 1990s. When the partner church movement restarted. And the first american unitarian universalist arrived in transylvania. Eager to matt off and. Perhaps the count as well. Growing up in a communist country. I have never seen bela lugosi. Portraying count dracula in the original horror film. Nor did the word literature classes i attended. Talk about the gothic novels of the victorian age or bram stoker. Well after reading his novel as an adult. I made my peace with the calm.. The writing was not that fascinating. But. By putting the story. In the victorian context. I quite enjoyed it. Steel. Long before. The in famous novel appeared in 1897. The two unitarian community. On either side. Of the atlantic. We're already connected. My first job as a young man. Was as a car mechanic. In a service center. I walked there. For a year. And. I was fascinated with mechanics. I was amazing to see. How power was distributed. How motion accelerated or slowed. According to the gear change. I was mesmerized. When i understood. How gear wheels mashed with one another. Transmit required force. This image of mesh wheels. Reminds me of the beginnings. A hungarian and english-speaking unitarian connection. Until the dawn of the 19th century. Our two communities were not engaged. They acted separately. Not knowing much about each other. The wheels were turning without being connected. No one can deny that pennings baltimore address in 1819. Received the congregational order of new england. Something similar happened in transylvania. When an enlightened philosopher was elected as unitarian bishop. Unsat many congregation. Congregations in motion. Hungarian speaking unitarian nobleman. Named alexander bologna. Ordering 4%.. It's credited. As one of those unitarians. Who mashed the gars. He visited the north american continent in 1831. Meeting. With the most notable unitarians of boston. It was even welcomed by the seventh president of united states of america andrew jackson. Returning home he wrote a very popular book about. He's travels. Entitled. Travels in north america. Alexander building is considered. The hungarian tukwila. By the way they met. Talk wheel alexis and sean do for cash in usa. And actually. But any five percenters book appeared the year-earlier. Then talk wheels. Bbqs bologna wrote in hungarian. No one read facebook. Brittany experienced for the first time as a hungarian. How constitutional democracy. Change life. On the american continent. No wonder. He highly admired his idols. Benjamin franklin. Thomas paine. Thomas jefferson. And george washington. British-born and. March travel man. Named john padgett or tatianos as we go limp. It's to be credited as the one. Who shifted the gears. He married a hungarian baroness. And the moves to transylvania. But he promoted not just scientific agriculture. But in 1860. Arranged. Twista bleach scholarship. For hungarian unitarians. In london. Manchester new college. The zeeland commitment. Of the manchester new college students returning to transylvania. To spread english customs and culture. Was truly a prophetic one. Just mention one example. An english conversation club. Was organized in the city of krauzenberg or coronavirus. With unitarians being the standard-bearers. I came across them. A letter and an anonymous letter. From 1867. Threatened by someone right after the english club was formed. This letter throws light on certain. Linguistic or language matters. I quote from this litter. There sir. I heard from the papers that you are to form an english club. I cannot but agree to this idea as a very good one and as in accordance with the spirit of the age. The superficial french-language. And it's. Demoralizing influence in this country. Must be dispossessed. By the manly and the beautiful english language and there are no better means to enact this than to popularizing it by essential claw. And of quote. The demoralizing influence of the french language. Did not turn the english club members hearts to stone. And many of them where to become members of the french club as well. Due to the english speakers on other project was carried out. With the aid of the american unitarian association. In the 1870s. William ellery channing collected works were translated into hungarian language. The influence of training on hungarian unitarian scholarship. Was like opening the damn as one of our former bishop stated. Several hundred years of oppression and isolation. Adblock the dam. But once open. The ship of unitarianism. Was an open waters again. And transylvania unitarians for not afraid. Twix floor. New lands in theology. And ethics. Do unitarian call clarice. Poet and bishop. Name john. Or piano squeezer. In a letter to the american unitarian association dated 1870 road. I cannot thank you enough for your generosity. Which made us much stronger. We feel. We knew that the best way to express our gratitude. Is to make generally known here. In the eastern countries. That the brightest stars. Of you are flag. Spiritual freedom. And pure our years of religion and morality. I'm sorry i think i missed a line. So i will repeat it. Excuse me. We feel we knew that the best way to express our gratitude. It's to make generally known here. In the eastern conference. The brightest stars of your flag. Spiritual freedom and pure ideas of religion and morality. No as the tree moggy. We too have seen you our stars. And we shall never stop. Respecting them. Yes seems we have seen. Your stocks. We have experienced. The transformative power. Of our mashed wheels. B o x e. Boat rev piazza. I don't need your help and imagination. Walk on the path of authenticity. I invite you to imagine visit. To transylvania. It is not that hard. Picture. The green rolling hills. The whitewashed church steeples. The horse-drawn wagons. You can smell. The source sweetroot. Burning in the stoves. And see the smoke. Holding over the roof tiles. You can hear the bells ring. And the dogs pol. Imagine yourself sitting side-by-side. In the rustic views. With you our neighbors from the village. Praying on a sunday morning. Notice the wrinkle sandberg faces. And gently. Fix your eyes. I'm there calloused hands. Folded in prayer. Imagine. The feeling of shaking hands. The roth thoughts of your sisters and brothers farms. They work the soil everyday. With those hands. The thoughts and kara see each other. Guido's warren pants. And ahold. The communion chalice. With those same hands. Those blasts. Ross hands rise and cherished me. Those hands folded over my little hands. And told me. How to pray. They are my heroes. The falls of transylvania. We dare carlos hands and snuggled nails and wrinkled faces. 4 day are the ones. What did not cease to hope and pray. For a bachelor live. Not even during long periods. Of oppression. And injustice. Deprived of all their earthly possessions. During the communist dictatorship. They still nourished their ho. Not for themselves. But for us. It takes more than a village. To pass on your face and hope. The next generation. Imagine no communion service. The special events of the year. When the villagers former circle around the lord's table. They stand there. By gender and age groups. The elder man being followed. My middle-aged. And then by the youngest member. Of the congregation. The woman followed the same pattern. Respecting the boundaries of tradition. It is not easy. To cross boundaries. A jewish wisdom literature put it in the book of ecclesiasticus. Chapter 10. Verse 8. Whoever broke swole. Maybe beaten. Buy a snake. There are so many vowels and boundaries. And there is a high risk. A being bitten. By the snakes. Yachts. The dividing vols should be. Demolish. 1989. What's the year. When the infamous berlin wall. Kandang. Things band. Central eastern europe has witnessed many changes. Yachts. There are still more walls. To break through. In the last 25 years in my post communist country. New dividing walls were built. There are the vols of intolerance. Racism and homophobia. They're result ball dividing different ethnic communities. And there is an enormous bowl. Of injustice. It will take several years. And many moons until we break through these walls. We may be bitching. Many times. Yet i am convinced. That we will charm. Do snakes. And put them where they belong. On the coat of arms of the unitarian church. I'm conscious of the antipathy. The cast of shadow over every attempt. Break through the wall of nationalism. Duvall's of homophobia. The voice of all kinds of discrimination. Ultimately with your engagement. And moral support. We will overcome the boundaries of fair. And hayes. I assume that you have already noticed that i am not an active english speaker. Ibalong precisely to the hungarian ck community of transylvania. We awesome thing. The ck anthem in our churches. That is different.. We had song. Earlier. I am proud of my identity. And i am deeply moved whenever we sing the sak anthem. Yep. I think it is pessimistic and inward-looking. It was written right after the first world war. I understand why my people. Craved the rule of the legendary queens trouble. But i understand as well that transylvania. Was not forsaken by god as we sing. Aunt oblast land. And earthly paradise. Still belong to all leave there. Without changing identity. I am more comfortable. With another song known as transylvania the blast country. Which is the unofficial. Anthem of the transylvanian saxon the germs. Leupold mark smolka. A liberal-minded fashion. Who made his home in transylvania rotate in 1846. The song. Expresses of patriotism. That includes love of the land and of it and of its diverse ethnic communities. I coach two stanzas. Of the hymn in english. Transylvania. Land of tolerance. Bastion of many fades. Preserve over the centuries your son's right to liberty. And be the home of honest words. Transylvania. Our sweetland our dearest mother country. May you be blessed for your everlasting beauty. And may harmony rain among the children of your heels. Palmdale. Isn't it nice. There are no dividing walls. It is. About all god's children. Believe on the hills and dales of transylvania. This idealistic picture is ruined every single day. When i check the news. I see the growing epidemic. Of injustice. And the tragic consequences of it. Icy macho unfairness. Brokenness and loneliness in united states of america 2. Ordeals are. An inseparable part of life. Yet. We can make. A difference. It is time to shave the gators. Overcome homophobia. Racism. And narrow-minded nationalism. In both sides of the atlantic. I do believe. That together. We can make a change. 24-hour roll. Is to build trust in life. Maturity. Tolerance. Solidarity and social commitment. All of religion. Is one of hope of perseverance and of love. It might sound naive. But i believe. In spiritual renewal. In social reform. And distributive justice. May the spirit of compassion. Guide all of us towards the real ones of understanding. Forward air is understanding. There is acceptance. Where there is a capstan. There is love. Where there is love. There is beef. But there is peace there is blessing. Where there is blessing. There is god. So beads.

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sermon%2008-14-05.mp3

To do. Other. Careful. Results of having a good life. Everything. Worthwhile. We don't want anyting. To our home computer. During the message of a powerful voice. Vietnam war. We heard this morning. The suffering. War. Nominated. We heard the letter that martin luther king jr wrote to the nobel. Morning. Because his message is clear. Compassion. Message resonates with us. Light. We are apart. Miracle of mindfulness. Mindfulness here. Present moment. Possible. Awareness. Potential. Spiritual quality of our lives. Ceremony. Impurity. July. Hinder progress in virtue. Possible. We can speak truthfully. Impartiality. All wrong views in speculation. The voice that rises above all else. Taking the time to listen to reply cell. More sleep for. Water. Neighboring states. Chameleon. Call p h. Tomorrow morning. Coffee to you. Rain watering the ground. The clerk. Cashier collecting money. The people who bought a coffee. Creation. Part of your morning ritual. Gratitude. Slowly. Aware of all that you are doing. With whatever. Because we have had the opportunity. Of the matter we are considering. Practice. Because of modern society. It is called. Where will i find the himalayan rain. Nameless mountain. Shred. Amazon river flow. Destination. Weather. Screen. The come-and-go. With millions of brilliant stars. Homosapien. Sunflower. Together in. Are you looking for. Are you going. Where is the store. Where. Pass through the stars. To go very deep understanding. Sorrow. Love or caring. Clearly the world around her.

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20090104_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

Have you ever had the experience. Now. Rapunzel. A moment of pure cool. Every. And welcome to home. Collective imagination. Trendy contemporary. Where they put. Pictures. And there. What train station. Right in the middle of. Photograph. Good morning. Morning. A true sense of immediacy. Especially. And my classmates. Photography. What do you do. Cradles. Attention. Extraordinary. In all of our moma. The ordinary. Has been long considered one of the 20th century. Url. Time of year. Remember. Maybe something. Because it was a moment. Where you made a decision. Or to your parents or your partner. What it is. Or perhaps. Or person. Perhaps it is how you said. Opportunity for you. Set reminder. Of your own mortality. Or handle. Really the wrong. Take precedence over the vital in our lives. Imaginary. From our year pass. Regret the choices and decisions. We can see. Press conference. Calling for offshore oil drilling. Energy. Your behind. How many. Experian. Good morning. Into a life-changing decision. Golfer. Hertz in trouble. Which might make it possible. Week. Today. Build a wonderful news. The resources. Marriage rights for all. To begin a new ministry together. And we also. With all the decisions we made of. Different from. Number. Guitar chords for hope. The world. The first is actually. For congress. The earth. Polar bears. 20 years later after hanson. Brave movie. Global warming. Conservative. Unavoidable. In our lives. How do we meet. Take the time to make the choices we need to make. Of our rapid fire world. Jon kabat-zinn. Before this. Is the founder and director of the stress reduction clinic. University of massachusetts. Prisons and other in. Real. And we need to be present. Sabar live. From the reality of our lives. In his work with people whether it's. Hospital setting. Trouble. Very hard work. Opportunity. Resolve to do better in our lives. Remember. Caring for what we believe in. Preparing for ourselves. Hard work. Is all that we can do. When i take. Go for a walk. Give me the piece of music. Pay attention. Power in car. We need to understand. Small choices are important. Cardio for small talks about proper expression. Howard thurman. 1950s. The great unitarian preacher theodore parker. Preaching to a world not yet ready. 12. Represent transient conventions of people. Partial interest. Performed. Which girls girls my spear. Parker. When we say the word god. Whatever you call it. Is what allows. Is the moment. The moment. When you were training yourself. Also. When you train yourself to be ready for that moment. And for me. Water plant. Before a family meal time. Great circle. Forms are the small.. Small and simple and some of them aren't you. We learn again and again. The greater challenge. New yorker cartoon. Turn off the virtual images. World. We live in a time when our lives. A reminder to organize. Small.. To our greatest circle. Contacts. Call mama. Hoping that we may be. And remember that we are part of a greater hope. Precious world. Our heritage. Commitment.

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reading_082105.mp3

The reading today taken from dirt greed and sex is on sexual ethics in the new testament. And their implications for today by elle. William countryman. Sex is one of the rich blessings of creation. To be received with a light and thanksgiving. At the point when one's actions no longer express that truth. They become wrong. If i grab something for myself it belongs rightfully to another. Whether through direct violence or through manipulation or any other means. I acknowledge what i have grabbed as a good but i no longer confess it. As a part of the whole richness of creation. Original switch includes all goods. Including myself and the neighbor home i have robbed as well. If i make satisfaction of sexual desire the overarching goal of my life. I have put the part in place of the whole. And their bylaws. Perspective has real value. These considerations are what make libertinism wrong. For they condemn any pursuit of sexual pleasure which is based. I'm megalomania and idolatry. What is less commonly observed. Is it they also make prudery. Legalism. An addiction to respectability. For justice sex is not the final goal of the creation. Neither is works righteousness. The fulfillment of law or the sense of comfort that comes from having fulfill the expectations of my neighbors. The world begins and gods free act of creation. And concludes in god's free active grace. Or rather in the rejoicing to which it gives rise. Self-confident respectability. Will be no preparation for the life of the age of rejoicing. It is not surprising that jesus alienated those who practice such. Virtues.

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073105_reading.mp3

Was. Published in the san francisco chronicle. Shortly after the appointment of the new pope. Perhaps not coincidental that cardinal ratzinger the most. Fundamentalist roman catholic cardinal was chosen as the new pope. Fundamentalism is the victoria the 21st century. Ask anyone trying to teach evolution in a public school. Consider the 50 million copies sold of the left behind series about the second coming of christ in the end of the world. Or listen to boulevard earnestly explain how to apply 7th century religious law to modern life. Or what time delay and bill frisell. Attacking the judicatory for not being sufficiently friendly to fundamentalist. I'm a novelist. I'm also gaetano's francis schaeffer who until its death in 1984 was one of the best-known fundamentalist theologian. My dad followers included the founders of the religious right. Pat robertson james dobson. Jerry falwell. But i fled the hot and heavy world of fundamentalism a long time ago. Then i decided to write a farewell to all that craziness trilogy of novels. About how preferred religion impacted my life. I guess. Fundamentalism. But i also get. A lot of hate mail from fundamentalist to stumble across those novels. Many secular and moderately religious people just don't feel comfortable saying things that might offend such religiously fervent believers because they know the kind of response they're going to get. The other hand. Fundamentalist equate criticism of their theology and politics with blasphemy. Do that because they're sure absolutely positive they're on a mission from god. Raptors word convergence of liberal tolerance in. Fundamentalist absolutism offers an explanation as to why fundamentalist today dominate the world. Holy warriors confront tolerant folks who believe that all religions are fine or at least equally irrelevant. Coloring people have trouble saying any beliefs are bad so it's not an equal concept. We stand in the path of the worldwide fundamentalist tsunami. Repeating mattress about sensitivity inclusion and tolerance has no defense against it. Nora's hoping religion will just go away. Private to god. Again. Or desire for meaning. But for whatever reason we humans seem to be inexorably religion. Do we better start. Figuring out. What sort of religious people. We want to be. Believe it or not.

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090405_history_water_service.mp3

Adapter. This month. Water service water communion. People generally bring a small amount of water collected from the special place. Pulling into a common vessel. Most of us don't realize. This service originated. Carolyn mcdade check longview. Create a list. For the women. East lansing michigan. Your service was attended to speak to the worship. Which simpson. That's mcdade the social activist and songwriter recalls quote. Creating a political. Medina. Boots for women. That made working together easy. Lucille's house has spent many rewarding hours. Held up nature and community. They believe the dispatcher quote. It was a creation of a sacred space. This celebration of connectedness. Empowered women instead of calling them. The water symbolize the bush water. The cycles of the moon. Tide. And all the waters of the small bluetooth. Each woman attending. The daily caller. As women. This. As women the world over. Traditionally draw and carry water. Resources. It also speaks eloquently about interdependence. Life cannot survive without water. Become a popular feature in the fall. Water services. Any meaning. Has been under significant.

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051016_sermon.mp3

Well you've heard all about our capital fund drive this effort to raise the money. We didn't have when we built the sanctuary so we can. Finish out this. Wonderful campus that we have. A facility that's intended to provide us with what we need to be able to express our liberal faith in a community that. Badly needs for it to be heard. But i'm not going to talk about. Facilities or money this morning. What i'd rather talk about is. Why more than ever we can't just leave the field of religion to those who are more conservative than us. It's not that we don't respect the right of people to believe as they choose we do. It's that the voice that respects the facts of life. As well as the wisdom of religion. Is one that has to be heard along with voices that are more conservative. Princess we need to understand. That it is not a fact. Is those on the religious right claim. Our country was founded as a christian nation. It wasn't. It's true that many of those who wrote our founding documents. Including the declaration of independence and the constitution and the bill of rights were christians the majority of people living in this country at this time were. But they wanted to keep god out of the documents they wrote. Believing that ours was a nation founded by human beings. Rather than pretend it was founded under the will of god. Among those founders were several with. Unitarian and universalist sentiments like benjamin russian. Thomas jefferson and john quincy adams benjamin franklin who believe it or not. Was in the front pew. At a service in london where theophilus lindsey found in. Our face in great britain. All of these people and others like james madison and george washington. Refuse to believe in a god that would take part in organizing nations or directing human affairs. It was up to us they believe. Perhaps inspired by the wisdom of the great profits to organize governments and to write laws that. For the citizenry were equitable and just. So james dobson who is head of focus on the family one of the christian rights most influential institutions is miss stating the facts. When in the introduction to a history series. Produced by his organization for christian schools and. Homeschooling parents. Says. The concept of a secular state was virtually non-existent in 1776 as well as in 1787 when the constitution was written. And no less so when the bill of rights was adopted. So says dobson. To read the constitution as the charter for a secular state. Vista misread history. The constitution was designed to perpetuate a christian order. Ours was begun he says. As a christian nation. He goes on to claim and as far as the founders were concerned. The try separating christianity from government. Was virtually impossible. And would result in unthinkable damage to the nation and its people. And much of the damage we see around us today. Is attributable. To this separation. He's wrong. An exhaustive study of the founding documents and what they actually said. Along with the study of the letters and other writings of those who wrote them as well as the minutes of all of these founding conventions. Jose isaac kramnik and lawrence moore who are professors of government at cornell university that. Dobson's reading of the minds of the men who wrote the constitution is wrong. The principal framers of the american political system they say. Wanted no religious parties in national politics. And they crafted a constitutional order. That they intended to make. In which people's religious convictions or their lack of religious conviction would be relevant in judging the value of their political opinions or deserting their qualifications for public office. Though some of those who wrote our founding documents might have preferred. You have god or christianity be mentioned in them. So successful were the drafters of the constitution in defining government and secular terms that one of the most powerful criticisms of the constitution when it was written was that it was indifferent to christ in god. And it was denounced as a godless document. In spite of what dobson claims. So what i'd like to do this morning and honor of the unitarian and universalist were among those who created are intentionally secular government. Is to tell you something about why. As kramnick and more put it in their book the godless constitution. Keeping god out of our founding documents was not an act of your reverence. Far from it. It was an act of confidence in religion. Keeping god out of government. Was intended to let religion do what it does. Best. That is to preserve the moral. Morality necessary in a democracy without laying upon its of burdens tides of the fortunes of this or that political faction because they changed all the time. What people like options don't understand. Is the keeping god out of government has proved itself a much greater boon to the fortunes of organized religion than were any of the prior systems of established church. The kinds of systems are founders wanted to leave behind. Among the things that kramnik and moore do to prove their thesis. Is to look at not only the language of those founding documents. But at the debates that took place when they were written. In one of these debates. That led up to the adoption of the constitution. Benjamin franklin franklin that he only believed in a clockmaker god you know the god that wound up the clock and then just said it running which is what the dias were accused of bleeding. Franklin suggested. That the delegates open their sessions with a prayer. Franklin thought that this might help them be serious about what they were doing. But after franklin made his suggestion. The delegates decided to adjourn. And the topic was never raised again. It shortly before the constitutional convention convened. John adams the first of our presidents to be a unitary and although. Jefferson often said. That all thoughtful people should become one. Wrote that the united states is the example of a government erected on simple. Principles of nature. Adam said that he and the other framers of the constitution never had any interviews with god about a write it. Nor were they in any degree under the inspiration of heaven. Government the lead atoms is contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. Government should be founded on the natural authority of the people alone without any pretense. The miracle or two mystery. Adams along with. Others of our founders like jefferson and russian franklin and washington. Also believe that no religious test should ever be imposed. On politicians and that no public office should ever be restricted to just those who believe in god or were christians. Oliver ellsworth who was another of the delegates to the convention put it this way. He said a religious test would be absurd in a nation in which they were so many different religions. To savor one religious sect over another he said. Would incapacitate them unless degrade them from the rank of freeman. Lawmakers who wrote. Have no right to set up an inquisition. Or to examine people's private opinions. But that doesn't mean that these people who wrote these documents didn't respect religion. Adams in fact was so attached to the unitarian church to which he belong. That along with his son who also became president he's buried in the basement. They recognized. That there were even religious beliefs leaders who believed that it was best to keep god out of governments like rodger williams. I think most southern baptist don't want to hear this. Rodger williams who was the founder of the baptist faith in this country and a deeply religious man. Was so attached to his beliefs that he left massachusetts. Rather than ac2 the desires of that colonies established church and that colony's government. Church and state were so interlocked in massachusetts it was very difficult under law in early colonial times to set up any other kind of church. It was as though the baptist got pounded out of massachusetts. Enes committed and conservative a christian as he was. Williams regarded government therefore is not god-given but merely human and civil. At least. Civil a bit. Because they certainly acted uncivil towards him. He believes having religion be involved in government would be a hindrance to it. Just as having government be involved in religion as it was in massachusetts would be a hindrance to religion. Spite of what many modern baptist seem to believe. Rodger williams believed in an absolute. Freedom of religion. One could be a christian he believed. Only if a person came to that belief. As a reasoning adult. Which is why for instance williams and his followers. Rejected infant baptism. What any one person did. In the name of god he went on to say should have absolutely no claims on his neighbor. Not only this williams believe. The worthiness of people to perform useful and decent work doesn't depend on their religious beliefs. Could be fit to govern. Williams believed that no civil state. Could reproduce the kingdom of god that existed at the beginning and wood. Exist at the end. He said. A wonderful phrase. If god had wanted timmons beings in eaton. He would have left them there. In the world of human beings. Religious toleration and the elimination of god based claims from the civil state. Have a much better chance of producing civil pc said. Then do corrosive measures aimed at religious conscience. Rodger williams. Leave people could rule best if they listen to one another. Rather than dividing themselves in the parties based on different views of what god wanted. He believed that although human beings in their moral imperfection. But sometimes take sides against. What is they believe. A greater evil. God doesn't act worldly policy as though he worth someone's commander-in-chief. And i just wish our current president. With understand this as well as. Did those two baptists who came before him. Jimmy carter and bill clinton or even as well as did his own. Episcopal father. I quoted rodger williams rather than turning into a liberal-minded religion us like. Jefferson or adams to show that most of the people living at the time when our nation was founded. Though they didn't want america to be godless. Believe that a democratic government was not created to produce moral citizens. It was the other way around. Moral citizens constructed and preserved democracy. So if the people of this country have lost their moral way as people like dobson seem to believe. It's not because of risdon of god and government. It's because. A great many of our religious institutions have let us down. But then. That's usually been the case. Look at american history shows that we've never been a particularly moral nation. And ironically at a time on those who claim to be churchgoers and to believe in god are at an all-time high so are the violations of the religious commandments that we've been talking about for the past couple of weeks. I'm thinking about all the pious religious rhetoric that's being bandied about in public these days. Kramnik and morrissey. Rodger williams would have smelled a rat. He would say that if various religions can't make those who profess them good. Neither can republicans or democrats. That is a writer in time magazine. Recently cautioned his readers about the perils of a righteous president. He said that abraham lincoln who was the first republican to hold that office.. Perhaps the most moral person to ever occupy the white house. So he didn't belong to any church. Warned about believing that our president is carrying out the will of god in charting the course of government. When lincoln frayed. He didn't pray to know the will of god so we could get it right. What he did. Was pray to have the strength to make the best decisions. That he could. Knowing that it was a human government that he was leading. And not a government created under the wheel of god. Lincoln believed that our founders. Hey created the best nation and the most fit form of government that could be created by human beings and he was committed to saving what they created untrammeled and free. He knew that it required an electric. They had an understanding of the law. That could understand what was going on and would respect minority rights. Including the rights of those who are offended these days. Those trying. Two against our founders wishes. Make hours into a christian nation. No i'm not. Trying to make a plea for people with face to not speak out in public issues. After all that's exactly what i'm doing. What is kramnick and more put it. The answer to face base judgment. It's not more profession of faith in public debate. It's a clear-headed analysis of crucial issues. Touched when appropriate with moral passion. Was an understanding that not all of those who are touched with moral passion. Are gifted with moral. Insight. So as people of faith. Listener. Shutter mouse. Let us speak out. In public as i'm doing. No matter. What's the basis of our faith is liberal or. Conservative. But in doing so. Let us not a road any further the wall of separation. Between church and state. 4. The place where god is in our hearts. Not in german. That's the way. Our founders wanted it. And that's the way it should continue.

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20150301_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

Go to save us. A little time. In the line after the service or when i next speak with you. I will begin by saying. That my february was a little different than i expected. Something very cliched and predictable happened after a time of extra effort and stress. I got sick. Really sick not just a little sick three works worth of sick on and off. The proverbial silver lining though. Meant that it gave me lots of time to think. And to read and to reflect. And to listen and watch. Great teaching. Not to mention to sleep in cough. And in reading i learned that the need to see oneself constantly as exceptional is actually a sign of spiritual immaturity. So i can stand before you and save it in the month of february i mind my just plain ordinariness for all it was worth. And i developed a new kind of horizontal meditation that i'm sure. Is going to catch on. And i bought. And i dreamed a lot. About all of you. In about this community. About the now of it. And about the not yet of it too. The one-day is ai-lian languishing and practicing the gratitude which i needed more than sleep. I remember the conversation last thanksgiving that happened in our wonderful boarding hall. Right side for a few minutes with two young men. They're delightful. They share their interest their plans and. And even though both of them are about a foot taller in several stones heavier than me. They. Seem to me to be. Incredibly young and vivacious and. Excited. Nevermind. They are living in our winter nights shelter. But they're just guess. Enjoying hospitality on this particular day of thanksgiving and they enjoy that especially the now of dessert. And they plan for the future. They're not yet. Which vacancy. Very clear. And i think as i lie there of. The people that we have loved here so well. That we have lost. Nfl celebrations of life which are one of the forms that are. Kindness comes one of the ways we keep our promises. About the many forms of companioning. That we do here that i get to witness. Everyday. About all we do in the now and all. Dream of doing. In the not yet. Now. And not yet. So the week. Bc that's before crud. I studied i had the opportunity to study with the reverend jackie lewis. And she reminded me that life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. Which was something i was going to need to know in the next couple weeks so that was good. She leads the middle collegiate church it's a thriving. Rate radically inclusive. Racially diverse congregation and she talked about how we all must live in the now. Which for her and her congregation is a a joy centered worshipping a committed way of responding to the anguish is of the world not unlike what we do here maybe just amplified a little. And she talked about how we also need to live in the not yet. And in recent months she said. She did this by joining other national religious leaders. Including unitarian universalist colleagues. In a dying and the congregation the congressional. Cafeteria in december. And by inviting television coverage. When their congregation decided that one sunday they would all wear hoodies. In support of trayvon martin. In times like these she said. We live on the edge. That razor edge. Of the now. Buddhist teacher jack kornfield. List accepting imperfection. As one of the first signs of spiritual maturity. The s. Is a life. Giving commitment. The third is patience. I worked on that a lot last month. And on the list. Is a willingness to embrace contradiction. Such as accepting what is. Here. That we know. Even as we move towards what we know. Yet. Now and not yet. On my better days in february i take walks with my dog i practice ukulele from the comfortable nest of my bed i save my voice that i can do interviews with colleagues on the phone. And i think about the now in the not yet of this congregation. Last week i felt well enough to go for some walks up in tilden park which was wonderful. And as i was driving home. I passed that part on 680 where you kind of sweep around and you see walnut creek off to the side. And i realize there's a little neighborhood over there and i realized that it was sort of now. My neighborhood 2. Even though i live way out in martinez. Because that was where a small and dedicated band of us. Went door-knocking. In the name of justice. On election day. And it was away that we lend our power to those who need an advocate in our communities. And i thought about the ways that we raise children like. Who are like young adult activists courtney martin whose words jackson read who will face a choice about whether to engage in the world or to go with the dominant culture of apathetic consumption. I thought about how we replace where we walk with one another enjoy. And where we have a chance week after week. To refocus on what matters in our lives. About clarence skinner's new and old seeds of which we are found we find an every moment. About being a place that holds. All. Complexity. Of a conundrum. We face in our world. Forest quaker activist parker palmer says. Complexity. Requires. And i think. About the not yet. Which is woven into the dna of our faith. Our tradition which is one of boldness which which sees into the future in the way of dreamers. We have been. For many centuries now. A truth-seeking. Humanity loving people. Our religious ancestors were so bold in thought and action. Did they totally broke out of the frames of their time. They broke out beyond de enero christianity that was controlled. Buy a priestly class to agreeing a religion of the people inspired by a revolutionary teacher. And we counting our pedigree. The transcendentalist. Who walked away from a focus on scripture and instead said let's focus on our own lives. As the text. Which is what scholars are saying now scholars like. Harvey cox a nationally-renowned. Observer of religion what they're saying is what is needed now. In religion. Which is that direct experience. Of mystery and wonder. Which we have explored. For centuries. And i think. About. How at the turn of the 20th century. When they were new discoveries about science and evolution which send other face into apoplectic pulpit pounding. Our faith was able to see the unity. The way that discoveries on this hand also informed our old traditions on the. And that they weren't. Of two different kinds of claws and how we welcomed women and freethinkers in the 1950s at that time of conformity and people found. Please. Where they could discuss new ideas. And we added a seventh principle. Good knowledge or understanding which we need to embrace more. Today. That unity. Means intertube. Withal. Life. And so now. Here we are. In this one. Thor not yet i believe. Is to live into being that place for our time. To live more fully into our principles. To enact that kindness with jack kornfield reminds us. Needs to be just in the nature of our being together. To be received into the hospitality of other souls seeking to grow. And to change our own little part of the world as imperfectly as. May do it in anyone. I also had a chance to read spirit rock t-shirt david rico. Who are fortunate to have with us on march 14th here doing a seminar with us. And i was struck and reading his work about how the not yet we must move into. Really requires us to combine our willingness to do it anyway. And also to let go when things do not go exactly as we would have them. Jack kornfield says. Another one of the signs of spiritual maturity. Is the ability to understand that there really is. No boundary. Between the sacred. And the profane. He quotes that old buddhist saying after the ecstasy. The laundry. Well in the life of a congregation when my put it this way after the ecstasy the utility bills. And people wonder sometimes and complain and are concerned that we have to talk every now and then about money in this place and here's the simple truth. The financial resources we get our essential. For helping us about the now and the not yet. End. Because when i last checked it is very hard. To pay water bills with volunteer hours or potluck dishes. We actually. Have to have the money and especially because. We have such a dedicated staff who go over and beyond. Every week. Help us move. To the not yet. Do a couple times a year. We are asked to consider how much we value this place chock-full of people who remind us that we are not alone in this crazy world. To say yes to life to step out and do our best. And to try some new practices of recommend horizontal meditation. To help us better saver. Unappreciated. Are now. To do this in tribute of those who offer listening ears and supportive environments. To hear and learn our way into our personal not yet. Every year. I asked myself this question. And once again this year i will pledge 5% of my income here. Cuz i know. But through the years i'll make lots of other donations here as well. But the pledges. Are the ones. That allow us to have a budget. And to make our plans. I'm moving out. We live in a world in which the problems we face. The shrinking of the globe. The continued existence of race and class warfare. The damage were doing to our world require. The deep and sustaining workout. Which cannot be done. Cannot be.. Buy personal spirituality or individual. Freethought alone. Here. We can keep building and reaching out and reaching in as well. The deep in the experience we have your together the ways that we know each other. To live into our principles which we are so grateful. To inherit. And here we have many ways to step forward with our gifts. Whether it's updating a website or folding a newsletter or offering a ride or offering to do some shopping or helping make calls or helping make. And giving dollars. And pledges. Because that is one of the thing. That allows our dream. Thick rolex. So two weeks ago i was preaching in the pulpit of the congregation which ordained to me 10 years ago last month. And getting there with its own kind of spiritual odyssey traveled across the country on a day in which my laryngitis was so advanced. But i could not even whisper. Never had this happen before. I felt like an old-time bank robber when i went up to the rental car cuz i had a handwritten sign requesting my vehicle. But once i finally made it back to richmond and their pulpit. I was glad i was preaching on the east coast because they have an excess of water there that you're rather than a jerk and it was only through the ministry of hot beverages that i was able to make audible. My sermon. So as i stood there. Croaking. And i thank you very. We just been refurbished in the last years with technology that. Impress my fifteen-year-old. When we were there last. I reflected on how much progress. All of us. As you using. We have made. So much of its imperfect. So much of what we want is yet to be realized. And yet what a gift it is. To have a place where we can embrace all of it with all its a. And be flexible. Impatient. Mankind. And welcome the contradiction. And those parts of the now. That we did not actually asked. And to do it anyway. As courtney. Each way. In this place. We come together. To hold the now and the not yet. To take that breath and be more present to our own lives. To be more wholehearted in our being with the world and those who are in our orb. To let our children know that. Caring is actually cool. And wanting to make a difference is a time-honored tradition of rebellion. And we come together to face. Rather than to turn away. From the deep. Complex. Troubles of the world. Knowing. That whatever we can do. That is a promise. So let us be grateful. Truly grateful. For all that we have here. In the now. And may we be the one. To help us move.

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20150405b_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

The christian story of the resurrection. Easter morning begins. In a moment. Of disaster and shattered hope. On the morning after the end of passover. Some of the women who among jesus closest followers walk to the tomb where his body was placed behind a heavy stone. To await a proper burial when the festival was over. Whatever they understood. About his teachings. His work. His life. Everything. Lies in qatar. Ruin. No power of earth or heaven has lifted its hands to shield him. No uprising has begun. No great political or religious revolution has swept aside the oppressive and suffocating rule of rome its vassal king. It's corrupt temple. The world as it is. Against which jesus and his followers stood. Seems to have won a final victory. What happens next. The story of the stone rolled away. The empty tomb. The jesus whose presence begins to be known among his followers in a new and world-changing way. This has been seen by many as a sign of a new and perfect world. Come. In this new world to come there is a final victory. Of life over death. Justice. Injustice. Of joy over the suffering of the world as it is. There is certainly much. In this world as it is today. That is hard to accept. Injustice is abound. The long-term effects of systemic racism and economic inequality continue to unfold all around us. Global intolerance and and the pursuit. Of economic and political power through violence. As well as religious and racial dominance these are visible every day and international headlines. The steadily accumulating effects of global climate change have reached a point where there is where it's no longer considered reversible. By most scientific authorities. And the political dialogue is steadily shifting away from arguing about prevention. Two arguing about adaptation. In our personal lives many of us feel everyday. The challenge of living in a high-stress technology-driven society where jobs are not secure and the pressure to blur the boundaries between work and home life steadily increases. We confront everyday the difficulty of finding time for our most important relationships. And our own spiritual well-being. The observation of the poet william wordsworth almost 200 years ago has become more and more pointed in the contemporary world. The world is too much with us late and soon. Getting and spending we lay waste our days. He wrote it long ago. And then the world as it is today. It is all too often so. It seems to be that to be a person of faith that all of anything. Christianity judaism or islam via buddhism or sikhism or simply faith in the progress of the human mind or the human spirit. To be a person of faith is to refuse to reconcile ourselves. To the world as it is to the idea that the suffering injustice exploitation and degradation we see around us are inevitable. We have a vision of the world as a place of justice equity and compassion. We foresee a world where the preciousness of every life is celebrated. We see the absolute necessity for humankind to accept and to embrace our role as part of an interdependent web of existence when we know all these things to be possible. We simply cannot be content. With things as they are right now. We know there is a better way. Perhaps this is why so many over the centuries have chosen to rely on things getting better and some sweet by-and-by. When the world as we know it will have passed away. After the resurrection after the revolution after the great turning then finally everything will be as it should. And yet ours is a faith that calls us to live here. And now. Our tradition has never taught that we shouldn't look for a better future or that we should abandon hope that change will come and yet we have also declared across the generations that this world. This life. This moment. Our sacred. And precious. Whatever maybe wrong with the world as it is now is not some burial place of dead hopes to be left behind as quickly as possible. Now is our real life. To be engaged and celebrated. In fact as a theologian james cone pointed out years ago in his black theology of liberation transferring our loyalty from this world to the next is an oppressors tool. Trick. Designed to keep people from resisting the injustice and inhumanity afflicting their lives by teaching them to simply wait for that other world. We're all will be well one fine day. This is not our way. Our loyalty is to the real world around us today. And yet. It is a hard place sometimes. So here we are. Trying to live in the challenging present longing for the future we envision. It's a present has begun to feel like that to him of our hopes. How do we roll away the stone. I begin with a poem. Signs of life. By brittany deninger. The tulips are rising from the ground as if having heard their name. They suddenly walk towards the sound. Of winterstone rolling away. One by one their buds loosen and blush crimson and fuchsia boysenberry. For the first time their unwrapped faces c&r scene. I. Cut. 1. Of each color. And bring their green stemmed mouse to the cup of water. Arranged on the windowsill they bowed respectfully. To passerbys. We're also coming out of their tombs. After resurrection. Comes the unbinding. Good morning. What it means. Tubi free. What it means to be free. We gather here today in the spirit of free religious community. As the spiritual descendants of the ones who would believe more in jesus of nazareth than in jesus the christ the risen one. We gather across such a span of timing disbelief and we might even ask. Why would. We continue. To celebrate this particular holiday which is so theologically challenging for us and yet each year which is one of the days in which we have the most people come to church. Go figure. We might also gather and wonder. Why it would be that any age would crave a leader as much as jesus's age clearly. Craved his leadership. The conditions under which they would need that. But we think we can think about the frame. About living under a roman empire unparalleled in its time in terms of its brutality and tower. One religious scholar reza aslan wrote the first century was an era of apocalyptic expectation. Because there were countless prophets. Preachers and messiahs tramping through the holy land. Delivering messages of god's imminent judgment. And there was a feeling. Particularly among the peasants and the pious poor. But the present order was coming to an end that a new and divinely-inspired order was about to reveal itself. But the kingdom of god if you were. Was on hand. Everyone was talking about it. But god's rain could only be ushered in. By those who had the zeal. To fight for. So christianity. Began as an apocalyptic movement. And it did. In its own way. Despite the horrors done over the centuries and its name. Usher in. A new era. So what do we make of this what do we make of this easter story this metaphor passed down through the years giving meaning in many different frames. The story. Of a revolutionary in a time of great unrest and despair. This is a story of followers. So ardent. Did they return. To the tomb. Of their beloved jesus. They return to the tomb. The honor him once more. And their very presence. They're very return. Turned a monument. To hate. Into a monument. For love. And i've been thinking about this i think that when we think about what we believe. It's only real if we can translate it into the realities and fabrics of our life. So my realization. That for us the sign is not. The cross an instrument. Of despair and torture. For us i believe. The sign of hope is that boulder. That people approached. And we're willing in their zeal to roll the way. And i thought about this and how i've woven it into my life today in a practical sense. Case you think this is just all theoretical. Is that you know we've had a tradition in my family where we we make. Hot cross buns in the morning. I need to tell you the vocationally this is very challenging when you're a minister. Even the best recipes it's a three-hour minimum to make them. And if you need to be at work really at 8:15 you just really don't want to make them on easter morning. Suicide sat there over these weeks and i started realizing that for us it's not the cross at the boulder i thought that so much better because we could make. Easter morning. Drop biscuits and they would just be a lot easier to use. And i did. And they were good. Change is good. The truth of it is. But in this very moment though. We cannot afford to lose the story. Because there are many many among us. Those who are living at the bottom of art current world economic order among them. Who believe that we are in end times. But disappeared snowcap in the constantly appearing clashes that we see in the family of humanity brought to us on countless screen throughout our days suggest we are in fact living in a world in which human relations suddenly seemed. So imperative. To figure out how we are going to get on. With this planet shrunk. By technology. And population. So it matters. But the hope of the easter story doesn't. Begin really actually with the rolling away of the stone. The story begins with the decision to go to that tomb. Because that in and of itself. Is a decision. About a very deep engagement. With the world and engagement with the places of your greatest sorrow. It is a taste of what environmental activist. And sage joanna macy would call active hope. So the women. Go to anoint jesus. They are willing to look. At the full horror of a new reality for that is all they can really expect to find. Until this morning. We gather in that same hope. The same hope. Rolling away the stone of indifference from our eyes. To see what is before us even if it isn't what we expected. Even if we we wore an easter bonnet when we should have worn a rain hats. Even when we are celebrating celebrating. This amazing rain because we need it so. In a state in which we now have 38 million people and 32 million. Cars. Viera. The jesus proposed was of this world not of another. Jesus was not saying that the kingdom of god was unearthly resist says. He was saying that it was unlike any kingdom or government on earth. What he was asking for the scholars believe was nothing less than a complete reversal of the present political religious and economic system. The kingdom of god. Is a call to revolution. Pure and simple. So as we gather here today. Learning what it means to be free in the life of the world to come in our today. May actually require a radical change that starts with just small steps. Talking to someone with whom you are estranged. Deciding to take out part of your lawn. Deciding to read more about the events of the world even though they're troubling and you cannot. Cannot even imagine solutions. In resurrection. What we long for. Is suddenly back. And yet it is there in a totally new form. One that we could have never imagined. The life of the world to come. Will be determined. By whether we are willing. To imagine something unlike. What we already know here in this world. It starts. By deciding. To be engaged. With that. Which we do not want to see. And then to begin to take the small steps. To connect. To embrace. And to be part. Show me the gift of the easter narrative for us this year. Be the one which says that the life. Of the world to come. The text of the piece that the choir offered us before that the life. Of the world to come. Is the one that we start to shape today a new life ushering in a new way. Something less bound. More free. More hole. May we be the ones to do so. And may we say as we agreed it. Hallelujah.

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20150816_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

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073105_child_story.mp3

How is everybody today. Rock. What makes. Let's find out. Blood war. Knock on the door and there was no answer. But today. We will show them how to make stone. Mega fire in a place this small tin pot on top and filled it with water. Little girl. We are making stone. A little girl help the monks. Very small pot won't make much i'm afraid. Little girl ran home and she started what are you doing. Of course. Oh i have that. Parenthood woman i have carrots. One by one. Something. More. How good it smells how good it with tape. How. At last the soup is ready. Together. Thank you for having us. Thank you. No. How old. Care about. Summer is ending. Very busy. Little bit of help with things like taking pictures. Potluck. So what would you like for everyone. I also wanted you to remind everybody this is for the adult that mark your calendars on august 21st we will have an adult program fairway. And now off to quit it's we go.

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082805_chalice_extinguish.mp3

These are the words of the indian chief seattle. Teach your children what we have taught our children. That the earth is our mother. And whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. Emancipet upon the ground they stood upon themselves. This we know the earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth. The free now. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. How things are connected. And whatever befalls the earth. Are the sons and daughters of the earth. We did not weave the web of life. We are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web. We do.

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051002_Sermon.mp3

Well. Email. Voices. Writing help. Is having to do with radical hospitality feeling of neighborliness. Rather than. In a gospel of prosperity. And among the progressive. Chris hedges. A really good book i talked about last spring called war is a force that gives us meaning. In america. His book helped me understand why so many americans. Supported our government's decision to quash the forces. Saddam hussein. What's the weather. Anime kiss of a similar kind of perspective in a new book called. Rooting versus on the freeway. I just looked at the commandments that were supposedly given. They're on top of mount sinai. Commandments. Moral basis for all the laws. Even though some of the ten commandments like the legislative. And others like. Are often ignored. Along with moses on the freeway. Because if we do so then. We he says. Risk ourselves. Introducing. But having lifelong wounds. The walter. Frankly i think that. Call a government understand. Forget. As one of our wives. Oregon. Lancaster. Pella. To try to justify up. This week i'd like to explore the ones that have to do. Spiritual. Next week. The very first of the command. The one that moses regarded as most important. How we relate to whatever it is. What most people call. God. For what it was the spoke to him out of that. Read in the synagogue they come to that word in the torah. Whatever. Whatever it is bush. That we should have no other. Like giving an ultimate status. Power. Idolatrous. Even though it's not. Muslims are being idolatrous. Because they were. Idolatry is also. To avoid being idolatrous. God as the divine. Requires pudding. Will be not only of others but of life. As jesus. Parker. She said that it was hydrolysis for our federal government. If we have compassion. Costly war in iraq. Already have. Our government could. We must not only love god we must love all of god's creation. Parker. We must make love come first. My beliefs. We can keep. Into what. Norbit. You said we couldn't file down two or three. What it is that's the vine. Figure it out. Carnival. What people do this. More privileged. The other park. Divine. Animals. Superior other. Holy one. The one. Illustrate how idolatry. Craigslist. It's abandoned. And i have a daughter. Underpants. Problem he says his. The devotion of the followers to the band and the. With their lives. For the made-up reality. Crew of a lot of america. A video about. Overalls. Germany. Making a. Never were before. Power of. Meaning. Because i wrote. Colin. I really. Dollar tree. The life of corporation. You want us to believe that. If we do. Even though it isn't. Sometimes we tell such lies. Naked. Or the barbarity of. For the loss of their lives. Carter. And remember. What's the temp. So you can imagine. What. Sunday. Worship church. Making sunday. Commandment. Run on the track. Or. Sitting down to supper. What's the whole family. Having. Real talk. Is a moment. Remember. Setting aside time. Scribble. Other. Courthouse waldorf. Weave. But if we don't.

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20150201_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

I'm very glad to be with you this morning happy to see some faces that are now familiar because of the workshop that we shared together yesterday as well. And when i say that i am glad to be with you this morning it's partly of course because i really enjoy unpacking with people a little bit about that intersection between our spiritual commitment to motivations and what brings us to work for justice in the world. But today i'm also glad to be with you because i live in boston. I don't know how much you follow whether that doesn't affect you but i was home when the blizzard came in early in the week and my poor husband when i texted him a beautiful picture of of the sunrise yesterday morning he texted me back and said 14 more in is coming in. Barb mentioned in his introduction of me that i served as a parish minister for 25 years. Before stepping into the role i now hold with our denomination. 21 of those years i spent serving a single congregation in new haven connecticut. In all of those years of parish ministry one of the things that i came to realize is that across all our differences in our congregations around the continent. Although we have many differences we tend to revisit again and again a small menu of central themes when we gather together on sunday morning. The sermon of course changes week-to-week the wonderful music changes. But never the last if you really look at the things around which we gather and worship there is a small handful of large questions we visit. And these are questions of meaning. What am i called to in my life. How do i live my life more congruently with my values. What is the great meaning to which i can contribute. Outside of my small life and so on. We revisit these questions again and again together. Not because we are fond of repetition. And not because we are slow learners. And not even because they're really big questions although surely they are that. We come back to these questions again and again because the answers that we are able to receive to them. Are always ephemeral. We never get a solid roadmap. Helping us to march forward instead it's a little bit more like we're walking along a path. In a dense fog. So we take a couple of steps and then we have to stop. And look. And ask again. This is not how we are used to thinking about progress in our lives. We tend to think of progress as this very linear thing you take spanish 101 and then you graduate to spanish 102. We think of things as being very linear one step following the next. But if we look at the large arenas of our lives that's actually hardly ever true. Arena's like spiritual growth. Becoming more mature or wise in our lives. And the reason it's not true it's because these are kind of spiral path we have to come back again and again. Essential questions that guide us in the hope that we're viewing them from a somewhat different place. But we have to continually come back to them because. The answers we receive our ephemeral. I've come to believe that the work of justice in our lives is also one of these arenas. It isn't of course quite the same. Not even as a femoral. As. The work of spiritual maturity for instance in our lives. But even in the work of social justice where we try to make some very specific concrete things happen like raise the minimum wage or push our government towards climate accord. Even there. The work that we do turns out to have a spiral path not a linear one. We have to come back to the same issues in the same questions. Again and again. That is because the work of shifting our world more toward justice is not ever a matter of a particular issue or a particular campaign. It has to do instead. Not so much with what we do. That was how we and many many thousands of people. Choose to live. And how we become. Into our lives. In that sense social change is never only about what we do it is about who we are. It includes a kind of listening. For who we are called to be. In these fleeting lives of hours so that our lives can be lived. With deep meaning. And to live in that way requires of us some of the classic. Virtues. Like. Patience. Courage. And what might be called steadfastness. Or perseverance. Sometime ago i read an essay by a woman named sean sia monroe. In which she recounted just a little snippet of conversation that she had with her children. Who were just pre-adolescent as they were coming home from having watched a movie together the kids were in the backseat. And as she drove along she realized they were arguing over which would be the coolest superpower to have. So they weren't they were. Balancing how cool it would be to be able to fly versus the idea of being able to be invisible. Or whether it would be better to have sort of out-and-out magic like harry potter or they have esp. And finally one of them thought to call to her to the front seat where she was driving and said okay mom what do you think would be the coolest superpower. And she thought about it for a minute and then to her own surprised you found herself answering. Perseverance. And of course for children who did and said that's not a real superpower and then they went back to ignoring her but she found herself pondering her own answer to that question and she realized the reason that had come out of her. Is because she recognized how often it's missing. Today in our age of instant gratification. And yet this. Core human virtue is essential. To enacting any of the others in our lives to living out of courage for it though. Simplehuman. Power. A perseverance. So how do we cultivate that human power. How do we cultivate it in our own lives. And in our own efforts. It is after all a core religious value. Just like those other virtues that we might more commonly named like patients. Courage. And therefore. It isn't something we feel. But rather something we enact. The great jewish theologian abraham joshua heschel. Once wrote. The beginning of faith. Is not a feeling for the mystery of living. Or a sense of awe. The root of religion. Is the question what to do with these feelings. Religion begins with a consciousness that something is asked of us. Religion begins. With a consciousness. That something is asked of us. Not a new idea for unitarian universalist. We are after all the people who make our home along that. Long religious spectrum. In the place of the yvette's rectum that is the most grounded in this world in this one life. We are the descendants. A religious ancestors who rejected the idea. That a god of love. Could have a hell. Prepared for us or for any people after death. Instead those ancestors of ours pointed to the hell. But human beings create for one another. Right here on this earth. Their face. Call them. To respond to that very real and present hell. Our faith. The same face. Is calling to us. Still. At the heart of the unitarian universalism. That we proclaim. Is that marvelous image of the interdependent web of existence of which we are all a part anytime we visit. Or recite our purposes and principles together the image of that web is there. And i think it's partly because it's so easy for us to picture we all know what those beautiful orb spider webs look like shining in a meadow on a summer morning. But this religious image of ours this into interdependent web at the heart of our faith. Does not just link us to the beauty. Of our world. But also to its suffering and its pain. The interdependent web of ours connect us. Do the fear and despair. Of immigrants who are lost in detention. This beautiful morning here in california. It ties us to people in the in the philippines and in bangladesh who are already experiencing the catastrophe. Of climate change. It ties us. To the grotesque chasm. Between people who live in an excess of comfort. And those who are trapped in rank poverty. When we elevate the virtue. Of perseverance. We remember the constancy. Of that religious. Web of connection and the truth that the tug of its strands demands something of us. As long as we're breathing the air of this sweet earth. With an irresistible sense of mission. Because it compels us to look up and away from the lucky place we stand. And follow its trans out to all of the places. Where our sisters and brothers. Are imperiled. Our religion is not about. A private feeling of happiness or well-being even of reverence or of all. But rather what we do. With those feelings how they lead us to turn our gaze toward a fractured world. And put the weight of our lives. On the side of its mending. Unitarian universalist college of social justice which i now lead as director. Was created to help us in that large imperative. Of our faith. Founded just two-and-a-half years ago jointly by the unitarian universalist association. And the unitarian universalist service committee. The college is an entirely new level of collaboration between those two large institutions of our faith. Its programs revolve around experiential learning. Which is the idea that the most powerful kind of learning. The kind that can sometimes. Literally lead us to change our lives. Comes to us not from books or films or lectures or sermons. But rather through a face-to-face encounter. With some dimension of our reality that has been invisible to us. So we bring groups of people on short-term journeys. Which are really pilgrimages of. Witness and solidarity. Linking us to people on the front lines of justice struggles both within the united states and as far afield as india. And haiti. Along with these short journeys to mexico india haiti and a variety of locations within the united states. We offer week and two week-long intensive justice trainings for high school youth. To help them. Manifest our faith through choices of action but they are already capable of. We are actually piloting a brand new one this coming summer in tucson arizona. It will bring our youth into the pads followed by the migrants. Crossing that dangerous desert. In order to help leave water. That will save lives along those trails. Rearrange summer-long internships for college-age young adults. Injustice organizations here in the us and. In places as far afield as ghana and india. Catching these young adults right on the cusp. Of decision-making about vocation. In the hopes that they can imagine their own vocation. In the work of justice making. All of these programs of the college of social justice and any that we will create going forward. Are grounded in three. Core convictions. The first is that. In any kind of service-learning journey or training. We should be aware that the true service we render does not come on the journey. But after we return home. All of our programs are designed to help us learn not only about the place and the people that we visit. But about our own position. In the matrix of. Privilege. And power. And how we can leverage the place we stand. In ways they can bring more justice to our world. The second corps conviction grounding the college of social justice. Is that our action in the world. For justice should be connected to spiritual practice. Practices. Of contemplation. Like prayer and meditation. Ground us and center us and sustain us. They remind us to turn ourselves toward the immense mystery of life. Whether or not we ever call that. God. They let us drink from the deep wells that sustain us. Even through periods of despair and failure. They balance our spirits and they helped us to see our small efforts in a long arc. Of work that stretches back behind us centuries for those who have tried to make justice before us and will stretch on toward those who come after us. But spiritual practices are also essential for another reason. It's because they helped engages in a kind of deep. Looking. That allows us to see. Our own shadows. Think for just a moment about that him that we sang together this morning written almost 100 years ago. God of grace. And god of glory. So often the hymns and songs that we sing together that are focused on social justice. Cast us. In the role only if change maker. So prince is one of my actual all-time favorites by carolyn mcdade. Is a song in which will we sing we'll build a land where we'll bind up the broken wheel build a land where the captives go free. It's a beautiful song and it's inspirational. But listen to what a different feeling is evoked by those words that we sang together this morning. Cure they children's warring madness. Bend our pride. Cuz i control. Shame our wanton selfish gladness. Rich in things. And poor in seoul. Try not to trip over the theology. And think not about what these words imply about god but instead what they imply about us. Cure our madness bend our pride shame our selfishness heal our wounds. And then grant us wisdom. Encourage. When our justice work is grounded in spirituality. It helps us remember that the things we can see so clearly that have to be changed out there in the world. Often have seeds. Within our own hearts. They help us remember. We are not likely. To end a war. If we carry out there into the effort. Hartsfield with rage. We are not likely to reduce the chasm between wealth and poverty. If we carry out their hearts filled with greed. Spiritual practices help us see our own shadows. And become changemakers not only of the world. But i've ourselves. And the third corps conviction grounding the college of social justice is that the interdependent web of our faith. Really contains the entire power and urgency. Of the mission. To which we are all called. The truth our web proclaims. Is that we rise and fall together. All things that live. All things that breathe. And so we must awaken. From our delusions of separateness. And find all of the ways. Open to us each day of our lives. To harness minds and hearts and hands. To the common good. This face of ours in which we so often proclaim the goodness of diversity. Calls us to this work. Calls us to honor the many lines of difference without allowing those lines to become barriers and boundaries holding us back. From other people. It is in this way that we become true allies to those who are the most vulnerable around us. It is in this way that we find the power of solidarity. And in this way that we train each gesture we make. To be one. Of compassion. Generosity. And justice. Creating not just the world in which we hope to live. But also the human beings we hope to be. I believe we hope to be people whose faith speaks not only to us. Within walls like these and gatherings like this. But also to the wider world outside of us. I believe we want to be those who will live. Within ourselves. The changes we dream of making in the world. Those willing to study our sometimes hostile hearts. And water they're the seeds of compassion. Those who like gandhi. Will refuse to make our adversaries into enemies. And most fundamentally i believe we want to be those who will be part. Of the world's healing. When we come to the end of these fleeting lives of hours. As element said in the reading. We want to know that our single lives. Like a letter of the alphabet. Have been part of shaping. A great. Meaning. May it be so. I meant.

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050918reading_jon_carroll.mp3

Life on earth.

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20150222_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

It's early evening in the tenderloin. Just starting to get dark. The school april night. People are beginning to find their way to their homes their rooms. Or the doorways or sheltered corners of this san francisco neighborhood where they'll spend the night. When the young woman. Maybe mid-20s maybe less. Rings the doorbell have the fools court. The small purple two-story building on hyde street. Where the faithful fool street ministry is based. She asks to use the bathroom. Most of the fools themselves are about to leave and as a newcomer. Unfamiliar with the usual routines i checked with them first is this okay. They say no. See the building is home for the ministries to founders and a couple of other leaders and there have to be some boundaries when there's no programming going on. Or else their living space will be, 24-hour drop-in center which they can't sustain. Also they let me know discreetly. The young woman. Let's color ariana for today. Has some history. A few times she has locked herself in the restroom for hours to create an instant private room for herself. So apologetically i passed the no along to ariana as the rest of the fools file out. And then i locked the door behind them. It's thursday. The week before easter. Holy thursday. We're on the next to the last night of the 7-day street retreat. That was the heart of my first sabbatical month last spring. The rest of the group is going around the block to saint boniface has catholic church where a local group of massage therapists is offering free foot-washing for anybody. Honoring the gospel story of jesus washing his disciples feet before the last supper. I'm staying behind. I spent a lot of my teen and adult life in the southeast juicy and religious foot-washing has just too much baggage for me to deal with. Especially in the middle of the overwhelming experience of walking the streets and eating and soup kitchens and sleeping on the ground for a week. Now as it happens i'm not actually sleeping on the streets this night you see because i was a novice when i started the 7-day retreat i have been encouraged to spend most of my nights actually indoors but sleeping on the brick floor. In the full skorts glass-fronted foyer on hyde street. So i spread out my sleeping bag each night at the foot of the 7-foot paper mache polar bear with the oil-stained head in the shopping cart it's a donated sculpture called bergen homeless. Well the rest of the cohort is getting their feet washed this particular night i settled down to my nightly journaling and prayers. That's when i noticed that ariana didn't leave. She's stringing up a blanket between parking meters right in front of me. Spreading out her bags and her clothes on the curb. Every now and then she stops and flings her head back and shouts out to the world in general and a broken tear-filled little girls voice. Does anybody have a dollar. Can anybody just give me a dollar for a bean burrito. This is not what was supposed to happen. She was supposed to give up and go away. Find someplace else to be. And fade into my memory. Instead she's right here. And she seems so lost. Just $2 for a bean burrito please. I don't have a dollar. I don't have food i don't have anything really i'm on a retreat. Now what. What's your first impulse. When you find yourself in a difficult unexpected situation. If you are anything like me. You want to fix it. Things feel out of control and we want to get them back on track we look for solutions. Identify the problem think about our resources figure out some strategies. Do something. The car breaks down. You forgot a major project for one of your classes the water heater breaks and floods the preschool. Do something. Your coworker doesn't show up for their shift and there's a line out the door the child care provider calls in sick your cousin just posted on facebook that they lost their jobs. Do something. There's a new terrorist group storming across the countries we wrecked in the gulf. There are starving sea lion pups on the beaches near moss landing there are people working people some of them families to living without basic necessities of food or shelter or clothing in the richest human society that has ever existed on the face of the earth. Do something. Whatever the scale of the crisis there is something in a something that is both personal and cultural that urges us to get a handle on things. If we're quick and creative at this we might get to be known as a leader a problem-solver someone who. Gets things done. There's a lot of social reward for this. It's part of our own self-image i know this from self-reflection we can be pretty feel pretty good about it. I get things done. I'm good in a crisis but it's not all about pride and status. If we're caring people. We see someone in pain. A concern for the well-being of others if we care about justice in the world we want to make things better. Heal the wound. Mend the injustice ease the suffering. If we can't see a way. Now what. Because i was journaling that night. I can go back now. And watch the situation with ariana unfold in real-time minute-by-minute. For a half an hour or more she cries out and steadily escalating desperation and then request keep changing. Does anybody have a cigarette. Will anyone please give me a piece of cotton. Someone has to have a piece of continental rubber band. I can look at the page now and watch my own feelings fluctuate. From agonizing sorrow to the grim realization that she's asking for the things she needs for a drug fix. From outrage and grief at whatever has hurt her so badly to an ugly blaming sense that she is just playing the little girl card to get what she wants. On that page there is idea after idea after idea call a hospital call the police get her into emergency care somewhere take the drugs away walk her to a clinic break the rules letter in at least she'll be safe and there is the realization on the page. That none of these things. None of these strategies really touches the reality of this young person's life. None of them is actually about her. They will make me feel better. And most of them actually will make her life harder in some immediate way. Take away what little she has and give her nothing lasting in return. It goes on and on. Do something something. Until finally i just. Stop writing. There's nothing real to do. There's nothing left to say. What happens in you. When there's nothing left to do. Ortis a. It can be a frantic feeling cat it. Overwhelming a little desperate. In moments like these we might respond by trying out that whole flood of ideas one after another and drop each one when it doesn't seem to be working right away is that familiar to anybody. Or we might respond with anger. When it doesn't seem to be working making demands insisting that something has to happen right now and everybody else better go along. Do you know that feeling at all. I know that one all too well. It never works. It causes more trouble than it ever solves. And the frustration rises along with a helplessness that can feel unbearable. In the end it can all become too much and we may decide that we just have to give up hope. Walkaway. You can see these responses playing out. In our own family relationships and those we see around us. In the kinds of complex crises that can show up in our work lives you can see them when there's a stubborn problem or a situation that feels urgent and institutions like schools or professional organizations or congregations where we live out our community lives. We can see them in the newspaper in the panicky ineffectual way the world response to violence by terrorist groups and by countries and you can see them and social justice and civil liberties and environmental activist groups trying to come to grips with the multi-layered crises that we're living in now. A situation arises that overwhelms our immediate capacity to act. And we react. Frantically trying out strategy after strategy angrily blaming and trying to control the ones we hold responsible. Or just throwing up our hands and walking away and despair. Sometimes though. A door can open. And there's another way. As it happens. That particular thursday night in the tenderloin. The date was april 17th. My own daughter's 25th birthday. When all the words ran out. I thought about that birthday. And i thought. If it were not for a very fragile chain of choices and circumstances that could be my child out there. That could be any of our children in fact she might be one of our children. Our families are not immune. To the ravages of losses of addiction an illness. She is. My child. She is. Our child. There is nothing to do there is nothing to say. And i cannot sit here. And leave her out there alone. So i open the glass door. Between myself and the street. And i went outside. With nothing. And when i sat down next to her on the curb ariana was quiet. And i saw why. She had found what she needed. She was using the drug she had been so desperate for. There are no magic words. Told the truth. I said i'm sorry. It breaks my heart so you do this. There was no hollywood response it wasn't a movie. She said and i can't talk. But please don't leave. I said. I want. And then i sat there with a broken heart. And in that moment. I stopped being a visitor in the tenderloin. And became a faithful full. The fools called the work that they do in their tenderloin with their tenderloin friends and neighbors accompaniment. It's a special word it's inspired by the life of saint francis of assisi god's fool he was called. Who gave up great wealth to live and work among the poor. It's a way of bearing witness to the reality of another person's life. Rooted in relationship. Any helping any serving any justice work that the fools try to do. Arises out of that connection. Simple idea. Such a simple idea just connect. And yet it is incredibly powerful. Because it has its foundations in the most basic truths about being a human being. We are all interwoven we are all related we are all precious we are all holy. Everything good that a human being does arises out of knowing that truth. Everything evil that a human being does arises out of denying it or forgetting it. Poverty and addiction and homelessness and mental illness all of these can rob us of our awareness that we are connected. Restoring that awareness. Is holly work. Carmen barsotti one of the faithful fools one of the founding fools. Says sometimes accompanying means meeting a place within a person. That they have lost touch with. A place where life and love and beauty still exist. Ed bowers a faithful fool and poet. Who has fought his way through a very hard life to a place of compassion. Prickly compassion but compassion. So he says it this way he says what it first appears to be the wreckage of a person's life could actually be in fact the entrance to the palace of wisdom. Not only for someone in need but for those who aid and accompany someone on what could otherwise be a long and lonely and terrifying journey. That's what happened to me that night on the sidewalk. Wreckage becoming a doorway to a vision. 2 wisdom. I did not think of a way to solve ariana's problem that night. I didn't strike a blow for ending homelessness or poverty or drug addiction all i did was share a moment of human connection with someone who had lost touch with her own humanity. Who couldn't imagine that someone might care. That's all. And it was enough. And that sharing. Set something free. In my own life. That will not stop. When there's nothing left to say. We can love. And love so seeds. Of hope. Yes. Seeds of hope. And they almost 18-year history of the faithful fools they are have been miraculous turnarounds. Addictions brought under control holmes found lives saved as people walk day-by-day in the service of a creative power that can shift impossible odds and create. Odd possibilities. That power can change a life. It can change a desperate situation it can change a community. It can save the world. It doesn't always happen. This isn't a movie. Sometimes it seems like nothing is happening. When people ask me what are you do with the fools on friday i say well i don't know i'm there. But something is always happening. Because the infinite infinitely creative power of relationship has its birth its genesis in that moment. When there's nothing left to say. When there is only the knowledge that we have the capacity for an infinite compassion. Our ultimate purpose our ultimate power. Is not to correct. It's the connect. Happy.

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082805_sermon_pt1.mp3

It's reading is from where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs. By wallace tanger. Cellular broken we approve and those that we don't. Has roots as deep as creosote ring. And live as long. And grow as slowly. Every action is an idea before it is an action. And perhaps this feeling before it is an idea. And every idea rest upon other ideas. That has preceded it in time. The modern environmental movement. So it has shifted its emphasis. From preservation of precious resources. Did the control of pollution. Call by our industrial and agricultural practices. Declares our dependence on the earth and our responsibility to it. And bus drives pretty directly. The nineteenth-century travelers. Philosophers artist writers divine. Natural historians. And what time has called. Upper-class birdwatchers. Whose purpose was to know it. Celebrate it. And savor is beauty and rightness. Yes it wasn't environmental movement before earth day. A long slow evolution and values which contemporary environmentalism is a consequence. And a continuation. We are still in transition from the notion of man's as master of the earth. To the notion of men as part of it. Our thanks and to be a weed species living at the expense of every other species. And if the earth itself. Can be found in the injunction god gave two newly created adam and eve in genesis 1:28. Be fruitful and multiply. And replenish the earth. And subdue it. Whether or not god meant it in quite that way. And whether or not men translated him correctly. Many use these words as justification to make the earth serve human purposes alone. But what we are working toward. What was rock we may eventually attain to. Isn't outlook that was frequently and sometimes eloquently expressed. By the first inhabitants of this continents. The indians dress the web of life. The interconnectedness of land and man and creature. Chief luther standing bear. Of the ugliest to put it this way. Only to the white man was nature a wilderness. And only to him with the land and stepsis. With wild animals and savage people. To us it was pain. Earthquake bountiful. And we were surrounded. With a blessing. The great mystery.

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051002_childrens_story.mp3

I'd like to invite all. Southface this way. How is everyone today. What. Travel a great distance. Hello. Knickerbockers nearby. A mother and her daughter. Weather. I'm not a thorn bush. I'm a beautiful apple tree. Don't mind me girl. Silly girl. I'm the most beautiful apple tree in all the land. White door you're an apple tree. Yes. You can help it. Set the mother. No. No. No. Comeback credit. Come down can admire my beauty. Hello. Don't worry. I'm not a bad man. Very good man. Very good. Bauer. I pray. An iphone. White. Oh yes. Well. My daughter. Very tired from walking. No. I'm a. How would anybody know if. Sorry. Oh. I am very lonely. Little mean. A real good person. And if you want to call yourself.

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20150315_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

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20150215b_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

Did you know the world just ended. It did. And then it just did again just now. The world ends in every moments. And more importantly in every moments. It begins anew. It begins again and again and again. That's what physicists tell us anyway that the universe our world is not so much a thing as it is a process. A series of events that wink out of existence the moment they occurred to be replaced by new events. Does that make your brain hurt. It does mine. It's easier for me to understand it this way. The world ends all the time. People we love. Die. We lose jobs. And marriages. Homes. We move we become ill places we love get bulldozed and these are just the ordinary endings parable enough but in the last few years we've had a massive dose of the extraordinary. Nuclear disaster shootings in schools massive storm terrible drought. Threats to women's rights more wars. 4 months and months it's been one disaster after another. I don't know about you but i'm getting tired. Each time some terrible thing happened we're stricken. We're days. But we still are. The moment our old world ended a new world began. A world in which we must find our way. For the very first time. How do we make sense of all these ending. How do we find a hope we need to make new beginning. Humans have always done this by telling story. One of the most fundamental stories of western culture came to us as a way of making sense of violent ending. The world of the ancient israelites ended again and again. They were a small nation constantly caught in the middle of battles of empire. First the babylonian empire came and conquered them and desecrated their most holy temple. And then sent the people away from everything they knew. Then the persian empire overthrew the babylonians and let the israelites go home and rebuild their temple. Eventually the romans came and conquered everyone and destroyed the temple all together. The people of israel were often refugees whose men were injured or dead the women raped. The children hungry. They felt small and powerless. In order to survive as a people they needed a story that gave them hope and so when they heard this story from the zoroastrians of the persian empire the empire that once rescued them. They adopted it as their own. The story goes something like this. Once upon a time a group of people was being oppressed by an evil empire. The people cried out for help to their god who sent a hero by messiah to leave the oppressed ones in battle against the forces of evil. The battle raged back-and-forth with fires floods and famines the forces of good unleashed plagues but the schemes of the evil dragon and beast on earth defeated them. Animals angels and spirits fought on both sides. Eventually the forces of good won a major battle on a hill and peace reigned for a thousand years. But then the evil forces rebelled again and so the god completely destroyed the earth and all its forces of evil. Then he made a new world. Where he established a new kingdom that would remain for all time. Does that sound familiar. It should because not only is it a summary of the book of revelation in the christian bible it's also the basic plot line of every science fiction and fantasy series ever written. At least once a year if not more often a new movie comes out in which the forces of good and evil square off against one another. Sometimes we get a trilogy or even a 7-part series. Biblical scholars call this kind of story and apocalyptic. The word apocalypse is greek. For lifting the veil. As in revealing something that was hidden. Apocalyptic always began by declaring that the story was revealed in a dream or a vision and they always follow the same basic plot just changing names and details and images. Many apocalyptic swear written throughout jewish history each to explain its own specific crisis. Now early christianity as you may recall was a jewish movement so the apocalyptic in the book of revelation follows the same formula that the earlier ones did. It wasn't originally accepted as part of the christian bible the christians were a tiny minority in the roman empire and they didn't want to upset the government by making such a violently critical apocalyptic part of their sacred text. But after christianity became the state religion. This changed. Now that the empire was on the side of god. God must be on the side of the empire. Which brings up one of the reasons this story has stayed in our consciousness for these last two thousand years it works for both sides of any violent conflict. It not only gives oppressed people hope but it also give conquerors language to use in conflict and conquest. As long as each side imagines itself as being on the side of the good. The story meet everyone's needs. But there are many problems with this story. Remember it's a story people told to explain how their world could end in violence over and over again it was born from a longing to be saved. Once and for all. And so it imagines alone male savior. It imagines time on earth as linear having a beginning. And an end. It imagines this earth as a bad place which will be destroyed and the final purging of evil from the universe. I need imagine god as an emperor who does the purging through violence replacing one empire with another. These things are the reasons why the word apocalypse in our common understanding has come to mean the end of the world. And a terrifying end at that. These problems wouldn't be so bad if people understood the story for what it is a particular narrative that came from a particular time and place to make sense of particular events. But according to a time magazine poll. 59% of americans believe the events in the book of revelation will literally come true. And throughout christian history the basic narrative has been used over and over again to justify the violence of empire. It was used to drive the crusades. It was used by europeans to colonize the americas and slaughter their native peoples. It was used by hitler to build the third reich. It was used by president george w bush to take the united states to war on afghanistan and iraq. We are living this story. Now. Perhaps the most troubling thing of all to me is that the story is self-fulfilling. When we grow up inside it we grow up steve. Inferior. And dread. We know that someday something. Everything someday everything will end in a terrifying way. People in every generation of western history every generation have believed that the end of the world is coming any minute the signs are all there there's always famine somewhere. There's always war there's always plague there is always. Even those of us working on behalf of life and love are so steeped in the story that we default back to its language. We fight uphill battles on behalf of women's reproductive health and gun-control and immigrant rights. We warned of the dangers of global warming by talking about fireballs raining from the sky. We say repent or die change your behavior or the whole planet will perish. When people who want the world to end and people who wanted to keep going i'll start talking in the same terrifying weighs about plagues and fires and floods and worse it's difficult not. To be afraid. It's easy to think we might indeed be close to the end of the world. It's easy. To lose hope. But i think hope. Is our best hope. And so i think we need to start telling a different story. Is there a different story. There are many. Here is one. Somewhere high in the mountains there is a cave. Inside the cave lives an old. Old woman. She spends most of her time. Weaving. She wants to leave the most beautiful garments there ever was. She's come to a point where it's time to attach a friends of porcupine quills to the edge of the garments. So she needs to flatten the quills with her teeth. From years of fighting down on the quilt her teeth are worn down to nothing but still she works on. Weaving. And flattening. Now at the back of the cave there is a stew simmering in a cauldron. The cauldron hangs above a fire that began so long ago it might be the oldest thing there is. The stool in the cauldron contains all the seeds and grains and herbs that grow on the surface of the earth. If the old woman doesn't strip the fire will scorch everything and who knows what trouble could ensue. So she gets up to stir the stew she leaves the weaving on the floor and slowly. Painfully makes her way to the back of the cave. Now the moment the old woman turns her back. A great talk springs. I'm the entrance to the cave. The dog comes over and sniff and paws at the weaving. Hippos fighting to loose thread and pull some more but all the threads are woven together and so the next thing we know the weaving. Is all. Undone when the old women. Comes back. From stirring the stew she finds instead of her beautiful creation a chaotic mess. Of destruction. Answer. Unlocks. At the heap of loose threads. And then she realizes. She's tired. She's been doing this work by herself since the beginning. And she's tired. Unlonely. So she called on her siblings. And her cousins and they call on their children. And their grandchildren and soon everyone crowds into the cave. And the people look at the threads. Other colors are textures. And then they begin to speak and his each speaks the others listen. Even the littlest ones speak. And as we speak and listen into their minds come a beautiful design. It is even more beautiful than the last one. And so together. They take up the mess. And they begin again. To weave. The most beautiful garments. That ever was. You know. There have been many times in my life when i felt bereft. Of hope. For this world. When i felt so weighed down by sadness for all that was being lost that i didn't see how or why we should even bother trying to save anyting. But then i would read. That there are more than 6,000 women's groups in africa planting trees. Or i would see a dandelion growing from a crack in a parking lot. And i would realize that life loves itself it wants to live. Human being might have the power to destroy life as we know it now but we do not have the power to destroy life forever. There have been massive floods before. There have been times when the sun was blotted out for years by the active volcanoes or the debris of meteor crashes. There have been times when the whole planet was on fire. But life. Has always survived. It has adapted and evolved and taken new shapes and forms. Ending no matter how terrible have always meant. Beginning. Well. I might be crazy but somehow this gives me comfort. And i think. What if we turn our energies toward helping life along. What if we imagine god not as a vengeful emperor but rather as the force of life that calls us toward love. And beauty. What if instead of stories of lone heroes destroying the world we tell stories of communities coming together to heal it. What if instead of terrible and frightening stories of the doom that will come upon us if we don't change we tell stories of the beautiful world that is coming into being right here and right now because we are co-creating it. What if we lift the veil. And. Find instead of only destruction. Also. Help. And healing. This is not to say we shouldn't more and what has been lost. Honoring what is lost is he seneschal to beginning again it is instead to say that i think we could do with a shift in focus. For while this is a world in which ancient trees are almost gone it is also a world in which high school students are replanting for us. Wow this is a world in which white police brutalized black citizens. It is also a world in which a multiracial movement has sprung up proclaiming black lives matter. Well this is a world in which coal and oil companies control the media and by worth it is also a world in which the navajo at black mesa have taken a coal-fired power plant and made it into a solar one. Well this is a world in which in which industrial cities are falling into ruin is his also a world in which people are making those ruins into gardens. What stories of healing are you living. What stories would you like to begin. Tell them. Enact them. These are the stories that will give us hope and hope is what we need in order to do our work of stirring the pot and reweaving the world. The world just ended. Just now. It did. And just now it begin again. Let us lift the veil. And see what is there. Blessed be.

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082805_child_story.mp3

Howmanyofme. Kids know somebody named dr. seuss. But everybody. Okay well this is. Stories. It's a little bit. Because. It all started way back such a long time back. Way back in the days when the grass was still green. And the pain were still wet. And the clouds are still clean. And the song of the swami swan. Running out in space. One morning i came to this. Glorious place. And i first. That's regular trees. The bright colored tufts of the truffula trees. Mile after mile in the fresh morning breeze. I thought brown barbels as they played in the stage and a trust you love fruit. And. Comfortable sound of the humming fish humming well. Restore. Oh my life i've been searching for. Septet of dirt us with. Butterfly milk. In no time at all i built a small shot that i chopped down a tractor with free with one chop. And with great deal for skill and with great speed speed. I took the frost text. Knitted a sneeze. Instant i'd finished i heard a gazelle. I looked. I saw something pop out of the stump. Subject free i chalked out. Sort of man. Describe him. I don't think that i can. Mistresses. I am lawrence. For that treats. And i'm asking you sir. Top of my lungs. Secret terrius. Stop seeing you made out of my chocolate truck. Look. There's no cause for alarm one tree. No harm. Need to find something all people need. It's a it's a glove it's a hat. And it has other uses. You can use it for carpet for pillows and sheets. Curtains for camper. The lorax said there is no one on earth would buy that. Naheed. The very next minute i proved. Parkchester text minute t-mobile on. Arctic need i had salad with grapes. 398. I left. Lorax. You poor stupid guy. You never can tell. Bye. In no time at all i built a radio phone. I put in a quick call i called all my brothers and. Uncles and aunts and i said. Listen here. For the whole one for families. Miley. And in no time at all in the factory i built. The whole once-ler family. Was working.. We were all knitting snead's just as busy as bees. To the sound of the stopping of. Oh how my grown out shopping. Low. Which wait for joshua trees at once matter. We were making stage four times faster than before. Lorax. Next week. Knox. Door. The lorax who speaks for the trees which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please. Thanks to your hash browns there's not enough truculence to go rounds. And my poor barbels are all getting the tummy. Because they have no food in their tummies. But i can't let them stay. Define food. I hope that they may. Good luck boys. And he sent them away. I meant no harm. Bigger. I figured my factory by biggers my road. I figured my wagons i figured my loan. I was stripping them 4th south. To the west of the north. I went right on biggering. Shelley morrison. And i figured my money. Send again. I was fixing some tights for that old nuisance. More bright. 14. Oculus. Once-ler you're baking sets. What's more. Just answer was up let me say a few words about dorothy.. Your machinery checked on day and night without stop. Irrigation company.. Applesauce recipes. And what do you do with the leftover goo i'll show you. Urbanyou. You're clutching the pond where the hummingbird. No more candy how forgiving girls gum. Don't walk on water. That isn't so very. And then i got mad. I got terribly mad. Laura now listen here dad. I have my rights to her and i'm telling you. I intend to go on doing just what i do. And for your information i'm figuring on biggering. Finger ring. And that very moment we heard. Free. Fall. Stop very last. Vascular tree. No more trees no more. Call in noti my uncles and aunts everyone always me goodbye. They jumped in my car and drove away. Under the smoke smoke. Now all that was left needs a bad smelling sky was my big empty factory. Dolores. The lorax said nothing just gave me a glance. Just gave me a very sad backward glance. As she lifted himself by the seat of your pants. And i'll never forget the look on his face. When he himself and took leave of this place. Through a hole in the smog. Leaving. Race. All that's left here in this mess. Small pile of rocks. With one word. Unless. What happened. That was long long ago but each day since that day i sat here and worry. Through the years while my buildings have fallen apart. I worried and worried. All of my heart. But now said the once-ler. Now that you're here. The word of the lorax seems perfectly clear. Unless. Someone like you. Tears are a whole awful lot. Nothing is going to get better. It's not. No. Call zeb once-ler. That's very last 10. You're in charge of the last refuge. Everyone needs. Plant a new trust. Treated with care. Grow a forest. Protected from. Then the lorax. And all of his friends. Will come.

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20150308_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

Doing me one more time in the spirit of meditation and simply to allow yourself to reconnect with that source of power the source of the holy and sacred that has meaning for you in the black church tradition one always begins a prayer when always begins a gathering by giving thanks by expressing gratitude for all that is holding us in this time. All that is making it possible for us to move forward and to walk and continue through life journeys no matter how hard they may be so this morning as we gather in selma. People of all faiths and people who would consider themselves without any formal faith or walking today reenacting the march on selma as a tribute to those whose lives were battered and bruised and dishonored 50 years ago. And i offer these words from the rabbi andrea golden. From st louis who wrote this. May those who wield power do so with a balance of wisdom justice and compassion may those who feel powerless remember their intrinsic worth and also act with wisdom integrity and compassion. May we all feel called to action based on the injustice is of racism. And see ourselves not as enemies of one another not in a struggle with one another. But as human beings created in the image of the holy and sacred connecting to one another's well-being may we commit to sitting down with one another and honest dialogue opening our hearts and compassion to one another bearing witness to the pain and fear of one another even if and especially if the other looks and seems so different from ourselves. May each of us come to understand that ultimately my experience of freedom justice and peace is inextricably linked to the freedom justice and peace of every other person in our county and city our country and our world and may we open our eyes to the invisible lines of connection that unites us and continue to work for a world where every person's life is valued cherished and loved when you walk through a storm hold your chin up high well that is easier said than done i don't know about you but when i walk through a storm i often feel like hiding my head in a bag when we walk through storm perhaps the storm of losing someone or something we love perhaps the storm of an unanticipated or frightening health condition perhaps the storm of job loss or the storm of a child facing difficulties we can't easily correct. To hold up our head and we might even feel as if we're not worthy of being seen perhaps. In 2010 researcher and storyteller brene brown released the ted talk which became an internet event which was watched by several million people in it she says that when things happened to people that we didn't expect or which are out of the social norm of what is supposed to happen we can feel shame. And after six years of research and hundreds of interviews this is what she found these are her words i ran into this unnamed thing that absolutely unraveled connection in a way that i didn't understand or had never seen and it turned out to be shame and shame is really easily understood as the fear of disconnection is there something about me that if other people knew it or saw it i wouldn't be worthy of connection the things i can tell you about its universal we all have it the only people who don't experience shame have no capacity for human empathy or connection no one wants to talk about it she writes and the less you talk about it the more you have it which underpins this shame this i'm not good enough which we all know that feeling i'm not blank enough i'm not finding up rich enough beautiful enough smart enough promoted enough the thing that underpin this was excruciating vulnerability this idea that in order for connection to happen we have to allow ourselves to be seen truly scene scene. To be seen in our accomplishments but also to be seen and still embraced in our imperfections and yet so often we do not allow this to happen because his brown put it the thing that keeps us out of connection is the belief that we're not worthy of it not worthy because we're imperfect because mistakes hit us in the eyes daily because we're so aware of the places that were not okay and the places that we try to hide perhaps because we've been taught that we do not air our dirty linen in public as it used to be said probably because we once tried to share an experienced judgment perhaps because our own voices of condemnation that sound in our head are louder and strident than any others could be we keep those imperfect parts of ourselves hidden even though as ralph waldo emerson said in the nineteenth century there is a crack in everything that god has made which songwriter leonard cohen paraphrased in the twentieth century as there's a crack in everything that's where the light. Kitchen. This weekend as has been mentioned as it should be numerous times this morning across the nation people have been remembering the march on selma which occurred on march 7th 1965 known as bloody sunday because. It was one of the most cracked and broken moments in our nation's history. On that day civil rights leaders lead 600 marchers towards montgomery in pursuit of voting rights they were stopped after just six blocks the marchers were beaten clubbed sprayed with tear gas by police as they cross the edmund pettus bridge for those of us who saw ava duvernay movie selma released last year you're aware of how vulnerable the people see and how courageous as they set up on that march some carrying lunches in their hands sack lunches or small suitcases. Next erect with a certain nervousness tense determination fifty years ago the images of that attack were televised across the country and the world and it horrified citizens and rouse support and unitarian universalist were among those flocking to alabama that weekend as they are this weekend noting especially the death of the reverend james reeb in that aftermath a young white unitarian universalist minister from washington d.c. whose death answering the call to witness from the rev dr martin luther king jr. called the attention of the nation. To these matters and gave rise to a titus feeling which led to the passage of the voting rights act reed's death was one of our most shameful moments and the response of our clergy though including the reverend aaron gilmartin who serve this congregation in those years is a source of great pride for us reverend dark dr. mark morrison read on one of our clergy has written a new history about selma and our involvement of our faith in it and he speaks to the complexity the cracks in that story which give lessons to us today as you use across the nation struggle to discern how best to engage with and address the growing unrest created by grand jury verdicts and trials of black men and street actions that happened we are re-examining our roles and re-examining the truth the fuller truth of what happened and when we went to selma is an invaluable historical compass for us and a divining rod. Morrison reid points out that is only through our willingness to be vulnerable only through our willingness to look deeply at those places where our espoused values and our values in practice have that crack between them that we can actually learn and grow selma he says was the tipping point that was where we learned that we needed to step forward in a different way when we face seismic changes in the landscape of our society we need places to come together and struggle with our truth just as when we faced seismic changes in our own personal lives we need those places too sometimes that can mean cracking open and breaking down our own self-satisfaction not to leave our moments of highest aspiration shattered but rather to re-pc the best parts back together again in the spirit of the consumed japanese pottery tradition which breaks things open and then cement them back together with lacquer filled with gold perhaps in our work whether it's justice in our own lives or justice in the world we need places like this to allow us to reflect on what we've done well in the places where we need to create a deeper beauty by breaking things open and mending them back together again we will do some of this on tuesday night at our justice night will look a little bit more at morrison table with that new strength that new beauty to meet the challenges of the world around us and the challenges of our own lives vinay brown found an antidote to shame wholeheartedness three kinds of being from core courage from living a life of compassion and from connection it's interesting to me that courage and compassion are both words that are found in the mission statement that we read together for this church every week on the corners and antioch or march in oakland which is now classified as one of the three most violent cities in our nation connection is what social movements connect create when they bring people together to become the miracle of action and it's what gives this place the courage to offer spaces for people willing to examine those fragments of their own lives that they need to put back in place. No brene brown found that people who are wholehearted were people who could be vulnerable people and communities that could acknowledge their imperfections and the need for something beyond what what author david rico who will be with us next saturday calls it a more one of the great rewards of my job is that i get to see the ways of the veins of gold or used to pace back together the pieces of lives and create something stronger and more beautiful perhaps the pieces are there because of the death of a loved one perhaps because the death of a dream of an idealized world that didn't turn out to be perhaps the pieces need refitting because of economic uncertainty which our culture has taught we should not discuss or maybe because of the uncertainty of aging which is something we're not necessarily prepared to talk about perhaps the golden glue of friendship is needed when someone's life is just slowly been eroded away by a life of caretaking for a loved one. I know for myself in recent years when i've had to undertake that painstaking work of piecing back together a life inspiration has come from knowing all that is held here in the bravery of people who has brene brown puts it dare greatly every week sometimes just by having the courage to walk through these doors the song that the acquired this thing love story for me the song was written by a dear friend of david's and mine and the anniversary of his death is actually tomorrow tim sang it at our wedding and when mark suggested that it be sung today when i got back from my sabbatical my first reaction and i may have actually said this to him was no wavered but not this time called sent drawn or compelled. Hundreds responded in other words watching the atrocities that occurred on that bridge five decades ago broke open the heart of unitarian-universalism and it was mended with the gold of action wholeheartedness is what happens here i know because it happens to me and because it happens all around me. It is what we do together. It's where we take the gold of right right relationship and men's hearts and swear with courage compassion and community we walk through the inevitable storms of life with our chins held high one form of vulnerability is to walk into a future in which there are no promises of how things will turn out together here though we hold the space for us to grow together to offer many gifts and to be witness to what theologian frederick buechner said he said a miracle is what happens when the sum is greater. When something is greater than the sum of its parts. And every week we see here that kind of miracle. Where something is greater than the sum of its parts here we are firm that we create something stronger from the inevitable breakages of life not something perfect but something good enough our history tells us that we can be a community of love the place that says i'm proud of you i love you to one another when we most need it and then like ruby bridges we arm ourselves with love and have the courage to walk from this place into the full complexity and catastrophe of our lives and the world when you walk through a storm hold your head up high because you are known through the eyes of love.

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20150621_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

This time of year. I think of them. That family in the pediatric intensive care unit. Teetering on the edge of. Despair and great joy. One or both of those parents were always in that room for the entire summer. That i did my clinical pastoral education. They never. Or without their daughter or even an hour. She was a child prodigy. She had been featured on national television every year of her life. Since she was 5 years old. She was in fact a virtuoso on the violin. She was. Injured. On a summer vacation. In a mountain biking accident. Where her bike went off careening off the path she hit a tree and she suffered. A massive brain injury. In the first week. The despair was that she would never play the violin again. Something she had done as i mentioned. On national television. Many times. By her 12-year. The parents. We're devastated. And yet. What i watched in that summer as i visited everyday. With the way that they. Turned the results they had. And turned it to the life she had now. In those last weeks. They would pull me aside come running out to the hall to greet me. To show me with great joy. Something that she had mastered. A syllable. A facial movement. A tiny wave. Author david rico reminds us. That we must all remember. That there are five things that we cannot change. Everything ends and changes. Things do not go according to plan life is not always fair. Pain is part of life and people are not loving and loyal all. Time. Our job he says this is no doubt all this is a great shock to all of you. Our job he says. Is to figure out what new happiness we can find by embracing rather than rejecting these truths. And one way to do that. Is in the practice of equanimity. And the other. To the elusive mysterious. Japanese buddhist concept. Of wabi-sabi. Back to that in a minute. Five things. We cannot change. Many times they take much more mundane forms. And we've seen this week. A relationship ends. Or a job or you have to move away from where you are living. You get an illness which changes your view of who you are and what you can do. Or 1 friday night. You realize that you are at the y it's friday night you're at the y. And the only other person on the equipment is a man muttering hostile comments into his cellphone and scratching guess this is a true story. The grim reaper tattoo on his leg. Sometimes it's more serious. Someone whose life was apart of yours needs to move on or you have a fight with a dear friend. And the relationship is forever changed. Are you are treated with disdain or disrespect or bullied. By someone you've done nothing personally. Provoke. And on and on. This is the stuff of our life and big and little ways. In our religious tradition. We do not believe that bad things happen to us because it's the punishment of a wrathful deity who has an anger control problem. We focus more on the how how do we survive when things are hard when the things we most fear happen in our lives. Boston death. Injustice. And glimpses at the underside of what it means to be a human being. When life breaks you open you can greet the break with hostility defensiveness anger and rage. Or you can set out step-by-step. On another path. One that allows you to find a strength in you that you never knew you had before. When life breaks you open. Something can happen. No somewhere around here enters the concept. Of wabi-sabi. In the zen buddhist tradition. It is acknowledged. That words are often inadequate. And so a true practitioner of zen seeks to live some of their life in a place beyond words. This is where this concept comes from a place where we can know some of its meaning but not all of us. All of it and in this place. Imperfection is needed for true beauty. The roughness. The texture. And the ear regular create. What is apple worth. Perhaps we best understand this in the many ways we see this in our own lives. Something in this wabi-sabi neighborhood. Is why we are drawn to that special energy of children's art which is never perfect. Or why you remember with particular fondness. That night that your mother burned the dinner. And you had to have a picnic on a blanket outside in the front lawn. It's why we cherish. Sea glass. Smokey color and it's chipped edges. Or loved ones. Asymmetrical smile. Our world today we are reminded this week our world today. Offers us many chances to be overwhelmed. And we can't in a world with so much change and ferment and it we can't. Walk around constantly overwrought. Or we would simply be annihilator. By the weight. Of living. Life is unjust. Things change. And our unexpected. This is not the sermon i envisioned on my sabbatical. Sitting on the top of. Mount diablo on a sunday morning. On wednesday when i learned of the shooting. The death of those nine black members of a bible study group. I felt as if i had been torn asunder because as a 20-something. Finding my way alone in the world. I had the privilege of being adopted. Fire number of african-american leaders. Who were glad to give me a little multiracial mutt. A sense of being part of a larger community. They felt i needed some bringing up. And they brought me up right. Because it was very helpful because in those days in north carolina there were approximately 0 asian leaders visible in my world. I just saying. So in the more than two decades that i spent in the southeast. I had frequent opportunities to be. In that kind of bible study. Not because it was my belief. But because it was part of the gift i was being given. Simple discussion. On the coolness. A well-worn wooden. And all that. Flooding back to me. Along with the faces of those i love in that tree. David rico differentiates between anger and hate. Anger he says seeks to remove an injustice. Heat seeks rather. To destroy the unjust. Anger and gauges someone. Hate. Distances. Anger is expressed and let go of. He can never be satisfied or completed but abides as resentment. In this sense. Hate. Is an impotent rage. Heat is the dark side of an individual in the way that war is the dark side of the collective. Despair is the origin of haiti says. Since the one hating has to give up on the other. Despair. Is the origin of war he says. Since one or both sides. Have given up. On. What happened wednesday. Was an act of hate. What we need in response to this. Is a life full of faith field. Anger. Equanimity. Which is our ability. To re-embrace the balance in our lives. Will allow us to walk with what happened. To stand or raise a hand in witness. And not. To turn. Away. We lose people we love. Things happen that we don't want to happen in this community this year has experienced this again and again. This is not the sermon i plan to preach. This week we also lost a beloved member of this congregation and someone who was a large figure within the larger japanese american community. I saw in the bulletin that you're going to talk about wabi-sabi she said to me last sunday. She raised her eyebrows and gave me that look. Which communicated that she thought i was both brave and stupid to attempt this. Molly said she looks forward to seeing what i did with it. Life doesn't always go according. The plan. Equanimity. Tells us deaths. We accept laws. Welearn. To look and see what it might give us. Not because it happens for a purpose but because our only purpose. Is to take what we have and make something. Wabi-sabi says we celebrate relationships. Even if we never had that. One final conversation. That one goodbye we thought we would have. Buddhist teacher pema chodron says this. The real trick. Is to stay. Even when you know you're no longer on solid ground. Even when the bottom has fallen out of your most cherished concepts and ideas. She calls this place when we're in it the squeeze. We're caught between our uplifted miss of our ideals and the rawness of what's happening in front of our eyes. And she goes on to say that while it can be very fruitful. It is an extremely. Wabi-sabi. Is a concept. Who's in artistic circles. To talk about the way that a piece of art is made perfect by its. This space of holding the imperfections of our life invites us into that place of squeeze. And it may be. Just the thing we need to navigate. Indy's hardest times with equanimity. Wabi-sabi has two paths. The narrow one points to the way. The imperfection brings out beauty as our arrangements this morning so beautifully show. But the wider boulevard. Toro store on an arthur who is written on this says. The wider boulevard shows us how to live. In this way. Two things he says. Eccentric living and compassionate humanism. And i thought that's us you use. Eccentric living compassionate. We know this. Life will break us open. And we will break our own hearts by our inevitable mistakes and shortcoming. Some of which we will be hard-pressed to grace with a fancy name like wabi-sabi. The way. We will split between what we believe and how we live our lives. The times we are not as kind or loving as we wish to be. The days when our own healing. Still has too much texture and not enough. And still. Life will break us open. The world will break us open. When elaine suggested the song. A wonderful world. It was just. I cannot ever hear that song. Without thinking of the circle where i first really listen to. It was a circle of young leaders who had been struggling together in north carolina. Over race and class and yes. Sexual orientation over 20 years ago. This was a time when people thought it was foolish. To try to talk about such. We had had two years of very difficult discussion. And this was our last. Any young man. Who was then the head of the n-double-acp. A20. Who had been. Very distance from us and very angry. Brought us this song. As his parting gift. And we sat. As we did today. With tears in our eyes. And we sang it. It was large enough. To hold all that we could not say. All the wabi-sabi in. It was a place of equanimity. A place where we could rest for that mower. Until we met. So i want to close today. With the truth. Of louis armstrong. I hear babies crying. And i watch them grow. They'll learn much more than. All ever know. And i think to myself. What a wonderful. Yes. I think. To my cell. What. A wonder.

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20150705_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

Hi my name is joanne cosmos pin. And i'd like to offer you a postcard from ga. So many years ago mayuyu friend valerie from long beach myfirstchurch. Captain's listing. There's nothing like singing. Spirit of life with a thousand other people. But i never did make it until this year. The last week. In portland oregon. I turned to her and said there's nothing like singing building the new way with 5,000 other people. Singing in the gaa choir with 190 voices well that was an awesome highlights for me as well. But looking around and seeing so much activism aliveness. Dedication to ideals that i deeply believe in spooks soaking in new ideas. Possibly life-changing. And it's a lifelong advocate for people with disabilities i might have found a little corner that because he that i can help with. I attended a workshop called. A new way to radical inclusivity. The newly-formed accessible. Accessibility. And inclusion ministry or a short. If i have developed a new certificate program for congregation to speak to be. Fully accessible. In our church i think we're already headed occur with our beautiful and accessible sanctuary. But and challenges us to consider a culture shift. One that drops into deep. Theological sensitivity and radical welcome. So i feel challenged now aimhi rockdeep. And being in community here at our church is an awesome place to. Thanks jay. I'm more mattingly in like joanne this also was my first ga. I signed up for the choir and i was a delegate from mount diablo and was very honored to be that so that took up quite a bit of my days but my favorite session that i attended was on contempo to practices within the uu tradition. Which led by three young uu ministers that used a mixture of chant taste a chant. They provided daily meditation. Walking meditation and devotional readings as tools for developing your own spiritual practice. They suggested that you route your daily actions in spiritual practice. Carry the sacred into everyday activities. Can everyday tasks take on ritual yes they can. I remember reading the thomas more practice mindful dishwashing. Simply invite wisdom in they face suggested. Either in a group setting or individual setting it's an attitude of community first principle. Prayer is simply the connection to your own highest values but most of all practice requires practice. Do it each and every day. The tools they provided me i will explore over the next few months but i'm very grateful to have gone. I was overwhelmed by the feeling there. Hi machi rasmussen and my fourth ga. Dear mduuc we arrived in portland and are enjoying our four-day free public transportation passes we received in our packets. Ga is huge alive with anticipation and energy with over 4,500 people ready to partake of its rich offerings. One of the highlights for me was sharing in the celebration of the announcements at the two supreme court decisions. With these decisions and so many other uu activities. She reminds me in a powerful way. What we can do when we come together to effect change. Proud to buu. Wish you were here. Aki. Hi i'm meg richardson and i was honored to serve as a delegate from this congregation. We go to general assembly because of our polity our governing structure. We don't have a pope. Or a bishop or a council of elders the power is in the congregation with the people and if you don't think that's radical you haven't read wikipedia. Wikipedia calls this religious anarchy our you use service committee celebrated 75 years by awarding the eleanor roosevelt medal to congressman john lewis a man who hopes his legacy is that he just tried to help out. He talked about forgiveness activism and equality. He told us. Don't wait for someone else to do it. You. Got to do it. What a radical idea. Hi marla singer. I was at the general assembly 19 years ago. When the then president john buren's called same-sex couples up to the stage. The celebrate i think the supreme court striking down part of the defense of marriage act. The number of people that have came up. But a week ago friday. When president peter morales called married same-sex couples and lesbians and gays now eligible for marriage under the stage in honor the supreme court decision recognizing same-sex marriage it was crowded to overflowing. I saw young clergy couple hand-in-hand literally skipping across the room to go up on this stage. I saw stooped white haired woman. I must have been in her 90s. Crying tears of joy. Peter morales place the beautiful rainbow colored cloth on the podium and declared. I am convinced this would not have happened without the activism of unitarian universalist. Morales gave us permission to be smug until the end of general assembly and then he said go out and continue the work for justice. I was proud for all of us. I'm bob lane. The workshop felt like one of the revivals i went to and i was a boy growing up in the south. Chris the workshop leader. Spoke passionately that our goal was to marshall our spiritual superpowers to rockford justice his words though i share the sentiment. And he gave a very compelling example. When arizona passed its draconian anti-immigrant law sb 1070. Chris a committed justice activist. Committed. To going to arizona and spending the summer. But it's the day got clothes for him to leave. He began to be afraid. There was a very hostile. Environment in arizona. Against immigrants and their supporters. And it was getting worse. He went to his pastor reverend jacqueline of the oakland church. And ask her to pray for him. He thought their private conversation. Would be the end of it. At the next worship service. She asked chris. To come down to the front. She came down off the diets and lay her hands on him. To show her support. And then she invited the congregation. To come down as well. One by one they came forward. And they also laid their hands on chris. Until the entire congregation. Held him in the embrace of their support. And love. He thought he said that he. Thought about that moment. Every single day. He was in the arizona. And. He was never. Afraid. I'm kate newkirk and i very much enjoyed my first j. As able to attend sessions on a myriad of different topics. But in saturday saturday i just calling didn't people say because i went to workshop. And then that commits to respond witness was very much. Native event. The workshops focused on partnering with them to preserve the lummi people balloon sorry lummi tribe of washington. To preserve their natural. Spaces are natural area and also to work with them on climate. During the public witness that day the limey leaders spoke again about their ongoing fight to protect the natural. It's in their area. And the video you saw was the daughter of one of those leaders who's been. On the front lines for 35 years. Basically these people have fish the salish sea which includes the area known as puget sound for thousands of years. In recent years a blood brigades are traditional canoes out to the base of huge oil rigs. Imagine these tiny canoes and the oil rigs. And yet they were still hurt. Now the area's threatened with the creation of the largest collects tracking operation in the us. This will strengthen the supply further threaten the supply of herring and salmon. And the thousands of huge freighters that will enter the area. Will disrupt the communication of the orcas that passed through that part of the pacific. As well as just. Devastating the natural area. For short-term gain. And the members of the lumbee tribe reminded us that they did not go to war. Does many centuries ago. They were not defeated by white settlers instead they they entered into treaties. With the us. And those treaties are being broken again. They said they don't want sympathy from us. But they do want collaboration and they're getting that with the you use in that area. In march the uu college of social justice sponsored a week-long journey to meet with the leaders of the lummi nation. And they're planning another trip in the spring of next year. When it be great if we. We have much to learn in terms of environment and climate justice from indigenous peoples. One limit fed that they think not in terms of. Years or even decades but in terms of generations. And they base their decisions on how it will affect their great great great great great grandchildren. Or seven generations ahead. What if we all made our decisions based on this long-range view of the world. Bi-mart hunger i have been to at least 20 many many more than that. Reverend takahachi. What's a procedure at 3 workshop. On leadership on justice. And on youth. How does a very broad knowledge of ministry. I attended the one on accountable leadership. The panel's charge was quote to show up in the world as strong leaders for intentional about creating and sustaining multicultural community. The other panelists were rev dr martin levante minister of all souls church in tulsa oklahoma. Reverend dr. robert hardee's minister of all souls uu church. In washington dc. And reverend avi-yonah munchie minister of cedar lane unitarian universalist church in bethesda maryland. These are some of our best-known ministers from our largest congregations in the ua. Is leslie said. She was playing with the big boys. The talks were all outstanding and leslie held her own. They're also practical workshops i attended a press presentation of a template for websites that is being developed. Bother you ua's it staff. It looks very promising and we are considering using it for our mduuc webpage. It might happen by fall. A whole new look for the public face of archer. I also went to one on creating social media for facebook and twitter. We need to do a better job of using these tools which offer a significant. Way of communicating. Especially with young adults. You're interested in helping please let me know. I marry pentalon and i was also honored to be a delegate. And i've lost track of how many gta's but i wouldn't miss it as long as i can manage.. Get myself there. What is a particularly interesting sessions what i went to was called. A shark tank take off. Participants. Outline innovative ideas on how to spread the social justice word. And yes we voted on who should win the $500 grand prize. 3000 candles. Spelling out so all can vote. On the lincoln memorial reflecting pool in washington dc. Or. Hundreds of people making a valentine valentine's human heart in a public park. Supporting. Gay marriage they do it every year. Grows every year. Or. So no more deaths camping. They work in the medical camps in the arizona desert. Providing water to immigrants crossing the border. And eating those who suffer the culture of abuse and shakedown while in us custody. But this is solidarity network. It quote operates on recipients issues not ours. Good point. And on legislation can't change hearts we must retreat rain the heartless. This small group ministry advises us to serve the people where they are. Reverend m&m dire explain the california equity ministry phil casetify. Which works in. In partnership with the justice ministry of california. They develop programs on congregational. Coalition-building in spiritual development. And finally. There was the chalice oak foundation. Who knew that there was an organization to provide consultants and a 501 c 3 umbrella for social justice start a good thing to know. There are endless ways to support social justice causes. We just need to be open to trying whatever works. The representatives from the lummi nation taught us and in their language this means thanks. So let's take a moment and thank all of our delegates and representatives who are willing to share today thank you multiple hymnals. Lots of words technological problems and things running over you have really experienced general assembly now. And one thing i want to say that i think you probably figured out is the general assembly each year has many stories there are the ones told under the big lights and the cameras that are scripted and subtitled and video before us and many of those are online and you can go and see them. And they're also the individual stories. There are the people who are reunited after not seeing each other for many years. There are people who meet at general assembly in later they find out they're going to get married. There are people who have a first experience which puts them on a whole nother trajectory of life every year. And they're also. Collective parallel universes. Which is what our youth community and in some years our young adult community and always our community of color. Experiences at general assembly each year. A general assembly for many years i've had reason to travel between worlds. And perhaps there has been no general assembly. Before this one. Where i was so aware of the spaces between the different perspectives. The supreme court decision on marriage equality the same day that president barack obama. Gifts the nation with his stirring. Eulogy for the reverend clementa pinckney. Of the emanuel african methodist episcopal church in charleston south carolina. Are meaningful partnerships. With elimination. And i showed wanted to show a bit of that video. Because what that shows. Is the way. That that woman is walking between her contemporary traditional world. And just the world of being a young adult. Are meaningful partnership with that nation. Which was celebrated and yet the seriousness of that partnership. Because it was about. Meeting the changes. In our climate. In the good and joyous celebration of marriage equality are also many many many notes. Founded by those who would identify themselves as the queer community. Some of color others not. Many of whose representatives were clear that marriage equality is a a good goal but it is also predominantly a white and middle-class goal and not as relevant. As it struggles for non-discrimination in housing and wages and with the criminal justice system. Her bgltq members. Who are of color. Or white members. Whose experience has not been one of assimilating into the hedron normative. Marriage as an institution. A colleague put it this way. Please be gentle with folks now. I know you might like a heads up it's probably not a good time it never is. To tell anyone that their feelings aren't a good strategy. Or that they ought to be grateful that enough straight people finally decided where human. Where the ouija pglc people should be careful of straight people's feelings. Otherwise straight folks might stop supporting our rights. Complexity. I was struck. Again and again. How we are truly not just us as unitarian universalist but our nation. In a time of cultural ferment. But we did reflect on who we were and for the fifth straight year we heard reports of the declining numbers of unitarian universalist in our churches. And we also continued to hear those seeds of hope about how to tie what we do in our brick-and-mortar churches to more outreach through virtual ministries. Two other kinds of community ministries that take place outside the church context. As financial advisor larry ladd observed. Less than half of our churches have grown in the last 10 years. Although almost 80% of our 41 largest congregations did grow. He concludes this. Any mission-based organization should grow and especially one with a message as compelling as ours. But we are experiencing all these different trends. And they are leading or should lead to. Intense conversations about the models of religious community that will serve our mission in the years ahead. For the people of my generation lad said. It means doing more shutting up and listening. His words. Complexity. It was so good to have them more than 30. Mduuc folks in the next we never did get an accurate count cuz it was like herding cats they even get him in the same place. But it was a spectrum of ages and backgrounds and race and class and abilities. Which reminds me. One of my growing edges which is that i love to use i've noticed. The metaphor of walking in my preaching. Which is actually at this point in the struggle for equal access for people who are differently-abled and not a comfortable metaphor so i hereby amend the title of my homily today to traveling and complexity. Does ending on a note of revision seems only fitting to pay tribute to the many ways. That we are coming together in this time when we must embrace complexity. And build a new way. Oh and by the way. You can follow me on twitter at at leslie takahashi.

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090405_child_story.mp3

Good morning. I'd like to invite the children to come on at. We're going to have a story. Elected over here today. Very good. Good morning. I'm going to tell you a story. Special little drop. It did something wonderful. His name is higgins. Once upon a time there was a drop of water named higgins. And higgins was no ordinary drop of water. She was a drop with a dream. Higgins lived in a valley where it had not rained in a very long time. So all the lovely green grass was turning brown. All the beautiful flowers and trees were wilting. Know the animals and people were very thirsty and had to find a new place to live. Higgins had a dream that one day the valley would be beautiful again. But what could he do. After all. She was only. One drop of water. When higgins decided to travel and tell others about his dream. And all the drops listened very politely. But no one believed that his dream would come true. Higgins said one. Get your head out of the clouds. You can't spend your whole life dreaming. O'higgins did not listen. Higgins decided that he had to do something to make his dream come true. So he began to think. And think. And sink. In one day. As he was walking by rusty old bucket. Dia. If enough of us drops of water got together in this bucket higgins.. Garrity enough water to sprinkle on a few flowers and trees. And all the animals and people could come back. Well in early higgins told everyone his great idea. But everyone thought he was being foolish. That higgins is nothing but a dreamer. They said. Well higgins decided that he had to do something to convince the others that he was right. So he said to them. I don't know about you but i'm getting into the bucket. And i hope some of you will join me. Then there might be enough water to help at least some flowers grow beautiful again. So higgins. Jumped into that bucket. And he branded with a kerplunk at the bottom. And they're just a drop in the bucket. For a long time higgins was very lonely. It seemed like no one else was going to join him. But after a while. Some of the other trucks could see that the grass was dying in the flowers and trees were wilting. And that the animals were disappearing. Any agree that something must be done. Suddenly one drop-shotting. I'm going in the bucket with higgins and he leapt through the air and landed kerplunk. In the pocket. Then two other drops yelled. Ben 10 drop. 3:30. 10:00 george came from all over just to hop into the bucket. Deer in the back it was completely full of water but there was still more drops that wanted to join. Do another. So another. Bucket with me and more hot 10 and before long there were two buckets of water than 3:00 then for than 10. Then hundreds and thousands than millions. It was now enough drops to turn the grass green. The flowers could bloom. Patrice could stand tall once more. Any animals and people could now returned. All this happened because higgins had a dream and his dream came true. He believes that although he was just a drop in the bucket. Doubt. With enough drops to also help. There would be enough buckets to make a difference. Now some of you may have heard what's been happening with the hurricane. Yes. Well let's think about it. Naruto. New army underwater. And a lot of people had to leave their homes. Because it's not safe for them to live there anymore. And i want to tell all of you. That you and your family and friends can make a difference just like higgins did. Gina how we can do that. Can we all be drops in the bucket. No. Well. We have at mduuc instead of buckets. We have baskets located in the back of the sanctuary. And if everybody. That's right. And if everybody puts a drop of money in the bucket. We can all make a difference. And that all the other churches and cities and communities that are helping if we all make a difference. We can help those people. Find shelter. And rebuild their land so they can go back to where they from. So now i would like to invite you all. Cheer classes. And if you would like to stay with your parents today for the water service you are welcome to do that but if you would like to go to sunday school class she can come with me. Adult. Replacing the words if they are and you order service and please make a drop in the basket.

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082805_sermon_pt2.mp3

This is a quote from albert einstein. A human being is part of the whole. Call bios for universe. Apartment in time and space. Two experiences himself. His thoughts and feelings. Add something separated from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. Distribution is a kind of prison for us. Restricting us to our personal desires. Affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison. By widening our circle of compassion. To embrace all living creatures. And the whole of nature and its beauty. The following is from an anonymous writer. The frog does not drink up the pond. In which he lives.

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051002_Reading.mp3

Everyone. Nearby tell you. Government. America. Weather.

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20150524_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

Deserted island somewhere in the dropping of the crash that killed every adult on board. I also was given the freedom to choose my own middle name as well and the other news is that i still do not have no middle initial. Those democratic ideas from europe came over they were blended with the structures that were already indigenous here the people of the six nations also known war by the name of the french colonize arcades in the iroquois model of confederated democracy structure was studied by benjamin franklin thomas jefferson. We will here on days such as tomorrow to the high heavens but like every other aspect of life has its limits people wanted the freedom to have flame and that's actually why we had the first memorial day that our nation has created an economy so that we and the rest of the world are being held hostage. One has only to think about what has happened in recent years and practically recently religious freedom to see the downsides of focusing only on one half. Okay she been wondering where i came up with that. so catching service think about that. The rules of decision-making open and available to everyone and visit if they are wrong. This relationship. Between structure and freedom williams through our lives we all know that feeling out of the third or fourth day of vacation doesn't happen the first or second. I suspect. That i'm not alone in identifying myself as having been the victim of bullying are probably a few other people out there who've experienced having a line. I was bullied on the bus on the way to school for almost all of my faith radio a i was a kid with a weird last name living with very limited economic mean i wasn't easy target. Because even the most unstructured time in school day the powerful freeland in his per article described as you ascend. There is no obligation you responsible for the group at all the group cannot compel such responsibility it becomes dependent on the interest of the elite. Structure. But we're also reminded by the blessings of the lord of the flies which i suspect you are reminded of who they are quick freeze through summary there by those lessons. It's not that people are bad is that mean nice or sheltering walls. But we need. Leadership group project in high school or college. Or where you learn more terribly sometimes do the free-floating non-action of depression. Structure outline the borders of a canvas upon which we are 32 splash paint anyway we can and it also allows us to come together and i hope we win across mine. This memorial day huttonsville talked and talked about for you only 36% of the people in our counting exercise their right to vote in the last election. Richmond times. Last weekend i was privileged to be part of a panel talking about the future of unitarian-universalism noted. The world is changing very fast and a religious landscape is changing faster than those we talked about the fact that in our congregations we have a tension between those who came in to something but it was religious injury or trauma or conservative values which indicated their own or something. About how wonderful that one and how glad i was that it was coming down to visit. But i was in college. Ronald reagan was elected president and he began to dismantle, not only in terms of the few dollars but in terms of our attitudes for a few years later newt gingrich came along and created a movement. At around the same times began to give unprecedented freedom to corporations to engage in an ethic of hyper-consumption. And the promise that came together or what can you buy for ourselves let us not be cooled on this day before memorial day this is not elective liberty it is now individual freedom raised up to our home screen and our children are school are human infrastructure the very environment which we live in requires us to act. Requires being patient with the jazz dance instruction. Maybe because my japanese american dad born right here in california. Wiping her. But i'm not a big fan of youtuber patriotic holidays however i am a big fan of the structures of democracy which is still give up the opportunity to put into play. So i will choose to spend tomorrow thinking not only of those who lost their lives which we must remember. Structures of democracy which allow us to live our lives greatest limit and not the least common denominator of 3 so let us tomorrow either one in the power and it's all of our.

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20090531_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

Brownie troop meeting. Jesus on the cross. Leading man. Kind of place we work. Comprehensible. Understanding. Withings religious. Indifference. Auffenberg. Universalist congregation. There what is. Framed single brandt. Single tree branch. Sunday. Which left me with the feeling of spaciousness. A hole. Define. quiet heart. For part of myself. And the ideas. Represent. What it needs to have some great spirit to keep it company. Inevitably deeper question. The reverend. Ultimately. Is bound up in our relationship. Conversation. World. Nursing circle of sequoia trees. After a long day. When your heart. Sanctuary. Of course. Dialogue with your highest. Aspiration. Spirit of life. Relationship. You can share your. River flowing and bending. Taking refuge in the songa. And brothers. The reverend rebecca parker. Relationships as unitarian universalist. The earth made of. Never forget. Even by. Awareness. Inwardly. When we make a commitment. Beautiful and lovely. Transform. Transform something else. In the name of love. Our own broken places. The broken places of the world and sometimes we are called to see them. ways that are homeless. Mycology. The reverent. All of that. People in service. It must be. Animal shelter tomorrow. I think about that moment. In the latest. Tomorrow. Call the sadness. Like so many drops after a rainstorm. 1. Fleeting moment. My friend. Particular illness. Struggling with the drinking problem. Who is now homeless. When i think of sanctuary today. That is also boy. Committed. Glorious and wonderful. An admirable. And which makes us uneasy. Rebecca parker. Broken. Universal. Roundabout. Promise. What's the sanctuary movement from the 1980s. Our people our government was. Citizen children. And family. Are there still targeted by policies that have yet to be removed. Ivar's government policy. Call. Protect. Emotional. Emotional. Express or ideas of sanctuary. Hospitality. Know that we welcome. Ivar's. About. Statewide. Marriage. Equality rally in fresno. Indica. Who's the director of our universe. California. Unitarian universalist. Great marsh. Evil of religious. Religion. And i along with many others. And i felt bad conflict amongst myself. As if they were. Somehow wrong. Real things that are affecting real people's lives. What is said to me. Is that we need to do a better job. A better job. Better job. Overwhelming. We need to let people know. Of living. The sanctuary of our particular tradition. History. Because. Also. Good morning. Number of church robbery not. In such situations for something. I normally i probably wouldn't have said yes but i did. Probably. How we needed. He wasn't ready for it yet. Wife of desperation. Possibility. Call our sanctuary. Reconstituted. Translate the comforter. Now. Which causes. Oklahoma. That's one of our commitment. Everybody. The world. Sanctuary. Earnhardt. World. That needs welcome. May we all. Have the courage.

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child_story082105.mp3

Good morning we're all going to sit here and look this way we have the teenagers doing something special for us so let's come down here and sit where i am. We're going to look at these guys do we need to be facing this. So i have a special story today and it is by a woman. Joy berry. Agreed to help with the story this morning. This story is called. This story is about a little boy named randy. We'll stay tanner and his friends. Sometimes you need to share things with other people. I want some of those cookies. Me too. Let's share them. It is important to be fair when you share and sharing is fair when every person takes his or her fear stare. Fareshare is the part of something that a person deserves to have. I'm hungry i don't want to share. But the cookies are for all of us. Jack each of us should get some. Sometimes having a fair share means each person gets the same amount. Why don't you take the same number of cookies. It's fair for each type 2. If we each tattoo. Sometimes a fair share is the amount of something a person really needs. Sometimes a fair share is the amount a person has worked for earned. If we each take two cookies there will still be one left over. I think i should get the extra cookie cuz i have bake them. That's what. What up. But i want more than two cookies. People are being greedy whenever they try to take more than their fair share. 2 cookies is not enough for me. Talk about greedy. Sometimes people are greedy because they are always dissatisfied and they are not happy with what they get. They always want more. What about us. We want some cookies too. Who cares. Sometimes people are greedy because they are self-centered. They care much more about themselves than they care about other people. I'm bigger and smarter than they are and i'll just take whatever i want. Sometimes people are greedy because they feel superior and they think they are better than others they believe they deserve to have more than others. Sometimes people are greedy because they are unfair and they do not want others to have a fair share. Hey where you going. Away from you. We don't want to be around a greedy person. It's not fun to be around people who are always dissatisfied or self-centered or feel superior or are unfair. No one likes to be around greedy people. Sorry. Greedy people are often unhappy because no one wants to be around them. Avoid being greedy do these things instead. Realize that every person deserves a fair share. Besides whatever you decide what everyone's fair share. Will be before you share something let all the people sharing help the side but a fair share should be. Ask a parent or another adult to help you if you and your friends cannot agree on what a fair share should be. Avoid being greedy do things instead. Give other people their fair share before you take yours. Is satisfied with your fair share. Do not try to take more. Do not complain about what you got. It is important to treat other people. The way you want to be treated. If you do not want other people to be greedy you might not be great. Very good all can stand to learn something from that story. Now it's the time for all of us to go to our classes and we have a very special treat today we have. A magician coming. So if the adults could please sing the words as they are in the order of service.

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20150809_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

Several years ago. I was trying to explain to a friend about this incredible church i have found that encouraged. Deep reflection and honest questioning as part of my search. For truth and meaning. Since unitarian-universalism is not originally. triangle religion. Rent to her are seven principles. Which we hold as moral guides. And you can find them. On the back of your order of service. After i read our fifth and sixth principles. Which are. The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large. And the goal of world community with peace liberty and justice for all. She stopped me and explained. Is this a church or the united nations. It is hard to describe unitarian-universalism because of its lack of a simple doctrine. But it's also made difficult because of a reluctance within our denomination to identify with religious or churchy turner's. Many who have found unitarian-universalism come from wounding or stifling religious backgrounds. And they shy away from things that remind them of their past. Others feel that religion. By definition is antithetical to science and rational thinking. Religious terms are met with the stain or disfavor. But this church. Is my spiritual home. And we need to use spiritual terms to describe it. Unitarian universalism is my faith. I think we need to claim face. That term and not shy away from it. I hope to show you that no matter where you are on the uu continuum. Faith fits in describing our religious movement. In our chalice lighting. We quoted the blog experimental theology by richard beck. As describing faith as an activity of halloween. Finding the sacred. The holy. Things worthy of honor. He defines faith as any reflective. Or intentional system evaluation. In our call to worship buddhist arthur sharon salzberg invited us to disassociate face from a dogmatic religious interpretation and to forge faith that uncovers our connections to others. She called for new use of the word faith that does not require a connection to a daya to your god. But does not deny one. Either. I mentioned these thoughts on viewing faith through a different lens to my to today's chalice lighter in my favorite high-energy physicist. And he responded sternly. You can't go in arbitrarily redefined words just because you want. Okay. Let's start from scratch what does the dictionary say about faith. Now wild dictionaries very if you look at the front of your order of service you'll find the three most common definitions for faith. I've posted on dictionary.com. Faith. A noun. 1. Confidence or trust in a person or thing. 2. Belief that is not based on proof. + 3. Belief in god or in the doctrines or teachings of religion. Well right away we see that the definition of the term faith is broader than most people use. What's more each of these definitions can describe aspects or layers of unitarian universalism. So let's take a closer look. According to the first definition faith encompasses trust. Well i think we can all find something we trust here. Wii u use trust the power of our community for surely we are greater together than we are apart. Every week we gather in church and trust our covenant to respect. And support our spiritual seeking and meaning-making. Working together and social justice activities and events we stand side-by-side trusting in each other. While we strive to create a more just and fair world. Without trust. There is no community. It would be as if we were all in our own houses with the blinds drawn. Parts. And alone. Limited. Unitarian universalism is based on trust. Moving to the second definition. Faith is belief not based on proof. While many of us would immediately link this to mean a blind acceptance of religious doctrines or dogma. Especially believe claims that counter what we know from science. And because of this assumed definition many you use reject the term face. But let's reflect on the definition. And as reflecting. I was reminded that. We all believe things that are. That can't be based on proof. We believe are you you principles because they feel right. They resonate. We live short lines. Yet we expend a great deal of energy and working towards a more just world. And we have no proof. That our efforts will make any difference. Either in a heavenly kingdom to come. Or an earthly kingdom we create. You use drive anyway because we believe we are called to service. To give of ourselves to the greater good. Unitarian universalism doesn't block us from believing things we cannot prove. No it does reject things that are demonstrative leefolt. And that's different. Finally the third definition. Faith. Is a belief in god. Or in religious teachings. Now unitarian universalist accept a broad spectrum of belief or non belief in god. So if the definition stop there. It would be problematic. But the definition continues on and includes religious teachings. So let's concentrate there. Unitarian universalism may not have a doctrine. But we do have teachings that serve as common guideposts in our search for truth and meaning. Are seven principles give us an intentional framework. For community. It is a framework that all you use share. Strong enough to support us in our seeking. Get flexible and open enough to let us continue to question and evolve. We are a religion that values behavior and action. Over word and belief. We hold that the truest expression of what someone believes. Is there actions. And i think you'll recognize one of our common readings. Love is the doctrine of this church. The quest for truth it's sacrament. And service is it's prayer. To dwell together in peace. To seek knowledge and freedom. To serve humankind in fellowship. That's we do covenant. Now i believe it is this common covenant covenant fellowship that defines our religious movement. Coming to church. Gathering in community. Is very important. Because if left to her own devices. Humans can become egocentric and selfish. We need covenanted community to hold us accountable. To pull us out of our incessant self-reflection. To call us on our. Stop. And not just when we need a little life course correction. We need covenantal community to support us when we are weak and stumble. To inspire us when we are tired and need a boost. And importantly. To present other points of you. To remind us that we. As individuals. Do not know everything. Unitarian universalism is built on teachings and a, a communal covenant which serve as guideposts and are part of our common faith. So i think you can see that it is appropriate to acknowledge and claim unitarian-universalism hazard face. This word is correct. Imprecise. It fits no matter what spiritual path within unitarian-universalism you follow. So now at this point i have some homework for you. In the coming week. I invite you to reflect on your relationship with faith. Invite faith into your vocabulary. If you and faith are well acquainted. And on friendly terms. I challenge you to dig deeper. And some good alone time with faith and reinvigorate your relationship. For those of you who are not at all on speaking terms with faith. I'm going to ask you to be brave. To take a new look. At the term faith. Make eye contact. Maybe you're not ready to say hello. That's okay. At least given odd and acknowledge its existence. Faith is there for all of us. Okay church. Why am i using my one-shot to preach. About semantics. Spending a discussion on how to describe unitarian-universalism what terms fit when terms we can use. Ultimate more than semantics. Language shapes what we can think and express. Limiting language limits what we can think and express. Language shapes. Contacts. We need. Words like faith to put unitarian-universalism in the spectrum of religious belief. We are not a social club. We are not a philanthropic organization. We are a spiritual community. We seek self-transcendence. The opening of ourselves and the merging with the greater whole. Connection with some deep. Abiding mystery. And this is important to me. Because i had one of those powerful moments of connection when i was in high school. I was attending a christian retreat up in minnesota between christmas and new year's. The retreat lodge with located on a frozen lake. And beautiful snow country. During a time of reflection. I walked out. Onto the frozen lake. In the dark. And found myself under a black. Velvet sky. The night was silent. Save for the sound of my breath. And the crisp crunch. Snow under my boots. I looked up at the star-filled sky. And stood. In. The stars were bright. Clear. And innumerable. I beheld the vast wonder of the universe above me. And as i gazed in awe into the starry universe. I felt. The pattern of creation. And i felt myself expand out. Into that greater pattern and i realize that i was part of it. That we're all part of it. Not accidents. Not individuals. But as one creation. All connected. And in that moment. I deeply felt the presence of wonder. So tangible. That i named it.. It was a transformative moment. No i didn't know that this experience was self-transcendence i didn't hear about that word until i watched a ted talk. By dr. jonathan hate. Dr. hate is a social psychologist who studies morality across cultures. And he and others think there is a biological basis for morality. In his talk entitled religion. Evolution and the ecstasy of self-transcendence. He discussed the theory of group selection. And the evolutionary benefit of losing ourselves into a greater whole. Within this thinning of self. Can come a feeling of oneness. Unity. Ecstasy. Something that i experienced under that deep winter night sky. And this ecstatic feeling of self transcendence can be triggered in many ways. Through meditation. Through what the wonder of. Nature. Through dance. Fruit communal. Music. Now doctor hate asserts that this capacity for self-transcendence is part of being human. Everyone of us is wired for it. It is part of our creation. Gillette that's thinking. If that's correct. Human evolve to have a spiritual impulse. We evolved to seek and see sacredness all around us and to join with others into teams to circle around those sacred objects. People and ideals. And here's the critical point. This capacity to assign sacredness is not limited to higher altruistic ideals. That is clearly evident and how human circle around political group. Or engage in hyper nationalism. In fact one place where the experience of self transcendence. Is well document is in documented is in times of war. There are many many accounts from soldiers. Where they felt themselves disappear. And the united with the other warriors into a greater whole. Power.. It is clear that this impulse for self-transcendence will find an outlet. Good. Or bad. If as you use. We do not give ourselves the words to. Fully describe all of our spiritual experiences. We can sprained what unitarian-universalism can do for the world. We bypass healthy guideposts our faith can offer. Regardless of your position on god. The self-transcendence experience is real. And it is part of our uu faith tradition. I believe that the unitarian universalist faith. Can provide. A+ religious framework for us to seek. Truth. Work for justice. And create sacredness and opportunities for self-transcendence. And i believe that that's the good news of unitarian universalism. News that is worth spreading. We need to name and claim our faith. We need to shine the light. Of unitarian-universalism out into the world. Invite all to join us in seeking connection with each other. Unto that deep. Abiding mystery which some of us name as god. And to work in fellowship and creating the kingdom here on earth. I plan to shine my light of uu faith. Will you join me.

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20090628_mduuc_yoga_sermon_only_lo.mp3

In the new yorker magazine. Cartoon. Additions including yoga. Yogurt. Cereal. Wireless services. Would you like some absolute yoga. My friend dancing. Very flexible. Yoga. An 82-year old balance on her head. Woman in a wheelchair. Anime. Around. Later expanded to learn the breathing technique. And in the last three years that i can discern the original meaning of the philosophy. Which is actually an ongoing turning. It helps me be healthy. Spiritual. In lots of places. If i work at the hospital. People afraid of procedures. Afraid. Afraid that no one will visit them. Relationship. Fear of economic turmoil. Right now it's unitarian universalist. Electrical language. And the nomination budget find a way to be balanced. And in many yoga classes safeer. A teen girl in one of my body look. Falling over when trying to balance. You're a problem. Fear can be a problem. If we freeze. Idiom. Sphere that makes one as still as stone. Limits creativity. Hospital patient. A person about the economy is less likely to have energy for creative ways. Money and build community and remember basic values. Frozen in fear. People are warning us about fear. The president said. Thought about in the yoga sutras. Ignorant. Afraid of death. We cling to life with all our might. Here's where i want to take a detour. I talked about how you. And yes it's very openness of cultural appropriation. In other words we risk misusing or abusing. Distance from a culture which is not our own. She said they didn't really understand that. Athletic gear. How can we know. Starter. Purity. Human history. Evolving and borrowed. For example. When a person takes away another person's power. Definition of cultural appropriation. Are we doing. During the time that the british held india under colonial power. This is demonstrated in paul brunton book search for secret india. The question still remains. Their own volition. For example to represent hinduism. In march of 1900. Appropriate. And i'd like to tell you some guidance that i heard. Lord understanding. I want to tell you this. Examine the fruits of your action. Understanding. In our exploration of yoga. Logic. Moral philosophy. Ian. In 1841. Self-reliance. Listen to. Still small voice of god within. As innately capable of. Present in all creation. That's the end of the quote. So i think this still to work through fear. Another yoga involved. Only three of them are about how to do the posture and they tell us. Instability. Observing. Ability. One example of how i am. Go home on the bachelor however they get home and one day. Alex. I didn't know it was possible. Sample. Hospital. Is a story about a man that i'll call john. Various illnesses. And he was. Working through all this complexity and his partner and his parents were awesome cheerleading wanted to show his gratitude for working hard. He was very very tired. Partner. And it's anxiety. One night when i was on overnight duty i went by bedtime. Fall asleep after i left. Heartbeat. Breathing very steady and even. Good. And then he can work through that fear more in touch with the clear place inside. Beer. Understand. When we are able to dwell in a place of clear and practices such as. Into ourselves. When we learn with our bodies. Cellular level. Solution to fear. Discipline. Many ways of being. In our body. I once heard of a novel. Don't quite live in our bodies. In the hospital. Everybody and also. Let it go. Believe that knowing in our bodies. Universal necessary wisdom and intelligence. Listening to your body. There are many ways to do this from many cultures. Whatever you fear in your life right now. Vibrate. Just some physical practice dwells inside of you. And knowing that flame. I hope you become unfrozen. And listening to your still small voice within. You are able to wait with patience and then. The time is right with ease. Instability.

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073105_sermon_low.mp3

A couple of months ago i gave a sermon in which i communicated more or less sympathetic view of. People who are. Fundamentalist. But i said there was more to be said about the subject in today that's what i'd like to do. I'd like to share a bit more critical perspectives on. What is called bible-believing christianity. I hope my remarks will be. Not as a personal attack on anyone who shares that perspective. But as a comment from our own liberal religious. Perspectives because some of the police in the practices of our more conservative cousins. Frankly need to be examined. As many of you know i sit on the board of the pacific school of religion which is a large interdenominational seminary that's a part of the graduate theological union in berkeley. There's a bit of irony in this since i've recently been asked to become the visiting professor. Unitarian universalist irritated ministries start king. Our unitarian universalist seminary that's also a part of the gtu. The latter gives me the chance to work in the context of a denominational setting to which i'm thoroughly committed. The former gives me a chance to work in the kind of interdenominational. Context in which frankly i do a lot of my ministry outside of this church. Being a unitarian universalist both of those roles seemed appropriate to me given the openness of our faith. The face that honors many different religious paths in addition to the christianity out of which we've evolved. But unfortunately. Not everyone wants to consult with open-minded. Religionists like us. Especially those who believe that there's just the only valid path when it comes to religion. And it only those who believe as they do. Can be thought of as truly religious. Included. In this group. A lot of people. Who have. A great deal to say. In the media. In american government. In fact in all aspects of american society these days. But. There are some who believe that. They're collecting of. The voice of christianity is not appropriate. In fact as a former president of the board at psr-12 put it. They in fact are evil. And very eager it seemed. Salitos along a path which might result in us becoming what he calls. Christian. Noxious. Strong term. In addressing the. Tsr board. In preparation for a discussion about how to position the school as a champion of progressive as opposed to fundamentalist christianity. Dakota james luther adams. Who is the unitarian universalist theologian. Who is regarded as one of the most influential teachers of religion. In the past century. Twenty-five years ago when adams was still actively teaching at harvard. And his career was. Coming close to it then. Jla as he was affectionately called by most of the students. Try to draw their attention to what he saw as the danger of a christian fundamentalism allying itself with conservative politics as it was then beginning to do. Adams believed it was like a deal made in hell. Even if those who were making it believe that it was going to help speed them in to heaven. Or into at least more control of. What happens in american society. 42c the goal of these kind of bible-believing christians. These folks becoming more msn politics. Jla. Was nothing less than making use of our government to create a global christian empire. Built right on top. Southern american christian nation. Richard bailey who was one of adam students. Says that when he first heard adam say this. Twenty-five or so years ago it was was hard to take that kind of fantastic language seriously. Kevin jim adams experience and pre-world war ii germany where he has gone to try to support religious leaders who are being hounded by the nazis and to encourage them to come spirits the united states. Adams believe that. What was beginning to happen in this country was. Similar to what he saw happening back then then. German. But with a twist. Adams warned his students that if. Fascism or to take hold in this country. Its appearance wouldn't be wearing brown shirts with. Swastikas on the sleeve. It would have their hair slicked back. And they would be clothing themselves he said in the language of the bible. They would come sit adam. Settings the pledge of allegiance. But karen. Lacrosse. Chris hutchinson another of adams former student center. I just wrote a very interesting article in a recent issue of harper's magazine. And then it you said adams watched american intellectuals and industrialist. Flirt with fascism in the 1930s which is part of what gave him such great concern. He said mussolini's corporatism was created and unchecked industrial and business aristocracy. An appeal to many americans at that time as ineffective powder waste of the new deal. Much as many of those kinds of people nowadays. He corporatism as an antidote to what is. Quickly becoming the defunct great society. 1934 fortune magazine lavish praise on mussolini the italian dictator for is this hanging of labor union. And his empowerment of industrialists it's the expensive workers. That is now adam said too many liberals fail to understand the power and the lure of evil after those in power had begun to dismantle the democratic state. He knew how desperately people want to believe. Comfortable lies that are told by to tell attarian movement. How easily their lies low moderates into captivity. Any said this adams went on to say. Something that foreshadows. Something that is going on today. It just says adams told. Assistance. To watch closely the christian rights persecution of homosexuals and lesbians. Hitler he reminded us. Promise to restore moral values not long after he took power in 1933 then imposed a ban on all homosexual organizations and publications. Then came reads on the places were homosexuals gather culminating on may 6th. 19:33 with the ransacking of the institute for sexual science in berlin. I miss the suits that took the study of sexuality. Seriously. 12000 volumes for the institute's library were tossed into a public bonfire. Homosexuals and lesbians adam said where the first deviant. Single valance by the christian right. We. Meaning those with progressive ideas. May well be the next. Spanish words. Kansas judges minds. After he attended a convention of christian broadcasters which was what the article in harper's was about. Christian broadcasters of the bible believing kind of sorts it regards themselves as the only real question. No that's a code word when people say. Christian these days if nancy's bible-believing. At the conference there were scores of workshops like one entitled invading cities for christ. The thousand day plan. The workshop was facetiming. Kind of the war of the worlds. In christian guys. It was an invitation. To christians. To follow not a jesus who was an exemplar of love and compassion as he is for most of us. But rather of vengeful crusader bent on bringing the kingdom of god the kingdom in which only bible-believing christians would be left. Into existence. Jesus of this kind of bible believers. Is as one of the broadcaster's described him a warrior. Whose eyes are like a flame of fire and out of his mouth comes a sharp sword in which he can write down all the nations. Perhaps the united states decided. To do what iraq. He treads the winepress of the fierceness. Wrath of the almighty god and on his robe and on his thigh as the name is written king of kings and lord of lords. If that's. Jesus. In which these people believe. Jesus to insist that everybody. Follow him and be as hateful and vengeful as they say he is. Forget about the inborn a muslim or a buddhist or a 2 or. God forbid a unitarian universalist. Do you know where we're all going to go. Straight. To hell. Well the person who said this. A man who sermons are heard by literally. Hundreds of thousands of people on the radio each sunday or. At other times during the week. What are the stages of faith are not marked by dialog. By proclamation in hours must be a kingdom of god i came to power. Rather than one based on their. Persuasive words of human wisdom. Human wisdom. No. That's got to go. And then in a listing limp-wristed imitation of lispro liberals that the preacher moss the laughter and apprise those who want to share and sensitivity to the needs of others. The goal of christians has preacher believes. Should be nothing less than the achievements of us. Totally. Christian nation. One totally intolerant turf. The needs of anyone who has a different kind of. Disrespected. Alexa cool. Onward. Christian soldiers. Marsha. Interesting footnote to the article in harper's chris hedges says when. George bush was first elected pat robertson resigned as the head of the christian coalition and why could that be. He said it was because his election was assigned to many. The first was the first and then expected line of reasons. Would herald the coming of the messiah. Maybe maybe. Our president really believe that something that's he has been chosen by god. It shouldn't be so surprising. Given the fact that say urology of a lot of the christians who hold power in his administration it's a theology of dominion. The dominion. They're sort of christians. Over everything that happens in this country and eventually and all the rest of the world. They believe that's the will of god is revealed by jesus. Somehow. Jesus 2000 years ago. Four star. Recreation of the united states. And all those who don't believe it. Have got to be understood as agents of. Satan. There's a lot of religious and political rhetoric these days that implies exactly that. Anyone who opposes what our leaders want. Must be evil. 50 cent evil. Well what kind of. I really disrespected is that. Only when h becomes a christian. Nation these people believe. Will it no longer be a sinful in fallen nation. That what we lived in these days. The future they hope. Ours will be a nation ruled by the laws jesus says express and things like the ten commandments which is. Why do those people want to tension and hanging in all those whorehouses. Didn't you ever wonder why. Bible believers also want creationism in christian values to become the basis of our educational system no matter what scientists conclude. And no matter what the values of others including the values of christians who have more humane points of you and there are a lot of them. These biblebelievers not only want the media and the government for playing their good news in this kingdom and vision by them. Guy from is proselytizing mandates the federal government. Must be reduced to the protection of property rights then. Homeland security. Some of these dominionist would further require all citizens. Play ties the church organizations empowered by the government to run all of our social welfare agencies. That is. Church organizations of their kind. The number of influential figures advocate the death penalty for a host of moral crimes. Like. Sissy. Blasphemy. Sodomy. And witchcraft. Time for all you wickens. The only legitimate voices in the state is going to. To be christian. Bible-believing christians of their kind and all other voices are going together. It's not only people. Who are on the religious or. Political left. Have a concern about this. Very interesting statement about it was made recently by john denver. John danford is republican who is both an ordained episcopal minister. And a former united states senator from missouri. Denver says it's important for those of us. Who are sometimes called moderate. To make the case that we too have strongly held christian conviction. We speak from the depths of our beliefs. Is it our approach to politics is at least as faithful. That has those who are more conservative. Denver's dislikes the way that. Many conservative christians approach politics with a certainty that they know god's truth. And that they can advance the kingdom of god. To cover mental action. Sanford said that many faithful christians are a lot less certain. About when and how our beliefs. Can be translated in the statutory form not because we lack of faith in god. Because of a healthy acknowledgement of the limitation of human beings. For christians like dancers. The only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves that's what jesus said thumbs up everything else. Stanford says. Repeatedly on the gospel. We find that the love commandments takes precedence when it's conflicted with law. We struggled to follow that commandment says we. Face the realities of everyday living and we don't agree that our responsibility to live as christians can be codified by legislate. So in spite of bible-believing christians like. Tom delay danforth says that. When we see a person in a persistent vegetative state. One from which that person will never recover. We believing that allowing the natural and merciful end to her ordeal. Is more loving. Symposium governmental power to keep her hooked up. Proceeding to. Stanford says that when we see an opportunity. To save our neighbors lies through stem cell research. We believe it is our duty to pursue that researched and to oppose legislation that would impede us from doing so. Stanford believes that. Calling references of god into the public square and school houses and courthouses are more after device americans been to advance face. Following the lord. Restyle in compassion to all human beings. We must oppose amending the constitution. In a way that would humiliate. Those who are homosexuals. As a christian who claims. To have no absolute knowledge of god's truth as none of us. Can have. Only being a seeker of it. Denver says that the way to be faithful is not to demean or to oppress people. But the practice humility. We're tolerance on our sleeves to reach out to those with whom we disagree on. Overcome all that venus that we see in. Today's politics. It says religions should be inclusive. And it should seek to bridge the differences that separate people. Rather than excluding. Those whose opinions. Happens to be different. Flower. In conclusion. Speaking in a way that honors the historic roots of boethius anglicanism. And his republicanism. Place in a political party now in danger of being taken over by those imbued with the meanness in today's politics. Is wellington. A religious conversation. Following a lord who sat at the table with tax collectors and sinners. We welcome to the lord's table all who would come. Following a lord who sided love of god and love of neighbor is encompassing all the commandments. We reject a political agenda. Texas places. Self evident. Why do we allow people. Who was appointed themselves that the spoke people of religions. Get away. With such nonsense as. Condemning. Spongebob is so he were gay instead of a sponge. I'm trying to turn terri schiavo into a right-to-life smarter instead of letting her die in peace of justifying a war with liza. So that's the right of crusaders who are bent on regaining territory from dreaded incidences of catering to the rich and ignoring the poorest. Those. Well. Somehow get through the eye of a needle. Time to challenge the kind of christianity that says. If you do well in life that proves that you've been chosen by god. And if you fail. What that proves is that you're busted. Welch's help. Was that. It's time to the bunks the notion. Unregulated marketplace is perfectly designed to reward good christian behavior and to punish. Those. Who are left behind. And i unrepentant. You know. Not even adam smith. Delete that. Adam smith believed there should be something other than just the hand of the marketplace. Rule decision-making in a democracy. And remember. This jesus who these other guys see us. Routing. Leans out of his eyes and carrying this huge sword. When he got angry. What did he do. He chased the money-changers right out. Any had a very. Special feeling. For even the least among us and always invited. Those of us with an open-minded approach to religion who got the challenge. The unreasoned views of. Many of today's bible-believing christian. Whether were christian or not. We got to let our neighbors see that it's not just biblebelievers. Who hear the voice of the sacred was in them. Therapist. We do too. And we've got to respond to it. In the way we relieved believe a religious person should. Because. If we can do this. At least a bit. Then maybe we can squeeze a little bit. Does that mean this out of politics. Andre inject into religion. The notion that it was compassion and not retribution. It provided jesus with the motivation. To give up. I hope.

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090405_pastoral_intro.mp3

I have to admit that it it seems ironic. To hold a service this sunday in which we use water as a symbol of joy. When in fact it's water. Chemicals in oil and sewage. That is inundated. Everybody thought of as a wonderful place to visit. To visit remembering this morning the water. That we've saved from our summer attorneys or. Our own homes. Water will use to refresh the plants in our memorial garden. How do we do this. Remember not only those whose ashes are scattered on that holy ground. We're lost storm. There's no way for the service to feel quite the same as it would if we had held it last sunday. Since then a city the size of the city of. Oakland mississippi that lies just beyond these hills. Along with surrounding areas with a population similar to the towns and cities that surround. Ravaged. Have been dropped. But the difference is with this. There are hundreds of thousands of people left alive trying to find food and shelter. Promise of hope. And as they do this. People here and around the rest of the country. Nothing happened. It's so it's just. Tough luck. Storm struck new orleans coastal areas. Mississippi and alabama and louisiana. Florida. Television. What happened. Just like the south. Track the paper said our senami but it's not really ours that is those of us in this room particularly. It's someone else's. We're saddened by what we see. But no matter how saddened we are there's an elephant in most people at least. Immoral and carrying a minister is supposed to be there is an element. Thanks. Poor souls. Lucky me. Besides. Our part of the country has had its disasters. 2. Most of us have had to. Face horse. This horrible is the holocaust. The others. Just as tragic things. What happened in our own personal or family lives. Really close to us. It's easy to forget just how fragile life is. The forces of nature what they are. Hello always. Just as they've always been. And if those forces of nature. Are destructive. It happened to come our way. The storm hits or the earth. Shakes or the hills. Catch fire. Homeless. Hungry cold. And frightened. Watching people die. Perhaps facing death ourselves. That's not the fault of. A government even if. The disaster in this case has been made worse by a government that seems. Interested in. Disaster. A government more interested in spending money on a war that seems to have helped. For those for whom it was supposedly. What happened along. Ghost coast of the gulf of mexico. That means we should be upset as pissed. About. The fact. Celebi supposedly protecting you city couldn't handle the results of a storm like this. So it might happen. But it probably won't. And we should be pissed that a government that boasts of all it's doing to conduct a war against terrorism couldn't self mobilized to help the people of new orleans. The laughter it's waterlogged. Anarchy. Reporter watch troops at an airbase play basketball. As refugees. Stream to pass. We might even wonder if. Hurricanes aren't growing in intensity because of. The global warming our administration claims doesn't exist. You're so you can just kiss goodbye. Ms. Shows how wrong our countries. Priorities. We have all of our priorities right. Hurricanes. Still happen. People still have to do effects of the devastation of cyclones and tornadoes earthquakes. Gospels in floods. Because no matter how high are all still apart of. Cycles of nature. Acts of god. But they are acts of god is so. God williston. Politician. Has to be saddened couldn't. Everyone i'm sure wishes with all their hearts that tragedies like the one that took place this week. Didn't happen. But they do. Just how fragile. Fall apart for us. We have to find a way to summon up the courage to will all those people. Along the gulf coast. We'll have to. Find a way to put things back together again with whatever resources we've got and they're a lot of people almost no. But they will. To bring hope back into their lives. Together again. But for us. Issue isn't. Weather. Question. Just in this case. Very much like it. Really see those who are affected. How do you still receive them. It's right next door to us. Thousands of files. In some distant place that we can forget about. Put on newspapers in the trash. If we're going to be religious people. Come to church on sunday. Whenever we see something we don't like. Real life to change. Life is. Fragile. And it's fragile for. Everyone. Can fall apart any day. Just like it did for those people in orleans in mississippi alabama. That doesn't mean we should dread of life. Force fresh was it is to be alive and in fact. Precious. So. We find our way to celebrate life. Realizing. Strengths and skills and health which blessed. What a gift it is to have. To care about us and there are people who. And everyone is. You heard about the basket. The back can i help you. Something from your pocket and putting it in there. If you'd rather not give to a unitarian universalist source i'd posted on the bulletin board out there are number of other agencies. American red cross. There is also. Flyer back on the. Tells you that. Catholic services which will be sending a truck with it from here. Down to new orleans. Texas serve wherever it is. We have to remember. That. It's going to take a long time. Serious. The city of new orleans.. 4. All those there to recover. But they will. Just as you've heard these images water. Trust that will happen. Just like it's happened in other places. Just like it happened in san francisco after 6. Our beautiful city of san francisco. News4us. And just remember all those places closer to us and how they recovered after the earthquake and the fire. Rising over there. So in the midst of the fond memories to share them with each other this morning to reminders of how good. Let us also think of. Happiness. Fish water in our bowl. For all the victims of katrina.

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082805_reading.mp3

Good morning. My name is mark mueller along with terry miller i could share the green sanctuary committee. And i just want to. 50 words of introduction to. Tony does a reading today. We're here today with the help of worship associates. To celebrate sunday service. And. Start i'd like to introduce. The members of the green sanctuary committee. Who put this together and you can recognize this way. River terrace. And one of our projects today was to acknowledge people who attempted to carpool rideshare ride their bikes and they have little green. The big apple. Adidas ted are green. Viceroy movement principle of the interdependent web of olives. And our mission is to. Build awareness of environmental issues and also a big part of it is the connection between our spiritual practice and our environmental consciousness. So today we hope to share with you the spirit that inspires us. To work toward becoming better stewards of our sacred planet. And all the people on it. Start the committee please check out our new green sanctuary. Play. Sets at the back of the church today it will be out at sea. Fact tables in following week and we want to thank god hopper for doing that for us. We also invite anyone else. Anyone who wants to join us we meet. At noon after service on the 4th sunday of the month. Thank you. This is just the first of several readings life a natural history of the first four billion years of life on earth. Richard 40 apprentice paleontologist. Describe the appearance of a bacteria three and a half billion years ago. Which had found a way to use the sun's energy to extract the carbonate needed. For its own nourishment. From what was a noxious hostile atmosphere. As a byproduct is produced what he called the most precious waste in the firmament. Oxygen. And here's how he pictured what happened. The quote. Imagine teaching cell exhaling the merest puffs of oxygen. Such as would fill a balloon smaller than a pinhead. Don't imagine a world sick with such cells. Vegan supper. And each time they divide. Another manute puff of oxygen is given to the air. Send this process through generations. As numerous as the stars in the universe. And for every generation a thousand billion tiny balloons of oxygen released. Tiny giraffes breath. Tustin puff. And will world. So this is how the air we breathe came into being. Followed by the teeming life around us on this amazing beautiful place we call earth. Which today we are in genuine danger of wrecking virtually overnight. And as an aside for those who may not have listened to the news this morning. One of the many predictions of the scientists who were concerned about climate change have made is that. There will be increasingly violent weather. There have been twice as many storms in the caribbean this year. That have been named by our weather service than any time in history and the storm that's headed for new orleans. Is going to be the largest hurricane ever on record. And they have ordered an evacuation of the entire city of north.

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082805_chalice_lighting.mp3

Going to. Light this challenge this morning. In honor of. The green sanctuary. Concept. Stitches taken from. Do you win environmental sabbath program. We have forgotten. Who we are. We have forgotten who we are. We have alienated ourselves from the unfolding of the cosmos. We have become estranged from the movements of the earth. We have turned our backs on the cycles of life. We have forgotten. Who's we are. We have thought only our own security. We have exploited simply for our own and. We have just started our knowledge and we have abused our power. We have forgotten who we are. Who know the land is barren and the waters are poisoned in the air is polluted and we forgotten who we are and now the forest are dying and the creatures are disappearing and humans are despairing. We forgotten who we are. Should we ask forgiveness. We ask for the gift of remembering. We ask for the strength to change. Because we've forgotten. Who we are.

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051016_reading.mp3

In an article in the humanist magazine entitled. How i failed the religious test for public office. David hawbecker describes an incident that deserves some attention. 4 years how about her know not only raised a family and actively supported his church school and community. For 13 years he served on the town board. But he had a problem the other members of the board insisted. Habitat didn't want to make a fuss but in conscience. He couldn't join them because he didn't believe ours was a nation founded. Malik knowledge that most. Of his americans believe in god you found it. Forced to say something he didn't. So. A group of conservative christians demanded he be recalled. Any was 106 2605. At his. At his final meeting. Habecker rose. Pledged allegiance to the constitution. Rather than the flag. Kiss the flag and then set down. He said he and his son were agnostics. And his daughter was a seventh day adventist. So none of them. Could not in conscience. In spite of their very different beliefs recite the pledge. Article 6 of the constitution says. No religious test. Shall ever be required. As a qualification for public office. Or public trust. So who is right. Those who voted for. Or those who voted against him. Church historian says. Great christian. Have said that it projects a loathsome image. Of god to have god's people coerce. The profession of faith. Instead of seeing such profession as a free. Voluntary and i'd like to sing joyful act. Confession of faith in god becomes a religious test. For public office. Is conscience well-served. Where's the main contribution. Been to punish those. Who can't be hypocrites.

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20150208_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

I'm not on facebook. I don't watch cat videos. I don't play candy crush my particular. Internet time sync. We're too many precious minutes can be lost is the google news feed. I call that news wiz with two o's in the middle like a certain processed pressurized cheese product is easy to access easy to eat and has absolutely no nutritional value i am especially drawn to stories about science and religion than because google always gives you more of what you looked at in the first place generous of them a lot of the religion articles that icr by self-identified skeptics who see religion as outmoded rooted in superstition and responsible for most of the trouble in the world as a religious leader i'm a little put off by this i don't know why i keep reading them over and over and over again a week or so ago on kqed radio forum program host michael krasny interviewed michael shermer is a science are in one of the founding editors of skeptic magazine what had me talkin back to my car radio was schirmer's claim that it was only not also but only enlightenment ideas about human rights and not religion which grounded the great moral revolutions like the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century and american civil rights in the 20th. The most troubling thing for me about this kind of conversation is what feels to me like a stubborn willful ignorance about the nature of religion. Again and again and again anti-religious advocates define religion narrowly as a set of pre-scientific unprovable beliefs about a supernatural god or as an ancient system of unjustifiable arbitrary rules for behavior and then tell you why that's so bad not only do they ignore any religious beliefs or rules which build-up human capacity and compassion but the idea that religion might even be something deeper than beliefs and more powerful than beliefs and rules. The fact that religions exist and have existed for ages which do not depend on unquestioned inherited supernatural beliefs or moral codes never enters their awareness the fact that you and i happen to practice one of those religions perhaps is one of the reasons that i'm a little sensitive about the fact that the anti anti religious apparently don't believe we exist.

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20150329_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

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20110910_bill_mckibben_web.mp3

America. We do not inherit the world. The earth from our ancestors. Not inherit the earth from our ancestors. We borrow it for my children. And in the united states with something like 25%. The environmental protection agency. Unsettle scientific theory. Environment.. Is happening to the world. His first book came out in 1980. It would be rights. Very very differently if our species are going to survive. Finish today. 350. org. Organize the number of major public. Countries around the world 188 countries. With the help of volunteers. Call. Reliance on fossil fuels. 22nd from field. I'm having been arrested on a part of a protest in front of the white house in washington. Against a proposal to build a pipeline. Two braids coming down. You have been called and called by the boston globe newspaper probably the country's most important environmental. Welcome. Great. A place in the pulpit i've never risen i've never risen higher in the ecclesial hierarchy than. Methodist sunday school teacher. Teacher is know how to use a. Tea towel to turn a third grader into a palestinian shepherd on christmas. Franklin. I want to make. 1260 people. Came and got arrested in washington. In the last couple of weeks. Several decades in this country. Make that. Explain why. It was i'll tell you first. Very beautiful scene after day after day. To the white house and have another crowd of 100 or 150 people. Overnight and gone true for training. Church and we're ready to go get arrested. It was. Magnificent. And i tell myself every morning for the same the same thing. It wasn't. You know. Normal law-abiding americans. Showed up for this protest. My friend with naomi klein. Frigid. First of all. His many years of foreign carbon into atmosphere. Might not in our economy. What are they going to do to you i mean. But we asked. Who was president. And. The two biggest. Biggest cohorts rehab. Getting arrested over those two weeks were born in the truman and fdr administration. And. There was a fellow arrested. 86 years old. If we wanted a little bit later on. And we can talk about it. Enormous. There's a very long and detailed story about how often. The reason that people showed up there are all kinds of. For realize climate change is the biggest problem. Bottom line. Most of all four people were coming from and that's what i want to talk about for a minute. Pressing for a minute. Cuz i'm going to report to you where we are scientifically she needs to know it tomorrow. I'm aware that my professional life is mostly to be a kind of bummer router. You know i apologize for that but. 22 years ago. We knew most of what we needed to know then about climate change it when your burn coal and gas. Carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Pretty straightforward how fast it was all. Unfortunately the answer from the last 20 years. Harder and sinking faster than we thought 20 years ago. 1 scientists are by their nature conservative and cautious they underpredict instead of overpredict. We didn't really understand. The planet really want. We spent the last ten thousand years in what scientists called. A. of benign. We're out of the holocene now sometime in the last 10 years we cross decisively from that period of stability into something else. Shofar human. And we've added about 3/4 of a watt extra solar energy for each square meter of the earth's surface. What's with the funny title. Play rthk. Pretend you're arnold schwarzenegger. Director. We've already taken. Same number continents gravity still works but. And they were 40 years ago because of the. People who remember their first pictures that came back from the apollo missions. The earth you know the first glimpse we have it just kind of. Blue-white beautiful. Marble floating in. Rackspace remember those pictures. Are as out of date as my high school yearbook picture.. Although come to think of it is a lot less white up top on the planet than there was. 40% less. Then they're worth no 89. Is that works just fine. Give you a sense of what's going on. 2010 with the warmest year for which we have records 1980. Set new all-time temperature records last year. Some of them were colossal we were on the phone. About. 360. org college in pakistan. No he said it's very hot here today. Picture records. 129. Okay. That's hot i don't know how hot it gets. In walnut creek in vermont where i live. We are all bitching and moaning. 30 degrees and then 490. And you've got some stamps from the world that we are building when you put in. She's like that. Continue the annual arctic ice minimum and it looks like it'll. 2007 the volume of arctic sea ice. Play sarah. Are related to the way that water moves around the earth. Physical facts to hold onto if you want to understand about. Warm air hold more water vapor than cold air.. 4% wetter on average than it was about 40 years ago. Any basic physical phenomenon. A number that is held essentially steady. Thrall human. Did you get a lot more drought. Because you're getting more of that water is up there it's coming down. And you get a lot more jailers and downpour and slide we've essentially. Throwing snow tires now. In the last year talk about droughts first. Russia last summer hat. Kremlin stopped all grain exports to the rest of the world turned around. The price of wheat and corn on world market to go up 70% coconut normal year russia's the third-biggest exporter on earth. The price of stayed there ever since. Drought. Western europe and parts of china in australia and now of course in the american southwest. The price of food. Doesn't mean. Amount. Price of a box of cornflakes is more. Determined by the price of corn. Corn tortillas for your family dinner. Increase in the price of corn. Find the number of malnourished people on earth has spiked dramatically in the last couple years. Going up not down. You can see this in the last few days. Texas which is suffering through the announce yesterday. Large parts of it have seen no appreciable rainfall for more than a year now. The drought has been much worse than the worst. 6700 homes burned. Forest fire service said. And i quote. No human being has ever fought forest fires in conditions like this. And he's almost certainly right. 789 %. Hot and dry salons but there's no longer in water for the heat to evaporate. Evaporating water when it's around in that limits. Temperature. When there's nothing left. The mirror opposite with slide your callers pictures from pakistan last summer. The khyber pass. Normally. Still outside. The point where 1/4 of the nation was covered. 7 million people forced out of their home several millions. With no place to where. Epic flooding has been mirrored utada pictures. Queensland around christmas time. And then of course you saw the amazing images from the mississippi in the missouri river basin fisher hear more water came down those rivers and has ever come down there. Because there was record snowpack. That's what you get when you have no record rainfall but it's below 32°. And then record rainfall.. Most recently in the last few weeks. Which team. Exactly the same thing going on. We keep very hard by the calendars tropical storm or hurricane irene come up the west episode east coast. Found water. Seawater rock new york and new jersey warmer than i'd ever been recorded there. To pick up immense amounts of moisture. You know i'm. Records going back a couple of hundred single day by 2in. Almost unbelievable. Records that last 400 years is supposed to be broken if they're ever broken by you know us 100 of an interior there or something like that this was like nothing we've ever seen it was like nothing you ever seen when you turn on the tv. Repeat it. Pennsylvania in new york. Binghamton new york right there on me pennsylvania new york border. Broke its all-time one-day rainfall record by 60%. The old planets. Only happens now because that rain is falling in essence on a different planets in this forest and road and bridges and everything else grew up on. Omg. Depression part of this. There's an ethical dimension to all of this. Because. Not everybody in the world has played an equal role. You know in vermont. Try some how to cope with. Nodding nodding. Inverse relation. Between how much the problem. Early on. 5% of 4% of us who live in america are responsible for about 40%. The greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at the moment. 100 years. The other thing to bear in mind. We're just at the. Rephrase the temperature of the earth 1 degrees i said. Climatologist tell us with great confidence. And gas and oil far more quickly. Then any government plans to at the moment. Number will be four or five degrees before the. There's no reason to think that human civilization can't cope with that. University of washington. Recently. Comfortable. The best catches this point. Everyone degrees celsius rise in temperature will produce about 10% decrease. Ian. Strange. 20 or 30% less calories on offer. We're not. You can't have. Peaceful world. Developing world. Stable world. All things you want to have happened. Got to stop. And that's what i want to talk about. How we make. Start to be able to do it. Situated the beginning so far. Workable contemptuous. Processors work that's how badly the political message has been. We had in washington a perfect 20-year bipartisan effort. Accomplish nothing. Absolutely. Anytime. And we need to figure out why that is. There are several. Comfortable with the fossil-fuel world in spain. And there's hard for us to deal with problems that are. Did jump out from behind the bush adderstone. The fossil fuel industry. The richest and most powerful industry the world has ever seen. Twerking. Keep anything from happening. Exxonmobil. Did more money last year. Company in the history of money. Are well aware that an arthritic. B u under power. Easiest thing in the world to use that power to. Who sings down in flotsam. Call them until later. Even at the cost of ruining the earth. Old model with how we're going to solve this problem for a number of years. Talk calmly into the europe politician. What was going on and they were going to do the right thing. Exactly how you'd go about doing things. Work. According to those kind of reasonable standard. It's work just fine. Problem is. The fossil fuel industry. Anything's. If we're going to. That power. Then we're going to need. Are there kind of currency to work. We're never going to match people dollar-for-dollar so we need movement. We need a movement. Command. Some respect. Accomplished. And that's what we've begun over the last. Haphazardly. In 2008. Our best climatologists. We know enough about carbon out and how much is too much. Carbon atmosphere greater than 350 parts per million years. Planet on earth. Strong. Language for scientist. Everywhere today outside. Walnut creek. The atmospheric standard 93 parts per million. That's why they are nothing that's why i texted you burning. The great depression paper to read. For those of us were thinking about trying to start doing a little movement building. This is the first global problem and solution will be necessarily global 21. Coca-cola. Which has all the money on earth. The reason is. And the problem with that when they transported all over the world. Prices. Nasa had offered up mites. Arabic numerals. Translate. In california. So we took it to work. We had that small advantage because otherwise it was me and 7. College kids with gotten out of middlebury where i teach a little bit before they were twenty-two anymore they were graduating. And there were seven of them. We had no money. There are. Each one of them. But everywhere there people who were worried about food naruto. Public health. About. Social justice. Degrading world. No one's working on in pakistan right now. We went out everywhere. Young people. We did. We did one in turkey for central asian one of the caribbean and one in. We bought a couple of kids in africa. Country before bit on an airplane or anything. Really good. 16 back out across the world we didn't hear from you months because you can't stay international notional in a lot of places you can't. Anybody in you want. Africa. So when you give her working. 1009. Number in china. To the world. We got the fruit pear. Glass of water out there any place. Was going to work 2 days early on october 26th. Sitting around this borrowed office in manhattan. Lower manhattan. Ethiopia. 17 year old girl on the other end. The government taking away our permits for saturday. Cannot do our thing. Saturday. So sorry we don't need to be. For everybody. We still looking forward to the gabe doing it with everybody else around the world. And we have 15,000 kids right now out. Next 48 hours. Pictures of floating all over the world. Demonstrations in 180 countries cnn call the samoyed widespread day of political activities in the planet. Anytime. Environmentalism. Taken care of. Food on table everyday can't worry about it. Most of the people we work with around the world. Are poor and black and brown and asian and because that's what most of the world is made up of sand. Maybe more so pressing down harder. Remarkably. Moving. Cedar's pictures. Every corner of the planet. And from every religion. The sea people in crisis you were done nothing. And yet we're willing to do. Huron info. Small indian ocean countries. Paradise. 1200 white sand beaches palm trees. The highest point in the maldives above sea level. There's very little reason to think that they will make it through the century. Boogie the first completely carbon-neutral. And then. The president mohamed nasheed. So they could go down. Underwater cabinet meeting on their dying coral reef descendants 350 resolutions out to the un. It was powerful. Leadership. Looks like. Reminder to us. Waterworks. Great activity. 6 weeks later inclimate meeting in copenhagen. We convinced 117 mesa. Sinon. Earlier with seven college kids. We can get all right you know network. Of course. They were the wrong hundred and seventeen. They were all the 41. Vallarta on where i'm going. I was worried after that cuz people my sisters and i was putting more words months later. Democrat. Mild-moderate terrified. That they would not even. Going to want to do. Around the world people are made of sterner stuff than i am. We have another big trouble day of action is coming you helped out with last fall global work party and people were building. Panels and putting up wind turbines. Great. 7400 east james in every country with north korea. Real pleasure to watch. Pleasure to watch. Call whatever they had president prime minister politburo. I'm getting to work what about you. Movement. Beginning. Mind-rape. China work for texting. Number 24. Ecards. Has more information outside as you leave for. I hope you all will be. What it's called. San francisco. I want to see. Moving planet. And all over the world people are trying. Transportation in various way. In the symbol kind of emerged. Important part of the solution. A city where 40% of people commute to work on pricing. Article on the time today before yesterday about house. We should have such problem. okay. Bicycles are beautiful. People like them and. Bicycles. Some of the glamour from automobile. It's not. To make them happen when you have lots of that kind of positive. We also need. Tubi. More. Aggressive. And interface. The people who are dominating. We need to take this fight. 2. Company. And that's what we're starting to do with things like. Tarzan tax number to talk about it for a minute and i i hope you feel helpless. Open action.org. Signed up to get the information. We can send it. Parkinson. Is bad deal laura. Is it kinder. European meeting size trunk of randolph. People start to look for this oil mixing with the same down below. Rally around this some years ago out of. Love's farrar. Native brothers and sisters. You know hard to get. Plans emerge for this giant pipeline that will dramatically accelerate the rate of. We're getting. Oil out of there. Jim hansen. How much carbon. Pool of carbon. Then we found the oilfield to tell you we didn't know a damn thing about global warming. Turn it all into gasoline. And as a result. Parts per million higher and co2. Questionnaire. Arabia. Are we just going to do the same thing all over again. Now we know. What a bad idea this is. If you were able to burn. If you were able to burn all your oil there tonight. Big huge concert. Alberta. To raise the atmospheric concentration. Co2 another hundred. 90 parts per million do. 540. Hanson. Parts and stuff. Game over for the climate. Morning is really. Civilization kidneys. Don't. And. Because 41. President obama. Get to make this call himself. Without our dysfunctional congress in the well. Typical of national interest. That's why people went to get. Arrest. Arrested wearing our obama 08. Really want. President. We worked hard to erect many of us. The guy who said on the night he was nominated. Presidency the rise of the oceans and the planet will begin to heal if you don't mean it. Return. However the last few weeks we were able to take. Regional issue and make it a national here. Haven't really heard of the tar sands. For this action and had heard of them afterwards. True all over the country now and that's good. Figure out how to keep. The president has said he'll make a decision by year's end. The pressure on. We're trying to figure out what the ways we have lots of good ideas. Pencil point. Angry marginalized characters. Dangerous. Seriously. Dirt work. Take them seriously. Will be doing for america campaign offices. Will be doing it at their headquarters. We'll be doing it. Current. Richard. Around the white house. Couple of months. When we go to there. In fact. We refuse to be. Alright. We're going to. Hold on to our idealism and hoped rekindles a little bit of the idealism you demonstrated. Powerpoint. To the white house. We're going to do it. Among other things. Country. I basically where next time. When i go to wedding. Funeral. I wore one when i went to jail. Remind. Politics. Parameters. Inspire people to catch a serious thing not a casual. R&r in. There's nothing. Radical. About word. Articulture. Work for or company. Composition of the atmosphere. In order to makes more money for. Abbie hoffman. He was going to dump some city. What's radical or what. Very small potatoes. Compared with. Composition. Wishes to keep the planet working something like the way it was when we were born. Something we need to. Because. Way way. I'm going to end. Telling you the truth. Since i'm more a writer than a organizer on. Screen to tell you the truth. When does perkins fight it's going to be. And their political scientist. If you were a betting person you might be inclined to get that way because for 20 years. Possible response from amoral. Wait person when the worst thing that ever happened in the world in the process of happening. Trying to figure out how you're going to change the odds of that wager some even if there's no. 5 years in constant motion around the planet within. Lehigh carbon. And yet they're willing to be in some kind of solidarity with. Fighting in place. A great honor. Great honor to. I cannot guarantee you were going to. I can absolutely guarantee. Fighting. Side by side. Thank you. Thank you. Commensurate. Before i have to i'm afraid run away to the airport. Good for you. But if you want to vote interforce zip time. You need to disapprove. Question really is not about we're not going to vote for you or not. Most people who are really hard for environmentalists are probably going to end up voting for the president anyway okay. Images. Port. To the pool. We really need. How to reignite. I'm more comfortable saying it that way. I would recommend a good reason like this. We were there. Knights inn. Stainless steel slab and no mattress and no pillow and no cheese or anything you're just there on this. Not a lot of sleep. Still with me by 7. Uncomfortable. Floor waiting to go out and knock on doors for barack obama. Remind me were. Chase steel. Wheat from maine. Hi my name's john scooter and i appreciate all the work you've done and raising consciousness. Appreciate. To make a difference. My question here is where the people sitting in the congregation. What can we do. Empowermenttemple.org transaction. Provide the counter pressure to what they're doing in washington. Can we send somebody to. You're from here. Can we do things locally with our representatives or or maybe you stop people from going into the chevron station here sometime. I'm not remember my email address. Jsuper. I don't think y'all can do this time i think he needs pressure. Congregation. Organizing. Raining today. The problem. Movements build momentum when they. Part of that. Change. Civil rights movement. To work in the sacrifice for our time. So much and i apologize for having to leave so fast. And i will look forward to the next time and it is a great pleasure. Boulder with y'all thank you so much.

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reading%2008-14-05.mp3

Martin. 67. Glorietta. Which has grown to print the sanity and security of the entire world. Man of goodwill. New order. Holy man. Philosophy of religion. Diversity. Virtually homeless and stateline. Vietnam. Modern warfare. Nightmare. Build a monument. 67. Honor. Martin luther king funeral.

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20150531_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

And so in the jewish spirit of midrash. A commentary. Where does it come from. The spark that turns a bright young person a little baruch. Into a towering figure of courage and conviction. Willing to defy the greatest powers of his age in the name of a compelling truth. What transforms the playful young lover into an unquenchable voice for reason for freedom. For faith in new ideas which still speak to us across 400 years. History tells us there was a girl named clara maria venden ending in boruit spinosus life. The daughter of his radical free-thinking teacher. But it doesn't tell us if they were ever in love. It was no playful matter in those days a jewish man and a christian woman. And it was no playful matter even in free-thinking amsterdam saying the things baruch was soon to begin saying about god about the hebrew bible about freedom and religion. Great powers stood ready to silence anyone who said such things and to threaten their families and their communities. How well the jews of amsterdam new this most of them just like spinoza and his family descended from people driven out of spain in 1492. Driven out of portugal against 50 years later finally finding refuge in this dutchtown famous for religious tolerance. But tolerance. Always has limits. You have to be careful the rabbis warn him it's dangerous for all of us you talking like this your radical christian friends might be safe enough but jews are never safe. But something set him free to speak his truth. Was it the loss of love. We don't know. Was it his exclusion from his community. We don't know. We do know this. Spinoza was certain that there is no difference between listening to your mind and following your heart. No separation between body and spirit. No room for disagreement between what you believe and how you live. Understanding unites. Everything. The biographer say he lived the rest of his life just the way his philosophy would lead you to expect. Simple quiet devoted to scholarship and science deeply kind compassionate. People who disagreed with him called him an atheist. They were wrong about that. Yet even they said he lived like a saint. Our own religious tradition tells us this. The life we live everyday that is our true faith. And in every life. There are extraordinary possibilities. How well this life speaks to that. Do not weep. Do not wax indignant. Understand. Baruch spinoza lived his life. On the razor edge of the sharpest and freshest ideas. He walked between worlds the way that many among us have done so as well. Today we would give him any labels. Theologian political scientist. And i believe also. The other tradition. That was milton. Psychologist. Because he had so many insights into what it meant. To be a human being. So today if we take nothing else away. Except for our desire to go and learn more about this man. And his. Immortal ideas. It is that we must honor. Freedom. That we enjoy everyday. Freedom that those who came before us did not have and that many who live among us. Do not have today. Freedom to see our own ideas. And to consider the teachings that beckon across the age. Espinoza's i will mention just one more. And that is. That because we are as he saw it of one nature. Because there is no great father puppeteer god in the sky. Setting our destiny for us. What we do matters. What choices we make matter. Among his greatest bequest. Is able to mine the ashes of his own life. And to continue. On as he could. And he said this. Happiness. Is a virtue. Not. It's reward. What greater teacher. Could we ever.

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20150823_mduuc_sermon_only_lo.mp3

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090405_chalice_lighting.mp3

We like this chalice. Wild world. When the anger is over. Made the world beyond again. After rain. Cool clean promise. And the dance. Listening.

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Rebekah-Visco-9.2.mp3

10 years ago this month. I was at a baby shower. We were celebrating some friends were about to become parents. Somehow i ended up talking with one of the grandmothers to be. I don't remember how this conversation begin. But i found her telling me about one of her daughters who had just returned to the college and it started a new career in nursing. She went on to say that she herself had been a nurse for more than 30 years. Now this woman could tell a story and she went on and on and on in great detail. About how unimaginably hard nursing is. But she spent just as much time describing her love for her profession and how deeply grateful she was for the opportunity to enjoy such a long rewarding career. I was captivated. But in the way you hear about a fairytale with a happy ending. I was jealous of her. he's ability willingness and success in finding a second career that she loved. I could not even consider how one might actually go about making such a dramatic change. It truly seemed impossible to me. Premier fantasy. It was a fun and delightful conversation. And one that was almost immediately forgotten. You said that time i was unemployed after having been laid off earlier that year. I've been working in computer software development. And it was a job that i provided well for me and my family for many years. In the height of the recession. Find me a new job felt like an enormous challenge. Let alone finding a new career. I had spent some time thinking about what i might like to do if i were to try my hand at something different. But i still had no answer. To the question. What do you want to be when you grow up. I was feeling pretty lost. And experiencing an enormous amount of pressure to help support my family. A year and a couple of part-time jobs later we were making a 600-mile move to charlotte. And i was looking into nursing schools in the area. The truth is that although i had always had something of an interest in healthcare i had never considered pursuing nursing simply because i didn't think i was smart enough. Well i had always been a good student in school science was my worst subject. And i have waited it as much as humanly possible. And here i was preparing to take microbiology. And human anatomy and physiology. It was the first time in my life i had thought about doing something where success was far from certain. In fact i thought failure was a pretty good possibility. It was terrifying and yet at the same time part of me knew that i had to try. I had no idea what i was getting into. Nursing school is ridiculously hard in ways that are impossible to explain it doesn't matter what else you've studied or how much you know about other subjects but human body is astoundingly complex and mysterious. Self-doubt is a daily practice as you plowed your way through classes. And the odds of survival scene swim. Humana savas do survive. And find ourselves signing are in after our names. Some of us are lucky to find jobs. And despite. Everything we learned in school. That's when the real learning actually begins. It turns out that the most challenging part of nursing is often not related at all to the physical sciences that we've studied. At the heart of nursing are the principles of caring and the ideas specifically of caring for a whole person. Not just treating illnesses. Healing is a process involving the mind the body and the spirit. But the hospital where i work we base our practice on the work of nursing theorist dr. jean watson. She developed a very complex. Expensive model of caring science the guides all of our interactions with our patients. This model includes core principles of practicing loving-kindness. Being authentically present. Developing trusting relationships. Creating holistic healing environments. Cultivating spiritual practices. Intentional caring consciousness in all aspects of even the most basic human care. And being open to miracles. You know trivial stuff. So after practicing nursing for more than five years i finally have some level of confidence in the knowledge and skills that i have acquired a muffin a new priest preceptor for new nurses. And i enjoy passing on some of what i have learned. But the truth is that every time i made a new patients. Well i may know something about their medical diagnosis. I have yet to learn their story. Caring for that patient requires me to walk into that room with an open mind and an open heart. And the willingness to allow them to teach me. Who they are. And what matters to them. To meet people everyday with vastly different experiences and perspectives than my own. Mba allowed a small role in their journey toward healing. Whatever that might look like. Is a privilege and it is humbling. It's true that i started over in dramatic fashion almost 10 years ago. Lucy unending support of my amazing husband and kids. Of all the blessings i have received along the way none is more special than the daily opportunity to form real connections with people i have never met. This painfully shy introvert has come a long way from sitting alone in an office. Answer candless tech support calls. But we all start over in small ways all the time everyday and every time we interact with someone and allow them to fill our cups we are creating courageous connections and inviting transformation into our lives. May we approach each other and those we meet with empty cups. And maybe remember to allow space. Premier rentals.

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11.18.18_Grateful_Living.mp3

Once upon a time. In the land of plenty. There was a kid named zedd. Instead lived with his family. It never seemed like they had enough of anything. Not enough heat to warm the house not enough food to fill their bellies. Of course the land of plenty had a health center were families like zed's could go if they needed help getting through the week. But the thing about the help center. Was that the council of matter is big and small. Had decided that the most cost-effective and nutrient-rich way to deal with poverty in the land of plenty. What's the serve nothing but canned beans. Raynor scheine. The problem was they didn't like beans to begin with. And eating them all the time with almost unbearable. Suzette went to see the council of matters big and small. The members of the council all set in big tall chairs and looked down on zed as he walked in. The president of the council leaned forward and said. Yes. What do you want. Dad pulled himself up tall and said. Hi. Unsaid. And i wanted to lodge a complaint. But some families have too much and some families have too little. My family gets food from the help center every week. And i'm here because. I'm sick. A beans. I want lasagna and cooked carrots and chocolate pudding for dessert. Surely all human beings deserve that at the very least. The councilmembers look surprised. And then grumpy. The president of the council said said what makes you think you have the right to get more than your fair share. Then tried to say you see it doesn't feel like a fair share but no one could hear him because rather than listening for a response the president had turned to the other members of the council and they were all muttering quiet and then loud about how rude children could be these days. The president of the council decided to sleep on it before making a decision. Plus zedd's talk of lasagna and cooked carrots and chocolate pudding had made her hungry. So she went home and ate a big plate of all three. After a comfortable night's sleep the president decided that even though it was true. Hit that deserved more than a can of beans. Giving everyone enough to live comfortably just wasn't practical. The brass tacks of it was that the land of plenty didn't have the infrastructure for such a radical change of routine. So instead of addressing zed's concerns the president told the council of matters big and small. It says request was too difficult and idealistic. And therefore not a priority and they should move on to something else. And so's ed's family went on getting too little. And other families went on getting too much. And it wasn't fair. And it wasn't right. Whether we are in kindergarten or third grade. Or adults. We know that this isn't the way the story should end. That story is sad and frustrating. We don't want some people to have too much and some people to have too little. The story reminds us that the world is not. As it should be. That there is a strategic in balance of power. Resources. And opportunities. In our world our country. Our city. I know that when i run into the difficult truth is that i live comfortably in a world of such stark. Economic disparities. When i run into these difficult truths i want to turn away. Or i want to believe that it makes the world better it helps solve the problem. If i simply try to feel as grateful as i can. For my abundance. When of course the difficult truth is that no matter how grateful i am. My gratitude will not correct the carefully protected imbalance of well. My gratitude will not make it okay that i have so much and others have so little. We heard earlier whitcomb a trojan had to say about difficult truth. She said the dig is that we want to get rid of the situations that make us most uncomfortable. We want to solve the problem and not hurt anymore. Pema chodron goes on to say difficult feelings provoked all are irritations. And bring our habitual patterns to the surface. And this becomes the moment of truth. You have to choose to stay with the rawness and discomfort of the situation. And let it. Transform you. It's a lie. The think that if we could just learn to get away from the painful things. Then we would be happy. We have to sit with the painful things the impossible. Can't this impossible can't solve them overnight kind of things. Until we find our way to meaningful change. Until we find a different way of existing together. We'll never get closer to our impossible hopes without this practice of sitting with the rawness and discomfort. Of injustice. But how do we do both. Told injustice in our world and our gratitude at the same time. And do we dare give thanks. In an unfair. World. Do we dare give thanks. In an unfair world. Do we dare find delight. Enjoy in a world. Where there is suffering. Yes. Of course. Unitarian universalist minister robert walsh says. Life is a gift we have not earned. And for which we cannot pay. There is no necessity that there be a universe. No inevitability about a world moving toward life. And then self-consciousness. There might have been. Nothing. At all. Gratitude can't take away the suffering of others. Gratitude can't make life. Fair. But then expressing gratitude does not have to be a hopeless attempt to pay a debt. For all that we have. Gratitude can be thanksgiving. An astonished joyful response. To being alive. I had the same teacher for second and third grade. And her name was carol. She was everyone's favorite teacher. After recess carrollwood have a sit in a circle and she'd read aloud while our heart rates calm down enough to focus again on classroom work. If it was your birthday. Carrollwood tell you all the ways she had seen you learn and grow during this last year of your life. And why the world was a better place with you in it. And you really got the sense that she'd been watching you. That you mattered. But she was grateful for your existence. Carol took the time in the midst of all the demands of the classroom to notice. And help us notice. But was good. And beautiful. As an adult i kept in touch with carol. Once when i was visiting home we went out for dinner. We enjoyed the conversation so much that we made a habit of seeing one another whenever i was in town. Slowly i learned more about carol's life than i had ever known as a kid. She had a difficult first marriage. Made worse by living on a shoestring budget. 4 * she's been a single parent with two young children. She's been underpaid at hard jobs being behind a cash register for years before she began teaching. She battled cancer. Carol's life had not been an endless stream of blessings. So many things had not gone her way. She knew life was not often fair and. She couldn't help. Feeling grateful. Congrat itude was a real no-strings-attached response to being alive. Gratitude was not a payment for blessings received. It was not about taking an account of the good and the bad in the world. In deciding whether or not she should be grateful. She just was. Elizabeth tarbox rights. I give thanks for the opportunities to love that present themselves in the turmoil of life. Where the light catches the tears in another's eyes. Where hands are held and there are moments without words let us be present. Then. Let us stand in the morning on.. Grass. Hear the syllables of birdsong and fill up on sweet air that rolls over oceans and continents. Let us look up at the stars and the planets that fill the night sky with majesty. Let us witness the first freshebuds of spring amid the brown sticks of winter. And for all of this let us be grateful. Let us not defend ourselves against the discomfort. Unruly. Emotion. Nor seek to close down our hearts for fear a new love will come to shake our foundations. Let us instead be open to discovering a new way of seeing an old problem. Appreciating the perfection of a seashell. Or the possibility of friendship. Thornton giving ourselves to what we do not yet understand. We receive life's blessing. In a world so unfair. What assets with the pain of the struggle trusting that the rawness and discomfort will indeed transform us. And in the midst of it all. Dare to give. Thanks.

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9.15.19_Incarceration.mp3

While vacationing recently in low state south carolina. Our family escape the heat one afternoon by retreating into the cool dark confines of an old charleston movie theater. To enjoy the remarkable spectacle. Does disney. Re-released lion king. Coming. Can it be a quarter-century. After the original. It took about 260 million dollars to create this photorealistic computer animated remake. And yet for all of its technical wizardry the film relies on the exact same compellingly sappy story. Of the young cub simba's. Poignantly painful journey. To assume his rightful reign as king. And it opened just as the original did with the song. Circle of life. It's the circle of life and it moves us all through despair and hope through faith and love till we find our place. On the path unwinding. In the circle. The circle. Of life. Alongside the pop catchiness of elton john's tune tim rice's lyrics fashion for us. Whether we recognize it or not a universal spiritual symbol. The circle. For millennia we humans have used the simple perfection of the circle. As a way of depicting certain spiritual concepts. Like. Wholeness. Like the infinite. Maybe especially connection. Ralph waldo emerson in his first set of published essays included one simply titled. Circle. Emma cheetah claims the circle. Is the highest. Emblem in the cypher of the world. 22r spiritual for bear today we sang circle round for freedom circle round for peace and break not the circle of enabling love. So in keeping with our theme for this year we might imagine in our ever lengthening list of spiritual questions the probing query. Who is in. Your. Circle. Family. Prince. Those with whom you share a particular identity. Those within you share some. Audiological resume. Those with whom you shared proximity or a profession or some other source of connection. Who is in. Your. Also in keeping with our theme the individual question who is in your circle knife circle has a collective component. Who is in. Our. It may be one of the most important collective spiritual questions we can ask. Twice in the early months of 1950 albert einstein. Send a similarly worded letter of condolence to grieving fathers. Gyros. A human being is part of the whole called by us universe. Apart limited in time and space we experience ourselves as thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest. The kind of optical delusion of our consciousness. This delusion einstein claim is a kind of. Kind of prison. For us. Restricting us to our personal desires into affection for a few persons nearest to us. He admitted our circles tend to be fairly small. Restricted. Einstein continued. Rtasks. Must be to free ourselves. From this prison. By widening our circle of compassion. Acknowledging how challenging that is he wrote nobody's able to achieve this completely but the slaving for such a tv. Is itself. Part of the liberation. In a foundation for inner security. It's a graphically spiritual metaphor. We are imprisoned. By the narrowness. Of our concern. The restricted nests of our circle. Freedom our own liberation is gained einstein professes by widening our circle of compassion. Whenever we individually create a circle that is too small we imprison ourselves within its narrow bound and whenever we as a congregation as a community as a society. Fashion circles that are restricted to certain kinds of people. We imprison ourselves. Within the smallness. Asset circles put another way. Whenever we attempt to solve any problem. By indulging in the illusion of our separateness. Buy as einstein put it the optical delusion that some are and some must remain. Outside of the circle. By that delusion. We can find ourselves. You hear the claim. This scientist radical form. Indulging in the illusion that they are not apart of us. Imprisons us. Within the bounds of a narrowly drawn circle. Majestic spiritual truth assert we we will never be free. So long as we indulge in the illusion of our separateness. The delusion of separating others. From us. But that of course. Is exactly what we as a nation do. Baddest risinger is a professor of english at john jay college of criminal justice. At the city university of new york. Enter book incarceration nations to rights that the us is the world's largest. Jailer. With 2.3 million people behind bars. 41 in 100 avar adult. With 5% of the world's population we're home to nearly 25%. Of its prison population. 1 and 31 of our adults is under some form of correctional control. 1 + 31. Risinger informs us that in federal prison only 4%. Are in for robbery. And a 1% for homicide. The majority are serving long. Hard time. For drug offenses. What country she says considers juveniles too immature to vote or buy alcohol but mature enough to live in adult prisons where one intend to sexually assault. And of course the spectre of mass incarceration doesn't impact us all the same way. Blacks are 6. Times more likely to be imprisoned. Then why. In fact more african-american she writes are under criminal supervision than were enslaved. In 1850. As of 2001. One-in-six black man. Had been incarcerated. 2005 human rights watch counted more than 2,000 americans. Serving life without parole. For crimes they committed. As juvenile. The entire rest of the world she claims has. Only ever locked up 12 children without the possibility of release. And she reminds us we are one of just nine countries. Who punished via both life sentences. And the destin. But wait. What just happened. We were going along in a service focused on their theme. Talking about spirituality. About spiritual transformation. When all of a sudden things change. The talk turned to a social problem. In our ongoing conversation about the racial injustice that is a part of our long-standing white supremacist culture. How did spirituality suddenly get switched out for yet another. Social concern. Or. Or did it. If indulging in the illusion of our separateness. Is a spiritual failing. Doesn't that make incarceration. Obvious. Spiritual issue. Taking initial modest steps under the guidance of our racial justice engagement group to become as our partner christy puckett williams has urged us to be co-conspirators. With other struggling with e am inspector of mass incarceration is make no mistake about it. Is. Spiritual. It is about as we sang earlier not breaking the circle but making it wider still. So when bryan stevenson points out that black defendants are 22 times more likely. To receive the death penalty for crime victims are white. Rather than black. Is a spiritual concern. When and following the lead of our partners with laird to see the common humanity among those we encounter in the court system. And in incarceration this is. Spiritual. Isn't that why our congregations vision framework makes it absolutely explicit as spiritual awareness and practices. To our experience of societal transformation and. And our efforts to create greater justice and equity. Arkansas go to our experience. Spiritual transformation. Ironically. Imagining we here can have separate circle. One for those who are interested in wrestling with questions of justice another for those who prefer spirituality. Isn't that just one more way of drawing their circles too small. Who is in your circle. Who is in my circle. Who is in our. I've long love that wonderful image from wendell berry. We class. The hands. Of those who go before us. And the hands of those who come after us. We enter the circle of one another's arms. And the larger circle of lovers whose hands are joined in a dam. And. The larger circle. Of all. Pictures. Passing in and out of life. To move awesome. In advance. 2a music. And fast. But no here here's. Except. 2 fraction.

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1.14.18-_Marcus_Bass.mp3

In addition to others of you who are visiting. They just me great pleasure to welcome to our services today. Two of our nation's. Finest activists. Marcus bass. And bree newsome. For those of you who may not understand why i had hoped to get them here together. I'm delighted to use this opportunity to publicly congratulate bree and marcus. Who last year became engaged. Coming first to read and then speak will be marcus bass. A native of clinton in eastern north carolina. The reason he writes with families and lands. Still familiar with the generational footprint of slavery. Marcus is a graduate of north carolina a&t state university where he served as student body president. And as a vocalist in their award-winning. Gospel choir. Yes we're going to have him back. Marcus's first public school teacher and then serve the north carolina association of educators garnering impressive support. In appreciation for his work. On behalf of teachers. He is now campaign director with democracy. Mc marcus we hope you'll say a bit about that. Facilitating the understanding of political power. And the role of culturally competent locally focused organizing. Is much in demand as an organizer a speaker to trainer throughout the state across the nation. He gives all credit to. As he put it. The original organizer. An architect of the universe. Marcus i have so admired and so appreciated your work. Quite some time. From some distance. I am honored to welcome you now to our pulpit. I give you. Marcus bass. Those are outstanding words from. A man who has no doubt seen a bit of social justice work himself. Thankful to be before you are here. To warm you up for. The main course there is much to be said about the life of dr. king and i don't want to take. A lot of your time but we will begin with. Short passages. From his. Last book why we can't wait. Why we can't wait. Never in american history. Add a group seized the streets the squares. In the sacrosanct businesses. Thoroughfares in marble halls of government. Protest in proclaim. The unander ability of their oppression. Bedroom size machines turn human. Burst from the plants that house them and stalk the land and revoke the nation could not have been more amazed. Undeniably the negro had been an object of sympathy and wore the scars of deep grievances but the nation had come to count on him as a creature who could quietly endure silently suffer and patiently wait. It was well trained in service and whatever the provocation he needs to push back northfolk back. But just as lightning makes no sound until it strikes the negro revolution generated quietly. But when it struck. The revealing flashing b power and the impact of its sincerity and fervor displayed a force of a frightening intensity. 300 years of humiliation abuse in deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper. The storm clouds did not release a gentle rain from heaven but a world wind which has not yet spent is forced or retained its full momentum. Because there is more to come because american society american society is bewildered by the spectacle of the negro and revolt. Because the dimensions are bast and the implications are deep in a nation with 20 million negroes it is important to understand the history that is being made today. In the second. Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself and that is what happened to the negro in america. Something within has resembled and reminded him of his birthright of freedom. And something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously has been caught up by the zeitgeist and with his black brothers of africa and its brown and yellow brothers of asia south america and the caribbean the united states negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. Everyone recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the negro community one should really understand. Why public demonstrations are taking place. The negro has many pent-up resentment in layton frustrations and he must release them so let him march let him make prayer pilgrimage to the city hall let him go on freedom rides and try to understand why he must do so. Repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways they will seek expression through violence this is not a threat but a fact of history. So i have said not to my people get rid of your discontent rather i have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though i was initially disappointed at being categorizing extremist as i continue to think about the matter this is king speaking i gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not jesus an extremist for love love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you and pray for them that despite and despitefully use and persecute you. Was not amos an extremist for justice let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream was not paul an extremist for the christian gospel. I bury my body the marks of the lord jesus was not martin luther an extremist. Here i stand i cannot do otherwise so help me god and john bynum. I will stay in jail to the end of my days before i make a butchery of my conscience. Enable ham lincoln this nation cannot survive half-slave and half-free and then thomas jefferson we hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal so the question is not whether we will be extremists but what kind of extremists will we be. Also want to recognize my new family humphrey will probably introduced during her remarks the newsome to joined us. For service. And it is quite an honor to be in front of this family and i hope not to stumble over the words that you're about to hear. Let us feast on the king. Across the country. Tomorrow and for the better part of the next four weeks. America will feast on the life in the legacy of dr. martin luther king jr.. And just as people recently grabbed for the juiciest meats and overlooking the tougher parts of the turkey. We often times over the parts of history that are deemed too tough to chew. Now i don't know what it is about the nature of history in the hands of man maybe winston churchill said it best when he said history will be kind to me for i intend to write it myself. We find history rewritten or for the better phrase refocused. On the aspects of king and his life that reflect what we want our society to be rather than what it has been. Why we love to remember king on the mountaintop we often overlook the king that was brought over a lunch counter. With handcuffs in albany. It is a great honor to be in the presence of a recitation of the i have a dream speech but it isn't a parent. Tara call the bomb blast of molotov cocktails thrown through his living room window at 2 a.m. in the morning alarming and threatening the life of he and his family. Disrespect for the totality of the story is resident not just in the recollection of kings fight for justice. What time and time again histories instagram feed and histories facebook post only recalled the positive recollection of martyrs and movements. It is why we don't tell the truth history of the now nationwide free breakfast program in public schools neglecting to give credit to the black panthers. It is why we flock to cities like charleston in new orleans to immerse ourselves and what was what called historically black culture but we will not spend 10 minutes or $10 shopping on beatties ford road. We do this without acknowledging the reluctance of this country to ever accept the consequence or even recognition of his horns. It was written with reluctance. That ronald reagan signed into law the holiday placing king in the celestial plains of presidents and founders of this country. We do this now with he's pointing to the king monument in dc but yet and still neglect to point. To the second-story balcony of the lorraine motel. The binary that this king person in the american king character lies on is a horrific and brutal one. But it is also beautiful and encouraging and it's played out time and time again in the annals of american history. We are accustomed to commemoration without counting up the cost of such heroic tragedies as the death of king. At the assassination of malcolm jfk lincoln and countless others. But in the case of dr. martin luther king jr someone did. Someone in the stead the burden in the calling long before the lorraine hotel until this morning if you will allow me just a few minutes before we hear from our featured speaker miss bree newsome i would like to examine a few key elements of the true martin luther king jr. You see the sequence of events that birth and assassinated martin luther king must be credited to alberta king his mother and martin luther king senior is father. It has become in some cases black history month trivia. To most that martin luther king jr with ridgeley named what. Michael. King. And that his name was changing early age to his father's and dust we get martin luther king jr.. What if one only dare to care about the elements of black history as synonymous with world history a scratch beneath the surface of the name would reveal a divine intervention and a spiritual understanding that predicated such an intentional change as this. Descendants of slave trade still bear the trauma of the injustice of slavery in many ways. Noticeably through the disaffiliation with our ancestral names. The association's to surnames for many african-americans today. Is linked to the family who owned said person while kobe is note 4 taken during transactions and inventory of humans that were viewed as chattel. There has yet to be a complete index. Or true way to truly reconnect with our original names. Over the past 100 years many families have proclaimed their names in some form or fashion what it was in 1934 after leading a church assigned to him after the passing of his father-in-law the lake ad williams that michael king senior. Would be compelled to change his name and the name of his four-year-old son. This occurrence after king seniors trip to the fifth world baptist conference in berlin germany is historical even in today's imagination. It was on that trip that michael kingwood come to understanding the meijer the works of the great reformer martin luther. It is important to note that in berlin another rising ruler would take his cues from martin luther but from the context of racial separation as a means to seek spiritual purity. It is ironic that this international convening of religious prelates one of them or infamous remarks from convention attendees was this. It was a great relief to be in a country where salacious sex material and literature cannot be sold what putrid motion pictures and gangster films cannot be shown. The new germany has burned great masses of corrupting books and magazines along with his bonfires of jewish and communist its libraries. It seems at the time they were attempting to make germany great again. That in this moment of great conviction in 1934 fueled with a desire to take ownership over the claiming and naming of his person and his personal family units that michael king senior took it upon himself to take on the middle name and subsequently the full name of martin luther. While retaining the surname of king. Like splicing genes and some molecular but astronomical fusion this decision and the decision to marcus offspring with the same modification there and thereafter. We have not just a reprisal but a metaphysical reparation. The subsequent parallels between martin luther the reformer and martin luther the civil rights martyr are distinct from beginning to end and in many ways the legacy of martin luther king jr. serve to provide a reprieve from the credit given to luca the reformer for the roots of the nazi holocaust at the hands of the interpretation of adolf hitler. Good morning senior have known that he was electing to contribute. His entire livelihood and his life by offering his son the burden of interchange in namesake. King singers life after the assassination of his son and later the assassination of his wife. Who was shot early one morning while playing the piano for sunday morning service at ebenezer the same church of father pastored in her husband were going to leave for over 40 years. Ensure we only have the words in the pope's of undoubted love for mankind. Talita's to the ideals of the charismatic ministry of martin sr. As a matter of fact it was the love and the fervor for non-violence and justice that martin luther king. Junior would remark that attributed. To the success of his own pastoral embarking. Martin luther king senior had himself been alone influential figure in the civil rights movement and as pastor of atlanta's ebenezer church reverend kinglet voter registration drives in the mid-1930s champion 11-year struggle to win people pay for black teachers and use his influence to further the well-being of black atlanta's four decades. Martin luther king jr. was brought to us by no mistake. Martin luther king jr credit his father with influencing his decision to join the ministry saying he set forth a noble example that i didn't mind following. And after the death of his son came was courted by saying you were looking at the face of a black man that hates no one. Today. The descendants of tubman and jefferson. Destined to pay the debt from the check rendered and sufficient over 50 years ago at the march on washington. Not to change our name in as much as we are urged to attempt to change our conditions. Fifty years after the assassination of martin luther king jr. we still stand in the city smoldering from similar and justices king outlines in his book why we can't wait. This is not the first time a city has elected progressive candidates in the aftermath of a major calamity and hopes to subdue the anger of a city who has yet to heal from the open wounds of police brutality poor living conditions and unequal treatment. No we do not represent. Assembler atlanta. We represent the same atlanta we represent the same selma we represent the same birmingham and the same new york from the 1960s. It is from this text why we can't wait. King expounds on the understanding of the movement beyond the bus boycott and compels us to look deeper at the systemic power struggle between those with power and those without power. King said while negroes were being appointed to some significant jobs and social hospitality was being extended at the white house. The negro leaders the dreams of the masses remained in tatters. The negro felt that he recognized the same old bone that have been tossed him in the past only now it was being handed to him on a platter with courtesy. Imagine the world that we live in today just thinking or wishing for courtesy from the white house. With these new protest we were advised sometimes privately and sometimes in publix to call off our efforts and channel all of the energies into registering voters king says. On occasion we would agree with the importance of voting rights but would patiently seek to explain that negroes did not want to neglect all otherwise while one was selected for concentrated attention. Becerra noted by king continue to play not just the advancement of equity in america but has undermined and understanding of what true democracy is and its help to vail intentions of racism until now. The 2016 election of donald trump as a continuation of the revival of o'connor conservatives that. Mini imagine. Would be reckoned with years ago. This most recent week of racist remarks fueled by man swooning for the simple center of american psyche by doubling down on a strategy. That reaches back to the same philosophy that devastated germany just a few months after. King seniors trip. The berlin. Tom is flipping over and over on itself for a third time and while the ink on the emancipation and subsequent amendments is long drive. Many fear and amnesia of sorts could run a file the progress made over the course of the last 100 years. But in this room today the lives and spirit of a people. We live more by deed than by creed. A man and woman. If a person were perfect elections alone integration alone academics alone court proceedings alone with a remedy the cause and effect of this racist system but no. We are required to understand more to think harder and to look longer at the problem and truly seek to solve what king said could not wait. The seeking of knowledge of the experience gained bills upchurch in our minds that manifest across our personal professional and social ecosystem. That extends beyond the ignorance of racial hatred and bigotry. But it must be an intentional change in a permanent ship and as much consideration as one would give or pop before changing their name truly changing as a people. Means understanding the evolution of humanity has nothing to do with the color of your skin. Understanding that somewhere between revelation and emancipation spring notion that suffocated true evolution and confused prosperity with the promise of false superiority. That has resulted in our current predicament today. That to undo and evolve we must go beyond our condition pattern of thinking dismantling racism is liking to charity but more so it is vital to the survival of mankind itself. Scientist and archaeologist of trace the origins of human race back to a black woman on a continent of which our president has mistaken for a hole. With this whole is actually his genealogical birthplace. Of course it factors, discredited until he actually proves that he was born here on earth. Is it begin to take my seat anti-blackness is one of the strongest roots in the wild bunch of racism and is being used to manipulate the true development of our civilization for the past four centuries. European civilization in the american ideal of assimilation through indentured servitude been chattel slavery then sharecropping for next to nothing then low-wage skill employment then imprisonment been school-to-prison pipeline then higher rates of infant mortality and now gerrymandering on a rational basis and a partisan bias of districts in the holes of evolution of mankind. Innovations in advancement in technology will not be the markings of an evolved nation. But the treatment of the totality of humanity which showed the markings of a truly advanced society. I hope that this year as we commemorate king junior and celebrate the emergent respect and reconciliation of our queens we find that evolution in fact has everything to do with love and all else is inferior. Thank you.

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12.3.17_we_must_be_our_own_representatives_and_advocates.mp3

Back in the 1990s at work to the wonderful community organizer name the olaf anyway. Houston's third ward. Third largest cities. Traditional african american warriors. It was the challenge neighborhood where i live and where in my congregation shows the field during the decade i was there. My teacher. Dammit my dear friend. Choose wisely. Deeply principal. The striking woman usually appearing in the labyrinth kente cloth attire. And she was somehow able to temper or serious strain. The rain in between or laugh. The patient capacity. Navigate to third ward community cloth. An organization she founded and headed. The concept is broad. Everyone in the community is a strand in the claw. Each organization business school every individual has something. So we should all get at the table. Deeply invested in our conversation. Inferior engagement better characterized as as. Are you. So much energy has obviously not committed to a broad and inclusive. Who are trying to undermine what we were trying to accomplish. Repeatedly. Text since we all shared that area. Since we all have the internet. Regardless of audiology attitude theology approach. Should be invited to help shape our community. Do we work. Cheesy with determined me. With some remaining suspicions. Drink more and more of our community together. University village located on the boundary of that area with a high-level administrator. We took our seats in his comfortable office and pitched at work explaining that we were bringing the community together to assess both knees. Every sources. What needed our attention and what resources might be available. What is rice considered making someone with influence available. The meat or regular basis with. Become an active strand in the cloth that we were weeping. Interesting facts. Miles approvingly. Crossword puzzle support for our project. I'll tell you what i can offer. We have some used computers in good shape. And we can tell you. I'll arrange to get some scholarships at our summer camp. For some of the kids in the neighborhood. And with that yesterday. Are beating chained to a rabbit. When we got back in the car by almost always patients. Incredibly composed friend with a adjective. I suggested we find a place together. Please. The think that we might be able to destroy computers. And get some kids. In a way i've never seen. Filter tearjerker. shook. Was. Don't you understand. Be completely dismiss what we asked for emily presume to decipher without even asking what we need to do. He wasn't sure. He didn't listen. You didn't ask. The gesture is nothing more. 170 years ago. 170 years ago today. Discover card 1847 issue. Northstar. Douglas was a well-known figure in abolitionist. Powerful personal story. Rhetorical. Display the maryland sometime around 1817 a state to new bedford massachusetts. 1836. Just five years later while still a very young man he began his career as an acclaimed abolitionist with a rousing impromptu speech. What are the people who heard that douglas speak on that day with the great abolitionist. William lloyd garrison. The former slaves began introducing him to wealthy abolitionists in the area arranged to have his autobiography published. And secure opportunities as a fugitive slave. Among other efforts garrison the liberator and the anti-slavery standard. Highland. Within a few years of evangelical. Frederick douglass decided to begin his. Separator. Applications. Apart from this adventure in competition. No doubt aware of how this might be perceived frederick douglass's editorial and the north star. It is neither a reflection on the fidelity of the ability of our friends and fellow flavors. That's the one who has suffered. Is the 12 the man preacher. Is the weather friday. And that the one who has to do with the tool things of slavery. Is the one of the advocate. Douglas infiniti. It is evident we must be our own representatives. Empathic. Not extinct. Button connections where. Car wiper. Committed like abolitionist. He was fully aware. Garrison. India. The north star. It's masthead declaring right is of no set truth is of no color god is the father of us all and we are all brethren. Regions in the united states. Ignored. And do something garrison and other like abolitionists didn't think why. Why would you have derek's sounion responded to his publication with the judgment that his approach was not the right. Because. We must be. Representative. We the wrong agreement. Voices. Directions we ourselves initiate. The grand struggle for liberty and equality now when it is meat. Right and is essential. Leaders who would set the direction. Dude use their full capacity. Years later the influential brazilian educator frederick douglass. Maplecrest. Beta prayer must. Baby. Reconyx app. Struggle for theater. Isn't that important what is comply and identitarian universalist principle of thurman the deuce of the democratic process. In society. The use of the democratic process in society at large as a core tenet of our religion. Separate the way society functions from. We don't believe social justice into spirituality are two distinct sears. Ways we can have individual preferences. Of our religious princess. Epicenter of how we name was we are above. It's a statement about society. This principle offers an appeal for self-determination. I just arrived. Butler tire. People get. Over there and situation. A effort to impose from the outside. Approach structure italian any assumptions. Undermines what we said. If the issue is racial justice. Those who have suffered the wrong. If the struggle is in the struggle for racial justice. The ways that struggle is conducted. Leadership the message. Must first meet the approval of all. Best charlotte weather. Liberal preferences. What we hear and endorse. The struggle for racial justice. Only percy in ways that allow progressive. Hold on to. All of our perceptions. The leaders in this truck. Weis. The board of this congregation. Has summoned us. Target. Listen to people and ideas that may challenge. Listen to and learn from those who are marshmallow. Frederick douglass's absolutely. Good morning to have been with. Representative. Make no mistake absolutely is a row. It is not to sit apart from. And decide from afar what is lead. It is certainly not as i learned years ago. Chandler. It is absolutely not to show up holding store on our route. It is a. Elizabeth partner. It is to respect. Superman. Richard. And teacher recently reconnected. Diversity. Her willingness to allow menu. Let's try to learn. After all of these years. And after all of my engagement party. I am still. Where am i. In which most. Have a little. Brb lyrics. How old is eminem. Wrangler fr spinal infection. Intrude. Transportation. Arby's.

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3.4.18_pressforprogress.mp3

Two weeks ago i arrived at a retreat center high in the hills of palos rancho palos verdes. A lofty perch commanding a stunning view of los angeles and its environs down below. It was unseasonable a blustery chilly quite windy. Not at all the way one imagines southern california. There i spent four days worshipping. Learning. Listening. Reflecting. And talking with other senior ministers. From the largest of our unitarian universalist congregation. More so than usual it felt a little like a misery loves company experience. In the current social. Political. Cultural. Religious climate. Ministry has become as hard as it has ever been. For most of us. In the sanctuary of our assembling lee admitted as much. Offered assessments more candid than usual. Attesting to the ways the challenges of our times and the upheaval within our own movement. Makes every word and action feel. More fraught. This is a group with whom i have met for more than a dozen years three of which had served as its president. During this time it has changed rather markedly. There's more attention to spirituality. There's a kinder and gentler tone. I'm more comfortable appeal to and use of prayer. A much more frequent use of explicit god language. A bitless egos. And a good bit more. Compassion. However the single biggest change among the lead ministers of our largest congregations is this. There are now many. More. Whitman. When i entered this group men dominated our ranks. In the intervening years retirement and relocation from certain male ministers have made way for a new generation of leaders. Most of whom. Are women. This is by my estimation. An obvious. Change. For the better. On a day when we lend our voices to those who will mark international women's day this week i lift up the ministries of my female colleagues as one profound cause for celebration. As we consider this year's women's day theme press. Her progress. These bright gifted imaginative women are one clear indication. The progress is being made. I celebrate deb and jan and victoria veteran senior ministers in our group. And i'm delighted for colleagues joining us on this way angela christina gretchen genie jessica kathleen lisa marie and meg nancy wendy and others. So how about you. You probably don't know these gifted colleagues of mine. So who is it that you can celebrate on this day. In the world that you occupy in the places of influence and power that you know in the arenas of your life that get your attention and that hold your interest who are the women. You can call to mind to acclaim. Today. Activist. Artists. Arthur's. Business leaders. Community organizers. Physicians. Professors. Teachers. Text l. As a nation we have continued the long-overdue effort. To pull back the curtain. On the horrific specter of sexual assault and indignity that still defines so much of our culture. Racine courageous woman after courageous woman. Come forward to break our unspoken vow of societal silence to save with both defiance. And heartbreak. Me too. Me too. Me too. I celebrate this utterly tragic. Orderly necessary. Progress. I celebrate every single woman with the courage to step up and join and determine solidarity with sisters and all stations of life. You are breaking silences too long. Help. And yet. I have a concern. For all of what has come and may come from women exposing their painful experiences we must not focus on women as victims alone. One of the most important things that we can also do. Is celebrate every woman who is in taylor rhodes memorable wording. Furious. And. Magnificent. And hearing and feeling the fury. Let us not fail to name. And acclaim. The magnificent. Women who have is audre lorde puts it. Dare to be powerful. In so many places and ways. Women who have an audrey enriches words. Cut their strength and determined not to settle for less. Women who have and denise levertov testimony heard their wholesales saying and singing what they knew i can. Women who have in kimberly williams crenshaw's unmistakable clarity recognize it's not about supplication. It's about power. It's not about asking. It's about demanding. It's not about convincing those who are currently in power it is about challenging the very face of powerxcel. Today even as we continue to press for progress today. Is all about such women. Who are changing. The very face of power itself. That's why i'm hopeful. About the company of the clergy i know best. And yet where our ministry is concerned we should put this in some perspective are often selective reading of our history notwithstanding. The progress that we are seeing. In a movement now led for the very first time by a woman president. My friend the reverend susan frederick gray who will be here with us on the last sunday of this month. The practice progress has been slow. And hard. With some i interject. Some of the first women ordained in the us either universalist unitarians. Yes. Dating whale back into the 19th century. Well sadly some of the largest religious traditions continue to this day. To exclude women from the ranks of their spiritual leadership. Can you imagine. We broke down that barrier of very long time ago. But a deeper exploration of that history offers less cause for self congratulations. Around the nomination admits the path for women ministers in our faith tradition has not been easy. Others early ordained women few were allowed to serve. In full-time ministry. Others were relegated to small struggling parishes or assistant positions alongside their clergy husband. We owe a debt of collective gratitude to a remarkable group of women ministers. Put your neisha sleep embody their roles following the women's ministerial conference in 1875. 21. Unitarian women. Founded the iowa sisterhood. To serve congregations throughout the great plains. Life was not easy among those pioneering settlers. Male ministers coming from seminaries in the east weren't fighting to be called too small congregations where the work was hard and the recognition with limited. Prayer time these women succeeded because they collectively brought adolescent academic and more pastoral approach to their congregations. Beers was a more compassionate model. Of ministry. But to our. Detriment. Patriarchy. Prevailed. The larger denomination. Didn't support them. Their approach was seen as quote. And embarrassment among the clergy. Back in boston. So early in the 20th century. Unitarianism the leaders. Began a concerted return to a more manly ministry. In order to revitalize. The denomination. And what became of that first wave of women ministers. Most were rushed into retirement. Others left to pursue different kinds of work. They were never a large movement their ministries were relatively brief. And they did not manage to transform the possibilities. For women in unitarian ministry. But the pioneering women of the iowa sisterhood are remembered because they managed to cast a shining vision. For women. Who were called. A minister. Might it be that steve's sewn on that vast prairie over a century ago. May finally. Be bearing the fruit i witnessed a top that california hill just a couple of weeks. I imagine that those persistent women. Of the iowa sisterhood. Whitby beuchat. And please. To see women leading large congregations in california colorado minnesota north carolina new mexico. Ohio texas wisconsin and other places as well my classmate my colleague my friend the reverend kathleen owens senior minister of our very large congregation in san diego attest to the import of women. Like the iowa sisterhood she admits when we open history books. And we don't see ourselves. Our lived experiences. Something happens in our brains and in our hearts. In our sense of self. And how we understand ourselves. Late. tamara sadker educator and writer echoes kathleen's claims. Each time a girl opens. And reads a woman. Less. History. She learns that she. Is worth. Lettuce. We have a history. One that both recognized women as leaders and resistance. Women. As leaders. On a day when we are reflecting on women's accomplishments. It feels important to acknowledge the ways in which our liberating religion. Has been liberating. And ways in which we too have resulted to practices. Deeply rooted. And patriarchy. And sexism. Now in a time when a majority of unitarian universalist ministers are women. A majority of unitarian. Universalist. Ministers. Are women. We must not take this as a laurel upon which we can rest. And whatever arenas that you know. Where you work or investor understand there is almost assuredly. Iowa sisterhood. Kind of story. These are the kind of stories of uneven progress. Of one step forward and then two steps back. Of the utterly. Tenacious. Pernicious. Patriarchy. And we must tell all of these as cautionary tales. In our press for progress we cannot relent lest we revert all too soon. Does something entirely untenable. Interpress for progress we cannot be sidetracked or dissuaded by men who are feigning support. While continuing to acton subtly or explicitly sexist ways. Interpress for progress we must remain vigilant understanding clearly that's not being among the worst of the offenders. Hardly give some of us men and excuse. For what we have done. Or. For what we are now trying to understand. And where that are pressed for progress comes. At a time when we are witnessing the absolute worst. Sort. Of sexual abuse. And assault. Called-out in the very highest offices and roles in ireland. This must not for us b1. More occasion. When we become more interested in castigating the failure of others. Then in examining our own flawed. Thoughts and behavior. For those of us who identify as male especially for those of us who are cisgender men. If we're honestly. Interested in transformation. There are obvious acts that we. 10 and we should. We must. Do our. Own work. We must call one another. To accountability. And we must do exactly what we are learning to do in the face of other sorts of oppression. We. Must. Step. In every equation. Of imbalance in each occasion of marginalization. Transformation memes. Always. Those with more power and more privileged and more possibilities must consciously choose to step back. Far too often we imagining additive approach. That is where too prone to believe that transforming the dynamics of power does not require those of us who currently have privilege to give up anything. To change anything. To become in any way uncomfortable. It does not. Work that way. Transformation never works that way. Transformation means changing the hole forms inverting the order of things opting to set out on a completely new way transformation means not just that the last. Should be first. Transformation also means. That the first. Should we laugh. Today we celebrate the women. Hooper. In the biting culture of patriarchy. And sexism. Today we celebrate the women of color who persist. Even as too many of their white sisters remain oblivious. Today we celebrate the lesbians the trans women who persist. Even as white. Straight. Sis women leaders. Are still learning. Essential importance. Of intersectionality. I don't know a more forceful for rochas vision than that of womanist writer alice walker. In the memorable declaration she titled. Democratic. Womanism. Democratic womanism. I want something. Delts. Walker announces. A different. System entirely. One not seen on this earth for thousands of years. If ever. And what does that mean for her. I'm speaking of truth. Regime-change. Where women rise. To take their place on mus. At the helm of earth's. Frail and failing ship. Walker admits. There is no system now in place. They can change the disastrous course the earth is on. You hear. There is no system. There's no system. Now in place. That can change the disastrous course. The earth is on. Who can doubt this gf. The male leaders of earth. Appear to have abandoned their very senses. Now alice walker believes we must foster. Places in which circles. Of women meet. Organize ourselves and allied with men. Brave enough to stand with women men brave enough to stand with women. Nurture our planet to a degree of hell. For strong women. Who have held that vision. In our history. For strong women who embody such a vision now. For strong women who are being nurtured into furious. Magnificent. And into magnificent. Purity. Today. Webull. And respect. Ingratitude. And. In solidarity.

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6.10.18_Some_See_The_Forest_Some_See_The_Trees.mp3

The nine members of our professional staff recently devoted a whole day to team-building as one step in welcoming eve to marry band. The first half of that day we engaged in a discussion of our myers-briggs types. As many of you know the myers-briggs type indicator is a personality assessment based on the work of the swiss psychiatrist. After responding to a series of probes about our personal preferences from a written questionnaire each of us was given a four-letter myers-briggs type indicator how we perceive the world and how we tend to make decisions. Go to draw energy from interaction with people are designated with an e for extraversion. Energy from quiet and reflection and need time alone in order to recharge. Our designated with an eye for introversion. If you are most inclined to trust information that is concrete intangible. Express in detail and data and fat and derives from the five senses urms for sensing. Strong acids for example make a great scientist. If you tend to find meaning and underlying theories and principles are comfortable with paradoxes and uncertainty if you enjoy the realm of possibility if you trust inspiration and innovation you are in in for intuitive. Almost every minister i've ever known. What's an end. Tune to people and their feelings if you tend to be empathic and sympathetic if feelings play a big role in your decision-making you're probably and if. For feeling. If you prefer logical analysis or looking for things to make rational sense if you measure decisions but what seems most reasonable. Then you are likely a t. Puerto rican. If you are flexible and spontaneous we don't mind leaving things open-ended you are given a p for perceiving. On the other hand if you make decisions with confidence if you are adept at creating and following a path. The plan. Your designated as it's gay for judging. My myers-briggs way of it. We are all either an e r n i. Ns orelien. And if. Break. P. Origin. Your fourth letter designation indicates your myers-briggs type. How many of you know are from this description can surmise your myers-briggs type. Good. Okay. Let's find out shelly energy from being with people. You need to recover from interaction with quiet. You'll be napping this afternoon has more concrete fact-based scientific thinkers. Speculative philosophical imaginative thinkers inches. How many orf feelings play a big part in your decision-making. You try to make the most rational reasonable choice. How about peas your open-ended you're flexible. Chicken pot pie. Cuz some of you. This is this is open-ended inflexible now just making sure you understood. I see our problem now is we get this work as a staff learning each other's preferences and tendencies. Things make more sense. Understand now why you're so good at that. I can see why doing things this way with frustrate you. I recognize where we are likely to collaborate well and. Where we will probably keep right on frustrating each other. Briggs type indicator is designed to affirm the strength of all types without suggesting that anyone type is preferable. At least that's the theory. I've been familiar with the most bridge for a very long time and it's fairly obvious appreciating all types sounds good. The ideal type is actually intj. Which. Completely coincidental just happens to be what i am. What are the chances. Insert many of us no one more so than me. Will be relieved to know that without using the myers-briggs as their guide our minister search team was remarkably successful. In finding a new minister whose core preferences. Mstyle. Toppers a distinct variation from mine. Is an e while i am and i. Rivers by necessity storm ends. Season if. Anonymity. She's happy. And i'm a j. It's just as i had her. Colleague. With a different approach. Return i can partner and from whom. I can learn. And expanded to our whole staff. A good network soften collaboratively we reflect several different myers-briggs types offering us i think a better opportunity to reflect the variety of approaches within our congregation. Outsiders and two newcomers. The unitarian universalist church of charlotte can be a confusing place. How is this possible to have committed christians. And. About it. Make sure spiritual path is informed by their jewish heritage alongside those inspired by buddhist teaching. Earth-based pinkins. Earth centered pain in teeth. How's it possible that for example i religion include as you heard in today's readings a humanist. Who is indebted to the bible clothing bible-believing christians in her past and. A woman who having rejected her muslim heritage. Found her way back to an appreciation for this phone. And it's gift to her current spiritual perspective. In the computer confusing cacophony of all of these voices. Whose perspective. Who's way of seeing things. Is the preferred one. Sometimes the time i've had colleagues from other religious traditions asked how i could possibly know what to say on any given sunday to a group whose members don't share the same spiritual perspective. Explain that we are a bit like the myers-briggs. A religious traditions acknowledge that we here have a multiplicity of spiritual viewpoint. We proudly claim that as one of our core strengths. We don't aspire to sing this. Seeing it exactly the same way. Every once in awhile we had those who thought we'd be better off if we all thought mostly alive. Held to the same truth and affirmed and rejected the same spiritual perspective. Wouldn't we be better off if we were all christians. With no atheists. With no christian. Judaism and buddhism are paganism. All who reject one or more of those spiritual perspective. When we prefer a place where we can simply assume. That we all share in the same hopes for the after. That we all expect to be reincarnated or. But we all recognize the afterlife to be nothing more than wishful thinking. Movie 16 country share definition. When we be when we benefit from the assurance that any of us using any of the words that inform religious communities. Spiritual perspective faith traditions including of course. The words religion spirituality and faith. Themselves. Are using them in precisely. Fortunately. Throughout our history impulse never seems to get very much traction among us. This evening whole two and ideal when you'll find express in the first few pages of our gray hymnal. It says. Grateful. For the religious. Pluralism. Which in riches and in nobles hour. Faith. We are inspired to deepen our understanding. And. Expand division. If you come here if you ought to be part of this congregation this is what you can expect to find religious. Witch in witches and in nobles are fake. Along with an inspired aspiration to deepen our understanding. And expand our vision. Defining statement of who we are suggest two things about each of us. 1. We each have a perspective. We're sharing. We all benefit from the perspective. The brothers. Put another way. A very odd weather. We are not. Woodcock's. Woodcock's are described as. What bodied. Long billed birds of damp. Dance woodlands. Here's what distinguishes this particular species. The eyes of the woodcock. Arcet fiber back on its head than those of any other bird. In fact there are openings are found below rather than behind their eyesight. Remarkably this enables the woodpecker. They have a 360-degree field of vision. Beechwood cock. Can take in the entire scene. My contrast a pair of healthy human. Positioned as a art or the front of our heads has a total field of vision of approximately. 200°. This is to say. At any given time even those with the keenest vision are seeing considerably less. Then two-thirds of the furlough. Field of vision. What is true for us biologically physiologically. Is true also for us audiological. Spiritual. None of us. Has the capacity. Alone. To see it all. Each of us is limited by our individual perspective. Impressment. Even intj. Need the insights that other screen. So i'm already benefiting from his contribution of her extroverted inclination to our shared work. Just as my biased toward thinking. Compliments her. Less effective weight bias toward feeling. There's a 12 century persian tail found in the plane the conference of the birds written by sheikh fareed eldeen a tire. Even the birds of the world embark on a journey. Lacking a cheerleader they set out on a quest to find the murderer. The mysterious and benevolent king lives behind the faraway mountains cat. It's an arduous journey one that takes them through seven valleys where they faced various challenges and learn various lessons. When they crossed the final valley and they reach the land of the simmering. Only thirty birds remain. Aloha. They discovered at the destination not the leader for whom they saw it. But rather a lake. Into which they gave seeing their a reflection of themselves. 30 birds. In the words of the ancient coin with all they gave these. And dared at last to comprehend. Bay. Where the sinner. And the journey's end. Desi the simmer. At themselves they stare. There's no ruler to be followed. No one view of things. To which all must adhere. There's only. There's only the group. They are the similarities. The whole community of the barriers combined. That's the unitarian universalist view. A religious community and of the spiritual quest. Of course each of us has our own particular spiritual path of course we each have a perspective that is ours alone. But we believe the truest path is one that is created. Together. The past as we say explicitly. Of religious. But journey together on this venture of faith christian. + 80. Jews. End. Pagans and an impious. Humanism. Endlessly. Sears of forest. Damn. Sears of trees. We each as we say deepen our understanding. And expand edition. Like those birds on their quest we have no holy book. No speaks dogma. No 7.4 no prescribed path but put forth by the spiritual exemplar. Then we all look as the authority. Because of that we need each other's in science. Perspective. We also need one another's. Humility. Respect. Willingness both to share. And to listen. Best offer. Antemasque. Best chicken meal. To be curious. We each catch glimpses of spiritual truth. None of it. Has a corner on that market amazingly. Not even i in tj. We teach our kids hear a simple song that expresses a profound truth. It says. From you. I received. Kuiu. Ikea. Together. We share. And by this. We live. Mia pizza.

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M-Kniseley_K-Greene_D-Swaim-8.26.mp3

It's been almost five years. Since i transition from longtime member to staff member as. The adult programming coordinator. You may know that i was born into unitarian family before the merge with the universalist. I've come to appreciate the eye and humility that the universalist brought to the mix. I have fond memories of easter flower communions in the dark quiet candlelight christmas services. I also remember sitting in my fifth grade sunday school class bored out of my mind with crayons and paper in front of us to keep our idle hands busy as the uninspired teacher read us bible stories. Conversations with adults were more academic than religious. In my memory. We've come a long way since then thanks to the ua's curriculum and professional development in our own professionals here. I joined this church as a young adult 40 years ago i think like next month i have a card to prove it. And it was a no-brainer. Maybe that's the problem. It was too easy. But i needed a community when i moved to this city. As the years went by i realize that i also need to figure out the spiritual peace for myself. Many of you here talk about. Why you left the religion of your childhood and i had to figure out why i should stay. Up until this point i wasn't comfortable with god language i didn't know how to be a truly good friend with a christian i think i wondered why they would want me for a friend too. Then in time something made me open and willing to listen to other religious sources that i wasn't open to before. I read the writings of henry new one. Anne lamott. Pema chodron gregory boyle the list goes on. When my first marriage was ending i was grateful when my former boss said that she was praying for me. It meant something different to me. I received it as a gift. I also remember reciting the prayer of saint francis holding onto the beautiful words of forgiveness and like. I believe now that had i not been here free of dogma and creed i would not have been able to freely explore these new spiritual path. I believe that i'm still sustained by the shift i made to an openness to other possibilities. That we don't have it all figured out. The mystery that surrounds us. I can call god. And the love that some call christian. So when i accepted my role as adult programming coordinator i was hoping that i could serve a community that i already value. And that you all would give me much in return. What i didn't count on was it this deep learning we've undertaken together. Woodforest require us to get comfortable and then insist we be open and willing to further our learning in order to make deeper connections here and in the community. Now my spiritual self my heart. Knows that i don't have a choice but to move forward. Because once you've gotten this far with what you know there's no turning back. You can't unlearn the facts about systemic injustice. You can't unlearn the knowledge that people have been hurting for a very long time. Uu minister kathleen mcteague says that any religion worth the name should help shift the behaviors toward the comic greater good. So we articulate the meaning and practice of our face through our actions that reveal and enact our core values. As i stepped out into the community this month to learn from various organizations about their work with immigrant and lgbtq communities. I went with my empty cup. But i arrive grounded by my faith. I am grounded spiritually by this faith community in the knowledge that we are here as witnesses to each other's lives. In sickness. And in health. Laughing crying and learning together. When i started. As membership coordinator almost 4 years ago. I understood that i didn't really know what i was getting into. I was already an involved member of this congregation a dedicated volunteer and it recently served on our board of trustees. Still i knew working here was going to be unlike any other experience i'd had. It felt like making a leap into the unknown. Unlike staff and many other congregations. I am still a pledging member. I continue to attend classes and activities and i still participate in some small groups. I have friends here. But i had to let go of what my experience is a member used to be. The line between my work life and the rest of my life. Isn't always so clear. Before. I didn't need to consider that someone here or out in the community might take my words and actions is representing my workplace or religion. I had to let go of some of my some of my anonymity. That question so what do you do for a living. Had never before led to me explaining. Unitarian universalism. I do like to tell people about it. But maybe not in every social situation. I used to be able to volunteer in my congregation without working. Now. That's really not a thing. I even had to give up my favorite volunteer roll ever. Advisor to our senior high youth. To be open to the new ideas and different ways of doing things that would be part of this job. And to serve the best way i can. I needed to let go of assumptions ideas and ways of communicating i've learned other places. For instance. I've worked in places where we were all expected to say the same things and express the same opinions. Or risk. At minimum. Getting talk to you about not being a team player. So i wouldn't say much. And would try. Not to even consider if i thought what we were doing was right. Because that would have really frustrated me. Here. I'm encouraged to share what i think and feel. As long as i do that respectfully. It surprised me to discover. How uncomfortable that would be. Feeling like i had to suppress my perspective had gotten comfortable. Introverted quiet. Not so confident me. Had to let go of my tendency to hide in the corner and contribute nothing. Who knew i might sometimes have something to share. It's been such a gift for me to have this job that allows me to do work that is so meaningful to me. Had i refuse to empty my cup. Of what i done and learned before. I wouldn't have had room to receive that gift. Good morning. Tuesday morning of this week. We were greeted with the news of silent sam's demise. Bet the evening before despite police protection that it cost unc close to $400,000 over the past year. Protesters had managed to pull sam from his pedestal near the entrance to the campus. To paraphrase the epigraph. For this morning service. There are mornings when everything brims with promise. Especially an empty pedestal. 50 years ago almost to the day. I was a wide-eyed freshman. Just beginning my 10-year on that same campus. Somewhere along the way i heard the schoolboys myth about silent sam. The one about him in the virgins. And i knew he was a confederate memorial. But that was about it. I knew nothing of his connection to the ugly resurgence of white supremacist movements. In the decades after reconstruction. Even when i graduated four years later. With an american studies degree no less. I was mostly ignorant of that chapter in our nation's history. As some of you know i am interested in history. I have worked professionally as an architectural historian. And i'm interested in my own family history which has deep roots here in north carolina. Like many families we put our fair share of scoundrels on pedestals. During my journey as a historian i've traveled a fair distance. Toppling them over. Following the toppling of silent sam the unc board of governors chair and unc system president. Issued a joint statement proclaiming the actions of the protesters unacceptable. Dangerous. Incomprehensible. One member of the board of governors has proclaimed. Prematurely i can only hope. That sam will be back on his perch. Within a few weeks. Clearly some have a long way yet to travel. On the question of what to do about confederate memorials i confess i wavered. I wavered until i read mitch. Mayor mitch landrieu's justification for his decisive removal of for civil war monuments. From prominent locations around new orleans in the spring of 2017. Maryland row reminds us that these monuments are like kkk crosses burning in someone's lawn. Erected purposefully to send a strong message of subjugation. Basically a terrorist message. To literally put the confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor. Landro says is an inaccurate recitation of our past. It is an affront to our present. And it is a bad prescription for our future. I come into you landros speech in its entirety. Most of our civil war monuments were erected between 1890 and 1950 which coincides almost exactly with the jim crow era. The peak of the memorializing was between 1919-20. For me the face of that era is my maternal grandmother. I sometimes say i come from a matriarchal line. And for much of my life the center of. The family was this towering matriarch. No one among my ancestors had has been more unassailable e on a pedestal then she. I knew her as an ahead of her time. Progressive thinker. She was a suffragette. She was state president of the pta and battled the state legislature for strong public schools in the 1920s. But she also glorified her father. My great-grandfather specifically for his service to the great lost cause. Intended to view her slave-owning grandfather. Through rose-colored glasses as well. I don't know that she add jatate it for civil war monuments but she. Could have could well have. What does this mean to take ancestors off their pedestals. And how does one do it. Gently in the case of this much-loved figure. Once done we see them in their flawed humanity and it's a truer picture. For me this reassessment of history on a personal heroes. Is an emptying of my cup. It represents the necessity of removing obstacles. Obstacles. To the relationship that i want to have with truth. Obstacles. To the relationships i want to have with people. Obstacles to the partnerships that we may want to forge. An obstacles to the future that we all. Want to have.

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5.12.19_ramadan.mp3

During the month of ramadan. Muslims seek to commemorate the foundational events. That began the islamic faith. In the month of ramadan some 1400 years ago. Muslims believe allah first began revealing what would one day be known as the quran to muhammad. As someone who stands outside the islamic faith. I'm drawn first to the insights of historians and secular and progressive muslim scholars. And the story they tell of who muhammad was and how he came to be meditating in the cave. Where allah first spoke to him. Muhammad was orphaned at a young age and raised by his uncle abu talib in the city of mecca. Abu talib was successful in business. He taught muhammad the ins-and-outs of leading large caravans of tradesmen to sell their wares abroad. And returned home safely with their profit. When muhammad was 25 a wealthy and well-respected business woman named khadija hired him to lead a caravan for her. Khadija was so impressed with muhammad's business sense and trustworthiness. But after working with him for a time. She asked muhammad to marry her. They were married and begin a loving and supportive partnership. Muhammad now had a family. Well. And social status. Yet as he looked more closely at the society that had made him wealthy. He felt a growing sense of discontent. Here he had so much. Well daily he passed people living in abject poverty. Esau orphans without homes. And the cruelty of slave masters to their slaves. He began to notice the laws and customs that made the rich richer and the poor poorer. Muhammad's life of comfort became a torment to him. As his soul grew more and more restless muhammad would walk up into the mountains near mecca and find secluded spots to sit in silence and meditate. This went on for nearly 15 years. Muhammad begin to fast for prolonged periods and set longer and longer in silence. Every so often sometimes in a meditative state. Sometimes while walking home. Muhammad began to hear voices in to see things he wasn't sure where real. Until one day as he sat in a cave alone in silence as usual. Muhammad suddenly felt as if something unseen had wrapped itself around him and was pressing in on him without mercy. He tried to free himself but he couldn't move. The pressure became so immense he thought his chest might cave in. The world grew dark and muhammad felt certain he was going to die. And then a terrifying voice commanded recite. Muhammad protested that he didn't understand what he was meant to recite but the voice went on. Insisting. Religious studies scholar reza aslan rates. At the moment when he thought he could bear no more. The pressure.. And in the silence that engulf the cave muhammad felt allows words stamped. Upon his heart. Muslims believe the quran to be the record of the words allah spoke to muhammad. Based on the words found in the quran sometimes allah gave muhammad poetry. Surah 86 reeds. How will you comprehend with the night star is. It is a star that shines with a piercing brightness that over each soul there is a guardian. Let man consider what he is made of. He was created of springwater issuing from between the backbone and the ribs. Sometimes allah spoke words of mercy. Concerning the widow and the orphan. Throw 103 reeds. Verily men are in lost except such as have faith. And do righteous deeds. Enjoying together in the mutual teaching of truth. Anna patience. Inconstancy. Other times a lot spoke words of wrath and destruction. 37 reads and you shall then be humiliated on account of your evil. And on the day of sorting out they will be asked what is the matter with you that he helped not each other. And they will say now we shall indeed taste the punishment of our sins. When muhammad finally made it back home after that first encounter with a law he was shaking violently and weeping. He begged khadija to hold him. So she held and rocked her beloved. Speaking soothing words until the shaking stopped. For years muhammad told only his closest family members what he had experienced in that cave. But the painful and disorienting revelations continued. In the more muhammad tried to go on living his life of comfort. The more sick. He became. Until at last muhammad surrendered fully to the revelations no longer fearing what might happen to him he began to share his faith with anyone who would listen. Now rather than taking his discontent into the mountains muhammad began to question the corrupt practices of the powerful in mecca. Speaking out against the exploitation of the vulnerable. Muhammad spoke out so persistently. City angered the city's most powerful business owners. In turn these influential leaders in mecca called for a boycott of muhammad and khadijah is business. And the businesses of their small band of followers. These first muslims were forced to leave mecca and nearly starved for their convictions. But they refused to abandon the new way of life that their face. Demanded. It was during the month of ramadan in the islamic calendar when muhammad received the first verses of the quran. And ever since ramadan is a month of both spiritual discipline and celebration for muslims. Rahat ali is a muslim american playwright. In writing about what ramadan means to him he says. Ramadan is a state of mind. It's an attempt to achieve god-consciousness that carries one throughout the day. I'll leave right to use an artist metaphor. Being muslim is a spiritual work-in-progress. Were you strive for perfection knowing full well you'll never achieve it. But this driving is important he says. Because our actions are predicated upon our intentions in islam. During ramadan from sun up. 2 sundown muslims neither eat. North drink. They spend these days trusting their hunger and what it has to teach them. How it draws them closer to the reality of suffering and need in the world. To their own compassion. Closer to allah. In fasting muslims embody their longing for a more just existence for all. And when the sun sets when darkness moves in and moon the moon can be glimpsed. Muslims gather to celebrate. They invite family neighbors and strangers to share and festive feast. The excitement of children staying up past bedtime to laugh seeing and hear stories fills the air. Many describe an abiding sense of peace as they break their fast in community. Their daytime hunger having carved deeper channels for gratitude and celebration. During ramadan our muslim neighbors remind us of the nourishment hunger can provide. How are longing for a just world and our commitment to connect with god. The community. With our highest ideals. Feeds. Our faith. Perhaps in the midst of his own fasting in observance of ramadan in the 14th century. The sufi poet rumi once wrote. There's hidden sweetness in the stomach emptiness. If the brain and the belly are burning clean with fasting. Every moment a new song comes out of the fire. Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry. Expect to see it. When you fast. This table spread. With food. For the spirit. Blessed be. On then.

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7.15.18_Good_Company.mp3

The word we heard earlier from courtney martin. Make me think about the lessons i was learning six summers ago. But i'm still learning now. As martin says there is another kind of listening. A listening that we neglect at our own peril. It's not about getting some particular place but simply about witnessing another human being. Six summers back i was in the midst of my clinical pastoral education. At a public hospital in new york city. Clinical pastoral education is the portion of ministry formation. Spent as a chaplain in training. The idea is that you learn in a very trial by fire kind of way. How to be with people in their times of crisis. I gathered every morning in a small room on the ground floor of the hospital. With eight other fledgling faith leaders. We reviewed the mistakes we have made the day before. And reflected on what had gone well. Each of us was assigned different care units within the hospital. And after morning gathering we set off to do our rounds visiting as many patients as we could. One of my assigned areas was the psychiatric care unit a closed floor. Even though i was still a few years away from completing my ministry education and training. Patients and hospital staff simply sami as a chaplain. I wanted so much to be seen as an expert. As a calm certain leader. Granting wisdom and healing everywhere i went. And i was determined. The help the poor souls on that psychiatric floor. One of the first patients i met was a woman i'll call stephanie. Stephanie had been admitted a few days ago. She was real thin and was still wearing remnants of heavy eye makeup. I met her in the small room she shared with another patient. Stephanie had decorated the very white walls with. Drawing she had done in cran and then taped around the room. Stephanie talked about an abusive boyfriends and a life spent in and out of homelessness. She casually mentioned supernatural characters who were searching for her. Demons creatures who meant her harm. At one point. She paused and looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. Then after she made her assessment she said. Can i see your real chaplain i-tried-so-hard showing her my id badge and explaining that i was the chaplain assigned to her floor. My air of confidence and calm melting away. Stephanie seems very disappointed so finally defeated i asked her to use the krans nearby and draw a picture of what a real chaplain was. She brightens. And taking her crayons she drew a picture of a man wearing black robes and a large cross. I understood and went to go find the catholic priest who is very patient wonderful man who came through for me and number 10. To my surprise when i came in the next day. There was a note in the chaplains room saying that stephanie had requested to see me again. I ended up visiting stephanie often. I began to understand that the priests could speak to angels on her behalf and provide momentary protection from demons. I couldn't. But somehow she wanted to see me 2. It took all summer but i slowly realized that stephanie was inviting me not as a guide. But as a companion. On her long journey. She was living in a reality a reality different from the one i knew but real nonetheless. And she was scared. She was seeking company someone to hold her hand and believe what she was saying and experiencing. Stephanie taught me another way of listening. Not waiting for a pause so i could teach her something or give her advice or share my wisdom. Stephanie taught me the kind of listening that is not about getting some particular place. But simply about witnessing another human being. In class with the other chaplains in training we studied sacred texts and did. Theological reflection reflecting on suffering and the work we were doing. And i still have. Be sick binder of readings and resources that we use. I still sometimes read through the long powerpoint presentations and articles. Seven approaches to theological reflection summarize. The cognitive component of piety the insightful nests and knowledge that runs out of in sheep's the attitudes and dispositions of the self and it's apprehensions of god and the world in relation to god that kind of simple. And i still love studying theology as much as i did then and i find it helps me reflect in a meaningful way on the messiness of life. But i started that summer of chaplaincy thinking it was my job to bring advanced theological understanding to share with each patient. I imagined casually walking into a room and sharing some profound earth-shattering theological insight. Or spiritual practice that would heal them almost instantly. Will down the hall from stephanie with a man named seymour. And seymour suffered hallucinations and paranoia if he went off his medication. But like many people i know he was frustrated by having to take that medication and he wanted there to be a natural way to have orderly and safe. Thought. Female wrote for hours every morning on the legal pads the medical staff provided him with. Monday i took note of the stacks of papers next to seymour's bed and settle you must love to write. He said not exactly. Seymour said he had a hunch that he could overcome what he called his bad habits. With discipline. Does he was determined to write 20 pages by hand every morning in hopes that his mind would stay clear the rest of the day. I asked seymour once if he would share some of his writing with me. Instead of reading off the page he looked at me directly and recited for 30 minutes straight. There were so many poetic and profound phrases that i recorded as best i could in my journal. L i googled a phrase. And realize that seymour knew by heart. The entire sermon preached in london at the funeral of king edward the seventh in 1910. And that was just one of the many texts that seymour knew by heart and could recite to me without hesitation treating me to the daily inspiring lectures i had once thought i'd be giving him. As it turned out seymour was not a naive pupil waiting to be instructed in the area of theology or spiritual practice. He had absorbed an abundance of beautiful words. He stuck to his spiritual discipline with deep commitment. And he lived in a radiant and complex dangerous and lovely theological world all his own. Again. I learned that my role was to listen in a way that was long and open-ended. Patience. And curious. The words coming out the way they hit the ear of the shaping of a story a sadness. A yearning a wish. The third time i tried to learn this lesson that summer. That my role. About what my role was. And was not. It's from a patient recovering in the intensive care unit. One day i walked into this woman's room. And found that she had tried to end her own life few days earlier. She was lying in bed while her husband sat in a chair reading the newspaper aloud. When i asked if she'd like to visit from a chaplain she said yes. Her husband stood up and kissed her forehead and mumbled that maybe we'd want some privacy. And left the room. The woman began to tell me the story of the past 48 hours and how she came to be lying in that hospital bed. I listened with increasing discomfort. Her english was so raw so exposed. Felt more and more panicky wondering how to make the situation better for her. As a chaplain as an expert how could i fix it. How could i lead her away from her own pain into the realm of pleasant conversation and more trivial matters. When at last she paused and looked at me for a response. I hurriedly said it's okay it'll be okay. She responded. With anger. And grief. No it's not okay. It's not okay. My husband thinks i don't love him my step daughter is scared and i don't want to live anymore it's not. Okay. Then she asked if she could take my arm so we could walk up and down the hallway in silence same she wanted to be alone but not alone. So we walked in silence until she was tired and got back in bed. Course it was never my job to lead this woman away from her pain. Instead i kept her company as she led me down the hallway and up again searching for her own resilience. As the poet chen chen you put it when you're in the hospital no one wants to be your friend. Everyone wants to be soft cooing sympathies very reasonable pigeons. No one has the time in our solution is to buy shinier watches. This woman did not need a chaplain to distract her with pleasantries or to lead her away from her pain. She needed someone to listen without static. For plotting. Six summers ago i walked into a hospital thinking that as a chaplain my job was to know and to lead and to fix. By the time the summer ended. I realized my role was to enter every patient's room. With beginner's mind. To show up as an empty cup. And listen. To participate in that overlook. Kind of love. That is being present enough to witness another human being. I understood that i was more a companion. Senna guide. By the end of that summer i had learned a little bit more. About savoring the good company of another. And being good company. In return. Blessed be. Amin.

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Marsha-Kelly-8.19.mp3

Sterling dickinson an american artist writer and visionary. Arrived in small colonial town in the heart of mexico in 1937. On his arrival he said. There was just enough light for me to see the parish church sticking out of the mist. I thought my god what a sight what a place. I said to myself that moment. I'm going to stay here. Many americans canadians and europeans have had the same sentiments. About san miguel de allende over the 75 years since dickinson helped found the an art institute. That attracted american soldiers returning from wwii study there on the gi bill. The various artists cultural center as well as the yen they art institute remain. Is important landmarks in this city. Were mexicans and expats that is people who living outside of their native country. Live side-by-side. An artist who worked closely with dickinson said this. What interest move sterling. No doubt the desire to make himself useful through the channeling of his aptitudes. And channel his aptitudes he did. Who's example of volunteer work in the mexican community lives on today. I wonder awesome how the mexicans feel about what seems to me to be an invasion of their city and their culture. More than 10% of the population are gringos. And every time i meet someone who's mexican die. Managed to work it into the conversation and ask him about that. Carmen vicente meru just a few the mexicans have come to know. Have all said. This is the way it's always been for us we like the gringos and most of the gringos like us and we need each other. It surprises me when i hear much more complaining about the mexican truest. I'm filled with city on the weekends now than i do about the gringo population. Despite this kind of symbiotic relationship that exists in the city. This life again visiting there more often and then finally living there occasionally. I found it my dosari but truly know the mexican world was harder. Then just bumping up against it or appreciating it. Expat life in san miguel is beautiful and thrilling. Amtran whinging. There are those who complain loudly about barking dogs and ringing church bells and fireworks in the middle of the night. Don't even try to start movements to limit them. But many if not most. What stirling dickinson want to channel their attitudes for the benefit of this culture that they have them race. My connection has occured through individuals i've come to know both mexican and expat. Too many to include all of them here today. But there is the uu fellowship there a group of about 200. Mostly americans and canadians. And they donate over 50% of their income to mexican run organizations in the area. The benefits of community. And most members are actively involved in hands-on accompany mud and supported those organizations. Two recent groups have been founded. At 11 part by our former members damn news feel and kathy canepa who now live in san miguel. One provides humanitarian support. For mexican citizens who have been deported from the state and there are an increasing number of those. And another one that support to help center for people who are moving north. 2 states from central america. And then there's my friend donna. A kind and gentle woman who after moving into a poor neighborhood. And asking the women who lived there what they needed. She started what is now hugely successful daycare center for. Children of single moms by mexicans. My entree into the secret and fascinating mexican culture with an organization name. The center for the adolescents of san miguel de allende. Another classic example of how things work there he was founded by an american woman and her mexican husband. Together they built a beautiful hospital and birth center. A school for midwives. After learning from their own midwife that there were many women throughout the country who wanted to attend birth. But there was no training available for him. Over the years the school and hospital is wilson many other. Programs that they started have been run primarily by mexican women and men. But supportive enthusiastically by many expats both american and canadian. As a retired nurse midwife. Because i started studying spanish at an early age. I've been able to get my foot in the door over the years at casa through teaching some classes. Hang out with the students and their teachers. I've had many adventures with him and they're more stories than i could ever tell today. I had a beautiful experience that exemplifies again. The blending that occurs regularly there the graduating students who i had spent. Time with during their 6 semesters. Ask me to do a blessing of the hands of ceremony frequently included in denver free circle. With some trepidation that with gratitude at being asked. Ibogaine find out. What they wanted. One of the students who i had become particularly close with. Having me and dona cassilda a traditional midwife from the countryside. Who had also occasionally taught them her secrets. Would be a nice symbolic blending with me. So the student and i took the 45-minute drive to dona casillas home in the outline community. In the setting which was alien and yet somehow familiar to me. As she prepared food for us stirring up chopped cactus and beans. Seasons with a zippy falsehood prepared by her daughter. And served up in freshly made black corn tortillas. We chatted about birth and death and the graduation ceremony. We planned our rules. And i delighted in her use the yada yada yada to indicate how we would fill in the gaps that time. Aquarius family members. Time for you to check us out and dogs and chickens wondered through. And we sat in her opener kitchen. We spoke to universal language. Of midwifery and up women. At the graduation ceremony following weekend since probably doing it did not show up. The other midwives woodbury, today was a big brain last night the river flooded she probably couldn't make it. So we went on without her. In my yada yada portion became a little bit. Is what part of the ceremony began however it was suddenly just the students and me. I gave some red roses representing my wishes for them and white roses representing all the wisdom of the traditional midwives that it come before us. How many family members who would come to attend this important graduation. Some of them leaving their villages for the first time. Close to take pictures into observar circle. As i bless their hands to the service of others. Springside be consoling and healing and strong and confident confident. It was so personal as i connected with each one of these lovely young women home moving for me. In the midst of it all was the copal incense that have been used for the ceremony of the four winds which preceded. Behave blessing. It was really a special mystical experience. And while i was really just at the periphery of this one part of the ceremony. It seemed a perfect blending of women and cultures. There's so much we have to learn here about cultural appropriation and white privilege and history we never knew. And i'm well aware my great privilege to be able to come and go to san miguel. And yes their governmental and economic and historical issues that continue to keep much of mexico. In poverty and corruption and violence. And you might rightly say with these core issues must be addressed before they will be changed and equity and justice. Show me the way to my own personal transformation is through experiences. Like the ones i have often inside miguel. With dona dona castle. The students the teachers. One on one. Moments that happen among just a few people. This is one of the ways i think the world will change.

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Edie-Gelber-Beechler-7.8.mp3

I noticed timidly approaches is zen master. Master he asks. May i eat candy. Yes you may. But in moderation answers the master. Anime i send email. Yes the master reply. But no attachments. We're attached to many things. Our houses are cars. Our clothing our phones. That's favorite coffee cup. Did i mention our phones. We know that these things are solid and real. But we also know that they are impermanent. We worry about. Buddhist would say we suffer. Before i go on what time is it please i need to keep track. No no really what time is it one of you must have a phone. M42 thank you. We want coffee don't know if i ask you again in a minute. We will all agree that it will be 1043. We're experts at telling time. We have our watches our technology. We know what a minute is. And even if some say that time is a somewhat arbitrary construct. We still will all agree okay most of us were you use after all. That's 60 seconds will have gone by. I recently had my car inspected. Every year i go to the same place on independence boulevard. Take the steamer same route. Even the same car for the last 19 years. But each time the year seems to have shortened. This year there was a really young fellow sitting there behind the register and i said well another year has gone by. He answered they go by fast don't they and i said man you don't know that half of it. We all can probably agree that here seem to pass more quickly the older we get. But let's go back to that minute i asked you about. That was the same for everyone for all ages right. Well for some of you it may have flown by. For some of you that was really boring it may have dripped by we really really slowly. If you were asleep. Maybe it was non-existent. Or maybe infinit. Young children seem to experience time more slowly. Maybe it's because everything is new to them. We adults look at them two lines and our lawn and see weeds to get rid of. Children pull dandelions of park. In order to examine the short. Yellow petals. Or maybe just to enjoy pulling them apart. You're curious. They wonder. The question. Mcbob's grandeur mirror. Who's discovering a ripple. They have real beginners mine. But the older we get. The more we know. The more we assume. We're experts. Mindfulness. Purposefully aware of each moment brings us back to beginner's mind. It's low time down changes it may be eradicated temporarily. Tick not han reminds us. That life is filled with many wonders. Like the blue sky the sunshine. The eyes of a baby. I would reading here ice can be very enjoyable. And can bring us back to the moment. According to sean rio suzuki. The goal of zen meditation practice is to always keep our beginner's mind if your mind is empty as you've heard. It is always ready for anything. It is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In the experts mind there are few. Suzuki roshi and technology reminder. But not only meditation. But even how we do everyday tasks. Can affect our perception of the world. And bring back the wonder of the moment. When we wash dishes we generally are anxious to finish in order to do something else more pleasurable. When we cook. We look ahead to the meal. We are frogs constantly jumping off the plate. Our minds brass big and other things. Instead of being in the moment where we are. Button mindfully doing tasks. Such as washing a pot. What cutting vegetables. Can bring us back to ourselves to our true selves. Wonder. In awe at the infiniti in a carrot. Or a crown broccoli. Okay maybe not broccoli. But we'll have to talk a little bit about another aspect of my expertise i know a lot. I'm an expert at what i think i judge things. I know that i don't like baseball. But if i had to choose a team that would be the mets. Don't tell jay. What time is it. I judge certain political figures. It's beneficial or dangerous. I judge driver who share their really loud bass when they're next to me at a red light. I'm with my little car is parked between two big suvs and i can't see when i try to back out of a parking space. I judge the people who owned the big suvs. I'm really good at judging. Last week i was sitting in a carol at the library writing this. When the lady in the next carol started making phone calls. I was annoyed and judged her to be inconsiderate. And then i judge myself for being selfish and annoyed. And then i judge myself for judging. Wynonna judd. I am light years away from beginner's mind. First of all i'm not enough of an expert to make a judgment about a particular issue. But more importantly. Seeing things as black or white puts up a wall between me and the other. Inspect. Define part of an interconnected web of life and i believe that i am. Then the wall that i put up actually creates other. Tremulous azuki rides. But the most important thing. Is not to be dualistic. And when i judge. When i put up walls. I separate myself. From the world. I'd like to share a way that helps me remember to stop judging. And brings me back. The beginner's mind. You may have seen people bow and say namaste. Namaste is often interpreted as meaning the divine in me honors the divine in you. And if you score i'm at the word divine feel free to substitute another word maybe love or like like i do. Shinryu suzuki says that balwan helps us give up our dualistic ideas. It helps eradicate those boundaries. Those walls we build. And reminds us of our interconnectedness. Which in turn leads to a compassionate mine. He says the beginner's mind is the mind of compassion it is boundless. Then we are always true to ourselves. In sympathy with all beings. No i'm usually too shy to bow and say namaste out loud. But i say it in my heart. When i do find vision shimmering light. In may. Honoring and merging with. The shimmering light. In all. Please join me in silent reflection.

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5.14.17_truth.mp3

Or its april 8th. 1966 issue. Time magazine created one of the best-known magazine covers. Ever. For the first time in that publications history there was simply text with no accompanying image. Framed by its iconic red border against an all black background a provocative question appeared in large. Read text. Is. God. Dead. 51 years later on april 3rd 2017 just a few weeks ago. Time recreated the famous. Infamous cover red border. All black background. But it different provocative questions steel and bold. Red. Type. Is. Truth. Nancy gibbs. Times editor explain that. The 1966 cover appear to the time when 97% of the people in this country told pollsters they believed in god. Now she said i suspected many would say. They believe. Insurance. A worksheet curiously capitalized. And yet she continued we find ourselves in an intense. Debate over its role and poplar. She named the issue explicitly. Whether it's the size of his. Inaugural crowd. Or voter fraud. Are nato funding. Or the claim that he was wiretapped. Trump says a great many things that are demonstrable e. Conservative columnist george will with. Recently more skating. Hero tovar prevaricate in president the problem isn't that he doesn't know this or that. Or that he doesn't know that he doesn't know this or that. Rather the dangerous thing is that he does not know what it is to know something. Hyundai gray chilly day in january made all the drearier by the disaster that was transpiring i stood on the inaugural route. Along with several thousand protesters determined to show our descent on day one. By some accounts. Supported by photographic evidence. And by experience analyst. The overall crab was considerably smaller than in some recent past inauguration. By other account. Supported by. Other account. We were part of an unprecedented. You turn up. And now we know these. Other account. We followed by the admission. That figures believed to be true. Proof. Not to be true. But also by the notorious new addition to the lexikan. Alternative. It was our first glimpse post inauguration of a man who has george will said does not know what it means to know something. Sadly it has recovered so often since that we're becoming a b immune. Almost expecting that no matter what is said or tweeted. It will almost certainly. Not be. The truth. So while reports of the death of truth may be greatly exaggerated. People all along the political spectrum are painfully aware. That truth has had. An especially rough time of it. These past few months. Truth is no small matter in our liberating religion. We named it right into the heart of one of our defining principle. Affirming the deep value of as we call it a free and responsible search for truth. My friend and colleague victoria safford calls this. The place of truth. Telling. And our colleague page getty and shrines that emphasis. As a safe position unitarian universalism. Universalism makes sacred she right. The right and responsibility to engage in this free and responsible quest. As a religious. Of religious. Devotion. Brawl that has imperiled truth in our time we're not ready to concede it's extinction. The grant that it is perfectly acceptable to suspend reason and claim as true. Whatever now suits our purposes. If truth really were dead. If it were no longer trip for which to search are very religious identity would be undermined. And that should matter. To the rest of the world since we are after all the largest organized religion in the history of humankind with somewhere between six and eight billion members. Or so. Mattered. People the ones that make us uncomfortable. Evidence counts for something here. Even the case against how we might wish things were. Kansas already in our lives. And is an 8in not an impediment to our religious understanding. Historical veracity is a critical component for us. From our very founding we have declared that religion should not inside religion cannot rewrite the course of reason. And so we take issue with things we recognize to be. Demonstrable. But we all know it's not actually quite so straight talk. For example science can in fairly short order explain the physiological processes at play when we see sophie.. White and yellow slotted figure. Display before us on the screen right now. We can read clear and cogent explanations about light and rods and cones and brain signals and so on. All of that will be true. And it is a deeply valuable scientific truth. What how does swift artist makes us feel. It's not something science or history can give us. Are we stir. Inspired. Confused. Ambivalent. Does this particular work strikes us as interesting. Or. But no. Are we glad that is apart of this service. Thornton noise that it is being projected into the state keep your votes to yourself. In ways we may recognize and in ways we almost certainly will not be completely aware of. How we respond to this particular piece of art. Will be informed by our own personal. Experience. Do we already know till. Work and smile in recognition. Where we once dragged to museums and associate singing art with blurring afternoons in childhood. Do we did we have an art teacher in school who we adored or a former lover whose art snobbery made us feel inferior. This being differently-abled restrict her access the visual art represent a barrier to its enjoyment. Do we have no experience at all with this sort of art. And can't imagine. Why anyone would like. Truth in this case becomes. My truth. Yorkshire. What kind of understanding accessible only by introspection by taking. The time. Didn't notice. In what may seem like a simple question do you like this painting. Could have many layers of personal truth. Informing the response anyone of us. Might offer. So it was when alicia chambers was asked in the reading you heard a few moments ago to write down her race. It turns out it's not easy or simple to respond the truest answer she knows how to give. Is it story. Actually some storage. Of a strong woman a wise man a brave woman a lost man of those colored like coffee dark as chocolate pale as snow of music of her great-grandmother her grandfather her mother of books and more music and have a brother. The truth has many faces and many sounds for alicia chambers. Whose great-grandparents i happen to know. And without taking the time to listen to her story. We're left with a final answer. Kind of truth. Other. That doesn't really tell us very much. Years ago in the dining room of the small international school where i was studying to nigerian student stood up on october 1st and began offering a celebration of nigerian independence day. They played music they sang and then they started telling the story of how the bold nigerian won their independence. After a few minutes another student from putney outside london showed it out you didn't win your independent we gave it to you. And what ensued was a fierce. War of words. Spoken with heated. Out of egypt lyrics.. The son of the colonizers. Aggrandising the generosity of the empire. The sons of the colonizer. Angry. All. Over. It is a nigerian writer the gifted and the floor chimamanda ngozi attitude warrants. The single-story. Create stereotype. And the problem with stereotypes is not that they are they are. On. True. But that they are. Incomplete. That makes. One-story. The only. Yes. 2 weeks ago. My friend leon spencer stood in this pulpit. In his role as one of the three interim president. For our unitarian universalist association. He spoke about challenges. End of our promise. But then he turns somber. And very very quiet. Nasir account there the past experience in this very room. Leading a meeting when he was head of. Leon. One of the very few african-american leaders in our face. Help organized effort to try to get our name. For years we had been the thomas. Jefferson. Thomas jefferson. As we in the dominant culture told the story a man of reason. Of remarkable intellect. Remarkable influence. A prolific writer who professed his identity with early unitarianism. What not. Like about that. But lyon. Two weeks ago in this pulpit plot his emotion as he recounted the bitterness of the defeat when we voted to retain the name of jefferson. Because he not only knew another story. Another. The story of jefferson beat in slavery. Jefferson the rapist. Jefferson the man who would not free his own children. Raajali from a woman over whom he. Ownership. How leon wondered how could people professing our valued aggrandize the story. Jefferson. Trying his name in our contemporary. There were. As nikky finney says. They were two. Different. Both were true. The honorable. And the heretic. One has served as a dominant story. For a very. Long. A story by leon's account that is at the very heart of our culture of whites. Now we're talkin. About a whole disk. The truth. The story some hold dear. And some field holds them back. Or shut them out. The truth. The story summer now shouting in our street and others are responding before ever even really listening how could they possibly say that. The truth. The story that has been dominant and defining and is so much a part of who we are that many of us are absolutely oblivious. My colleague fred small wrote words a few years ago that are more relevant now than they were thin. Our fourth principle he writes affirms a free and responsible search. For truth and meaning we must ask. Who's. The truth of victor's. Who write the history books and make the laws and for whom the spoils of war have become legacy anniversary. Or. The truth of the vanquished. The dispossessed. The refugee. Mary oliver commands let me keep my distance always. From those who think they have. The answer. So much easier when those are someplace else. So much easier women is another who is so transparently guilty of shaping reality to suit his own whelmed. But what about when it is us. What is we're the ones often obliviously telling one dominant story and thinking we have the answers. In his account. Of a week on the concord in merrimack river. Henry david thoreau observe to speak the truth. 1. And the other to listen. Maybe the time has come for those of us. Most closely aligned with the dominant. Culture. Men. Straight people. Those. Comfortable with a gender binary. Homeowners. Those with an education. Those. Without a record. Maybe especially. Those of us who are beneficiaries. Of the dominant. Dominating culture. Maybe in the name of the search for realtors. And much deeper spiritual meaning. Maybe. It is time. For us. Delicious. Listen so we can honestly here how old. Can become oppressive. Listen. So that we may honestly here how new truth. Ensure that in very new way. And i'm very new forms. Truth. Will. Live. May it be.

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8.12.18_Leaving_the_Familiar.mp3

Lera boroditsky. Is a cognitive scientist. Who focuses on how language affects the mind. The research continues to show that language determines how we understand basic. Reality. Time in space among other things. For this key spent time with the kook sayori people. An aboriginal society in australia. She noticed that the kooks aiori did not have a word for left. Or right. The only spoke in terms of north south east west. Edwardes keeps planes into faerie you'd say things like. There's an ant on your southwest leg. Or please move your cup to the northeast. In fact the coop that you're a greeting translate it's not as hello or good morning. But as which way are you going. To which brodecki says you reply something like. Northeast in the far distance how about you. For this key wondered if the way we speak. Informs how we understand an organized time. She gave cooks ira speakers. English speakers. And hebrew speakers. A series of cards with events listed on them earlier and later events. She then asked each participant to organize them chronologically. English-speakers organize the cards from left to right the direction that we read and write. The hebrew speakers organize the cards from right to left. The way that they read and write. The cookeville yuri speakers organize the cards. From east. 2 west. Language profoundly shapes. How we understand the world. Perhaps this is part of why it can be so challenging. To learn another language as we get older. We aren't just memorizing new vocabulary and grammar. To learn a new language is to enter another reality. It means no longer assuming that our way of seeing things. Is the only. Or the right way. As israeli poet yehuda amichai puts it. From the place where we are right. Flowers will never grow. In the spring. The place where we are right. Is hard and trampled like a yard. But doubt and love. Dig up the world like a mole. Or plow. And a whisper will be heard in the place where the ruined house. Once stood. The ruined house are former way of thinking our former way of understanding. Becomes a whisper. From our past. When we dig up the world we have known to reveal more layers. Of reality. To learn a new language is more transformative than we might at first. Imagine. American journalist lauren collins found herself needing to dig up for world after she fell in love with a frenchman named olivier. Lauren met olivier while working abroad in london. Excellence. Lauren felt that she and olivia were on equal ground. They were speaking her language but they were living on his continent. Yet after they were married she began to feel that their relationship was out of sync. As lauren put it. We didn't possess that easy shorthand. Including all manner of attitudes and assumptions. By which some people seem able nearly telepathically. To make themselves mutually known. Olivier. annoyed when lauren said simple things like i'm reading my book. Or i'm eating my dinner. The french don't say my book or my dinner you'd simply say i'm reading a book. I'm eating dinner. To olivier's french ear lauren sounded spoiled and petulant as if saying it's my toy. When they hung out with english-speaking friends. The friends treated olivier as a one-dimensional character who existed to entertain them. Asking him to pronounce hamburger again and again. One night lauren spilled some water and she was using paper towels to clean it up. Anyone absorbing very much so it's frustrating. Olivier remark that paper towel has poor capillarity. What. Lauren asked. Capillarity the paper towel. Martin laugh-in a word. Olivier was just quiet. After that. But the next morning lauren found a sticky note with the word capillarity. With its dictionary definition written beside it. An observation that he had used the word correctly. Lauren began to realize that her husband felt like a visitor in her reality. International conversations about politics and economics took place in english. Why would olivier not want to conduct their relationship. In english. Olivia seems so confident speaking her language. Warren never realized he was missing part of himself when they were together. Never realize he was unable to connect with her on some intimate sacred level. One day after a painful linguistic misunderstanding. Olivier said. Talking to you in english is like touching you with gloves. After that. Warren commit in her mid-30s to learning french. For the first time. The effort is incredibly slow going and frustrating. She describes her tongue physically aching as she tries to shape it around new vowel sounds. But she sticks with it. Allowing her love for olivia to dig up her world and allow a new things to grow. They discover levels of shared understanding that weren't there before. Building an experience that feels like home to both of them. On the bridge between two languages into realities. Daniel everett. Along with his wife and three children. Came to live with the pitafi indians in the amazonian jungle of brazil. As christian missionaries. In 1977. Daniel ended up spending three decades off-and-on living with the pita hans. Originally daniel and his wife corrine plan to learn the pedic on language so that they could translate the new testament into peter han. And convert them to christianity. Little by little as daniel learned more about the pita han language. He realize that their plan was not going to work. Mainly because. The pita hun only value direct. And immediate experience. Daniel discovers this in a variety of ways. He notices that the p200 not store food. They plan one day at a time and do not talk about the distant future or the distant past. One morning he has a conversation with a peter hon who is recounting a dream he just had to his neighbors. Daniel realizes. That dreams are not fiction for the p tahan. Not a projection of the subconscious not a vision sent from spirits or gods. It's something that actually physically happened in the night. Peter han explained that you see one-way awake. And another way while asleep. But both ways of seeing a real experience. In his journal daniel rights. They lack any form of fiction. And their miswak a property common to the myths of most societies namely. They do not involve events. For which there is no living. Eyewitness. When the peter han speak of spirits. They are referring to trees or visiting jaguars spirits have physical form. You can describe them based on how they look. Smell and sounds. Daniel learns that every verb in the pedic on language has an ending attached to it that explains how you know. What you are saying. Daniel gives the example to see john went fishing you have to attach to fishing. An ending that means you heard. That john went fishing or you saw. But he did. Do you deduce that he did from other physically present. Evidence. So when daniel tries to speak to the pita han about jesus. He finds that their language cannot be used. To convey his faith as he understands it. Is daniel wright the pita han listening to me understood that there was a man named jesus. And that he wanted others to do what he taught them. But the peter han wanted to know what jesus look like. Daniel said well i have never actually seen him. He lived a long time ago but i do have his worse. The pita han wanted to know if daniel's dad had met jesus no he didn't. Then why are you telling us about him. Slowly daniel understands why missionaries have been unable to convert the peter han despite 300 years of trying. Their immediate blood dirt and sweat reality is reinforced so profoundly. By their everyday language. Is daniel learned more and more about the pita han his doubts began to dig up the world he had once called home. He had immersed himself in a new language and as a result his reality accumulated layers and changed shape. Until he found one day that he had not converted the pita hun. They had converted him. There is a saying attributed to roman emperor charlemagne. That goes. To have a second language is to have a second sole. It's a beautiful idea. Except maybe when we learn another language. Another reality. Are so doesn't multiply. But grows more layers. Perhaps when we leave what is familiar to us. With our minds and hearts stayed on communion with another soul. Our realities mingle and merge. With theirs. Afterward we find as lauren collins and daniel everett did. That we can't go home to live in our old world view. Now find small. And unsatisfying. The reality of building relationships that transformer. Is that we breathe fresh air and experience a livening sense. A renewal. When we were allow or relationships to teach us new languages. New realities. We find that what we learn more profoundly than before. Is that this other person. Does indeed. Have a soul to. And a reality is true hazard. Once we've made this discovery we find that we wouldn't want to return to what was once familiar. The place where we were right. And they were wrong. The place where we were wise and they were foolish. We wouldn't want to return to that hard. Trampled earth. Even if we could. Blessed be. Amen.

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1.31.16_hope.mp3?_=4

In a book review several years ago michael shermer science writer founding publisher of skeptic magazine asserted. Humans are by nature. Pattern-seeking storytelling animal. And it continued with quite adept at telling stories about patterns. Whether they exist or not. Here's an observation stated more recently and cody della strada atlantic monthly article entitled the psychological comfort of storytelling. Story she said allow people. To sleep pattern. Mindful of that theologian john s done poses a key human question. What kind of story. Are we in. What kind of story are we in. Is it a dystopia. Spiraling downward toward some delatorre ascend. Is it a utopia. An art leading is only in some distant time and place. Toward harmony. And universal well-being. Is it a cycle. Rising and falling and various epoxy showing neither serious decline. Not obvious indications of lasting progress. We think the patterns. We tell the stories. The stories. About the patterns weather as michael shermer admits whether they exist. Or not. In a presidential election cycle that is to this point bizarre beyond belief. There is one curious similarity. Between the two candidates at the extremes. I'm not talkin about the fact that they are both having really bad hair day. Maybe even bad hair adulthood. What i have in mind is this. Bush blustering donald trump. And bellicose bernie sanders. Are telling the same story. Basically the same. Overall. Pattern. What kind of story are we in. Calamity. A tragedy. Nightmare. Teams are woefully off track. Things are bad and short of intervention and reversal they are almost certainly. Going to get worse. Now obviously their reasons for this assessment are radically different. The cure for our societal ills more radically different steel. But this story the pattern that they see. They're quite similar. Now it won't likely surprise. Most of you that i gravitate considerably more to one of the storytellers then to the other. No endorsements ever from the pulpit. Today at least you mama's however i am offering an astounding assertion. Theme from the perspective of human history they are both telling. The wrong story. Berserk synopsis i'll take my cues. From a colleague. William mitchell. Has served as the president of our denomination the executive director of amnesty international and of our unitarian universalist. Service committee. Bill has been a witness to some of the worst. That we humans do to one another and to our planet. So it gets our attention when he asserts. It is impossible it is impossible. To argue credibly. That on balance humankind has not made. Enormous. Progress. Bill is saying that the story that the pattern is quite clear. As a species we are without a doubt. Making progress. That's my message. Today. At least. Echoing vlatko and jane goodall and howard zinn i'm contending that there are ample causes. And cases. Let's start where it hard maybe the hardest. With violet. Here in for a bit i'll rely on steven pinker in his surprising book the better better angels of our nature. Tinker admits our cognitive faculties predispose us to believe that we live in violent times. Even missing the most fear-mongering of them all republican stumbled all over one another again this week. Buying for hookah tell the loudest most belligerent story about violence not only as a problem. But ironically and the cure. They see the pattern. They tell the stories they're just telling the wrong story. Believe it or not steven pinker right. And i know most people do not. Violence. Has declined. Violence has declined over long stretches of time. And today we may be living he says in the most peaceable error in the species exist. With careful documentation he demonstrates. How violence internationally nationally community and interpersonally. Has declined. Casualties from war the better publicize than ever before. Are down. The 20th century was the bloodiest in history he said is a cliche. It's a cliche that has been used to indict a. Range of demons. A vast range of. But it's rarely backed up by numbers. From any century. Other than the 20th. Tinker notes that we have gone from aggrandising military actions with statues sculptures and victory arches. The war memorials depicting not proud commanders on horseback. But weeping mothers. Weary soldiers. Exhaustive. Lyft. The names of the day. Resort to violence do always front page news has declined. Picture reminds us a sixteenth-century queen mary of england so-called bloody mary. Who earned her gruesome sobriquet by burning. Thousands of religious dissident at the stake. Today you write the british royal family is exploited for shortcomings ranging from rudeness. To infidelity. You think people would give them credit. For not having had a single relative decapitated. Maurice pringle rival drawn and quartered. He reminds us of the prominent. History. Dueling. In our own nation. Violent defensive under the spell the demise of alexander hamilton. Who died as broadway now remind us at the hands of the vice president. Dick cheney may have been a reckless shot. But there's not much to suggest that he was actually aiming to kill. I think. In that case. The one that we know about. One has only to go back a few decades. 2 time when it was considered. Good. Television entertainment. Comet. For a burly bus driver. To threaten his wife. Repeatedly. One of these days. One of these days. Right in the kisser. Thankfully that kind of domestic violent threat. Is no longer considered funny. Acceptable. As a form of comet. At the same time that jackie gleason was making those threats. Advertisement for chase and sanborn coffee and van heusen shirt both depicted a husband striking his wife. And in an ad for pitney bowes a furious boss screen. Is it always illegal to kill a woman. Just imagine. An advertiser trying that pack in next week's game. Echoing did nineteenth-century unitarian minister theodore parkers confidence that the arc of the moral universe. Dims toward justice. Tinker report at century-and-a-half later. Our eyes can see that the art has been. Toward justice. And waste parker could not have imagined. Decisive evidence are deep engagement in advocacy for animal rights. Gay rights. Children's rights. Women's rights and. Civil rights. Peter give credit where it is rightfully due. The reason. The science. Did humanism. The individual rights. He's not at all pollyanna admitting that these forces have not pushed steadily in one direction nor will they ever bring about a utopia orenda frictions and hurt. They come with the inhuman. He doesn't suggest we're all living in their bun. The shifty says his not toward complacent. We enjoy the peace we find today because people in past generations. We're appalled by the violence in their time. And work to reduce. And. So we should work to reduce the violence. That remains. In our time. But that by statistical evidence. He does declare the decline the decline of violence. Maybe the most significant. And least appreciated. Development in the history of our species. Telling a hopeful story is not naive. There are clauses in cases. Peter diamandis and steven cutler pickup the same. And they're more controversial book abundance the future is better than you think. They offer a similar story. Consider for example the reminder that the 20th century saw infant mortality decreased by 90%. Maternal mortality decreased by 99%. And overall human lifespan increased by 100%. When i hear some people waxing nostalgic. Are suggesting that we aren't really getting anywhere. I sometimes ask him in what prior medical age would you like to relocate yourself. For all of the mind-boggling brokenness in our healthcare system. We have landed on the planet in the best. Time. Writing the book in 2012. Almost a generation ago in technological is. They point out right now am si warrior. With a cell phone. Has better mobile phone capabilities than the president of the united states did 25 years ago. And if he's on a smartphone with access to google then he has better access to information that the president did just 15 years ago. It's something i witnessed a few years ago in rural remote india. While talking to a village leader he received a phone call on one of his two cell phones. Phone see sometimes charge by solar power. It was a mother reporting that her daughter had been bitten by a viper. Now in this age he was able to summon immediate medical assistance. Heightening the likelihood that a tragedy. Would not result. In a fatality. Remarkable. For all of their challenges science and technology are giving humankind some of the best gifts with everett.. It's already hundreds of pages in anticipation of disservice. The thing that surprised me most of all was the sense of hope that was coming from some of the world's leading environmentalist. Sebastian troy in one of the world's authorities on ocean's readily admit. All of our oceans are under assault from human activity. He urges we need significant action. To secure ocean health and prosperity. But then he adds. Several recent developments. May. Me. Make me confident. That we can put oceans on a path to recovery. Showing says for example there's a dramatic increase in the number and size of marine protected areas. The signs of fisheries recovery are growing. Technology is increasing our capacity to monitor and enforce a more sustainable relationship with our ocean. This increased awareness of the issues and the concern. And he says from the perspective of someone who's been deeply engaged in this work for a quarter-century there is a growing appetite for global action on ocean. Resulting in conference conservation actions. That are recovering. Endangered species. He's far from alone in his house. Maybe you two have seen the fifteen-year-old fifteen-year-old. Indigenous climate activist. Who has already addressed the united nations. Twice. Voicing his aztec tradition he can tim in light of the collapsing world. What better time to be alive than now. Because our generation gets the change the course of history. Humans have created the greatest problems we face today. Field mit. But then you also assert. The greater the challenge. The higher we will rise to meet. Perhaps it's for that reason that jane goodall urges let us have faith. Littleton station. And ourselves. In our intellect. In our stomachs. And in our young people. Most of us have probably heard the cherokee story of the grandfather. The testaments grandson of fight is going on inside. The terrible fight between two wolves one is evil. He's anger in the greed and arrogance lies. Builders good. He is joy peace love humility kindness. Compassion. The same fight he says to his young grandson the same fight going on inside you and inside every other person too. Grandson thought about it for a moment and then asked his grandfather. Which wolf will win. The old cherokee simply replied. The one you feed. The one you feed. We here. Exist impart. The feed the good wolf. The nurturing nourish the better angels of our nature. Here we serve. Not naive optimism. Not blithe irrational belief that everything is going to be okay. Not sympathy sentiment that we're all doing the best we can. A deep sense of spiritual meaning calls us. I'm looking forward to seeing to noticing a trajectory suggesting that hope. Simply make more rational spin. Been to spain. There are clauses and cases. Fairhope. Please have a great deal to do with the patterns that we perceive. And. With the stories that we tell. No less acrylic and howards end. Professes his face. To be hopeful and bad times it's not just foolishly romantic. It is based. On the side. On. The fat. It's human history is a history. Not only approval. But also of compassion. Sacrifice. Courage. What. We. Shoes. What we choose to emphasize. In this complex history. Will. Determine.

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6.16.19_universe.mp3

I was working at a summer camp in the south carolina mountains when i read about the perseids. Visible from mid july into august. This annual astrotheme reaches its peak activity. The night sky can be straight by the saint luminous trail. Avoidance 60 meteors an hour. A fellow councillor to join me on a little nocturnal adventure. Late in the evening we slipped into a canoe. Paddled out onto the floating dock in the middle of the lake and unfurled our sleeping bags for the night. Dowsing are flashlights lying back on that hard within surface the lake gym gently lapping at our tiny isolated isle far far from the faintest light pollution. Our eyes adjusted as we gaze directly upward into the vast lightcreek obsidian expand. What meteors actually appear. Would we detect a single ephemeral streak evidence. Of cosmic dust going out in a transient blaze of glory. Hardly had resettled quieted ourselves above that watery expanse echoing with the in static chorus of night noises when we had our answer. Look. There's one. Before long. We ran out of expletives. Stop trying to exclaim amazement or the point out the streets in the sky instead we gradually retreated into silent. Finally rizzoli gif. Intensely. The last site before slumber. An ongoing celestial spectacle. We never forget. I'm at summer night so long ago we join the bath company of those who farm olivia. Have been honored by observing the heavens. Which is to say. Every. Single human being. On the planet. The marvelous lucille clifton now of blessed memory imagines an aboriginal forbear. Offering some irlanguage expression. Poetry began she posits when somebody walked off of the savanna or out of the cave and looked up at the sky with wonder and said. That was the first poem. Chard. Clifton is convinced for very good reason. The urge toward. Is very cute. It's in everyone. The primeval poetic impulse meets astrophysics. When neil degrasse tyson declares it one time or another each one of us has looked up at the night sky and wonder. Wonder. As in experience. Wonder. Felt full of wonder. Heather symptom. But brilliant scientist that he is tyson has something else not instead of but in addition to in mind at one time or another every one of us has looked up at the night sky and wondered. What does it all mean. How does it all work. And what is my place. In the universe. Poor human spiritual questions about meaning and purpose alongside the critical. Scientific theory. How does the. Work. Today we are claiming that wonder that leads to wondering. Not diminished. Buddy measurably expanded. By the marvelous gift of science. Theoretical physicist sean carroll generously recognizes. But our story of wonder takes many different forms. Citing. A poet he writes mario root browser once wrote the universe is made of stories. Not ever. The world he continues is what exists and it is what happens. But we gained enormous insight by talking about. Telling the story. In. Different ways. We singing we explain it we write about it we speculate about it we make mythic connection to it we draw conclusions from it and. And we prove it. We. Examine. I love the way sean carroll. Tells the story. That is sun. Wish you and she says. Are blobs of organized mud. Which through. The impersonal workings of nature's patterns have developed the capacity to contemplate. And cherish. Engaged with the intimidating complexity of the world around us to understand ourselves. To understand ourselves. We have to understand the stuff. Out of which were made. Which means we have to dig deeply into the realm of particles and forces and quantum phenomena. Not to mention the spectacular variety of ways. That those microscopic pieces can come together. The forum organized system. Capable. A feeling. And fought. My fellow. Blobs organized mud. Today we extol the virtues of the scientific mind. Fueled by relentless curiosity-driven to ask and ask and to ask again discipline to reject. And rewrite and positive again. Sparked by the very occasional insight that meet the methodically high standard of acceptability within the story that is science. I've been on a literary ride with neil tyson degrasse. Recently neil degrasse tyson. Neil degrasse tyson music. One that makes me deeply appreciative of two realities. Where the telling of the scientific story. Is concerned. The first is this it is remarkable. It is utterly. Remarkable. What's playing. Able. We know for example that light travels at a rate of nearly 6 trillion miles a year. We know that other than our own sun the closest star to earth proxima centauri is about 4.22 light years from earth. Surely wonder is not diminished but is rather magnified by knowing that the line that will twinkle down on us tonight. Left proxima centauri on saturday march 28th. 2000. 15. And keep in mind. That's. Steller's jay. We know that while charlotte may grow ever more congested with each passing month we are hardly crowded into the universe. Our closest galactic neighbors small irregularly shaped though they are reside 180,000 light-years away. To get to the closest galaxy galaxy of about our own size of our milky way you need to travel some too. Million. Light-years from here. Remember now that's 2 million * 6. Which is exactly. A really really really big number and if you're planning to make that trip now would be a really good time to get started since we also know that the universe is expanding any delay will only make for a longer trip. We know for example that there are nearly. 100. Billion. Galaxies in our universe. Each of them containing hundreds. A billion. Upstairs. There are as tyson puts it. There are more stars. Then s. That have passed. Since earth. We know the oxygen in the carbon that make up our bodies. And without which we would not be here. Warforged in the cores of stars. We are quite literally. Made of stardust. We know that as tyson explains chemical element reveal themselves by their unique patterns of light or dark bands that cut across the spectrum and because we know that. We know the chemical composition. Of the son of other planet of many other celestial objects that we can observe and we can analyze. Procedure. Those who wondered and asked who investigated explored analyzed corrected calculated have given us all of this. And so much more. Knowledge. There's nothing there's not a single part of it that diminishes our individual sense of wonder in fact all of what we know. Only compounds wonder. Important. Oh so very important. There's not a scientific truth of any kind. It's not a scientific truth of any kind that poses the remotest threat to our religion. It was a long ago transcendentalist forbear one. Ralph waldo emerson. Who wrote in his journal. The religion. That is afraid of science. Dishonors god. And commits suicide. And carl sagan who profess. By far the best way i know the best way i know. To engage the religious sensibility. The simpsons. Is the lookup. On a clear night. Since that long-ago evening under the perseids. My sensible has only been enhanced. But all that science teaches me. That we know. My friends were all of what is so broken in this time for all of the injustice and the inequity the violent abuse. Greed of the stage for all of the heartbreaking the outrage of this particular year we are those under lee blessed to be alive on this planet in the year in which for the first time in our history. We humans could actually few could look at could see. A black hole. What it took to capture this one image is a feet so astounding the no sermonic words could possibly offer adequate the glen. We know we now know what a black hole. Praise. All praise the sun. A scientist. For all that we now. The second reality worth noting in the story of science is this. It is remarkable it is utterly remarkable how much. We do not know. Listen to neil degrasse tyson in excerpts from his latest book. What happened before the beginning. Astrophysicists have no i.d.. Ignorance is the natural state for a research scientist. Most of the universe is made of stuff about mitch. We are clueless. Gravity he continues gravity the most familiar of nature's forces offers that simultaneously the best and the least understood phenomenon in nature. Dark matters effects are real we. Just don't know what it is. What is dark energy. Nobody know. We do not know. Nobody knows for sure in any case were essentially clueless and he's rights. Yes. Recluse. Tyson who writes a very inspiring lee about the cosmic perspective includes this the cosmic perspective. The cosmic perspective. It's hump. Praise. I'll praise the science and two scientist for admitting all that we do not know. I think if we ever reach the point where we think we thoroughly understand who we are and where we came from we will have. So rights. Carl sagan. It is after all. Still about wondering exploring. Searching asking. If we look up in wonder. Especially if we look up in wonder through the lens of science. We will surely see. Again and yet again. Luminescent. Uplighter. Against the ebony boyd. Of all that we do not know. And that as it always has been. Will be cause. For celebration.

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6.17.18_Beyond_Belief.mp3

When i was growing up we would take the long car trip to visit my grandparents in west virginia about 3 or 4 times a year. And the drive from south carolina to them took about 8 hours. And my parents only ever made one cassette tape for road trips so we listen to the same one again and again and i became mighty familiar with the playlist as you might imagine. And one of the tunes that i heard countless times sitting in the backseat with a pretty heavy one by randy newman. Call dodson. And i don't know if you've ever heard it but i'm going to share some of the lyrics with you. The christians and the jews were having a jamboree. The buddhists and the hindus joined on satellite tv. They picked their four greatest priest. And they began to speak. They said lord a plague is on the world. Lord no man is free. The temples that we built to you. Tumbled into the sea. Lord if you want take care of us. Won't you please please let us be. And the lord said. And the lord said. I burn down your cities. How can you not see. I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy. To put your faith in me. That's why i love mankind. Do four years when people asked me do you believe in god i would picture this disinterested cruel god and i would answer defiantly and proudly know i don't. So i was startled to find during my first year in seminary. That when i said god had no place in my life. No place in how i understood existence. Started to feel like i was being dishonest. I identified as an atheist and as i tried telling this to my classmates. The word suddenly felt uncomfortable. I found myself skipping over that part of my identity in conversation. I started thinking that sometime maybe i should sit down and get clearer about what i think about god. And before long this being seminary i got the opportunity i was assigned the task of writing just that how do you understand god what are your thoughts about god. Any assignment tied me in knots. Finally alone in my apartment in the middle of the night. I began to cry. I decided to just sit down and breathe deeply and stop trying to come up with theorems for proving or disproving the existence of something. It suddenly seemed beyond my intellectual understanding. If i stop there breathing. I began to feel like i was being held. No flashes of light. No voice. Just be overwhelming sense. It's something was holding me. Lot has happened between then and now. But i keep trying to let myself experience this something that holds me more often. When i'm alone i even try to say the word god out loud. I haven't decided if it's comfortable for me or if it feels right. And it's only the truth this is a little strange. But when i'm alone saying the word god out loud. Remind me a little bit of the first time i said a curse word as a child i was a really well-behaved kid and i remember taking a deep breath. Making sure i was alone and then cursing. I felt nervous and empower. There was a sense of uncertainty and exhilaration all at once. At this moment in my life. That's what saying the word god allowed is a little bit like. An unfamiliar powerful word. I don't think that the word god is perfect. But of course. It's understandable that as unitarian universalist. There are those of us who find meaning in that order. The word god is like a stone that gets its shape from countless hands that have touched it for generations. Hands reaching out in worried. Reaching out seeking comfort. Gratitude reaching out in wonder hands seeking strength. For clarity. And of course. As unitarian universalist. It's understandable that there are those of us who find no meaning. In the word god. Or frustrated or even angered by the word. The word god has been used to justify all manner of cruelties. The word god has been used to stifle research. Discovery curiosity knowledge. Freedom. It's been used to deny our shared humanity. But even putting the word god of side with all its issues. We're still left with the problem of belief. These days when someone asks do you believe in god i still don't know what to say. Perhaps this is because it really isn't about belief. Cups that question misses the point. Because why spend time. Trying to prove or disprove something that i experience. Something that i feel. Even if i have trouble naming it. I recognize the divine the holy the mysterious the expansive and the radiant's. When i hear a story about it or hear it described. In her book big magic elizabeth gilbert writes about the creative process of the poet ruth stone. Stone experience inspiration as a force of its own. Something outside of herself that she was in conversation. When she lived in rural virginia she spent long hours working in the fields alone. And gilbert rights. Rootwood summertime's here. A poem coming toward her. Hear it rushing across the landscape at her like a galloping horse. Whatever just happened she knew exactly what she had to do. She would run like hell for the house trying to stay ahead of the poem. Hoping to get a piece of paper and a pencil fast enough to catch it. That way when the poem reached her and passed through her. She would be able to grab it and take dictation letting the words pour forth onto the page. Gilbert continues sometimes however she was too slow. And she couldn't get a paper and pencil in time. At those instances she could feel the poem rushing right through her body. And out the other side. It would be in her for a moment. Speaking of response. And then it would be gone before she could grasp that galloping away across the earth as she said searching for another poet. What is it exactly. That ruth stone could hear coming toward her. What is it that rush through her body. What offered her the chance to capture words on a page and left in search of another. Is she did not respond fast enough. Even if we have trouble naming the holy we have i hope each of us experienced joy. Delete writer artist whitman once collected descriptions of the ways in which people talked about their experience of joy. When description came from the psychologist abraham maslow who said that joy is a feeling. That we have glimpsed the essence of things. The secret of life. As if bales had been pulled aside. An artist whitman's collection of joy there is also the story of a woman walking along at a beach at dusk. Looking out over the darkening ocean. Women rights that the woman was overtaken by joy. When she made out the image of an anchored fishing boats. In the figure of a man. After a while she felt an intense and glowing sense of oneness with that silent figure. It was as though sienna sky and night and those two solitary human beings were united in a kind of profound identity. After studying her collection of joyous experiences. Whitman concluded that joy. Is the feeling that we have touched the hem of something far beyond ourselves. And she adds having known it myself. I have known in a flash of deep illumination. That there is in the universe. A white. A stop. A web a substance in company with which one can never be lonely. What's to make of these descriptions of joy as something that visits us from beyond. Some invisible web that connects human being to human being. Gioia something that existed before i did and will go on existing long after me. The jean canyon palm we heard earlier entitled briefly it enters and briefly it speaks. It what is the it. But she is naming. The something that sits with the hungry child and is present in the gate and the working hinge. I am water rushing to the wellhead filling the picture until it spills. It could be abundance. I am the patient gardener of the dry and weedy garden. Is it. Tenacity or perseverance. I am there in the basket of fruit presented to the widow. Is the it that briefly enters and briefly speaks compassion. Perhaps part of the problem is trying to identify as either atheist or theist. Is one who does not experience god or someone who does. There may be fewer and fewer of us that fit in one category of the other with certainty and clarity. More and more people seem to fall somewhere in between or beyond the paradigm of none for all. I don't believe in a puppet master god who doles out irrational punishments on a whim. But i feel held in existence. My gut tells me that there is something more behind the logistics of everyday life. An energy and aliveness. Something more. Maybe. We don't have to be certain today. Maybe we don't have to know or be able to articulate exactly what we feel or think about god just now. Or the mystery that that word stands for. As pico iyer says. The opposite of knowledge isn't always ignorance. It can be wonder or possibility. He says in life i found it's the things i don't know. But often bring me closer to everyone around me. Blessed be.

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10.6.19_listening_to_our_longing.mp3

Sonia abousamra. And ej today are too wise and compassionate. Spiritual teachers. Who co-founded the school for radical purpose. The school for radical purpose and their words is there to reveal a radical compass. To create life rooted in healing. And desire. Tanya and ej dedicate most of their waking hours. To the work of helping people listen to their own souls. They call this work. Rooting in desire. Rooting meaning to things here. First to route around search and sift through our experiences. For what brings us most alive. Second routing means to plant ourselves in a life-giving place. Define groundedness and nourishment so growth can unfold. Rooting in desire. Sifting through spiritual hunger. Listening more intently to what our deepest self. Longs for that is how one learns the language of the soul. It's a worthwhile language to learn since as. Sonia and ej say. The soul is the part of us that can answer the question. Why am i here on this earth. The soul communicates through longing through spiritual hunger pains. And this will sound very silly at first. I personally too often i have trouble. Telling the difference between spiritual hunger and just playing hunger. I'm an extrovert. Not means different things for different people. For me and part being extroverted means that i dread. Spending time. In my inner world. That place where experience and insight come together. The natural habitat of reflection and creativity. Once i'm fully immersed in my inner world not so bad. But i resist. To the last. And this is men that i've had a difficult time learning that longing is the language of the soul. And that there is indeed a difference between spiritual hunger and just playing. Hunger. A few years ago i was on a long drive with poor cell service. And so i was forced to spend time alone with myself. A few hours into the drive i felt restless and increasingly empty. So when i stopped to buy gas. I picked up two large bags of chocolate covered pretzels as well and back on the road i tore into those pretzels with relief. And momentary delight. I reach for handful after handful the salts meeting the sweet captivated me a microsecond at a time distracting me from something uncomfortable rising up in me trying to get my attention. A longing that i was intent on drowning out. Eating those chocolate-covered pretzels. Was the equivalent of trying to plug my ears resisting the desire to listen to a distant music. Inevitably. The chocolate covered pretzels. Ran out. And my longing grew so loud that i felt consumed overwhelmed i had to pull over the car to have a good hard cry. But the crying cleared away my resistance. And i started listening better to the longing following the spiritual hunger. Deeper in word. I haven't listened to the language of my soul for so long. But now a myriad of experiences that i have been trying to keep in tiny boxes. Came pouring out. I miss. My grandma. At the time she was not doing well. Something in me wanted to drop everything forget about what was convenient what was prudent and just go spend a week with her. Taking the comfort of her voice. And the smell of her house. I suddenly felt how much i did not want my grandma to be alone. Even. For 1 hour. Our soul can answer the question how do you want to spend the time. You are given. Next came a series of news stories that i had found troubling but it kept at a distance for months. Tamir rice and freddie gray had been killed less than 6 months apart from one another. And i now found myself remembering hello black colleague had cried openly at a ministry retreat the week before. Grieve by how easily the lives of black children are taken. And forgotten. She had spilled her anguish in hopes that those of us sitting with her might help her hold it. And make it. Our own. I suddenly felt how much i did not want her to feel alone. Our soul can answer the question why am i here on this earth. The more i kept still. And listened to my longing. The more tumbled out of me. Slowly the muddled not a feeling i've been trying to ignore with untangled. The fog of anxiety cleared. Long enough to reveal to me with fleeting. Yet shimmering certainty. What mattered most. And what direction was needed to reorient myself yet again. On the path of my life. Longing is the language of the soul. Spiritual hunger that leads us toward relationship. Healing and meaning. Longing is the souls invitation to share our life force beyond ourselves. When you sense that deep hunger stirring. When a profound longing overtakes you. Resist the urge to turn to chocolate covered pretzels. Instead allow yourself to listen more deeply. Know that our longing reminds us that our soul is there. Even if it's buried under layers of sorrow or distraction. Our soul is there within. And speaking all the time.

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Manny-Allen-7.22.mp3

The vivian a shirt slightly different perspective song on auto. Journey to spirituality. My spirituality bill game with my parents. My grandfather william allen. What's a baptist minister. Does the name emmanuel allen. Senior and junior. Meaning god with e. My grandmother mother was starched church attendance. So i was running bible stories from the united church of christ we attend it. As well as the baptist and holiness churches we visited with grandma. I was 16 and my brothers were 1511 my mother pass. The 1963. Just two days before the kennedy assassination. We were sure about that church family but they would be there for us. Around the same time the kkk march in raleigh. Cover. The red white and blue road spanning from the old capitol building to memorial auditorium. We three were politically active and follow doctrine. Off dr. martin luther king. The black panther party. And malcolm x. While listening to the propaganda of ultra-conservative. Jesse helms on viewpoint. We're exposed to the teachings of the honorable elijah muhammad. Eldridge cleaver. 2p newton and various other activist. After the assassination of dr. king. My mood brother was arrested for going dangerously arm to join the process. The murder of dr. king left many in the nation feeling hopeless. Overall church found it was nowhere to be found. We were thought to be troublemakers. It was after fighting for equal rights and the passing of the civil rights laws. By the johnson administration. Then we became exposed to mainstream america. And realized our neighborhood was being overwhelming drugs. Particularly heroin. A community did not have the resources to bring in this drug so we wondered how it got there. We realized. Law enforcement used it as another way to suppress. Ncontrol. My little brother and i were fortunate enough. To be hard but i'll be on in 1966. Durham. People from many backgrounds. You're my world a black-and-white i was unaware of the various ethnic groups. It was in the research triangle where i first met a mormon. It was rather strange the way he was sitting stare. That make doing ours.. After about a month. He felt comfortable enough to join me for lunch. Exchanging pleasantries. Ask me why i was violent and militant. This is his judgment was. Partially due to my chosen hairstyle and afro. And the racial riots that were occurring in several cities during the summer of 1967. I went home that day and rest some about the mormon church. I was told it was in the church doctrine that no person of color. Could have a position of authority. Because we had the curse of cain. How could we would welcome to become members here. I knew this was the same justification used for slavery. They cannot understand why only people of color have the curse. Albion granite me military leave of absence. And i join the navy in 1970. To avoid being drafted for the vietnam war. They consider me a political activist and release me. Talk about 3 years. Under honorable conditions. Always care about my duties but i rebelled against injustice by publishing an underground newspaper. We shall receive new mattresses that i found was substandard. Was found warnings on each label. Although it was against the rules to smoke in bed. That room was often violated. Just making these mattresses fire hazards as we slept five bucks high. Mercer sam ervin. Probably open in a congressional investigation. Which resulted in my captain losing a ship. I had to speak up for my volume for human life. American asphalt and beautiful wife tawana. The 1978. We felt the need to express to expose my three-year-old step-son bruce. The spirituality and the christian values we brought with. He lost his father as a police detective. Slain in the line of duty. We visited various churches and i'll daughter to mia attendance. Uucc open-door school. We have been here several times for memorial services as well as meetings and freeman hall for charlatans for free south africa. And finally saw the release of nelson mandela. We never attend the service here because we were not familiar with the mission. We started with jehovah witnesses for about 2 years. I found it odd. The weather calculated the numbers. People who ascended to heaven. Add 144,000. Within attended a new church development for about 10 years eastfield presbyterian. I can wash his good intentions.. Donated time property energy. And money. Only the sea the presbyterian renege on promises. And sell the church for huge profit. My brother-in-law was like. Devotee. Who introduced me to the hindu community inshallah. And discuss the life of priest. That is frank still in common with jesus. Yeah we both questioned the strife between hindu. Muslim. Christian. Judah. Atheist buddhist. When it was obvious there was value and all. With finally found a congregation is heroes those values. No 71 along with two water. Peppa membership for about 2 years. We were attracted to use your cc. Put a stance on social justice. Environmental issues. Tawana not build up a trust with his congregation. And i'm grateful to have. Pill. the memorial service for a son here. We have come to know you better. Through the undoing racism workshop. And the transparency and openness that are displayed here. As well as welcoming about family doing our family reunions. I look back and clean lessons learned from my past or spirituality. Some of which were don't judge. Don't take. Question the status quo. Question authority. Loveislove. Depend on the change being constant in our lives. Fusion even religion can be weaponized. Life is beautiful. This is the day that god has given us rejoice and be glad in it. Be self-sufficient but never too proud to ask for help. All lives matter. Science is real. We are thankful for all of our blessings.

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Kaarin-Record-Leach-9.2.mp3

Good morning. My name is karen and i've been a member here for several years. If you don't recognize my face. You may recognize this side of me. Because i'm usually hiding behind the piano over there this is not my comfort zone when john asked me to be a part of the service today i thought to myself the last thing i want to do is write another paper after what i've been doing for the past 2 years. But this was easy and a complete joy so i hope you find some use for my words today. Since 1992 i've spent two-plus decades as a public school music educator choral conductor church music minister and piano instructor. I've always loved the different facets of my career but doing anything for so long can make you weary. In the summer of 2014 with my only child getting ready to leave for college. The reality of how quickly life was passing by kidney. And i realize that i had entered into the stereotypical midlife crisis. During that summer of 2014 as i've been known to do i took off on a solo 45th birthday trip. I'll let you do the math. To spend july on the coast of maine trying to reorganize my thoughts and gain some perspective on the impending second half of my life. Along with trying to reckon with what was becoming an ever more painful lower spine condition. On an impromptu boat trip i took a series of photos. There was a whale up there was there a whale at their previously the breaching whale was a photo of mine and. The image of that giant joyful animal leaping into the wide blue sky would become an inspiration to me as i navigated through the next few years. The following year the cause of my spinal condition condition was finally diagnosed. Is a bizarre thing called modic changes type 1. It was causing the marrow in my back for dubray to erode the surrounding bone matter. It causes 24-hour pain i described it as having a curling wand a hair curling wand. Set the high permanently implanted like a fire in my lower back. On good days i'm simply in pain. Unreal 4 days. I need a cane and now even a walker. On the worst days bodily functions cease to cooperate man confined to a bed. This diagnosis coupled with my empty nest syndrome is ultimately what led mean. To make the decision to start over. As intelligent. Social justice taking humans we hear all understand how much words matter. And if he's been on twitter 45 minutes since the election of 2016 you really understand how much words matter. All my life i've had a negative voice in my head. That i suspect is no different than many of you and the words that voice said to me day after day had to find me for over four decades. After that trip to maine i desperately began to look for positive words to push away my constant negative companion. Being a practical girl i found that if i surrounded myself with visual representations of quote you know the little ones that you see on pieces of wood that you can buy at a store. A little physical reminders are ultimately what helped me to start over. Whatever reason my brain wasn't strong enough to shut down the negative voice on its own. But when i see inspiring words written down. That's what i end up saying to myself. So by using the non-dominant right hemisphere of my brain was just stronger and visual information i was able to feed my left hemisphere much-needed positive language. It's not a perfect plan. But it sure beats the constant negative stream of disheartening and often paralyzed and comments that i made to myself on a regular basis. Scientists have proposed many reasons as to why whales breach. But having seen the phenomenon firsthand it seems to me that they were experiencing exuberance and joy. I have hung up whale photo next to my couch where frankly i was spending more and more time. And after much reflection on that joyful beast. I realize that what gave me my deepest joy. Was playing piano. With others. A company acquires solo singers instrumentalist. It's the singular place i get mentally emotionally and physically lost. Incomplete joyful focus. And even though the pain is still there it moves to a different compartments in my head. If you have chronic pain. You know full well that even though the cause. Is physical. Living with it becomes a mental game. Making music with others gives me relief in a way that prescription medication is not capable of doing. So in the words of my friend lisa lackey i got a wild hair and i decided to audition for a master's degree program and a very niche field called collaborative piano which focuses not only on coaching singers in healthy vocal presentation but in french german italian english and other operatic languages while accompanying them and dozens of different classical styles. I prepared for months and when the audition was finally over i was accepted on the spot. With my husband's blessing and the support of my family and friends. I headed off to a music conservatory in princeton new jersey in the fall of 2016. Now i remember that my son had gone off to college he was also at princeton starting his junior year there. He was initially more than mortified when i showed up the look of horror on his face when he found out that not only did i have classes with some of his friends but that they thought that i was pretty awesome that i will never forget once he realized that i wasn't there to check up on him he would show up at my door occasionally usually for food or money but sometimes just to simply hang out. So it turns out that going back to college nowadays it's not just knowing how to google things. So as with anything that i've tried to accomplish if it starts out with what am i thinking. It usually turns out to be pretty fun. The back pain was my constant companion and i often had to use a cane and rely on the help of other students to get to my classes. And there were many many times i cried myself to sleep. But fortunately i had placed dozens of those little woodward decorations around my apartment. And they're always there staring at me with their positive words and happy colors. So i thought i'd share with you five of the phrases that gave me the most strength and the best opportunity to drown out the mental negativity. The first one was she believed she could so she did. Right before i left for new jersey my dear friend lisa. Gave me a long piece of wood. Beck said she believed she could so she did on it. It's home became front and center in my apartment and it kept me going day after day i read it thousands upon thousands of times and it was my cornerstone. Another dear friend elsa lafferty gave me the second phrase that inspired me regularly. It read simply. Dream. I put it in my bedroom to remind me that dreams can turn into goals. It was the first thing i saw in the morning and the last thing i saw italy. The third was life begins at the end of your comfort zone. Wish i just saw back in john's room also. If you're anything like me you love your comfort zone but if you don't stretch your limits your boundaries won't grow. Starting over involve doing things that scare you if you're not scared you're not really living. Because the fact is if it doesn't change you. If it doesn't challenge you it won't change you. The fourth was hard spend more time alone. If you want to get better at something you must work hard by yourself. Focus. Be quiet. Let success be the noise. People with purpose goals and vision have less time for drama. The temptation to college they hang out with fun people is strong. And trust me. If a college student text you at midnight they're looking for more than a study partner. If they text you at 3 again you were there last choice. Spend more time alone the last one was a quote by former princeton resident albert einstein. A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. You will make mistakes but discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life. You may have to get up every morning and tell yourself i can do this even though every bone in your body will be screaming let me go back to bed. If you're not prepared to be wrong you'll never create anything new. And i can tell you that failure does not get easier. But at least for me i'm no longer in fear of it if i mess up. I will bow. Straighten my tiara. And keep on walking. The only person that i have to beat this the person that i was last week. So this half may i graduated in the presence of friends and family and the beautiful princeton university chapel. The prior to that i had taken another solo trip this time. Do flagstaff arizona to assess what i would do after i returned to charlotte. The shot that you saw previously was taken on that trip and what's essentially a skinny crack in the ground called a slot canyon. I don't yet know what that picture means to me but like the whale. I know it will reveal its purpose to me in time. If you're contemplating beginning a new part of your life i ordered you to find a way to make it happen the biggest mistake we make in life. Is waiting. Waiting until you're ready. Or until someone else thinks you're ready. Or until you have more experience. Or until your health improves. As the saying goes it's better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb. Then to be in the middle of one you don't. There's only one way out of this for all of us in the holes dug for us in the ground are always going to be waiting. So don't you waze. If you're scared tell yourself a different story because you become what you say to yourself. Words matter. Even if the last two years were my worst mistake. I've made it over and over again i'm grateful for that struggle because without it i wouldn't have found my strength. They say that the greatest prison people live in is the fear of what other people think. But i don't believe that because if you're anything like me your greatest prison is living paralyzed by what you think about yourself. I found a way to manage the negative voice. It's still in there. But i survived because the fire of committing to growth and change burn brighter. Then the fire burning in my back. The secret to starting over. Just getting started. I promise you the only reason you'll look back. Is to see how far you've come. Find what lights your fire. And then start over.

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12.16.18_one_brick_one_step.mp3

Around 2 a.m. on sunday july 12th 1925. Two men knocked on an apartment door at 34 east oak street in the near north section of chicago. One was a city detective. The other a newspaper reporter. Despite the lack of a search warrant they entered. The officers seized property and written material. Bmv arrested the 32-year old occupant. An army veteran and postal worker named. Henry. Gerber. What was gerbers crime. What warranty of this stealthy approach one assuring the story with immediately make the papers. Henry gerber was born joseph henry dittmar on a late june 1892 day in bavaria. Accompanied by family members he entered the us as a young man through ellis island. Finding his way then to chicago. Four years later he would be briefly committed to a mental hospital. Because. You see. Henry gerber. Was it then defied. As a homosexual. Interned as a german alien enemies during world war 1 upon his release ironically he served with the us army of occupation in germany from 1920 to 1923. Well they are henry gerber read german gay literature. And learned about the german homosexual emancipation movement. Magnus hirschfeld. A german physician. And defender of gay rights. Who is working to repeal the law that criminalized. Homosexuality. Gerber came back inspired. Returning a 1924 duster cago with its emerging gay subculture he was hired by the post office. He then began to work to establish an organization to advocate for gay rights. With a few others on december 10th nineteen twenty-four 94 years ago this past week gerber submitted the charger for the society for human rights. It was the first gay rights organization in the united states. They began publishing a newsletter called friendship and freedom however however gay readers were afraid to subscribe because at that time. Chicago's postal spencer's. We're cooperating with the police. To help identify anyone who is receiving homosexual literature. So they could be punished as a sexual deviant. The society never attracted more than a few members. A short time. It ended. Abruptly. The wife of one of the co-founders reported her bisexual husband to a social worker who then contacted the police. Beryllium at july 19-25 sunday gerber and several others were arrested. And prosecuted for. Deviancy. Years later gerber would recall the experience at the police station i was locked. Stop in a cell the new charges were made against me a friendly cop at the station showed me a copy of the examiner there right on the front page i found this incredible story. Syringe. Exposed. Gerber went through three costly trials he lost his entire life savings he was fired from his job for conduct unbecoming a postal worker. His case was finally dismissed only because. Of the officers failure to obtain a search warrant. None of his documents were ever returned he was bankrupt he was jobless they would not be another gay rights organization in chicago for 30 years. Gilbert's humiliating experience had a long precedent in our nation. Since colonial times members of the lgbtq community we're certainly not accorded liberty or the pursuit of happiness and where on occasion denied their very lives early colonial accounts from virginia and from massachusetts record those caught engaging in same-sex relationships receiving punishments from public whipping. To death. Massachusetts had a law on its books against. Cross-dressing. From the late. 17th century. After declaring in winning independence the young nation didn't follow the enlightenment lead and decriminalizing personal sexual behavior. Instead for more than two centuries the united states continue to make homosexuality a social aberration and a punishable. Eventually science would team up with religion. The former calling homosexuality a mental disorder. The ladder in abominable scene. Young henry gerber had immigrated to a nation posing serious threats to life liberty and pursuit of happiness. Just. For the crime. Of being. Who he was. Has the first gay rights organization came crashing to the ground. There was less than a century ago. No reason to believe. This reality with evergy. What could possibly make anyone think that this homophobic transphobic heterocentric nation could ever be. Transformed. Some. Believe. Nonetheless. Please. Keep pushing. Fighting marching singing dancing they kept demanding insisting creating upheaval creating discomfort they kept advocating they kept working in and out of the political process they kept praying and. They kept believing. My friend. In the recent midterm elections. 161 people. Who identify as lgbt cue were elected to office. Just how cynical and historically mistaken would you have to be to claim nothing. Ever. Change it. The fight and it has been a fight. The fight some of us have been in four decades. Has created remarkable change. Change. It has happened. It can happen. A great heroine of the catholic worker movement dorothy day admitted some people say what is the sense of our small. What is. Miscanthus tower. Small effort. Our taking time to liberally carefully to listen. And to learn. What does it matter. Dorothy day respond some cannot see that we must lay one. Take one step. At a time. Transformation is slow transformation painfully slow. Transformation is the journey of one step after another transformation is built up brick. I pray. Vibrate. But it is possible. Is. Possible. I'm not naive. I don't believe that change is necessarily permanent. The threats remain real the humiliation that hate they remain real. We cannot risk history teaches hard lessons freedoms one can be lost again the rolling down river of justice can diminish to a trickle and evaporate altogether in the scorching heat of injustice. Closet doors of all kinds must be unhinged. Taking down turned into scrap or better yet made into tables at which all can gather to eat. Let's these doors become again barriers impediment. The skeletal framework. Skeletal framework. Of course victory. And civic accomplishments. Must be in fleshed in hearts and enhanced and invoices where loved and not legalities becomes our guide we cannot rest. And. And along this way we must. Celebrate. We must notice and appreciate the claim and we must revel we must revel in change. Real chains. By all accounts the initial gay-rights organization of the us was a couch sleep. Failure. Short-lived with a shame field conclusion. It didn't seem to make any difference. Play burn album. Now with the benefit of decades of perspective henry gerber's home in chicago. Is on the national. Historic. Richest. Henry gerber is a claimed as an early hero in the struggle for lgbtq justice. He lived long enough to learn about new york's stonewall uprising. All of us with a personal stake in lgbtq justice stand on the unlikely shoulders. Kimberly gerber. Today is a day to celebrate. To use awareness of change the reef fortifying reinvigorator. Today's a day to remember with immense gratitude the courage of those who lived in this struggle. In the words of michael adams you'll find them on the cover of your order we stand on the shoulders of our elders elders like henry gerber and we lock arms with them we lock arms with him. The face the future. We refuse. To be quiet. We refuse to be quite read these words with me they're on the cover yours just it's the blast sentence. We refuse to be quiet. We refuse to let haitian women. And we refuse to be invisible. Take heart. Courage. Takes. Take one more step. One more step. One more step.

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3.8.20_each_for_equal.mp3

Never as the adage goes never begin by apologizing. Today however out the light at maximum. I began if not with an apology then at least with an admission. This just may not be my sermon to give. After all on the pyramid of privilege i am at the very top. Life dealt me and the surgery. Advantage pan. Some of you will recall the late molly ivins takedown of george h.w. bush born on third base and thought he hit a triple even more significantly. With the two most powerful trump cards of privilege up my sleeve. Being white. And being male. My life has always had the benefit of those immense. Craigslist. The learning some of us have been doing here it's teaching me that i can't help but see life through that lens. And more to the point of today's service. No matter how hard i worked to betray and subvert sexism patriarchy and misogyny i'll never stop seeing and experiencing the world as a man. Who am i then to lead an observance of international women's day. What makes me think that i can be some modern-day demosthenes able to be heard over the oceanic roar of injustice with my mouth full of the pebbles of privilege. It is a risky. Proposition. If some applying that it would be better for me not to take this risk i understand or. At least i think i do. I question however if we want to apply that disqualification across all arenas of privilege if we insisted lights keep quiet while white supremacy continues to define and dominate our culture. If we insist that citizens keep quiet immigrants lives are threatened not just with indignity but with death. If we insist that the heterosexual and cisgender people keep quiet while homophobia and transphobia rage. If we insist that does with economic power to quiet while the gaping gulf between the haves and the haves not nearly enough widens from a chasm to a kenyan then won't this always leave the oppressed. Tipton ford in salem. In a world in which they already face and unjust. I take some solace from justine musk who declares the enemy of feminism. Isn't men. It's patriarchy. And patriarchy is not men. It's a sister. And women can support the system of patriarchy just as men can support the fight for gender. Equality. So consider this an effort to participate in that fight. A struggle that has gone on for four centuries. On the arrival of those first colonizers. Until. Need i remind anyone here until. This past week. The property prosaic is also accurate aphorism today there is good news. And not-so-good news. First the good news. By any measure by any measure. We as a nation have made dramatic progress. Where the journey toward gender equality is concerned. Of course. That bar with set the elderly low at our family. In march 1776 weeks before the colonies would declare their independence abigail adams would write to her husband john. Then serving in the continental congress in philadelphia. I desire you would remember the ladies. And be more generous and favorable to them then where your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands. Of the husband. John adams the future second president of the united states wrote her a mocking response that included the lines. Dependent. We know better than to repeal are masculine systems. And of course it was john. Not abigail. Who got his way. Documentary filmmaker, that lopez explains when our constitution was written in 1787 women had no rights whatsoever. We were chattel on first by our fathers and then by our husbands. Ruth bader ginsburg concurs as framed in 1787 the constitution was a document of government. 4. And why. White. Property. Adult. Mayors. But doesn't that make you wonder even more. About those who continue to call themselves strict constitutionalist. Who are determined to shoes a safe to the narrow intent expressed by those original trainers. It's important to note that this is john adams called it this masculine system was a system. A social construct. The fact that it may be possible to find in the writings of some man of the time some statement suggesting that he might think of women as his equal. The fact that some men may actually have treated women as their equals doesn't change that reality. As we are learning more deeply here it takes more than an altered personal attitudes and behavior to transform structural injustice simply changing hearts and minds is never enough. What altum what ultimately must change is the system is the structure. Social construct is perpetuating a person. Courtyard of anything remotely like. show transformation with way too many obvious examples of egregious exit. And now at the end of the week. When many of us felt deep disappointment. And some of us felt intense outrage. When a few of us may have felt utter despair. We can none-the-less on this international women's day note that there has been changed. Meaningful. Substance. Change. Even our deepest disappointments must not delude us into some indefensible assertion that nothing is ever really change. We can rightly celebrate that the significant presence of women in both united states senate and house. Completely. Completely paralyzed the original intent of those founders and fingers. And are we still need many more women in those roles and we certainly need far fewer women in those roles who is justine must rightly noted support the system of patriarchy. We must count this as primer. We can ride away celebrate that the significant presence of women in medicine. Law science academic business social work. Community organizing activism teaching nonprofit leadership and the clergy. Mark's unmistakable progress since our founding. Doors that did not even exist in a nation claiming as self-evident that all were created equal. Have now been opened. And we are all better. We can rightly celebrate the hard one. The very tenuously maintain autonomy of women over their body. They're right. Tissues. Y'all too slow but unmistakable social progress for lesbians and trans women. The rise of the me-too movement. And the convictions of certain high profile serial rapist. The standing of certain women athletes and entertainers who are bucking the system. And blazing new trails. We can celebrate these structural societal changes. Changes we must always know changes that are the products of the aggregated efforts of some women and some men changes that politicians and the political system did not lie. Did not leave. But rather followed behind. There is good news. Not just for women and girls. Look for all of us who believe that worth and dignity have no gender meaning whatsoever. We can. And we should. But especially in a setting like this. A place that is steeped in all kinds of privilege that many in our city and our world could not imagine. It is essential on this day that we not overlooked an important reality. Kimberly williams crenshaw of the brilliant lawyer civil rights act advocate philosopher scholar and author. Kimberly williams crenshaw she who developed the theory of intersectionality that increasingly informs our work here. Kimberly williams crenshaw declares with unmistakable conviction. I believe that women empowered is absolutely essential. That women empower. Is absolutely not. Enough. That's what are unitarian forbear frances ellen watkins harper a free woman of color was trying to tell those white women at the 11th national women's rights convention and where'd you heard earlier simply giving women the power of the vote is not she said going to cure all the ills of life voting white women may not prove to be the friends or the allies of other women. So while the white women spoke of their rights. Harper railed against rollins. I believe that women empowers absolutely essential and that women empower is absolutely not enough. That's what you heard earlier and words from angela davis. She cries when she called glass ceiling feminism. Okay manism focused on getting more power. But they already powerful. Any feminism she says privileges those who already have privilege. Is bound to be a relative. The poor women the working-class women the women of color to trans women to trailer women of color. Standards of feminism cannot be created only by those who have already ascended economic hierarchy. Davis does find help. Revolutionary residing among those women who have been abandoned by history. And who are now standing up and making their voices heard. Once again. We are summoned to listen to. And learn from those on the margins. To embody a commitment to gender justice that is so transformative that we will rail against the police killing of sandra bland. With the same digger. If we rail against the sideline. Elizabeth warren. I believe so deeply in the need for transformation that we will be as concerned for women who don't earn a living wage. Who don't have access to any carrier. Who cannot imagine getting a paid day off. As we are that women in systems of power earn as much as men in those same systems. To understand ever more deeply what eve insular means when she says i don't really care if more women are in power. Icare is more women who are fighting for people over profit. Arkansas. I want she says i want women to be in its entirety. Theresa racism. The stop global warming. To make parenting and sexuality in education and healthcare priorities. Rather than being in it. To win. And that is precisely what kimberly williams crenshaw meant. When she wrote and talked about intersectionality. Define for gender equality in this land now in thursday. Century. False. All thanks and praise to those brave heroes of our past. Who saw beyond what was and is to what. Tempted. Call sang. All thanks and praise to those shamelessly. Feminist. Warriors. The challenge social structures and social construct. And understood in the very marrow of their bones that altered minds and hearts would never be able. Who knew that the whole. Nation. Made it to chain. Outside. All thanks and praise to this courageous women who never wanted us to settle for a few having power. Proof you getting what is fair and just for a few rising to the very top but who were forever mindful. Of all who are being left to have. And left behind. Yes. Yes there has been progress. We have come along. And if we really believe the high ideals of our liberating faith. If we truly believe that our vision and our mission matter. If we really are committed to transformation. We cannot risk we cannot believe we cannot refrain from ever more vigorous resisting. Onward. The name of all that is good. And through. And beautiful. Onward.

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10.15.17_our_taste_for_beauty_alone.mp3

In september of 1862. This is still inconceivable. Almost twenty-three thousand soldiers died in the u.s. civil war battle that took place at 10 p.m.. Maryland. Then in early october. There were additional. 50000 + casualty. At the same time the dakota war was flaring up in minnesota. A smallpox epidemic. Play the wisp. Earlier in the same year. Catastrophic floods had ravaged a wide portion of that region. It was not by any estimation the best of times for a violently fracture. Nation. Readers of the atlantic monthly we're reminded of that grim reality. Included in their october 1862 issue was a poem by john greenleaf whittier. Acknowledging the flags of warlike thornburg's like the charging trumpets blow. He spoke of the battle brick. Apparel. Those readers might understandably have found it incongruous. That this issue. Of the atlantic begins with an essay entitled. I'm no. It's author better known to us now than to atlantic readers then with a new england writer. Lecturer surveyor naturalist walker and sometimes pencil maker. Henry david thoreau. It represented one of thoreau's final literary effort it's actual publication coming six months after his untimely death. With war. Raging. With battlefield in the north and the south saturated in the blood of the young with a major portion of the population still enslaved in the south and rejected in the north 40 outfitters right in the atlantic then chose to print an essay extolling. Fall colors. Can you imagine. How does one sing a lovely song in a strained. The question. Who here is unaware that question still pertained how does one thing a lovely song. Ennis trained. Land. Barros. Acclaimed essay one of my personal favorite pieces of his writing. Do an extensive notes intended for a much more ambitious project when he realized as his like wayne he could not possibly complete. He's been sharing this observation as early as in a february 1859 lecture. Three february's later as robert richardson in this tender introduction to a recent publication of this essay explain. As the 44 year-old henry thoreau lay dying. And his family home in concord massachusetts in the cold new england winter. He rattles himself to one last great literary effort. The result. Results hamilton. Any thoughts on the colorful time lapse or tom note or inviting us on a long load attentive walk through the streets alone forest pass and down the language alluvial waterways of his beloved hometown. It began in late august. The purple grassy right is now at the height of its beauty. Arrow points out that to the attentive i there's a change. Even of draft. The one who notices may be overcome by its beauty. Each homeless plant or weed as we call it stands there to express some thought or mood. Utility is he will stay in varying wedding. Beauty the beauty we take the time to notice to really notice. Break down the barrier between the observed. And the observer. Appreciating. Beauty gives expression to something deep within each. By the 25th of september thorough notes with characteristic exactitud the red maples generally are beginning to be right. He needs them with an unmistakable biblical echo burning bushes. Magnificent trees also communicating something sacred. How beautiful with a whole tree is like one grapefruit full of right juices every lie from lowest limb to top most fire all aglow especially if you look toward the summit. I'd grown up with the austere restraint of early unitarianism. A religion he rejected as a young adult. He knows that should be me knows that tradition suspicion of pleasure. Pinch a this from time to time changing those churchgoers in his massachusetts village. In the full flush of fall splendor hill remark that these dispassionate hotchkiss heady religionists see the trees in their hicolor and just might fear that some mischief is brewing. I do not believe what the puritans did at this season. Wyndham maple glaze out in garland. They certainly could not have worship in groves been. Furnaces why they built meeting houses and fence them round with horseshit. Pendulum. Then it's the elm does great brownish-yellow message and then the falling leaves fifth horn steak bad your carpets on the ground while large fleets of leaves are floating on the surface of the assabet river coursing through town the trees here are now. Repainting the earth. With interest. What they have taken from. He's full of all when his attention turns later in the fall to the sugar. If i look up the main street they appear like painted scream. Standing before the houses glowing with yellow and red and show unexpectedly unexpectedly bright and delicate.. Amman enamored of funny. To learn to love careful scientific designation will none-the-less admit but of much more importance than the knowledge of the names and distinctions of color. Is the joy and exhilaration. With the colored leaves expire. Beard arm-in-arm with the lights of it you can hardly tell at last what in the dance is leaf and what is life. This is walk fit into the parameters of this essay draws to its in thoreau properties a broader observation. There is just as much beauty visible to us. In the landscape. As we are prepared. To appreciate. This just as much beauty beauty available to us in the landscape as we are prepared to appreciate. It's an observation echoed a few decades later by gerard manley hopkins poop writing his own a condo primal explain these things these things we're here. End but the beholder. Beauty. Is here. Beauty is always here to be seen and heard and felton. To be noticed and listen to and taking in foley. Into the very soul of our souls. There's as much beauty available as we are willing to appreciate. At the core of all that he offers in this piece. Henry david thoreau is addressing a deep and unrelenting human need to be sure we must have as he calls him the fruits which we eat. But it's not enough. We have the recognizes our taste for beauty alone. A case for beauty. Alone. Most assuredly apart and essential part of what it means to be human is to ponder and thirst for beauty. Distance inadequate nutrition weakens and withers our bodies so2 without seeing and noticing and appreciating and magnifying beauty. We need beauty as surely as we need food. We cannot be human. Without music. Betye saar is a remarkable contemporary artists now in her nineties. An early and exemplary participant in the black arts movement. Her art is occasionally mystical spiritual. Do more often is rye clever fatir occur. It was food her piece the liberation of aunt jemima. That many first discovered her art. And an empty our interview for her 80th birthday sorry admitted that much of what she is creating is informed by anger about the segregation and the racism in our country. But it's not enough. Not for better jar. So she continued. That's the part. Essential. Cat beauty. Mystery and beauty star says remain constant forces behind my creative energy. To award torn nation. More fractured than it had ever been 40 offered. Beauty. Beauty as he founded beauty as he expressed it. He offered it because. We have a taste for beauty alone. He offered it because. Even when social ills lou large even in times that are exasperating. Even. Or maybe especially when things are so unnerving. We need beauty. It's not a luxury it's not an adornment it's not an indulgence. Beauty is essential. It is food for our hungry souls. One of you reminded me just this week how ellis walker express that in the color purple. I think it pisses god off. If you walk by the color purple. In a field somewhere. And don't notice. On the off-chance that we've gotten this universalism thing wrong. You really don't want to piss god off during the week when me. Mark the 100th birthday of the high priest of bebop. North carolina native felonious munk. I'm enlisting tomorrow. Every morning. In such unexpected unorthodox ways and makes the world a more beautiful place. Everyday. Along with breakfast. A little more sustenance for my hungry shark. And you. Where are you noticing and hearing and appreciating beauty these days. Some of you've heard me commend the recently a practice of greeting each other not with a disinterested how are you. But with us fully interested where are you finding beauty these days. Derbyshire. We are here. We exist as a spiritual community to stare unflinchingly into the face of the worst we humans do to one another. This can never be a sanctuary where we ignore or avoid the social ills of our time. We must in order to be who we say we are we must notice the brokenness and you're loudly and clearly the cries of the broken. But not just. Never only. This might also be a place that is calling us again and again to notice and appreciate and magnify beauty because there is never a time when that is not needed. Pioneering african-american biologist ernest everett just. Foundling for all the world like a student of thoreau's recognized week feel the beauty of nature. Because we are apart. Of nature. So in a tunnel stroll through a kaleidoscopic landscape gives us not just an experience of external. It reconnects us to the deepest most expensive most natural part of who we are. Listen. Pay attention don't ignore don't avoid the pain that is so real in the time. But all the while. Don't forget your hungering.. York. For beauty.

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12.17.17_Our_Hearts_Hold_a_Lantern.mp3

Well we find ourselves now and the last few days of the year. Tipping toward the winter solstice and the moments. When little by little we will begin to see the days lengthening again until almost before we know it. We will find ourselves all the way back into the spring. But in the meantime. In the winter darkness we look for ways. To list our lights. Those of us who delight in christmas have put up lights. Inside and outside our homes. Those who honor the solstice. Will attend. This coming thursday to the ageless rhythm of the earth. As it turns and its arc. And tips the north pole back. Toward the sun. Those celebrating hanukkah will light the six. Menorah candle tonight. And at least up in boston where i live those of us fortunate enough to have fireplaces in our homes. Are very grateful for the light and warmth of a wood fire from time to time. Even though most of us are not dependent on it to heat our houses. Far back into history and across cultures and geography we find the ritual kindling of light. At the darkest time of year. It is encoded into us and it is not hard. To understand why. As long as we have been. Recognizably human. We've taken our comfort. From the warmth of the community fire. Meeting its protection. In real. Tangible ways. Against the cold. Against predators. Against our own fears. Many millennia after our ancestors first learned to kindle fire at will. We still look. 4 ways to do it ourselves as the longest night. Approaches. The best digital memory is there even now in our modern era in which at least in our country darkness is never really total. Because of all the ambience light. Even now. There is. Nothing quite so fragile. And hopeful. As the light of a candle. Or a community fire. Shining against the large. And mysterious darkness. And because we are creatures. Who look for meaning. We have created. Stories about ourselves. About ourselves and about this habit. Of lighting the winter lights. Some of those stories have lasted in the telling. For many centuries. They are stories that try to explain how the sun was stolen away. And how it might be brought back. They are stories about the miracle of lamp oil. Manifestly insufficient. 48 days. A pimple rededication. Look somehow lasted. And allowed the light to shine. They are stories about a star. Heralding a baby. Born into poverty and danger. Who would become a teacher. Prophet. And savior. And of course they are metaphors. Stories that then shape how we sink. About the shadows. Of our lives. The shadows of depression and grief. A political repression and war. And about the lights of hope that we candle. In response. Indian resistance. These are all stories about faith. About the impulse. That is best captured in the compound word. Nevertheless. We are afraid. Though the odds are stacked against us though there is no reason on earth. To think we could prevail. Nevertheless. Let's make our stand. Just. Light the lamp. With whatever it is we do have left. And we will do what we can. In elie wiesel's first book about his experiences as a boy. In the nazi concentration camp. The bookie called. Night. There is a scene he describes of several prisoners gathering secretly and at. Terrible risk. On the first night of hanukkah. Somehow. In the midst of a deprivation and cruelty so extreme that people all around them were dying of starvation. Bisman. Had managed to get hold of a candle. And. Had found within themselves the will. To light it. In the middle of a dark night of the soul fire bleaker than any of them could have imagined. Rahzel. As a boy. Watched. The candle. As it was lighted and heard. The ancient prayers recited. He could not believe what he saw. And he was still. Not. With who. Or safe. But with. Bitter contempt. For what seemed to him the pure and manifest. Futility. Of that gesture. But he could not see them. But as an adult recounted in his book. Was that to put a match to the candles. Is that extremity of suffering. Was an assertion of the ultimate. Nevertheless. What the young elie wiesel witness. Was a kind of faith. That has nothing to do with belief. Or tradition. Or even hope. Chase hope with certainly. Very hard to find in that time and place. It was instead a capacity to reach into a transcendence. Within. To go there and find. Something deep. And sustaining. Still available. There was a way to kindle the light. Even. There. In his own terrible story. Wiesel recalls that when he watched his fellow prisoners lighting the hanukkah candle he was so filled with rage that he stomped. To the middle of their little circle and confronted them this. Angry. Starving boy. Shouting. This is all empty. There is no meaning in your candle no reason for it it illuminates nothing. But the idiocy. A view or belief. The man who had lighted the candle turns to him. Calm. And kind. And said. If. The candle cannot be lighted in auschwitz. It cannot be lit. Anywhere. We lighted here. And we find its meaning. Here. So that it's light. And meaning maybe preserve. Throughout the world. This is a radical state. Of faith. It is an extraordinary example. Not so much of what it means to have faith. But what it means to enact. To light the frail wick. Of a candle in the middle of such suffering. Was an act. Of power. Because it declared that all of the weapons. Of human violence and cruelty. Had been insufficient. To snuff out that defiant. Nevertheless. That. Defiance. Nevertheless. That has illuminated our struggles for justice. In all times. In places. Lighting the candle in auschwitz was not a way to demonstrate the face of those who stood. In the little circle of its light. It was a way of giving. Safe. Building and strengthening and recollecting faith. My practice. We who live with the evils of our own day and time and all of their fought shadows. Are in need of this kind of enacting of faith. As well. We are not facing. The munsters desolation. Of the concentration camp prisoners. And yet our needs. The ground ourselves deeply in a life-affirming stance toward our world is a real one. Felt with profound urgency. My many of us. Especially those of us who have been active in some dimension of the struggle for justice. Because we know. The deep weariness and the edges of despair that come from seeing very little change for the good. Despite all our best efforts. These days feel. Particularly perilous. As we see so much moving in directions. It appeared opposite to those. We believe in. For fairness. And for simplehuman driving. We watch policies that protect. Vulnerable people undone. Laws that preserve our lands and water overturned. Practices designed for human well-being distained. We listened in the wilderness distress. As deliberate lies. Are blasted out and amplified. By the highest. Political offices in deland. Sometimes the shadows are very long. And our lights can seem nearly meaningless. This is why it's so important for us to remember. That face. And hope. Or not. Feelings. Nor are they simply elements like grace that might descend on us but might touch us the way the wind comes and goes. Out of our hands and our control. Hope and grace are elements of being. Within each of us toward which we can choose. 1:58 ourselves. Even when what we actually feel. Is discouragement. Or fear. Or despair. They are gifts that we can embody. And offer. To one another. Our own little flames. Lifted. Against the shadows. The sufi poet rumi road. Magnetic fields. Draw us to lights. They move our limbs and that response. But it is still dark. If our hearts do not hold a lantern. We will stumble over each other. Hudl. As we are beneath the sky. It seems particularly. Important in these challenging days that we remember that lovely metaphor. For the ways we can lift and hold light. For one another. In the small dance of any given day. We each move past others. Who are huddled beneath the sky. Sometimes locked into their own personal and quite often invisible hell. Often made. Worse or deeper by the brightness and singing and joy of these. End-of-year holiday times. We suffer addiction and depression. Recent illness money struggles and job loss. Oppression and bias based on our identities. Show me flower hearts. Do not hold a lantern. We will stumble over each other. And rather than light one another's way and be a comfort. We will cause more suffering. But the question is how to do it. How do we kindle of ourselves of our own small hearts. These lanterns that might be of use. To someone else. How do we show up. For each other. And for our world. With compassion. Which. After all. Is what we know we also need. Compassion. Is usually defined as a deeply felt. Sympathy. Toward the suffering of others. And anna rising desire. To relieve that suffering. Compassion. God knows we need more of that. In the world as it is. But when it comes to evoking compassion pulling it out of our own selves. It is so often so much easier said than done. That is why we celebrate. Certain rare individuals among us as saints. Because they seem to do it so much better than the rest of us. Sometimes it seems like compassion. Is even their default setting. It is not. Usually mine. The writer and philosopher aldous huxley the author of. Brave new world and the perennial philosophy among others. Lived. Not only through the years of the holocaust but through the trauma of both. World wars. His world was not one of softness and light. Nor did the human race of which he was part. Give him a great deal of cause for hope. He struggled to articulate meaning for himself. And the millions of people he influence through his work. Huxley was asked near the end of his life. What words of advice. He would like to leave behind. He said. It's a bit embarrassing. To have been concerned with the human problem all one's life. And find at the end. That one has no more to offer by way of advice. Then this. Try to be a little kinder. Try to be a little kinder. Maybe far from embarrassing as. Crystallized form of wisdom movie those simple words really are. The best advice we could hope to have. We. Who hoped to make lanterns of our hearts. The difference between compassion. And kindness. Is the difference. Between destination. And a travel plan. Compassion. Is the goal. Kindness is a practice. They can help us get there. The difference between the two is an important one because sometimes. Compassion. Is absolutely more than we can manage. When confronted with the endlessly irksome nature of our fellow human beings. Despite our highest aspirations. These hearts of ours can be pretty stingy places. Craggy little outposts we're not very much flourishes. Besides our prickly judgment. Of everybody else. If our only hope for enlightenment is to have these hearts of ours. Blossom into full compassion. Quite a few of us will have to throw in the towel. Kindness. On the other hand is something we can choose to an act. No matter what's going on in our secret hearts and minds. We can practice kindness even when we're feeling really crabby. We can manage. A kind word. Or gesture. Even scored the most irritating person in our lives. Kindness is available to us right now. It is a spiritual practice. Just like sitting meditation. Or engaging in prayer. And just like them. The practice of kindness is a way to chat. The chatter. To check the monologue that is running along non-stop in our minds. And i don't know about the rest of you. But i suspect i'm not alone when i confess to you that when i listened carefully to my own inner monologue most of the time what it's doing. Is judging. Judging and judging and judging. My dear friend and colleague carolyn. Calls this. Mind this endless monologue. Judger judgy pants. And i find that particularly helpful because it allows me not to vendo on and judge myself for judging. Because it makes me laugh. Jojo jojo pants. Not long ago i was with carolyn in the lobby of a hotel waiting for an elevator. Carolyn my friend who is a better human being than i am. And waiting there in the lobby with us was a couple dressed to the nines clearly ready to go to some very fancy thing the guy of the couple was dressed the way you guys always get to dress when you're dressed up it looks just the same as when you go to the office and dress nicely but your shoes are polished she however had really knocked herself out. And was very very dressed up. And as we waited for the elevator my judgy pants was just running non-stop because the skirt was a little too short and the heels were like this and the cleavage was a little bit much and as we got into the elevator my dear friend carolyn beamed at that woman and said you look just. Great. And the woman lit up like the dawn and she said thank you so much for saying that i have been feeling so anxious i was just about ready to turn around and go home you made my night. Kindness. Is in reach. Even for those of us who carry around our little judgy pants all the time. It is a way of cultivating the soil b. Buy faithful b. Eventually what sprouts there in even the most closed up heart. Is. Compassion. We begin to really know. We down at the bone how connected we are. But you're suffering is like. My suffering. Your fearfulness. Your failures. Your insecurities. Your anxiety. Those are like mine. And so we also see. Not as a theory or an idea. But as the truth. But the act of kindness. We offer someone else. Is done for both of us. We are both made different. When our hearts become lanterns. Is the own brand offered in our first reading. Revolutions. Do not happen outside of you. They happened in the vein. They change you. And you change yourself you wake up in the morning changing. You say. This is the human being i want to be. You're making yourself. For the future. And you do not even know the extent of it when you begin but you have a hint. A taste in your throat of the womb elixir. Of the possible. In this season of lights. And troubled shadows. May we be mindful of the lanterns we can become. For one another. May we be mindful. Of the power held in each light. As beacon. No matter how small. Some of them. Like the hanukkah candle in auschwitz. Become the lantern. That make all other lights. Possible. I'm in.

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9.24.17_Dancing_with_the_Mystery.mp3

Do you believe in god. If we pause. For even a few heartbeats before we answer that question we might remember how huge a concept is packed into that little. Three-letter word. And yet we usually hear the question. As a very small and specific one that we offer that we answer right off the top. Of our heads. Do you believe in god. The one who asked. And the one who answers. Almost always assume that they are talking about in invisible. But all-knowing and all-powerful personality. And so far most of us. Most of the time. The answer is. No. The god. Described in the bible stories that most of us are familiar with. Is the basis for our assumptions. This is a god drawn in simple and very human lines. Earliest pages of the book of genesis this god. Talk to himself. As he. Divides the labor in 27 days and each day declares it good. Separating the light from the dark. And giving shape and life. The entire cosmos. He create. Adam and eve. And a garden of eden. But then set up rules that they are absolutely guaranteed to break. And punishment as a consequence of that breaking a rule. The stories in the bible. About god. Give us a god image that is really human nature drone that. Though. One-half of our character the female half. Is distinctly absent. He walk peaceably in the garden and feels the do on his feet. He talks with the process and when necessary argue plead threatens and weedles. He hates. And he loves. He feels loneliness. And longing. He chooses sides. And gets upset when his side loses. He has sometimes violent celebrations when his side wins. He passed even his most loyal followers in alarming ways. Like asking abraham to sacrifice his only son. Or gambling with satan. Over whether or not jobe will finally crack. In the christian scriptures the image. Of a loving father. Begins to replace that of a warrior. Or a judge. The parables jesus taught. Jeep kind of turning. A way to imagine god held within a heart of compassion. But then. Christian theology elevated jesus. Into a part of the godhead. Creating a formula of trinity. Father son and holy spirit that is so far away from our lived experience. But the mind. Stumbled. Those images and stories out of the bible leave us with a god made out of human needs and understanding from 3000 and more years ago. We. Are a different people. For one thing. We know too much. We know about the infinitely tiny maps drawn by the twisting threads of dna and we are hard at work. Becoming creator gods ourselves. As we mix-and-match those strands. We have made massive telescopes and the cameras and launched them into space to take a look at nebula exploding many light-years away. Where some cosmic stew still bruised new stars. Do we. Believe in god. Not most of us. Not in the literal creator god. The sometimes demanding or vengeful god the god who plays favorites and wants sacrifice. Not even in the god who might walk with us in a dewey garden. The father. Received the fall of the smallest pharaoh. And certainly not in the opinion dated god who cares which football team wins the game. The images are too simple and too literal. And so when we are asked the question. We almost always say. No. Religious freedom. Is at the heart of our unitarian universalist faith. Freedom from the old creeds that bound our ancestors. And freedom to explore. The whole world and believe to discover where our hearts find the resonance of poop. Given that heritage of ours it is interesting to me that's so few of us have tried to wrestle our way out of the narrowness that bind that question. In other areas of our lives. We are smart creative thinkers. And we don't let ourselves get trapped by assumptions we don't share in fact we're really good at unpacking the assumptions behind the question. Before we engage in it. In the realm of spiritual seeking one would think that we had become expert at broadening. The conversation. But most of us have done very little translation. When it comes to the question of belief in god. Instead. We stay stuck in one set of images. For what we mean by that small inlaid in word. We keep our imaginations small. Within the dualism. Theist and atheist. Believer and unbeliever. But think about how flat and dull that dualism really is. Why not answer the narrow question. With a better one. Do you believe in god. Well. What are my options. What definition of god. Are we talkin about. Even within judaism and christianity there have always been those who gave an alternative vision. Who offered what bishop van has called the minority report. One ancient hebrew word for god princeton. Was rua. Or wind. God as ruler was not a warrior or a father or a person at all but an animating force. The vital breath of life itself. This was the word actually used in that ancient story in the book of genesis that describes god creating everything out of nothing. It was ruah. The wind of god. That brooded over the chaos in the story of creation in order to bring forth life. Conjure up those fantastic images from the hubble telescope. Those images of great clouds of nebula. And stardust. Hundreds of light-years in size. When i think of those or see those pictures it is easy to imagine god. As cosmic brat. Infinitely large. And yet. Inseparable from the small familiar breath in our own fragile bodies. When i was a little kid growing up in a catholic household. I came to the point that many of us reached sometime in adolescence or teenage years if we were raised. In such traditions. It's that moment when it begins to dawn on us that we are not going to get satisfactory answers. Do the questions we bring forward. In my case my catechism classes were taught by well-meaning nuns. Looking back on it as an adult. I imagine they actually carried quite a few of these questions in their own framing in language. Within their hearts and minds. As they taught the catechism. They never scolded me. For the things i ask. But there was a final answer that would inevitably arise after the long string of queries. It's a mystery deer. They would say. How can god be three people but still just one. How could jesus have died for my sins when you didn't even know what the sims would be. How could god know everything and still not stop bad things from happening like war. It's a mystery dear they would say a little wearily. For a long time after i stopped calling myself a catholic i heard those words echo in my mind as an excuse. The final refuge when there was no reasonable answer to give. But now i also hear the truth in that statement. It is a mystery. All that we might try to capture. When we speak together not just about god. But about any of the huge spiritual or religious questions with which we try to grapple. As we move through our lives. Mystery. Is the place beyond our formulas and are constructed. It is out there past the edge of our logic. And our proof. It hovers in the questions and all. That surround both birth. Anda. It shines through in the direct experiences that we have. That bring us into silence. It shines through in little snippets of scripture or poetry or music that bring our minds beyond words. And flood our heart with feeling. Mystic. From every tradition. Have seen the inadequacy of god images and language. Do they have struggled to give some kind of voice or shape to what they intuitive. Or experience. They often turn to silence. Or used images so paradoxical that they bring our rational minds. And our worthy worthy fought. Do a temporary stop. The 13th century christian mystic. Meister eckhart said. The eye through which i see god. Is the semi through which god sees me. My eye and god's eye r1i. One seeing one knowing. 1. Love. What if this is the god. We're asked about. What is the question has to do with the profound one the mysterious something that connects us not only to each other. But to the stars we see at night. Then some of us. Might find ourselves tiptoeing back toward the camp of the believers. Maybe this is a god in which we do believe. Because we've caught glimmers of it all around us. Or intuitive. Etta level down to our bones. Other images might help bring those glimmers of intuition into some form or metaphor we could actually. Talk about. The muslim mystics wrote poems centuries ago. But still speak to us. Like the reading from huskies that we use this morning. They're ecstatic voices try to bring together the vastness of mystery with our most intimate understandings of love. Puppies. Rumi and kabir sometimes use the word god. But more often their poetry speaks of the divine as the guest. The friends. The teacher. The beloved. Presents most dear. They turned downward. N-word. To see the divine as a companion so close so bound into out on breath and our own beating heart that we constantly miss it. By looking too far outside ourselves. Rumi road. Pilgrims on the way where are you. Here is the beloved. Your beloved lives next door wall-to-wall why do you wander around and around the desert. If you look into the face of love you yourself. Become the house of god. Wrote a poem called. And then you are. In which he slides and dances from image to image to image of the divine. Be right and then you are like this a small bird decorated with orange patches of light waving your wings near my window encouraging me with all existences love. The dance. And then you are the firmament. The bins at the end of a string in your hand that you offered to mine. Training. Did you drop this surely this is yours. And then you are then you are the beloved. Every creature reveals with such grandeur bursting from each cell in my body i kneel i laugh i weep i sing. Language gives us images of the divine that might feel more real and write to us. None of them capture the thing they point toward. But the more of them we try out. The richer our imagining can become. The theologians and mystics and poets who have worked their way out of the constraints is that little tiny god box. Push us to sprint. Rather than define. The mystery. Their god. Is read through every sense of the body. Incarnate. In every mote in every whisper. Of the world around us. They are not quite saying that everything in the world is god. But rather that everything in the world. Can be a window. Into god. And through those open windows the idea of god just burp. Out of those old images. Women's voices have struggled for centuries against those old images because we can't see ourselves there at all. Retry on other frames. And other metaphors to try to supply the missing feminine energy. Poet pattiann rogers. List of the image of a woman making bread. One of the oldest most archival images for nurture. For the hearth. A metaphor for how women bring life into the world. And help to sustain it. In watching those hands creating the staff of life. Rogers. God. She right. Regard those hands now if you never noticed before flower cake fist and palms knuckling the lump. Gathering dividing talking and rolling reversing. Fire in the distance far past orien and magellan's vapors past the dark nebula and assisted rings of interstellar dust there. An apron figure fans needing. Right. With you. Her children at her skirt. Poet denise levertov uses the image of god as a woman weaving. Gods. In the wilderness next door. Busy at the loom. Among the berry bushes rain or shine fat loud clacking and worrying irregular. But continuous. God is absorbed in work. Perhaps listens for prayers in that wild solitude. And hurries on with the weaving. Till it's done. The great. Garment woven. And poet tim kramer in her poem. Epiphany. Leave behind human images completely. My friend says she saw you want as prairie grass. Nebraska. Prairie grass. She climbed out of her car on the highway looked out over one great flowing field stretching beyond forsyth until the horizon came. She says. Responsive to the slightest shift of wind full of infinite change all. 1. She says when she can't pray. She calls up prairie grass. Do you believe in god. What are the options. God as ancient father. God as creator sustainer and redeemer. God as all-powerful and all-knowing god with a plan for your life. Those are options. In the spectrum of that question. But there are so many others. Held there too. God as mother. In a yeasty kitchen as the weaver in the woods of the world. God as dancer. As the gas the teacher. The beloved. There is god as rudolph. The wind of life. God has prairie grass. God has the invisible thread linking all hearts and minds. All life. There is god as sophia. The hebrew word for wisdom. God as the mystery we touch only in silence. God of the darkness. Are all forms vanish. And we rest. In a place without. Images. How to use right. Every child. Has known god. Not the god of names. Not the god of don't. Not the god who ever does anything strange. But the god who only knows. Four words. It keeps repeating them saying. Come. Dance. With me. Do you believe in god.

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3.6.16_member.mp3?_=1

In travels with charley. John steinbeck's reflection on wandering this. Country. Steinbeck muses. Could it be that americans are a restless people. A mobile people never satisfied with where they are. He continues the pioneers. The immigrants. The immigrants. Two people. This continent. Where the restless one. The steady rooted one. Stated home. And they're still there. But everyone of us except. Those. First year as slaves. Are descended from the restless. The wayward one. Who are not content to stay home. Steinbeck's exception is not a minor one. Especially. In these times. Everyone of us. Except. Those forced here. As slaves. Are descended from the restless. We must never forget that the story of the american experience. The one we sometimes tell and retail as if it were representative of all. Even a claiming our religious forebears role in helping to create it. That story ignores. It races. Subvert. The stories of so many others. Who's alive continue to be subverted. As if they do not. Matter. That said steinbeck's line still offer what might. Also be an apt description of those of us attracted to our liberating religion. We too are restless. Wayward. 1. Those who were not content to stay at home. Restless within some childhood or adolescence or early adult. Religious. Home. Restless within some religious. Status quo. Oh perhaps even bucking the national trend toward none of the above. Restless enough apart from. Spiritual community. To come in search of one. Only about 10% of us. Began our religious journeys. As unitarian universalist. The other 90% of us work at least to some extent. Dissatisfied. Disgruntled. This. Affected. With. Wherever we were. Before arriving here. While others recited the creed eats. Sunday we fell silent. Knowing it did not speak for or two. While others read along in the prayer book every saturday we resisted. Sensing we were out of sync with. Well others seemed accepting. We question. Where others seem to find deep meaning. We discovered primarily. That we did not fit. And so in one way and another out of frustration. Or exclusion. Our boredom. Or disbelief. Or perhaps yearn. Deep need. Weave. Ended up here. Tear. Along with all of the rest. Of the restless one. Remember that poignant do it. From one of the worlds. Great. Televised musicals. Rudolph. The red nose. Reindeer. Hermey the elf. Who wants to be a dentist. Sings. Why am i such a misfit. I'm not just a nitwit you can't fire me i quit. Since. I don't fit in. And then rudolphi of the problematic proboscis. Echoes. Why am i such a misfit. I'm not just a nip with. Just because my nose glows. Why don't i fit in. Yep. That's from rudolph the red-nosed. Reindeer. And i say we hear our cultural snobs. A study group commissioned by our denomination concluded that hermie and rudolph are singing our song. Unitarian universalist it noted often see themselves as in some way outsiders or misfits. Although it continued there often a part of the mainstream economically and socially minnie experience of persistent. Psychological lack of belonging. Despite how many of us in body privilege. And comfort. Despite how many of us our society status quo beneficiaries. We are often. It said. Those with a persistent. Psychological. Lac. Of belonging. Even. Even sometimes. When and where. We are. You may have heard the story that. Telegram. Groucho marx once sent to the friars club in beverly hills. It read please accept. My resignation. I do not want to belong to any club. That would accept people like me as a member. Restless. Misfit. No. Around 680 or so of us. Put us all together in one place. A place that. That would have us as members. What happens. Not surprisingly. We often find being welcomed. Being accepted. Having the opportunity to fit in is about as challenging for some of us as being excluded. Being shunned having a sense of ourselves as outsiders. Apart. Wright's poet philip larkin. We think we wish ourselves together. Yet. Sue for solitude. Upon our meeting. How many of us here have a self image. Centered around some sense that. We're just not like most. How many of us think of ourselves as marches to the beat of a different drum. How many of us here have a default mode. But assumed at least where religion is concerned. I probably won't be except. I'm too different. I'm too out of sync. I'm too radical i'm too skeptical. I'm too. I'm too intelligent. Or insightful or do you need. Ever. Really. Diddy. We don't just. Expect. Exclusion. Let's it minute at times we even relish. Rejection. We've cultivated an image of ourselves as independent thinkers. Those two free you're too creative or with too much personal integrity ever be comfortable as a part of any larger group of people. And certainly not a member of a sizable religious. Congregation. I've acknowledged to you before. I am. In so many ways. A loner. For all of my belief in community and in connection. Hell i do long for and relish. Solitaire. I'm talking again today. About. Os. Not about. Some of us here might think of henry david thoreau as our patron saint. He of that solitary sojourn into the woods at walden pond. That's us. Out on our individual spiritual search. Independent. Unattached thinker. Off in our own metaphoric meadows. Marching away to our drums beat. We don't really need anyone else. What we forget is thoreau consciously built his little cabin within easy walking distance of concord main streets. He hung out at the emersons on whose land. Incidentally he was after all living. He took meals with his mother. Work for and bought from certain townspeople. Far from self-sufficiency. Even during his time away. He was never really very far away. In truth we know about that. For all of our feelings of separateness. Not many of us actually want to be left. Completely. We may find connectedness challenging. But we still have some deep desire to find a place way we feel cared about. And connected to others. If we were perfectly. Satisfied. With ourselves. We'd be numbered among the steady. Rooted ones. Who stayed home. And her still there. Home for me was once a warm and welcoming. Religious community it's the community i grew up in. Filled with well-educated well-to-do people. People who. Spend time with me. Gave me the very best they knew. So many of them i remember with fondness. None more so than. Mr. brown. Jerry brown was our minister of music. From the time i was three or four years old i sang inquires. With jerry brown. And at the end of our rehearsals. He would drop the needle onto an lp now will explain that to some of you afterward. He would drop a needle on turn lp and out would come. Herb alpert and the tijuana brass. So that we could dance. Another thing that mr. brown taught us it was when we were young adolescents. He introduced us. The handbells. I remember is a young adolescent. Standing before the congregation. With a bell in my hand. And watching the score with immense nervousness. Until my note came up. I never come up again. And i would watch through the score over and over and. Try to get my note in. And we actually ended up sounding. Pretty good not like these folks but we weren't bad. As i grew up. I felt my ties to that community loosening until finally they severed all together. For a while i was. Religions biggest cynic. It was all nonsense full of hypocrites. People couldn't be trusted. And i thought. I don't need that. I'm trying to bail. I ring my bell anytime i want. Like walking through the woods i can ring my bell. Sitting at home i can ring my bell. Out at a sporting event i can ring my bell. Whatever works for me. For a while. I just went about. On my own. Solitary seeker. Ringing that bell. Now this is going to be hard for some of you to believe. But even i got tired of the sound of my own voice. And i realize it one note by itself. Over and over. Can start to be pretty annoying. And even i wished. For a little silence. Then i remembered. What it felt like. Not too. Golf on my own ringing my own bell because i knew so much i was so much smarter than everybody else. I figured out what hypocrites they were. I remembered what it felt like. To be a part of a community. And after. Wandering through various communities. Delighted. Well into my career. To discover unitarian universal. Somewhere. I felt. Bully welcome. For who i am. Accepted. But a part of something bigger than me. Dameda more beautiful sound in my wind tone. You see we are the ones professing our belief in as we put it in interdependent web of all existence. Of which we are. Park. Apart. Not the whole thing on her own not a self-sustaining entity able to dismiss others is superfluous. Or secondary. A dependent. Park. Wounds and right in with. Everyone in. Everything else. Including your beautiful. Young babies. Can we learn together you and me. To be more trusting of together. Can we. Will we ever. Come to accept that they shared. Of direction. Doesn't require capitulating. On a personal identity. How might we become more a part of and less apart from. This club that would actually have us as members. Ring your own bell. Be your own ringtone. Your own and perfectly beautiful. Beautifully imperfect own. But imagine how you'll sound in an ever-expanding choir in which community is for not my eradicating difference. Goodbye each of us as billhooks. Bell hooks reminds us. Each of us claiming the identities and legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world. Let's return to our two. Televised. Hermie the elf with aspirations of dentistry in that outkast with the glowing nose. Rudolph. They take their not just outsiders out completely on their own as those who are a bit different who are bound to sink in some way. And then by chance. They meet. Hermida claire's. I'm independent. Not quite sure of what that big word means. Rudolph none-the-less professes his own independence. With rudolph concurrence. I thought flashes through hermes elfin mind. Hey. What do you say we be. Independent. Together.

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7.29.19_the_power_of_names.mp3

Without establishing official rules. When my wife melissa and i knew that we were expecting. We started trying to come up with a name for our child. We believe in what we now know isn't true. But even before birth we could declare definitively. Whether our child would be a boy or a girl. Looking at those hazy ultrasound images are midwife answered this either-or question. Girl. So with that information and empowered by our responsibility as parents. We began discussing names. Getting to the stage had been difficult. Process smart by the grief of multiple miscarriages. Because of that each new stage had a special thrill. Including contemplating the name of our soon-to-be child. That's when we implicitly agreed on individual. Veto power. I recalled my loving relationship. With my warm. Feisty wonderful maternal grandmother. How about. Alamo. Melissa made it absolutely clear that. Was not a choice. I have the same clarity about her suggestion if he's so weak. And so it went as we tried on and took off named after name in our pursuit of justice. The right. Many of you have this experience curious isn't it. That's among the opportunities responsibilities powers of parents naming. May have the longest lasting impact. A dubious gift. Given. Before or at birth that may endure. Until dead. Many of us have had this same experience with a new pet. What should we call our kitty. Puppy bird rabbit guinea pig hamster. When i was in berkeley the city council they're evidently having resolved all the more pressing matters voted to recommend that the nomenclature pit. Owners. Be changed to pet. Guardian. They did not however remove the schumann role as neighbors. As the ones with the opportunity responsibility power to name the animals for whom they serve as. Garden. According to a primordial list that's an opportunity responsibility power granted to a done. The band. In the beginning. The second of those creation myths included in hebrew scripture. In the hebrew scripture book of genesis. We find this. So out of the ground god performed every animal of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to the man. To see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature. That was its name. The man gave names to all cattle and to the birds of the air into every. Every animal is a field. Coming back to being a biblical literalism difficult right from the start. If you don't think that way and i'm moving this safe to assume here that we don't. Then we can always pose a more interesting question. Instead of is that really true. We could wonder what truth might these ancients have been trying. The candidate. What's going on in astoria rich a human being is said to have had the power to name all of the animals. In traditional jewish.. And name is not an arbitrary thing. Chosen simply by trying on different possibilities. A name conveys. Epson. The core nature of what is being named. The same world you the tales of fanciful tale of adam naming the animals. Also awesome cautions against. Schulman's. Saying the name. I've got. The mythic message and all that. Humans have responsibility for the enemy. Do we have the authority to give them names. Humans do not have power. Over.. Plus we should avoid even the implication that we know god's real name. Real effort. Core identity. Also might find this at best quaintly esoteric and at worst. Utter nonsense. I'm actually welcome invoking this guideline at least in public discourse. Too many all along the ideological spectrum urge public policy based on they tell us. What god wants. For all of their drastic differences. Both franklin graham and. William barber. Engage in the same practice. We should do a certain thing or not do a certain thing because of what god says because what god wants. Each of them and many others. Plankton do god's name. God's essence god's pour intentions for humankind. I'd much prefer in the public arena. Anaprox guided by the jewish caution. Against nae nae. Don't blame god for it. Don't tell us what god want. Let's wrestle together. Let's find the most just and equitable approach let's invoke compassion while writing historic wrongs. I must leave god's name. Naaman. At one level it may seem like a relatively simple kind of food. But naming. Is anything. But simple. Boston university neuroscientists johann j-jon right of naming the active naming is one of the central mysteries of human cognition. It's the visible tip of an iceberg who's depth below the surface of conscious thought we have only just begun.. When we pause as we are doing this summer to really reflect them. We realize that name. Has emotion. Cognitive. Relation. Politico. Sociological aspects as poet adrienne rich reminds us. Language. And named me. Our power. Who won the ones who get the name to choose the names for things act in the. Talk to engage in the active name then. Have and wield a great deal. Apotre. Naming rights. Who gets buildings and other things named after them. In on the act of naming and whose efforts to neymar ignored. Erase. Consider this story from late last year. In the washington post. For nearly a year journalist renee merrill explains the consumer financial protection. Bureau. Has struggled to execute a controversial plan. Changing. Its name. The watchdog agency has been known as the sea. Fpv. Since opening its doors in 2011. But its former acting director mick mulvaney believe it should instead be called the bureau of consumer financial protection or b. Cfp. You followed this. Animal baby started using the new acronym. Bcfp in public even the bureau's seal and flag were changed. But the new name never stuck. Can't imagine why. Director kathy kraninger gets the idea. What's behind this particular active name mean. Merrell discloses the proposed name change was always controversial mulvaney a longtime critic of the bureau called for its closure as a congressman. Not surprisingly we learned that critics called the effort a costly stomach. Undermining the bureau's identity. This article question whether this whole thing has something to do with the fact that a certain harvard law professor came up with the idea for an agency to help protect consumers. The professor's name. Oh it was wondering. Elizabeth. Warren. Theologian mary daly who described herself as a radical lesbian feminist eclairs. Women. Have had the power of naming. Stolen from. Right. Mikey. Diane. We have not been three mary daly says we have not been free to use our own timer. The name ourselves. The world. Order. Are sexist. Patriarchal. Misogynistic society has long been reticent to let women have the full say. The complete an independent power canaan. Their experience. For themselves. Cars strong women. Strong. Progressive. Elected women. To call a thing a thing. Poop resume their capacity to name reality. Of course they are likely to be a threat to the old established order on both sides. On bunk'd sign. Of the political cast. Now yet again we as a nation are struggling. With how old is named what. And who. Is racist. Is it racist to try to silence dismiss order ride a woman of color by telling her that she should go back to where she came from. Was it racist for reagan to mop. Welfare queen. Was it racist for hillary clinton to decry. Super predators. Mini. Billy said. Mini. Believe not. In an interview for the npr show won a legal scholar ian. Haney lopez whose book dog whistle politics has changed the way this conversation is had offered a helpful observation. When we say what is racism. We're better staging. What. Are racism's. An acknowledged him they take mini. Many different forms. Mantente is not to come up with some definitive conclusion on that tricky question. My intent is to invite us the wonder about the ponder a different question. Who has the power. Who has the authority who has the opportunity. The name what is and is not. Racist. Whose definition who's conclusion tuesday. Whose experiences. Matter when wrestling with this fundamental,. Just this week i was caught up sure. By reading journalist kira davis bemoaning the use of the phrase women. Of color. She declared being a woman of color is not the same thing as being a black woman. And yet the progressive left. Has decided. That it is. Do black people get to name. What they want. And do not want to be tall. Do white people get to declare the name by which they think black people should and should not be called. To those in the dominant culture ever get to choose the names for the marginalized. Say for them what it is they have experienced what it is they should appreciate. What it is. They should. Who has the power authority opportunity their name anything and who. Doesn't. Go. This. Naming business. Is indeed a tricky. Reflecting on her experiences with the bama indigenous people of australia. Michela tanase carter wrestle. But these question. Gs. Who has the power the name. Who's. Knowledge. Is privilege. When place names. Reflect the coercive tactics of colonial regimes. Do first people. Have the right to reclaim. Very nice. But their places. It's her concluding consideration that is worth pondering for today. If we change. The names. Perhaps. We can change. Distillery.

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7.9.17_home.mp3

In the course of my adult life they have been very few television shows i have ever watched. Regularly enough to know the names. Of all of the characters. No particular virtue on my part. After all that spend countless hours watching grown men spit. And express themselves in inning after inning after game after season of baseball. I don't really remember how it started but i have watch one show a lot. It was a quirky little well-written comedy set almost entirely in a below the street bar in boston. Perhaps someone here has heard of it. It was called. Cheers. Anyone. Because of late-night reruns i've seen most of the episodes with sam malone the owner and bartender diane chambers the pretentious waitress and grad student. Ernie coach pantusso. Carla tortelli cliff clavin woody boyd frasier crane rebecca how and of course. Norm peterson. Remember things that was most memorable about cheers was it's sappy. But very catchy opening song. Making your way in the world today takes everything you got. Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. When you like to get away. Sometimes you want to go. And they're always. You want to be where you can see troubles. They're all the same. You want to be where. You have seen the show. Well delete maya angelou might not appreciate the comparison. I think that's along the lines of what she was getting at when she spoke of. The age. 4 homes. This 84 home she writes lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned. Even the boldest most adventurous ones among us even the ones of us with the most courage and the highest tolerance for discomfort. Even those with the broadest most open-minded perspective and the deepest most developed commitment to change want an occasion to find a safe. Play. A place where we can be. Comfortable. Seeking comfort is woven into the strands of our dna. Seeking comfort is an essential element. Of what it means to be human. Taking comfort is what makes us. Wanna get away. Well aching. Along with the well-known quaker parker palmer we here have called that poem. Sanctuary. Mel palmer in when i was a kid thank you amen. Only one thing. It was the big room with stained glass windows and hard wooden benches where my family worship. Every sunday. Church attendance was not optional for my sisters and me so that sanctuary was where i learned to pray. Pray. That the service would end and god would release me back out into the wild. I also learned that not all prayers are answered. No matter how ardent. Religious language is never simple never means only one thing. Info palmer developed a whole new much deeper sense of that word. Sanctuary. He writes today after 77 years of life in the world that's both punishingly beautiful. And. Terrifically cruel. Sanctuary is as vital. As breathing. Sanctuary he explains is wherever i find a safe space. The regain my bearings. Reclaim my soul. Heal my wounds. It's not merely about finding shelter from the storm it's about. Spiritual. Survival. Today, recognizes sinking sanctuary is no more optional for me than church attendance was as a child. Parker palmer bears witness to one of religions most important function. We are in. The home. Business. Religions in many different ways and forms create their own. Well. Comfort. In. For example buddhists like sharon salzberg call it. Refuge. And offer the defining affirmation i take refuge in the buddha. I take refuge in the dharma that is to teaching. I take refuge in the sun. Ideas for community. We take refuge salzburg affirmed and whatever current community we have who walks a path with us shares the same values we have those we feel okay being vulnerable. Refuge. Sanctuary rt notions in judaism. In many ways the entire torah from eden to exile to exodus and beyond is 1 long. 8. 400. So i missed all of the upheaval alongside the fervent calls for justice an ancient hebrew prophet will also intoned. Comfort. Comfort my people says your god. Speak. Enderle. The jerusalem. A few months ago some of our own members gathered here to embody that face again in a passover seder. A retelling of a defining biblical tale of enslavement. And liberation. Taking out one element of that sacred meal these heard again words from that ancient order. Mara are the bitter herbs which reminded embittered our lives word as slaves. It's easy to remember those hard lives it continued. From the comfort. Ozarks. Just as intended just as ordered the comfort. The comfort. Of our center. The meal. Eaton in leisure. That's all this is so evident in the sentiment of that best-known of all hebrew songs rendered a new by bobby mcferrin who sings he makes me lie down in green meadows. Beside the still waters she will lead. Restores. The accounting. Of the 99 names of allah muslims include alma mean. The remover. A sphere. The giver. Of tranquility. The comforter. Just like the shepherd at the hebrew song allah as almandine is a sanctuary. Erection. Home. Unitarian universalism gets placed not outside. But right alongside other religion. And professing to offer comfort. To those who are a part of our liberating religion. We found our own unique comforting note but it is one in complete harmony with others from the wide repertoire of the world's religions. Here we have gathered we often sing gathered side-by-side. Circle of kinship. Come and step inside may all who speak here. Find. I am leeward. May all who speak here. Feel they have been heard. Return again invited. Together today. The turn. To the phone. Of your shoulder. Mahalo. The home for which we are all. Aching. That is our purpose. To be a refuge. A sanctuary. That is our purpose to offer a soft landing place for those aching. For home. That is our purpose to create together a place of comfort. And well this is obviously not our only purpose. We lose something essential. Something that is vital in all religious tradition. If we fail to offer. Arrhythmia. 19th century writer finley peter dunne famously asserted that the newspaper comfort the afflicted. And afflict. The comfortable. Religion is borrowed from that understanding assumed that same role we exist i've heard this. From various traditions we exist to comfort the afflicted. And. To afflict the comfortable. I have come to understand that such a neat dichotomy such a tidy binary can be misleading. Who of us is comfortable. Who of us is afflicted. To you i may seem to have a life of great he's while hiding my private pain. To me you may seem to be in distress. While drawing on a d12 spiritual festival. Poet jane hirshfield tenderly suggest. In a room with five people. Grief. Samuel heroes. Some not. In a room with this many people. There's no accounting for the level of grief and pain fear and failure insecurities and anxiety addiction and depression self-doubt and self-loathing shame and despair present here today. Be. Be gentle. With one another. Urges my friend and colleague dick gilbert. Be gentle with one another. The urges saying that it is a cry from the lives of people battered by spotless. Word. And brutal the. It comes from the lips of those who speak them and the lives of those who do them they continue to of us can look inside another and know what is there of hope and hurt of promise and pain who can know from what far places each has come or to what fireplaces. Eats may hope to go. Be. Dental. With one another. Dauntless. Words. Wound up. Now there is potentially such immense distance. Line between. My comfort. And. Our comforter. If you don't understand that. You may have never had the experience of sharing a thermostat with someone else. So what about here. In this place. Who is responsible. Tomato. Themes. Comfortable. For him. Are things supposed to be. Moose. Comfortable. Who will sustain the kind of sanctuary that offers safe space to regain my bearings reclaim my soul heal my wounds and. Who's bearing will be regained. Whose souls will be reclaimed. Whose wounds are most. Likely to be healed here. Who of us is hurting. Is wounded. Who needs a little gentleness. Who can offer. That gentleman. Petrescue. That comfort. Starhawk is one of the leading voices in contemporary. birthday spirituality. Know the particulars of her own religious. Practice vary widely from those of jews or muslims and from many unitarian universalist. She recognizes the very same need. That other religions are seeking to address. Sochi right with gentle tenderness. We are all longing to go home. The someplace we have never been. A place half-remembered and half envision we only glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere there are people to whom we can speak with passion. Without having the words catch in our shrew. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us. Eyes will light up as we enter. Voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own time. Community means strength that joins our strength. To do the work that so desperately needs to pee. Arms to write the hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle. App for him. Someplace where we can be. Free. My friends. My. Community. My. Spiritual. Hung. That's what. That's what. You. That's what we all. Only with our. Only with our. Only with our gentleman. An hour. Compassion. Will we ever. Make it.

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5.6.18_Liminal_Spaces_Are_Holy_Spaces.mp3

It feels so good to finally be here with you all. Thank you for giving me such a kind welcome between homemade food from the care team. And your colorful post-it note welcomes. I feel more at home then i thought i could in my first week. And i am so looking forward to getting to know you. Is a great jewish folk tale called rachel the clever. Rachel is the daughter of a humble innkeeper. And one day she hears that the not-so-humble king. Has just declared that he is looking to get married. But he will only marry someone as clever as he is. Rachel finds this intriguing and decides to see what this king is like. The king is doubtful that this innkeeper's daughter could possibly be as smart as he is. But he's curious. So he gives rachel a set of instructions. The king says among other things. B rachel must come to the palace. Neither walking or riding. And bring a gift. That is not a gift. Rachel doesn't even lose sleep over this riddle. She arrived neither riding nor walking sitting atop a goat. So that her feet can drag along the ground while the goat carries her forward. She brings a gift that is not a gift. Presenting the king with two beautiful doves that fly away as soon as they are given. The king is amazed and rachel becomes a wise and beloved queen. In this hell much like wife. The ultimate form of wisdom. Is knowing how to navigate the in-between. The neither here nor there. Liminal. Space. The rachel the in-between wasn't something to be feared so much as an invitation. To creativity and ingenuity. I find in my own life. That journeying between experiences has. And intensity to it. There are moments of feeling disoriented and unsettled. There are moments of feeling exhilaration from breathing new and different are. Dispensing that anyting. Is possible. For all intents and purposes it was still winter when i left new york a few weeks ago. There were no leaves on the trees no flowers popping up from underground. But as i drove south. It was like driving between seasons. Every hour. There were more leaves on the trees there was more color in the landscape. More warm. And i felt keenly aware. But i was leaving the place i had adjusted to. A place i understood. Place of routine and familiarity. And here i was making my way toward a place i had only been a handful of times. A place of invitation. A place of possibility. Place not yet routine or familiar. I remember feeling a firm clear and electric pole towards you all. When i read the invitation to apply to the second minister position. Here was a congregation that seemed interested in taking risks. And leaving the comfort zone in search of transformation. The congregation leaving the familiar. To embark on a journey into unknown territory. In pursuit of an ambitious. Vision. I knew i wanted to be part of that work. Is richard rohr says it is when we are betwixt-and-between. Have left one room but not yet entered the next room. It is that greece time. When we are not certain. Or in control. If we can stay in this liminal space long enough. We learned something essential and genuinely new. Unpaper your accomplishments and ambition as a congregation felt intimidating. At the same time even from afar. I sent that there was warm. And playfulness here as well. I was at once excited. And terrified that you were looking for someone of my generation. Cuz i'm a new parents. I'm sleep deprived. Some days i feel like a new adults. And in my ministry i live everyday in the space between beginning. And experience. So much of my skillset my preaching style. How i lead. Is still being forged. Yet i have already known highs and lows in ministry. And filled my commitments and love of this work. Has been deepened. Buy both. I'm aware that some days walking between beginning and experience as a minister will feel like an asset. Some days it will be. Disorienting. But i promise. That my heart. And my mind will stay open. And i will work hard. To contribute to the ambitious journey you. And now we. Are on. We begin our time together i also want to share with you a little bit about feeling betwixt-and-between in my personal life. I have spent the past year navigating the space between a very sharp grief. And a very bright. Joy. When i was 4 months pregnant. My dad died in a plane crash. The intensity of experiencing new death. A new life all at once is still shaping me. When ethan was born my husband steve and i cried and cried. And that first night i held ethan on my chest and held him there the whole night while he slept. Even though the nurse kept coming in and saying it's really isn't safe he should be in the bassinet. I know this world to be one where i can watch this adorable tiny human. Smile and laugh. For the first time. Hug me around the neck. When i pick him up. Verbal and scream with the light every time you put something new in his mouth. And i know this to be a world. Where my dad died much too soon. Much before i ever could have felt ready. Each of you has your own stories of grief. Enjoy. We know that life isn't tidy. There are bursts of pure delight. And despair. But we spend most of our time navigating the disorganized emotional landscape of everything in between and beyond. There's so many reasons that we need community that we need one another. But this is certainly. One of them. The unknown and in between our best explored together. Some moments feel exhilarating. Drinking in new adventures along the way and feeling rejuvenated by the unexpected. And some moments feel like stumbling through wilderness with sore feet. Wanting only to reach a safe resting-place. By beginning this ministry with you. I am saying that i want to walk with you in times of certainty and times of searching. In times of hope. And disappointment. Times of reflection and action and all the times in between. I come to you intensely aware. Of the gift and the challenge that is liminal space. But as i said. I find myself in good company. This week i have read and reread the words of our congregational vision. I am beginning. To understand your faithful loving and fierce ambition more deeply. And i have reminded myself that i am joining a community that is just begun to step into a new unknown. The work of a 25-year vision. To transform not only ourselves but to build relationships beyond these walls that transformed the day-to-day of charlotte. It feels oddly inviting. To join a congregation already stepping out of individual and communal comfort zones in search of the transformational. It feels strangely welcoming. Like we are kindred spirits from the outset. Joining forces to explore what is between the known and the not yet imagined. In pilgrim at tinker creek. Annie dillard weighs the merits of living life only within the boundaries of the familiar. But decides against it. Saying. The world is wilder than that in all directions. More dangerous and bitter. More extravagant and bright. Simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and wins pour down won't do. Instead climb up into the gaps. An unlock. Our universe. I am ready to set up camp here with you in the in between. Ready to honor with you the holy and difficult experience of liminal spaces. There is a long journey ahead. There's exhaustion waiting and there's exhilaration. Renewal and transformation beckoning. I am grateful for this opportunity. I'm ready for adventure. I'm in. Blessed be. I'm in.

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10.21.18_Moon_Gazing.mp3

The moon is familiar to us. And yet still. Mysterious. 12 human beings in the history of our existence have walked on the moon. They've left. Footprints and brought back moon dust and moon rocks. Yet looking up at the glowing presence in the sky. The moon still feels. Mysterious. If you lay on a blanket and look up at a shiny crescent or glowing orb it's hard to not feel connected to the magic we still suspect hides behind everyday life. The moon calls to something in us. That longs to connect with the mysterious and the holy. The part of us that wants to understand how the world began and how life continues on. The zuni people live on tribal lands in western new mexico. They know about curiosity and wonder. They too feel called by the mysterious. To hear the zuni pellet. The sun and the moon were not always in the sky. In fact we'd still be living in darkness. If coyote and eagle. Had not gone looking for some light. Coyote was not very good at hunting. And he was getting hungry because all he could catch with his paws were a few bugs. But coyote had watched eagle hunting. Eagle was graceful and quick. And never hungry. Finally coyote couldn't stand it anymore he went to eagle instead. Friend. We should hunt together. Two can catch more than one. Why not. Eagle said. And the two began their hunting together. Of course eagle provided all the food coyote just kind of tried to look busy as often as he could. When eagle wondered why coyote was not contributing to their bounty he said. Katie said friend. No wonder i can't catch anything i can't see. Do you know where we could get some white. Eagle agreed and said i think there's a little toward the west let's go find it. At last coyote and eagle came to a place where could she knows were dancing. If you've never heard of them kachinas are part of the life force in existence. They're connected to all people in all things. Kachinas are spirits who sometimes look like people. And often when they're in human form they're dancing. So when coyote and eagle came upon the kachina dancing. They were amazed and sat and watched them for a while. Then eagle said. I can believe now these are the people who have the white. When the kachina fell asleep. Eagle and coyote discovered a large box that was blowing ever-so-slightly. Eagle was cautious but coyote spring forward and open the lid and the sun and the moon escape. Into the sky. From then on the sun help the crops grow during the day. And the more subtle glow of the moon. Keep the people from being lonely at night. The moon connects us to the wonderful and mysterious. In everyday life. Many of you have probably heard about the man in the moon you may have even seen him on a clear night. Is friendly face that we can make out from our part of the world. Golden china children hear stories about a woman who lives on the moon. There are number of variations to the smith. But here's one. Once there were ten suns in the sky. And their heat was so intense that the crops were burning and turning to ash. To the jade emperor called upon the most amazing archer. Name hui. And ask for his help. Who you strong his bow and took down nine of those pen sons. Leaving just the right amount of light to stream down onto us. The emperor was so grateful that he gave hoagie and elixir of immortality. Puyi wife. Changi finds her husband's magic elixir one day and takes just one sip. But it tastes so good and she's so thirsty from working all day she goes on taking a sip at a time not realizing that she's growing lighter and lighter with every sip. Until with the final drop cheney floated all the way up to the moon. And became the moon goddess. Of immortality. Not wanting to be on earth without his beloved who he goes to live with in the sun and is transformed into the sun god. Cheney still lives on the moon longing to be reunited with hoagie. Once a month the two are joined again when the light of the sun shines fully on the moon. And people celebrate changi the moon goddess on the first full moon of the fall. They send lit lanterns into the sky hoping changi will find her way back to earth and bless them. Children eat mooncakes and get to stay up late to admire the full moon with their families. The moon draws out our imaginations. The moon also connects us to life larger rhythms. In pre-christian lithuania the moon was understood to be a magical presence. And lithuanians always considered it a bad idea to point your finger up at the moon in case you accidentally poked a god in the eye. Lithuanians look to the moon to keep them in sync with life larger rhythms. It was understood that when the moon was waxing seeming to grow larger in the night sky. This was the time for new beginnings. This was the time to plant and harvest crops. To catch fish. Is spin and weave to dye cloth. People would leave bread wool and flax on top of stones as offerings to the moon as it grew larger. The moon's grove meant that the creative forces in existence were most powerful. Most ready to lend themselves to your endeavors and hopes. But when the moon was waning seeming to grow smaller in the night sky lithuanian folk culture advised against starting anything new. As it would surely come to a bad end. Instead this was the time to prepare for winter. Time to think practically about resources. A time to conserve. Cuttwood salt and smoke meat. Foust oil for winter crops. Now we could think that the effect of the moon's monthly cycle on us with something people thought up long ago before they knew any better. Are we might think that the moon is lovely. But there any magic associated with the moon is reserved for the kachina or the moon goddess chingy. But there is rhythm and magic still to be celebrated. The we have managed to tip the balance of our climate. And hastened is deterioration at an alarming speed. The moon is doing its part. To stabilize the earth's temperatures. Acting as an anchor. Preventing the earth from varying its tilt by more than a degree or two. The moon does indeed help to set the rhythms of the earth. Pulling the tides further up and down the sand. Signaling the routines of plants and animals. In fact ocean corals have jeans. But change their activity level in sync with the waxing in the waning of the moon. Once a year. During the full moon more than 130 species of coral simultaneously reproduce on australia's great barrier reef. Marine biologist or in levi describe the scene saying. In stunning unison numerous corals lose their seeds. Which hover momentarily above their parents. Preserving the shape of the reef in an effervescent echo. Before gradually drifting skyward. Fish marine worms in various predatory invertebrate zip through the water feeding on the coral confetti. Levi ads. It's like the whole ocean wakes up. And if it's too cloudy. And the moon is obscured. The corrals will often not respond sometimes delaying until the next. Full moon. The earth. Moves around the sun. But the moon moves around the earth. Looking down on us protectively. The moon's gravitational pull tugs on our lives and the ecosystems we live within. The rune reminds us that we are part of an intricately related and connected worlds. In life's rhythm a beginnings endings and beginnings is acted out above our heads each month. By the moon. When we moongaze we are connected to all the people who have ever looked up to connect with mystery and wonder. All the people who ever looked up to realign their lives with a larger rhythm. Next time you catch yourself looking up at the moon. Think of all the creative minds that the moon has fed think how it keeps the earth study with its company in a vast universe. And as you stand or lie on a blanket moon gazing. Allow a moment of celebration to unfold in you. For the spectacular hidden in the ordinary. In the holy in the familiar. Blessed be. Amen.

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3.22.20_balance.mp3

I'm sure some of you have seen the video or one of the spoofs are the memes. At the end of a february oprah winfrey was in los angeles. On her 2020 vision your life in focus tour. Pacing slowly across the stage in a cream pantsuit. Microphone in hand new age music playing. And shifting abstract shapes projecting on a screen behind there she reflected. Wellness to me. Memes. All things in. Balance. I am she added. Balance doesn't mean all things are equal. Or at peace at all times. At that instant. A most earnest moment in her reflection on. Balance. She turned slightly. Lost her. I can't think of another way to say this she lost her balance. Stumbled flailed a bit trying to recover but then went tumbling all the way down to the floor. If wellness means. All things in balance. That did not go. Well. At fall. Fortunately she was fine other than a slightly twisted me. And the more severe case of embarrassment. Philosopher land bolton admits. The human being has a terrific need for balance. And. We're able to lose balance very easily. And don't all of us have a few embarrassing moments to prove that point. Princess wife for generations we humans have admired acrobats. Those brave bold doyon's of balance. Considered that most famous lineage of all. The weather in dallas. 18th century bohemia there was a family 24 clowns jugglers acrobats and aerialists bearing the name melinda. By the end of the 19th century new generations of what land has established their fame as flying trapeze artists. When he saw them perform in cuba. John ringling immediately invited the wallendas to join the greatest show on earth. That debuted in madison square garden in 1928 performing their ariel feet without a net. Since it had been misplaced in shipping. The astonished crowd responded with a 15-minute. Standing ovation. The fame of the wallendas grew as they expanded the repertoire until it included a seven-person. 3 level high wire pyramid. They became a world-renowned act performing with ringling brothers in their own shows and in increasingly spectacular solo walks. By the great. Karl wallenda. In march. 1978 73-year old karl wallenda walked out on a highwire 121 ft in the air between two hotel towers in san juan puerto rico. As he reached the halfway point. The ocean winds ominously picked up and wallenda struggle to maintain his balance. Sit down puppy sit down one of his young family members called out. Determined to persevere he stepped forward. Cheater. Leaned over to catch hold of the wire the balance pole swinging wildly in his hands. Alas. The great wire walker. Fell helplessly to his death. Carlos melendez tragic accidents as a reminder of what we each know today as obvious. For even the greatest among us. Under certain circumstances. Balance. Scenes. Impossible. How then can we mere mortals expect to find our way through the high-wire act of our lives. But now that shane calmly counsels. When you stand with your two feet on the ground you will always keep your balance. But of what use is such a banal witticism. Perhaps it's that were the options if we could remain with our two feet firmly planted on the ground we would indeed keep our balance. But whose life is like that. Even in times more normal than these. Don't all of us find the responsibilities opportunities and challenges of life not infrequently putting us on a precarious path. And sometimes placing us on something that feels more like a completely unrehearsed high-wire act one we are navigating. Without a net. Is it any wonder that in these days when all of us have encountered strong gusts of uncertainty. And completely unforeseen obstacles of confusion and concern that we find it a challenge to concentrate. To keep our heads up. And our legs. Moving forward. Don't we all feel. Off balance. And at least a bit fearful that there's a crash up ahead. On one of. This just may have been the most surreal week of our lives. At the very time when things were careening completely out of control something utterly predictable. On thursday of this week the planet tilted and world its way to that precise point. At which they were equal amounts of night. In both hemispheres. This equal night this. Equinox this vernal equinox mark the beginning of spring for the entire northern hemisphere. For that one portion. One day. There was balance. The two halves of the globe receiving equal amounts. Of the sun's rays. But we certainly welcome spring with this profusion of color in this beautiful city. The red buds in the pear trees of flame and splendor the dogwoods and azaleas now following. It may be worth noting something about nature. Thursday's equinox did offer benefits. However now already just three days hence there's an imbalance of sunlight and darkness again. And it will remain so. Until thursday. September 22nd. A day about which perhaps the only thing that we can say for sure at this point is. There will again be equal night. On that. Autumnal equinox. Save for those two auspicious days each year the natural world where light and darkness is concerned is always in balance. Imbalance is despite what we may have been led to think and balance is a far more natural state. Marcelo gleiser. Brazilian physicists and astronomers says as much in a tear at the edge of creation gleiser declares it's not symmetry. But the presence of asymmetry the best represents some of the most basic aspects of nature. Symmetry may have its appeal. But it is inherently stable. Some kind of imbalance is behind every transformation. From the origin of matter to the origin of life the emergence of structure depends he writes fundamentally on the existence. Asymmetry. We visited the shoreline and we've seen it tides rising and falling. Rising and falling. If we've been lucky on some nighttime stroll on the beach we seen it the moon. Waxing and waning waxing and waning. Those. Does heady daffodils we celebrated in a recent service here. They stood in their sunny splendor but for a few days. But then like an awkward celebrity on stage. Wobbled. Wavered. And toppled over. Losing for another year. Their brief balance. If earth is our teacher we will learn that balance is neither normal. Nordic natural. Imbalance is our natural state it's what we can expect. The reason that regard another lesson offered by the earth this past week as a reminder. Life. Entails. Seasons. Seasons. If we step back from the immediacy of our days we might see our lives as a secession. A season. If that's the case we won't expect everyday to have it all. There might be a season of play and then learning and then doing seasons of caregiving and then being cared for. Seasons more attentive to work or to parenting or to adventure. Seasons. More attuned to calm. Seasons when it's reduced amount of physical and mental energy makes. For a quieter life. Hindu religion is present this perspective they don't expect balance in the moment. Balance in the day balance in the month or even balance in the year they believe life has its stages. The first stage of life is that of the student when the primary responsibility is to learn the second that of the householder with its emphasis on family vacation and community engagement successed contribution to the larger good. Then comes the stage of retirement the season to find life's deepest meaning to discover who won really is and what life really means. And beyond this stage. At last one arrives at detachment. The effort to resolve life. By becoming one with everyone and everything. These may not be our stages. But this hindu inside reminds us life's balance won't ever come in the moment. Nice balance whenever be experienced each day or even every year. It may only be from the perspective of a lifetime. The balance can at last. The experience. Now it's one thing from a state of relative equilibrium to try to keep things in balance to try to keep things in perspective. None of us. No one on the planet right now. Is in a state of relative equilibrium. None of us. No one on the planet right now has two feet firmly planted on the ground. If. On this past long hard week you have felt irritable. Anxious. Frustrated. Angry. Worried. Wearied. If as you now look back you are aware that you weren't your better self. You weren't always patient with your kids. Loving to your partner carrying to yourself attentive to your responsibilities. If this is the case for you. I am here today to declare with absolute confidence. That you are in very good company. Perhaps we do well to aspire to a life of balance. Perhaps it's a worthy ideal to imagine getting all of our roles and responsibilities in some cohesive non-competitive order. And our physical emotional and spiritual live in harmonious integrity. But in fact it almost never happens completely. And you know what. It is not. It is not. Going to happen. Right now. You simply cannot expect your life to be imbalance right now. We might begin then. By letting up on ourselves. You weren't prepared for this. None of us were. If you battled frustration exasperation if you experience profound loneliness or deep worry. That's completely understandable. Let up on yourself. Them. We might also let up on those around us. Some of us have been thrust into closed close-quarters in ways we never imagined. Everyone in your life near and far everyone in your life is having a hard time right now. Even the most fortunate ones of us are anxious. Tired wondering how long this will last. And how much we can take. We are all. Off balance. Let up on others. Cut them. A bit of slack. What does at least one more available lesson from the earth on this day. The great pablo neruda wrote. Perhaps the earth can teach us. As when everything seems dead. And later. Proves to be alive. The most. The most irrepressible. Indomitable force in life. Is beauty. Beauty. Elderly incongruous. In ways for which we should be grateful that these agonizing days are so beautiful. Amazing in ways for which we should be grateful. The people are doing such beautiful things people singing making music sharing music people giving and caring and being remarkably generous and sensitive. Earth is our teacher today. Let the lisenby one that also is about beauty. Where can you find. Where can you notice it. In what ways can you share it. To whom might you pass it along. Earth. Teachers on this day. Picture of spell imbalance is what we can expect. The balance is neither normal. No natural. Earth. Teach us on the state teachers patient. Patience with ourselves. Patient. With one another. Teach us. On this day. Teach us to see beauty. To appreciate beauty. To magnify. Beauty.

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1.20.19_MLK_Sunday.mp3

In 1492. A royal decree resulted in the expulsion. Of all jews from spain. Where they had lived peacefully alongside christians and muslims. For hundreds of years. Dispersed throughout the mediterranean. One group migrated to palestine where in the small galilean town of safira. They established the center of jewish mysticism. The span of his brief life suffered was home to the most prominent figure in medieval jewish mysticism. Rabbi isaac luria. Commonly known as. Hattori. The lion. Among his best-known contributions to jewish start was a highly imaginative account. Of creation. Legos. Something like this. Before time existed there was just god. And god's light filled the universe. There's no place that god did not exist. At some point god decided to create. A world. Avoid was formed dark and empty then then god said let there. Balite. Like enter this void and formed. Tim vessels. Filled with god's primordial light. But the vessels proved unable to contain god's immense overwhelming light. And so the 10. Vessels. Shattered. Billions of holy sparks were scattered about the great void like the stars. In the heavens. Did the kind of spiritually mythology story of the big bang. In which what once held together comes flying apart. According to arie's account humanity was then created to gather up. The holy sparks. Which had been scattered all across creation so as to bring them into wholeness again. Mydish account it is said when all of the holy spark have been gathered. The primordial vessels will be restored. And the world will finally. Be repaired. This is known as. Cocoon alone. The. Repairing. Of the world. No there is nothing in my cosmological ponderings that would prefer any part. Ari's mystical myth. As a literal account of reality. And yet like most of you. I have the imaginative capacity to find truth in stories. Poems plays movies and. And myths. That i know not to be based in historic. Are scientific again an account of creation in with the role of humans is that of repairing the world. Offers us a mythological opening to plunder not primeval history but our own place and time. It's almost too obvious. The potential relevance to life in this. Elderly fractured. Disconnected world. And after all just last week we reflected on shattering on destruction on dismantling as a potentially necessary even positive step. Some of you may recall anna east lynn's assertion i turned destruction into creation over and over again. Port neches contention that whoever must be a creator must first be an annihilator. Chinese artist and activist. Highway ways claim that we can discover new possibilities. From the process of dismantling. Or perhaps the 4th century bce dallas runza. Who preserved when you break something up. You create things. When you create something. You destroyed. To a spiritual story in which creation itself begins with dismantling. With things coming apart. Could in our imagination bring us right back to all the ways in which creation and destruction destruction and creation are interwoven. If they really are as we sang just last week * the build-up in * 2 breakdown times to gain and times to lose time to rend and times to so what might we say on this martin luther king weekend about more times. If as desiree attaway suggests our unjust systems really do need to be not fit. Not sure it up. Not more carefully aligned with our old ideals. But this man. Taking apart. What comes after that. There's nothing creative about destruction alone. Virtue in simply tearing down. There's nothing particularly hopeful about fracturing about shattering in and of itself. We wouldn't necessarily be any closer to 2 transformation where we at long last to dismantle the dominant culture with its racist patriarchal misogynistic homophobic transphobic xenophobic viciously capitalistic society. Isn't the real question. What will take. It's place. The powerful socialist writer and activist grace. Lee boggs. Once referred in the speaks to the notion of growing our souls. A decade later while in public conversation with angela davis bugs explain what i mean by souls. Is the capacity to create the world anew which each of us has. How do we rebuild. How do we redefine how do we she asks how do we reset your it. Our communities and one another. Not long after i moved to houston. I discovered a short walk from where i lived the magnificent menil museum. Midgets are became a frequent part of my saturdays. Taking in the stunning works all collected by one couple. Dominican john dimatteo. Like most truly great museum experience is the inspiration begin while still approaching. The building. I found it so understated cypress steel and glass design soul. Deeply pleasing. Diva nails finally decided to house their collection in a personal museum they contracted with the italian architect renzo piano. While he was still a young man. I need rewarded. With a magnificent. Edifice. Jonah once wrote of his profession. One of the great beauties of architecture. Is that each time it is like life. Starting all over again. Not as much as i admire his work that strikes me as an excessively. Optimistic. Uber statement. One of the great beauties of architecture is that each time it is like life starting all over again. We have only to look around at block after block after block of new apartment buildings. In our exploding town. Conceited conceited. In pianos claim. I was so struck a few years ago by an op-ed in the charlotte observer by my old acquaintance local architect david furman that i scheduled a lunch to talk with him about his assessment of the quote beige. Underwhelming less than inspiring design of too many of our new building project. And here then is the point. Where destruction and creation arkansas. Just because we engage in the structure. Dismantling or more concretely demolition. Doesn't necessarily mean no matter what renzo piano claim doesn't necessarily mean that the result will be like life starting all over again. Destruction is no guarantee of creation. Dismantling doesn't assure creation. Undoing the blight of injustice and inequity fun doing the systems that currently protect the continuance of injustice and inequity undoing all of the structures that have resulted in centuries of injustice and inequity will not necessarily create justice for equity. Using the metaphor of the mystical jewish myth. We just might gather up all those shards of light and we assembled them in the image of the old. Following the old blueprint. The old order of things. The same misguided ideals and intentions that laid the foundation for what currently is and currently is so insufficient. I'm do we rebuild how do we redefine grace lee boggs asked how do we in her way of it how do we have souls. The capacity to create the world anew move. Do we do the spiritual work of tikkun olam. I'm preparing the world. Doesn't it have everything to do. With his plan we follow. Listen to have everything to do with who creates the blueprint. Doesn't it all hinges on who is empowered to name what is needed and how best to create so as to avoid simply recreating what we were trying to dismantle. When are bored challenged us with a parade just call to action. Vapor just to create a wide variety of opportunities to listen to and to learn from those who are marginalized by injustice. Inequity and discrimination when our environmental justice court open our racial justice core group named the principles that will guide us as we move intentionally into our visionary work of societal transformation we named as essential to that work as essential to that works that whatever we commit to be led by those most affected by the injustice. Recognizing that those directly impacted. Has more authority on the issues. About which we are concerned. Oh how hard that is. How hard that is for some of us who have taken pride in our prior involvement. Overly aggrandize i religions historic role. How hard it is not to want to be the architects now. To assume that if everyone would just be like us. Then everything would be so much better. How hard it is to avoid implicitly being more trusting of efforts and activities and approaches that are led by prominent and well-respected people. How hard it is not to join those now calling for political moderation. Careful and cautious backwards. Backward move to some alleged political center. Making america only as great again as it used to be. How hard it is to imagine that the work of repairing this world must. Must. It must be led by those most damaged by the world's brokenness. In a city that has even more not-for-profits foundations government agencies and self-appointed authorities. How hard it is not to sign on to the status quo to the tried-and-true the respected in the respectable. What courage it is taking in my friend's what courage it is going to ask of us to step. Decenter our experiences. Assumption. Our plans. Newer approach. H h. Gyros. Our. Comfort. Icomfort. And risk allowing rio creation. A real new creation to rise from the ashes of what is the game. Dismantle. Eric also very well the first time i encountered adrienne rich is short poem. Natural resources. She was reading it. But such convincing conviction. My heart is moved by all i cannot save so much has been destroyed. Moved. But all i cannot save so much as bendystraw. We understand that sorry. And simpson loss of the end of things we know that we are now unable to say. But she does not offer a simple lemon she offers a statement. Efface. After cast my life. With those who age after age prefer sleep with no extraordinary power. Constitute the world. That's the work. That's the work of trutransformation reconstituting the world. Finding those shards of light and reassembling them guided guided essentially by those with no extraordinary power design by those historically denied a full measure of power people of color. The poor. Women. Gay people. Lesbian people trans people all kinds of queer people. Non-native. Non-native english speakers. The formerly incarcerated. The differently-abled in the disabled. The historically. Marginal. These. These are the ones we've been waiting for. These are those with whom we must. Fake. May we with courage cast our lot with them. May we with humility finally. Dissenter arson. Dissenter ourselves. Listen more and speak less. Keener to learn their new designs been to share our old cricket. More committed to justice and equity then to the ways. We ourselves want things to be. Then. Only then could it be that destruction might lead to creation. Let dismantling with allow at long last. In the spirit of this day. In the spirit of our shared vision and mission. In the spirit of life. Let our collective prayer be. Met-ed. Pizza.

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4.22.18_To_Love_the_World_Enough.mp3

In an essay in the journal or ryan. Eric ries. Writes about camping alone for a week. On a remote and wild island near the canada border up in maine. In and out of descriptions of that particular beautiful slice of the planet. Reese weaves mournful reflections about how much damage we human beings have done to the earth. Especially. Those of us in the western industrialized world. Reese right. It seems that we have done a very poor job learning the art of being. And of allowing others to be. Namely. The 1.8 million or so other species. With whom we share the planet. He goes into some detail on the enormous and entwined problems of overpopulation. Overconsumption. Pollution. And the destruction of other species habitat. And he finally concludes. The root. Of our most modern sin. Is that we do not love. The world enough. I reread that sa a month or two ago when i realized i would be here with you on earth day. It is of course not an accident that earthday was planted right in the heart of the springtime. In the grace of. Warm. And the extraordinary flood of color and sense and birdsong. That pours out around us every spring. Where i live up in boston. Spring is still just a nice idea. It has been excruciating lee slow this year. So as green things are finally starting to push up from the ground and hearing their push out from the limbs of trees. We are really paying attention. Whether they're up north or here where you're much further along in the spring. In that paying attention. Surely we are loving. The earth. But i wonder prompted by reese. Whether we love it enough. And i wonder what might it mean. If we could love the world enough. In 1970 when april 22nd was first named as earth day. It was an offense the kickoff for what has become of the modern environmental movement. It was from that movement that some immense. And important changes were made. Some things. They have been in place now for so long we can almost take them for granted. The clean air act. The clean water act. The ban on ddt and other chemicals. Eventually in many places. Mandatory recycling. And much higher standards for emissions. Some incredible things were achieved. And it is important. To notice. And to honor and to celebrate the difference those things have made. Because for one thing they remind us. What we're capable of. They're also important things left. Out of that movement almost 50 years ago. One of the most. Critical. Is it almost no attention was paid to what can only be called. Environmental racism. One dimension of that. Is that we human beings are not all equal in the damage that we caused. Pollution. Caused by the extractive industries in particular coal and oil and gas and mining of all times. Has fallen with enormous weight especially on indigenous communities. Who have paused almost none of it. And has reaped almost none of the benefits. Closer to home all over our own country. We can see the dimensions of environmental racism. In the fact that the most polluting industries. With the least regulation. Will lodged in communities of color where they still. To the large extent remain. Although these things are spoken of and are named more often today than they were 50 years ago they are still often ignored in white communities. And in the halls of power. It's interesting to wonder what things might be like in the environmental movement today. If some of these things had been noted and acted on back then. Wonder if they was first launched there could have been a great khan version. Between new care for the earth. And new care. For the most fragile human communities. Instead in that space. There was a great silence. At the time of the first earth day there were also very few voices raised even among the most ardent environmentalists. To sound the alarm about melting ice caps and rising sea levels. We could grasp the dangers of toxic smoke. Or heavy metals in our water. But the concept of planet-wide climate change. Was so bad. And the date. Threatened. We're so far in the future we into the 21st century. And now here we are. Way into the 21st century. Each anomalous shift of temperature. Each extended drought or 500-year flood. Every weird and out-of-season tornado. Remind us that things. Are badly out of balance. At least once a week it seems. There's a news story that tells us the ice is shrinking the currents are shifting the temperatures are rising. Faster. Then what was predicted only a couple of years ago. It is hard to take in. There is. A powerful human tendency to not want to see. Or know or feel. What is painful. We are all together in this. It is part of how we're wired. And so there is anguish. In knowing how imperiled are the coral reefs. The honeybees. The polar bears. The bat. Even the lovely little peepers. Which year and even in new england are one of the first sounds of spring. There is. English. In facing these changes. In his book. The bridge. At the edge of the world. Gus beth rights. It is easy to push the challenges out of one's mind because dwelling on such disturbing material is. Painful. Indeed one still hears with regularity that it is a mistake. To stress these gloomy and do me realities if one wants to motivate people. People have told me for example he writes that martin luther king junior did not proclaim i have a nightmare. My reply to them is that he did not need to say it. His people were already living a nightmare. Be needed to dream. But we i fear our living a dream. We need to be reminded of the nightmare. We will never do the things that are needed unless we know the full extent of our predicament. I agree with swiss pass on that one. But for me at least. I have found that if i am going to face the nightmare. And act on it. Somehow as i can on climate change and climate injustice then i also need the dream. I also need. A vision. The courage and the steadfastness. That we need. Have got to be anchored in the reality of what is. But they are sustained. Fruit i'm not by fear and certainly not by despair. But by love. Our love. Of the earth. Our love for the human family. Despite all the ways we have gone off the rails. One place in which i find that love strengthened. Is when i listened to the voices of the people who are right out on the front lines of what is happening. People for whom climate change for years now has not been a distance idea but an extremely present reality. They are the people of the carteret islands in the south pacific. Already having to relocate. To places far from their ancestral homes. Because the saltwater is cystic into all of the places where they grow their food. Rendering the land sterile. They are indigenous communities. In alaska. People who have been ignored and marginalized for many decades. But whose voices. Are now being raised. As they watch their land vanish. They are pleasant people in central america. Kawach coffee crops decimated by diseases. Like coffee rust. That were once held in check by the cool mountain temperatures. Cool. No longer. They are poor communities of color in houston texas. Where the toxicity of the water that poured through their homes last fall in the wake of hurricane harvey. Has still not been measured. There are threads. That link those disparate communities that are located all around the world. 1 thread is that the communities. Are indisputably experiencing right now today. The consequences of climate change. And are without exception populations. They have done the least to cause it. Another thread. Is their determination. To have control. Over the choices that remain to them. The choices they now face. Rather than once again have entrenched. And often colonial powers choose solutions. That do not make sense and in some cases make the problems worse. 1/3 thread that connects all of these communities. Is that they are actively seeking allies. Among people of conscience who want to be of use. They are not casting blame. They're reaching out their hands in solidarity. And another thread. One that gives me a thrill of hope. Isn't the unitarian universalist service committee is supporting grassroots indigenous organizing. In all of the communities that i named. This coming september as just one example. The people of shiva. Alaska. Will host their counterparts. From the other side of the planet. From the south pacific islands. These indigenous communities on opposite sides of the globe. We'll meet together for the first time. Because of uusc. And from there gathering they will then choose. And declare the agenda for advocacy and action that they want us as allies. To assist with. No matter where we live. There are neighborhoods. And communities bearing more than their share of the burden of climate change. One way that we can stay courageous. And determined. And committed. Is to find out where they are choosing to push. Against what's coming. And put our shoulders there next to them. Following their lead. At least for me. Arises most often when i can put myself to use. And even when the problems are this large. There are places people are calling for us. To come and stand. A vuse. That is one part i think of what it means to love the world enough. But another part. Is held in what clint smith lifted up. In our reading this morning. It is to dig our bare feet into the soil and see. All of the ways in which the world continues. To give birth to itself. Toosii. In his words and to remember. How the leaves have always become the soil. The bendy comes the leaves again. How maybe we are not so different from the leaves. Hell maybe we are also. Always being reborn. To be something more. Then we once were. And so this week. Although the spring is so slow and so cold. I took myself off. Into the woods. That are closest for me living as i do in boston. And they're in this large area preserved to the trees and life there. I walked past. Trees not yet leafing out. Yet the moss beneath them turning an almost impossible shade of green. Past the vernal puddles. In the middle of the track full of clearwater the color of strong tea. Where small quick. Salamanders bask in the sun. It comes down to the water to touch them. Cast. The tired old leaves that are lying there in the tracks. And where i find the earliest spring butterflies. The size of my thumbnail and the most brilliant color of blue. That i can sometimes coax off of the papery leaves and onto my warm finger for just a split second before they. Fly off again. Pasta little plums. We're at least four distinct kinds of frog songs come trailing lilting chirping and belching out. Cast. A misplaced crocus blooming it's brave and cultivated purple way out there in the middle of the woods. As though believing itself a wild flower. And passed a stunning clump. Of wild hepatica. Cradled in the hollow as an old oak tree. How they're like some enormous grizzled old man might cradle and newborn baby. The woods are full of these beautiful comforting signs of new life. And also there. I passed the madden. Pasted fur of a possum. Winter killed. And found the delicate. Pure white bones of a mouse scattered across. The ma. And touch the log. A tree falling so long ago that now this spring after our long wet. Windsor it has finally disintegrated completely still holding itself in this russet outline against the ground. But truly dissolve now. In earth. Feeding. What wannstedt its own life. And i stop and lift. A handful of it. What was once a flowing trunk raising a whole canopy to the sky. And it crumbles in my hand. Undeniably gone back to the earth. From which it first rose. How do we love the world. Enough. We take our own sorrows. Our own fears. Out there. Into the life of the planet. Which is also deaf. Where we see that everything is this way. We rise we shine. We fall again. And when we do we are caught. And hell. In the life of this earth. Like the shining wildflowers. In the hollow of an old oak tree. People have conversion experiences. And epiphanies. All the time. Can an entire society have. A conversion experience. I don't know. But i know what it would look like. It would be a completely different orientation. Toward what we mean by words like success. Success. Cannot mean. Bigger. Or more. Or richer. It has to mean. Last stop. Greater wisdom. Finding joy in one another's joy. Rather than in winning out over each other. The focus on individual wants and preferences has got to yield. To a sense of solidarity. And the long habit. In the western world of seeing ourselves as somehow outside of nature. In control of it. Has got to yield. To the truth. About our place. In things. We don't live on the earth. We are the earth. As every other thing is the earth. Billions of pieces of it rising and falling and rising again occasionally rising as we have arisen. With eyes and hands and minds and will and courage. With the capacity. The love. Maybe even to love enough. William stafford. In his poem starting with little things. Love the earth like a mole. Bernier. Nearsighted. Hold close the clods. They're fine print headlines. Cut them with soft hands. Like spades but pink. And loving. Daybreak rock. Nagy giants aside. Ausable plow. Fields. Art attached. Each day nuzzle your way. Tomorrow. The world. Amman.

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6.4.17_blackwater.mp3

In early september 1620. The mayflower. An english cargo vessel with a crew of twenty-five to thirty departed plymouth england. Onboard where 102 passengers. Fewer than half of them where members. Of a separatist congregation of religious dissenters. Most of the rest. Where entrepreneurs. Inspired to come to these shores by our primary eventual national religion. Profit-seeking. The destination was the mouth of the hudson river. In what was then the northern part of the virginia colony. When earlier settlement. Had been established in jamestown. That's right. The mayflower. Held. The latecomers. They were blown off course well to the north and once inside of land and countered rusty's that force them to continue even further northward. 66 days later in mid-november finally. Came ashore. They were not. At plymouth rock. Not until the next march would they begin to establish the settlement there. On the foundation of a. Native american village. Then we should we landed 50 miles across cape cod bay. And what is now provincetown massachusetts. The northwestern. Of cape cod. So today in provincetown. Among. Other sites i'm fine considerably more in texting. There's a tower rising 252 feet into the air the tallest all granite structure in the country. Commemorating the landing of the pilgrims. In provincetown a few years ago is actually what is outside of town that was of considerably more interest to be. To the east of provincetown there is a 3500 acre portion of the cape cod national seashore called the private private lands. Rolling sand dunes giveaway too dense pitch pine and scrub oak forest. Marcy bogs and swamps and grassland. Body throughout that terrain are several ponds of varying sizes. Moster quite small less than an acre or two. Only a few are large enough to have a recognized name. And yet one of these i knew quite well. Not because i never been there but because i had read about it so often in the poetry and prose. Of mary oliver. Oliver hunus to provincetown to be with her partner of many decades molly malone cook. Walk the province lands regularly. In the sights and sounds cheat and counters often finds her way into her writing. No place gets mentioned. More often. Then black water pond. At blackwater pond the tossed waters have settled after a night of rain she observes in her poem by that name. Timberlake's house she drink from blackwater pond the cold water waking her bones deep inside. Just lying on the grass at blackwater oliver offers as fields of goldenrod a little sparrow a pool of shade we're even silence. Can feel like happiness. There's in blackwater woods in which you observe the turning trees in the long papers of cattails which are bursting and floating away over the blues shoulders of the pines. But here's a dread of this place this time set amidst the piney woods outside of provincetown. And so i went. A pilgrim of a different store. To see for myself mary oliver's inspiring pond. Rising around 3 or so and driving all the way from concord. I wanted to be at the pond in time to see the sunrise. Arrived in a deserted parking lot excitedly bounded out of the car strapped on my camera and plunged. Into the woods. Inner planes of the area mary oliver describes birds. Dear turtles ducks. What she somehow fails to mention is. Mosquitoes. Bloodthirsty swarming whitening mosquitoes mosquitoes on steroids the size of dragonflies. Outside versions of the tiny southern variety i know so well. Want to be turned away by the mere threat of losing a few pints of blood when swelling bite at a time. Or perhaps contracting some rare strain of. Massachusetts malaria. I retreated showered in repellent. Implant in again. It was still. Calm. Quiet. Am i several hours sojourn there i saw not one other human being. The water is indeed black. The deep indigo reflecting pond grasses in the shimmering sun overhead. Rhonda's dotted with hundreds thousands of lilies many of which were in bloom their alabaster blossoms a glow-in-the-dark awning light. There's ample tree-covered to walk in the shade and easy access to nearby shimmering dunes marked with scrubby pine. After a long slow walk i sat down on the ridge above far bank and simply. Noticed. Watched. Listened. Breathe. The swallows doing aerial acrobatics. Frog languorously looking up out of the pond. Ducks drifting about. Beautiful cattails and of course. Does lily. Go to lily. Later i sat watching painted turtles clamoring up a stump to sunbathe. In the morning warrants. Meg oliver rights everyday i see. Or hear something. That more or less. Kills me. With the light. Then adds it is what i was born for. To look. To listen. Delouse myself inside the software world to instruct myself over and over enjoy. And acclimation. Several years have passed since my pilgrimage to mary oliver's blackwater pond. But i have carried that visit those hours there with me. I reread her poems taking delight in her capacity to describe ordinary beauty. And make it mean so much. Mostly for me to borrow. Oliver's own words it's about joy. And acclimation. Enjoying and a claiming this way. Our world of ponds and forest mountains and sea shores desert and planes blossoming flowers verdict cropland and resplendent vernal trees. I give you today. Blackwater park. Not because it is breathtakingly remarkable. Very very few of the thousand support into p-town each summer even though the pond is there. Much less take the time to visit. Blackwater pond isn't. Extraordinary. To my real question today is don't you know someplace. Something some setting like it. Like black water pond. Play youtube perhaps visited just once or even better. Some setting to which you return again. And again. It may be far away. In another country even. It may just as easily be. Your own yard. Or a park nearby. It may be dramatic. Or simple. The stunning vista. A particular tree. A blossoming bush a client. Stream. And maybe a place with all acclaim as gorgeous or someplace that inspires or excites or calms you whether or not others appreciate. Your place. Your personal blackwater pond may exist now only in your memory. The bygone recollection of a place of beauty. U16.. Where is it. Is not a one of us in this room today. Arrived here without some. Anxiety. Some concern some frustration some discontent one kind of struggle. Or another. Times are tough. For many including. Some of us. Finances are stretched too thin. Jobs stretch us too thin. There's too much to do and not nearly enough time to do it or there's too much time on her hands and too little energy our capacity to do what we once could. Those we love carry the weight. Some of us. Carry the weight. Aptos diagnose. Relationships are strange. Children. Of all ages. Trouble. Parents and other family members of advancing age consume. We battled addiction. Depression. Disability. Disappointment. We grieve. Over. Over. Life is not easy. Now or ever. That's the world in which we live. Because this is inevitably so we need places that enable us to in mary oliver's words to lose. To lose ourselves in something more than. We need some place that as she says more or less kills us with delight. It makes us ask as she writes old what is that beautiful thing that just happened. Here's the thing about those kinds of places in our lives we can't take credit for. We didn't create them. They don't result from our effort. We can only receive them as the gifts that they. We can only open our eyes and our ears and our minds and our hearts may be especially are sold and take them into. Deep into. We can only give thanks. Praise. Or if you will. Exclamation. I have. You. All of this i have no palliative. For the pain of this world. I have no words. My own or others. To make it all come out right. Even for a moment. Especially. In these times. What i do have what i will offer is an invitation. Today i invite you to call to your mind the places that you received simply as gifts. Gifts from capital l. Gifts from capital b. Gifts from capital g or lowercase. My new baby that in remembering them we will also be reminded that just as we neither control nor choose so much of our pain and suffering and worries and troubles. Neither did we create our earn so much of our joy. Enjoyment. Life that can be so hard. Can also be so benevolent. Good. Perhaps in recalling these places these experiences and remembering them with gratitude will tap into some deeper spiritual reservoir and us in from it will bubble up other awarenesses that emits are challenges we have so much for which to be cray. For with the praying. For which to give. Will remember that life. Midas generous. And perhaps become more generous i sell. Here's mary oliver's invitation. So. Come to the pond. Or the river of your imagination. Or the harbor of your loan. And put your lips. To the world. And live. Your.

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1.21.18_The_Path_of_the_Prodigal.mp3

The bible stories that tell about the things that jesus did and taught. We're passed around by word-of-mouth for scores of years before they were ever written down. And then they were argued over and edited and changed. And tweak. For another couple of centuries. Before some of them were thrown out as heresy and others became what we now know as the bible. A lot of it. Might seem irrelevant to us now our lives so completely different from the settings and the gospel stories. Our culture and habits. And beliefs so changed. But there are glimmering nuggets of wisdom. Throughout all of these old stories so it is interesting. The list them up from time to time to see what they might still offer us. The story of the prodigal son is one of those glimmering little nuggets. And as simple as it may be in is outlines there is a lot. Of psychological depth to it. We can see ourselves. In those three main characters with astonishing clarity. Despite all of the centuries between its first telling and now. We can find elements of our own dynamics. As child. Sibling. Parent. Maybe. You were prodigal as well when you were younger. The wild child who spat on tradition. And good manners and maybe even the law. And in the process of your rebellion. Broke your parents hearts. Maybe you were prodigal. On the other hand. Because your parents didn't do their part or did it very poorly. And gave you more than enough reasons to turn away from home. Did you then. Come to yourself. In the poignant language of the story. And find your way to repentance and the astonishing gift of forgiveness. There's a view. Or yours. Of your parents. Or. Did you keep your face resolutely turned away never going back. Maybe left. Still wondering years later what might be different for you or in your life. If you had been able. To go back. Or maybe instead you were the good kid. The contrast to your sisters rebellion. The one who followed all the rules. Put other people's needs first. What about all the mundane daily duties. And never got the thing. That you deserved. Maybe you were the one or still are the one that everyone else in the family depended on by default. The one who everyone knew would stick around to take care of your parents nevermind. What other dreams you might have had. Were you the parent. Are you still maybe. Even today that worried. Parents. Going on. About your daily life as though everything is normal but really. Spending some part of every single day in suspense. Gazing out at the distance and aching. For the child who has gone missing. Rehearsing the words of forgiveness that you hope you someday get to speak. Maybe you have played all of these main characters in some way at some point. In your life and maybe there are ways. You cycle through them still. There are some deep spiritual themes here. In all the ways that this one little story manages to put up in neon. The things. That we all struggle with. Our choices and their consequences. Our awakening to our own mistakes. Early or late. And what we've been doing about it. There's love. And forgiveness. Jealousy. And resentment. Questions about fairness. About reconciliation. All caught up together in this. Ancient tale. As a unitarian universalist. There are two things that i find resonate most deeply for me in this story. The first. Is that it lifts up. A profoundly universalist vision of how we human beings might learn to be with each other. When the prodigal. In the story finally hits rock bottom and falls to his knees in front of his father the response. Isn't judgments or rejection. Punishment. Or blame. The father doesn't even let his phone get through his rehearsed speech. He interrupts before the kids can really get going grabs him and hugs him and yells for someone to bring him some clothes. Bisturi. Could have been the one primary text. The proverbial holy grail. For our universe list. Ancestors. They were the ones in the 18th and 19th century in this country. Who stood up. Against the doctrines of hell. And punishment that so dominated. Christianity in verde. They knew. From their own direct experience. What it feels like to be a parent. What it is like. To watch helplessly as your own beloved ones stray. How deep is the egg. Of yearning. For their safe return. They drew the logical lesson. From what they knew personally. They said. If we. In all our imperfection. Can love our children so well. And so truly. Then god who is parents to us all. Must love us. Infinitely better than that. And therefore there can be no hell. There can be no help because the god who loves us like a parent. Would not permit it. Now. Sitting here in charlotte and anna modern lives the declaration that there can be no hell. Might sound a little ho-hum. But back then. It caused a feel logical earthquake. When they soak. That. Truth. Into the pinched and punishing christianity of verde. It caused a theological earthquake. Because it was so simple. And it rang so true. The story. Jesus told of the prodigal son. In that story. The universalists. Heard a lesson about the essential. An immeasurable power of love and forgiveness. The jesus they aspired to follow was the one who hung out with the riff raff. Poor people. And prostitutes. The lame. And the blind. She broke bread with them. And the ones he schooled it. With a fine upstanding citizens. So full of their own righteousness that all they had to offer was judgement. The universalist. Said. We have got to let go. Of the miserly idea that salvation is for the few. For the special ones. Who learn the right creed who follow all the rules. To perfection. They said. There is no protection. For mere human beings. But. Each time we see the flaw. In ourselves. In our behavior each time we come to ourselves and turn back. We will be receive. With forgiveness. Connection. Acceptance. Inclusion. Joy. They caught. But everyone counts. Each. Heedless. Prodigal among us leaves a gap in the universe. A hole in the heart of things. Until we come back into the circle. This is the truth. But we still claim today in our modern theology. When we speak of the inherent worth. Indignity of each human being. We are declaring. But no one. Is disposable. No one. Is disposable. Remember that in the story. There are two people. In need of that. Declaration. The prodigals part of the story. Reminds us of our more obvious missteps. And wrong turn. But that other child in the story that older son. Might be the one who's characteristics we actually carry within us with a little more immediacy. The thoughts. The judgments that no one else may even know about that sneak around there inside. It's that part of us that can look at the good things that come to someone else and feel the bitter little twist that says. How come i didn't get that. The voice we hear so often from little kids. That's not fair. Can sometimes hang around in there inside of us. It's the voice that says. Something like. I work so hard. I do so much. I plugged away day after day. I deserve that. Why did he get it. Why doesn't anyone think me. Think of me praise me. Why won't they invite me. Owner me choose me pay attention to me. The older son in our psyche is the part of us that might do our duty. And tow the line or even cultivate virtue. But with just a little sheen of resentment. It's that part of us but act. Not out of the inner drive. To excel or become deeper wiser. More loving. But out of an external drive. One of my always on the lookout for whether or not. Our virtue is seen. Admired. Appreciate it. It isn't a pretty picture. Theologian henri nouwen right. The more i reflect. On the elder son within me. The more i realize that something has attached itself to the underside of my virtue. And yet recognizing that our virtue or are striving to be virtuous might have a shadow side. Doesn't have to be dealt with by sliding into shame or guilt. In the universalist theology. We are supposed to cut ourselves a little slack. To give ourselves the same love. And acceptance. But we tried to give to other people. We are not. Very good at it. If it were up to us. We would judge the older son for being a selfish claude. And that's how we judge ourselves. When we hear that same whiny. Or self-righteous voice inside. But that's not how the story goes. When the older son says. That's not fair what about me. The father says extraordinary tenderness. You are with me always. And all that i have is yours. Put this brother of yours. What's 10. And has come back to life. So we have to celebrate. Come in with us. Comeback. To the circle. What an amazing place. Our world would be. If we could bring such loving generosity to our own fragile heart. If we could see each other. With such. Tenderize. That. Is what the universal. Gave us. Bat open-hearted. Vision. That we still try to live out. The second thing that resonates for me. In this old story. Is that it offers me away to think about my own spiritual journey. That path that brought me ultimately to unitarian universalism. From the catholic faith of my childhood and adolescence. I am not alone in having a convoluted faith journey to get here. Though there are many who are born into unitarian-universalism more than 80% of us arrived here from some other tradition. At some point. We went prodigal. We threw off the face. Of our past the rules and the expectations that we started with and we wandered away from our homes. Our catholic. Is methodist baptist presbyterian episcopalian pentecostal jewish. Homes. Are secular homes. Where religion wasn't even a part of the mix. Some of us spent years on the road. With no thought about discovering a new place to land religiously speaking. We busy ourselves. With a hundred other pursuits and then somehow at some point. Found ourselves. With empty pockets. And a hunger that we didn't know how to meet. We often walk through the doors of the unitarian universalist church with no intention at all of staying just checking it out. But you are surprised we find that something gets cracked wide open. And what floods in. Is a sense of finally being at. Home. In one of our most dynamic congregations all souls in washington dc. One of the ministers wants told me. Very matter-of-factly we always knew know who the newcomers are they're the ones that are sitting in the far back of the church crying. Some years ago when i was lucky enough to have a sabbatical i spent a portion of each month. On retreat in different kinds of retreat centers. One of the places i went was a benedictine convent. In northwestern connecticut where. The rhythm of the days and the night revolve around praying the hours. Which is a monastic tradition that goes back centuries. 8 times during the day and the night. The prayers are sung in latin in a form that sounds a great deal like gregorian chant. When i was a little kid. Something similar to that form of mass was offered once each sunday and named as high-mast and it was the one that i insisted my family go to. I loved the ritual. I loved the ancient sound of the call-and-response chanting. And a sense of enacting something together with really deep. Powerful roots. Well on this retreat of mine when i heard again that ancient music after. Every move of over 20 years. The first thing i felt. Was a rush of nostalgia. I was startled by it. And by a feeling of sort of wistful sadness that came in its wake and was revoked by the sounds. In the solemnity and the incense and the rhythms. Though i had cast my lot elsewhere and by then had for many years been a leader in a completely different face tradition. Suddenly i was immersed in those rituals of my childhood. But i felt myself a stranger there. I didn't feel at home. In a place that had nurtured and shaped me. And though the words and music felt almost as familiar as my own breath. They felt aliens me too. And it just gave me this rush. Of sadness and loneliness. But after that first burst of feeling as i settled into the retreat. Things shifted and listed for me and i began to think about. Where i had come to and what i had left in a really different way. This benedictine retreat center required that all retreatants no matter what your faith tradition in order to be there on retreat meet once a day with one of the sisters in residence there as a spiritual director. The one that i was assigned was this tiny firecracker of a nun in her 80s. Who talked to my laminate in a sick brooklyn accent and was wildly misnamed mother placid. She was bright. Perceptive. Funny and compassionate. And as we walked and talked. My conversations with mother placid became a dialogue with my own past. I realized. In a new way. Did the catholicism of my childhood was not only something that i had left behind it was also a resident and cherished part of who i am now. An intimate part of my shaping. This also is a lesson that i find in that old story of the prodigal son. There are lots of different ways to walk a pilgrimage. One way. Is to reject what and where we come from. And to choose our direction mostly by keeping home always behind us. Another way. Is to treat our past homes as touchstones. To return to them from time to time at least in mind or heart. To see what bears. Cherishing. To see what travels with us. To see even that when we leave it behind again. And yet again. We do it a little differently each time. Even in the story. When the prodigal son comes home to his father. She does not come as the person he was when he left. A lot of what he abandoned surely could never be reclaimed. He has grown too much. Suffered too much. And when he returns he inevitably comes. With very different eyes. If the story didn't end there. If we could watch the prodigal son for months or years as they unfolded. We would see the uneasy sifting. The tentative steps in the dance of relationship. The slow and careful knitting together of the ragged edges. Left. Mayan old choice. And that is how i imagined us also. Prodigals. Who have wandered in many cases to a new hearth. This. Religious home. But who come in at oblate carrying with us our past. Our former homes our left behind homes. Become with remnants. Warhol cloth. The talismans were symbols. With holy books that still speak a word to us that we treasure. Prayers. It still can speak. Language of our hearts. And we bring them. Do this broad welcome table. Because we have been told. But all of it. Will be received. Here. When we. Come to ourselves. And claim ourselves as unitarian universalist. We become heirs. To one of the most generous theologies that has ever been taught. And the story. Of the prodigal son. Spoken in galilee all those centuries ago. By the itinerary rabbi. With the fire of god in his eyes. Is still our story. However long and winding the journey. We have come home. May it be so.

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2.11.18_Days_of_Joy_and_Love.mp3

Giles is a lonely gay out-of-work advertising artist. Who keeps at is meticulous crafts with optimistic discipline. Imagining. Hoping against hope. Andreesen. That his big break is coming. Living alone and the tired old apartment next door. Eliza is a mute. Scarred woman. Who departs each night for the long bus ride. To her job cleaning the restrooms in a top-secret underground government facility. The two of the main characters around whom the story turns. Guillermo de toros remarkable movie. The shape of water. All of the readily apparent differences they have most in common that straight that. Bonds their friendship. They are outsiders. Sean. Ignored. Avoided. What are the enchantment of the movie is its deep. Plunge. Pun intended. Enter magical realism. The cinematic flight of fancy that sores in certain alluring things. But it's also charming and it's simple little quirks. Early on in the film. Giles and eliza sit side-by-side on his well-worn sofa watching betty grable. On a black-and-white console television. Signaling just how often they've dudes that movie. They suddenly. Suddenly. Join in a simple seeded dance. His high-top brogan's and her well shine heels. Tapping out a multi-step sequence. Together. The perfectly choreographed. For the brief little shuffle. And amuse themselves with a grand flourish. Looking into each other's eyes and smiling broadly. It would be a hardened viewer. Who is not smiling along with them. At that point. The shape of water is a wild cinematic rock. Pull up side drama in deep intrigue. But the masterful deltoro somehow manages to weave in moments of utter charm. Search that we suspend our disbelief and revel in them. When into the deeply secure and secret facility eliza somehow sneaks booth. A portable record player. Ama duel selection of vinyl records in their sleeves. Benny goodman. Glenn miller. And when she presents them as a choice of that mysterious river creature behind the thick tank of glass. We buy in. For that we rewarded with a payoff of deep delight. Eliza's sensual life footed dance before the creature. With her mom.. There's so much to be had in the shape of water that it has stayed with me in ways few movies to. Whatever else is at play in this now much acclaimed film traps in large measure at least for me what made it memorable is this. Into the least likely of lives enters both settle joy. And seductive. Love. It is certainly occurred to me that my own and likely others high regard for del toro's work may have a great deal to do with our times. Are thumbs signal approval out of our own deep longing for reminders of joy and love. In the time cursed with characters. Every bit as horrific. As the villainous colonel richard strickland. We cheered to see. Spoiler alert. Love. Triumph. Over greed. Poignancy prevail overpower. Enjoy breakthrough into circumstances where joy could hardly have been expected. Today i. We. Aren't trying to press some impressive point. We're not holding the necessity of transformation or searching a new for some way to address our prodigious. Social ills. There's plenty more of that to come. I assure you. Today we're simply. There's precious little that simple about it. We're simply trying to call our collective attention. To a world in which joy and love have not. Gone missing. We need. Joy the late maya angelou recognize we need joy as we need air. We need love she contended we need love. As we need water. My friends. Joy and love are not superfluous. Flights. Optional add-ons. Joy and love aren't indulgences the prerogative of the privileged. Joy and love aren't rewards. The rightful earnings. Of the. Earnest. Joy is as essential as air. Love as requisite as water. We met subsist without them. But we surely cannot live long. In their absence. The great rabindranath tagore found joy in profusion joy is everywhere he'd write and after encyclopedic sequence proving his point he underscores it again joy is there. Every way. Maybe true. However many of us may identify with a more modest account of barbara kingsolver. She admits that she has had to force herself. Tumblebooks. Hard. Alucard she says until i learn to be in love with my life again. I have see attached taught myself joy. Over and over. Again. Weather joy greets you at every turn or whether you to have to go looking for it. Weather love infusers your days in shimmering array or shows up and little glimmers and dreams today is a reminder it's an invitation it is a summons. Let there be days of joy. And love. It's okay. Really. No matter how fast the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket. It's okay. To be happy. That's what south african writer collect at the tumor learned. Or she says. She is trying to learn which is right up there with unlearning. It's okay to be happy. She writes. It's okay to have joy. It's okay to write about joy and talk about joy and she is even trying to learn she says that joy is a birthright. Even with all the crap. Around us. Sometimes it's your boy breaks in didn't or not sometimes. Sometimes we have to schedule it. Make it show up. Sometimes love happens as our first sight. Sometimes. Sometimes we have to go looking for. And the most poignantly wrenching moment. In the shape of water. Guillermo del toro stages in artistically acceptable way over-the-top indulgence. Into magical realism. I'm a sad scene at a table waited under impending grief and the creeping threat of mortality suddenly we find ourselves in what film critic sean patchett called opulent indulgence. Beauty. It's a fantasy dance. See. The restaging of old mute movie dancing. Replete with flowing gown and sophistication. Patrick deems at the best scene in any movie in 2017. Beautifully shot elegantly staged and he says yes. Damn entertaining. Some will do that this very week. Bill dunn one customer or another and heating auden's famous council. Throw down the matta and dance while they can. Build drink. Deeply from the well of joy because. Because it is there and in such places drinking deeply from the well of joy is simply what they do. Without parades and beads and loud music and revelry for us to anticipate we may need to find joy or noticed joy or. Make. Joy. As we can. Similarly will indulging over-the-top romance this week. So heed the call of the calendar and aware of their other good fortune engage in a rose queued chocolatey day and night. Others. May need to look for little glimpses. Define love or notice love or make. Love as we can. If it is not readily apparent. We could. I suppose. Follow guillermo del toro's lead. And. And stage it. I admit that. It might seem crazy what i'm about. But no matter how soggy this sunday may seem. Sunshine's right here you can take a break. Is he. As if you were a hot air balloon that could go to space. With the air like. You don't care baby. By the way. Wherever or whenever joy or love appears you could you really could clap along. If you feel like a. Like a room without a roof. Clap along if you feel like. Happiness. Is the truth. Clap along if you know what happiness is. To you. Joy and love are setting a beat today this week and. And you can talk alone. That's what you want to do.

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11.12.17_wounding_ourselves.mp3

It's a 20 step climb from the sidewalk at 5909 st claude avenue to the front entrance of mcdonough 19 elementary school in new orleans. 57 years ago this week on november 16th 1960. Gail at the end. Chelsea prevost and leona tate the mcdonogh three. Became the first black student to make that climb. But a far different place it was by the time i did spend that seem shady stairway on thursday afternoons in the late 1980s. My dear friend ed broussard was principal of mcdonough 19 holding sway from a dishevelled office with wide windows and a high-ceiling attesting to the school's handsome it's fading grandeur. Am i request it had arranged enough fortunity for me to tutor there. Brokering a relationship with a quick. Clever impish student named john. Set from another world away i'd leave my peach colored shotgun house on annunciation street. Drive past the central business district. Through treme. The faubourg marigny and bywater. The crossover the industrial canal on the same claude bridge and arrived several blocks later at the large old rambling 3-story school. They're on alternating thursdays john and i would sit and do homework or escape together to some adventure in the city. Early in the evening we make our way back down narrow rugged street until we arrived at the modest he shared with his mom and siblings in a block of houses in various states of decline and disrepair. Mcdonogh 19 went from being an all-white school in 1962 a school that by the time i was making my afternoon visits there was almost entirely black. Its surrounding area built on the site of old sugarcane plantations was home to fats domino kermit ruffins the batiste family part of new orleans music royalty and to some of the city's greatest poverty. I could have been never have imagined the two-and-a-half decades later the world's attention with turn to that neighborhood. When as it is still called in the wall in the storm hit in august 2005 the destruction from that anything but natural disaster reserved its fiercest coolest fury for those few familiar blocks around mcdonough 19. You see. These just over two square miles make up new orleans smell infamous lower ninth ward. If as activist mayor carter put the environmental justice is about no community being saddled with more environmental burdens and less environmental benefits than any other. Then it would be difficult to find a clearer example of environmental injustice than this neighborhood. In the morning after katrina crashed into louisiana when the industrial canal levee ruptured john's old neighborhood was submerged under an in comprehensible 12 to 20 feet of water. Residence. Among the 60% of poor blacks living in the wall in who had neither a car nor any other means of transportation to comply with the mandatory evacuation order for the rising tide inundating their homes until they ended up either stranded on their tarpaper rooves or floating face-down in the fetid water. And whether desperate. Or deceased. There they remained. Trick daddy. Because as nikky finney puts it it was only new orleans. Old. Bastard city of funny steller's non-swimmers with squeezebox accordion accents. Michael blum in an ecologist at tulane university equates the devastation of john's old neighborhood to a volcanic eruption on the order of mount saint helens. Sadly that analogy may be more apt even than blum intended. In both cases the potential for devastation have been simmering just beneath the surface for a very long time. However unlike the volcanoes explosion what happened in that little stretch of land in louisiana can hardly be considered a natural. Disaster. Instead katrina's impact on the 9th ward has become a prime case or environmental justice precisely because it demonstrates so very clearly the inconceivable horrors they can occur when injustice and environmental devastation world together to form a category 5 catastrophe. Riley morrison a detailed study explains that it started in new orleans after emancipation. When african-americans were forced to live in undesirable areas subject to frequent flooding including swamplands at the edge of the city. Living conditions created over decades. Disproportionately increase your phone ability to disaster. Industrial canal over which i travel with cut right through the 9th ward. Isolating the predominantly black lower 9th ward from the rest of the city further exasperatingly the vulnerability. Limited access to public transportation made it still worse the proximity of chemical contamination and hazardous material site turn the eventual flood water into a toxic. Brood. When it's finally all dried out it left a noxious dust that further compromise the health of the residents. And services readily available. After other disasters in other areas of the city and of our nation. Where did not hide. The 9th ward residence. Not surprisingly as more states distinctly minorities and the poor board and disproportionate brunt of the storm's impact. New communities with long histories of being ignored maligned and abused it's simply not accurate to blame the devastation on weather and climate alone. It is these kinds of issues that we attend to when we are concerned about something more than just environmentalism. Is majora carter explains the environmental movement has traditionally left people behind and environmental spectre fight zones. But you're almost always populated by poor people. Usually. Non-white. Robert bullard. Prime progenitor of this movement concurs environmental justice incorporates the idea that we're just as much concerned about wetlands birds and wilderness areas but we're also concerned about urban habitat where people live in cities about children that are being poisoned by led and housing and kids playing outside in contaminated playgrounds. Bollard makes clear we have had to struggle. We have had to struggle. To get these issues on the radar. Of a lot of the large environmental. For all of new orleans remarkable uniqueness every major city charlotte most certainly included. Has neighborhoods like the lower ninth ward. We're measured on the scales of environmental justice the burdens far outweigh the benefits. Is a black person in america mayor carter asserts i'm twice as likely as a white person to live in an area where air pollution poses the greatest risk to my health. I am five times more likely to live within walking distance of a power plant. Or chemical facility. Poor people and people of color here in our city and around the world are she says more likely to breathe dirty or are drink dirty or water and live work or go to school on toxic soil. An. She points up quite explicitly. Race and class are extremely. Reliable indicators. At the where one might find the good stuff. Like parks and trees. And where one might find the bad stuff. Like power plants. And weight facilities. Did justice means no community is overly burdened. While being deprived of benefits. This. My friend is plainly and simply. Injustice. A religion professing that all people indeed all beings have worth. Recognizes he's not just as economic. And social & scientific concerns but deeply. Spiritual. Concerns. A religion affirming justice equity and compassion in human relations. Recognizes environmental justice as a deeply spiritual. Concern. A religion rooted in recognition of our part. In the interdependent web of all existence knows in the soul of its very soul that environmental justice is a deeply spiritual. Concern. We've come to recognize here that our commitment to integrity demands that we not settle any longer for environmentalism alone. But invest in learning and partnering in issues of environmental justice. As well. Now please. Understand. We are not required. Today. Or on any foreseeable day to know all the answers. To know exactly what we are supposed to do together. We're not being asked to sit in shame or debilitate ourselves with guilt. Rather we're being summoned by a congregational commitment not to avoid orton anesthetize ourselves. Not to profess concern for the health of our planet while ignoring the health of our siblings who are suffering. Not to care more for the preservation of wild spaces. Then for those long relegated. Tuloso. Places. Perhaps we do well to hear again the summons of that ancient jewish texts counseling. You are not obligated to complete the work. But neither are you free to desist. Frontier internet. We're invested some of us quite deeply this year in paying attention. Noticing. Listening. Learning. In understanding why environmentalism alone solar panels and recycling in hybrid cars alone will not create environmental justice. In exploring while capitalist construct of carbon cap-and-trade will not ever fully balance the scales of burden and benefit. It will take. It will take transformation. Dimock change. To address 816. Challenge. Now. More than a dozen years after that fateful august day. Mcdonald 19. Has long been boarded up. And surrounded by ugly chain link fence. John's old street running toward the river is blighted by empty lot and homes overgrown by bushes and weeds turned into what a new york times article called. Jungleland. In the 10 years between the 2000 census 5 years before katrina. And a 2010 census 5 years after. The population of the lower ninth ward decline from over 14,000. The fewer than 3,000. Leaving less than a fourth of the households. Discount 20% of the families. The size of many of the homes that survived are still tattooed. With that ominous. Offering in stark terms and accounting of conditions. Enough people. And bodies found inside. I do not know how john. By then a young man in his mid-twenties fared. During the storm. But she still residing in the lower ninth. Diddy evacuate. Write it out on the rooftop. Endure the horrors of the superdome. Become one more black body floating down the flooded streets. I'd like to believe that against all odds he's driving. But perhaps he even retain some scant recollection of our thursday afternoons together and understand. Did i really did care. What i do know is. The system failed him. And his neighbors. Created and then ignore the conditions over centuries that left them and far too many others in this country and around the world bearing unjust environmental burdens and enjoying far too few environmental benefits. All of the personal goodwill. All of the individual kindness. All of the well-intended sharetea. All of the solar panels and electric cars and bike lanes in the world aren't ever going to change that system. A commitment. Chopsticks. Into the work. Ab transformation. Those. Non-swimmers. With squeezebox accordion accents. Aren't really. They. They are us. Nature. Is writer yusef komunyakaa explained. Teaches us how to see ourselves within its. Greater domain. And we cannot wound. Mother nature. Without. Without wounding. Ourselves.

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4.14.19_whose_house.mp3

I just read. Beverly gologorsky heartbreaking new novel everybody. Has a story. It's a poignant account of the lives of two couple. Dory and stew. And lena and zach. Along with lena and zach's kids rosie. In kc. Friends since they're younger wilder days. The four or navigating a tenuous. Tentative course away from their childhood experiences. Event in poverty. And instability. Is compelling novel is about many things. Love lost and found. Friendship and family. Honesty and betrayal. All set against the backdrop. Of the cruel long abilities. Appositive. It is as much as anything about. About place. About being settled and unsettled and. Resettled. Notorious two and mina and zack have managed to buy their own modest homes. And are quite proud of their places. More than proud. They are define. By these houses. They are. Owners in control of their faith. Until. Juanita exact same disconnected late into the night lena confronts zach what's going on. The blank vacant stare he responds. This. Is not. Our. House. Course it is. We no longer on this tablet. We've been officially. Foreclosed. Will be evicted in 30 days if we don't make plans to move that. That whoever they really are. Are taking away our. There lies start to unravel this house is not just a house it's who they are as what holds them together. Lena because when they first moved in they bought a kitchen set. And will.i.am. The children investigated each new item as if it were a toy or a christmas decoration. Got arguments laughter tears plans and so much else went on in this room. If walls could talk she remembers that striding through this house like the lord of the manor. And the children aren't used to sleeping in their separate room. This each other night. And now. They are losing it all. Many of us here today have some understanding of that experience some of us here. Have lived on the cusp. Poverty. Hoping one day. To have a house of our own. Some of us are facing reality hell. Age. A transfer. Finances. Lost that force us to give up a house we truly love. Some of us have gone through this with our parents or grandparents. Houses occupy a special place in our memories hearts experience our energy. Bracelet. About some house that's particularly special to you. What about the feelings that are invoked when you picture that special. Ancient greek word for house was waco. Oh i kos. 22re. Refer to different but related things could mean a family. The family's property. Or the house itself. Alkoholika. Was both the house and the household. A structure and a way of speaking of a group of people who were connected in a deep wave because it. That suggested that there's some connection between the deep emotions that we associate. This particular houses. And the feelings we get when we see those spectacular images. Hobart planetary home from space. It's what singer-songwriter peter mayer was writing about in that song we love to sing year. The wide universe is the ocean i travel. And the earth is my blue boat. The sunsets of recognition or is it even. Belong. Something when we see our global stylist whirling its way through a dark in the cosmos. Ernest heiko was a 19th and early 20th century german scientist is zoologist and naturalist and a marine biologist among other things. Piper is credited with discovering describing and naming. Thousands of new species. He's also credited with coining many new terms in biology including the term. Ecology. Debase the new term ecology. On the greek word. Hykel's oncology. Refers to organisms. And their help their environment and ultimately to all organisms. And the entire. Environment imagining it. Ecology. What's about the house in which we all live. X-chair. Which is the entire environmental order of things. It's just one way we might think about this notion of environmental justice. Burn until justice has to do with the presence of or the absence of. Just. In the house in the lake house. The environment. That we all share. No scientist. Earnest. Hiker arizona notions about the property. It was a regrettably, notion. Amongst the scientist. Of his time. He explained the caucasian or mediterranean man has from time immemorial. Been placed at the head of the races of almond. Has the most highly developed. A. It's a stark reminder. Science. Often. Upheld. White. Supreme. Affirming along the typos as he put it that negroes were savages. And that white. Where the most civil. Notice. The various scientists so interested in species of all time. The fairy scientist who literally gave us the notion of ecology. The fairy scientist who wrote of our shared environment as a house. Have him explicitly. White supremacist. Ideology. Play unlike the environmental movement. Recognizing that ideology and it's detrimental consequences for our house has been a driving force. For the environmental justice. Liberation theologians james cone. In his important article whose earth is it anyway. Who's. Earth is it anyway. Wrote racial and economic justice has been at this. Only a marginal concern. In the mainstream environmental movement. White people care more about the endangered whale and the spotted owl than they do about the survival of young blacks in our nation's cities. Conwright. Is a well-founded belief in the african american community. Justice fighters for black and defenders of the earth have tended to ignore each other. In the public discourse to end in their practice. Nss's come their separation from each other is unfortunately. Because they're fighting the same enemy. Human beings. Domination of each other. And you. Nothing for a moment about your residence where you currently reside. Nobody was certain people without your input. Are doing things that mean simply by breathing the air where you lived you'll now be more susceptible to asthma. Cardiovascular vascular issues. Lung disease and cancer. Or notice tomorrow then unbeknownst to you is going to be a new landfill. Or hazardous waste site. Or some industrial facility nearby. Upcoming time of flooding. It's going to be a much more serious for you. Because other people have made choices that make them farthest woman. How would you. And what would you do. The fact is. This is true. All of this toxic are hazardous waste disasters flooding is happening in our house. Ishare planetary home. Right now. But the consequences aren't spread. Equally. The deleterious impact of it all doesn't affect us to send you. Are going to pay a higher price. For all of this. In studies for decades it's clearly show me. It's the ones of us. Who are already marching. The ones who're already marching. Who will pick up the tab. For the restaurant. Study of air pollutant. Luna said have been connected to asthma. Cardiovascular issues. Lung disease and cancer found that black and brown people suffer far. Far higher exposure. Then why. Landfill hazardous waste sites in other industrial facilities, most often located. In community. Airport title toxic waste and race at twenty. Stomach more than half of the people who live less than 2 mi. From a toxic waste facility in the united states. Are people of color. Report by the center for effective government found that people of color are nearly twice as likely as white residents. To live close to an industrial. Lead poisoning just appropriately affects children of color. The children of color living in urban areas at the highest risk for poisoning. Male based paint. Lead poisoning can result in things like the nemia seizures. And brain development issues. Communities living below the poverty line. Have a 35% higher burden. From particulate matter in michigan. African-american specifically. Had a 54% higher burger. Then the overall population. An environmental disaster strikes flooding or fires as racine in new orleans the new york area houston california. Poor people and people of color fare far worse. Then people with memes. And wifey. It's these kind of awareness that prompt the movement. Known as environmental justice. This movement. Is triune. Desperately. To get our. Attention. Environmental justice wants us to pay attention to the fact that right here in our house devastation going on our own making. Environmental justice wants us to notice that we created a system. Nationally and globally. Rooted in a white supremacist ideology. An ideology that finds it acceptable. The damage further. Those who are already. The most margin. Those deeply devoted to environmental justice may also love what we hear often call. Nature. Me to make enjoy places of beauty and serenity far removed from lead paint particulate matter in toxic waste site they too may enjoy it. Seaside sunrises. Remote mountaintop scenery and lovely gardens aglow with color. But their request. They're increasingly energized thrivent request is this please. When you hear the environmental part. Don't just think about those plates. Think about the inner-city festering with toxic air and about rural communities with bubbling ponds of cold. Let your environmental concerns include. The people. The people who are capitalist system seek daily to erase and ignore. When you hear about the calamitous consequences of global climate change. When you hear about the duration for green energy plant that the reason for green energy plan. Unrealistic. Think about what that means for those who are impoverished. Or whoever told in so many other ways. That their wives don't really matter. We wonder. What can we do. Isn't this just another one of those overwhelming problem with no actual way for any of us to make a difference. Is a star. Justin noticed. Pay attention. We live in a system that is design that is determined to distract us noticing and paying attention to these things knowing about them learning them are themselves subversive. Been with certain plans are being put forth. You know the proposals are being pan. We might ask. How does this affect the most. March. Can you imagine leaving with that question in the political arena in this city. How does what you are proposing affect the most margin. How does this affect the balance of power resources influence safety health well-being. This is the plan let our current raging inequities go unchecked. Does the proposal take marginalized people and their perspectives into account. Does it suggested solution. Solution. Ensure the continuance of capitalism's greedygranny. Or does it offer some. The unfettered the man. For more. Scientist. Typos white supremacist ideology was. Nonetheless his notion of ornithology or ecology. It's about an orca. It's about this shared planetary house. In about the family of all living things. Who are apart of the only oracle. That there is. Whose house. Our. Who. How.

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7.2.17_comfort.mp3

I went through. 18 years of public school. Four years of college. And 4 years of graduate school without ever writing one. Single word. On a personal computer. So as i was settling into my profession and beginning to work on my very first sermons. I did it exactly the same way i'd written dozens hundreds of pages. A philosophy papers. I would start with a legal pad. And write in longhand. Since i never liked writing in cursive very much. Knowing that whoever that i'd have to edit. A lot. I would leave for blank lines between each line of hand-lettered text. On it would go. 4 pages. And pages. And pages. A talented point go back and edit. Stretch out certain words in certain others at senate is often with arrows and asterix indicating where they fit in. Now i know some of you don't believe that ministers ever actually leave anything out of a sermon. I tear out pages cut others and take them in elsewhere into the text staple new lines on top of old one. By the time i'd finished. Or stop. Or be forced to wrap up by an eminently impending sunday morning and have a battered and warren dog-eared text that looked one part manuscript. One part hieroglyphic and one part rorschach inkblot test. And of course it was thoroughly and completely. Illegible. Not anywhere close to ready for primetime. So then came the next step. I take my trust the legal pad sit down at a. Typewriter. Rolling the first page and engaging what i finally. Actually not very fondly referred to as the hunt pack and cussed method. Tap tap tap tap tap return and repeat. Stop. Pull out the pungent bottle of white out. Paint over my errors. Then start again. A long time later i'd in merge. With the manuscript. Then i was only then ready to begin to read to remember to become intimately familiar with. In preparation for actual delivery. So. When a few years into my career i finally acquired my first ever desktop computer. It was. Very modestly helpful. You see i knew how to write in a particular way. Head of visceral physical experience with the writing process that necessitated a pin. Always black. Of course. And a legal pad. Yellow or white. Because i am nothing if not flexible. With my back to my computer. With my credenza top computer i'd sit at my desk writing stretching out literally cutting and taping and stapling. Only after i was completely doing what are them be ready to fire up the old computer. Create a blank green screen with a solitary flashing purser. Image that about. Slowly laborious lee to key in my pet. Finally finished. I'd figure out all over again how to extend it to my blazing-fast dot matrix printer. That would spit out the manuscript. Who wanted my congregation laughed at my process at the other. Absurdity. The inefficiency of using a computer as little more than a fancy typewriter. But i explained you don't understand. I'm just not comfortable riding on a computer. I can't sustain my thought process. I can't be creative. I can't transition to an electronic experience and be able to do what i need to do. I know what works for me. I know how i need things to be. I can't imagine ever. I think i actually said this. I can't ever imagine feeling comfortable enough to write a whole sermon. On a computer. Old. I was a foolish young minister. Too much easier to recognize than all the ways i am now a foolish. Beijing minister. Still in my twenties the income my seminary degree hardly dry. The world in the middle of a technological explosion. And i was already stuck in my way. Convinced i couldn't change shouldn't really ever even trying to change. I knew what i was comfortable with. Knew what i was uncomfortable with. A determined to keep within my confined comfort zone. You can laugh at my absurdity. It is after all the obviously appropriate response. Can you imagine. Someone who at an early age learn how things are supposed to be. And decided that was just how they always needed to be. Embracing the comfort of the familiar. Of the tried and of the truth. Rejecting the discomfort of a new way the hard learning and maintaining carefully merrily drawing boundaries of a comfort zone. Barely brought enough. For single occupy. A little like the guy we saw in the cartoon earlier sitting in his butt. Anyone here. By chance. Have a similar story. Anyone here able to look back and laugh at your own set waze. Your own insistence on billing things the way that is most familiar. Anyone here aware of ways and with you stayed with the tried and the true because. Well it's just too much of a hassle to do it in some new way. Writing in her remarkably innovative mid-nineteenth-century novel jane eyre. Charlotte bronte has her eponymous. Heroin wristlet. My world for some years had been in lowood. Mike spiritual benefits rules and systems. Now i remembered that the real world. Was wide and varied field of hopes and fears of sensations and excitement. Awaited those who had the courage to go forth into its expense to speak real knowledge of life is parallel. Oh that sounds great. A wider world full of possibilities. Out beyond the. Boundary the rules and system. That world where. Where we relinquish. Easy come. In the trustee reliability of pens and legal pads. And embark on the wonderfilled adventure of. Change it. Romantic poet and abolitionist james russell lowell. Road in a bold call to let go of the old ways new occasions lowell insisted new occasions new duty. Time make luncheon good. Uncouth. Bemis awkward still in onward who would keep abreast. Abstruse. If that bold assertion doesn't make you a little. Then you just may not be hearing. We like the old duties. The ancient good. The truth preserved in the writings and ways of the past. Well at least i can say i like the old duties. The ancient good. The truth preserve in at least some increasingly carefully edited. Writings and ways of the past. Henry david thoreau was born two hundred years ago this month. Many of us know by now that photo always talk to much better game about the call of the wilderness. Then you ever actually live. The aggrandize a sojourn in the woods within walking distance of his mama's cooking. And the other amenities in the nearby village. At the end of world and he remarks on what can happen. About what can happen even in the woods. It's remarkable how easily and inexpensively we fall into a particular route. And make a beaten path for rc. I have not lived there a week before my feet were a path for my door to the pondside and though it is five or six years since i tried it is still quite distinct. Total goes on to concede the surface of the earth is soft. And impossible by the feet of people. And so with the pads. Which the mind trap. Making for he recognizes ruts. Of tradition. And confirm. Why are there so many cartoons and other cameras expressions addressing the notion of the comfort zone. How is it that that simple image of linus clutching his blanket can be so evocative for us. Heralded hobbs is able to talk calvin into giving up the death-defying plunge down the mountain and instead retreat inside beside the fire for a hot mug of cocoa and marshmallows. Because. We all. To become. We all like to be comfortable. That's why next week we're going to celebrate and appreciate. Comfort. We all like to be comfortable. Dinner habit in our thinking and our ways of seeing ourselves and our perspectives in our opinion. We all like to become. And we all know at least implicitly. If not explicit. That between us and an expanded comfort zone between us and new ways of understanding things between us and new ways of thinking and acting. They're almost always lies some level. Discomfort. The embarrassment. Quickness. The pain of stretching. The confusion of not knowing the right. Helpful thing to do. The irritation. Unrelinquished. Feeling of loss as if things that mattered to us things that we liked and appreciated and even cherish. Are being taken away from. So naturally we receive. Naturally we get defensively clean to the way it has. Well. You'll be relieved to know. This then not so old dog did finally learn a new trick. Sometime more out of necessity than choice i did start writing on a computer. I found my way pass at least some of my frustrations and impediment. And now cannot imagine going back to that old weigh. From start to finish it is all done electronically. And only at the very end do i ever hit print and see a final manuscript that i still bet it by hand. Just call me. Mister modern minister. Chevy rev. Actually. Now. My newer colleagues. Those foolish. Trusting. Hip. Wire. Kids of the cloth. Are punching their sermons. From tablet. They never even printed out. They just right up into the pulpit with their fancy devices. Confidently move from screen to screen starting a paper copy of barely beyond the days of the scrolls. Of this i am absolutely certain. I could never. I will never be comfortable with that.

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9.10.17_words.mp3

On january 19th 1961 a strong nor'easter buffeted our nation's capital. Temperatures plunged to 20 degrees 8 in of snow fell washington awoke the next morning. The chaos. The storm threatening to disrupt the day's high and historic occasion. The inauguration of john fitzgerald kennedy. As president. U.s. army corps of engineers dc employees in hundreds. A boy scout. Employ dump trucks front end loaders sanders plows and flamethrowers. To clear the inaugural route. Snow. And of the more than 1,400 cars stranded alone pennsylvania avenue. Only then was the peaceful transfer of power able to proceed. As planned. With a snowfall still managed to impede one element of the ceremony. Kennedy had to ask the 86 year-old poet robert frost. To participate as the first-ever inaugural poet. First accepted. And plan to honor jfk's request that he read a poem entitled. A gift outright. From his 1942 pulitzer prize-winning collection a witness tree. But it raining in washington two days before the ceremony and caught up in the enthusiastic euphoria first was inspired to create a whole new plane to read. Is a preface to the one kennedy had requested. Following v. Well. Minute. Invocation. Buy cardinal robert cushing. During which governor pat. Brown remark if he doesn't stop now i'm quitting the church. And several more minutes of additional prayers. And after the oath of office was administered to vice president lyndon johnson first came to the podium bearing papers in both hands. Holding them close you began to read. Or. To attempt to read. However the blank sun reflected off the nearby snow made the script on the white paper illegible. He began. Stop. Stumbled tried again. Vice president johnson looking over there. Bullets left shoulder at the glare crawford his top hat. Chicken barn for shade. Alas. It did not help. As frost muttered. I just have to get through this. He was ordered at last. 2 recitation. From memory. Of the poem. Take kennedy after all had requested. And such was the introduction of poetry. At a presidential inauguration. What purpose really didn't serve anyway this as frost put it in the point that he could not read. This summoning of artists to participate in the august occasion. Of the state. Certainly crosswords we're not going to make the oath of office more legally binding. Orin del kennedy with additional constitutional authority. 32 years later bill clinton followed suit. They beckon maya angelou to be a part of his inauguration unlike frosty intentionally composed a long imaginative poem for the occasion when she entitled. On the pole. Of the morning. No.3 subsequent times poet. Miller-williams. Father of singer lucinda williams. Elizabeth alexander. And the openly gay cuban-american. Richard blanco. Have each had a prominent role in the installation of presidents. Interpower. Why. What role have artist. Poet. In the august occasions of the state. Krypton part it is what alexander proclaimed in her inaugural poem praise song for the day. We encounter each other. In words. Words she went on to say word by any or smooth whispered or declaimed words to consider. Reconsider. Words like. Do you solemnly swear. And like here on the pulse of this new day. An exact thing. The kind of words that have the political power to install a new chief executive and. And inspiring turn of phrase the kind of words that have the emotional power. Just spoke imagination. Andhra new hope. Which words. Matter. I mean really matter. Does in countering words that are precise. Exact. In the end prove more significant. Is the encounter with words that are creative. mm to the point of wondrous ambiguity. Of greater significance. Doesn't that depend. On the situation. Just last weekend finally away together as a family for the first time all summer. We settled in for the evening at our farmhouse in rural. South carolina. Cool and quiet. A nice night to be out on the porch. I was unwinding after so many frenetic weeks. Until. That is i discovered that we suddenly had no water. The pump to our wellhead stock. And i had not the first clue why. A panicked phone call summons my neighbor billy. Who descended into the tight quarters of our small well house and within minutes and outset the contact. On our pressure switch we're corroded. Meaning. The switch would need to be replaced. Out in the yard billy and i encountered each other in words. Do you. Precisely what i needed. You've described it in exacting detail. Early last sunday morning i made the long drive to the nearest lowe's went to the plumbing department found the well section and then purchase. A 40/60 psi plastic steel pressure switch item number 154 967 model number pts 4060. You know what i'm talking about. As soon as i was back there we made the repair in minutes and once again we enjoyed the miracle. Clean running. In my moment of desperation. I didn't want. Believe it or not. I need someone something inspiring and creative. I wasn't reading an encounter with words that would move me i wanted precision i wanted exactitud. The kind of unambiguous language that engineers used to make things work as they should. Happily. That's just what i got. Isn't that also what we need when conducting the business of the nation. When were transferring power to a new president are we looking there to for an encounter with words that will leave no doubt whatsoever that is sufficiently legal binding oath has been taken. Why you been invite the poet. It is difficult is william carlos williams famously admitted it is difficult to get the news. Components. So what do we get. What has been offered by those inaugural poet on those august occasion. Of the state. I would contend that each in their own way. Offered both and ideals. And. And assessment. The grand vision of who we could be as a nation and an unmistakable admission that we are well short of embodying that vision. I know elizabeth alexander recognize i know there's someplace better. Down the road we need to find a place where we are. Safe. We walked into that which we cannot see. Richard blanco. Wrote and spoke of hope. A new constellation waiting for us to map it waiting for us to name it. Together. We encounter each other in words at times we need words that rise above the prosaic. Words that transcend function and precision inexactitude words able to inspire and the judge. The holdup the forest we might be and to enable us to see clearly the ways that we have. That. What does poets were doing. Offering an encounter with just those. Vines. Peter o'leary in an analysis of the kinds of words encountered in religion recognize that it is not possible. To think about religious language. Without thinking. About poetry. I could not. Agree. With him. So much of what we do here is offer and encounter with words. But ours are certain kinds of words. We're not trying for the precision of a pressure switch. Biggs actitud of a contract. The certainty of engineering distinctly unambiguous words. Or law or. Plumbing. If you come here. Looking for an encounter with words. Singular in their meaning. Denuded definitively in some dictionary. To a careful point of precision you will be variously confused. And frustrated maybe even as some have been upset. We encounter each other in words. What powers are big and bold words where is layered with meaning from many religious traditions words aiming but always falling short of describing experiences of transcending mystery in one. We're challenging us with and calling us to the transforming power of love. Words of spiritual and ethical wisdom summoning us to responded god's love counseling us they feed the guidance of reason. Oh freedom. Oh freedom. Old freedom. Redundant. What does that mean. Mara wilson. Understanding experiences hope dream and then. Thousand more. Wait and see wait and see what a world there could be. If we shared if we care you and me. We can encounter some version of those words every single time we gather here and never fully exhaust their personal and collective meaning. To engage in the discourse of liberating religion. Tires. It absolutely drake. Wires. Open ears. Open mind. Open. We are always. Always diminish. Whenever any info. Funnest single meaning. 4. Or again. Spiritual. When i say i pray. And i do make that. Only if you are willing to listen. With. Imagination. Will you be home tonight. What i mean. When you say you are a. Pagan. Grounded in the belief that the divine takes many forms goddesses and gods in profusion. Only if i am willing. Commission. With. Imagination. Will i begin to know what you mean. When we speak of worth and dignity justice equity and compassion spiritual. Growth. Truth and meaning the right of conscience. World community or the interdependent web only if we are willing to encounter those majestic word with imagination and. Entender curiosity. Will we ever begin to. Marvelous palestinian-american poet naomi shihab nye. Invites us to hear. The words. Under the weather. If it's going to listen to and learn from those who are marginalized by injustice. Inequity. And discrimination. We will have to hear the words. Under there. We cannot assume a defensive posture determined that our definitions must be on. Our meaning. Mattermost. Our understandings are. Week in and week out in and outside of this room we are holding up a vision of what we could be of what we should be. Week in and week out in and outside of this room we are making ourselves vulnerable to a common vision. With the power both to inspire and to judge. Our encounter with words here should call us as miller-williams put it. To a land we can never visit. It's not. There. Room counter with words here should judge. Allow us to hear maya angelou's charge that you're armed struggles for-profit have left colors of waste upon my shore. Current of debris upon my brow. Oh. But it is an encounter with just these kinds of words that we are. Ethan. Sustained inspired. Enable two-face tumultuous. And hope.

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2.21.16_imperfection.mp3

It was june 1961 in vienna. Just four months into office us president john f kennedy set down for two days of talks with nikita khrushchev. Soviet premier. An intense cold war chill within the air. Tensions ran high throughout the talks. Any particularly heated point in their exchange kennedy in exasperation asked whose ship do you ever admit a mistake. Certainly. The wylie premiere retarded. In a speech before the twentieth party congress i admitted all of stalin's mistake. My friend and colleague jane debka is not quite so reticent. She admit. See. Admit. I'm not always so pleased. With myself. I'm not. Satisfied. I want to do better to be. Better. Jane one of our best a woman i respect and adore. Gets even more honest and acknowledging. It can be discouraging living a life. And that's worth saying. Out loud. Out loud. Admitting. Mistake. Admitting our imperfection. Perhaps we should try it. I'm not perfect. I'm not perfect. Turn to someone next to you and say i'm not perfect. Let's say it all together i'm not perfect. There. And look. The world appears to be turning. Still. If you are visiting here today and you're worried that maybe you've landed among people who talk a better game than we live. You aren't always honest or trying. Who are at times downright hypocritical. Let me assure you early on in your time with us. All of that is true. You come. To the congregation of the imperfect. Not even 2 months ago we crossed an annual threshold and entered into a new year. At that time many of us resolved that we were going to do something. Stop doing something. Change something start something be more committed to something. On the first sunday of the year we reflected on dana gioia's image of the new year as a field of snow without a single footprint. Right now i said on that sunday right now the field of this year is marked by very few footprints we stand on the threshold at the beginning just opening the door to all of the potential gifts and challenges that this year can hold for each of us. Not yet even a quarter. Of the way through this year. Who of us has completely lived up to those aspirations. Who has told that line. Flawlessly. Who is managed to keep. Every resolution. Big shoota it's good intention be our very best sales in every single moment. That one. Christine field. Looks a little trampoline. Now. The snow once alabaster and pure has become muddied and bear in spot. Their footprints. Part of the way. Mit turn back. Turn around they go in circles. We've not done it. Perfectly. One of the most important of all spiritual tasks. Is that of coming to terms with our own. Imperfection. Spirituality does not focus on trying to become someone else. The discovery of deeper spiritual meaning engagement in the process of spiritual transformation these things have to do with becoming who we really are. Ernest kurtz in. Katherine ketchum in their book the spirituality of imperfection assert spirituality. Helps us first to see. And then to understand. And eventually to accept. The imperfection that lies at the very core. Acumen. Being. How do we learn to live with our own. Imperfection. We all realize it could shift way is not likely to work. Denial and distraction. Is really bad form in daytime. And even worse form in a relationship that matters. If you're hoping. Against. Reasonable hope. For something magical. Some brilliant insight. You're in the wrong place today. Here's really all i know to offer. Confession. You. Know how this goes. Confession is good. And so it is. When we're in the wrong. Why is this very hard. The most freeing thing we can do is. Admit it. It was unitarian minister a powell davies who conceded. There is no maneuver no deception no stratagem of any kind that can trick us into self-approval. When we know that we are wrong. Fayetteville. Admit it. Confession. There's things i've said and done that i'm not proud of. The things i should have done. And i didn't do. Say it. If possible. To whoever most needs to hear it. From you. I'm sorry. I disappointed you i hurt you. I offer no excuses no rationalization. I. Am. These are such. Powerful. Transformative. Words. But remember that's just the first step. The next one is. Except. Forgiveness. If other is offer it. Well and good. Accepted from them. But in an immeasurably important active love. Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself. Say it in some explicit way to yourself. I forgive me. I forgive me. The angels. The furies are never far away admits poet may sarton. Why we dance. We dance trying to keep a balance to be perfectly human. Perfect never perfect neverending into growth. Imperil able. To write. Able to bless. And forgive. Ourselves. This. Is what is ass. That is what i am asking inviting. Today. That you bless and forgive. Yourself. That you let it be okay. To be in this good company. Of everyone else. Who falls short of our. D-patrick miller in a little book of forgiveness right. Never forget that to forgive yourself. Is to release trapped energy that could be doing good in the world. With that is a possibility he believes to judge and condemn yourself. Is a form of selfishness. Self prosecution nieces is never noble. It does no one the service. Of course it isn't easy. Will spend the rest of our lives. Trying to take. These two simple. But there's another aspect to our cracks are obvious and not so obvious flaws. There's more to the imperfections we see even obsessed upon. Show me much more obvious to ourselves. Them to anyone else. How easy it is to judge ourselves against some ridiculously impossible. I don't. I can't. I haven't. I'll never. Writer alice walker lived with that energy judge. Obsessed over a flaw she just moved changed how everyone saw her. It started with an experience in her childhood playing. With her brothers. I feel an incredible blow in my right eye i look down just in time to see my brother lower his bb gun. She's taken to her parents. They place me on the bench. On the porch. And i close my left eye why they examine my right. There's a tree growing from underneath the porch that climbs past the railing to the roof. It's. The last thing my right eye sees. I watch as its trunk. Its branches. And then its leaves. Hablada.. By the rising blood. She's fine but when she hears from a doctor but she admits. It's really how i look. That bothers me most. Where's the bb pellets truck there's a glob of whitish scar tissue a hideous cataract. On my eye. Now when i stare at people a favorite pastime up to now. They will stare back. Not at the cute little girl. But at hertz car. She obsesses over this imperfection for years. Then she explains. I'm 27 in my baby daughter. Is almost three. Since the birth i have worried about her discoveries at her mother's eyes are different from other people will she be embarrassed i think. What will she say. Wwe she watches a television program called big blue marble. It begins with a picture of the earth as it appears from the moon. It's bluish little battered looking book full of life. With whitest clouds. Swirling around. One day. When i'm putting rebecca down for her nap. He suddenly. Focuses. On my eye. Something inside me cringe. Gets ready to protect myself all children are cruel about physical differences i know this from experience i assume rebecca will be the same. But. No. She studies my face intently. She even holds my face maternally between her dimpled little hands. Then she said if it may just possibly have slipped my attention. Mommy. There's old world. In your eye. And then gently. But with great interest. Mommy. Where did you get that world. Inure. Crying and laughing alice walker says i ran to the bathroom while rebecca mumbled and sang herself to sleep. Yes indeed i realized looking into the mirror who was alert. In my eye. Industrial that it was possible to love it that infect for all that it taught me of shame and anger and intervision. I did love. Bentonite. A dream. I am dancing. As i dance whirling and joyous happier than i've ever been in my life another bright facedancer join. Dillard answer is obviously come through all right. As i have done. She's beautiful. Whole. + 3. And. She. Is awesome. John ruskin the prolific. 19th century british intellectual and artists road. Imperfection is in some sort. Different. The all that we know of life. In all things that live is certain. Irregularities and deficiencies. Which you're not only signs of life. But sources. Beauty. Moose youmans face is exactly the same and its lines on each side to continue no leaf perfect and it's loads no branch and its symmetry. All things are literally. Better. Lovelier. And more beloved. For their imperfection. Which have been. Divinely. There are those imperfections for which we need both to apologize. And to accept an offer. Forgiveness. But that is not. There are those imperfections. That make us. Who we are. Unique. Lovely. Beautiful. Dare we risk it. Having already admitted that we are not perfect. Dare we say it. If only in silence. As we reflect. I am imperfect. And. I am beautiful. I am. Beautiful. I. Ham.

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10.7.18_dealing_with_disappointment.mp3

There are seven islands that are grouped less than 200 miles off of. New zealand in the auckland islands archipelago. Brandon is home to approximately 65,000. Pears. Of white cap. Albatrosses. Nearly the entire world population. Ocwen rail. Once thought to be extinct. Can also be found on this island. Having been rediscovered there in 1966. The island is completely uninhabited. Bite humans. Its name. Disappointment. Isleton. Yep. There's actually a place called. Disappointment. Ireland. No there are no permanent residence there aside from the albatrosses and rails and despite its very remote location it must surely be one of the most visited places. On the entire planet. Early visit i made to disappointment island. I was quite young about 4 years old at guess. My sister just 13 months older. With devious. Forethought. An unmistakable sibling malice. Informs me one fine summer day. That as soon as i dad got home from work we were going to the beach. I remember waiting anxiously for my dad's arrival been impatiently trailing him into my parents bedroom watching as he slowly shared his dress for success attire. Finally i'm able to stand it any longer i asked him when are we leaving. Leaving for where. The beach. I declared excitedly. That's several weeks away. And with those. Sad. Sadler's. Instead of setting off for the south carolina coast. I embarked on a sojourn. The disappointment island. I'm guessing. You've probably made a few trips there yourself. Disappointment island not to be confused with the hardships lines of say the plains of pain. The desert of despair. You're not nearly as debilitating as the assaulting condition. In oppression swamp. Disappointment island is nonetheless no one's idea of an ideal getaway. Disappointment occupies that knowing unsettling gap. Between hope or expectation. And reality. Someone let you down. Failed to live up to your expectations. Lester holt's unfulfilled and well. You. Disappointment. It's not a federal offense. The case for serious intervention not even a deal-breaker. What did ubiquitous not infrequent experience of disappointment can cause sand in a gears can take the wind out of her sails can burden us with that knowing irritating. Disappointment is. The common cold of emotional illness. Almost never fatal. Absolutely always. Annoying. Classic buddhism concedes a certain sober realism about life. Life is the buddhist. Dukkah. It's not a great one word english equivalent. For the poly notion of dukkah. Jen salisbury suggested duka refers to the pain that arises out of the ungovernable nature of events in our lives. It points she says it does uncomfortable feelings. Among which she includes. Disappointment. Disappointment as duca. She says. Points that deep sense of not right now. About life. Confronted with this appointment we are reminded that there's. Much of life that we do not. That we cannot. Control. Two of us does not understand explicitly robert burns centuries-old observation about the best laid schemes of mice and men. We've all had experience likely in the past few days. When something just didn't go as planned. Through no fault of our own. Someone didn't live up to her expectations someone let us down someone left us standing in that gap between expectation. And reality. What. Ben. What choices do we have. Rage. Blaine. Retaliation. Withdrawal. Bucking up. Gritting your teeth. Accommodating. Accepting forgiving. Disappointment can the finest disappointment can you control. Or. Or we can do the deeper spiritual work. That enables us to find our ways that. The freedom again. Disappointment can cause us to stoop or inspire us to stand as david white puts it in a firmer sense of self a surer sense of our world. Disappointment can be the call to some more courageous. Connection. To what we hold dear. The values that are most important to us. 2id purcell. Today's we cancerous. The help carry us through. Disappointment may be a summons. To be gentle. Messyourself. With. Even with the one. Who disappointed you. To imagine that the gap between expectation and reality. Is not a permanent seizure. But an opening. For something new. To come to life. Nova. Is a permanent resident. I'm disappointment island. Though some do seem to us. For an extended stay. Unlike the more devastating experiences in our lives disappointment than presents us with a choice. Are we interested in. Are we willing to. Move on. Good morning. So much of our experience in life. Has to do directly with our perception. It's something really a disappointment. Or is it an opportunity for something different to happen. What should i do when something doesn't go my way. Allow myself to have space to have my feelings. Graphic rule out of my toolbox. Step off the disappointment roller coaster. I find in my life the more tools i have in my toolbox. The more i'm able to shift gears and change my outlook. I use a roller coaster as a visual in my mind. To represent how emotionally i go through disappointment. Sometimes. I can feel i'm going up that beginning hill when the emotions start to come to the surface. I have a choice in that moment of stopping. And getting off the ride. Walking down the wooden plank. Having a different experience. Or. I can hold on to the disappointment continue the ride. And go deeply into the negative feelings and even let us in old past hurts and disappointments. This result is a full-blown. Sadness spiral. What makes the difference in these experiences. How can i get off the ride. That's where my toolbox comes in. Over the years i have developed a few tools to help stay off the roller coaster. Dimension of you my toolbox contains. Positive affirmations creative thinking. And freeze frame. And i also have daily practices to prepare myself for life unexpected moments. Through meditation. Gratitude. And grounding practices. Recently i was supposed to go to asheville with a friend. At the last minute she had to cancel due to her sick cat. I completely understood. But i was still disappointed. I was feeling down. But then i started feeling guilty because i was disappointed. So i decided i needed to give myself some space to have those feelings. I allowed myself to sit for a moment. Breathe deeply. And feel. But i was feeling. And it was so helpful. So often in our culture. We want to rush past the stage. And act as if everything is okay. But those feelings are still inside. So i took a moment. And i just allowed the feelings the washer over me. Then i reached into my toolbox and i found freeze-frame. Simple activity to breathe into my heart. Pretend s. And then bring in a really crappy positive. Memory. I really experienced it. I let it permeate me. Then i asked my heart. What is a more efficient response to disappointment. Reduces stress moving forward. Next episode out my tool. Create space for creativity. Sometimes i can get so caught up in my expectations of what i thought would happen. That when it falls apart i automatically go into a spiral of disappointment. There are those who say that expectation is premeditated resentments. Or disappointment. So with unmet expectations. I need to be flexible. And take time to allow for creative solutions resent itself. Now that i have an open weekend. What was i going to do with my newfound time. Could i enjoy some much-needed rest and relaxation. Catch up with distant friends on the phone. Go to my favorite yoga class. Spend time with my family. Take a walk in nature. And go to the sunday service at the uucc. Gradually i shifted my frame of mind. I was looking forward to this new and different weekend. It was not what i originally planned. But in the end. It was filled with unexpected beauty and gratitude. Gratitude. It's one of my favorite and oldest tools. And the more i practiced at on a daily basis the more i stay. In a framework of gratitude. And the less i engage in the energy of disappointment. So no matter how tired i am at the end of the day. I write down five. Things that i'm grateful for. This shifts my perspective. I'm actually proactively looking throughout the day. Define doubt. What will i write. Tonight. What am i grateful for. As i move along in the day and have different interactions with people i often ask myself. Is that something that i'll write my gratitude journal tonight. You can see in all these tools i focus on being able to be in the present moment. And accept what's happening. And then i moved forward in the most joyful and positive way i can. What about those daily disappointments. For those. I have my daily practices. Which include positive affirmations. All is well everything is working out for my highest good. Out of this situation only good will come. I am safe. This is an affirmation that louise hay share 21 years ago at a women's empowering seminar in atlanta georgia. She just turned 70. She thought. I am off the coaster i am going to. Just glide through life now. And she said no. She was doing some of the hardest work. She'd ever done. And that. Or this affirmation that she shared with us. I find affirmations incredibly helpful. When i'm dealing with a difficult situation feel overwhelmed. I stopped say these words over and over 45 minutes. Usually this gives me a break from the loop in my head. And creates a little space which affords me the ability to shift. And come up with a solution. As i step out the door on my way to work. I take a moment to ground myself. I feel my feet connected to the earth. And have a conscious press. To allow that connection to really bring me into the present moment. I love these nature to help me achieve this. Throughout the day. The name looks like cher with nature help fortify me. Feeling the rays of the sun. Walking in nature. Standing among the trees. Listening to the birds. Looking at the moon. He got the idea. Sometimes i work through the disappointment and think i'm past it. But then those feelings unexpectedly come back. I'm right back on the roller coaster ride. Possibly on disappointment island. Wait. I did the work. I'm over this. Click. But. Click. Plaque. The more time i spend fighting and arguing with myself the closer i get to the top of the hill. I can either hold on. As the momentum takes me down. Or i can reach for a tool. And rework the issue. Which can be multifaceted like a diamond. I take a deep breath. Pick myself up. Dust myself off. Start it all over again. As i close my toolbox. After showing you all my nice shiny tools. And all my old dusty tools. I feel it's important to say. But i don't expect myself to have the perfect response and every situation. I am human. We are human. And humans are continuously growing learning and healing. I believe that because you're here today in this fellowship. That you are mindful that you are mindful and looking for ways to increase your frequency. Or your heart by bration. Or b. More at peace in your life. When something pools without a balance. In our daily lives. These tools can bring you back. Peace and joy. And help us. Off the roller coaster.

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7.14.19_true_names.mp3?_=1

According to the brothers grimm. There was once a miller who was very poor. And one day in happened that this miller met the king. And not knowing quite what to say but wanting to feel important in the presence of his ruler the miller blurted out. I have a daughter who can spin straw into gold. That's so sad the king. Such a skill interest me greatly bring your daughter to the castle tomorrow and then we shall see what we shall see. Who knows what the conversation was like that night between the miller and his daughter but one way or another. Becky gave her a spinning wheel instead now you must set to work quickly. If i dawn tomorrow this straw has not been spun into gold. You will have to die the king left in a key turned in the walk. The miller's daughter was alone and terrified for she had not the least idea how to spin straw into gold. The hours passed and it grew darker and darker and at last she threw herself upon the straw weeping for her life. Suddenly the door spring open before her do it a small man with a beard wearing a cloak. The man asked the miller's daughter what will you give me if i spin this straw into gold for you. You shall have my necklace. The miller's daughter reply. Strange man you had appeared out of nowhere immediately began spinning by morning all the straw had become gold. Of course the king was impressed but not. Satisfied over the next few nights the king lock the miller's daughter in rooms with still larger piles of straw and left same cheerfully as possible if you value your life you will spend it all into gold by morning. The miller's daughter was quickly running out of things to offer the cloak bad man who spun the straw into gold. Finally one night when he asked what will you give me. She cried and dismay i have nothing more. Promise me your first child should you become queen. Samantha. Who knows if that will ever happen and so she agreed. Understandably the miller's daughter could not imagine that the same king who locked her in rooms of straw each night demanding unpaid hard labor would ever ask her to marry him but he did and she became queen and had a child. Sure enough the mysterious cloaked man came back demanding the child for his own. When the queen wept and begged amanda take all the wealth of the kingdom instead of her child. He refused. I'll give you three days it would then this time you discovered my name. You may keep the child. During the night the queen remember all the name she had ever known and sent a messenger into the countryside to discover more names still. Finally just before dawn on the third day one of the queen's messengers saw little house with a fire burning out front and it's strange man hopping and singing around the fire today i bake tomorrow i brew the nuts the queen's child i will claim. Lucky it is but no one knows that rumpelstiltskin is my name. How relieved and grateful between was to learn his name. When the cloaked man returned the queen shouted triumphantly rumpelstiltskin is your name. The devil told you that the man screamed and in his rage he stomps the ground so hard that it split into and swallowed him. Whole. Until the queen learned rumpelstiltskin's name. He had power over her. He controlled her destiny. Once she spoke his name aloud. She was suddenly no longer subject to his demands on her life. Why is it the act of learning the strange man's true name and speaking it aloud. That dissolves rumpelstiltskin's power. Why isn't the name the active naming him. That dissolves. Power. This situation is one that exists across a variety of folklore and the fairy tales. Learn the true name of the mysterious seeing you as a trapped you and their power or you will disappear. As if to say until you can call something what it is. You will be powerless. To confront it. Lisa feldman barrett is a professor of psychology who focuses on the study of emotion. Barrett and her colleagues have spent decades observing how people experience and react to their own feelings. Spirit is found that people who described feeling a vague sense of awfulness. 1060 star in the negative place. Unable to move toward more positive emotions and experiences. Those who cannot clearly articulate what they are feeling have trouble making decisions. If you'll lack of control over how they react. The big bad feeling leads to a sense. Helplessness. However and her colleagues found. The people who have learned to name the specific and particular feelings that brought on the general sense of awfulness. Ganger renewed sense of agency in their lives. When they identify fear or grief. As specific and particular emotion they could then decide how to respond to what they were feeling. The ones unidentified sense of awfulness no longer determine their reactions and decisions. As soon as they could name anger. Anger slowly lost his power over the way they lived. In august of 1897. W.e.b. du bois published an essay in the atlantic monthly. He began by saying between me and the other world there is ever an unasked. Question. Buy some true feelings of delicacy. By others through the difficulty of framing it. All nevertheless qiroat flutter around it. The approach me in a half hesitant sort of way. I need curiously or compassionately. And then instead of saying directly. How does it feel to be a problem. They say i know an excellent colored man in my town. In the essay the boys went on to describe the personal examples what it was like to live life as a black american. Dubois wrote. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a negro and an american without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows. Without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face. And then your boys gave a name. To this daily experience. A being made to feel like an unwelcome stranger in white america. He said it is just kill yourself station. This is double consciousness. This sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others of measuring one soul by the tape of a world that looks on interviews contempt. And pity. It is a peculiar sensation this is double consciousness. Of course without it being named black americans knew this experience of double consciousness in their phones. The most mundane of interactions with white people it just. Water. But you identify the experience so succinctly. To be able to name it. Now that there was a name for what white oppression created in black psyches it could be examined. Questioned and responded to in a different way. The boys named the daily experience suffered without acknowledgement or recourse by millions. And in so doing claimed the power to confront that suffering and challenge its source. So long as we cannot call something what it is it holds great power over us. Have you heard from rebecca solnit earlier calling things by their true names cut through the lies that excuse buffer muddled disguise avoid. Or encourage in action. Indifference. Obliviousness. Calling things by their true name is not all there is to changing the world. But it's a key. Science fiction author ursula k. le guin also takes up the thread of calling things by their true name. In her novel the wizard of earthsea. In the world was win creates in this book wizards come by there power in a fascinating way. These wizards must learn the true names of anything in existence they wish to manipulate change move transform or affecting anyway with their magic. They must learn the true name is not euphemisms or words whose origins are no longer known. Cornelius that have become inaccurate from overly casual use. These wizard have to learn the life force the essence the history of a thing in order to know it's true name. The main character of the novel a boy named jed. Shows promise of being particularly gifted in the ways of magic. At one point get it finds himself along with a handful of his peers studying on a remote island with the master namer. The master namer instructs the young wizards to learn endless list of names. The names of each individual tree leaf. Stone. Air current. As with wainwright. It was cold and half dark and always silent there except for the scratching of the masters 10. And the spying for half the students. Who must learn before midnight the name of every katie point bay sound inlet channel harbor reef and rock of the shores. These wizard can only work magic using what they understand. And no. The master nemer explains that this is the folly of wizards who try to cast a spell on the entire ocean. When they know so little of the depth and shallows faints and segments of shoreline that are part of what makes the ocean. The ocean. Last week i took a road trip with my family staying in airbnb's and hotels along the way. And as we left one room i ran back in to make sure everyone had collected their chargers toys under the bed all that kind of thing. And housekeeping was already beginning to clean the room. Two black women were picking up our towels from the floor. And wiping off the table where we shared a greasy takeout dinner the night before. When i saw these women i wanted us to meet simply as people and i said hello cheerfully and looked around for the things we might have ladders. But i could feel separateness. Between us. We use only the most polite language language use some high some how to hide. Or maybe protect ourselves from one another. I left the room wanting to be able to name this uneasiness between myself and these two working-class black women. And then i remembered one of the names for this unspoken separateness. White supremacy. Knowing they and i had been instructed in the supremacy of whiteness all our lives. But i have only recently learned to name it. Like the wizard of gad learned you cannot affect the entire ocean change the temperature of the water or its tides just by knowing its cumulative name. You must learn every inlet coast and shallow. To gain power over this big feeling of discomfort and separation when i find myself speaking to working-class people of color. Meaning. My hotel room. I have to spend a lifetime learning still more true names and how to speak them aloud. There will not be an end in my lifetime the cattle of cataloguing the contours and depth of white supremacy. The names the segregation. Redlining. Sundown town. Lynching separate. But equal. Mass incarceration. But the more i learned to name these truths allowed. The more ability i gained to change the world within and beyond me. For the good. As the master namer explains to get we can change only what we can name exactly. And hold me. The singing that have power arrest the things that control our actions and reactions go on imposing their will on our lives. Until we learn their true names and turn the tables. Until we can call something what it is we will be powerless to confront it. In the words of the poet gregory or. Let's remake the world with words. Not frivolously nor to hide from what we fear. Let's as wordsworth said remove the dust of custom so things shine again each object arrayed in the robe of its original light. And then we'll see the world as if for the first time. As once we gaze at the beloved. Who was gazing. At puss. Blessed be.

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2.2.20_aloneness_belonging.mp3

When we have a rattling ground-shaking spiritual experience. Let me have an encounter with reality that unnerves us. We find ourselves flooded by a vast and overwhelming revelation. We sometimes turn inward. If something is a spiral downward at first. We find ourselves in need of a kind of hibernation from the rest of the world. The need to give into that desire to withdraw. Curl up in solitude and. Rap. After such. A collision we need time alone to regather the various pieces of ourselves. That's steep descent. Into our inner world is necessary when we come into contact with an experience we can't yet whittle down into bite-size pieces. The something manageable. That will fit inside the scope of our day-to-day life. In such times it is necessary. To be alone. The experiences that most chic my understanding of the world do indeed. Send me n-word. My dad died during my first pregnancy. Elderly overwhelmed. By an intense experience of life and death. Crashing into each other. The world around me the assumptions i built my way of life on no longer made sense. Knowing that no one could understand the unique. Intricacies of my grief. I withdrew. I went in word alone for what seems like a very long time. During this time a friend of mine invited me to share an airbnb with her halfway between us. Cheap gone inward to. On a journey within herself brought on by the cruel. Open-ended longing. Of infertility. So we went away for a weekend. To wrestle with def. Emmacloth. Committing ourselves fully to our own unique pads of grieving. Sunday morning came. And i was snuggled up in bed and having planned i confessed to sleep through any and all opportunities to attend a worship service. But my friend came in with a cup of tea and woke me up and said let's go let's go to service. And one of the bombers of being a minister is in that happens you can't say enough bubble. Normally engaging and being around other people brings me more to life. But in my grief it made me feel brittle. Not like myself. But not having it in me to resist. We went. We were staying close to a unitarian universalist congregation house in a beautiful old building. We made our way there and found the seat among the friendly unfamiliar faces. Any children story that morning. Was it about. In the story death was a gentle wise being. Having a conversation with a little girl who did not want her grandmother to die. Slowly as the story unfolded. Death showed the little girl what life would be like if nothing or if no one ever died. Then death left the little girl to her own journey. Leaving her filled with a new curiosity and less afraid. When the story was over. We sang together. I've always heard that when people are singing together their heartbeats become more in the sink you find a kind of shared rhythm. Innisfail true to me on that morning. It occurred to me while we were singing but the other people in the room at one time or another. Had encountered f2. The people around me had asked questions like the ones forming in my mind. What is life after we lose someone we love so fiercely. And how should i live knowing that i too. Will die. When i had woken up that morning. Death and grief were solitary experiences. Overwhelming encounters to endure alone grasping around in my inner world for some kind of smallest. Then i heard a story. And saying a song with my fellow human beings. And somehow my aloneness. Led me to a kind of belonging. We can go so far into our loneliness. That we do find a sort of clearing deep within ourselves personally we understand that were not alone at all. This is the place where our shared questions take shape. It's the place where we discovered that we do not after all journey alone. As singular unique. And lonely is our individual searching can be. We realize the further we go in word. That this searching has led us yet again. To our shared human experience. To a realization of how connected we are how much we need one another. My own time of grief i descended. So deep into myself. I eventually found that i was in fact living the way other people who are grieving live. Asking the questions they ask. At first glance it seems like each of us stands alone like trees set apart. Until we discover as we descend into our own solitary experience. That there is hidden from daily view. Complex and verdant root system that connects us all. And when we remember this we know that even during the most earth shaking of storms. This hidden root system is at work. Transferring nutrients in vitality from one life. To another. As we descend deeper into our aloneness. We discover a kind of breathtaking belonging. To something much bigger. Dinner individual experiences. Perspective. Hope needs. Fears. I was struck that sunday while visiting that congregation with my friend hearing the story and singing those songs it struck me that part of being in a spiritual community. Is that we're paying attention to this larger belonging often we're here because we want to honor it we want to show reverence. For it leafly. Can i find it's true here as well in this. Spiritual community. Watching how each of you responds to your interdependence. How each of you otters are connected this to one another showing reverence for this larger belonging. Some of you get together to study. Review study the waves that. The notion that white people are straight people are people born in the united states thinking. These people are superior is toxic to our shared root system. One of us dies some of you show up at memorial services to make sure there are enough tissues in the pew. Enough oil in the childless can you stand at the entrance with a gentle compassion greeting every grieving person who walks through the door. Some of you honor our interdependence by bringing an abundant hearty breakfast in the wee hours of monday morning for our homeless neighbors sleeping in freeman hall. Some of you nurture our connectedness making coffee. A cleaning up. After the community has snack and drink enjoyed one another's company after each service. Can you turn to one another. At the beginning of worship to shake hands and say to the people around you welcome. You belong here. 3 said together earlier in the words of kathleen mctigue. This community is our calling. A riverbank to channel the sweet waters of our lives. The place where we are called. By the world need. Here there is a larger belonging that each of us found in one way or another through a portal deepen our aloneness. Here there's a connectedness that harbors compassion and struggles for justice. A community of shared experience we can nurture while we're here. Knowing it will go on nourishing others. Long after we are gone.

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Kathleen-Carpenter-8.27.mp3

Hi my name is kathleen and i'm hearing a really difficult for me. I either had to do something drastic orbit-raising histology which is what many profoundly deaf and hard-of-hearing people do they pull back from social situation please stop talking on the phone and stop going on i received my implant last april many people has asked at the beginning of the first words spoken to me after high baby can you hear now and it sounded like everyone.

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5.21.17_dance.mp3

By the time the acadians had made their way over centuries from france. The canada. Through dispersal and into the swamps of louisiana they had experienced immense hardship. Life was no easier there. A hardscrabble existence for survival poverty. Prejudice in equity. And isolation. So it is more than a little remarkable that these acadians turn. Cajun. Created one of our nation's truly joyous traditions. Of both music. And dancing. Often with nothing more than a fiddle a simple push button accordion a triangle and their voices they would create a fatal dose. At the end of a long weeks work. With such wabdl. Let generation with take to the dance floor together to walt and jitterbug the night away. By the time i made it to new orleans in the 1980s cajun culture had expanded beyond the swamps and become a part of that city's spicy gumbo of musical offering. Do early in my time living there i discovered the maple leaf bar. Where the fuel a cajun band had a standing gig. Every thursday evening. Pack into that bedroom with a simple raised stage dancers took to the floor wedding in the sweltering heat. Spinning and spiraling the night away fueled by buljan c. And a bottle or two of abita. Note the kind of dancing. I had known. Muesli entailed a hole. Group of people. Bobbing and hopping about. With scarcely a sense of rhythm. Much less any semblance of a recognizable form. Even if in a particular dance we had an actual partner. There was little indication of the remotest sort of coordination. It was lift soul train. Then. Trainwreck. So i leaned on the maple leaf walls. Looking on with mz. It does his death dancing was seized by an inevitable release of tear. Partner so seamless they moved as one. Smiling is a gyrated through a dizzying series of complex coordinated moves. Unchill. One night. The patient. Friend took me by the hand lead me into the dark alley outside. And gave me my very first teaching dance class. Tempered by generous persistent. And laughter. After a while my two left feet. Became. Unless foot-and-a-half. Listens dan with a suave remedy spira. And i seen became a regular at the maple leaf on thursdays and at tipitina's on sunday developing. If i do say so myself a certain comfortable confident. And they're in the city so full of hardships a city tortured. In trouble. With one song called third-world condition. Add wage war for justice and equity during the days and retreat often to the dance floor at night and to festivals on the weekends with cajun dancing became a regular part of my. Joy delight conviviality energy billing over into a wonderful. Damn. Half a world. Oh wait in that same decade down in the southern end of the massive african continent apartheid divided south africa. A beloved leader. Nelson mandela. Remain. Imprisoned. The 2nd. Most maligned politician in history. From across the border in zimbabwe and guerrilla training camps. Cayman. Subversive. That it was damned. Outlawed for its dangerous capacity to disrupt. It was. Dancing. The toy isn't intense dance in which participants jog or jump from one foot to the other with heinnies their hands raised above their heads in fifth accompanied by rhythmic chanting or singing. The toy toy. Is never. A solo. Rather masses of people bounced down the street synchronized in their penetrating movement. And who could trust defiant revolutionaries who dance. So the government sought to shut it down if laud this organized dance only. They discovered it could not be surprised. Rage. Determination power insistent spilling over into an author. Pill. Sometimes. It is joy that sets us. The dancing. Sometimes we dance even when we've been broken open. Sometimes life's dance is done despite. And sometimes because of. In the midst of fighting. And. When will perfectly free. Is that why my dear friend and colleague kathleen mcteague beckons the light. The guide. Is that why she summons the darkness the salve with a sort of rest that will enable us to give ourselves to the work of the world. Texas news better than most of us that the whole mess of our lives impales the weaving of light. And shadow. And with tears. Faith. She called all of us. In good times and in tempest. Enjoy and in rage. Impolite and in defiance to what she calls. This. Great and astonishing dance. In which. We move. You're straight and astonishing. We're leaving here in this community the joys and sorrows of our own life with the beauty and pain of our world. This is great and astonishing. We're leaving here in this community birth and death celebration and set that uprising and uplift. And that break our. Heart. And. And art. Even bill. We dance 6 farms that's free. And dance determination alongside one another. In the crazy confusion of this chapter in our nation and in our national movement. We danced. Together. Member administer children youth and adult with open arms for visitors as well we dance. Together. The toy toy. Terror. End of the heart. Of the oppressors. Because it was damp define. By the masses. We two are so much stronger. When we dance. Together. I learned also. In rhythm with my cajun companion. It is almost. Always. That this great and astonishing dance in which we move. Is made. Immeasurably. Better. When one can dance. Instinct. With. Apartment. I have a distinct. That i will discover. At very long last. And. Not nearly soon enough. That the same. Can be true. 4 minutes.

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Elsa-Lafferty-8.19.mp3

Good morning. It is so good to see you all here this morning. Before i get started let me just. Emphasized that both countries that are dropping that's a long time ago and both countries have changed a lot. But these are my personal experience when i was there. Indonesia is the largest. Island country in the world. Over fourteen thousand islands. Are scattered around the equator. Someone compared it to a necklace of jade. There are two seasons. Diane beth. The botox. But two countries so rich and abundant resource instead of us a very desirable territory. The portuguese to english english and the dutch offered over babe. The bus fare and the dutch would have victor's. Dutch territory for over 300 years. And the ducks names at the dutch east indies. The population is 90% muslim. Exorcist actually over 1,300 different ethnic groups. So the national motto and be issued at their eyes would like that. Is unity in diversity. The seat of government is in jakarta on the most populous island java. And if you go down a little bit to the southeast you see the city called bomb dome it's in the mountains. And that's what i was born. Coral harbor day. My mother was a petite woman. And at 11 pounds was a big baby. After a long labor i decided to turn and greet the world with death ends. Complicating matters and. The doctor had to break my leg to get me out to. My father was standing on one side of the bed. Embedded dress. And i was on the other side with my leg in traction. Japan has declared war. We have a beautiful baby girl but they had to break her leg. I have to go. But the staff calls her our first war casualty. My father was imprisoned in santa barbara to work for the railroad for the japanese to japanese prisoner-of-war camp. For those of you who remember rich over the river kwai that's how it was except for the singing and the whistling and the clothes. At the end they were rescued all they had was loincloth. My mother and older women. Including me more in camp in town that the women had to work in the field. And the pretty young women were old gallatin special houses and surface comfort wives for the japanese. After my dad came back from the war life slowly return to normal. My mother went back to teaching my father served in the army and play piano in the big band orchestra in the largest hotel. Dancers who played bridge and brother. But growing up in indonesia. Flash magical. My parents were too busy to pay any attention to me and that's a straight i have hardly any restrictions and i couldn't wait everyday. Come home and take my school uniform off and put on my play clothes how can i buy. And go bathrooms all day and go to the boys next door hope even more adventurous and i was. He played all kinds of games. Buseto banana trees for target practice fortnite you make your own cards with low and at least once a week we would go to the community pool to swim. If you wanted any fruit. We could just climb up a tree and get it. And if you wanted something to eat. We could go to either one of our houses for the housekeeper with. Get something very delicious. Church with our family. And then have dinner with my grandfather. But you never have any invitation friends. We never saw them. They went to different schools. Dillard's outside the city limits. Their parents served in the chow chows. Housekeepers and cooks and gardeners. The only for traditional dress the saturn kebaya. Bishop white shorts with long sleeves and a ceramic patek. Consensus indonesian culture was a far inferior to their own. Even though the indonesian culture was much older more sophisticated. And more beautiful i think then. Long before the dutch became a country. What's a colonial system is still firmly in place. But a big change was coming. After the japanese left in 1945. Indonesia declared independence. But it's actually took until 1949. Until all the troubles were over and the dutch recognized the independence. B-force dormosedan elements. Oh that's this is work. Because our fatherland but it was atlantic my parents have never seen. They can only take one trade. With their belongings. But i tried to be positive never seen it can't be that bad. You know your dad has a job in the army we all speak the same language. They all have the same nationality. So we boarded the ship. All the dutch were not exactly overjoyed to see us. First of all we were the first group from the colonies to arrive and they were not used to seeing people have different skin color. Although we spoke the same language. And wore the same clothes. They had never seen the darker skin tones i wear very apprehensive. We were treated as displaced foreigners rather than. Cole. Dutch people. The people came from dutch indonesian actually called in dos. Pictures of cute name but. They were just called that. Let me take. Public transportation wikipedia people hissing. Apes. Peanut sellers. We tried not to pay any attention to it but one of our locations for small farm town. Not if you can imagine dutch wooden shoes on the cobblestones that's a cute sound. Nothing they pursue you for the first couple of days. I was followed by and chased by group of kids. And they would back me up against the wall. And it was his name stephanie. And then. And then that would just turned away i never cried but i just got tired of it and one day i punched one of them in the nose and blood was all over in didn't follow me anymore but he never became friends in five different locations before the dutch government finally found a. Melody bedroom flat. You know through high school. In the tropics the better for my parents was very hostile. And the duchess very different cultural habits. They're very fastidious and regiments of people. And everyday. Has a purpose monday is wash day. You boil the clothes all day long and you beat him and then you put them on the washboard then you bring some meat hanging out. And if the weather is good then on tuesday spent the whole day ironing and so on and so forth and on friday they would clean the whole outside of their house including the sidewalk so that everything would be blaming for saturday. Videos on the other hand with more relaxed and of course they always had servants to do that kind of thing for them. So they've concentrated more cooking and socializing. My parents. But you got to shower today in the tropics you have to. But the netherlands. Didn't have most of house didn't have any showers. Show people without monster egg. To the bathhouse. To clean up. Wish my parents found a little strange. Millennium auto parts instincts juicing for my father got passed over for a job in the military but cheap. Meaning only colored person there. My mother could not find a job as a teacher finally found one in a gypsy camp. Outside the city. In a one-room schoolhouse schoolhouse. And. Never wanted us to come over. Have you didn't know much about it except he got the regular treatments for head lice. Who sings the situation at home with just a really miserable. Who sings save me. Music. And sports. My father plays piano every night it's just. They're yelling for him as well as for us. I belong to two wires and one of them. Exodus traveling choir and b has a. That's how i met my first americans. We have the performance at the air force base to savannah. And saying a christmas program. And then the end of his silent night in english of course. Some of the young man were so homesick and they were openly crying. But after we're supposed to speak table b donuts and hot chocolate and they were so charming so i had to. Fortunately associated with b cool. You belong to sports club which is kind of nice when you. Switch phones you can still go to the same sports club so i s field. European handball. And especially volleyball. I was actually selected you to like in high school represents a dutch. Nationality to play against. Germany and. Don't you. I never have a problem much with b studying. Knez and i wish i could write so many to choose college. I expected to become a kindergarten teacher. And my mother and i went to the school and i sat down with the director and my actions report card and then she looked at us and said. We look like to accept students from the from the islands. They're lazy and insolent. My mother and i looked at each other. Got up and left but she actually did me a favor. Scholarship to the college. There are major in education. And the thing of college was an amazing woman. You got my number right away. But. She was so supportive. And she steered me into. Leadership. Situations that was also very visible to the rest of the school and by the end of the school year. I was elected student body president. And it did so much more confidence. She changed my life better. Kindness and understanding. And generous time. So by the time i got my diploma i thought i could. Take on the world. For the next year left. Vanilla ice cream to the united states.

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9.13.15_integrity.mp3?_=1

The southern baptist church of my childhood and adolescence. Had a thing for rock music. Mini where the sundays went under the conducting guidance of jerry brown our beloved minister of music we'd stand and sing rock music. Together the whole congregation. There were in our repertoire certain. Rock standards. Songs many of us gets seen virtually by heart. I recall some of you will as well rock of ages. Swift for me. Built on the rock the church best and even when steeples are falling. And he hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock. That shadows a dry thirsty land. And of course on christ the solid rock i stand. All other ground is sinking sand all other ground. Is sinking sand. Yes. We southern baptist with quite the rockers. Do in our particular highly educated mostly well-to-do congregation not so much into holy rolling. The notion in a setting that taught me much about metaphor was it our faith offered a firm foundation. Something substantially solid. Something stallworth even unshakable. Face in that setting was a rock. Solid. Proposition. We heard the story thereof from jesus of a wise person who built her house on the rock. The rain fell the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house. But it did not fall. Because it had been founded on a rock. The last however there was a foolish person he built his house on sand. The rain fell in the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house. And it fell. And great was its fall. So it was on that rock that i began building my life. In the comforting solidity of a secure community. Some of you can relate. It may have been a similarly evangelical upbringing. Amore mainline protestant experience. Irresolute commitment to roman catholicism. For some grounding in judea. Or another tradition. Affirm. Foundation. An anchor. Amidst the storm. I look back on my early religious experiences with gratitude. This much i appreciate. There is most of all the clarity that it was and is a part of my life. And to imagine otherwise is to engage in a futile exercise to exercise a part of what made me who i am. That said light in my adolescent. The rain fell. The floods came a mighty intellectual philosophical wind blew into my life. Beating on the house i had set upon that rock. My foundations. What's shakin. Anytime i discovered that the worldview i thought was reliably stalwart. Could not withstand. This assault. John cady in a poem tellingly titled falling water rights. What. Lost. Is the perception of the world as something good. And held in common. As a place to be perfected. In the kinds of everyday divisions and incounters that endowed it with integrity and. And it merged its private moments with the path. What. Broken. In topeka. I know because i have talked with you heard from you did not a few of you here understand that experience as well. Something you thought was rock-solid. A guiding force. Irresolute commitment a dependable situation. As close to a sure thing as you have. Proved. Unsteady. Unreliable. Unable to offer security in some storm in your life. Things. Schiller park. Your center. Did not hold. By the time most of us have made it into adulthood we've experienced such buffeting in one way and another. We bruise. In some way broken. Welcome to a place where. It is okay to admit that. To acknowledge that many of us arrived here the first time wondering what if anything will hold us up. Offer a substance of solid footing. And guiding purpose. I have been may sarton admit i have been dissolved. Unshaken. Warren other people's faces. Run medley. Now we making audacious play me. We actually claimed that for those who invest their lives here not the dabblers the drop-in and outers. Ez come ez-go where's. But. For the children and the youth and the adults who are actually here and are apart. We say. This place will inspire you. The inspiration is not just the sir. It is. The inspiration is not just a question and think freely though it is that too. Finding inspiration has to do with discovery. With discovering some sense of deeper meaning. Deeper we say deeper. Spiritual. Meaning. Here's the thing. For us spiritual meaning is not about something otherworldly. Something completely mystical and mysterious. Something outside of what makes sense otherwise. In fact we say that the discovery of deeper spiritual meaning will be evident in a life of. Integrity. Not sanctimony. Not. Coyote. Not religiosity. Integrity is at the core of our liberating. Religion. Stephen carter is a law professor at yale and well-known writer who's done not a little thinking and writing and speaking about integrity integrity he involves three steps. The first is to discern. What is right and wrong with cheat and mitts takes time and emotional energy. The second step is the struggle to live according to the sense of right and wrong you have discovered. Disturbed. Is to be willing to stay. What we are doing. And why we are doing. That's integrity. Discerning what for you is right and wrong. Knowing what your life is about. What guides your life. What your dick and defining values. Really are. Then living in a way that's consistent with those values. Embodying the values in a life that demonstrate in its choices and its investment in its commitment. What matters. Most. And then. Being able to bear witness. To attest to articulate to give an account to be able actually just say what you are doing and why you are doing it. This. Summer has been filled with so many example. Too many instances in individual and social structures in which integrity seems to have gone missing. We hear about people being guided by certain values but see them talking and acting and living in ways that seem at great odds from those values. We witness the severe shaking of our social structures. Calling our national ideals into question. We seen the miss allocation of privilege. And the misuse of power in ways that belie what we claim defiance. Assignation. How. Can we profess. Grand principe. Impulse very short. Many people. Sadly w.e.b. du bois questions post more than a century ago or so contemporarily relevant that they could have been asked yesterday. House she'll integrity face oppression. What she'll honestly do in the face of deception. Decency in the face of insult. What's child virtue do to meet brute force. Questions here aching eyes is in part from his own experience question stoneface hours. And daly. Integrity. From the same root as. Integer. Integrity has to do with home. With being a whole person. Integrity related to directly to. Integration. Is melanie joy says our bodies minds and spirits is egos and superego are values beliefs and behaviors. Integrity a life in which has the great howard thurman put it the elder life finds its meaning the source of its strength in the n-word sanctuary. A life in which. He says. The gulf between the outer and the inner will narrow. In my life becomes increasingly whole. End of one piece. Anyone else here notice. How much easier it is to feed the inconsistencies in others lives. Anyone else you're aware of how easy it is to point up the hypocrisies of say all those family values folks with ashley madison account. And if you want. Hold forth on that invite you before you do to read leonard pitts column today. Amedisys. Editorial in the observer. Anyone else here aware. About easy it is to point up the hypocrisies of saying many times married adulterous kentucky magistrate claiming to be defending the sanctuary of marriage. Anyone else hear experience how much easier it is to see the moral failings. Of those with whom we disagree. Get all worked up. Over there shortcut. 911. That just might. Integrity however integrity app. To look in the mirror. Integrity calls us to ask. What do i really. Care about. Well i really care about. What do i want my life to stand for. What's my legacy do i want to leave. And then integrity ask. Given how i am spending my time and my energy and my resources given both my actions. And my attitudes. Have i integrated what i say matter. With what i'm actually doing. Integrity ask. Can i see what my real values are. And what the people closely around me be surprised to hear those claims. Those are the real spiritual matters for us. It's not about belief. It's not about belief. We don't claim spiritual death is evident in a life of belief. We say it shows up. As integra. The wonderful caribbean american writer and radical activist other lord. simply we must observe implications. Hourly. Hourly. This she said is what integrity me. Acknowledges none of us is perfect. Are born with that integrity. But we can work toward it. As a goal. That's our work together here. Building. And for some of us. Rebuilding. A foundation. Something. Able to ground us. Is howard thurman put ground in fairweather or infallible. In good times or in tempest. Then. Even in times of social turmoil. And ramp it individual and social hypocrisy. End times calling for courage and for commitment. We will not forget. That to which. H line. I commit. May it be.

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2.18.18_From_Walden_Pond_to_Harpers_Ferry.mp3

Imagine for just a moment. Who might say of beer works. It's. Deeply. Spiritual. Who might say that it's deeply. Spiritual. Who would explain that their work is often lead by opening prayer. Who did chester in their work. People build altars. Any thoughts about who you think would offer such statements and what they might be talking about. To my courage us to follow goddess. God. Spirit. Lowe's. Keeling. Transformation. Who might attribute their capacity to be deeply engaged. To an intentional spiritual practice. And then describe their deep engagement as. Itself being. Spiritual. 2013. George zimmerman was acquitted on murder charges. In the death of trayvon martin. Three black. Queer women. Patrice colors. Alicia garza. And opal tometi. Offered a response. And then a platform for other responses. And then a protest. Morphed into a movement. Code black. Lives matter. The social media they were able to tap into and then activate the rage felt among many young blacks and others initially targeting their actions and on the street protest. As responses to police-involved shootings. The source of the quotes with which i began. The person who said that their work is deeply spiritual often that by opening prayer where people build altars. Does black lives matter co-founder. Patriots colors. That spiritual. Prayerful work is the engaged. Activist. Protest movement. Now known as black lives matter. Things aren't always as they seem. Put another way what we look at and what we see what we assume and what is actually the case may vary. Likely. Consider them the life perspective the engagement of one henry david thoreau. To the extent to which many of us know the 40 at all it is probably through having read his best-known book walden. More likely by assignment been by choice. Farro. The hermit. The loner. The wanderer in the woods who showing human contact. And removed himself as far as possible from the affairs of human society. More than a stereotype. There's plenty about who thoreau was and about what you wrote that confirms that image i am made to love the pond and the meadows as the wind is made to ripple the water. Did writer leon and what would turn out to be his voluminous journal. What business have i in the woods get asked himself if i am thinking of something out of the woods. It's the marriage of the soul. With nature that makes the intellect fruitful hit professor gives birth to the imagination. Any disowned explicitly spiritual testimony henry david thoreau would attest. My profession is always. To be on the alert to find god. In nature. Do his actual sojourned in his cabin at the pond outside concord was but a brief chapter in his life to those woods and others he would retreat almost everyday. They are in his quite intentional form of spiritual practice. Thought i would come to understand himself most deeply in a transcendental relationship with nature. But raised in the local christian unitarian church as an adult he would thoroughly rejected. Declaring of it in one of his many derivatives statements if it were not for death and funerals i think the institution of the church would not stand longer. But he found within concorde's unitarian church was. Dead like. What he found out in conkers environs fed and filled his soul. And that. Ben. Is sora. Only. It isn't. Such a depiction of henry david thoreau is as my friend gaylene gingrich is fond of saying 100%. Half right. Throw in tooth was actually deeply concerned about the social order. He decried one form of social justice injustice and another regarded the government with unrelenting suspicion. Spoke out against various forms of oppression thought to use his voice and his influence to affect change. There's no clearer example to be had of the simple. Then and sorrows regard for the radical abolitionist. John brown. Brown earned his reputation as an armed. Combatant. Against slavery in kansas. But it is his organization of the raid on the armory at harpers ferry. Let hit secure his place in our nation's history they are backed by funding from other abolitionists including at least a couple of prominent unitarian ministers brown tried to launch an armed violent uprising intended ultimately up to undermine the institution of slavery. Captured and tried. Brown's life ended on a gallows in a virgina filled with among many others stonewall jackson and john wilkes booth looking on. As you may know brown's legacy remains a source of historical debate. Some liking him to a terrorist. Dismissing any potentially positive intended ends by decrying his violent means. Others are more accepting even angela tori. Regarding him and the words of biographer david reynolds as the man who killed slavery sparked the civil war and seeded civil rights. Search acclimation is surpassed. Significantly. Besoros acclaim. The walker in the woods took to the podium in concord to declare before his fellow townspeople his spirited approbation brown was he a man of rare common sense and directness of speech as a faction a transcendentalist above all a man of ideas and principles. Changing his disapproving neighbors throw it insist though you may not approve of his methods or his principles cease to call names. Decried mad dog. The method is nothing. The spirit is all in all. It is the deed the devotion the soul of the person. Orderly abhorrent. With slavery to thoreau. Method. Own. Including armed. Insurrection. Where is acceptable. Understandable even admirable. If they hated in the cause of abolition. It was his peculiar doctrine photo with saya brown that a person has a perfect right. To interfere by force. With the slaveholder. In order to rescue the slaves. And thorough with dad. I agree with him. Listen to just how clearly photos filled it up. When a government. Puts. 4th its strength. On the side of injustice. As ours to maintain slavery and kill the liberators of the slave. It reveals itself as a merely brutal force. Or worse. Adomani okafor. Elevating his estimation to something almost messianic henry david thoreau would proclaim of john brown i would rather see a statue of captain brown in the massachusetts state house yard than of any other person whom i know. Now we must not be misled thoreau emerson theodore parker bronson alcott others of the transcendental so despised slavery. But even violence was acceptable. In the name of abolition. However we must not we must not equate their position with any kind of meaningful attack. On our nation's long history of white supremacy. Each of these men said horrific. Abominable things. About the race of enslaved africans. There's absolutely no case to be made of them. That they believed in racial equality. They. Did. Not. Elderly white supremacist attitudes are a blight on our nation's history. And to the extent to which we wish to claim any of them as our unitarian forebears a serious mar. Exemplifying hour-long investment in that world.. That's it. For today we can at the very least find father for reflection and photos for fraud in brace of brown and his tactics. What means. Are acceptable. What means are excusable what means. Might we use in the fight against injustice. What gets labeled as violin. And what violence gets excuse. In the name. Bookkeeping order. Port of. Protecting and serving. Whose lives. Matter. And just. How much. Did they really matter. Man some think of is only a solitary hermit in the woods. Gazing deeply into both appond and his own soul was also a fierce and unforgiving critic. Of the social order end of the status quo. In the meditative solace of woods walking spirituality comes a figure using his voice and influence. To challenge the assumed order of things and in his own way to sound the call for. Transformation. I do not kid right i do not complain of any tactics that are effective of good. Weather when wields the quills. Or the sword. But i shall not think that one mistaken to quickest succeeds to liberate the slave. Things aren't always as they seem. There put another way what we look at and what we see what we assume and what may actually be the case may vary widely. Patrice colors artist. Activist organizer fulbright scholar. Freedom fighter black lives matter co-founder. Has just published a book entitled when they call you. A terrorist. A black lives matter memoir. Didn't she write some beginning to see that more than a single truth. Can live at the same time and in the same person. I'm beginning to see that more than a single truth can live at the same time and in the same person. If that is true for an individual for a spiritual practitioner turn street protester fresh silent frontier turnbuckle gadfly. How much more so for a group. What are we about. What is the meaning of displace. Here we are called we are challenged we are inspired to discover deeper spiritual meaning. We're invited to attend with attention to our own personal inner deep spiritual lives. But that's hardly our only truth. Here to we are called challenge inspired to become and the words of our boards call-to-action a more outwardly directed faith community. Working with others who share a vision of a more just and equitable society invited to attend with attention to the deepest truth about our nation's long investments in white supremacy. And ask hard questions of ourselves collectively. Of our larger community. Of our social order. Here we are challenged troubled disturbed discomforted to deepen our understanding of systemic injustice. And iniquity. Wheeler's grounding ourselves spiritually. And creating bold deposit possibilities of investing ourselves. And the work of societal and environmental transformation. Where those who understand that spirituality doesn't always shouldn't always take the form of personal meditation than quietude. Our own kinds of walking in the woods. Sometimes like colors like those black lives matter activist. We must be those praying in the streets. Building altars right in the very struggle against injustice. Where. Where my friends is are walden. Where will we find a place. To renew are hurting song. Where my friends is are harpers ferry. Where will we find the right partners. Under whose leadership we can join as co-conspirators. In the deepest most difficult work in the freedom movement. An ever more profound ways some of us are coming to see that more than a single tooth. Can should must live here among us. We hearing the earth call feeling that the power we appealing to reason and compassion and conscience and vision must. Work. Torta transformed planet. We resist we deny the fault division between spirituality and social justice. Understanding that wild prayer can sustain action. Prayer without action. Spirituality without social justice. Is sounding brass. And hopeless game. Throw himself admitted. To give the within. Outward ness. That is not easy. But in these times. It. Is. Whipping called. 2 walden. The walk the woods of spiritual sustenance into care that those woods remain protected. But we're also being called to harpers ferry. Ask for example why environmental disregard and devastation so unfairly imperils the lives of those who are already marginalized. Buy injustice and inequity. We are bringing called. Beer here. You hear.