Green Blade Rises

The hymn Now the Green Blade Riseth sung beautifully this morning loosely refers to the Christian texts in Mark 4: The earth beareth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And also the verse in John 12: I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

The hymn written by minister John Crum in the 1920’s takes these verses and weaves a wonderful metaphor not only referring to the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus but also to the resurrection / rebirth of love in a heart wounded and grieving. It is this second metaphor that I want to explore on this day of celebrating resurrection, this day of celebrating spring’s rising to new life.

We need that assurance that love not only can but will prevail ultimately. As Rob Bell writes, Love Wins. Love wins. And it wins even when all signs point to the opposite. The green blade riseth from the buried grain/ wheat that in dark earth many days has lain/ Love lives again, that with the dead has been/ love comes again like wheat that springeth green.

I officiated at an outdoor wedding last week and on the property were these 200 year old oaks whose branches were covered with small ferns—called the resurrection fern. In times of drought the fronds of this fern are dry, apparently dead/lifeless. But when the rain comes, these fronds become healthy and supple, vibrant with life. It had been raining and these fronds were full of life.

But there is another plant that is even more amazing called the Ibervillea Sonorae. This desert plant of the gourd family can appear as a piece of drift wood for years. When the rains come, it will burst forth in magnificent full bloom and produce gourds and then die off and wait again. NY Botanical Garden reportedly had one; they purposefully kept it from water to see how long it would live in its drift wood state. Each year it would tentatively send out green tendrils looking for a source of water. If there was none to be found, it would shrivel back and return to its drift wood state. For seven years the plant waited for the moment of rebirth before it died.

I found that number of years to be meaningful. Without delving too much into numerology, the number seven is a significant number metaphorically in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Genesis story has god resting on the seventh day of creation. A Hebrew slave is to be released in the seventh year. Hebrews insisted a field be fallow every seven years; and of course the notion that the seventh day of the week is the Sabbath, a day of rest. Jesus was once asked how many times to forgive someone for the same offense, seven times? No, Jesus replied, seventy times seven. So seven years for a desert plant to wait for resurrection seems theologically significant. It suggests that we are not to give up on love. Even after waiting a time period numbering seventy times seven and the appearance of anything different still seems dead impossible—we are not to give up on love. Seven seems to be the number of the Sabbath, the rest needed to bring about rejuvenation/ new life/ or new starts can begin. But it also seems to imply that just when by all appearances everything seems to be forever in the dead of night, the moment of dawn occurs and a bright new day begins.

A blog post on this amazing plant asks the questions: How dead does something have to appear before it is dead? How dry and lifeless and alone and fruitless does something have to be before it is actually, and finally, beyond hope? *

For the Ibervillea apparently a very long time. When our hearts are wintry, grieving or in pain, Love’s touch can call us back to life again, fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been: Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

That is often the fear, isn’t it, that our hearts once bereft will be kept in an eternal wintry mess and spring’s warm caress of new life will never come or never come in time? So how do we wait patiently like the Ibervillea day after day, week after week? It isn’t easy.

I believe the point of Jesus’ message is not in his death and resurrection. At least not in the way the orthodox theology has established it. The point is that Jesus kept saying the kingdom of god / the beloved community was within us, the realm of heaven is indeed within us. He stated this before his death and resurrection. It was not a condition contingent on his crucifixion; it was already according to Jesus a reality. Christianity has placed the emPHASis on the wrong sylLAHble. Just as the Ibervillea has everything ready within it to burst forth with new vines of flowers and gourds, we too have everything within us we need to burst forth with love to transform our society from the dried piece of drift wood it seems to be to a lush garden of life.

This beloved community with in us is the green blade that riseth in the hearts of people who seek to live according to the universal truth that we are all one people/ one family. What we do to one person we do to all. I’ve said this before and I truly am convinced that Jesus’ core message is found in what he considers to be the greatest commandments of the Tanakh, the scriptures of Jesus’ day: “To love god / Life with all one’s heart, with all one’s soul, and with all one’s mind” and to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Everything else falls under these two commands.

I have come to believe that to focus on the crucifixion and resurrection is a form of cheap grace. There is no need for personal growth and health when this becomes the central piece of salvation. Even history’s worst villains of the western world claimed to be Christian because they believed in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Say the sinner’s prayer and be on your way—nothing more to be seen here. But when the person seeks to fulfill the great command—whether it is stated in the words of Jesus or the Dalai Lama or Karen Armstrong or Thich Nhat Hanh then the person becomes engaged and their lives are transformed in ways that are mysterious and wonderful. The rest, as the Rabbi Hillel said, is commentary.

So reach out to the person who is grieving or in pain with compassion, with love as you would want someone to reach out to you in love and become that life saving water that encourages the green blade to rise again. Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

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Green Blade Rises
Rev Fred L Hammond 31 March 2013 ©
Presented at Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa

* As found on March 29 2013 at http://shelovesmagazine.com/2013/never-dead-enough/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+shelovesmagazine%2FgZoz+%28SheLoves+Magazine%29

Worship as Respite

Worship is like a breathing spell in a long and arduous foot race, or the hour of roll call in a prolonged and hard-fought battle: — it is altogether indispensable to sane and wholesome living— it is important enough in life to warrant the erection of classical temples and Gothic cathedrals. It is indeed so important that one finds one’s self sometimes wondering how any of us can afford to do anything but educate ourselves in this art. — To be effectively a person and thereby help others to be persons is the sum of abiding satisfactions in life. Worship in the sense of this aim is natural and necessary, and in the Great Community all mature people worship. Its objectives are not absolutely fixed as to their content.—Von Ogden Vogt (born February 25, 1879)

I came across this post at the The Liberal Lectionary.  If  you are not familiar with this new site, I highly recommend it. This site posts quotes by people who have influenced Unitarian Universalist theology in myriad of ways.

Von Ogden Vogt was a Unitarian Minister who served the First Unitarian Society of Chicago in the early to mid 20th century.  He is best remembered for his legacy of how Unitarians and now Unitarian Universalists worship.  See The Contribution of Von Ogden Vogt.

The quote listed above has my mind thinking about worship as respite.  There are many excellent texts on how we worship today and these texts include best practices as it were or various components of a worship service.  These are important technical aspects of a worship service as if that is all that is really happening.  But I have had the experience,  I am sure many of my colleagues have as well, when a service from a technological stand point ( I do not just mean the sound systems or the use of power-point when I use the word technological) bombs and bombs big time and people will come up to me and state how profoundly moved they were in this particular service. Their hearts were moved, a barrier in their lives shifted, they found strength to go back to their lives with renewed hope and vigor.

I am amazed when grace  somehow manages to work its way through this feeble vessel that contains my being to touch another’s life.  So worship is not simply a rote set of movements or acts as Von Ogden Vogt delineated the service.  It is something far more than the sum of its parts.  It is this “breathing spell” as Von Ogden Vogt calls it that allows for the individual and the community present to feel renewed, recharged, reborn before re-engaging that arduous footrace or on-going and prolonged battle we call living the day to day.

So this  question arises:  What brings people to worship together in Unitarian Universalist congregations? What gives us that breathing spell?  What offers that sense of respite?

Perhaps part of this respite comes from the notion that for one hour at the minimum is focused not entirely on ourselves but on others.  We focus on the well being of those around us.  We listen  to the words the minister or speaker is saying (or am I in denial?).  We hear songs that reflect various  angles of the theme of the day.  We are affirmed by others.  We are seen as being worthy in the eyes of others and perhaps even in our own eyes.  There has been a meme floating around Facebook that states something like  “if you are feeling discouraged go encourage someone.”

Worship offers the possibility of even  when  we are feeling low and broken our presence, our very presence can be a source of  encouragement to another to carry on.  And that act of encouragement reverberates back to us and gives us respite from our pain, our brokenness.  We do not know how our presence and some off the cuff comment can be the very breath of life another needs.  Our participation in a communal worship helps in offering this to others, even happening without our awareness.

Some worship spaces are majestic in and of themselves.  Those who have been at First Unitarian Society in Chicago’s Hyde Park know the vaulted ceilings, the stone walls, the slate floors, the commanding pulpit set high above the people seated in the pews.  The building itself inspires awe and eternal reverence of a people who came before and hints at the people who may come in the distant future.   These are the halls where Von Ogden Vogt and James Luther Adams preached.  Where contemporary ministers like Mark Morrison Reed sang choir as a child and where Bill Schulz attended when he was in seminary at Meadville Lombard Theological School.  To enter such a space where these and others have had their formation as ministers, have been influenced by such thinkers and bastions of the faith can be in and of itself, a worshipful respite that feeds and nurtures the spirit.

Worship for Unitarian Universalists is not the lifting up a deity instead worship for Unitarian Universalists is as Von Ogden Vogt suggests a time for the gathered community to celebrate life .  In that celebration of life, whether it is the joyous or the grieving aspects, we find respite  by holding up the values and the actions they promote in our lives that will make our  journey all the more meaningful.  May we all find respite for our journeys and may we find companions to aid us along the way.

Blessed

Here in the south, I often hear people say when ending a phone conversation or ending  a transaction between a store employee and customer, “Have a blessed day.”   In these contexts it seems hollow, superficial, too easily rolling off the tongue like that other saying used elsewhere in the nation: “Have a nice day.”  What does that really mean, anyway? Have a blessed day.  What does that even look like?  Would I even recognize it if I stumbled upon it?  Can another person truly determine what a blessed day is in another’s life?

But to really bless someone is much more profound.  Recently two people said things to me that made me feel blessed.  One out of the blue said “Thank you for being you.”  She explained what she meant by that and it was more than just a warm fuzzy moment.  This morning I received a text message from a colleague telling me that he was going to share a story about a conversation he had with me some eight years or so ago.  I did not remember the event but he had and it made a difference in how he lives his life on a daily basis all these many years later.  His telling me this was a blessing that not only affirmed me but told me that my life made a difference in the daily life for someone else.  We all need to hear and receive these blessings, these essential truths about our lives.

There has been several spin offs on the God made a Farmer commercial that was aired during the Superbowl.  This one linked here was for me especially poignant and affirming.  Those who know of my life’s journey thus far will recognize several of the themes in this video and I felt blessed.  Regardless of your sexual orientation or identity expression, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

So God Made a Gay Man

The late Henri Nouwen wrote a series of letters to a young journalist he met during his time at Yale University.  These letters became the book, Life of the Beloved.  Nouwen writes,

Let me tell you what I mean by the word “blessing.” In Latin, to bless is benedicere. The word “benediction”that is used in many churches means literally: speaking (dicto) well (bene) or saying good things of someone.  That speaks to me.  I need to hear good things said of me, and I know how much you have the same need. Nowadays, we often say: “We have to affirm each other.” Without affirmation, it is hard to live well. To give someone a blessing is the most significant affirmation we can offer. It is more than a word of praise or appreciation; it is more than pointing out someone’s talents or good deeds; it is more than putting someone in the light. To give a blessing is to affirm, to say “yes”to a person’s Belovedness. And more than that: to give a blessing creates the reality of which it speaks.  There is a lot of mutual admiration in this world, just as there is a lot of mutual condemnation. A blessing goes beyond the distinction between admiration or condemnation, between virtues or vices, between good deeds or evil deeds. A blessing touches the original goodness of the other and calls forth his or her Belovedness.

The world has grown colder since Henri Nouwen’s passing.  His words of blessing one another are needed now more than ever.  We are far too easily offended by others words and actions and react with violence of fist and spirit.  We have denied love’s entrance into our hearts and strike out with vehement rage when we do not get our way or when someone suggests there might be another way to living on this small planet.

I think it is okay for us to feel and even embrace the pain of our separateness from one another. I think it is okay to embrace the reality that our societal structures have molested and abused our spirits.  But in that brokenness we need to respond not with bitterness against the world but rather with humility of our humanness.

Nelba Marquez-Greene, mother of one of the slain children in the Sandy Hook shooting wrote a beautiful Valentine Day’s reflection after the death of her daughter, Ana.  She shares her experience of thanking the volunteers who were on the scene of the horrendous loss of life.  She writes:

I could see in their eyes how much their hearts were broken for me. And my heart broke for them. But perhaps that is what we need…to be more broken for our neighbor, for our loved ones for our coworkers…. and even for the people that hurt us and bring us strife. Unity. So that love can win. Respect. So that love can win. Pro-activity not reactivity. So that love can win. Empathy. So that love can win. Peace. So that love can win. Conscious, collaborative action. So that love can win. Faith. So that love can win. ‘A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.’ John 13:34

This is what being blessed is.  It is being held in love and being fully present to receive that love.  With each blessing we receive comes healing of the spirit enabling us to love anew.

What’s Your Pie?

I came across a post that my friend Kat Liu wrote on Facebook.  She writes: “The other day I read Huffington Post quoting someone as saying, ‘I go to church for pie.’ To be fair, I did not read the rest of the article so maybe there was more to it than that. But the reason why I didn’t read past the teaser is because I had the same reaction that I did many years ago when Unitarian Universalism was first described to me as ‘you can believe anything you want.’ I thought, ‘That’s nice, but why would I join a group for that? I can believe anything I want by myself.’ And I can get pie pretty much anywhere; why would I go to church for it? If that’s the only thing at church that’s drawing people, [then] that’s not enough of a draw. And if pie is not the thing that’s really drawing people, then why aren’t we talking about that instead of pie?”

So the question is:  “What’s your pie?”  What is it about this congregation, about Unitarian Universalism that gets you up out of bed on a Sunday morning to come here?  And please don’t say the fair trade coffee we serve, I already know it’s good to the last drop.  I know this because I am often the one getting that last drop (smile).   But certainly that can not be why you come on Sunday mornings or any other time of the week.

It can’t simply be because of the pie or the coffee or the freedom of not being told what to believe.  These things are not very compelling.

Now you may be surprised to hear that this question is also being asked in congregations of other faiths as well.  I stumbled across a recent blog on Friday asking the exact same question.

This Christian minister listed 13 reasons[i] as to why someone would go to church.  I looked through the list and said to myself;  no, not that one, not that one either, no, that isn’t it, no,  hmm maybe, need to ponder that a bit, no not that one.  And on I went through the list.  I will come back to this list in a moment.

I found another Christian post that also answered this question.  And I found these answers interesting.  This was in the context of churches growing and churches struggling to grow.

This blogger[ii] wrote: “When I visit congregations that are struggling to grow, I hear these types of answers, ‘I grew up in the church.’ ‘I get filled up for the week?’ ‘I was baptized in the church.’ ‘My family has always gone here.’ ‘I love the music and the preacher.’ …

“When I ask the question in churches that are growing, the answers are very different. People say, ‘The worship service and sermon have helped me grow ….’ ‘The Sunday School class I attend challenges me to grow and learn more about what it means to be a Christian.’ ‘Our church is making a difference with our mission team, and we can see the difference we are making in the lives of people we reach out to.’  ‘Most people and churches turned their back on me, but this church accepted me and helped me understand … grace and love …  They were never judgmental.’ “

Now these comments are from a Christian point of view but the difference between the two sets of answers are in my mind profound.

It was a comment on a Unitarian Universalist blogger’s[iii] post on the obverse side of this question that brought this difference home for me.   The Unitarian Universalist blog listed reasons why the person no longer attends a Unitarian Universalist congregation.   Two of the reasons she gave for not going to church were:

“I don’t actually think church is important for me right now” 

“My needs don’t seem to matter much in church “

The comment in response was the following[iv]:

“My two boys (30’s) also have a problem attending church for similar reasons……maybe not put the same way. It always goes back to one basic reason with many different facets……I, ME, MYSELF
(1) The church isn’t meeting MY needs
(2) I’m only going to church to get something for myself
(3) It’s inconvenient for ME
(4) It interferes with things I want to do

“Consider this approach: Can I plug into the church to use my gifts to help others? Can I give of myself to God and others through the church to help others? Go to church to praise and thank God for my blessings. All the good things you have come from God, including your time.”

Now some translation work might be needed here because many of us may not believe in god.   I find if I substitute the word Life that this comes close to the experience this writer is suggesting.  How can I give myself to Life and others through the church?  Can I offer thanks for Life’s blessings?  How can I show gratitude for all things come from Life, including my time?

And this was the difference between the one congregation that was stagnant and the one that was vibrant.  The vibrant congregation’s members felt their presence at church mattered. They had something to receive and they had something to offer towards the mission of the congregation as well.

Now in the three congregations that I have served in my time as a Unitarian Universalist minister, I have heard similar sentiments from people who have left the church.  They have told me that they think they have grown beyond what Unitarian Universalism can offer them.  They liked the people, they liked what Unitarian Universalism stood for, and they even liked the social justice issues we focused on as a congregation and as a denomination.  But for one reason or another they believed they had grown beyond Unitarian Universalism.    They may, like the Unitarian Universalist blogger, still identify as Unitarian Universalist just as a person who no longer attends Roman Catholic mass might still identify as Catholic.  Or they may have pursued a different faith path and claim a different identity.  Or they may have joined the ranks of the un-churched.

I admit I do not understand how someone can grow beyond Unitarian Universalism.  I hear the words but I don’t comprehend how that can be that someone grows beyond being Unitarian Universalist. Our faith is one of the more challenging faiths that I am aware of because we ask people to “work out your own salvation[v]” as Paul of Tarsus commands the Philippians.  You can’t get more biblical than that but it is one of our principles of our faith which states:  A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.  This means working out your own salvation.  It is finding out what saves you from your self and being transformed into a person who is more loving/ more forgiving/ more mindful in living.  It is finding out what saves you from the coldness of heart that is endemic in our society.

But if you are coming here for the pie or for a social club or even for a refuge then you will be disappointed in time because the pie here will cease to satisfy your hunger, the social club milieu will become boring, and the refuge you sought will be undone by meeting people who believe the very things you disdain and their presence here will scandalize you.

Our faith is creedless and therefore we do not ask people to check their brains at the door nor do we ask them to check their god at the door. We covenant to be together as a people engaged in the network of mutuality which is our humanity.  What affects one affects us all. And together we can learn not only to be better people because of this network of mutuality but also in the hopes, in the trust, in the creative interchange that occurs whenever two or more people gather to create a better world filled with justice, love and equality. We do it first here and then out there in the world.

This to me is the draw of our faith.  This for me is my pie.  And frankly, I can’t do this on my own and neither can you.  I am not like the Buddha who was able to withdraw under the Bodhi Tree and receive enlightenment.  I have my moments of with drawing for meditation or retreat but I must have community in order to practice and integrate what I profess to believe.

James Luther Adams once said that church was the place where we get to practice being human.  What makes this congregation different from all other congregations in Tuscaloosa, guaranteed, is that here when you have a problem you are facing you will not hear a platitude.  You will not hear an easy answer like ‘pray more’ or ‘God doesn’t give you anything more than you can handle.’ Or ‘believe this doctrine and all will be well.’

Instead what hopefully happens is you will find people who will listen, hold you fully present in their lives, and if you so desire talk with you about the situation you are facing and assist you to handle this burden in your life. We do this in community, not alone.

And this was one of the reasons the Christian minister mentioned that made me take pause and say hmm, he wrote we go to church “because we need help to face the issues of life and faith…”  I come to church to hear and learn how I might be able to handle the issues that I am concerned about. Whether that learning takes place in the worship service or in an adult class after the service or even in the conversations we have together.

As minister, I come to be of service to each of you.  Yes, that is my professional role, but it is a role that is not exclusively mine to offer.  Each of you has this role for one another.  I know you have this role because you often minister to me in this place and you minister to each other as well. It is sometimes as simple as a smile or a hug or as profound as an insight shared in a conversation.  Sometimes this is the only place where people receive hugs during their week.  This role is multi-generational.  The children have ministered to me just as surely as the person twice my age though the latter is mighty hard to find in this congregation. (I am 56, who here is 112?)

And the other reason this Christian minister suggested people come to church and I have paraphrased it considerably, “Because we need an alternative to the constant messages of a culture [engulfed in false piety].”

We live in a culture here in the south, though it is also prevalent elsewhere, where false piety is insipid in daily conversations. From our elected leaders to the workplace, false piety is expressed with all the haughtiness of righteousness but with none of the convictions in their character. They wag their tongues in hateful disdain of others and claim they are showing the love taught by their faith tradition.  Their own messiah had this to say about them: Woe to you … , pretenders, who are like white tombs, which from the outside appear lovely, but from within are full of the bones of the dead and all corruption! So also you from the outside appear to the children of men as righteous, and from within are filled with evil and hypocrisy[vi].

Some people come to church to seek sanctuary from this kind of verbal onslaught.  But we offer no comforting balm if all we offer is refuge and not healing.  We do no good if all we do is allow our spiritually wounded to vent about this incessant verbiage that wears down the spirit.  We need to be teaching how we can love our neighbor even when they attack our values of equality.  We need to be teaching how to forgive those who hold us and others in disdain because they, too, are a victim of untruth.   And the spirit of untruth is a poisonous venom that slowly petrifies the society in which we live.  It will take a community of faith to be the antidote of such venom but this only works if the community of faith is inoculated by coming together on a regular basis and lifting up the values we seek to emulate in our lives.

I believe this faith has the antidote to this toxin. I believe this faith works best when done within community.  I believe this is a community that is worthy of committing support through membership.

You may initially come for the pie or the socialization of similar minded folk.  I hope you will stay for the community that can strengthen your spirit and your character throughout your lifetime.

I close with a story.

Once upon a time there was a family that was moving in search of a new community.  On their travels they saw a woman selling fruits and vegetables along the road.  They decided to stop and purchase some for their travel.  They asked the woman about the community they were coming up to and what sort of people lived there.  The woman asked, “Well what sort of community did you leave?” “Oh,” they replied “we left the community because they were filled with deceit and lies.  They were vicious and hurtful to one another.  The community was filled with people who were only out for themselves.”  The woman listened and replied; “Well you won’t like this community then, because it is far worse here.  You be best to go on to the next community.”  The family thanked the woman for her honesty and went on their way enjoying their fruit.

A few hours later another family who was also searching for a new community came upon the same woman and fruit and vegetable stand. They too decided to purchase some for their travels.  And in their shopping they began asking what type of community were they approaching.  The woman asked what sort of community they had left.  “Oh,” the family responded, “We came from a wonderful community.  Everyone was very helpful to one another.  If there was a need, others came forward to assist in filling it. They were people who loved their neighbors dearly and were always making sure that others were doing well.”  The woman responded, “Well, you are in luck for in this community we also seek to love one another and help out in times of need.  You will find this community much to your liking.” The family decided to make their home in this community and the community was exactly as the woman had said. May it be so and Blessed Be.

What’s Your Pie? by Rev. Fred L Hammond delivered to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa on 10 Feb 2013 ©

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[i]
http://www.dailywordofgodgroup.com/why-go-to-church.htm#.URVCdPJQCSo

[ii]
http://www.kansaseast.org/blogs/detail/253

[iii]
http://survivingtheworkday.com/category/workplace-spirituality/

[iv]
http://survivingtheworkday.com/2008/02/27/why-i-dont-go-to-church/#comment-9202

[v]
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians+2%3A12&version=KJV

[vi]
http://aramaic-plain-english.scripturetext.com/matthew/23.htm

When Praying is Sufficient

I have done lots of praying this past week but as a person who does not believe in a God who answers prayers, my stating that I have done lots of praying is going to need an explanation.  How could I be praying if I do not believe in a God who answers?  What possible good would my praying have if it is not directed to someone or something?

And for the record, I did not begin my prayer To Whom It May Concern as in the Unitarian Universalist joke.  No my prayers are aimed at no deity other than the mystery of life and my humble role in its unfolding.

We began our service today with The Prayer of St. Francis. It has been attributed to Francis of Assisi, the monk of the 13^th century. However, the prayer in its current form can only be traced back to 1912 when it first appeared anonymously in French in La Clochette, a spiritual magazine.  It is most likely not a prayer written by St. Francis.

But regardless of the origin, the prayer has universal appeal to Christians of all stripes as well as people of other faith traditions.  It is a prayer asking for the willingness to change one’s behavior.  A softening of the heart is being sought.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is despair, hope.

This is a prayer that although it petitions a higher power, is also asking the person to focus on behaviors that potentially would change their immediate environment if they were attentive to their surroundings. How might a person sow love where there is hatred?  What might that look like?  What might that look like in the neighborhoods of Gaza and Jerusalem, where hatred has once again spilled over? I saw a photograph of two young boys; one Jewish, one Palestinian arm in arm. Sowing love might look like that, not simply a photograph but the actual friendship between members of the two rival groups.   Or what might it look like here in Alabama where people are upset over the election results and want to secede from the union.  What might a focus on harmony look like in our country? Poking fun at their obvious disdain for the election results is probably not sowing harmony—Just sayin’.

The Prayer of St. Francis is popular because it resonates deeply with human nature.  Everyone one of us has experiences where negative emotions have appeared recalcitrant and wanted to find a way to resolve them.  This prayer addresses these states of the human condition. It leaves the door open as to how these conditions might be resolved but it posits the desire into one’s consciousness which in turn might lead to a specific action. Perhaps an action that one person can do. Perhaps it will be an action that a small group can do or perhaps an action that a sweeping movement can do. How might these seeds of love, hope, compassion be sown in our families, in our communities, in our nation today?

The human condition is also addressed in a Buddhist Metta, a sample line might be “May I live in peace and harmony with all beings.^[i]” It is setting the intention and then the desire to focus on this intention with mindfulness.  What would living in peace and harmony with all beings look like?  The Buddhist is examining this thought in the Metta.  The prayer is not addressing a deity but it is setting the intention and is opening the door for the mind to thoughtfully ponder what might be done to achieve this desire.

The Prayer of Jabez became popular a few years ago.  It is the prayer by a person found in the book of First Chronicles in the Hebrew text.  Not much is known about him other than his mother naming him Jabez after a difficult labor which means “he makes sorrowful/ pain”.  He issues a prayer to God requesting blessing and ends the prayer with “that I may not cause pain.”  The text tells us that God granted his request.

It became popular with the prosperity gospel preachers and new thought practitioners as a prayer to gain prosperity.  The difficulty with saying this prayer is the formulaic aspect of it for gaining prosperity.  Say these words in a ritualistic manner every day for at least 30 days and low and behold, you are prosperous in all things. This is the prayer on the surface and it is how Bruce Wilkinson in his book on the Jabez prayer encourages people on how to increase their lot in life.  When the Prayer of Jabez is approached in this manner it encourages magical thinking.  It becomes a potion, an incantation for a life of ease.

Life was never meant to be easy.  Life can be enjoyable.  Life can be an adventure.  Life can be fulfilling. But life is not meant to be easy. It may have easy moments when things are moving along smoothly but those moments are the extent of the easy life.  So those who pray this prayer as a formula for the easy life will be sadly disappointed.   Even Bruce Wilkinson, the author of the popular book was to be sadly disappointed.

In 2002, he used the profits to go to Swaziland to set up an orphanage for children orphaned by the AIDS pandemic.  A noble cause.  Certainly this was an increase in his territory. He had grand visions.  But a Wall Street Journal^[ii] story reported in 2005, that he “resigned in a huff from the African charity he founded” allegedly because the people of Swaziland did not comply with his demands.  There is a life lesson here and the answer is implied in the very prayer he promoted^[iii] but apparently refused to see.

Beneath the surface of this prayer there is something being asked of the pray-er.  ‘Increase my territory’ implies a relationship with the world that is more than just acquiring wealth.   It requires taking on more responsibility and being held accountable for one’s actions. In the case of Mr. Wilkinson’s grand intentions of using his new found wealth, it meant listening to the needs of the people he felt called to serve. Instead he went to be the savior of these children. But what was required of him was to honor their culture in humility. He had a responsibility to honoring the worth and dignity of the people he wanted to help. This noble task was not about him as an evangelist or savior.  It was about being accountable to the territory he was entering.  Being kept from evil requires being attentive not only to the events that are happening around the person but also attentive to the impact of one’s actions so “I may not cause pain.”  This is a prayer that while being addressed to God is also about taking responsibility for one’s journey through the world. It is not a mantra to be repeated in a rote fashion but rather wrestled with in relationship with one’s own life circumstances.

What territory in my life am I required to be responsible for?  How am I being held accountable to the tasks set before me?  How am I being attentive so that I am being kept from harm?  How am I being attentive to the responsibilities that I have so that all who may be impacted by my responsibilities and behaviors are also kept from harm so that I may not cause pain?  These are the questions that are raised with this prayer and the answers are probably not ones that fall from on high into one’s lap.  The answers come from dialog, from being in relationship with others, from being attentive to the needs presented, and they come from walking humbly in the path of life.

The Serenity Prayer is another popular prayer that is about discerning the way through our life. The prayer was written by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.  Niebuhr wrote extensively on theological ethics before, during, and after World War Two. The horrors of this war from the Nazi and American concentration camps to the release of the atomic bombs over Japan are the backdrop of his writings and the circumstances in which this prayer was created.

It is a pragmatic prayer not given to the illusion that all things will be fine and dandy.  Again, this is a prayer that while it addresses a higher power, requires the person to wrestle with the words in relationship with their own circumstances.  What are the things in my life that cannot be changed and therefore accepted as they are?  What are the things in my life that can be changed?  Are the things that can be changed worthy of my efforts to change them?  Are there indicators or sign posts that I need to be paying attention to, which would determine something as changeable versus non-changeable in my life?

The practicality of this prayer to be applied to daily life won this prayer into inclusion of Alcoholics Anonymous circles.  The second stanza includes their famous tag line, ‘One day at a time.’  It recognizes that life includes hardship. The second stanza also contains allusions to the last week of Jesus’ life of accepting the world as it is and not fighting it.

Now I told you I have been praying a lot this past week. These were the prayers that I found myself referring to this week.   I prayed that I would be a comforting presence to members of our congregation.  I prayed that I would be mindful in my behaviors to offer the support needed for family members to make critical decisions in the care of their loved ones. I prayed that I would find the right words to share at the right moment to lessen the deep pain, I knew would be felt.  My prayers were not to a deity but they were uttered with the humility of the unfolding mystery called life.  I knew that my words might not make a difference, or that my presence might not make a difference but I believed the attempt was an important one to make. Perhaps in a moment of transcendence, in a moment of grace, the realization of being loved would break through and soften the moment, ease the transition from this life or ease the acceptance of a life transitioning to death.  It matters not to me if the person recognizes that moment as God’s love or human compassion—if only it would provide some comfort in our human hour of need.

There is one more prayer that I find myself uttering.   The 13^th century mystic Meister Eckhart said If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.  Thank you is a prayer.  I say thank you when I look at the flowers blooming out front of this church.  I say thank you when I see children laughing and playing.  I say thank you when I observe the members of this congregation be so generous with their time in support of others.  And I say thank you for this life that I am living as it is filled with wonder, filled with interconnections of love. When hardships befall us as they are bound to from time to time, I find myself saying thank you, not for the hardships but for the response of the people around me who step forward with love and compassion.

This past week many people stepped forward and their presence was deeply appreciated.  Thank you… it is the prayer that is more than just two words.  It is a prayer of reception. When a person says thank you, especially in difficult times, it is an acknowledgement of humility. It is an acknowledgement of love shared.  It is an acknowledgement of our interconnective needs of one another.  If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.  Blessed Be.

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[i] As found at http://labyrinthyoga.com/archives/655

[ii]
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB113495910699726095-lMyQjAxMDE1MzE0OTkxNTk5Wj.html

[iii]
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/february/8.76.html

 

“When Praying is Sufficient ” delivered to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa by  Rev. Fred L Hammond 18 November 2012 ©

Endings, Beginnings, and the Time In-Between

by Rev. Fred L Hammond 14 October 2012©

 

I saw a Peanuts cartoon posted on Facebook recently that fits today’s theme.  Linus says life is filled with good experiences or bad experiences.  A question is asked about what about the in-between experiences.  The last panel has Snoopy on top of his doghouse with the caption, In-between experiences are for napping.

But that is where most of our life is spent—in the in between.  There are new beginnings.  Some are very clearly marked as such; the first day at a new school, the first position in a desired career or the purchase of a new house in a new community.  These are all new beginnings.  And there are endings and some of those are clearly marked as well; graduation from high school, leaving a position, or the death of a friend or a partner.

These are all beginnings and endings of one sort or another. A popular song a few years ago Closing Time had a line that stated, Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end[i]. But what about the in-between time?  Are we waiting as if life was a train terminal and the trains coming through were life’s beginning and ending story lines?  Or are we napping like Snoopy, waiting for the next good or bad thing for us to be awake to experience?

Most of us are in the in-between time. Isn’t that the time that really matters?  Motivational speakers would sometimes use a poem to talk about the in-between time, entitled The Dash.  The dash is what is found on gravestones between the year of birth and the year of death.  The person’s story isn’t the year markers, the person’s life story is what happened within the dash–the in-between time.  That is the important time of a person’s life.

How did they do it-this dash between these two years?  What did they experience?  What did they accomplish?  Who did they love? What events shaped their character—their destiny?  Who were the ones left behind?  How did they cope?  The beginnings and endings, the highlights and lowlights of a person’s life, these are defining and significant to the person but these are only changes in the person’s life.

What did the person do to cope with these changes?  Part of the process has to do with how we transition into these changes.

Walter Bridges, author of Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes, states that we confuse change and transition by thinking of them as interchangeable words.  They are not.   He writes, “Change is your move to a new city or your shift to a new job.  It is the birth of your new baby or the death of your father.  It is the switch from the old health plan at work to the new one, or the replacement of your manager by a new one or it is the acquisition that your company just made.  … Change is situational.  Transition, on the other hand, is psychological.”

How do we adjust to having a new child that prevents us from just picking up and going away for a weekend?  What needs to happen within us that allows us to incorporate / integrate that very specific change in our lives?  Bridges states, “Without a transition, a change is just a rearrangement of furniture.” And without a transition into that new relationship in our lives—such as a newborn, or rather without that inner re-orientation and self-redefinition to the new event that change won’t work.

Our society does not do a very good job in handling the transitions of our life story.  Other societies are much more adept at transitions.  They have created a process to aid in that adjustment of self in relationship to the change.  These societies have rituals or rites of passage to assist people to let go of the ending of one chapter in a person’s life and to find and begin a new one.  Anthropologist Michael Rudolph[ii] sees ritual as a transformative practice that seeks to reorganize identity through the ritual performance.

Our child dedications, bridging ceremonies, wedding ceremonies, and memorial services; all make attempts of doing this transformative work.  But sometimes they fail because we expect the process to be over with once the ceremony marks that ending or beginning. The truth is transitions take longer than the ceremonial marker. And some societies prepare for that transition process. For example, the Jewish ritual surrounding the death of a loved one includes sitting Shiva for seven days followed by reciting the Kaddish up to eleven months after the loss. The process of sitting Shiva and Kaddish done in this ritualistic manner helps reorganize the internal identity of the bereaved person and family.

Bridges suggests that all transitions have three components, 1) an ending; 2) a neutral zone; and 3) a new beginning.  It is that neutral zone that is oft times filled with confusion and distress. It is the time that Snoopy takes a nap and hopefully wakes up to the new beginning already fully in place. He says that many people who choose to make changes will deny the ending of things and those who are catapulted into a transition can not see the possibility of a new beginning.  Such is the uncomfortableness of that in-between time.

Having a new child in our lives, as exciting as that is, is also an ending of sorts.  There are new priorities that must take precedent in order to raise this new life in a loving and nurturing environment.  If the parent insists on continuing to party with their drinking pals or taking off for the weekend without placing the child’s needs into the equation then there will be barriers to raising that child. That in-between time includes the grieving and the re-adjustment of the understanding of independence and freedom within the realm of parenthood.  There is no shame in recognizing that grieving process and by doing so one will be able to facilitate re-integration of the new beginning of parenthood. But to deny that an adjustment or reorganization of identity is necessary is to invite additional duress and conflict into the relationship not only with others but also with oneself.

This grieving during the in-between time is part of the normal process of transitioning to the new beginning.  Whether it is the arrival of new children into our lives, a move to a new community, or retirement from a rewarding career, it is normal to experience loss.

When I first entered seminary, I thought I was beginning a new adventure. And I was but I was also still in the throes of ending my previous life.   Bridges says the ending experience includes five aspects that include disengagement, dismantling, dis-identification, disenchantment, and disorientation.

I was surprised by the sudden unsettled feeling I was experiencing.  I chose to leave a successful career as executive director of an agency that I co-founded. In deciding to go to seminary I had to disengage from the work that I did for 15 years. This meant no longer keeping tabs on what employees or the new executive director was doing with my agency. It was no longer the agency that I co-founded and ran; it was now the agency where I used to work.

But I wasn’t anticipating waking up one day in Chicago, thousands of miles from my home, with this creeping dread of ‘O my god, who am I?’ I wasn’t expecting this feeling of disorientation but here I was in a strange city, where I knew very few people and I felt bewildered by the shift back into being a student again.

I had all these experiences, all this expertise but they were suddenly irrelevant to my being a student in seminary.  I had to dis-identify myself from my past identity. In some ways it was as if I had no identity because student was a temporary state.  I was no longer in the role of an executive director. I was not yet in the role of a minister. I was in between identified roles. This identity no longer existed and so there was a process of dis-identification that had to occur in order for me to learn a new identity. The identity of me as minister.

In my hometown, I had become known as Mr. Interfaith AIDS Ministry so tightly was I identified with the work I did with HIV/AIDS.  People claimed to know me whom I never personally met. People sought my advice on non-profits, on HIV/AIDS education, and on issues affecting the gay community. But in Chicago, all of my knowledge and skills that I developed as a Chief Professional Officer of a non-profit were persona non grata.  The identity that was assigned me in my hometown needed to be dismantled in this new setting.   This transition back to student was very unsettling. I needed a nap.

Of course in hindsight it was all part of the process of becoming a minister but I did not know that at the time.  Being a minister is a process that is forever unfolding.  I was no longer identified as an executive director of a non-profit agency that identity had died but I was not yet a minister either. So I was in between two places. One does not simply wake up into their new role fully formed.

And even though a person could wake up one day and be identified as a parent, there is still a process and a transformation of identity from not being a parent to being a parent.  All that was before is now gone, and the new parent has to adjust to that new identity and grieve the passing of the old one.  They must or they may become resentful of the interruption that responsibility for children often brings into our lives, or resentful of the new job, or resentful of the move to a new community.  It is not simply a turning of the page in the chapter of our life but rather a process of letting go of the loss of that which was before and realigning to the new circumstances we find ourselves.

How we deal with the endings and beginnings in our lives might be a pattern established as far back as childhood.  When an ending is occurring, we might discover that we handle that ending in much the same way as we did other endings.  Bridges writes, “Leaving for a better job may, ironically enough, cause the same grief and confusion that occurred in the past when you reached the sad end of a core relationship.[iii]” He adds, “…some of the feelings you experience today have nothing to do with the present ending but are the product, instead, of the resonance set up between situations in your present and those in your past.”

Abraham-Hicks, new age motivational speaker, calls this a vibrational set point.  It is the rut in the dirt road of how we dealt with all transitional situations in the past, and so we naturally will fall into that response pattern just as easily as a car driving on dirt road will fall into the well developed rut.  Depending on how successful our past transitions were can be an indicator if that rut in the road serves us well or holds us back.  We need to sometimes re-grade the road so we can make a much smoother transition this time around.

To do this work, we need to be willing to examine our past transitional moments. Bridges suggests that we examine our lives and answer this question:  “A new chapter in my life opened when…?”  For some, he suggests these might be relational and for others it might be places or projects.  He also suggests that we look at the changes that have occurred in our past year and gives us some categories to aid in our thinking of these changes.  What were the changes in home life; personal changes; work and financial changes; and inner changes are some of the areas to look at. This examination of these areas of our lives might enable us to gain insights into how we have handled past transitions and help us make the shift that we need to make to handle our current transition.

We also are better able to handle those times when everything feels up in the air or falling apart if the transition has meaning and is moving towards a desired end.  If it is not seen as a part of a larger picture then it can be experienced as simply distressing.  This explains the phrases that we often hear from well meaning folks, like ‘it was God’s will’ or ‘God has a purpose that we cannot understand’ or ‘God only gives us what we can handle.’  While infuriating when heard, these are attempts to ameliorate the distress caused in our lives by attempting to place them in a larger framework.

And while we might not appreciate comments like this when we are in crisis, there is a truth in these statements that we might overlook.  Life on this planet has a rhythm that all life integrates into and experiences. That rhythm includes the pain and loss we experience when events happen in and around us that we cannot control.  Now I do not advocate the notion of a god somewhere that plays our lives as some pawn piece in a celestial game of chess—and therefore our lives have a meaning that we might not see from our linear point of view. But I am suggesting that life has a rhythm of ebbs and flows and we as creatures expressing life are a part of that natural rhythm.

Bridges use the seasonal analogy to explain this rhythm.  Here is the analogy offered by Chance the Gardener in the movie Being There[iv]:

President “Bobby”: Mr. Gardner, do you agree with Ben, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives?
[Long pause]
Chance the Gardener: As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.
President “Bobby”: In the garden.
Chance the Gardener: Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
President “Bobby”: Spring and summer.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
President “Bobby”: Then fall and winter.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
Benjamin Rand: I think what our insightful young friend is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we’re upset by the seasons of our economy.
Chance the Gardener: Yes! There will be growth in the spring!
Benjamin Rand: Hmm!
Chance the Gardener: Hmm!
President “Bobby”: Hm. Well, Mr. Gardner, I must admit that is one of the most refreshing and optimistic statements I’ve heard in a very, very long time.

While we might not fall exactly into these seasons at the same time as others, there is a rhythm in our lives.  It is natural for us to experience these transitions and we should not expect that we will not have them, because we will all have them.  Bridges reminds us, “First there is an ending, then a beginning, and an important empty or fallow time in between.” So things are not exactly in the order that Chance the Gardener suggests, it is rather fall—the letting go of leaves, winter, and then the spring when green life emerges from the seemingly dead brown wood.

We see this pattern in the theology of the resurrection.  Jesus dies–an ending, three days of disorientation, letting go of false hopes and understandings, then resurrection, new life—a new beginning—a new way of living in the world.  See the resurrection story follows a process of transition that is common to all of us.  One does not need to believe in the literalness of this story to also see this story as a parable for going through transitions in life.

So imagine for a moment what the followers of Jesus might have experienced during this ending of Jesus’ ministry.  There was turmoil. They witnessed Jesus’ arrest and many of them scattered—some denied their connection to him, others hid in fear. Still others stood vigil at his death still trying to comprehend what and why this was all happening.  I imagine they questioned the amount of time they spent following this man. Was it all worth it? Was it just a waste of time? These are all reactions to the changes that were taking place in and around them. And then early in the morning a few women went to the grave site and something new began.

Now not all transitions in our lives are that dramatic.  Some transitions are subtle much closer to the transitioning seasons where we notice a slight crispness in the air and a tinge of yellow in the leaves.  And over time we realize that we are in transition. But should that fallow time between an ending and a beginning seem like a major upheaval, Bridges offers this insight.  “It’s important to recognize the reason for these feelings and to realize that they are natural.  Just because things are up in the air now and you sometimes feel as if you were right back where you started, this is not a sign that you have made a mistake or have been wasting your time for the past ten years. It is only a sign that you are in one of life’s natural and periodic times of readjustment and renewed commitment.”   Recognize that “… adulthood unfolds its promise in an alternating rhythm of expansion and contraction, change and stability.”

Life’s transitions, be they found in nature with the seasons, or under the sea with the tides, or in the daily living of our lives is a natural process of the universe which even the stars above follow this rhythm of expansion and contraction.  So may our transitions lead us to new and great beginnings… but in the In-between leave some room for a nap. Blessed Be.

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[i] As found at  http://www.lyrics007.com/Semisonic%20Lyrics/Closing%20Time%20Lyrics.html

[ii]  Michael Rudolph , Ritual Performances as Authenticating Practices: Cultural representations of Taiwan’s aborigines in times of political changes as found athttp://www.cefc.com.hk/pccpa.php?aid=2631

[iii] Walter Bridges, Transitions: Making sense of Life’s Changes

[iv] As found at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078841/quotes

The Culture is the Crucible

Connie Goodbread, Acting District Executive for the Mid-South District of the Unitarian Universalism Association of Congregations (UUA) when speaking about faith development will often say:  “Faith Development is all we do; Unitarian Universalism is all we teach;  and the Congregation is the Curriculum.”   Recently at a Regional staff meeting we were discussing the vision of Unitarian Universalism for the Southern Region and I mentioned that when we live our faith out in the community the Culture is the Crucible.

We only truly embody our faith and values when we live those values in the culture.  It is in the culture that our faith is put to the test to strengthen our mettle.  Currently our culture is resisting attempts to be compassionate towards others.  There are loud voices that claim  the individual is above all others; disregarding the worth and dignity of others.   Moves in our government to reduce taxes on the über wealthy and corporations  to the detriment of life giving services to the poorest in our country is received with high praise by politicians and citizens alike.  The recent GOP debate had an audience member shout ‘let him die’  to the hypothetical question  of a young man who chose not to get insurance and then had an accident which left him in a coma, should he be treated?  A bad decision on the young man’s part and lack of compassion by the Ayn Rand neophytes who place individual rights and a disdain for minor impositions above collective societal rights.   It is in this world where we either live up to what we claim to profess on Sunday morning or we fail to meet the challenge.

This is the test of our values as Unitarian Universalists. How well do we represent these values in the day to day? Do we speak up when we see someone being abused for being gay or discriminated against for being an immigrant? Do we talk with our friends about the deep matters in life or do we hide away to keep the peace when a disparaging word is said about another group ?

If being Unitarian Universalist is only good one day a week then our faith is weak and ineffective.  We should not continually wonder why our congregations are not growing and or why claims of irrelevance surface. If we are not seeking to live the principles that we covenant to uphold then our voice will continue to grow weak against the din and noise of the popular cultural shift towards Ayn Rand’s extreme individualism.

As a faith, as congregations, as individuals we need to examine how we embody the values our faith teaches out in the world where we breathe, and eat, and have our being.  This is not an easy challenge. It is hard work  this path we have chosen. Dag Hammarskjold wrote these words “This is your path, And it is now, Now, that you must not fail.”

I repeat Connie Goodbread’s words with mine added at the end:

Faith development is all we do;
Unitarian Universalism is all we teach;
the congregation is the curriculum;
and the culture is the crucible.

This is our task and our path. We must not fail.

We Begin in Water

We begin

in water

and emerge

with a first breath.

We will depart

with a sigh.

In between

that first breath

and final sigh

is our journey

a unique

unfolding

mystery.

 

(c) Fred L Hammond

Whose are We?

Reading:
That Which Holds All by Nancy Shaffer

Because she wanted everyone to feel included
in her prayer,
she said right at the beginning
several names for the Holy:
Spirit, she said, Holy One, Mystery, God

But then thinking these weren’t enough ways of addressing
that which cannot fully be addressed, she added
particularities, saying, Spirit of Life, Spirit of Love,
Ancient Holy One, Mystery We Will Not Ever Fully Know,
Gracious God, and also Spirit of this Earth,
God of Sarah, Gaia, Thou

And then, tongue loosened, she fell to naming
superlatives as well: Most Creative One,
Greatest Source, Closest Hope –
even though superlatives for the Sacred seemed to her
probably redundant, but then she couldn’t stop:

One who Made the Stars, she said, although she knew
technically a number of those present didn’t believe
the stars had been made by anyone or thing
but just luckily happened.

One Who Is an Entire Ocean of Compassion,
she said, and no one laughed.
That Which Has Been Present Since Before the Beginning,
she said, and the room was silent.

Then, although she hadn’t imagined it this way,
others began to offer names.

Peace, said one.
One My Mother Knew, said another.
Ancestor, said a third.
Wind.
Rain.
Breath, said one near the back.
Refuge.
That Which Holds All.
A child said, Water.
Someone
Then: Womb.
Witness.
Great Kindness.
Great Eagle.
Eternal Stillness.

And then, there wasn’t any need to say the things
she’d thought would be important to say,
and everyone sat hushed, until someone said

Amen.

“Whose Are We?” Rev. Fred L Hammond
21 August 2011 ©

Those of us who are old enough to remember the Hippie Movement, perhaps some of us even were hippies, when asking about a friend might hear, “’He’s off to find himself, man.”  It was a time of self-exploration, of dropping out of society, to wander across the country, to participate in vision quests in the hopes of finding oneself.  It was a quest that was often met with derision from the then over 30 crowd. But the quest is as universal as any other experience.  Who am I? Where do I belong?  What am I supposed to do with my life?

In some European cultures when their youth graduate high school would take a moratorium, a year or two off, to explore life a bit before going back to school for an advanced degree.  It is not a bad idea.  How many of our high school graduates know what they want to do for the rest of their life when they enter college.  How many change majors more than once as they attempt to sort things out for themselves.  The quest to find oneself, to become aware of who one is, is an important question to ask.  But if that is all we ponder then we risk falling into a sort of self-love that borders on idolatry.  We risk the fate of Narcissus, the Greek tale of a handsome young man who fell in love with a reflection of himself but found this love to be unfulfilled and subsequently died.

Rev. Colin Bossen interprets the story of Narcissus as lifting “up the importance of being connected to something other than, something greater than, ourselves. If Narcissus had been connected to something other, something greater, than himself he would not have died. The same is true for us. If we are not connected to something greater then we risk falling into a consuming self-love and spiritually wasting away.”[i]

So the quest to discover who we are, is an important one, but if it ends there it leaves us wanting. So as we ask who are we, we need to follow up the question with whose are we?  To what or whom are we responsible?  To whom are we accountable?  Who lays claim to me / us?

Last summer the Unitarian Universalist Minister’s Association began a nation wide conversation on the question whose are we?  And in the fall our various minister chapters gathered and began to ask the question of each other, whose are you?  We continued to answer the question to whose are you until we had no more responses left to give.  The response our listeners were to give to each of our answers was “God be merciful.”

The response was just as challenging as the question.  In the room were myriad concepts as to what god is or isn’t. The word merciful in this context also brought on debate, what is mercy? How can the Mystery, the Spirit of Life, the Spirit of this Earth, Gaia, One my mother knew, That which holds all, and Breath, be merciful?  And what is mercy in the context of whose am I?

In my own journey there are many who have laid claim to me in some fashion and whether they still lay claim to me today or not, these relationships have shaped my perspective on the world and shape my actions.

Whose am I?  I am my family’s.  I learned early in life that my actions and the actions of each member reflect on my family as a whole.  When I was growing up to say that one came from a good family was an important statement in society.  I experienced the emotional disappointment of others when expectations were not met by me or by any one of my family.  At some point in time we all fell short of the ideal we sometimes held high of the other. Sometimes we were able to find forgiveness for each other and sometimes forgiveness came too late.  God be merciful.

Whose am I? I am the earth’s.  My grandparents on my father side were conservationists. My grandmother would take me on walks and show me all the great variety of life that grew on their property.  She would point out the subtle differences between two varieties of Hepaticas, an early spring flower.  One variety had leaves rounded and another had leaves that came to a point but the flowers looked the same.  And she would reveal to me the diversity of life even within the same species.  A fern frond has one point and another frond on the same fern ends in two. All living things express diversity. Observe life on earth and it will reveal its secrets.

But the greatest secret of all was that all things grew out of the earth in one fashion or another and all things would return.  Whether it was the pitcher plants that would die off and sink into the bog on the edge of the old ice pond or the insects that would fall into its pooled water to feed it, all things find nourishment from the earth and all things would one day return to it, including me.  Spirit of the Earth be merciful.

Whose am I?  I am my childhood friend Glenn’s.  My relationship with Glenn was a life altering one. We were best friends in junior and senior high school, both gay, but back then both too afraid to say those words aloud.  I sought refuge in Christianity and Glenn found reconciliation and came out of the closet.  We remained friends and I would visit him every so often in our adult lives. Then in 1987, Glenn told me he was HIV positive.

I sought to find a way to support him from afar—that support led to my co-founding Interfaith AIDS Ministry, serving as board president then stepping into the Executive Director position when the fledgling agency lost its third director in about the same number of years. This agency went on to serve hundreds of people living with HIV/AIDS, preserving family integrity of families affected by this disease, and empowering youth to be prevention educators to their peers.

In the process I reconciled my own sexuality and was excommunicated from my Christian community. Glenn died before I became director, before I came out of the closet, but I was able to thank him for being in my life and opening my life to new possibilities. One who is an entire ocean of Compassion be merciful.

Whose am I?  I am god’s.  My favorite hymn from childhood was I Come to the Garden Alone.  Some of you may know it from your childhood as well. I loved the chorus especially where “He tells me I am His own.”  Believing that I belonged to god was an important part of my identity as a child and as a young adult.  As a child struggling between my sexuality and the churches teaching that my mere sexuality, prior to any behavioral expression of same, meant I was an abomination; the knowledge that I was god’s brought me comfort.

My childhood faith in a loving god and my young adult faith in a god who heals the broken was one of immense hope that belonging to god would bring me the deliverance I sought.  As I came to realize that my sexuality is fine just as it is; the deliverance I found was not from my sexuality but rather from a restrictive dogmatic belief.

I began to see the eternal as something far more fluid, far more flexible in expression than I ever realized. This realization resulted in being excommunicated from a community I called home, divorced from people that I loved dearly, shaken from a faith that no longer could answer my questions and opened the doors to a freedom I was only just beginning to experience.  Closest Hope be merciful.

Whose am I?  I am justice’s.  Two of my great grandfathers, my grandfather, granduncle and grandaunt were public servants.  One great grandfather served as Mayor and County Judge.  Another great grandfather was President of the Board of Health. My grandfather served as town supervisor.  A granduncle was a lawyer who assisted in rewriting the mental health legislation for New York State. My grandaunt, also a lawyer, was a consultant in the writing of the constitution for the country of Liberia until a military coup assassinated their president.

They served their constituents well and in the process instilled in me a sense of duty to protect the welfare of other’s rights and freedoms.  The duty of justice-making led me to support the formation of a people’s first chapter for the developmentally disabled, found an agency to advocate for medical care for people living with AIDS, coordinate the formation of Faith Leaders for Peace in San Diego, March to Washington for equality for LGBT people, and most recently organize an interfaith response in the form of yesterday’s rally; Somos Tuskaloosa: Neighbors against HB 56.  The drive for justice where oppression lives, the drive to empower voice where speech has been silenced is as deep a part of me as the blood the flows through my veins.  Yes, I am justice’s.  Refuge be merciful.

Whose am I?  I am my ancestor’s history.  I grew up on the legends of a proud family history.  Many of the legends in investigating them did not equal the reality of their lives.  Yet other stories emerged. Some painful to uncover like my 12^th great-grandmother Adrienne Cuvelier who is blamed for the first massacre of the Manhattan natives in 1634.  She is also the mother of the first white male child born on these shores.  Others emerged with joy like my 9^th great grandmother Anne Dudley, who was the author of the first published book of American poems. At my nephews wedding, a poem by Anne Dudley was quoted unbeknownst to the bridal couple that these words brought his 10^th great grandmother into the wedding ceremony.  There are grandfathers who fought in the war of 1812, the civil war, the Spanish American War, and the War to end all wars with the guns and swords from these wars echoing on our family’s walls.   There was the great-uncle who was the accountant for Thomas Edison.   And the host of ministers, too many to count who stood in pulpits and preached their truth.  There is the wonder; what of their life story still courses through my veins? Ancestor be merciful.

Whose am I?  I am the universe’s.  One who made the stars be merciful.

Whose am I? I am America’s. Great Eagle be merciful.

Whose am I?  I am my deepest desire’s.  Most Creative One be merciful.

Whose am I? I am yours.  Spirit of Love be merciful.

Whose are you? Who do you find yourself most accountable to in this life?  Who do you strive to remain in relationship with no matter what the cost?  To whom do you find yourself being shaped and guided in ways that are mysterious, ever unfolding, and perhaps enlightening?  That Which Has Been Present Since Before the Beginning be merciful.  Blessed be.

[i]“Who Do We Serve?” preached by the Rev. Colin Bossen, March 6, 2011 at Unitarian Universalist Society of Cleveland. As found at http://www.uucleveland.org/worship/WhoDoWeServe.php

What Endures?

I received an interesting comment  on my post A Unitarian Universalist Theology.  “…why should we concern ourselves on [relationships t]hat will pass , instead of what will endure?”

The question, even though I attempted to give an answer, remained with me.  Here is a portion of what I wrote:

What does endure? Everything that I see and experience dies in this universe including the stars above. Some ancient scriptures state that love endures. But where is love found? In relationships. I have never seen or experienced love that existed independently or was separate from a relationship between two or more entities. …  So if love endures as many various scriptures indicate, then focusing on relationships is a means to experience love and to have that love endure beyond us.

I have reflected more on love enduring beyond us and remembered several events in my life where this is true, at least in my life.  My father’s parents were conservationists, a term that today would probably be translated as environmentalists.  They co-founded the local chapter of the Audubon Society. The both loved being in nature;  exploring the various ferns and fauna that grew on their property.  I was fortunate to have them live across the road from me and so I was surrounded by their love of nature. They introduced me to raising Monarch Butterflies and other caterpillars.  They would teach me to be awed by the diversity of life even within the same species.  My grandparents have now been gone for over 40 years, yet when I stop to look at flowers or butterflies pirouetting in flight , or to listen to the warbler’s  song, it is my grandparents’ love that is being expressed here.  Their love surfaces to my memories and hold me in that grace.

I had a childhood friend who was my best friend through out middle school and high school.  He was gay. We continued our friendship into adulthood. And while I struggled with acceptance of my sexuality, he was able to be there for me. I  would argue with him about the sinfulness of it all and he would listen and still accept me for where I was.

Then Glenn in the late 1980′s was diagnosed HIV positive.  I wanted to do something that would let him know that I supported him, that I cared for him. An opportunity opened up for me to become involved with the founding of an Interfaith response to HIV in the Connecticut city where I lived.  This opportunity based in the desire to support my friend was to shift the direction of my life for ever.

I was on the founding board of this new entity.  Then I was president and then through some heavy duty risk taking, I stepped into the director position not knowing if sustainable funding would be established. That position grew into full time and then had a complement of eight staff.  Fifteen years later the ministry was providing family preservation supports to hundreds of people living with and affected by HIV.  We were educating our youth with a youth directed,  youth organized HIV/AIDS education program. We were doing outreach into the immigrant Brazilian population.  We were providing a full service food pantry with fresh meats, fresh vegetables, fresh dairy, fresh fruit and a nutritionist at 20 hours a week.  And we were the first in that community to be a tri-lingual agency with English, Spanish, and Brazilian dialect Portuguese spoken.

My relationship and my love for Glenn endured through this time even though Glenn did not live long enough to see or hear the full story of his inspiration on my life. He died just before I became director of that organization.

When I came out of the closet and subsequently excommunicated from the Charismatic Christian intentional community I lived in, it was my relationship with another friend that carried me through and lives on in me now.  Wayne’s wife was active in the AIDS ministry in those early years. When she retired our friendship thinned as friendships sometimes do. A few years had passed and she died.  I attended her memorial service and Wayne and I reconnected our friendship.  I was floundering spiritually.  Wayne invited me to attend his Unitarian Universalist congregation.   I did and while I did not join the congregation for a good length of time, I was beginning to sense that this was home for me.  Wayne was a good mentor for me.  He had a perspective on things that was delightfully refreshing.

When I began talking about entering seminary for the UU ministry, Wayne was the first to encourage me.  Wayne was a phenomenal knitter.  He was knitting me a sweater for those cold Chicago nights when the cancer thought in remission was discovered to have metastasized in the brain.  Wayne spoke with the knitting ministry of the church to finish the sweater even as he lay in the hospital bed approaching his final hours.  While I have not had much opportunity to wear the sweater here in Alabama, I treasure it as another example of love enduring.

In many ways these relationships continue on in my life in various ways.  It is their love that endures and sustains me.  They have shaped my vision of life and they have steered me into uncharted waters at the right time.  There are others whose lives have intersected with mine whose love endures and shapes mine.  I am sure that there are lives that I have intersected with and perhaps have shaped their lives, hopefully for the fuller, happier side of life.

This for me is part of what I would refer to as having a relationship with the holy.  That indescribable flow of energy between two or more that creates something new and different.  It could be something as simple as an awe and appreciation of the wonders of nature or the creation of a new entity that lets people know that they are loved and not alone with a frightening disease called AIDS.

And so I emend my answer. Love endures.  The physical may pass away, but the love shared endures and can still inform the present.  It is through relationships that love develops.  It is through relationships that love informs. It is through relationships that love shapes our lives into new creations. It is through relationships that our lives are directed on a path towards what exactly, I do not know.   Some say to the holy, some say to an afterlife of bliss, some say to come back and do it again.  And some say this is life is all we are given.  Whatever the destination, I have come to believe  having quality relationships with others is key to an abundant life.  And love endures.