HUU Community Cafe » Sermons & Talks

Where Have All The Souls Gone?

Administrator — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 22:44:16 +0000

October 30, 2011
by Beryl Lawson

At this time of the year when it is said that the separation between the living and the dead is thin it might be good to consider another view on what survives after the death of the body.

Readings

Bhagavad Gita chapter 2
As the lord of this mortal frame experienceth therein infancy, youth, and old age, so in future incarnations will it meet the same. One who is confirmed in this belief is not disturbed by anything that may come to pass. As a man throweth away old garments and putteth on new, even so the dweller in the body, having quitted its old mortal frames, entereth into others which are new.

Benjamin Franklin’s Epitaph
The body of B. Franklin, Printer (Like the Cover of an Old Book Its Contents torn Out And Stript of its Lettering and Gilding) Lies Here, Food for Worms. But the Work shall not be Lost; For it will (as he Believ’d) Appear once More In a New and More Elegant Edition Revised and Corrected By the Author.

Gottfried de Purucker
“We are here because we have been here before, because here we sowed seeds of destiny, and we come back on this earth to reap those seeds which we sowed. This universe, governed by cosmic law, will not allow us to sow corn or wheat in San Diego County, and three or four months afterwards travel into Arizona or Nevada and attempt to reap the corn and wheat there. Where we sowed the seeds, there shall we reap the harvest. It is obvious. Our very being here, to the man who can think clearly and logically from step to step, or thought to thought, is a proof of reincarnation. Otherwise we must say cosmic law put us here by chance. And who believes that? If fortuity governed this world we would see the stars in their courses and all the planets running helter skelter all over the cosmic spaces without law, without reason, without order, without intelligence, without system”.

A brief look into the many religions of the world, both ancient and modern, both eastern and western allows us to see that the idea of rebirth and the preexistence of the soul is a central concept of them all.

I have been accused of believing in reincarnation because I’m afraid to die. I’ve never thought of it that way. The reason reincarnation as a theory appeals to me is that the concept includes humans within the larger concept of cycles .Therefore what I would like us to consider in the short time we have this morning is the logic of the idea of preexistence and rebirth.

Our seventh principle tells us that we belong to A larger universe than we often think of.The laws which govern the larger whole also govern the parts. The universe is one of law, Cycles pertain in all aspects of life. The beating of our heart, Day and night, seasons, tides, years and I would include birth and death. What comes after night? Day, what comes after winter? Spring. Low tide? High tide, death? Birth.

What are we? This body of ours has changed completely many times since our birth. There are not any particles of our body today that were there seven years ago yet has our identity changed? Do we not feel we are the same I as we were then? That identity the true I, the spirit in the body is that which survives the death of the body and has come from many incarnations before this birth and will go on to experience many new forms in many places in the future.

Let us look, as an example, at an actor and his many parts. The actor, or the individuality, takes on many different roles. Tonight he may be Hamlet, tomorrow Othello. When he is through with Hamlet he removes that mask or personality and takes on a new one for the next role. Although the parts are different the actor brings with him the lessons learned in his old part. So he becomes a better actor.

Why are we here? To pay our debts we have incurred in the past, our karmic debts, and thereby to evolve in mind and heart, to realize who we really are and to help on the evolution of every living thing.

If we have lived before why don’t we remember? Most of us don’t/ We don’t remember our early years. We don’t remember most of the experiences we’ve been through in this life. Isn’t a good thing that we don’t remember? What a burden, how would we get on with the task at hand?

But in another sense we do remember. Our characteristics, our talents, our problems which seem to have been with us right from the beginning, our likes and dislikes, the lessons we need to learn. These are memories that we bring with us when we are reborn. This is the karma which we have made and which it behooves us to tackle in this life. If not now they will be there waiting for us in the next, with interest, as it were..

However, some people do remember .Have any of us had the experience of being someplace we have never been before in this life and have the feeling we’ve been there before? Have we ever met someone for the first time and have known that we have known the person before? Instant love or instant dislike?

Dr. Ian Stevenson, of the University of Virginia, spent a good part of his life investigating cases of children who seem to remember a former existence. He has looked into hundreds of possible cases both in the east and here in the west. It is usually a child between the age of two and five who will exhibit characteristics or speak of things that could not have come from the present environment or family. When these things have been investigated Dr. Stevenson has often been able to verify the family, names and places that the child has spoken about. There can be several explanations for this phenomenon but rebirth seems a very strong possibility, We can’t take the time now to go more into his investigations but he has written quite a few books on his findings. He conjectures, among other things, that likes, dislikes, degrees of intelligence or lack thereof, physical and psychological deformities may be evidences of what we have experienced in the past and have brought forward into this life. Although he is now gone his work is being carried on by his associate , Jim Tucker.

How do genes fit into all this? We say “it’s in the genes”. The genes seem to be the physical record of the form we incarnate into when we are born. Are they the determining factors in all we do or are? They seem to be the storehouse in which our physical and perhaps other tendencies are stored. Think of a computer. We say:. It’s in the computer. How did they get into the computer? Who put them there? Without the spirit behind it all there could be no form into which we incarnate and which we use to further learn and grow.

How would a consideration of reincarnation impact how we live our lives? For one thing we really would have a stake in the future for it will be our future. We will not put off til tomorrow what has to be done today for tomorrow it will only be harder to do. We will look on others with a compassion and tolerance born of the knowledge that we have been or will be in the future perhaps in their shoes. The form may be different, the essence, the spirit, the life of all is the same. The web of life, the spirit in everything is one. Living from this point of view changes everything. It might even change the world.

Uncertain Times

Administrator — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 23:29:53 +0000

October 16
by Rev. Emma Chattin

First Reading

Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

For everything there is a season,
and a time for every purpose under heaven:
a time to be born,
and a time to die;
a time to plant,
and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill,
and a time to heal; a time to break down,
and a time to build up;

a time to weep,
and a time to laugh; a time to mourn,
and a time to dance; 5a time to throw away stones,
and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace,
and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek,
and a time to lose;
a time to keep,
and a time to throw away;
a time to tear,
and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence,
and a time to speak;
a time to love,
and a time to hate; a time for war,
and a time for peace.

Second Reading

From Richard Rohr in Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety

Our age has been called the age of anxiety, and I think it’s probably a good description for this time. We no longer know where our foundations are. When we’re not sure what is certain, when the world, and our world view, keep being redefined every few months, we’re going to be anxious. And we want to get rid of that anxiety as quickly as we can! Yet, to be a good leader of anything today – to be a good pastor, a good bishop, a good father, a good mother… (you fill in the blank) .. you have to be able to contain, to hold patiently, a certain degree of anxiety. Leaders who cannot hold anxiety will never lead you to any place new. That’s probably why the Bible says so often, “Be not afraid.” (I have a printout that notes the phrase appearing 365 times!)

If you cannot calmly hold a certain degree of anxiety you will always be looking for somewhere to expel it. Expelling what you can’t embrace gives you an identity, but it’s a negative identity. It’s not life energy, it’s death energy. Formulating what you are against gives you a very quick sense of yourself. Thus, most people fall for it. People more easily define themselves by what they are against, by who they hate, by who is wrong, by what is wrong, instead of by what they believe in and who they love.

I hope you see from this common pattern how different the alternative is. If so, you might catch anew the radical and scary nature of faith, because faith only builds on that totally positive place within, no matter how small. It just needs an interior “Yes” to begin…. (That is the foundation)… and that is why faith is always rare. Religious group-identity all too often becomes its replacement. We don’t have to find and live from a positive loving place. We can just go to church.

Uncertain Times

We live in uncertain times.
Hurricanes. Wildfires. Floods. Historic droughts.
Tornados. An earthquake…. in Virginia!
Gay Pride… in Elkton!!!
Woah…. I did NOT see that one coming!

Not all unexpected events are bad….
And while there may be some in this very Valley who will be quick to blame any destructive natural event on some sort of divine judgment for this perceived wrong…
or that perceived wrong… such divine assignment of responsibility
is nearly as old as the hills and the volcanoes that made them.

Humanity is all too quick to search for some sense of sense in the face of the senseless, some certainty in the face of uncertainty. Truth is, most ancient religions regarded God (or the gods) to be controllable- placated, manipulated, through ritual and human sacrifice. Around the time of Abraham, we see a shift in sacrifice from human to animal… sheep… goats… offerings to please God… to garner God’s attention and favor….good things were automatically the result of some blessing…
and bad things were seen as some judgment or disfavor…..
Later still…. certain rituals and prayers were offered, perhaps to insure positive outcomes through divine intervention.

I’m not sure Divinity is so controllable by our actions.
But I do believe humanity is quick to fill in the blanks of what we don’t know
(as well as the spaces surrounding the general uncertainty of life) with God’s name.
And I think that’s kind of a cheap shot.

When I worked as a hospital chaplain, I would wince inside when I would hear a pastor, when, confronted with the questioning anguish of a parishioner over the death of a loved one, reply with the simple platitude, “Well… It’s God’s will.” What an easy way out of a difficult moment.
What an effort by one to appear to have all the answers
- and to do so by pointing the finger elsewhere.
For me the answer was always the hard one…
the simple admission of ignorance…
“I don’t know why this happened.”

We live in uncertain times.
Socially, financially, politically, economically, environmentally.
We are in an uncertain place… and it feels uncomfortable to us.

I know all of us here have experienced sudden events, events that have carried us, almost always unwillingly, into new territory, into uncertain places, places where we feel we are no longer in control, or where we are reminded that we were (and are!) never really in control.
The loss of a job… an accident… illness… the death of a loved one…
the loss of a home…. … the incarceration of a loved one…
or yourself… having your rights taken away from you…
being the victim of violence, crime, abuse…
broken relationships….
Places where we feel we have lost our points of reference.

In fact, any time any number of people are gathered together, this is true.
Look around the room, any room that you happen find yourself in with others, and sometimes you can feel the pain… the questions… the anxiety… the fear… the ache of a sadness so deep that it defies words….
all residing behind the eyes and in the hearts of those who surround you.
And maybe that’s why it is important for us gather together from time to time.
To share the uncertain times, the sheer uncertainty of life, and to witness, to be silent reminders, monuments to one another, that survival in the face of improbable adversity is indeed possible.
And that our worst moments in life can sometimes leave us changed for the better rather than the bitter.

I know that all of us here have experienced events that have caused us to wonder about the order of our universe…
Events that have disturbed us… gotten our attention….
losses that have ripped our hearts out and shaken (perhaps destroyed!)
the foundations of our world and our beliefs.

We live in uncertain times.
But it isn’t the events that make our times uncertain.
The events themselves merely serve to remind us that we have, that we do, and that we always will live in uncertain times.
Nothing is certain about life.
Except death. (and maybe taxes)

We may think back fondly to when we went to the moon, forgetting all the while, that our passage there was not a forgone conclusion at the time. It was far from certain. It was a great risk, and it took sacrifice (emotional, financial, and physical). It was dangerous. People died.
But people also lived, landed on the moon, and took us – took the whole world! – along with them to a new place.
But it wasn’t certain at the time, and any historical event that seems to us a certainty or a foregone conclusion now, was simply crafted that way after the fact.
Nothing is certain- and I think it behooves those of us who may be older (but not necessarily wiser) to remind our youth that we have been here before.

Oh… not in this particular place.
This time in which we live is indeed new and pretty uncomfortable to me.
No, it is the fact that we have always lived through uncertain times, and survived, and despite what 24 hour news and media outlets, as well as some televangelists would have you believe….
this is generally normal, and uncertainty is pretty much a human condition and a fact of life.

Again, I think this an another important aspect of socially gathering to discuss the times in which we live.
And the times in which we have lived.
To share our own history… of bomb shelters… school drills for what to do in the event of a strike by Soviet nuclear missiles…
Not one random bomb, mind you, but a whole sky-full of targeted missiles, missiles that seemingly could come our way on the whim of a single itchy trigger finger.

We didn’t live in fear- but we did live with fear.
We lived with anxiety… and I think that’s an important lesson to learn:
living with anxiety and uncertainty, holding it in tension with our existence.

Yes, some celebrated when the Soviet Union collapsed and we were told it no longer posed a threat to us (if in fact it ever did) and then, of course…
other things happened…. new events …
and we found new threats…. and completely new fears
– fears that we could not have even imagined only a few years earlier.

But I would suggest that it is not necessarily the events,nor what the events do to us that matter, but rather, what we do with those events within our livesthat really matters.
Most unexpected events take us to places that most of us would rather not go, and certainly not go willingly.
They take us to liminal space, or threshold space, a place where we have left the old, the familiar, and still, we have not yet moved on to the new.

A workable psychological definition of liminal space is: “a place where boundaries dissolve a little, and we stand on the threshold, getting ourselves ready to move across the limits of what we were into what we are to be.”
It is also a place where there is uncertainty regarding any continuity of the way things were.

Again, I would suggest it is not what happens to us, but rather what we do with what happens to us that really matters.
It is not uncertain times that define usbut the certain qualities that enable us to move through such times.
This is a lesson we learn constantly, and it is one we may teach ourselves without ceasing over the course of a lifetime.

How many of us want to control what happens to us?
Control the unexpected. Be honest. And we also know people who not only want to control what happens to them, but to control everything else around them, including you.

These people

- and all of us are one of them at one time or another! -

are seeking to avoid uncertainty, uncertain times.

Do we have any aircraft pilots here today?
Now THAT is definitely an exercise in uncertainty and faith. Oh… there are long flight checks and the effort to control as much as earthly possible, and if you are the one in the plane, sensibly so. But even on a good day, when you can see all around you, when you can see all your familiar landmarks and points of reference, it still requires a lot of faith and certainty in yourself just to slip the surly bonds of earth. But if you want to fly long and far enough, you will eventually have to be prepared for the other times… the uncertain times…
night, or when the weather is bad…
the times when you cannot see anything, when you loose sight of all your points of reference and you must fly on instruments, trusting that the runway will appear beneath you WHEN and WHERE you believe it to be, and that your plane is pointed and positioned as you believe it to be.
You must have faith in the abilities of your aircraft and your capabilities as a pilot.
Now that is some pretty deep faith in a place of complete uncertainty.
There is phrase used to describe a behavior exhibited by some pilots called chasing the needles. It is the desire, when flying by instruments, to keep all the gauges “just so”, in familiar places, places where the pilot is comfortable with them.
Of course, that also diverts focus from actually flying the aircraft, and leads to constant corrections in the desire to control over and under compensation.
It is also regarded as a byproduct of anxiety.

Fear and anxiety is a luxury that a pilot cannot afford.
A pilot I knew once told me about experiencing fear in that uncertain place.
He said “You have to tamp that down pretty quickly or it will seize you and freeze you and your fear will bring about the very outcome that you fear the most.”

Uncertain times, times when something truly new happens to us…
Such times take us to liminal space, and liminal space can be fearful, threatening, and uncomfortable.
It is new space, a place we have never been before.
It is an uneasy place, a place where we are at our most vulnerable.

Yet some gifted spiritual teachers regard it as a teaching space.
It is, after all, the place most religious rituals are artificially designed to take us.
The boundaries are thin there, and we are at our most reachable.

Reachable by what? Ah, now that’s the question, no?
By God… by the Spirit of Divinity… by the great mystery….
by the human spirit… by the spirit of change moving within us…
by the better angels of our nature.
Something powerful and mysterious can undoubtedly happen to us in that uncertain place.

Would we really want to exist in a place where nothing ever happens to us? Nothing ever changes?
Maybe some would regard that as heaven. And maybe it is.
There is a song by the Talking Heads that suggests just that:

The band in Heaven plays my favorite song.
They play it once again, they play it once more, they play it all night long.

Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.
Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.”

Humanity has always lived in uncertain times, and in the place where things happen.

It took me a long time to figure out that this passage from Ecclesiastes is not a an instruction, it is not prescription, it is not permission or an excuse for bad behavior, but rather…. it is a warning… it is a caution…
It is a caution about life. It is also a spark of hope.
There Is a time for every purpose under heaven.
These things WILL happen.
They will happen to us.
They will happen around us.

The two verses that always challenged me the most?
A time to kill. This is also an example of how the nuances of translation may impact our understanding (moments of which there are many in the Bible!). You can see this for yourself by looking at the consistency of balanced phrasing in the poetic style of this part of Ecclesiastes.
Born/die, weep/laugh, and so on.
But then we have… kill/heal.
Mmmmm. That sounds a bit odd, no?

The original Hebrew word used means to wound with deadly intent.
It’s a nuance, but a significant one.
I know of one translation that shifts what has become the more familiar wording to “a time to hurt, and a time to heal”. Regardless, hurting happens in this world.
So does killing.
That doesn’t mean we condone it.
It DOES mean that it happens.

I recently watched the biography of George Harrison by Martin Scorsese.
This quiet former member of the Beatles spent a lot of time in India learning meditation, ways of finding peace within.
And in the bio, his second wife Olivia told of the time an unstable person had cracked off of the wing of an angel statue on the grounds of their home and tossed it through a window in the middle of the night, entering their home screaming with a knife in hand.
And how George was at the top of the steps, screaming his mantra at the top of his lungs…
how George and the attacker fought on the staircase, with George being stabbed multiple times, and having to defend himself using potentially deadly force in return.

A time to hurt.
It happens.

The second verse that has always challenged me:
A time for war.

War will happen. It has, it does, it will.
This doesn’t mean we can’t oppose it.
Humanity’s history is regularly punctuated by war of one cause or another.
And it’s not like we have learned from our experience. Even in our recent history.
World War I, the war to end all wars, and then WW II, the Korean war, the Vietnam war, the Persian Gulf War, the Afghanistan war, the Iraq war
– with the later two still being hot.
And these are just a few of the wars that our nation has been engaged in!
At any given time there are dozens of significant wars and conflicts going on all over the world. War happens. It has, it does, it will.
This doesn’t mean we can’t oppose it.
Because indeed….
Peace will happen as well.

There are some certain thoughts I would like to leave you with this morning as we move through these uncertain times…
Some of our greatest moments in history have been preceded by times of great uncertainty.

When you feel the desire to control the environment around you, check your own anxiety levels.
Rather than living in the moment as life lifts you up in wonder, you may simply be “chasing the needles”.

When horrific things happen to us, we are challenged during such times not to allow what has happened to us to define us.

No guarantees come with life, nor do answers, quick fixes, or even readily apparent cosmic reasoning.
Life itself is a risk, and Life, itself, is a fatal condition. For each one of us.
Or, as Jim Morrison said, “No One Here Gets Out Alive”.
And here…. LIFE… this is where Things happen.

Do not let uncertain times make us uncertain people. In uncertain times, seek certainty within, however you may define or experience that.

Understand the qualities that DO define you, the things that you love, and the things in your life that cause you to say within “Yes.”
Or…. perhaps… taking a cue from “When Harry Met Sally”… “Yes. Yes…. Yes! Yes!! Yes!!! Yes!!!!!” Life energy. Positive energy.

Oh… yes… and…. Be not afraid.

Better Together

Administrator — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 20:23:42 +0000

ASSOCIATION SUNDAY – October 2, 2011
Rev. Mike Quayle

Today Unitarian Universalists gather in churches, meeting houses, and some in rented spaces. Some of the buildings are sprawling Gothic Cathedral-like structures. Others are white clapboard churches. Some are modern buildings which look more like spaceships than churches. Others are traditional church buildings “recycled” from churches which have closed and still retain symbols like stained glass windows of the Last Supper or Jesus rising from the tomb. Some meet in public school buildings. Others in a college auditorium. I recently read about one UU congregation that uses a local funeral chapel to gather. Then there are our friends in Lexington who meet in the courthouse. And of, course, I know of one congregation that meets in an old schoolhouse!

Some have no more than ten people gathering. Others have hundreds in attendance. Still other UU’s have no congregation near them so they are part of the Church of the Larger Fellowship; a sort of virtual church that relies on internet access and large gatherings throughout the year.

All are Unitarian Universalists gathering together to live out our commitment to each other and to the world.

We gather to be inspired. We gather to challenge each other and our world. We gather to speak words of comfort to each other. At times, we bicker with each other. We debate and we argue. We struggle to find answers to life’s most challenging questions.

While we don’t all agree on worship style, on words, on beliefs, and what is the most important task we face, we all agree there is value in gathering together. WE ARE BETTER TOGETHER THAN WE ARE ALONE.

I like something George Bernard Shaw once said. Listen to his words:

“Independence…..middle class blasphemy ! We are all dependent

on one another, every soul of us on earth.”
Today is Association Sunday. We celebrate what it means to be Unitarian Universalists together. This year’s focus is on “Excellence in Ministry.” Ministry is a word that is difficult for some of us. When we hear the word ministry, we tend to think of a person rather than an action. If you hear nothing else today, I hope you will hear this:
Ministry is not a noun. It is not a person, place, or thing ! Ministry is a VERB. It means action and requires that we DO SOMETHING.

As I prepare for a professional ministry in the Unitarian Universalist Church, I have been interested to hear the differing views on what ministry means to different people. When I tell some that I am working towards ordination in the UU, they are often surprised that we have ministers, let alone that we ordain them. Some are very uncomfortable if not downright suspicious about ministers. Perhaps it is a bad experience with a minister in their past. Perhaps it is a deep distrust of organized religion or an institution.
Yet we in the Unitarian Universalist tradition DO have professional ministers. Actually, for most of our long history of 400+ years…. that was the NORM. UU is a movement that has been led by ministers and found much of its strength and stability in keeping ministers around.

But, I want to be VERY CLEAR this morning.

I am not here to give a message to prop up professional ministry or to say that churches cannot flourish without a minister.

I would never, never want HUU to believe for a moment that the point where we reach a new plateau of success is if and when we decide to call a minister. I have the unique position of being able to speak to you today as one who went to seminary and trained for the ministry. I spent twenty years as a minister. But, I can also speak to you today as one who has had some significant time sitting in the place where you sit today as a member of a congregation.

Very early after my arrival at HUU I remember saying to Bernie Mathes that I would have given anything to have served a congregation with the level of commitment that I find here at HUU.

HUU has something very good happening. It is something of which you ought to be very proud. You have a committed core of people who had a vision, nurtured that vision, stuck it out through thick and thin, and without them, HUU could not exist. I cannot predict what is ahead for HUU. The day may come when the church will be in a position to call a minister. It may be something HUU decides not to do even if it were possible.

We are experiencing remarkable growth and what seems to be a new vitality. There are pains that come with growth. There are fears that we will change too much. Each of us needs to be honest about those fears and challenges. But, we also cannot let fear and challenges define who we are. We are not our fears. We are not our challenges. And, when we choose to look at the word MINISTRY in only one way, we greatly limit who we are and what we can become. Ministry is not about calling a person to come and serve this congregation or any other congregation.

MINISTRY IS ABOUT YOU…. THE MEMBERS OF HUU.

Ministry is about HOW we live out our particular passions and callings. Ministry is not about growing to the point where we can hire someone to DO it for us.
Rather… ministry is about discovering where we feel we are called to give our time, our talents, and our gifts. A sure sign of impending death for a congregation is to believe we hire someone to do ministry for us. Let’s never go to that place.

You as the members of HUU are a wonderfully gifted and beloved community. You are more competent that you think you are. You have SO MUCH to offer this community. This community needs you. It needs your voice.

My belief about ministry is this; It is the belief I will carry with me when the time comes for me to move to a congregation and accept the call to serve as their minister.
The purpose of a minister is to make it easier for you to do YOUR WORK. My task as a minister will be to help others find their gifts and how to best use them. My work as a minister is to nurture you……the real ministers…. so you can do the work that needs to be done. I believe there is a place for professional ministry. But professional ministry is a broad term. It includes a congregational minister; but it also includes leadership for religious education. It includes music ministry. It includes the ministry of being a parish administrator. It includes serving in groups that strengthen the work we do together. It includes washing the dishes and mopping the floors. It includes caring for the children and creating a safe place where they feel nurtured. It includes overseeing the church web site, preparing the bulletin, and writing the checks to keep the lights on. Ministry is mowing the grass and pulling the weeds.

Don’t let negative associations about what some have done badly in the name of ministry sour you to the possibilities of doing ministry well and honoring the varied callings and gifts that exist within a congregation.

Many folks talk a lot about “being saved.” I do believe we need to be saved…. but not in the sense that the TV evangelist speaks about being saved. Being saved is not about some reward we receive after death because we believed the right doctrines, recited the correct creed, or worshipped the true God.
Being saved is about how we live. Being saved is what happens when we speak out against violence in our society. Being saved is talking and talking about the need to treat our world and environment in a way that is sustainable.

Being saved is about finding YOUR PASSION……not criticizing the passion of others. Being saved is finding what sets your spirit and heart on fire andmoves you to action. And THAT IS MINISTRY…….pure and simple.

So today….. we join with thousands of fellow UU’s in celebrating “Excellence in Ministry.”

I want to close with a quote by Margaret Meade….it is one that you have heard often……but I want us to really hear it again today………..chew on it a bit……
She said,

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change
the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Now really think about that statement……..Think of any positive and good changes that have come to our world……When I allowed myself to really think about her words…… I was hard pressed to think of any meaningful and history altering change that was not brought about by a small, thoughtful, committed group of people.
THAT is EXCELLENCE IN MINISTRY.
We have good days ahead of us here at HUU if we focus on that goal……EXCELLENCE IN MINISTRY…… You are a small group………you are a thoughtful group…..you are a committed group………so let’s change the world………TOGETHER. Because, that’s the only way the world will change !!! SO MAY IT BE. AMEN.

Broken Promises

Administrator — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 19:40:58 +0000

Rev. Mike Quayle
Labor Day 2011

Today we pause to reflect on the meaning of Labor Day. For many of us the arrival of Labor Day marks the end of summer, schools have resumed, vacations have been taken and the church schedule returns to a predictable rhythm.

In many places, politicians emerge during Labor Day celebrations and rally their supporters with stirring speeches and great promises of what the party will accomplish in the coming year. Those seeking office use this day as a platform to rally support and gather votes.

Families gather; picnics are held; and we all hope for a final weekend of good weather.

The first Labor Day was observed in 1878 in Boston. It became a federal holiday in 1894 following the deaths of a number of worker’s at the hands of the US Military and US Marshals during the Pullman Strike. Within six days of the end of the strike and fearing more protests, congress rushed through legislation mandating a federal holiday in hopes of avoiding more violence.

For most who gather this weekend, there will be little thought about the origins of the day or reflection on the meaning of work.

I don’t know about you, but I grew up in a time and place where there was an unspoken agreement between the employer and the worker. I still recall the days when the Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company dominated the lives of my father and my uncles. Generations of Quayle’s had worked in the Iron Mines. Some had died when conditions were so unsafe that cave-ins were frequent.

Our neighborhoods were named by the mine. The mine owned all of the land and to this day homeowners hold 100 year leases on the land for the sum of $1.00.

I remember going to the company store. I can also recall when pay for the miners was in the form of “credits” at the company store with cash making up only a part of the pay.

Then the unions came in. The United Mine Workers promised that if the miners organized, they would find the good life, higher pay, freedom from intolerable work conditions and a better future for their children.

Strikes were a frequent event. Whenever the contract were about to expire, the union would present a list of demands and the Iron Company would counter. Some of the strikes went for several months and meals got very simple. When a new contract was signed, there were parties and picnics.

But, underlying all of that was a basic belief that, in the end, an agreement WOULD be reached and life would go on. We believed in the Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company and we thought they believed in us and would always be there to take care of us. Most young men who graduated from my high school had their future set. They would work in the mine as had their fathers and grandfathers. It was our way of life.

Then the bottom fell out in the mid 80’s. The mines had stripped the supplies of iron ore and slowly, mines began to close. There were massive lay-offs. Downsizing became a familiar word. The rug was literally pulled out and life was changing in ways that could not have been imagined a generation before. Sure it had happened to the copper mines before us…. but we never believed it would happen to us. There would always be iron ore and there would always be jobs in the mines.

During my childhood, the Iron Mines of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan employed some 40,000 workers. Today, they employ 4,000.

Whatever we may have believed a few decades ago about employment, we know the game had changed and all bets are off.

Few of us expect to hold the same job for our entire working career. Companies lay people off with no warning and no cause except decisions made behind closed doors in some other place. Companies can and do reduce salaries, eliminate benefits, and make no promise of a secure retirement.

In the same way, workers fully expect their jobs to be eliminated. We may not say it, but there is a feeling of vulnerability which chips away at morale and motivation.
Some of us have been seeking full time work for a good while. Employers solicit resumes and then don’t bother to acknowledge they have received them.

In reality, we are dealing with a crisis. It is a moral crisis; an ethical crisis; an economic crisis; and I believe in many ways, a spiritual crisis. When I say spiritual I am speaking of the human spirit; which is chipped away and diminished as people feel less valued and less “human” in an increasingly challenging marketplace.

The deeper crisis is the blame game we play. On the one had we flock to the major discounter in town with their yellow smiley faces and demand that they give us the lowest possible price. Then we complain about jobs being sent overseas.

We blame the immigrants who come in and “take” our jobs…. jobs which pay well below a living wage or minimum wage… most likely jobs none of us would even want.

So what do we do ? What can we, as people who talk about justice, human dignity, and the inherent worth of every person….. what can we do ? We are challenged to hold our leaders and those who hold the cards to a higher standard.

We are called to speak of a just world in the face of injustice. We are called to tell our state and national legislature that the current situation is unacceptable.

Many of us are gifted with minds and voices that can ask the hard questions about our current economic system and the direction we are moving as a nation and culture.

The voices of Unitarian Universalists have always been willing to speak in the face of oppression and injustice and we need to speak as a united voice.

We are not just speaking about jobs and job security. We need to reframe the conversation to talk about what it means to be a just society. About doing the right thing. We need to help our politicians connect the dots and deal with the reality that poverty, hunger, crime, immigration, job outsourcing, and a sense of moral aimlessness are issues DIRECTLY IMPACTED by the economic system we have created.

Finally, we need to be truth-tellers. In the old biblical image…..it is called being the voice of a prophet. We need to tell the truth that our economy and our whole economic system is beyond propping up. We have created with our own hands a system that rewards greed and dishonesty and encourages economic violence on those who are most vulnerable.

There are those who would say the task is too big…. it is just not possible.

History does not support that kind of resignation in the face of injustice and tyranny.

I am reminded of those throughout human history who have brought corrupt power to its knees not with violence, but with truth.
Our voices matter.

As one who has been engaged in full-time job hunting, there are some lessons I have been learning. I say “Have been learning,” because on my better days I am able to remember these lessons; other days, I have to remind myself of these lessons sometimes several times daily.

First, I am not my job. We tend to equate our sense of self-worth with what we do. Think about it. we meet a new person and the first questions we are likely to ask is, “So, what do you do ?” We ask that as though what a person does to earn a living represents who that person truly is. We are more than our work. So much more.

Second, All sacred writings from all religious traditions remind us of one fundamental truth: more money and more things will not make us happy people. Happiness comes from within us, and not from exterior circumstances. Sure, When folks say, “money doesn’t buy happiness,” I am tempted to think, “Well, just let me give it a try and see for myself !” But, deep inside I know it takes more than money and stuff to be happy.

I have found the exact opposite can be true. More money and more things can make us less happy. Why ? There is always the nagging fear that things might be taken from us; the money may run out. If our happiness is dependent on money and things, it can change overnight. As a result we have all heard the stories of those who losing everything in an economic crash take their own lives. They do this because they either feel like they have failed as a person or that life is too unbearable without money and things. Life is so much more.

Third, we need to let go of the belief that every generation must have more than the last. I heard it growing up and maybe you did too; “I want you to have more than your mother and I had… I want you to be better off than we were.” The truth is that that idea is simply unsustainable. Unless we believe that the day will come when every American will be a billionaire, it is just not possible for every generation to be better off than the last. Living under that illusion creates a sense of failure and we live constantly chasing unrealistic expectations and placing painfully unrealistic demands on ourselves.

Fourth, I have learned to live on less. I used to think a budget was a good idea for some people. I contemplated giving it a try someday ! someday has come. I have had to learn to live differently and live within a budget. I had had to say no to things I once took for granted. But, living on less can also restore us to some sense of sanity. It can give us mental break and we learn to live with what we need and not always live based on what we want.

Fifth, we have to avoid the temptation to go after quick fixes as a society to our economic woes. There are no quick fixes. The fix to our economic woes will be slow, painful, and will require us to think in different and creative ways.

I am especially concerned with quick fixes such as improving our energy resources through practices like fracking. It may provide a temporary solution. But as in off shore drilling the unanticipated consequences of a system failure can cause more harm than good. As our climate continues to change because of our poor stewardship of this planet, we need to think long and hard about the long term consequences of new technology and the ultimate price we might have to pay if the technology goes bad. Our planet is ever more fragile and we simply cannot afford to make any more mistakes.

Finally, we must begin to live in ways that honor and acknowledge our connectedness. We are part of that interdependent web. When we ignore that truth we do so to our own peril.
As our congregation undertakes over the next several months a focus on Karen Armstrong’s book, “Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life,” we will be challenged and called to examine how what we do affects the lives of others. We will be asked to look within and discover together what it means to truly live as a connected people and to allow compassion and our better selves to emerge and to treat each other with true compassion and justice.

The current system will not survive. What will replace that system is a question of serious moral and ethical consequences. Something WILL replace the current and unsustainable system we have created. What that will be remains to be seen.

May we have the passion to speak, the will to act, the wisdom to act wisely, and the compassion to uphold those who are suffering and hurting.
So may it be. Amen.

Word Police?

Chris Edwards — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 17:22:27 +0000

We are disappointed to find the following edict in a UUA pamphlet that is available on a table in our sanctuary, headed “10 Things Your Congregation Can Do To Become More Welcoming”:

“Avoid using words which are necessarily gender specific. Use the word ‘children’ instead of ‘boys and girls’ and ‘people’ instead of ‘women and men.’” (It’s Item No. 8 in an updated version of the pamphlet; an earlier version is on the UUA website.)

We live in a time when misguided, however well-meaning, people try to wipe out prejudice by sterilizing the language. Do they expect to prevent sexism or homophobia by stamping out awareness of sex or gender? Once that step has been taken, will someone next perceive speciesism in the use of “people” and demand we say “creatures” instead? Must “creatures” then be replaced by “life-forms;” next, by “things”?

Will any of these measures add the tiniest spark of kindness to the world?

In George Orwell’s famous essay, “Politics and the English Language,” he laments a trend for prose to move “away from concreteness.” He writes that “Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. . .The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.” Citing vagueness as a tactic in propaganda and exploitation, he makes the case for “language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought.”

Orwell might turn over in his grave.

But at least we are not being stopped at the door and given instructions not to say “women,” “men,” “boys,” “girls,” etc. Not yet. How “welcoming” would that be?

Chris Edwards and Robin McNallie

Choral Reading for Pride Sunday

Administrator — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:51:44 +0000

Choral Reading
By Rev. Mike Quayle
PRIDE Sunday

Starting quietly, stirring deep in the
hearts of those oppressed;
Growing louder, catching fire;
spreading throughout the land;
The arc of the universe bends
toward justice.

1969

The Stonewall riots transform the gay
rights movement. Patrons at the
Stonewall Inn fight back during a
police raid, sparking three days of
riots and giving birth to a movement.

Starting quietly, stirring deep in the
hearts of those oppressed;
Growing louder, catching fire;
spreading throughout the land;
The arc of the universe bends
toward justice.

1973

The American Psychiatric Association
removes homosexuality from its
official list of mental disorders.

Starting Quietly, stirring deep in the
hearts of those oppressed;
Growing louder, catching fire;
spreading throughout the land;
The arc of the universe bends
toward justice.

1978

Harvey Milk is assassinated in
San Francisco, California due to
his support for GLBT persons and
his advocacy for other minorities.

Starting quietly, stirring deep in the
hearts of those oppressed;
growing louder, catching fire;
spreading throughout the land;
The arc of the universe bends
toward justice.

1982

Wisconsin becomes the first state
to outlaw discrimination based
on sexual orientation.

Starting quietly, stirring deep in the
hearts of those oppressed;
growing louder, catching fire;
spreading throughout the land;
The arc of the universe bends
toward justice.

1988

Rebecca Wright and her partner,
Claudia Brenner, were shot
while camping along the Appalachian
Trail. The shooter was enraged
because of their perceived
lesbianism.

Starting quietly, stirring deep in the
hearts of those oppressed;
Growing louder, catching fire;
spreading throughout the land;
The arc of the universe bends
toward justice.

1993

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” becomes the
official policy of the US military
leading to the discharge of
thousands of men and women
serving proudly.

Starting quietly, stirring deep in the
Hearts of the oppressed;
Growing louder, catching fire;
spreading throughout the land;
The arc of the universe bends
toward justice.

1995

Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill, a lesbian
couple in Oregon, were murdered by a
man who said, “he had no compassion
for bisexual or homosexual people.”

Starting quietly, stirring deep in the
hearts of those oppressed;
growing louder, catching fire;
spreading throughout the land.
The arc of the universe bends
toward justice.

1998

Matthew Sephard, a gay student, was
tortured, beaten, tied to a fence, and
abandoned. He hung there for 18 hours
before being found and died less than a
week later.

Starting quietly, stirring deep in the
hearts of those oppressed;
growing louder, catching fire;
spreading throughout the land;
The arc of the universe bends
toward justice.

1999

U.S. Army Pfc. Barry Winchell, was
murdered after rumors spread on
base in Ft. Campbell Kentucky over
his relationship with transgendered
Calpernia Addams.

Starting quietly, stirring deep in the
hearts of those oppressed;
growing louder, catching fire;
spreading throughout the land;
The arc of the universe bends
toward justice.

2000

Vermont becomes the first state
to legalize civil unions.
Ronald Gay enters a bar in Roanoke
and opens fire on patrons. He claimed he
had been told by God to find and kill
lesbians and gay men.

Starting quietly, stirring deep in the
hearts of those oppressed;
growing louder, catching fire;
The arc of the uinverse bends
toward justice.

2003

Nireah Johnson and Brandie Coleman
were shot to death after Paul Moore
found out that Nireah was transgender. He
then burned the bodies of the victims.

2004

Same-sex marriage becomes legal in
Massachusetts

2005

Civil unions become legal in Connecticut
and, in 2006, unions become legal in
New Jersey.

Starting quietly, stirring deep in the
hearts of those oppressed;
growing louder, catching fire;
The arc of the universe bends
toward justice.

2007

Andrew Anthos, a 72 year old, disabled gay
man, was beaten to death with a lead pipe
by a man shouting anti-gay slurs.

The US House of Representatives
approves a bill ensuring equal rights for
gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals.

2008

In May, the California Supreme Court
rules that same-sex couples have the right
to marry, in November, voters pass a
ban that overturned the court’s ruling.
In October, the Supreme Court of
Connecticut rules that same-sex
couples have the right ot marry.
Two persons were killed and several
injured when during the worship service
of Tennesseee Valley Unitarian Universalist
Church, a man began shooting and later
said he disliked the congregations support
of gays and liberal causes.

Starting quietly, stirring deep in the
hearts of those oppressed;
growing louder, catching fire;
The arc of the universe bends
toward justice.

2009

Iowa approves same- sex marriages.
Vermont approves same-sex marriages.
New Hampshire approves same-sex
marriages.
Seaman August Provost was shot and his
body burned at his guard post on
Camp Pendleton. Military leaders
concluded that the “Don’t ask-Don’t Tell” policy
prevented Provost from seeking help and
protection.
President Obama posthumously awards
Harvey Milk the Presidential Medal of
Honor.

Starting quietly, stirring deep in the
hearts of those oppressed;
growing louder, catching fire;
The arc of the universe bends
toward justice.

2010

The U.S. Congress approves a law that
allows same-sex marriage in the District of
Columbia.
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker rules
that California’s ban on same-sex marriage
is unconstitutional and violates the 14th
Amendment of the Constitution.

STARTING QUIETLY, STIRRING DEEP IN THE
HEARTS OF THOSE OPPRESSED;
GROWING LOUDER, CATCHING FIRE;
THE ARC OF THE UNIVERSE BENDS
TOWARD JUSTICE.

2011

The State of New York passes a law
that allows same-sex couples to marry.
New York is the largest state to pass such
a law.

Friday July 22,
US president Obama signs
Into law the official end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
Allowing men and women to serve
Openly in the US Military.

Unitarian Universalists from all over
gather in Charlotte, North Carolina to
rally for GLBT equal rights and to “Stand on
The Side of Love.”

Harrisonburg Unitarian Universalists
Gather today for the 5^th annual “Pride in the
Park Celebration.

STARTING QUIETLY, STIRRING DEEP IN THE
HEARTS OF THOSE OPPRESSED;
GROWING LOUDER, CATCHING FIRE;
THE ARC OF THE UNIVERSE BENDS
TOWARD JUSTICE.

Becoming Obsolete

Administrator — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 23:47:53 +0000

July 24, 2011

Mike Quayle

There are those who ask, “Why do we need to keep on talking about GLBT rights ? Is this really something we need to talk about in a church or congregational setting.” Then there are those who are just tired of hearing about it. Some wish we would just move on and talk about something else. It is my greatest hope that the day will come when we can stop talking about this.

The goal of any great movement; women’s rights, reproductive rights, the right to die, racial equality, the green movement, the peace movement, and the right to love whomever one chooses to love, ought to have as the final goal, becoming obsolete. The sure sign of the success of ANY movement is when the movement is no longer needed. When speaking about the goals or beliefs of the movement becomes redundant. This morning, in our choral reading called, “The Arc of the Universe Bends Toward Justice,” we retraced the steps of the GLBT movement. Of course, the movement is much older that the reading would indicate; There were countless others who stood for this movement. Thousands of others who gave their careers, resources, and even their lives. Thousands of others who were murdered or tortured for the cause….

But, in the brief summary we heard today of this movement, we realize that we are standing on the shoulders of those who went before us. We realize that any progress we have made, any rights we have gained, have been passed to us as a gift from those who stood strong in the face of insurmountable odds

Many of the worlds religious movements have at their core the ideal of self-sacrifice for one’s beliefs. Before Christianity became entrenched in doctrinal and theological debates over the meaning of the atonement and the death of Christ on a cross, we had a simple truth. The world does not like to be challenged. Society does not like to be questioned about assumed values. The status quo enjoys the power of being in charge.

When a person or a group questions the norms, speaks the truth that there may be a different way of believing, they are often punished and sacrificed for having the audacity to challenge what theologian Walter Wink calls, “The Power That Be.” As a result, those who spoke a different truth have been sacrificed on any number of crosses throughout world history. History bears testimony to individuals and entire populations that have been silenced for the sake of maintaining the status quo. It is a bloody history.

Why do we need to keep talking ? Why do we need to have a PRIDE day each year ? Why has HUU completed the process for becoming a Welcoming Congregation ? Why do we still need to wear the rainbow ribbons and bother to have a rally at the annual gathering of Unitarian Universalists in Charlotte, NC ? Because the work is not yet done. Our society is not yet one that affirms the right of all persons to love whomever they choose to love. Society in many states still criminalizes the lives of millions of GLBT persons. Many states, Virginia being one of these, still do not recognize acts against GLBT persons as a protected class. Same-sex couples who have lived together as long if not longer than many heterosexual couples still do not enjoy the financial and legal protections that would give evidence of a just society. They are not entitled to survivors benefits, health insurance, and in many cases, will be excluded if their partner becomes critically ill from even being allowed to visit let alone carry out the clearly stated wishes of their life-partner.

This is why we still talk about these rights, why we still write letters, make calls, join in rallies, and at times, protest. We will need to keep doing these things until the day comes when persons can walk down the street and hold hands with whomever they love. When all persons are considered as adoptive parents not based on their gender, but on their ability to love a child. When it is possible to place a photo of whomever you love on your desk at work and not be afraid. When kids in schools are no longer called fag or queer. When teens can take whomever they wish to the prom. When the newspapers are willing to publish engagement and marriage announcements based on love, not gender. When two persons, no matter their gender or gender identity, can care for those they love with health and life insurance through their employer and when social security benefits pass to the person you have loved for decades. And maybe, just maybe, the person elected to hold the highest office in this land can have a first lady, or first man even if they share the same gender or gender identity. Imagine that !

We have a lot to do yet before we become obsolete as a movement. But, at the same time we cannot ignore what has happened. Marriage is now legal in several states and partners are afforded the same rights. Don’t ask, Don’t tell is gone. We have “log cabin Republicans.” In many communities, elected public officials are open and out. As of this date, with the Unitarian Universalists leading the way nearly 40 years ago, churches, including The Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church, United Church of Christ, and most recently, The Presbyterian Church USA now ordain openly gay clergy. 40 years ago, when the Unitarian Universalists took this step, who could have imagined ? I stand here today, on the one hand a victim of hateful church teachings and doctrine; and on the other hand, as the grateful beneficiary of those who fought for my right to stand in the pulpit of a church before I was even old enough to understand who I was or that it was OK to love whomever I chose to love.

So we will gather today in the park… for the 5^th year in a row now. We will cast a vision of what might be, what could be, if we don’t lose heart and surrender to fear. And finally, we join together to help bring that day when we are no longer needed. When the message is redundant and obsolete and when the right to love anyone is assumed and cherished. Is that an impossible dream ? Tell Harvey Milk… Tell Mat Shepard… Tell the folks who have now been legally married when before they couldn’t… Tell those who have formed families of many varieties and shapes through adoption… Tell those who bravely defended our country, who endured don’t ask, don’t tell… Tell the queens who were at the Stonewall Inn who took to the streets in leather and heels… Tell those who now hold elected offices…Tell ministers who now stand behind the pulpits of major denominations… Tell all of these that change is not possible; That their work and the price they paid was in vain; That society will never change; Tell them, and you will hear a resounding chorus of joyful voices who believed the fight was worth the effort and the cost was worth the goal and who freely gave of their resources and even their lives to pave the way to where we are today…. Tell them things will never change. They will tell you to look around. Look all around you.

May the day come when we are obsolete and redundant. But, until that day…. May we keep talking, keep working, Keep moving forward. The Arc of the universe is bent toward justice. But it is our work, our hands, our voices, that bring justice to pass and hand down to generations yet born the blessings of liberty and self-determination which we received at great price.

So May It Be.

Unbroken Spirit of Mine: Inspiration from Musicians

Administrator — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 14:44:22 +0000

Laura Dent
July 10, 2011

Dawn of Light

When I was 16 – like many young people in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s – I was questioning the religion I grew up with. I was yearning for something more profound, more expansive, more universal.

Just at that moment, when I was the most impressionable, my brother played for me this album: Tales from Topographic Oceans by Yes.

When I saw from the liner notes that the music was inspired by ancient Hindu scriptures, I glimpsed the vast possibilities of many spiritual paths. That awakening launched me on a journey of spiritual exploration that I have continued to this day.

The opening chant I’ll play for you introduces the four movements of the piece – the four sides (remember “sides”?) corresponding to the four Hindu scriptures you heard in the readings.

[opening album and holding it up:] I’ve spent many hours gazing at this, and it’s amazing to see it again now.

Oh, and to let you know, I get so into this music that I can’t help singing along. Feel free to observe, to close your eyes and have your own meditative experience, or to follow along with the lyrics in the program. I encourage you to enjoy the music in your own way.

[PLAY “Dawn of Light ...” "The Revealing Science of God: Dance of the Dawn" - 1st movement ("side") of Tales from Topographic Oceans, 1974: Part One and Part Two]

To give you a sense of how important this music is to me: when Noel and I got married a little over three years ago, that opening chant to Tales from Topographic Oceans is what I chose to play as my brother walked me down the aisle – the green felt runway in the woods – in the rain.

As I was listening to this album the first time when I was 16, I was reading this introduction, from Jon Anderson, the singer and spirit of Yes:

1st movement: Shrutis. The Revealing Science of God can be seen as an ever-opening flower in which simple truths emerge examining the complexities and magic of the past and how we should not forget the song that has been left to us to hear. The knowledge of God is a search, constant and clear.

Now, many years later, I find that these words express my personal creed:

“The knowledge of God is a search, constant and clear.”

For me, this means:

Direct experience of the divine – God, or Spirit, or the universal – is an ongoing exploration. And when Spirit speaks to me, that voice is clear: the still, small voice.

Sometimes I have to be very quiet to hear the voice of Spirit. And through this music – I learned to listen for that voice.

The Ancient

When I listened to Tales from Topographic Oceans again to prepare for this talk, the line that jumped out at me was:

“Attuned to the majesty of music, they marched as one with the earth.”

That’s from the third movement, “The Ancient: Giants Under the Sun.”

In Music and the Mind, Anthony Storr writes:

“No culture so far discovered lacks music. Making music appears to be one of the fundamental activities of [hu]mankind.” There is even speculation that singing preceded speech.

Any time we sing we are bringing joy to ourselves. Any kind of melodic expression is almost by definition spiritual, and spiritually uplifting in some form.

The Sacred Sound

My husband Noel asked me recently, “If you hadn’t found Yes, then what?”

I responded, “If it hadn’t been Yes, it would have been something else. I was already questioning. And, Eastern spirituality was already prevalent in the counterculture, and in the music of the time.”

For instance, I heard this, from the Moody Blues. Here I invite you to go into a meditative space, even to sing along to feel the vibration.

[play “OM” The Moody Blues - "The Word" (spoken poem) + "OM" from In Search of the Lost Chord, 1968: ]

The ancient sacred sound of OM [pronounced “AUM”] resonates deeply in the body. In the yogic tradition, the vibrations of the sounds travel up the spine and stimulate each of the chakras, the energy centers of the body.

The deep sound “AAAH” starts in the first chakra that roots you to the earth, setting a strong foundation. The sound travels up (AAH, OH, OOOO) through the navel, the solar plexus, the heart chakra, the throat, the third eye, then to “mmmm” as a high vibration in the crown chakra that connects you to the cosmos.

“To be in tune with OM is to be in tune with All.”

The Chord

The “OM” song is from the Moody Blues album In Search of the Lost Chord.

The piano piece I played at the offertory is an improvisation on a chord I’ve been playing since my sophomore year in college, a very difficult time in my life.

One day after playing the piano in the studio, I came running back to my dorm room and announced to my roommate:

“I just found the chord that says everything there is to know about me.”

She replied, in all seriousness, “You’re lucky to have found it so young.”

That’s how I feel about Yes music: I’m lucky to have found it so young.

Spending My Life

Another powerful musical inspiration for me was when Noel and I got together, seven years ago now. One evening I was in the kitchen cooking dinner and he was in the living room playing the piano. As I listened to him playing, I felt deep within me the certainty: “I could easily spend my life with this man.”

A couple of weeks later, same scene: I’m in the kitchen, he’s in the living room playing the piano. It dawned on me: “I am spending my life with this man.”

I’m sure you can understand, since you’ve heard Noel playing many times, including this morning – how beautifully he plays, expressing the beauty within him.

The Finger Pointing at the Moon

The musicians I admire have the humility to acknowledge that their inspiration comes from a source beyond themselves, or perhaps deep within themselves. After all, they are human – and they work with the very deeply-rooted human endeavor of making music, and expressing themselves through the poetry of the lyrics.

Joni Mitchell said, “It’s very hard, peeling the layers off your own onion.”

The Moody Blues said later, “I’m just a singer in a rock & roll band.” Perhaps they were tired of people looking to them to be “gods.” But what did they expect, with that “OM” song?!

Like the Zen saying, “The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.”

I realize that my experience of Yes, and of other musicians, is like the finger pointing at the moon. They’re saying, “Don’t look at me, look where I’m looking.” I receive from them, through their music, the inspiration for my own spiritual growth, my own experience of the moon. (Wow.)

Unbroken Spirit

Many decades later, I’m still in touch with my original musical inspiration.

Just two months ago, I saw Jon Anderson, now the former singer of Yes, in a solo concert. I was thrilled to discover that I still love Jon! (And I mean that in the most spiritual way, of course.)

It was a joy to sing along with Jon to the opening chant to Tales from Topographic Oceans, as you heard earlier. Afterwards he said to the audience, “That’s a LOT of words!!”

Jon had a respiratory illness from which he nearly died – twice. He told a story of being rushed to the hospital – and somebody in the ambulance asking for his autograph!!

Jon was ousted from Yes – his own band – who wanted to keep touring when he was sick. So he had been through his share of challenges.

At that concert, Jon played this song, Unbroken Spirit. Again you can find the lyrics in your program.

[PLAY Unbroken Spirit]

That’s Jon, forty years later! His new album is called Survival and Other Stories.

There’s a new husky quality to his voice, after his illness and recovery, that underscores his message of optimism in the face of adversity.

La Grandezza dell’Anima

Recently I received a similar inspiring message from another beloved musician and dear friend, Aldo Tagliapietra, whom Noel and I visited in Italy last year.

A couple of months ago when our mutual friend in the music community, Rob, was undergoing heart surgery at 42, Aldo wrote to us one of the most beautiful statements of the purpose of spiritual growth I’ve ever heard:

(I’ll give you my English translation first, and then Aldo’s original Italian.)

“Life very often puts us through terrible and unfair trials, but our faith gives us hope that all this serves to increase the greatness of our soul, (and here the Italian is particularly beautiful: “aumentare la grandezza della nostra anima”) and the greater our soul becomes, the more we are prepared one day to be united with that All that pervades all and contains all.”

And here’s how Aldo wrote it:

“La vita molto spesso ci sottopone a delle prove terribili e ingiuste, ma la nostra fede ci fa sperare che tutto questo serva ad aumentare la grandezza della nostra anima e più grande diventa l’anima, più siamo preparati un giorno ad unirci a quel Tutto che tutto pervade e che tutto comprende.”

Aldo gives us a new possibility of the meaning of faith: Our faith can give us hope that through the trials of life, we can expand our soul to prepare ourselves to join with the ALL.

Wow. And the amazing thing to me is, that’s just Aldo being himself. He just tossed that off in an email! in support and compassion for his friends in need.

There’s a sense of divine wisdom flowing through him, and that he is a clear channel for that wisdom, after spending several decades developing his spirituality and expressing it in his music. Again, the finger pointing at the moon.

All Things Must Pass

When George Harrison, another enlightened being from the music world, was on his deathbed, his doctor said he had never seen anyone who was so unafraid of death. George knew: “All Things Must Pass.”

Still, as Aldo says, our faith gives us hope that somehow it’s all worthwhile.

Since we don’t know what happens when we die, what happens when we live?!

If all things must pass, what do we make of our lives, NOW?

Could it be that the purpose of our lives, of all the trials we endure, all the growth we achieve by peeling our own onion to find the core of love within, is to expand our souls so that we can glimpse the ALL, NOW, while we are still alive?

Well, these are the Big Questions. And the music takes me there.

The knowledge of God is a search, constant and clear.

Sempre una Luce

Now I’d like to play for you a song by Aldo Tagliapietra – “Come un vecchio indiano” – “Like an old Indian” – again the connection to Eastern spirituality.

You’ll find the lyrics and translation in your program. The song begins “Like an old Indian, I sit on the earth to listen to the breathing of the world”.

I meditated on that phrase this morning:

“ascoltare il respiro del mondo” –

“to listen to the breathing of the world” –

and got:

“I am breathing because the world breathes.”

Here are the words to the chorus:

Nell’oscurita esiste sempre una luce – In the darkness there is always a light

In ogni silenzio senti sempre una voce – In every silence you always hear a voice (again, that still, small voice)

Nelle parole, anche quelle piu’ amare – In words, even the most bitter

C’e` qualcosa che ricorda l’amore – There is something that reminds us of love

“In even the most bitter words, there is something that reminds us of love.”

In that play on words: “amare” (bitter) / “amore” (love) there’s a profound message: If we listen closely, with compassion for ourselves and others, to even the most bitter words, we can hear, behind them, the longing for love.

[PLAY “Come un vecchio indiano”]

Transformation

Here is my personal reflection as I was preparing this service – just some notes I jotted down that I then realized were a poem!

Not just unbroken spirit -

expanded spirit -

growth is its own imperative -

why does a flower grow?

why does a soul grow?

because that’s what souls do.

sometimes there’s a transformation required -

darkness into light -

bitterness into love -

and that transformation itself expands the soul.

… aumentare la grandezza dell’anima.

Blessed be.

Benediction:

“May you always find the light in the darkness – the voice in the silence – and the compassion to transform bitterness into the love that expands your soul – aumentare la grandezza dell’anima.”

Religion of the Founding Fathers

Administrator — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 01:04:39 +0000

by Beryl Lawson

July 3, 2011

The celebration of Independence Day brings forth many nostalgic ideas about our founding, the people who made it possible and questions as to how we are doing today. How well are we keeping to the ideals of those who started it all, what might we change of those ideals, do they need changing, and how can these ideals carry us through the difficult times ahead.

The current attack on our country from the “Religious right” comes in the form of a statement that they want this country to “return to the Christian principles on which it was founded.” However, a little research into American history will show that that statement is not true.”

The men responsible for the building the foundation of the United States had little use for Christianity . They were men of the Enlightenment. They were Deists who did not believe that the bible was true.

Most of the founders were deists, which is to say they thought the universe had a creator, but that he, she or it does not concern itself with the daily lives of humans and does not directly communicate with humans, either by revelation or sacred books

They spoke often of God (Nature’s god or the God of Nature as mentioned in the Declaration. But this was not the god of the bible. They often praised the benevolent teachings of a man called Jesus but flatly denied his divinity.

The Constitution has only two mentions of religion and both times in negative terms. First amendment, congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion … and no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

Jefferson-letter in 1802: “ I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the g=free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”

The founders were students of the European enlightenment. Episcopal minister Bird Wilson protested in Oct 1831” Among all our presidents from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism.” the attitude was one of enlightened reason, tolerance and free thought.

The Treaty of Tripoli of 1796, written during Washington’s administration and ratified in the term of John Adams states “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion, no pretext arising from religions opinions shall ever produce and interruption of the harmony existing between any Mahometan nation and the United States.”

Quotes

James Madison

“It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded against. by an entire abstinence of the Gov’t from inference in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect against. trespasses on its legal rights by others.” James Madison, “James Madison on Religious Liberty”,

“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.” -1803 letter objecting use of government. land for churches

John Adams

“The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.” “The question before the human race is, whether the God of Nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?” “God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there will never be any liberal science in the world.” “This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.” . .

Thomas Jefferson

“In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot … they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose.” – to Horatio Spafford, March 17, 1814 “Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.” – “Notes on Virginia” “Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. – letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787

“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose.” – to Baron von Humboldt, 1813 . “On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.” – to Carey, 1816

“The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man. But compare with these the demoralizing dogmas of Calvin. 1. That there are three Gods. 2. That good works, or the love of our neighbor, is nothing. 3. That faith is every thing, and the more incomprehensible the proposition, the more merit the faith. 4. That reason in religion is of unlawful use. 5. That God, from the beginning, elected certain individuals to be saved, and certain others to be damned; and that no crimes of the former can damn them; no virtues of the latter save.” – to Benjamin Waterhouse, Jun. 26, 1822 “I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.” “It has been fifty and sixty years since I read the Apocalypse, and then I considered it merely the ravings of a maniac.” “The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come, when the mystical generation [birth] of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation [birth] of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” – to John Adams, Apr. 11, 1823 . “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” . Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God,that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.” -letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT “The Complete Jefferson” by Saul K. Padover, pp 518-519

Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.

George Washington The father of this country was very private about his beliefs, but it is widely considered that he was a Deist like his colleagues. He was a freemason.

The Rev. Dr. Wilson, who was almost a contemporary of our earlier statesmen and presidents, and who thoroughly investigated the subject of their religious beliefs, in his sermon already mentioned affirmed that the founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected — George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson — not one had professed a belief in Christianity. From this sermon I quote the following: “When the war was over and the victory over our enemies won, and the blessings and happiness of liberty and peace were secured, the Constitution was framed and God was neglected. He was not merely forgotten. He was absolutely voted out of the Constitution. The proceedings, as published by Thompson, the secretary, and the history of the day, show that the question was gravely debated whether God should be in the Constitution or not, and, after a solemn debate he was deliberately voted out of it. … There is not only in the theory of our government no recognition of God’s laws and sovereignty, but its practical operation, its administration, has been conformable to its theory. Those who have been called to administer the government have not been men making any public profession of Christianity. … Washington was a man of valor and wisdom. He was esteemed by the whole world as a great and good man; but he was not a professing Christian.”

“When the Congress sat in Philadelphia, President Washington attended the Episcopal church. The rector, Dr. Abercrombie, told me that on the days when the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was to be administered, Washington’s custom was to rise just before the ceremony commenced, and walk out of church. This became a subject of remark in the congregation, as setting a bad example. At length the Doctor undertook to speak of it, with a direct allusion to the President. Washington was heard afterwards to remark that this was the first time a clergyman had thus preached to him, and he should henceforth neither trouble the Doctor nor his congregation on such occasions; and ever after that, upon communion days, he ‘absented himself altogether from the church.’

Franklin “I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue. The scriptures assure me that at the last day we shall not be examined on what we thought but what we did.” – letter to his father, 1738 “. . . Some books against Deism fell into my hands. . . It happened that they wrought an effect on my quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist.” . “The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.” -in Poor Richard’s Almanac “When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself so that its professors are obliged to call for the help of the civil power, ’tis a sign, I apprehend, of its “In the affairs of the world, men are saved, not by faith, but by the lack of it.”

Thomas Paine

John Adams said: Without the pen of Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain.

Quote from “Age of Reason” “I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy. But, lest it should be supposed that I believe in many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them. I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

Nothing that is here said can apply, even with the most distant disrespect, to the real character of Jesus Christ. He was a virtuous and an amiable man. The morality that he preached and practiced was of the most benevolent kind; and though similar systems of morality had been preached by Confucius, and by some of the Greek philosophers, many years before; by the Quakers since; and by many good men in all ages, it has not been exceeded by any. Jesus Christ wrote no account of himself, of his birth, parentage, or any thing else; not a line of what is called the New Testament is of his own writing. The history of him is altogether the work of other people; and as to the account given of his resurrection and ascension, it was the necessary counterpart to the story of his birth. His historians having brought him into the world in a supernatural manner, were obliged to take him out again in the same manner, or the first part of the story must have fallen to the ground.

If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens to put me in prison, another person can take the debt upon himself, and pay it for me; but if I have committed a crime, every circumstance of the case is changed; moral Justice cannot take the innocent for the guilty, even if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose Justice to do this, is to destroy the principle of its existence, which is the thing itself; it is then no longer Justice, it is indiscriminate revenge. This single reflection will show, that the doctrine of redemption is founded on a mere pecuniary idea corresponding to that of a debt which another person might pay; and as this pecuniary idea corresponds again with the system of second redemption, obtained through the means of money given to the Church for pardons, the probability is that the same persons fabricated both the one and the other of those theories; and that, in truth there is no such thing as redemption — that it is fabulous, and that man stands in the same relative condition with his Maker as he ever did stand since man existed, and that it is his greatest consolation to think so.

Let him believe this, and he will live more consistently and morally than by any other system; it is by his being taught to contemplate himself as an outlaw, as an outcast, as a beggar, as a mumper, as one thrown, as it were, on a dunghill at an immense distance from his Creator, and who must make his approaches by creeping and cringing to intermediate beings, that he conceives either a contemptuous disregard for everything under the name of religion, or becomes indifferent, or turns what he calls devout. In the latter case, he consumes his life in grief, or the affectation of it; his prayers are reproaches; his humility is ingratitude; he calls himself a worm, and the fertile earth a dunghill; and all the blessings of life by the thankless name of vanities; he despises the choicest gift of God to man, the GIFT OF REASON; and having endeavored to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls it human reason, as if man could give reason to himself. Yet, with all this strange appearance of humility and this contempt for human reason, he ventures into the boldest presumptions; he finds fault with everything; his selfishness is never satisfied; his ingratitude is never at an end. He takes on himself to direct the Almighty what to do, even in the government of the universe; he prays dictatorially; when it is sunshine, he prays for rain, and when it is rain, he prays for sunshine; he follows the same idea in everything that he prays for; for what is the amount of all his prayers but an attempt to make the Almighty change his mind, and act otherwise than he does? It is as if he were to say: Thou knowest not so well as I. But some, perhaps, will say: Are we to have no word of God — no revelation? I answer, Yes; there is a word of God; there is a revelation. THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD and it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man. Human language is local and changeable, and is therefore incapable of being used as the means of unchangeable and universal information. The idea that God sent Jesus Christ to publish, as they say, the glad tidings to all nations, from one end of the earth to the other, is consistent only with the ignorance of those who knew nothing of the extent of the world, and who believed, as those world-saviours believed, and continued to believe for several centuries (and that in contradiction to the discoveries of philosophers and the experience of navigators), that the earth was flat like a trencher, and that man might walk to the end of it. But how was Jesus Christ to make anything known to all nations? He could speak but one language which was Hebrew, and there are in the world several hundred languages. Scarcely any two nations speak the same language, or understand each other; and as to translations, every man who knows anything of languages knows that it is impossible to translate from one language to another, not only without losing a great part of the original, but frequently of mistaking the sense; and besides all this, the art of printing was wholly unknown at the time Christ lived. It is always necessary that the means that are to accomplish any end be equal to the accomplishment of that end, or the end cannot be accomplished. It is in this that the difference between finite and infinite power and wisdom discovers itself. Man frequently fails in accomplishing his ends, from a natural inability of the power to the purpose, and frequently from the want of wisdom to apply power properly. But it is impossible for infinite power and wisdom to fail as man faileth. The means it useth are always equal to the end; but human language, more especially as there is not an universal language, is incapable of being used as an universal means of unchangeable and uniform information, and therefore it is not the means that God useth in manifesting himself universally to man. It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh an universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they may be. It is an ever-existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God. Do we want to contemplate his power? We see it in the immensity of the Creation. Do we want to contemplate his wisdom? We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible whole is governed! Do we want to contemplate his munificence? We see it in the abundance with which he fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy? We see it in his not withholding that abundance even from the unthankful. In fine, do we want to know what God is? Search not the book called the Scripture, which any human hand might make, but the Scripture called the Creation. The only idea man can affix to the name of God is that of a first cause, the cause of all things. And incomprehensible and difficult as it is for a man to conceive what a first cause is, he arrives at the belief of it from the tenfold greater difficulty of disbelieving it. It is difficult beyond description to conceive that space can have no end; but it is more difficult to conceive an end. It is difficult beyond the power of man to conceive an eternal duration of what we call time; but it is more impossible to conceive a time when there shall be no time. In like manner of reasoning, everything we behold carries in itself the internal evidence that it did not make itself Every man is an evidence to himself that he did not make himself; neither could his father make himself, nor his grandfather, nor any of his race; neither could any tree, plant, or animal make itself; and it is the conviction arising from this evidence that carries us on, as it were, by necessity to the belief of a first cause eternally existing, of a nature totally different to any material existence we know of, and by the power of which all things exist; and this first cause man calls God. It is only by the exercise of reason that man can discover God. Take away that reason, and he would be incapable of understanding anything; and, in this case, it would be just as consistent to read even the book called the Bible to a horse as to a man. How, then, is it that those people pretend to reject reason?”

These men were Deists, held substantially the same theological opinions held by Paine. But, engrossed for the most part with other affairs, they found time to publish no “Age of Reason” to be a standing witness of their unbelief, and hence escaped the malicious shafts which the Author-Hero was doomed to receive

According to the church, every person has at some period in his life been forced to acknowledge the genuineness of her dogmas. The more conservative Freethinkers she would have us believe live devoted Christian lives, while into the dying lips of the more radical ones she puts a recantation. Thus with consummate coolness she informs us that Jefferson , Washington, and Franklin procured their entire religious wardrobe at the Orthodox clothing emporium, and that even Paine was obliged to order his shroud from this establishment. But these claims, unfounded as they are, must fall. These men were not believers. They were good and virtuous men, but not Christians. They were eminent and patriotic statesmen, but not “Christian statesmen.” They had unbounded faith in humanity, but reposed very little in “our particular superstition.” Morally and intellectually they were giants, and their large hearts and mighty brains yearned and grasped for something better, for a broader, holier faith than that professed by those around them. It would appear absurd for one to hold up the toys and garments of a child and say, “Behold the armor that Goliath wore!” and it is equally absurd for Christians to exhibit their dwarfish, senseless creeds and claim that these shrunken, threadbare robes were worn by the Fathers of our Republic.

To the realm of Freethought these characters belong. And they are not alone; they have illustrious company. Earth’s noblest sons and daughters — the brightest stars in the constellation of genius — those who have added most to the riches of science, and literature, and statesmanship, — Bruno, Spinoza, Galileo, and Descartes; Bacon and Newton; Humboldt and Darwin; Comte and Mill; Draper; Spencer, Tyndall, and Huxley; Haeckel and Helmholtz; Hume and Gibbon; Goethe and Schiller; Shakespeare, Pope, Byron, Burns, and Shelley; Rousseau, Voltaire, and Diderot; D’Alembert, Button, and Condorcet; Frederick and Bolingbroke; Volney; De Steel, Sand, Eliot, and Martineau; Strauss and Renan; Hugo. Carlyle, and Emerson; Lincoln and Sumner; Gambetta and Garibaldi; Bradlaugh and Castellar; our own loved Ingersoll — these were all disbelievers in the Orthodox faith — these have each borne the name of infidel, a word in which is concentrated all the hatred and scorn of Christendom. But these so-called Infidels have ever constituted the forlorn hope in the onward march of human progress, and this word, instead of a term of reproach, will become one of the grandest words in all the languages of men.

What can we, as UUs, do to stem the tide of belief that this is a Christian nation? I offer this as a question and a challenge for us to think about and act upon.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence did not pledge to God but rather to each other their ‘lives, fortune and sacred honor.’ Can we, in our own way and in our own time, in the cause and for the country we love and believe in, do any less?

One Journey, Many Flowers

Administrator — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:40:44 +0000

Flower Communion - June 2011.

INTRODUCTION TO FLOWER COMMUNION:

In the city of Prague, in the land of Czechoslovakia, in the year nineteen hundred and twenty three, there was a church. But the building did not look much like a church. It had no bells, no spires, no stained glass windows. It had no organ to make beautiful music. It didn’t even have a piano. It had no carvings of wood or statues of stone. It had no candles or chalices. It had no flowers.

The church did have some things. It had four walls and a ceiling and a floor. It had a door and a few windows. It had some wooden chairs. But that was all, plain and simple.

Except… the church also had people who came to it every Sunday. It had a minister, and his name was Norbert Capek (pronounced CHAH-peck). He had been the minister at the plain and simple church for two years. Every Sunday, Minister Capek went to church, and he spoke to the people while they listened, sitting quietly and still in those hard wooden chairs. When he was done speaking, the people talked a little bit among themselves, and then they went home. And that was all—no music, no candles, no food. Not even coffee or doughnuts.

Springtime came to the city of Prague and Norbert Capek went out for a stroll. The rains had come, the birds were singing, and flowers were blooming all over the land. The world was beautiful.

Then an idea came to him, simple and clear, plain as day. The next Sunday, he asked all the people in the church to bring a flower or a budding branch, or even a twig. Each person was to bring one.

“What kind?” they asked. “What color? What size?”

“You choose,” he said. “Each of you choose what you like.”

And so, on the next Sunday, which was the first day of summer, the people came with flowers of all different colors and sizes and kinds. There were yellow daisies and red roses. There were white lilies and blue asters, dark-eyed pansies and light green leaves. Pink and purple, orange and gold—there were all those colors and more. Flowers filled all the vases, and the church wasn’t so plain and simple anymore.

Minister Capek spoke to the people while they listened, sitting quiet and still in those hard wooden chairs. “These flowers are like ourselves,” he said. “Different colors and different shapes, and different sizes, each needing different kinds of care—but each beautiful, each important and special, in its own way.”

When he was done speaking, the people talked a little bit among themselves, and then they each chose a different flower from the vases before they went home. And that was all—and it was beautiful, plain and simple as the day.

And so Dr. Capek turned to the native beauty of their countryside for elements of a communion which would be genuine to them. This simple service was the result. It was such a success that it was repeated every year.

Dr. Capek was arrested by the Nazis and killed in Dachau concentration on October 1942. He was charged with listening to radio broadcasts and “high treason.” As is the case so many times in human affairs his treason was reaching out to his fellow citizens and helping them be their highest selves as the world was closing in on them.

The following paragraph was written by Sy Safransky, editor of The Sun magazine. It appeared in this year’s March issue.

“I don’t know what’s harder to fathom: the atrocities committed by the Nazis, or a prayer found written on a piece of wrapping paper in Ravensbruck, the largest concentration camp for women in Nazi Germany. The prayer asks God to remember ‘not only the men and women of good will, but also those of ill will. But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted on us. Remember the fruits borne of this suffering: the loyalty, the humility, the courage, the generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of this. And when they come to judgment, let all the fruits which we have been borne be their forgiveness.’”

Like most Unitarians Dr. Capek’s spiritual journey took him through various religious traditions. As WWI ignited and his religious views became increasingly liberal, the threat of arrest by the authorities made it necessary for him to move to the United States.

Before Dr. Capek and his new wife Maja returned to Czechoslovakia in 1921, they were introduced to Unitarianism by two of his children. Upon their return to a now independent Czechoslovakia, Capek established The Prague Congregation of Religious Fellowship. Nine years later this congregation would get a new name: The Unitarian Church of Czechoslovakia and official recognition by the Czech government.

From the pulpit Dr. Capek encouraged his fellow citizens to have courage in the face of the growing Nazi madness: “We are today” he said in 1938, “the only nation in the whole of Europe that is ready to resist oppression…. Confronting our descendants, we will never have to feel ashamed of the fact that as a small nation in the middle of Europe we were ready to defend human dignity, freedom and justice from violence, lies and lawlessness.” And as certain as death, his speaking out against blind and murderous power cost him his life.

On March 28, 1941 Norbert Capek, the Minister of the Unitarian Church of Czechoslovakia and his youngest daughter Zora were arrested by the Nazi Gestapo. They were charged and convicted of listening to foreign radio broadcasts. This was not a made up charge, it was a crime in his country at that time to try to find out the truth.

Capek was sentenced to a year in prison, and eleven months that he had already been confined while waiting for trail were to be counted in the sentence. Unfortunately, at that time the German official in charge of the occupied Czechoslovakia was killed, and Dr. Capek became a victim of German retaliation for his murder.

Capek spent a year is Dresden Prison before being sent to Dachau where he met his death.

Flower Processional:

By exchanging flowers in this service, we will follow the example of Norbert Capek. He believed that each of us is different and unique and when we gather together to worship or learn, we create a bouquet of beautiful people.

Today, we have placed our flowers in a common vase, remembering we are all individuals but we are also people of a common faith.

The communion we are about to celebrate has taken place all over the world in Unitarian Universalist churches since 1923. Norbert Capek started this ritual to celebrate the beauty of our faith and the people in it. In each flower, Capek saw hope for humanity, even though he would later die because of his beliefs. Let us remember him and his principles and dreams.

Let’s share in flower communion. Each of you will come up in silence and choose a flower brought by another. Hold it with care. It is a gift someone else has brought for you with love.

(Have participants silently line up to go up to the altar to find a flower.)

(pause for reflection)

READING

The following are three verses from “For the Flowers Have the Gift of Language,” which I obtained from a service by Reginald Zottoli.

For the Flowers Have the Gift of Language

The flowers have the gift of language.

In the dark depths of a death camp

They speak the light of life.

In the face of cruelty

They speak of courage.

In the experience of ugliness

They bespeak the persistence of beauty….

For the flowers have the gift of language:

They transport the human voice on winds of beauty;

They lift the melody of song to our ears;

They paint through the eye and hand of the artist;

Their fragrance binds us to sweet-smelling earth.

May the blessing of the flowers be upon you.

May their beauty beckon to you each morning.

And their loveliness lure you each day,

And their tenderness caress you each night.

May their delicate petals make you gentle,

And their eyes make you aware.

May their stems make you sturdy,

And their reaching make you care.

READING

composed in Dresden Prison in 1941, shortly before he was transferred to Dachau concentration camp, where he died in October, 1942

It is worthwhile to live and fight courageously for sacred ideals.

O blow ye evil winds into my body’s fire my soul you’ll never unravel.

Even though disappointed a thousand times or fallen in the fight and everything would worthless seem,

I have lived amidst eternity — Be grateful, my soul — My life was worth living.

He who was pressed from all sides but remained victorious in spirit is welcomed into the choir of heroes.

He who overcame the fetters giving wings to his mind is entering into the golden age of the victorious.