Preregistration, by [...]]]> Veteran HUU member David Lane and relative newcomer Judith Hollowood will lead an exploration of Unitarian Universalism – the movement – and HUU – its local manifestation. We will meet on Saturday March 27 and April 3 from 10 – 12 at the meetinghouse. If you bring a lunch, we may even stay later!

Preregistration, by email to Judith (judith@huuweb.org), would be helpful, but you can also just drop in for one or both sessions. Long-time members and friends are as welcome as newcomers.

First Session

We’ll open our first session with a chalice lighting and a quick retelling of the story behind the chalice symbol.  Judith has a historical bent, so she’ll provide a capsule review of the Unitarian and Universalist movements. Then we’ll share our religious journeys, each to the extent he or she wishes to do so.  We’ll  read together the seven principles, discuss them briefly and share our acquaintance with the six sources of wisdom that UUism draws from. Which resonate most deeply with you?

Second Session

At our second session, we’ll touch on the history and structure of our own congregation and the privileges, opportunities, and expectations of membership. David knows much of this history and tells it well. We’ll reveal such mysteries as “who knows the combination to the lock on the front door?” and “how do you get on the refreshments list?” When you have completed these sessions, you’ll feel ready to decide whether to join HUU, and whatever you do decide, you’ll know more about the underpinnings of our community.

Willow Kelly is inviting you to join her for a 6 week enchanting excursion into the Elements of Magic – a core class in the Reclaiming Tradition of Witchcraft*.  Come take your place in the circle. The ancestors of the craft await you. Tend the foundations of your pagan practice. Stir the ancient [...]]]> Greetings Magical Peeps!

Willow Kelly is inviting you to join her for a 6 week enchanting excursion into the Elements of Magic – a core class in the Reclaiming Tradition of Witchcraft*.  Come take your place in the circle. The ancestors of the craft await you. Tend the foundations of your pagan practice. Stir the ancient cauldron of ritual magic and ecstatic chant. Cast spells from beyond the mists of time. Join wild excursions into the sacred elements of spirit, fire, air, water, and earth. Enter the nourishing realms of deep trance and ecstatic ritual to reawaken your revolutionary imagination.  Specifically, you will learn the art of how to create sacred space, invoke the Elementals, the Goddess and God, basic spell-crafting, how to ground and direct energy through our bodies and out into the world. This is the path of practice: create and manifest basic rituals, explore trance, work with your voice, music and drumming. We will also create magic with our core tools (the athame, cup and cauldron.)

This class is an amazing introduction to ecstatic magic in the Reclaiming Tradition of Witchcraft*.  Although this class focuses on developing strong foundational magic skills, it is full of evocative and productive exercises to engage adepts in deepening their connection to these primal forces.  There is something for everyone that loves the art of magic – changing consciousness at will.

Dates & Times: 6 Tuesdays from 6:30 – 9:30 p.m.
March 16th, 23rd, 30th, April 6th, 13th & 20th

Location: Harrisonburg Unitarian Universalists

Cost:  Sliding Scale of $75-$100 – you decide where you slide.  (No one turned away due to lack of funds.  I also accept barter for goods and services.  Feel free to contact me for details.)  Scholarships may be offered if registration is strong.  Please contact me if you’d like to discuss payment, barter or scholarship options.

About the Facilitator:  Willow “Firefly” Kelly is a performance artist and a faery-lovin’ experiential teacher of magic, music and mystery.  With over 14 years of professional experience in creating dynamic rituals, workshops and Reclaiming Witchcamps, she facilitates the creation of strong containers, inviting participants into a direct experience of their own magic and powers of transformation.  She teaches magic in the U.S. and abroad and finds herself playing music with witches, faeries, Sufis, yogis, and hillbillies on a regular basis.

Mailing list for future Classes & Events:  If you are interested in this class but cannot attend on these dates, please let me know of your interest and what dates or days of the week would normally work for you.  (See my email address below.)  I’ll send you an announcement when I teach this class again.  Also, if you would like to stay up to date on other classes and events, please send an email to me with “announcements list” in the subject heading.

*About the Reclaiming Tradition of Witchcraft: “Reclaiming is a tradition of the Craft.  To us the Goddess is the wheel of birth, growth, death and regeneration. Therefore we embrace as sacred the living world, the body as well as the spirit, the cycles of nature, sexuality in its diverse expressions, and the elements of air, fire, water and earth that sustain all life. We know that to name these things as sacred is an inherently political act, for what is sacred must not be exploited or despoiled. We also know that action in the world in the service of the sacred is one of the core expressions of our spirituality. Each individual is a living embodiment of the sacred. The divine experience is equally available to all, and each person’s experience of the divine is valid and important.  Spiritual authority is located within us. We are each keepers of our own conscience.” (excerpt from “A Working Definition of Reclaiming” by Starhawk, author, activist, teacher, feminist, and witch – read the full text at http://www.reclaiming.org/about/directions/definition.html )

Registration Form

To register, please copy and paste this form into an email, fill it out and send it to silverwoodmysteryschool@gmail.com no later than March 11th.  A non-refundable deposit of $25 is required in advance to hold your space unless you have made other arrangements with me.  I will send deposit and class information upon registration.  Let’s step between the worlds together and make some magic!  Blessed Be!

Legal Name:

Magical Name (optional):

Email Address:

Mailing Address:

Primary Phone: (Please check: Cell___ Home___ Work___)

Do you have any experience with Reclaiming or ecstatic improvisational ritual?

Do you have any needs we should know about or anything else you would like us to know?

****************end of form****************

Willow Kelly is inviting you to join her for a day of mystery, power and magic in the Reclaiming Tradition** to celebrate and embody the Spring Equinox through shadow work, trance and ritual. We will spend the equinox – the day of balance between light and dark – exploring a piece of one of [...]]]> Greetings, Everyone!

Willow Kelly is inviting you to join her for a day of mystery, power and magic in the Reclaiming Tradition** to celebrate and embody the Spring Equinox through shadow work, trance and ritual. We will spend the equinox – the day of balance between light and dark – exploring a piece of one of the oldest written stories, the descent of inanna*; how her story lives within us and how we can learn the secrets of rising from our own darkness empowered and born again. Using trance, story, music, and ritual, we will take the heroes journey side by side with Inanna as we descend and arise reborn.

No previous magical experience is necessary. However, if you plan on attending you’ll see a section in the registration form asking about your experience. This will help me tailor the class for the participants, so please don’t be shy and make sure to fill it out.

Date: Saturday, March 20, 2010

Time: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Location: Harrisonburg Unitarian Universalist Church
Food: Please bring your own lunch and a potluck item – there is a full kitchen at the venue to store and prepare food.
Cost: Donation – No one turned away due to lack of funds ($25-$40 suggested donation, any amount welcome)

About the Facilitator: Willow “Firefly” Kelly is a performance artist and a faery-lovin’ experiential teacher of magic, music and mystery. With over 14 years of professional experience in creating dynamic rituals, workshops and Reclaiming Witchcamps, she facilitates the creation of strong containers, inviting participants into a direct experience of their own magic and powers of transformation. She teaches magic in the U.S. and abroad and finds herself playing music with witches, faeries, Sufis, yogis, and hillbillies on a regular basis.

NOTE: Although this retreat is given on a donation basis, registration is still required to hold your space and to coordinate the potluck dinner. Please see form below and deadline for registration.

Registration Form Space is limited – Please register early

To register, please copy and paste this form into an email, fill it out and send it to silverwoodmysteryschool@gmail.com no later than March 14th.

Legal Name:

Magical Name (optional):

Email Address:

Mailing Address:

Primary Phone: (Please check: Cell___ Home___ Work___)

What’s Your Potluck Dish for Dinner? Please consider healthy, protein-rich main and side dishes. We’ll want fuel for this work! ___________________________

Do you have any experience with Reclaiming or ecstatic improvisational ritual?

Do you have any needs we should know about or anything else you would like for us to know?

****************end of form*******************

*Tales of the Goddess Inanna come from one of the oldest written stories dating back to ancient Sumer. It is the first (and certainly not the last) known story of a protagonist that is considered divine who must be stripped of everything, die, and 3 days later be reborn.

**Reclaiming Tradition was founded by Starhawk, feminist, activist and author of several books including The Spiral Dance, Twelve Wild Swans and The Fifth Sacred Thing. This tradition has become a global community of pagans, activists, permaculture specialists, artists, and culture-builders. The first paragraph of “A Working Definition of Reclaiming” by Starhawk reads: “Reclaiming is a tradition of the Craft. To us the Goddess is the wheel of birth, growth, death and regeneration. Therefore we embrace as sacred the living world, the body as well as the spirit, the cycles of nature, sexuality in its diverse expressions, and the elements of air, fire, water and earth that sustain all life. We know that to name these things as sacred is an inherently political act, for what is sacred must not be exploited or despoiled. We also know that action in the world in the service of the sacred is one of the core expressions of our spirituality. Each individual is a living embodiment of the sacred. The divine experience is equally available to all, and each person’s experience of the divine is valid and important. Spiritual authority is located within us. We are each keepers of our own conscience.” Read more on the Reclaiming website at http://www.reclaiming.org/

Please come celebrate Candlemas, also known as the Feast of (St.) Brigid, Imbolc, and Groundhog Day.

February 2 is one of the great cross-quarter days which make up the wheel of the year. It falls midway between the winter solstice and the spring [...]]]> WHEN: Tuesday February 2, 7-9 pm CANCELLED!
WHERE: HUU Fellowship Bulding (Old Dale Enterprise Schoolhouse)

Please come celebrate Candlemas, also known as the Feast of (St.) Brigid, Imbolc, and Groundhog Day.

February 2 is one of the great cross-quarter days which make up the wheel of the year. It falls midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.

Candlemas is a festival to welcome the return of the light. We’ll gather in a circle to bless your candles and your creative projects for the coming year.

Please bring:

• Candles
• Representations of your creative projects for the coming year
• Finger-food snacks
• Juice and healthy drinks
• Percussion instruments

We’ll create a ritual together, placing our creative projects on an altar for the group to bless. We’ll raise the fire energy of the returning light!

For more information, contact Laura Dent at laurainspace@hotmail.com or 383-7027.

Here are some links for more information about Brigid and Candlemas:

http://www.schooloftheseasons.com/candlemas.html

http://www.squidoo.com/goddessbrigid

Brigid, Goddess and Saint : The True Meaning of Imbolc and Ground Hog Day – How a goddess’ day became to be about a large rodent.

“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.”~ Jalal ad-Din [...]]]> Encountering Divinity Through Community (Or…. Is It The Other Way Around?)

January 10, 2010
by Rev Emma Chattin

Words of the Mystics -  Thoughts for Reflection

“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.”
~ Jalal ad-Din Rumi (Persian Poet and Mystic, 1207-1273)~

“You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience.”
~ Teilhard de Chardin quotes (French Geologist, Priest, Philosopher and Mystic, 1881-1955) ~

“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming [themselves].”
~ Saint Peter of Alcantara quotes (Spanish Mystic and Founder of the Discalced (i.e. barefooted) Friars Minor. 1499-1562)~

Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

“Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~ Jalal ad-Din Rumi ~

“(said of God ): If this is the way you treat your friends, it’s no wonder you have so few!”
~ St. Teresa of Avila ~

Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit.
( Bidden or not, God is present. )

A  statement that Carl Jung discovered among the Latin writings of Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), who declared the statement had been an ancient Spartan proverb. Jung popularized it, having it inscribed over the doorway of his house, and upon his tomb.

The fault of others is easily perceived, but that of oneself is difficult to perceive.  The faults of others, one lays open as much as possible, but one’s own faults one hides, as a cheat hides the bad dice from the gambler. ~ (Buddha, Dhammapada, vv. 252, 253) ~

Reading

~ from Nevada Barr in Seeking Enlightenment Hat by Hat: A Skeptics Guide to Religion

Church is for finding and adoring God in community: with others, through others, because of others, in spite of others.  Only by finding this place of human interaction, focused around the need for the spiritual, was I able to recognize God in other people, and so in myself.  Without community, how would I learn to share?  Who would I help?  How would I learn to accept help? … Community is God rubbing elbows and passing the tuna casserole, a place where we can snuggle down with the Divine.  Though I’d never have suspected it when I began this spiritual journey, God is not separate from people.  Sure we’re hypocrites, liars, boasters, blasphemers, and cheats, but we are God’s hypocrites, liars, boasters, blasphemers, and cheats.  The spark is in each of us.  When we work together for what we sincerely hope is good, worship together in the belief we will touch God, sing together in the hope (God) hears our praises, then the spark is fanned, and God becomes as visible in us as God is in new snow, or a sunrise, or in a mountain lake.

Sermon

Good Morning.   And welcome on this very binary morning of 01 10 10.

My father would begin all of his Sunday morning services with “Welcome all who gather here today, this is God’s House”,  and I learned at an early age exactly what that meant.

We were stationed at Mt Carmel Methodist church in Covington, VA, and whenever I heard that phrase, I always took some pride in it.  After all, THIS was God’s house.  Our place.  Our little church was where God lived.

As I went to school, I had Jewish & Catholic friends, and while I knew some of the differences between us, I took a secret sanctimonious pride… that our little church was God’s place, God’s pad. This pride continued to swell in me, until one day, I blurted out to one of the church members that this was God’s house, Mt. Carmel was where God lived.  The member, I can’t remember his real name, but everyone called him Chestnut, looked down at me with that bristly burry flattop haircut of his (which my have been the source of his nickname), and pointed to the front of the church.  Behind the altar and pulpit, at the very forward part of the church, hung a HUGE burgundy velvet curtain as a backdrop.  Chestnut told me that God lived behind that curtain.

I should have paid attention at that point to his wife, Margaret,who slapped him disapprovingly on the arm, and told him he should be ashamed of himself.  But I just thought she didn’t want Chestnut giving out any big church secrets.  So the next time I was at the church with dad, while he went off to do something in the office, I wandered into the sanctuary.

Now … there is just something about an empty church space. I have walked through so many in my time.  Each different. All the same.  The stillness.  The fullness.  The emptiness.  I can’t explain it.  It’s like a beautiful flower vase… with no flowers.  The house of God… with no people.  It’s very Zen.

I made my way to the front of the sanctuary, and I crawled beneath the large table behind the pulpit, and set out to look behind the curtain, feeling a bit like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, and wondering just what God might look like.

At that moment, I heard my name being called. It echoed around the church & boomed down from the arched ceilings.  
I nearly …. O…   Well… The second time my name was called it was much closer, and I recognized it as my father’s voice. He asked me what on earth I was doing, and playfully grabbed my shoe and pulled me out from beneath the table.  I somewhat sheepishly told him I was looking for God.  He just stared at me, puzzled.  I was an odd child and a mystery to him in so many ways.

I told him that Chestnut told me that God lived behind the curtain. Dad gave a little huff, a cross between amusement and frustration, and he reached over and pulled back the curtain.  I was stunned.   God looked like a brick wall.  A big huge red brick wall.  With really sloppy masonry work.

Dad saw from the look on my face that I was shocked.  He kneeled down and looked me in the eye… “Why are you looking for God?” he asked.   I said… “Well, this is God’s house…. where does God live?”

Dad smiled… he tapped my chest…. God lives here,….  and then he tapped his chest…. and said and God lives here….  and God lives in and fills in the space in between us…. I asked if God lived elsewhere… in Chesnut, for example.  Dad laughed, and said yes… and in our next door neighbor…. in the mail carrier….  We are all made in the image of God.  And God’s house is wherever God’s people gather together… In praise…. in worship…. in celebration …. in support…… and in love.  From that moment on, I began my journey of spiritual growth, moving beyond the walls that contained me, and I never saw communities or church structures in quite the same way ever again.

I think back to that moment now whenever I think about one of the central questions of my profession: Why do people come to church?  Why gather together in a spiritual context?  What are they searching for?  What are they seeking?  Are they, like I was, seeking God?  And do they find what they are looking for?

Why are you here this morning?  What have you come to find? What have you come looking for behind the curtain?   God?  Divinity?  Presence of the Spirit?  Truth?  Healing?  Wholeness?  Illumination?  Each other?  One, Any, or All of the Above?  And… instead of finding what you are looking for… do you sometimes encounter only a brick wall?  And I might ask… do you sometimes look like a brick wall to others?

I think the gathering of people who are seekers, and people who sincerely wish to be in authentic relationship with one another, is a sacred thing. Sanctuary. Sacred space.  Holy Ground.  In whatever way you might recognize or honor that.  And part of being in an authentic relationship is an awareness of the way our lives touch, impact, and change one another.

If the relationship that we have formed over the years, me and you, has touched you or moved you in some way,  know that I have been moved and changed by it as well. As a community, you challenge me, stretch me, encourage me to look at old things in new ways. You nourish me. Here I have met people here from so many spiritual paths…  and I cherish making connections… I treasure the places where our paths cross…. where our footprints meet.

A good example of how this community shapes me?  I could not find a scripture reading for this Sunday from the Bible, although I knew which way spirit was leading me. I was looking so hard, but nothing ever surfaced.  
When Martha, the facilitator for today said…. “Do you really need one?”  Well, I have always had one… and … I… you know…. Well…

Martha was right.  Hers was the voice of spirit speaking to me.  Do you really need one?  No.  Because the entire Bible is about two things…. Divinity and Community.  All the commandments.  The laws.  When Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment he said: Love God with all your heart and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.  Upon these two hang all the law and the prophets.  Divinity and Community.

We come together.  We change each other. We transform.  We touch.  We create.  We are a spark of Divinity.  We are star stuff.  And together …… we stir truth among us.

Simple truth.  Complex truth.  And the beautiful truth of a child’s world. If a church is the House of God  (or, in other words: Divinity.  Truth.  Illumination.  Healing.  Transformation).  Then…. Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors, and look at the people.

We are linked, woven together… It’s about connection.

In his book, Guerilla Marketing, Jay Conrad Levinson tells of this legend from Australia. It is said that when two aborigines meet for the first time, their first task is to talk with one another until they find a common relative between them.  If they exhaust all possibilities and no link is found, they can’t be friends, and they must fight one another.  At times they have been known to search for days for this link!

There is a binding desire to connect, share, co-exist. Even in the process of talking with one another, of sharing, they come to form a bond.  They don’t want to be enemies.  They WANT to connect.

I think a desire to connect in some way, to find common points of connection, is very important in making a space where truth is uncovered, where Divinity is revealed.

While I have met people who begin conversations with things that divide, I am always drawn to those who seek connection, and I don’t think any one group embodies that desire to connect more than mystics.  What is a mystic? .  Wikipedia suggests (with some paraphrasing) that a mystic is one who seeks and pursues communion with, identity with, or a conscious awareness of an ultimate reality.. divinity… or truth.  Rumi, a Persian sufi mystic, said that the only religion of the mystic is God.  And it is true that mystics of various faith traditions have far more in common with each other than they do with those in their own faith tradition who are more conservative.  Mystics are blessed with a desire to connect, and would much rather spend time looking for those connections than sorting out any differences.

Beyond a desire to connect. I think another important characteristic of a sacred space is hospitality.  Creating a welcoming space. And I think another significant part is to recognize and realize that we are not in control here. That’s a powerful life lesson that I think spiritual community can teach us.  Should teach us.  We are not in control.

Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, puts it like this: Sacred space is by definition liminal space (threshold space). Because we are not in control and not the center, something genuinely new can happen. When we surrender control, look beyond ourselves, step outside of our ego driven desire for control, amazing things can happen.

Racecar driver Mario Andretti puts it another way: “If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.”

It’s less about answers  .. and holding on …  and certainty, and more about questions, and letting go, and mystery.

Rhor goes on to point out that control is not our task. And yet the opposite of control is not non-control or giving up.  The opposite of control is actually participation. Or, in the words of Captain Jean Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise: “Engage”. Engage your community!  Become a part of it!  Connect with others!   Participate!

And be aware that we often find the greatest growth at the edges… Where the edges meet… where sharp points meet sensitive places…. And where the places of someone else’s wounded-ness touch our own anxieties.  Listen to these things.  Know when you have encountered a brick wall.  And… know when you may BE the brick wall.

Welcome others, Participate in the process, seek to make connections… These are the things that create a space for Spirit to move among us and through us.

We search for ourselves, we wonder who we are…. We come to this place, we search for God… Truth… Illumination… Warmth… We sometimes crawl under tables seeking the face of divinity…

I want to share a bit of a poem by Hafiz, the Persian Sufi poet and mystic (d 1390).

You are the Sun, the light in disguise.
You are God hiding from yourself.
You are a divine elephant with amnesia
Trying to live in an ant
Hole.
Sweetheart, O sweetheart
You are God in
Drag!

We are all God in Drag!

I enjoy watching  a TV program called Big Bang Theory. It’s about four geeks – outcasts, socially awkward individuals – who somehow create community among themselves.   The series creator, Chuck Lorry,  usually flashes his vanity plate at the end, the name of his production company, but he also flashes a screen full of text… writings, musings, thoughts, (sometimes profound, sometimes profane, sometimes just plain amusing) flashing across the screen for a whole 1.5 seconds.  If you have a recorder, you can stop and read it, or you can visit a website on line.

Recently… one screen read:

“A wise man once told me that we are all God in drag. I like that. Sometimes when I’m in a public place or sitting at a stop light, I’ll watch people walking by and I’ll silently say to myself, “He’s God. She’s God. He’s God. She’s God.” Before long I always find myself feeling a warm sense of affinity for these strangers. The experience is even more powerful when I do this while observing a person who is clearly suffering.”

He goes on to break the mood of the moment with some off color joke about FOX News…. but still…. a beautiful reflection… and one that left me deeply moved, even more so for the fact that this beautiful bit of theological wisdom was being spread by the creator of a television comedy. Connections are often created in unlikely places.
Wisdom is where we find it.

Sometimes the things, the walls, the divisions, the things that divide us… the curtains … the brick walls….  are all of our own making…. our own creation…. by our own hand… the divisions are ours …  … the divisions  are us.

If we can begin to look beyond ourselves…. moving into the sacred space a space where we may encounter both the human and the divine woven together… … then not only are we creating space in which we might encounter Divinity….  but we are making space in which Divinity may create new things using us as the material ….

A space in which Spirit may work and create through community.

So perhaps some people gather in spiritual community seeking a glimpse of God, … Divinity, Truth, Illumination, Warmth, Healing, Wholeness… and then discover all of these wonderful people within each of whom resides a bit of they seek, OR … Perhaps some come here looking for community and human connection, and then discover something a bit more than meets the eye.

Why did you come here this morning? What were you looking for?

It is my hope and prayer that you found it and that you will continue to find it in each other.May it be so.

by theologian, Paul Lakeland from Paul Rasor’s Faith Without Certainty.

The postmodern sensibility, let me suggest, is nonsequential, noneschatological, nonutopian, nonsystematic, nonfoundational and ultimately, nonpolitical.  The postmodern human being wants a lot [...]]]> “The Certainty of Uncertainty:  Do you welcome the uncertainties of life or do they just make you anxious?”
Sunday Service January 17, 2009 by Merle Wenger

Chalice Lighting

by theologian, Paul Lakeland from Paul Rasor’s Faith Without Certainty.

The postmodern sensibility, let me suggest, is nonsequential, noneschatological, nonutopian, nonsystematic, nonfoundational and ultimately, nonpolitical.  The postmodern human being wants a lot but expects a little.  The emotional range is narrow, between mild depression at one end and a whimsical insouciance at the other.  Postmodern heroes are safe, so far beyond that we could not possibly emulate them, avatars of power or success or money or sex—all without consequences.  Postmodernity may be tragic, but its denizens are unable to recognize tragedy.  The shows we watch, the movies we see, the music we hear, all are devoted to a counterfactual presentation of life as comic, sentimental, and comfortable.  Reality doesn’t sell.  So here we stand at the end of the twentieth century, a century that has seen two world wars, countless holocausts, the end of the myth of progress, and the near-depth of hope, playing our computer games and whiling away the time with the toys that material success brings.

My “I Believe” statement

I believe in science and the inherent mystery of the universe.  I believe change and unsettled truth are two constants of liberal religious thought. I believe it is my daily religious task to prevent my senses from being numbed by the demands of cerebral information overload.  I believe great joy is borne out of the struggle to experience our feeling and thinking selves and at the same time to integrate with the living and non-living forms of our planet.  I believe a good life is inherently available when we see ourselves as good.  I find it fascinating that sooner or later we all become involved in doing less than good.  I experience great hope and fear and peace, but I choose to believe in peace.

Message:  The Certainty of Uncertainty

Raking the fluffy yellow-brown leaves in my sun-drenched backyard on this past Thanksgiving Day, I reflected on what I was really thankful for in 2009.  Putting my finger on one specific item was difficult, and my mind wandered to more philosophical and spiritual aspects of the past year.  It had been a difficult year: the economy faltered, my business followed suit; a relationship I was in ended, I felt lonely, and two friends of mine were dealing with difficult legal problems that worried me. I felt like the proverbial dingy lost at sea.  I struggled to find any contrasting events that made me feel grateful.  I was starting to feel a little like the grump pilgrim who stole Thanksgiving but really did not want to dwell on such negativity, and set about seeing if I might find some remote positive aspect of my difficulties that might be worth celebrating.

The leaves were really fluffy.  I notice this attribute because for some reason, the farm boy in me isn’t too keen on raking leaves.  It’s easy for me to observe the beauty of newly fallen leaves, contemplating, rather than raking, during the subsequent 30 day picturesque “fluffy period” and then watch guiltily as the leaves are transformed to a mat of brown, mulchy, slippery, organic thatch covering my backyard.  I look and see “protection for the lawn” through the winter: I imagine my neighbor sees a “lazy neighbor who doesn’t care about keeping up the hood.”  But I really felt determined to change my non-urban tendencies and move into a more urban lifestyle.  I was enjoying the raking: I was stymied about my gratitude.

Perhaps it was because it was just too fabulous a day for an optimist like me, with aromas of a sage-stuffed turkey and dressing roasting in the oven, but mid-yard, I stumbled on the quirky idea that perhaps I should be grateful for the seeming hardships that I had faced throughout the year.  Is that possible I asked myself?  Is this something I could actually share at the dinner table?  (For you see, one of the reasons this self-rumination was gnawing at my gut, was that I thought I might be the one to say a bit of grace before dinner, and I wanted to find something authentic to speak.)  I thought, will my dinner guests actually buy this “dark” existential gratitude, or will they find it a bitter condiment, more akin to too much radiccio in the salad or horseradish in the cranberry sauce?

Pensively I raked a few more bushels of leaves, working swiftly as the farm boy who knows the work is never done: more tasks are always at hand.  The pile of leaves was growing to some 12 feet in diameter and three feet high.  I thought wistfully about borrowing the neighbor’s children to come and jump in them but wormed back inside my brain instead.  What circumstances in life would people generally feel grateful about when in fact they were filled with darkness and uncertainty?

And then the seed for this talk suddenly and clearly sprouted in my brain:  we can and usually are extremely welcoming, grateful, and I would posture, craving of uncertainty.  I could feel secure in holding hands around that table piled high with too much turkey, cranberries and pumpkin pie, in thanking the universe for all the uncertainty that had created my year for I realized at once that it was uncertainty in fact that drove my year and appears to be driving my life.  I realized quickly that without uncertainty there can be no hope, no faith, no dreams, no markets, no growth in relationships, no change, no weather.  Without uncertainty, some of the most complex of human emotions would simply not exist.  Whether it be in the uncertainty of fully comprehending the motives of another person, city, nation, continent, globe, planet or universe or the simple uncertainty of knowing how much money was going to land in my cash register drawer the next day, (Black Friday), it is uncertainty that keeps us involved in living.

I concluded, as I finished raking my amoebic glob of yellow fluff through the backyard gate and into the street where the lumbering, cat-terrifying leaf vacuum would pick them up in the next week, that I simply would rather die and be raked away myself, were it not for the uncertainty that draws me forward in some patterned yet random line that crazily would come to be called my life.  But it would be called life: and a similar string of events strung together with the glue of certainty, feels to me to be akin to death.

Imagine for a moment if we positively knew who would be sitting in the seats that face me and who would be standing at this podium speaking in January of 2014.  Would you like to know who would come and go, who would lose their job in Harrisonburg and be forced to move away, or who would choose to move to China or India for a more promising career?   Would you really like to know who among us might decide that staying home and reading the paper, or attending another church might be more fulfilling then coming here and socializing with us for two hours?  Would you really like to know who might fall in love, get married and have a baby, and who might fall ill and pass from this life?

Would you really like to know where you will be in your career even if you might slip down a notch into some position that you could not possibly understand now.  For instance, let’s say you could see that you would be making $5,000 less but did not know that the average cost of living had decreased by $ 7,500?  Would you really like to know what hardship your child were going to suffer, what trouble they were going to face, what homework they “forgot to tell you” they needed to do when instead they went off to play.

Imagine as a parent if you could be certain of the direction of your child’s life.  All parents know what a real-life experiment child-rearing is, with you in a lab coat pouring a little bit of morality into one beaker and a bit of education in another, a healthy social life in a third, pouring them all together and putting them over the burner to boil for 18 years.  We know that one day we stand by and watch that beaker bubble, then boil and turn colors, even explode, and voila, our experiment is finished: out pops a mature adult.  Explain to me any part of this process that feels “certain.”  What if we were certain of the results?  Johny will be a straight-A student who at the last minute decides to get married, run off with his girl friend, breakup, later join the Army, and finally come back, go to college and establish himself with a happy family as a principal of the local school.  Would you really want to know all this?  Could you tolerate it?

What would happen if even one person in the world would be certain of the future?  For it appears that n spite of the foggy wavering direction of the news, astrological readings, diviners and seers we are all just “guessing,” or making “uncertain stabs” at knowing.  I have observed for the past 40 years my generation rebelling against the uncertainty of the American capitalist markets and  military industrial complex, then, for survival sake, putting their pot and drugs aside, along with their dreams, and buying into the whole capitalist package, hook, line and sinker.  Yet imagine the post-apocalyptic horror of 2009, when in a period of 6 months, in as stunning a proof as a mathematician could present, our generation watched as the capitalist system fantasy (along with our 401Ks), evaportated.  What, I ask, would the hippies have done, if after having forced America out of Vietnam, they could have forseen the insanity of the Gulf War and Iraq?  What would they have done if they could have known for certain that GM would fold and America’s largest banks, in fact her entire financial underpinnings would have collapsed if our government, supported by foreign banks, had not stepped forward to bandage up the blood gushing from a nation’s economy in triage?  Or if that is too tough a question, then let me ask it another way.  What would we do today—now that we know all this?  Of course, no one person does know the future.  The lottery keeps playing.  The keno tickets and blackjack tables give and take.  The counter-spinning Wheels of Fortune and Misfortune turn crazily as though the only certainty is that fate IS spun out.  To know the weight or pattern or color of the thread is impossible.

As much as the average American has come to despise the power brokers on Wall Street, can we imagine it any other way?  If goods and services are traded around the world, if Chile is to receive a fair price for her copper from China, not knowing in any certain way how much copper they or other countries will need next year, then how would one establish a fair and certain price for selling a contract of copper to China, say one year or two years before the ore is extracted from the earth?   We can only be certain that what one party pays another will affect our lifestyle: we can not be certain by how much.  We trust brokers and traders on Wall Street and in marketplaces around the world, to devise daily new and better systems to comprehend the certainty of the markets, yet as we have seen in the past year, uncertainty still rules the game.

What about life after death?  Certainly the traditional Christian theology of heaven and hell creates one of the driving uncertainties for more than a billion souls on our planet.  But come on, beyond ones arrival at either place, aren’t the age old choices of heaven or hell just a bit too certain?  I mean afterall: streets of gold with eternal happiness, Thanksgiving dinners everyday, no leaves to rake: Wouldn’t we miss the bickering, the anxiety, the depression, or the days that turn ecstatic with unexpected good news or eventually wouldn’t we just wanna die to see a pothole in an asphalt street?

Isn’t it just the surety of uncertainty that keeps us stuck on that issue?  Isn’t the fact that for most of humanity, the elusive veil of existence beyond  our last breath, keeps us pondering, figuring, imagining such un-imaginable scenarios as streets of gold, eternal life, bevys of virgins, both male and female, unending happiness, tables Thanksgiving-filled forever, cash registers always overflowing.  Does your version of the after-death episode include uncertainty or are you longing for eternal certainty?

Considering my argument, orphans in Haiti, is this an elitist stance.  What about the starving in the streets.  Is uncertainty elitist?  At first I thought this was a flaw in my perspective but the more I thought about it, for an orphan who dreams about not being an orphan it is that uncertainty that one day they might be claimed to live in a family that drives their hope and dreams.  The same can be said for the hungry looking for their next meal:  what is certain is hunger.  Uncertainty, on the other hand, prods the dream or lifestyle choice that might twist fate in another direction.

What lesson might we draw from this little spin through Merle’s brain?  The lesson I hope to leave, is that we savor and value the uncertainty in our life.  Let it feed your dreams and give you courage to extend your relationships beyond those that feel certain.  I see uncertainties falling round about me as perennially as fall’s colored leaves.  I intend to enjoy them, romp in them, and become familiar with them rather then letting them turn into some frightening, brown disgusting mulch.

You might risk telling someone you care deeply for that you love them.  Likewise take the risk of telling someone who is hurting you about how you feel.  In either case the outcome might surprise you.  When children stretch the limits of your thinking, politicians tramp on your best intentions, editorialists scream certainly, preachers assure you salvation, I challenge you to stand, noisily or quietly and thank the universe for all that you do not know or understand.  Bask in what Thoreau referred to as the gospel of the present moment. Be grateful for the grand mysteries yet to be revealed, honor your own biased observations with the certainty that what you don’t know, what we don’t know as a civilization, could be what actually saves us.  Celebrate this week, with certainty, that a complete life awaits those who build few fences ‘round their uncertainty.