Space to Dream

I love to dream. But I didn’t always like to dream. There were times in my life that I found it almost impossible. There were times in my life that I couldn’t take a break, or even rest for a moment, and in those times, it was almost impossible for me to dream. Do you know what I’m talking about? Those times were scary because dreaming is a very important part of who we are.

Do you love to dream? What are your favorite things to dream about? Night dreaming or day dreaming. Do you like to dream about happy things you like to do? Or things you like to eat? What are your favorite things to dream about?

Don’t be afraid to share your dreams with people. A dream can always be shared, but it can never be stolen. It can be broken, but never erased. And I don’t think we will actually ever have the same dreams. Because my dreams will always look special to me. And even though you shared your dreams with me, the ones in your mind, in your heart, will always look special to you.

At this point, while I was practicing and rehearsing my sermon, one child interrupted me. Wait, a minute, she said to me. Are you talking about the dreams you have at night? Or do you mean, like, what do you want to be when you grow up, kind of thing?

Well, I suppose I mean both. We use the word to mean both the thing that happens to us at night, and the thing we do during the day to help us look forward to the future. And anyway, as far as our brains are concerned, there really is not much of a difference. Both our subconscious hallucinations and our innermost wishes and hopes are connected to our selfhood, our humanity. Both are windows into what I will call our inner world.

Part of what makes dreams so difficult is that they have a frustrating quality that makes them hard to study. They are subjective. That means, they are based on the individual, and they are influenced by the person that is dreaming. I can’t look in your mind and see dreams like you see them, and you can’t look in my mind to see mine. Your dreams will always be yours, in some fundamental way.

And believe it or not that’s where it starts to get complicated. See, some people say that they don’t really have dreams. Some people think maybe they do dream but never remember it. Some people have a hard time dreaming in the daytime - imagination can be tricky for some folks. Depression and anxiety both affect the brain in ways that make it hard to conceptualize the future, to believe in any future at all. I’ve heard people describe this dreamless existence like being trapped inside your own body, with the windows closed.

Furthermore, there is a word called aphantasia, that the word for it’s hard for someone to imagine things, or see what things look like in your mind. It’s not common, but people with Aphantasia have a hard time with thinking about pictures at all, let alone dreaming when they are not asleep.

But aside from these rare situations, whether we think we do or not, dreaming is a basic human activity that can be thwarted and undermined by various factors, something we do without thinking about it, and it is essential for full happy productive lives. Aside from these rare situations, we should be dreaming all the time. I don’t know about you but it feels to me like dreaming these days has gotten harder and harder.

I don’t know what’s gotten into us that makes it so hard to dream. I’m afraid we are losing our ability to dream. I’m afraid that we just aren’t that good at dreaming anymore.

“Now hold on, Br. Zachary,” you might say, “I had a nice little dream just last night, and I like thinking about the future. Br, Zachary you’re starting to make wild accusations, and I’m not like that. You must not be talking about me.” Well, maybe. But I suspect your dreams are not as good as they could be. You could dream bigger. To learn how to dream, and get better at dreaming, I think it’s best if we describe what we’re talking about. If most of us have dreams, then, what is a dream, anyway? Why do we dream?

Doctors and researches don’t agree with themselves all the way, about what is a dream and what isnt. Some doctors noticed that when people have a certain part of the forebrain damaged or injured, this part right here, people stopped reporting dreaming at night, but had no trouble imagining things. Likewise, damage to the nerve centers in the spinal cortex, back here, affect REM sleep states, which seems to directly limit our capacity for dreams.

There is a tight connection between the deep part of sleep where our eyes are moving fast, called REM sleep or Rapid eye movement sleep, (which I will call REM sleep), and dreaming at night. Medically, during Rem sleep, we know that two naturally produced chemicals interact in a way that explains some of the experience of dreaming, just not how much, or in what way. Acetylcholine (which maintains brain activation) is more prominent, as is dopamine (which some researchers link to hallucinations). Dopamine may help give dreams their surreal quality. This can create a surreal, hallucinatory experience of waking brain activity, without actual sensory data or experiential input from the body.

And here’s why dreams are so hard to pin down. The thing is, each of you sitting here listening to me also have a fair amount of Acetylcholine and Dopamine going on up there already. It’s part of the chemical interaction that allows me to say to you, picture a purple unicorn - and then you almost have no choice but to do it. We are all dreaming all day. It’s hard to put a finger on what exactly a dream is. That’s as close as we can get to knowing scientifically what is happening in our inner life.

It might be more productive for us to consider what dreams aren't. Dreams are not reality - this thing we are all a part of right now, here in this church breathing air and sitting with each other, is not a dream, but a reality. This is real. In case you need a reminder, yes, You are really here, and this is really happening. I’m pretty sure… Yes. This is not a dream.

Reality is objective. We can talk about the real world and agree about the things in it because of this objective quality. The world is not simply based on what we think about, but on what we all collectively experience and interpret through our senses. I can talk about the real world just fine. It’s not so easy to talk about my inner world. The subjective quality of our interior life gets in the way, and the tools that help us ascribe meaning, boundaries, rules, to the real world, they don’t work very well in our inner worlds.

But is it so hard to see your inner world as an actual ‘world’? It might not be the real world here, that we are all a part of, but our dreams do have a sort of internal coherence, don’t they? Our dreams, whether we remember them or not, whether we honor them or not, wether we share them or not, say something important about who we are, and what is important to us. Whether we know it or not, whether we cultivate it or not, the capacity to dream belongs to nearly each and every one of us, and with it our own, personal, subjective world that belongs to us, and only us.

Understanding this interior life is very important - it is where we find meaning and belonging. The interior life was important to a man named Saint Augustine in the 3rd century as well. In his written works, Augustine thought and wrote about what a person is, deeply concerned with this subjective, inner world that belonged only to the individual. Augustine once mused, “[people] go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.”

Elsewhere, Saint Augustine asks, “Don't you believe that there is in [people] a deep so profound as to be hidden even to [the person] in whom it [exists]?” (repeat). This is a rhetorical question, and in trying to answer it, Saint Augustine seems to draw the conclusion that yes, this depth does truly exist, if not in everyone, then in a great many of us. To come to this conclusion, Augustine probed his inner reality with selfless abandon, and the riches he found filled books. He probed his own internal reality with a depth and conviction that I greatly admire.

By the way, what color was he? Yes, Saint Augustine. What did he look like? Do you know where he was from? With a name like Saint Augustine, I imagine that what comes up in your mind is a lot like what comes up in my mind. But let’s seriously think - if he were around today, with the racialized language of our time, what would we call Saint Augustine? White? Black?

Saint Augustine was black. Tia Noel Pratt says it best in her piece from US Catholic, published April 28 2023:

“…[Augustine’s] African identity was usually muted in favor of describing him as a North African citizen of the Roman Empire with a distinct emphasis on “North” and “Empire.” Currently, the United States Census classifies individuals of Middle East and North African (MENA) descent as white. Consequently, emphasizing that St. Augustine was North African allows him, especially in the United States, to be racially coded as white. At the very least, it allows for deemphasizing his Amazigh origins—the endonymic term for the people of North Africa.”

Pratt’s contextualization for me lays bare what’s at stake in this recoloring of Augustine when she writes, “For generations, Africa was continually robbed of its greatest treasures—its people—through the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade while the continent’s natural resources were confiscated or decimated by colonial powers. Yet, throughout all of that time and into the present-day, the church and scholars of theology, philosophy, and literature alike have considered the works of St. Augustine—an African man—as some of the greatest writings ever produced.” Hows that for robbing Africa of it’s greatest treasures?

We know more about race than we’d like to admit about these ancient church fathers, like the time Saint Augustine described a row of processing bishops as “Cyprian the African, Ilarius the Gaul, Ambrose the Italian, and Gregory the Greek.” Those terms were not so much about place - they were racialized words, conveying ethnicity, or phenotype, in the ancient world.

That first name on the list, Cyprian, of course, is the Black African Catholic Bishop who led the African churches in the 3rd century through intense persecution and slaughter at the hands of Rome. But you all knew about that right? No? You never heard of Cyprian’s African resistance?

Maybe that’s because Cyprian is described as ‘North African’ in history books, as well as his reputation as a great scholar of latin emphasized. In this way, a leader of black Christianity is casually coded white. Investigating not african-ness, that is North African versus Berber or Amazigh, etc., but looking for evidence of blackness, that is the modern racialized category that denigrates those who are darker, a category that still functioned in the ancient world, we turn up a number of saints that we (and by we I mean the dominant cultural narrative) have labelled white incorrectly.

I’m talking about people like Tertulian, who gave Christian tradition the language of trinity, and founded trinitarian theology, himself Berber and dark skinned; and Athanasius, the 4th century bishop that popularized a new testament canon of the 27 books now recognized by the catholic church, and whose writing we often cited in the reformation. Athanasius had his coptic lineage and bilingual and lower-class history conveniently ignored by most of his biographies, in favor of being a, you guessed it, “North-African” and scholar of Alexandria. Funny how our racist assumption that scholars in history were white, then helps us ignore the existence of black scholars throughout history.

There are figures in the Bible like the Ethiopian Eunuch, whose blackness cannot be read away, But characters like Simon of Cyrene (which is actually in modern day Libya), or Apollos, who with a greek name and Alexandrian origins, the folks get read as white. But for these two in particular, there are subtle reasons to think they were actually dark skinned.

But this brings me back to my point. Because we live in the real world. This world is shared, we have inherited it, and it is ours to shape. It is our only world, and it has been warped and twisted into a scary violent place. White supremacy was a dream that caught fire, and that dream created entire disciplines of racist science called phrenology and eugenics, the dream created the slave trade and still forms the basis of our global capitalist economy. Your dreams are circumscribed and coded by those evil dreams.

This world is broken. The brutality of capitalism and racism and militarism, these three above all, have stolen liberty and hope from our world. To say nothing of the epidemic of loneliness, worthlessness, and emptiness that is driving statistics of suicide higher and higher. 2018 had the most suicides on record, and the numbers have barely fallen. Mental illness has reached epidemic proportions as well, fueling crises in our healthcare establishments and exacerbating the complexity of homelessness. Our imaginations are held captive by our broken world.

If you look around at this world and listen the the stories we tell about it, I think you’d have good reason to lose hope. If you are living through intense physical and emotional struggle, I see you, and I understand why you may want to give up. If you are a young person trying to make a way, and all you see are headwinds and difficulties, problems and obstacles, with no end in sight or promise of prosperity of comfort, I can understand why you may not even want to try. If you are watching the news and find yourself increasingly on edge, tense, consumed by a non-specific feeling of doom or dread, then that is anxiety, and you are not alone in your fear or hopelessness. You are not wrong to feel scared or alone, to suffer without the words to describe the intense alienation and despondency this life seems to demand of us.

The pain is real. The fear is real. The isolation is real. This world is real - and this is the only one we have. And yet, it is not the only world we have. Inside of us, each and every one of us, is a whole world. An interior world that contains these fears and pains, that contains this suffering, and yet is more and deeper than it. We have in ourselves the capacity to remake the world around us, to dream a new world into existence. We owe it to our friends to share our dreams, to tell them out loud, and in so doing remake the landscape of ideas in our image, for the sake of our futures!

I stand on the shoulder’s of a true giant of homiletics, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., when I say that I have a dream now, of a beloved community, where our children and elders dance and paint and sing and bang drums and talk about our deepest fears, our greatest dreams, and where we know we all are welcome and we all belong. We owe it to future generations to speak these dreams out loud, to share them so that they might grow into reality.

After all, they dreamed this world into existence! You know, They, that they who built the transatlantic slave trade - they crafted a world that dehumanizes not only the non-white bodies that serve and are destroyed, but also dehumanizes white bodies, severing white legacies of resistance and creativity, and crafting false stories and narratives of acquiescence and conformity to justify continued brutalization. Here in the real world, real people’s bodies are the cost of that white dream.

It is for this reason church that we must dream new dreams, and we must share those dreams with one another. You can’t teach a person to dream, you need only get out of the way, and we will do it without thinking. Dreaming is natural. It’s a reflex. Dreaming can not be taught, only experienced. The only prerequisite is rest.

This world will have you believing that you have no space to rest. There is no escape, there is no other world. I weep for the people who have no place to rest - nowhere to go to escape the machine. I weep because I know from my own experience, what it feels like to have nowhere to rest, no place to go to escape the machine. I know what it’s like to feel hopeless in the world, to wonder at the audacity of life despite our suffering. This is real, church. We have to look directly at it.

The way forward isn’t to force yourself to dream, but instead, learn to rest. It is a lesson I’m still learning. Rest is not filling your calendar with social engagements instead of work functions. Rest is not sitting at home spiraling through anxiety patterns until you pass out, exhausted from just thinking all day. Rest is not forcing yourself to have fun or to “relax” so you can check it off your self-care to-do list. Rest is listening to yourself, your body, your needs. Rest, and the dreams will come.

It’s not wrong to be broken, to need help and healing. This world does not make it easy to dream. Dreaming isn’t easy in poverty. Dreaming isn’t easy when you are caring for young children. Dreaming isn’t easy with a cancer diagnosis, or a sick partner, or chronic pain. Dreaming isn’t easy no matter your color, no matter your struggle. Dreaming isn’t easy.

Rest is the first step. Rest, and the dreams will come.

It is through rest that we find dreams, and through dreams that we find our story, our selves, our purpose, our meaning, our destiny, our selves. Afrofuturists are dreaming ourselves into the future because the future others dreamed up didn’t include us. So we had to dream for ourselves, and share those dreams with the world.

If you choose to share your dreams with the world, you can change it, both the real world, and the inner worlds of other people. You can light the light, and pass it on. But dream either way, because your inner world is yours and it is there. Friends, if you see yourself in these images, if you hear yourself in these words, then I forgive you for forgetting how to dream. For losing track in the pain or suffering that they told you you could never fix, so you never tried. I forgive you for believing the stories that they made up. I believed them too.

But church know this - I’m still learning things I thought I already knew. It’s never to late to turn back. Get your dreams back, church. The first step is rest.

I’ll end today by coming back to our opening quote, fom Ytasha L. Womack:

“It’s one thing when black people aren’t discussed in world history. Fortunately, teams of dedicated historians and culture advocates have chipped away at the propaganda often functioning as history for the world’s students to eradicate that glaring error. But when, even in the imaginary future—a space where the mind can stretch beyond the Milky Way to envision routine space travel, cuddly space animals, talking apes, and time machines—people can’t fathom a person of non-Euro descent a hundred years into the future, a cosmic foot has to be put down.”

Rest is that cosmic foot. Education is that cosmic foot. Dream sharing is that cosmic foot. Rest, church, and dream yourself into the future. It is through actual rest that we find space to be ourself, to imagine ourself, our future, into existence. It is here that we find our true dreams. Amen.

The Veil

Good afternoon. And it is a good afternoon, isn’t it? I noticed that our services have been growing, and while I haven’t been checking the numbers online, I have seen more and more people filling out the space. It’s a good sign. Thank you all for being here. I know there are other places to be.

My topic today is the veil. If you leave here today and remember one thing, I hope that it is this - there are a thousand ways to lift the veil - it’s hard to help anyone, including yourself, until you do. I cannot discuss this topic authentically without describing myself, and without discussing the context of race and racism in America. Please let this serve as a trigger warning for those in our space sensitive to racialized violence and trauma.

I am going to discuss some of my family history. I will touch on the themes of generational and racial trauma. I am not talking not about a literal veil, but using a metaphor to describe ordinary reality. Stay with me now.

At the general assembly of our Unitarian universal denomination it is the custom for those who address the wider community in any capacity to describe themselves physically before they share their message. Well, I have heard criticism of the experience, and I certainly recognize that every bit of changes colors with the colors of the speaker, I want to invoke this tradition now because the way that I look deeply informs my message.

I am a tall, thick and stocky brownish male human with a few thick curls on my chin, the thick dark curls on top of my head are pulled up into a bun. I am occasionally almond colored, and occasionally copper. My range, however, goes from the deep walnut of my freckles and birthmarks to the cashew tones of my palms. In the colors of my skin I see blue, not only in my tattoos, but also in the blood that pumps us to the surface of my skin. I am veritable rainbow of color, wearing a dark blue and green plaid shirt with salmon pink pants. It is difficult to tell by looking what my background or heritage might be.

Keep me and this body in mind when I tell you, I had a strange feeling a couple of days ago when I woke up. It felt like a feeling somewhere in my throat, but it would move down to my shoulders, a warmth in my chest that settled slowly into my belly. It was a strange feeling you know.

That morning I also, I had a little headache, I suffer from chonic migraines, and my neck was sore from sleeping funny. I have a little pain in my right foot, it happens sometimes when I overuse it, some of you may remember the cane I walked with last year. I felt sore in my foot.

I felt these things, but, this other strange feeling in my throat and shoulders, and my belly felt stronger - it was almost as if those little aches and pains didn’t matter. I had this warmness I couldn’t really Identify, I had a hard time even trusting myself that I felt it. But I knew it because it felt good, really good. I felt clear. Present. What was it? You all have to believe me that I took a long time trying to figure it out, what was this warm calm I felt?

Eventually it came to me and some of you may not be so surprised to hear what it was. It was joy. Simple, pure, grounded, joy. It wasn’t an explosion of laughter, or a shout (where I’m from it’s called a grito - aoow!!) It wasn’t like that - it was slow and gentle. It wasn’t fuzzy, it was sharp and clear, but soft. I felt as if I could answer any question about me, and I would enjoy the sharing. I was transparent, unbothered. I was safe and present to what was going on around me.

I didn’t know it at first but when I knew it was joy, I could no longer not know that it was joy - like when you see a lump on an unmade bed, and it’s pillow shaped, and though you don’t see the pillow you know there’s a pillow under there - in the same way, I knew this feeling was a deeper kind of joy.

It’s not that I didn’t have anything on my mind - I’m sure you all can understand I have my worries too. Three kids a spouse and a dog, you know I’m always worried about something - I had plenty of worries of my mind, I was aware of that too. it’s not that. But again, it was like those worries didn’t so much matter. The feeling of warm calm, that sat right here (puts hand to chest), it was what I wished I had been feeling the whole time. It was like background joy.

What is that joy, church? Do you know the feeling? Not a big splash of dopamine, but like a warm pillow that you can swallow, and it just cradles your insides. It was a strange feeling.

That joy is totally alien to the anxiety that normally pushes me through my day - ok, gotta get rolling, gotta get my coffee, gotta get breakfast, gotta walk the dog, gotta get my stuff together, gotta get to work, gotta get this done, gotta send this out, gotta get uptown, downtown, across town, on and on…

No, this was more like a list of ‘don’t gotta’s’ - I don’t gotta think about that, I don’t gotta deal with you, I don’t gotta respond to that comment, I don’t gotta show them what I can do… It was the sort of happiness that feels solid and unchanging. I felt free. The feeling made me light on my toes, I almost wanted to dance. It was a buoyant, levitating joy.

Of course, that feeling didn’t last forever. Eventually, I noticed my worries took their place back at the front of my mind, and I felt no particular warmth in my body. I noticed in my foot and in my shoulders all my little quirks and pains took on their usual dull urgency. I noticed the heel of my feet returned to the ground. I was back to Earth. But even though the feeling came and went, I was hooked. I wanted that kind of joy again. I wanted to rest in it forever. I had to figure out what happened, and how to get it back. Have you ever felt like that?

WEB Dubois teaches us that that feeling is what it is like to be liberated - and that the reason I found that feeling so strange is that for most of my life, as a legacy of my african american heritage, I have lived with something called “double-consciousness.” This means I can’t simply be, or know myself simply as a person, but because of my social location as the descendant of slaves, I must always experience life through a lens that distorts not only what I see, but also who I think is doing the seeing. In his own words, from The Souls of Black Folk, DuBois writes, “... the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro... two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.”

Part of why that feeling of warm joy was so strange is because usually when I wake up in the morning, it’s about 4:30am. And my body tells me urgently, it’s time to get up and handle business. It’s time to move, respond, consider. Is everything handled? What day is it today? It doesn’t matter whether I slept seven hours or two, my body it seems cannot tolerate a calm, cool, slow, gentle morning. This is what made that moment so strange to me - because years of generational trauma has taught me not to trust my sleep, but to be always prepared to wake and run at a moment’s notice.

We have a story in my family of origin, of my grandfathers home in Waterloo, Iowa, a small two-room shack with dirt floors. Five children, and the grownups took the only bedroom, so all of the children had to find pieces of furniture to sleep on, to keep them up off the ground. They couldn’t sleep on the ground because the mice and rats had no trouble comin and going through those dirt floors. My grandfather I think, never had a good full nights sleep in his life. The trauma of those dirt floors stayed with him, in his body, and he passed it on to his children, none of whom get a good nights sleep, who in turn passed it to the grandchildren. I don’t know how many of my twelve first cousins sleep in, but I know more than a few who don’t.

In my body, this racial trauma lives in me, and it finds me in my sleep. When I wake up in the morning, around 4:30, I’m not tired, or ready to curl back up. I can. But my body is on edge, alert, and prepared for anything. For me, that morning, the veil was lifted. I wasn’t looking at myself through the lens of my blackness, where the only person to protect me was myself. I could live as an integrated human, not led or guided or pushed by past events, not guided by intangible fear.

Church do you know about that feeling? I called it a deeper joy - it made even the little pains in my body feel, not even like bad things, but like part of the fabric of my beautiful life. Even my little foot pain, my little worries about walking the dog, felt suddenly, temporarily, extra-ordinary. They were ordinary things, but they felt extra - like the volume on life got turned up, not the distracting parts of life, but the part that are more, maybe, real.

Have you ever felt that way? Do you know that feeling, a deeper joy that makes even the most uncomfortable problems in life, the real difficulties seem less like difficulties and more like little puzzles in a game room? I’m told to come to my problems with joy and creativity, but sometimes I don’t know how to do that, and it seems too hard, but then there are other times, like this that I’m describing, this moment of extraordinary time, extraordinary experience, when I feel helped along by this deeper joy - in those moments, I wonder how else I ever expect to solve problems unless I see them for how small they are. Do you know what I’m talking about?

WEB Dubois uses the veil as a metaphor, but our conversation today is not a purely theoretical exercise. Make no mistake, The veil is very real, and it affects our lives whether we want it to or not. Don’t lose me now, if I were I better preacher I could say this part so that everyone understood me, but I’m doing my best. Forgive me, but I have to say the quiet part out loud. The veil doesn’t want to be seen or discussed, but it is a matter of life that you deal with in your life friends, that we deal with it in church, because even if you don’t catch every word, try to catch my message. Even if we don’t know how, we have to say the quiet parts out loud.

I am a black man, and Dubois is talking about black people, not only to white people, but to other black people, to offer language for their situation. You all who sit before me, or who join in online now or at a later time, some of you are black and might resonate with my words, and others are white and you might resonate, or feel discomfort. And others might be disconnected from American racialized trauma and have to translate my words into your cultural context.

Every person must contend with their veil, and every culture must contend with it’s veils. We lose sight of ourselves, we lost sight of what’s really important, and then we struggle to course-correct. It hard for us as people, to walk a straight path, and when we go astray, it can be easy to stay distracted. We begin to see ourselves as ordinary, and we recognize our part in the ordinary story of ordinary life. Ordinary, like normal, is an operative word in our culture. Ordinary is a tool of white supremacy. “Ordinary” and “normal” become euphamisms for the thing we’re not supposed to say out loud. The veil is itself ordinary, and calls everything we see through it’s distortion ordinary too.

The veil covers our whole faces, our eyes and ears and mouth and nose. The veil is convincing, and it is attractive. It divides us and separates us into units of loneliness, and distorts our vision so that we might never truly embrace each other, but instead just keep bumping into each other as we move through life. The veil can be lifted, in brief exhilarating moments of extraordinary life, moments that take our breath away and burn into our memories as the times we truly lived.

Church, I know you don’t need me to tell you about the times in life that the veil gets lifted. Art lifts the veil sometimes, a puppy on the street can lift the veil - a good song can lift the veil, or a surprise hug. Sometimes making animal noises in church can lift the veil for you, remind you what’s really important in life - and then boom, life is extra-ordinary, and you just can’t keep from smiling, or remember why you were so grumpy a moment ago.

And sometimes, the veil lets up. Fun and joy and connection break in uninvited sometimes, and it can teach us what we’re missing. It’s not wrong to just enjoy these moments, and it’s not wrong that sometimes we have to just feel it briefly and move on. Life is like that, we can’t expect to be always in a place of receptivity and transformation. We can’t live extraordinary life every moment of every day, can we?

Can we?

To be honest, I’m not so sure we can’t.

There is wisdom in accepting the waves of life, all our comings and goings and good fortune and bad fortune, dispassionately and calmly. This is not wrong. But a lifelong Unitarian Universalist who offered me some advice on preaching to this community told me, “a good UU sermon engages both the head and the heart.” I need both from you now, because the compassion we extend to each other cannot be in judgement of our shortcomings. But any thinking person can see, in this community and in our communities across this country, we simply cannot continue as we are. We cannot simply weather this coming storm as if it were someone elses problem. The veil tells us to mind our own business, when in fact the crumbling of our world right now is as much our business as anyone elses. This is not about accepting the good with the bad in a sort of spiritual self-imposed quarantine. It is about the messiness of trying to live life while protecting liberty.

Friends, as we name that which refuses to be named, and put our fingers on the veil, as we say the quiet parts out loud, and lift this veil from our eyes, that distorts us into normal ordinary thinking, let us see with clarity this moment in our different cultures and communities around the world. Nobody is winning. We are all losing, losing our selves, losing each other, losing all we have. Even those among us with wealth and security, power and influence are losing these things.

Around the world, violence and social unrest are spilling us out onto the ground. We are all over the world victims of populist movements and too-advanced weaponry. All over the world our planet is shrugging off the yoke of human development, buckling beneath our hubris. We are all over the world looking for our agency, our power, to stop what feels like an inevitable march toward death and destruction.

In this global moment, Who are we called to be in the church? What are we called to do, church? What is the difference between us and everybody else? Rev. Peggy has been talking a lot about the difference between a citizen and a consumer. I wonder how well we have been listening. Citizenship brings with responsibilities. I know how easy it is, how easy it has been for years, for me to shirk those responsibilities. But I cannot deny that I experience their compulsion. I am called, and if you don’t believe in the Holy Spirit, you might understand the feeling of being cold, drawn, either through feelings, or through the observation of circumstances in the world that cannot be unseen, yet so frequently remain unspoken.

If you leave here today and remember one thing, I hope that it is this - there are a thousand ways to lift the veil - it’s hard to help anyone, including yourself, until you do.

The veil is not a social theory, and though we are focusing on African American life and experience, the veil is not culturally specific. It is difficult to talk about because it is the thing we’re not supposed to talk about. We don’t talk about race, we don’t talk about poverty, we don’t talk about intimate partner violence, we don’t talk about the way those with mental difficulties or neurological differences are systematically culled from the population, we don’t talk about the mortality rates of prisoners or the death systems that eliminate unhoused people. We don’t talk about the slow quiet isolated deaths our elders endure because we have bad systems of care for them.

We don’t even talk about the people who care for us and our children and our sick and our elders on a daily basis, clean our toilets, and take out our trash and sort through our lazy unsorted recycling. David Letterman, on his television show entitled, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, was interviewing Jay-Z, and in an attempt to build camaraderie around the task of fatherhood in the midst of a demanding career, invited Jay to share his thoughts. Jay’s words drifted to discussing the hired help that cleans up after the family and cooks for his children. “What’s the matter Dave,” he says, noticing Letterman’s visible discomfort. “Not supposed to talk about the staff?”

We churches like to call our spaces safe, and yet how easily we forget the labor required to create them. We can value accessibility, and yet we must step out from behind the veil if we are also to acknowledge the labor required to create it.

Do you see thei veil now? Our training has been intense and consistent, at least for those who grow up in this country. The two ways of seeing. Don’t talk about the veil.

I know that here at the Community Church of New York,we might know a thing or two about the veil. The more I learn about you church, the more I see that the community church of New York has a legacy of poking the bubble. We say the quiet parts out loud. Usually it seems to pop right here on 35th St. We uncover the root cause of illness in our society, and sometimes that illness is so deeply infected us that we have exised our own flesh and blood, trying to seek health and wellness, wholeness. It is our legacy to say the quiet part out loud. This is the place where we look for the bits and pieces that are hard to say other places, and we try to say them right here. Language is built upon and within the communities that speak it.

People building beloved community can lift the veil, but only if we do the hard part, and lift our own veils together. Just like you, I am just a person, and I have a body. This body is the same as yours, but different. My body colors my place. What I want to talk about today lives inside my body. I know this is not all there is. There is something more. You have all you need - our body can heal itself, our thoughts can heal themselves - we can change ourselves, change our communities, change the world.

And let me tell you, there has never been a time like this. When Rev. Jude speaks about history, and the present moment, I wonder if you were aware of the reverence that he brings. When he tells you from the pulpit about, where he has been, whom else he has served, whom else he knows in the work and what is happening around the country through his eyes, I wonder how deeply we are listening.

Deep listening is a specific technical term, and listening deeply is not passive or receptive. In order to recognize the felt experience of another, one is not emptying them. Self of their invited experience but fully embodying it. How do I feel, what is happening in my body? What am I doing here, what is that smell? No, I’m serious, because, we have to get here and be here fully. I’ll tell you why at the end.

To engage the practice of deep listening, it is almost better if the conversation partner is speaking a foreign language. There’s no veil that way. You connect to what it is they are saying, not the words, but how they are telling their story. It’s about how your body moves, and sympathizes. It’s about the breathing. Even just a deep breath can lift the veil.

If you leave here today and remember one thing, I hope that it is this - there are a thousand ways to lift the veil - it’s hard to help anyone, including yourself, until you do.

Two weeks ago, we cancelled church. It was a difficult decision, the ministers were in conversation the whole week about it.

Do we cancel church? Do we hold services even if we know most people are not going to be able to come? It was the day of the annual pride march, a day in which the entire island of Manhattan shuts down. Reason for not gathering many, and the opportunities to be together on that day seemed Fleeting.

On the Thursday before hand, the city shut down for an impromptu protest on the west side. On the east side, all I saw were block after block of gridlock traffic, drivers laying on their horns and shouting at each other, angry, pedestrians, sharing, gossip about what the protest was about. The next day, there was the impromptu Dyke March, and annual ritual in pride festivities that is unscheduled and therefore not mitigated by police. This time, I decided I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I wanted to see if we really should hold church or not in the midst of this protest.

I was not prepared for what I found. They continued along fifth Avenue when I joined, and there were thousands of women and girls, and several men and boys, yelling, chanting, holding signs, beating drums, playing, music, laughing, shouting, dancing, kissing, playing hand games. There were children and adults of all ages. Together, the people shut down the city. Traffic stopped, and though I don’t know how many people were walking down Fifth Avenue, at one point near 28th Street I saw only bodies, people before me as far as the eye could see, people behind me as far as the eye could see, and more gathering, pouring onto the avenue from every side street.

In that moment, church, it happened to me again. The veil was lifted. I saw all people around me not for who they were in our culture, not for their demographic or for their power, but for their humanity. I felt a warm peace in my chest, a knowledge that who I was was not so important, and that the type of person I was mattered less than the fact that I’m just a person. I was filled with hope at the human condition, amazed at what social action can do to a city, but even more, at what social action can do to a soul - I was lifted in love. For me, I suddenly saw myself and the world with clear eyes, and I knew what it meant to love without limits and without understanding.

There are a thousand reasons for us not to have fun, not to live fully, not to be ourselves, not to say the quiet parts out loud. There are a thousand reasons for us to live under a veil, and to go through life bumping into others instead of living. But today, let’s try something else. Let’s have fun, and be full together. Say the quiet parts out loud. Let’s lift our veil, join in the dance, and make messy beloved community. Right now.

Friends, I am just a person, and I have a body. This body is the same as yours, but different. My body colors my place. I see things through my lens. In this body, through this body, I know this is not all there is. There is something more. Here in us, here between us, we have all we need - our body can heal itself, our thoughts can heal themselves - we can change ourselves, change our communities, change the world.

If you leave here today and remember one thing, I hope that it is this - there are a thousand ways to lift the veil - it’s hard to help anyone, including yourself, until you do.

The Art of Failure

Good afternoon church. Happy Mother’s Day. Generally speaking, I don’t like to telegraph my main point by stating it out front, but there are so many topics today and Dr. Cone already gave it away, so I want to make sure we are all the same mind and don’t confuse my message today. 

What we are here to talk about is failure. 

And my argument to you is that failure is scary, but failure is also good for us. It is not only good for us, but it is necessary that we experience it in our life, because it moves us to grow. And finally, failure is not only good for us and not only necessary in our lives, but it is beautiful, and should be celebrated for its beauty.

If you don’t mind me saying so I have a very real experience of failure this morning. I checked my email to discover that nobody else on staff today knew what was happening today, nobody got my order of service. 

Now I can tell you all my good reasons for failing, and why I should be forgiven, but that’s not what we’re talking about. This message today isn’t about how can I explain away my mistakes, or how can I avoid accountability. It’s not about how can I come off looking good, or how can I avoid blame. No, it’s about the art of failure. 

And I don’t mind telling you today that I feel these words in particular because it is Mother’s Day I have deep wounds and memories from failing at mothers day. And what child, daughter or son, husband or partner or wife or father, hasn’t felt the experience of failure on Mother’s Day?

 I speak for myself when I say I second-guess myself all the way up until the day, and then no matter how I celebrate the wonderful motherers in my life, because anyone can mother, this day is often flattened into a celebration of females and female parenting, but we do well to remember today that we all can mother and that we have been mothered by people of all genders and persuasions - I try to celebrate the motherers in my life and I determine my efforts to be unworthy all by myself. I see my gestures as small and meaningless compared to the depth and breadth of meaning my mother and the mother of my children bring to my life. All around me I see missed opportunities to honor motherers who do not get enough recognition or appreciation.

For those who celebrate Mother’s Day today, I wish you a happy Mother’s Day, and if you didn’t do enough, I forgive you for not doing enough.. For those who do not celebrate or who today go uncelebrated, may you find peace in affirmation. Because not everyone celebrates Mother’s Day. 

For some, becoming a mother is neither a choice nor joyful. For others this day is a sad reminder of what will never come to pass. Some long to be mothers and can’t, while others mourn the children taken away too soon. Mother’s Day more than any other celebration, even Father’s Day, holds a great tension in our world. We all come from a mother, whether we know her or not, like her or not. For some, Mother’s Day is a chance to acknowledge a woman rarely present, when the ever-present often female caretaker, perhaps with children of her own at home, is often neglected and overlooked.

We can find this tension also in the discrepancy between the definition of a mother and the role that she is expected to play in the family, and society. A mother simply bears children, this is what it means to be a mother in definition alone - the role of mother, however, is deep and broad in our culture. The mother role is, frankly, perfection. She must be, in the words of St. Paul, all things to all people. 

I encourage all of us to consider this definition of mothering, and without laying accusation or blame on the women in our life overburdened with these responsibilities, I argue that a good many people still long to the maternal care we either received when we were young, or that we didn’t receive. The attention and compassion that we give to children, regardless of our gender or theirs, is an expression of maternal love. We cannot all be mothers, but we can all mother. And we all need maternal loving care. 

I have in my mind today:

• A mother who recently lost her mother

• A woman who recently learned she will never be a mother

• A mother who will not be getting her own life back, and a daughter who mourns this loss with her

• A daughter who cares for a mother who offers little support or recognition or gratitude in response.

• A mother who longs to speak to her two sons

• A child who never knew her mother, and a mother child who wished she didn’t know her mother.

• I have on my mind a mother who is trying desperately to raise children as she was raised, as if the world hadn’t changed in 30 years. And another who is trying desperately not to become her own mother, breaking generational patterns of emotional neglect. 

We need each other church, mothers or not. In my tradition, the church is our spiritual mother - maternal care is owed to each member of a church, given by the community. We need each other now more than ever. 

I can only speak for myself when I say that I try so hard to be perfect. To get it right. I don’t want to miss an opportunity, I don’t want to be ineffective. It’s not for recognition from others, it feels like my biological imperative to make the best of every moment, to do what is needed of me. 

Mothers are expected to be heroes, and a great many women live up to that expectation and perform incredible work. The hero finds herself receiving higher and higher expectations as time goes on. The burden can be so much to bear. 

In the Disney movie Encanto set in a fictional Colombia, South America, Luisa is a woman gifted with superhuman strength. She uses this incredible physical power to help the whole town with various tasks, matching her strength with incredible poise and great virtuosity. In one scene she restores a church wall to proper alignment with the shake of her hip; in another, she is tossing grown donkeys over her shoulders. Although she sings about her feelings to her little sister and not a daughter, I can’t help but hear the voice of a mother expected by the world to be superhuman. The lyrics are as follows:

I'm the strong one, I'm not nervous, I'm as tough as the crust of the Earth is

I move mountains, I move churches

And I glow, 'cause I know what my worth is

I don't ask how hard the work is

But under the surface, I feel berserk as a tightrope walker in a three-ring circus

Under the surface, I'm pretty sure I'm worthless if I can't be of service

Who am I if I can't carry it all?

Under the surface, I hide my nerves and it worsens, I worry something is gonna hurt us.

Under the surface, I think about my purpose, can I somehow preserve this?

But wait, if I could shake the crushing weight of expectations

Would that free some room up for joy or relaxation, or simple pleasure?

Instead, we measure this growing pressure

Watch as she buckles and bends but never breaks, no mistakes

Just pressure.”

Luisa describes the experience of being overwhelmed by expectations. 

Church tell me you have never felt that way. Tell me if you honestly can that you have never felt overburdened by the expectations put upon you, like you were just gonna pop. If the weight of what other people thought you needed to do was a crushing weight, tell me, church, because I know you have. Tell me, have you ever felt pushed so hard that you bent and buckled but didn’t break, church?

Mothers, I  know you have. Because I know the expectations upon you as a mother are impossible. They cannot be accomplished by a single human being, in fact, even with the help of a community it seems mothering is still really really hard.

Tell me you have never felt that the world required a hero, but you were just a person, and how are you supposed to succeed when the only option available to you seems to be failure? 

Well, the problem is not us, or those who seem to be asking too much from us. The problem is that our world gives us such a small definition of success, and such a vivid shame response to failure. Why is that? What is the reason we seem to lust so hard after success?

That’s a legitimate question, I’m not going to offer up a pretend answer. Because time and time again, I find ultimate success in my failures. I get proven wrong time and time again, when i try not so hard to be perfect, and try instead to be myself, to be honest, to be real. When I say I’m sorry, I hear people tell me, “That’s ok.” Don’t worry about it.” or my favorite, “say less.” When I miss the mark and have to walk back my efforts, I often find that I didn’t understand the first time anyway. When I slip and fall and get muddy, haha I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that it is pretty funny to see. When I lash out in strong feelings at those closest to me, and cause harm I don’t intend, yes, that is a failure, and it’s not meant to be explained away. But only when we see failure, admit its presence in our lives, and allow it to shape us, can we reap the benefit of its fruit. 

Failure means making choices, and not being afraid to be “not perfect.” This morning church, this very morning in front of me while I was waiting in line to get coffee was a woman wearing a handbag that said, “I am giving up the need to be perfect today” - whew that got me! Church what if we gave up the need to be perfect? What if we admit to each other and ourselves that it is really difficult and unsettling to live alone? What if we stopped holding those around us accountable for an invisible perfection? What if we stopped wishing things we go back to the way they were, and admitted that things weren’t that great then either, we are just scared to be here, now? What if we simply admit we are afraid to admit we failed?

Ultimate Sucess doesn’t look like never tripping and falling. It looks like laughing at yourself for it. Ultimate success doesn’t look like happy confidence - it looks like the wiping of tears, the sharing of bread, and stooping down low to touch someone. Success doesn’t look like winning, defeating losers, or being safe while others are vulnerable. It looks like Joy. 

And now I am speaking directly to you church, whether you have enough to get by or not, whether you are scraping by and don’t want to tell us, that’s ok, we’re here for you either way, whether you are here in this space or out there in the world, whether you are bedridden and trapped by your failing health, or your fears of change, which are valid, or whether you are struggling with the daily activities of healthy living because it’s just that hard right now, Spirit sees you and knows that's true, whether you are angry at the past for leaving you, or sad because all you loved is now gone, whether you are lifted by the presence of friends or strangers, or whether you are truly exhausted and overwhelmed by how bad it is in the world - it doesn’t matter who you are and where you're from, whether the talk of Jesus is for you or not, either way, ultimate success is gonna require some talk of failure. 

And failure is beautiful - this truth can only be seen when you give up on perfection. Realness is gorgeous - people glow when they are true. You may remember me talking about Joy and saying Joy isn’t a reflex - it’s divine intervention. Joy shows up by accident, and it is often not perfect. Joy overflows, Joy overreacts, Joy explodes - and yet is not destroyed. Joy is contagious - but not always obvious. Sometimes, we feel joy we can’t say, or sometimes Joy looks like anger or sadness. But we miss the mark when we say that the Joy is ours, that earned it, and that we are joyful because we deserve it. 

No, ultimate success is not obvious. The parable of the starfish thrower comes immediately to mind, as the story goes, a passerby notices thousands of beached starfish, and a single individual throwing them back. When pressed, the starfish thrower said, “Of course, I know I cannot save them all. But I can save these,” and the thrower bent down and picked up another starfish. 

I’m sure you can conjure similar images of hope in times of despair. Joy in times of pain and grief. Ultimate success in times of obvious failure. But if we miss the beauty in realness and connection, if we miss the loveliness that comes from mistakes, then we are still sleeping, and we are not awake to the art of failure. The art of failure is beautiful all by itself. And if we must fail, let us fail joyfully. For this Joy we have, the world didn’t give it, the world can’t take it away. 

The Way of the Pilgrim

Good afternoon. Friends, I need you to listen to me. Lean in closely. Because I am not here, sharing, empty musings with useless intellectual jargon. I am a human, just like you, talking to you about the most important thing in our lives. Put down your cell phone, at least for a minute, put down whatever you are holding. Whatever is on your mind, I’m sure it’s important, but just let those problems sit for a second.

Take a minute to be with me, do your best to forget about whatever is troubling you. It will still be there when we are done here. The future will come, but worrying about it in this moment will not help. You might get distracted, and miss what I have to say.

I am speaking to you with the urgency of a person that cares for you, and expects your attention. What will it take for me to have your undivided attention? Are you comfortable? Do you need to shift around in your seat? Are you someone who thinks best while standing, or pacing? Do you need to stand and stretch?

Don’t let the empty rituals of decorum interrupt your listening. Because this is important. This moment is important. I am a person standing here with my own flaws, with my own difficulties, and with a sincere love for you. I am speaking to you to share what I have heard, what I have read, what I have lived, what I have learned. Please do me the honor of listening. You might just learn something. Or worse, you might just feel something.

You see, it is no small thing to stand before a community and offer guidance and support. And those of you who have known me and who have walked with me, and who have asked me for your attention, you can attest to the reality in my words when I say, I see you and hear you. It is with these tools, the looking and listening, that I do my best to show that I love you. I love you now, not for any strength on my part, but for the effort placed in my spirit by forces outside of my control. I am not any more loving than you, I am certainly no smarter than any of you sitting before me, or in the Internet, I am not stronger, and I am not chosen. I am just like you, a person, trying my best with the information presented to me. And, I would be heartbroken if I discovered that you weren’t listening to me. So I ask you with all of my heart right now. Pay attention. Lean in close. This is no small message I bring.

Because Friends, the time is now. It is here. This is our chance. there is no time to waste. As we speak, the dark clouds of violence build in the skies above us. All around the world forces of war gather and consolidate. Here, in our very city, the fragile peace that binds us together and keeps us New Yorkers going is fragile and tenuous, stretched thin by our present moment . Here and everywhere fear holds power over our communities, over our cities, over our nations, over our very hearts. There is no time to waste.

I am not sure if you have seen the news lately, but our world has become a scary place. And in scary places, when scary things happen, it is good and right to be afraid. But it can’t end there.

Every moment we spend motivated by fear, guided away from trust and courage, is another moment spent wasting our time alone. For there is no camaraderie in fear, no trust in cowardice, and no truth in anxiety and worry. Anxiety and worry are fantasies, born of an over-eager imagination, attempting to know the future. And the future is not ours to know. All we have is now, and all we have is each other. And friends look around you. Even if you are joining from home, alone in your living room or apartment, or even if you are alone in a big empty house, I am here with you by the miracle of technology. If you are lucky to be here in this space, in this moment, you are not alone, you have not been forgotten, or ignored, and you Have friends.

Maybe trust for you is not easy to come by. Maybe you have been hurt in the past, or maybe even recently, by someone, you trusted, and now loneliness feels safe. Maybe you are still suffering under the experience of rejection or humiliation, certain that there is no love in this world for you that you deserve. Maybe you Are here now, remembering only the love that you yourself have lost, the happiness and connection that was once yours, but you cannot find it anymore. And I honor the grief we all must endure simply to live and lose. Loss is part of how we live, and it is a powerful motivator for fear. Fear is good common sense. There is plenty for us to fear in the world. But fear is not true. Right now, all we have is this moment, and all we have is each other.

Friends, do not waste another moment, thinking thoughts of sadness, or emptiness, until you hear my words. This is the most important thing we will do today, is to speak honestly with each other about what it means to be a person. What it means to be afraid. What it means to lose. What it means to hurt. What it means to feel alone. We have all felt those things. And we may feel them now just to speak about it.

And yet it is also true that a person cannot be truly alone. If you are sitting down, it is likely in a chair or a pew, or a couch, or a piece of furniture built by someone else. If you stand, you likely stand upon the soles of shoes that you did not construct yourself. If you are listening to me through the miracle of technology, there is not one of you among us capable of producing the device that brings you my face and my voice without help. Maybe you remember a time when an imaginary friend helped you too, or the thought of a comforting presence was truly comforting.

What I am saying to your friends is that all around us are forces that try to keep us apart. And in this moment, by our collective strength and intention, we can be together. And even if we are not truly together, we can come together. We can see each other, and feel seen in return. We can be present to all that we are, and all we have been. No one is trying to hurt you right now. So breathe. The world is a scary, lonely place and we need to take and hold every opportunity we have to be together.

Perhaps this is not news to you. Perhaps you already take every chance you can to feel seen and connected. Maybe it feels like you have heard all this before. Maybe you’re listening to me thinking,

there is nothing new in his words, no great insight in his musings, no help in his effort, no foundation to his outbursts of emotion.

And friends you may very well, be correct. I don’t stand here, pretending to be an original, I am one person having learned and still learning from those who came before me, sharing the best that my mind has to offer, and none of it is new. these are very old ideas. And you have likely heard all of this before. Many others who are stronger and smarter and better with words have spoken wisdom with clarity I can only admire and emulate. But do not think for one moment, friends, that the reason you have heard all of this before, is because you have seen at all. Do not think for a moment that you have experienced all that this world has to share, that you have collected all of the knowledge and wisdom there is to be found.

And I imagine in your heart, if you are feeling this way, you must know that it is wrong, and that there is more to see and feel in this world than you have exhausted in your years. None of us has experienced all this world has to offer. None of us can know with true knowledge all that has transpired in this world. None of us knows everything, none of us can be everything, because we are all just people. We are all living this Life one moment at a time, all we have is now, and all we have is each other.

To leave behind our petty worries and fears is not folly or ignorance. To accept our interconnectedness, and to reach out to one another in trust is not naïve or foolhardy. It is a recognition of our true place in the world, here, now, surrounded by one another. It is not foolishness to admit we cannot know the future, it is wisdom. It is not foolishness to admit we can’t do this alone, that is wisdom.

Today is an auspicious day to be talking of wisdom. It is the feast day of Saint Patrick, a guide and sage from catholic tradition whose life continues to inspire lives of urgency and presence across the world. And what a strange life it was. The most reliable account of the life of Saint Patrick is his own autobiography, and in it we hear incredible stories of miracles. Saint Patrick is believed by many to have raised more than 30 from the dead, including horses and children.

I don’t have time to recount all of these miraculous events in his life here and now, and it is likely you would not believe me anyway. These fantastic stories of miracles do not land well with a modern audience. The boundaries of what is possible are smaller for us than they were for the ancients.

We believe in What we can see, we believe in the tradition of empirical evidence we call science. We mistrust, with good reason, strange fantasies and stories that defy what we believe about the world. Doubt and skepticism are themselves forms of wisdom, that teach us to discern the truth rather than accepting everything we hear at face value.

But they can also be misleading, intoxicating assurances of our own self-sufficiency and strength of mind. Our doubt and skepticism can make us believe that we alone know the truth, that we understand all there is to understand in this world, and then by the strength of our good sense, we alone know what is true. We can’t leave behind our down and skepticism, but neither can we trust it with our whole hearts.

And if he were with us today, Saint Patrick would insist on all that we do not know in the world. He would talk about his own inadequacies, his own lack of education and his own illiteracy he would talk about his stumbling and feelings, about his mistakes and missed opportunities. He would talk about the things he saw that he didn’t understand, the things he felt that were beyond his knowledge, And the times that his God spoke to him from another world.

He would talk to us about the love he felt by talking to his imaginary friend, Jesus, and the strength that this imaginary conversation brought him through his time in captivity. He would say to us, “do not think for a moment that you have experienced all that this world has to share, that you have collected all of the knowledge and wisdom there is to be found.”

We can imagine this man saying these things, but that is just our imagination. St. Patrick is not actually here today. I am not Saint Patrick, and I have not lived a life like his. But I do know something about loss, and I know something about wandering. I know something about leaving and returning, and I know something about stepping out onto a new path with nothing. It is only in the losing that we can be reminded of what we have. It is only in our memories of times past that we can recognize the beauty in our present community. It is only through knowledge of love that we feel the pain of loneliness.

My grandmother’s house was a big house, enclosed by a concrete wall with a big iron gate. It was surrounded by shrubs and trees, and in my childhood imagination, it was, in a magical way, eternal. It had always been there, and I assumed it would always be there. I was an adult, and I had been living here in New York for more than 10 years when my grandmother sold her house.

It was not my house, I had never lived there, but my grandmother had lived there since before I was born. It was the house we gathered in for holidays. It was the house I met my cousins in. It was where my mother‘s childhood bedroom Still held her bed and sheets and dolls. And when my grandmother sold that house, nobody asked me. Why should they? It was not my house. I had never lived there. I had been living in New York for over a decade.

But I felt the sting and pain of loss, as if a family member had died. The house lived in me, and though I never called that house my home, I had a life there, with stories. Only I and those four walls and possibly my imaginary friend Tristan knew.

It wasn’t my home. But I felt I had lost a home. I felt like I was suddenly stranded, wandering, without a tether. I felt like I had lost my center, and I felt my steps wobbled without direction. I was not wrong to be sad, or to feel loss, but the intensity of the feeling told me I was, in some way, wrong to have relied upon my grandmother’s old house for some sense of balance and direction. Because that house like everything else in this world, eventually moves on. Eventually, all of us, and everyone we know, will move from this world, and this place, to the next. Our memories and our imagination are all we have to keep us connected to the things in the world that pass on. This feeling of wandering without a tether is disorienting to us. But to the pilgrim, it is the beginning of freedom. The pilgrim lives in the moment, filled with these memories and imaginings.

And these memories, real or created, live in us in every moment. Those memories, these imaginings, do not move on - they linger. They can be for us a comfort, or a burden.

When I began this message, friends, I asked you to put aside your worries and listen to me. I asked for your attention. Now, I invite you to consider what in your life is heavy or tiresome. What are your worries, what are your fears? What have you lost? What pains do you carry with you? Who has gone on before you, that lives only in your memories and imagination?

Friends, we are all in this together, as the song goes. Walking the line between faith and fear. This life won’t last forever. But here and now, in this moment, it is the truest thing ever said when we assert that we have each other. This is the way of the pilgrim - we do not sit in one place, and we do not linger in the places and people that eventually leave or die or fall. We do not linger in our fears or worries, looking for an escape into the future we cannot understand or predict.

The pilgrim is tossed and turned by the weather - the pilgrim wanders sometimes without direction, or moves swiftly with conviction and certainly. But The pilgrim moves on. The pilgrim keeps going. The pilgrim is motivated by an understanding not that the future holds any particular promise, but that the moment, this very moment, miracles are happening, both outside and inside us.

The pilgrim talks to imaginary friends, not to escape the pain of the world because the truth of loss is so heavy that it must be shared at every turn! The pilgrim knows that in our loneliness, though it seems that we walk alone, we are always, constantly, guided and supported by the spirit and memories of those who have gone before us.

The pilgrim knows that though we are each of us only one person, we each contain multitudes of stories and memories and imaginings to carry us through. And, most of all, the pilgrim knows that not every friend is imaginary. Not every person whom we have loved or who has loved us is gone. The pilgrim knows that the past and future live in us but friends live outside of us, and outside of us, in that special place of connection and sharing, when we experience a moment filled with wonder and beauty, or even in the midst of sadness and suffering, not all of our friends are imaginary. Sometimes, there are very real people around us, sharing the same moment, thinking the same thought. Look at them. See them as the pilgrims we all are, as the travellers that we try not to be, but become eventually anyway.

Friends, this is the way of the pilgrim - to be guided by our past, not consumed by it. This is the way of the pilgrim: to be curious about the future, not obsessed with it. Because if we spend too much time in the past or the future there, we miss the miracles passing us by in each and every moment. The miracle could be the fantastic, the imaginary, the transcendent - or the miracle could be the regular everyday person, sitting next to us, who loves us and we didn’t even know it. The miracle could be somebody trying to get your attention, saying good afternoon, who sees you and hears you and calls you beautiful.

The way of the pilgrim is to stop for a moment, put down your stuff, and look at the people around you. Truly look at them. Listen with your whole heart. Share the weird parts of your heart with recklessness. Because we are all in this together. Amen.

The Path of Non-Violence

Church, I have a problem. Once again, I have far too much to say, and just not quite enough time to say it. It is a saying often misattributed to Mark Twain, “If I had more time I would have written a shorter letter.” Well, church, If I had more time, I would have written a shorter sermon.

The path of Non-violence is a well-worn subject in this pulpit, and I do not hope to add to the legacy of the man we honor today by repeating what need not be explained. We are here, grateful, and hopeful, already engaged in the work of loving, and already engaged in the building of Beloved Community.

“The Beloved Community” is described by the King Center as a term that was first coined in the early days of the 20th Century by the philosopher-theologian Josiah Royce, who founded the Fellowship of Reconciliation. However, it was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., also a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, who popularized the term and invested it with a deeper meaning which has captured the imagination of people of goodwill all over the world.

As early as 1956, Dr. King spoke of The Beloved Community as the end goal of nonviolent boycotts. As he said in a speech at a victory rally following the announcement of a favorable U.S. Supreme Court Decision desegregating the seats on Montgomery’s busses, “The end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opponents into friends. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men.”

I had the distinguished pleasure of visiting the King Center for the first time last year in 2023. I visited Atlanta for the Finding Our Way Home conference, the gathering of Unitarian Universalist ministers of color. I took public transportation from the hotel to the King Center, which was only about 15 minutes away. I had breakfast at the hotel. I spoke with distinguished colleagues about erudite and lofty matters. We lost track of time and missed the group going to the King Center. We got separated. I ended up making my solemn pilgrimage to the King Center alone.

On public transportation, through Atlanta, I noticed a great deal of poverty. People sleeping on sidewalks, and in tents. Some people stood around, while others passed cigarettes and coffee cups between each other. Bodies of men and women lay against walls and on sidewalks, motionless.

It felt Ironic to be gathered in Atlanta to celebrate the work and understand the meaning and life of Dr. King around so much evidence that his work was not completed in his lifetime, or since. We do not yet live as he hoped we eventually would. Poverty is a plague. Few can endure it for long. Either the disease is cured, or it is fatal.

Poverty is not the absence of wealth. It is not the lack of riches. It is not even the lack of stability that affluence and comfort provide. No, poverty is an intricate network of systems that withhold or remove resources from communities, most easily performed through forced migration and forced relocation. Poverty is a today problem, and it has been a today problem since long before the time of Jesus.

Dr. King’s Beloved Community rests in justice, not for any one oppressed group, but for all people. As Dr. King often said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” He felt that justice could not be parceled out to individuals or groups, but was the birthright of every human being in the Beloved Community. I have fought too long hard against segregated public accommodations to end up segregating my moral concerns,” he said. “Justice is indivisible.”

War is everywhere, and it would be a waste of time, and a waste of energy to tell you all about the evils of war. And anyway, we do not have time to waste on war or the ones who condone it or perpetuate it. I don't have time here to talk about or explain why violence is bad and wrong, why collective civic non-violent action struggles to capture the imagination like war.

Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.

Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding.

Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not people.

Nonviolence holds that suffering can educate and transform.

Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate.

Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice.

I want to share a brief story as an example. I was on 6th Avenue. I'm off in Greenwich Village because it's where my children go to school, and I have gotten to know some of the folks along this avenue in the morning, of all socioeconomic levels. It is hard. My nervous system does not want to trust poor men, especially those who gather in groups. I would be lying to you if I told you all human beings were safe. And yet I want to share with you a moment of holy transcendence and connected reality with you.

I had just dropped off the children at school, I was walking quickly with my long brown coat, and I was talking on the phone, as I often am. A man Stood in my way And asked me if I had any money to give him. In truth, all I had were my children's have eaten bagels in my bag, and no cash. Cash. I shook my head at him and I said good luck. He took my refusal as proud. As I passed, I felt him place his hand on my shoulder. He hesitated for a moment and shoved me forward. I felt the pressure of his body and heard the stumble in his steps. Still holding my phone. I turned with my shoulder and faced him. I looked him square in the eye, and we looked at each other.

I felt fear, that he was willing to try to hurt me, but through the stumble of his footsteps, I knew he felt weak. Turning and looking at him. He saw that I was larger than he, and he felt My size when he shoved me. But when I turned to him, I walked closer and I held up a fist, not with malice or threat, but sideways, and slowly, rising from below with no speed or intention. I lifted it as I slowly and carefully approached him and I stopped outside his comfort zone. His gaze softened. He raised his fist to me.

There is a great deal bell hooks writes to help me offer context for this moment of shared love and humanity, but I want to begin with her analysis that violence is not an inherently male characteristic. Now I know what you may be thinking. I look around the world and I recognize that even if violence is not an inherently male characteristic, it is very much a gendered in our world. Male violence has a different characteristic, a different impact on human society, and a different role in our neurological and embodied fear of men.

But the softening of maleness is a practice. And we get it so wrong to expect men to soften for us first before we make space for it. Principles of non-violence are not spirituality 101. This is the next level. This is how we become not simply practitioners of the religion, but teachers, guides, and elders. It is not enough simply to possess a belief or a stance. We must also cultivate the resilience that allows us to do the work of non-violence.

I have been invited to connect folks to resources and communities around the city, and I'll admit I've had limited success. We are disorganized, I am disorganized, and the city in my opinion has never been this disorganized or felt this disorganized. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Unfortunately, this doesn’t absolve us of our responsibilities. This is the task that we have signed ourselves up for. Whether we are up to the task or not, we have decided to put love at the center of what we do here at this church. What that means, what that looks like, is the beloved community. Last year, I already shared descriptions of my beloved community with you all, and my understanding of what it looks like to put love at the center of everything.

It looks like a relationship. In relationships are hard, especially if you have deeply entrenched and embodied experiences and expectations of conflict. That comes with the terrain of the patriarchy. Dr. King reminds us that the three evils non-violence seeks to eradicate are poverty, racism, and militarism. Patriarchy cannot be left off this list. Because with it comes the aspects of our sociopolitical reality upon which our racism is built.

It would not be fair of me to leave you there.

What does a beloved community look like?

In a 1957 speech, Birth of A New Nation, Dr. King said, “The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community. The aftermath of nonviolence is redemption. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation. The aftermath of violence is emptiness and bitterness.” A year later, in his first book Stride Toward Freedom, Dr. King reiterated the importance of nonviolence in attaining The Beloved Community. In other words, our ultimate goal is integration, which is genuine inter-group and inter-personal living. Only through nonviolence can this goal be attained, for the aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation and the creation of the Beloved Community.

The way of non-violence is what we talk about when we say we are putting love at the center of everything. The way of non-violence is what we're talking about when we speak of beloved community and the work of caregiving. The way of non-violence is what we talk about when we discuss the meaning of pastoral care and how we provide it for each other.

Here at the community church, we are not beginners. The many years of ministry and activism on our team proclaim our mission through action. Any time spent in the life and work of John Haynes Holmes quickly finds erudite and comprehensive work on the nature of non-violent action, the necessity of demilitarization and disarmament, and the urgent claim to peace in the lives of all human beings. This pulpit is not new to the idea that war is bad. So we can't stop there.

The core value of the quest for Dr. King’s Beloved Community was agape love. Dr. King distinguished between three kinds of love: eros, “a sort of aesthetic or romantic love”; philia, “affection between friends” and agape, which he described as “understanding, redeeming goodwill for all,” an “overflowing love which is purely spontaneous, unmotivated, groundless and creative”…” the love of God operating in the human heart.” He said that “Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people…It begins by loving others for their sakes” and “makes no distinction between a friend and enemy; it is directed toward both…Agape is love seeking to preserve and create community.”

The task for us, church, is not simply to describe the world as it was, but to build the world to come. We are building a church here. And the foundation is love. Amen.

Fire and Ice: Winter Solstice

Frigga, the Earth Mother, the Norse Goddess of love and marriage, weaves the clouds with her spinning wheel. She’s responsible for the wind and the rain and the snow and therefore the crops and the food and Frigga could see the fates. Frigga was worshipped by all the ancient peoples of the North and was the beloved wife of Odin, The All-Father. She was known as a 'seer', one who knew the future though she could never change it.

As a seer, Frigga saw her son’s fate. She saw that her son, Baldur, whose name means Shining One, was going to die. Baldur is the God of the sun, the light, the one who brings life and warmth to Earth. Frigga could see the future but she had no power to affect it. Baldur’s death came to pass. The malevolent trickster Loki fashioned a dart made of the poisonous plant mistletoe and, in a cruel trick, placed it in the hand of Baldur's brother Hodor who was the God of Darkness, and offered to guide his hand while teaching him to shoot darts.

And so he did, guiding the arrow directly into Baldur's heart. Baldur was shot with a spear made of mistletoe and the Light died. His body was burned in a huge fire. Frigga couldn’t bear the loss of her son, so she impregnated herself by eating berries from the mistletoe and gave birth to him once again. The sun was reborn. Frigga is so grateful that she made the plant a symbol of peace and love, promising a kiss to all who passed under it.

Theirs is the story of the Winter Solstice. The light dies and Mother Earth brings him back again. Of all the holidays celebrated by humans, the solstice is likely the oldest. It’s a magical season marking the journey from dark to light, the turning of the year from the end to the beginning. The year is reborn accompanied by festivals of light to mark the rebirth of the Sun. In ancient Europe, this turning of the darkness was credited to Frigga who sat at her spinning wheel weaving the clouds, watching the fates and birthing the light.

We are entering the Winter Solstice. Daylight has given way to dark. Sunbathing and outdoor dining and open-air theatre are things of the past and the future. These are the days of hurrying from place to place wrapped in heavy coats and faces covered in scarves, of dutch-oven stews, and the feeling of nighttime settling in each afternoon. We have moved just about as far from the sun as we can get, plunging ourselves into days of cold and dark as our planet revolves and rotates in her magical, mysterious orbit.

Long before people were tracking our own history, we were celebrating, or at least acknowledging, the winter solstice. People, wherever they were, noted the turning of the season. The daylight is at its briefest and the nights are not only long, they are very dark. For some, there is no light at all these days, with the sun barely breaking the horizon even at the peak of daytime. The northern pole is leaning away from the sun so that everyone north of the equator, which means 90% of the human population, is living with these long nights and shortened days. For us, there are about 9 hours of light this week, 16 hours of dark.

Solstice is the time of turning. We are about to experience the darkest, longest night of the year, and although we will then begin to add seconds of light back, our experience for some time will be that of darkest winter. Then, in a month or so, we’ll notice that it’s no longer dark at 4:30, and in February it might even feel like spring is on its way as evening is pushed even later. Our planet turns and we along with it. Spinning faster than we can imagine, and obviously faster than any of us experience. In the day to day-ness of life, it all feels very slow, as dark descends and takes hold.

We are here, on the cusp of what’s next. Our year is ending as light reaches its lowest point. Each day we lose another minute of light as we get closer to December 21st at 10:27pm when the shift begins. That will be the darkest point and the next day, the light will return, at first just a few seconds at a time. The darkness is ending. Frigga’s mourning is soon over. We see the return of the shining star. Later this week, the hours of sunlight begin to lengthen and the fates are woven and new possibilities are imagined. Mother Earth is laboring to give birth to her son, the Shining One.

I have hope for the turning. I am of the belief that we are in a Great Turning, an epic moment in human history. We can see the last vestiges of a culture dying, an industrial growth society that’s reached the end of its effectiveness. This happens in human culture. We evolve. We change. There is a turning.

Twelve thousand years ago, there was an agrarian revolution in which people domesticated animals and plants. They learned that hunting and gathering could be shifted if they planted their own food and raised animals near their homes. This shift led to a massive alteration of human culture, allowing us to let go of nomadism and settle into homes and communities, thereby increasing life expectancy and expanding human culture.

It’s happened again and again through history with the solidification of world religions, the introduction of math, great scientific discoveries, important inventions, and new ways of thinking, each bringing an evolution, a conversion from what used to be into what happened next.

The Industrial Revolution of the 19th century created one of these definitive transformations. Things formally made by hand in the home were now made by machine in a factory. Human lives were never the same again. There was a dramatic increase in population, tremendous growth of towns and cities, in education, transportation and massive immigration and exchange of cultures altering the course of human evolution.

And we are, again, at a moment of turning. Earth can no longer sustain our appetite for consumption. The industrial growth economy that requires demonstrable growth in every calendar quarter, demands an incessant and unceasing stripping of natural resources from Earth. The transition we’re seeing is from an unsustainable economy to a life-sustaining society committed to the recovery of our world.

In the early stages of major transitions, the initial activity might seem to exist only at the fringes. Yet when their time comes, ideas and behaviors become contagious: the more people bear witness to their inspiring perspectives, the more these perspectives catch on. At a certain point,

the balance tips and we reach critical mass. Viewpoints and practices that were once on the margins become the new mainstream. We begin to see people organizing to move society toward a shared vision. Language that was used only by a select few is heard in everyday conversation. Average people begin to push for a new vision as norms shift and expectations for ideas that seemed far-fetched become realized.

We just saw this happen at the United Nations Climate Conference in Dubai. I won’t go into the details, but the whole thing was feeling doomed. Then it changed. For the first time ever, the world’s leaders agreed to phase down - or maybe out - fossil fuels. This is momentous. In 2015, the fight was to recognize that increased temperatures over 1.5 degrees was catastrophic. Each year, we move closer to the possibility of being able to address climate change meaningfully, but never have we said out loud that the cause of the problem is the burning of fossil fuels. Never. And in a million years I didn’t think that was going to change in Dubai, nestled in the heart of oil-land, during a conference whose president is a climate denier and the chair of a Middle Eastern oil company. But, it did. There is a turning.

The culture we’ve grown used to is ending. We can no longer consume resources the way we’ve become accustomed. We can’t deplete Earth of all her resources for our consumption or travel tens of thousands of miles a year. And as these concepts move from the fringes into mainstream awareness, many people, millions of people, are grasping at whatever they can reach to keep it alive. Slogans like Make America Great Again, reach backwards to a fictional past as a last gasp of a dying culture.

This is the path we follow. When the Industrial Revolution was taking hold in this nation, elections were rampant with anti-immigrant, racist rhetoric. In 1856, 75% of the House of Representatives was made up of what were called Nativists, people who today we’d call White Nationalists. And in 1860, the Civil War broke out and culture was transformed. There was massive change in the Industrial Revolution. Culture was altered permanently. People were terrified. They tried to hold on to a world they knew they were losing. And then, there was a Great Turning.

We’re watching again as fascism rises and democracy shows signs of strain. This is fear trying to ossify in our political and social systems. It’s how we respond to change. When culture turns, when one world dies and another is born, people afraid of change wield all their power to stop the turning.

In the current, charged atmosphere, I hesitate to even nod to the metaphor of light as good and dark as bad. There are dangerous implications in the ways we’ve embedded that language in our culture, and the increase in racism we’re witnessing makes me even more sensitive to it. But in this particular turning, this winter solstice moment, I’m making an exception and I hope you can make room this time for the metaphor.

Earth is turning again. We are in the last days of the old age, the days when Loki is aiming his poison at the light, hoping to burn out the sun. Frigga can see what’s coming, and in her grief, she will birth the light once again.

I suspect, in this moment of Turning, we all have the potential to be Frigga and Loki and Baldur and Hodor. Identifying with Baldur is easy. He’s the bright light who falls victim to someone else’s misdeeds. Loki wants trouble. He doesn’t like the way things are going and wants them to stop. He wants the world to stop turning, for things to stop changing, so he lies and manipulates to get what he wants. There might be people in the public arena who remind us of Loki.

Hodor isn’t paying enough attention to know what’s happening. He thinks Loki is teaching him something about spears and doesn’t realize the mistletoe is poison or that hitting his brother will have fatal consequences. He goes along with the plan, mindlessly. There are lots of Hodor’s around.

And then, there’s Frigga. She can see it all. She knows her son, the Sun, will be killed. She grieves his passing as any mother would. And then she uses all her power to transform that loss into a new birth. She creates life where there was death.

This is our call; this is our task. We are Frigga. We can see what’s next, and we are making ourselves ready. We are living in the dark, in the cold, in the waning days of the year. But the solstice is coming. Earth is turning. This is a time of Great Turning, a time of transformation, the end of the old and the beginning of the new.

This is the Winter Solstice. We count down the minutes. Night extends. Cold descends. And then it turns and the new world is born anew.

Advent: Waiting in the Dark

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. Advent is the Christian season that builds toward Christmas. Using the story of Mary’s pregnancy, Christians relive those last few weeks, expectant. The world gets dark and often cold, and we move inside, get cozy, light fires, and wait for the birth of hope.

This is the cycle. This is the story, the myth, the metaphor. Every year a billion Christians, and a whole lot of other people who can’t resist, lean into this story. It begins today. A season of waiting. The church of my young adulthood moved services to the evening in Advent so that it was dark. Advent is about the dark. That’s part of the metaphor and it’s a reflection of the actual reduction of light 90% of the world’s population is experiencing. It’s dark. Mary is pregnant and she waits. We wait with her. We wait all month in a whole lot of cultural/communal ways. We have Christmas countdowns, we open daily advent calendars, we recount all the stories about Mary, we talk about the suspense of pregnancy in our story telling, we even make a huge deal out of Christmas Eve, so popular because it’s the closest we can get to Christmas morning, the final moments of anticipation. And then there’s Christmas, the birth. It’s the birth of Jesus, of hope, of light if you’re willing to use a dark/light metaphor which generally, I’m not but often pervades this time of year. The star song, the end of waiting, the meeting of the newborn, the shift into the new world. The end of what was and the beginning of what will be. The liturgical year ends and begins, over and over again, as we wait, once again, in the dark.

That’s it every year. We wait. We count. We expect. We anticipate. We celebrate the birth, until the next year when we wait again.

I’ll be honest. I love it. It’s a favorite season for me. I like Advent more than Christmas, maybe because I think it reflects our real lives more. Also, because nothing can live up to the hype of that much waiting. The waiting really is the best part. Even with a child in the house, even with a ton of gifts Christmas morning, even if we plan a perfect day, it’ll never quite justify an entire month of build-up. But we’ll do it again next year anyway.

In reality, the final weeks of pregnancy are alive with expectation, but the birth isn’t one day. It’s not even 12 days, as Christmas might be. It’s forever. It’s a lifetime. But, that’s not how we celebrate this. We wake Christmas morning, celebrate the day, the birth of hope in the world, and then we sleep for a week, pack up and go on with our lives. This is how you know the birth was a metaphor. No crying babies, no life-altering situation. Nothing has changed. The season ends and we move on to what’s next.

In this case, the season isn’t so much about Christmas, but about the weeks leading up to it. It’s about Advent, about the season of anticipation, of preparation. The pot of gold at the end

of the rainbow in our real lives won’t have much consequence, but we dedicate an entire month building up to the great reveal.

I suggest we turn our attention to how we spend this Advent season since this is, as far as I can tell, where hope really lives. In fact, while the last few weeks of a pregnancy are about waiting, it’s about a lot more than that, as anyone with 4 weeks left to birth can tell you. It’s about gestation, about creation.

This is what brings me to the Visitation. Christmas is about the birth of Jesus. It’s about the baby and moves from there. If you’re Christian and going to live your life according to the teachings of Jesus, Christmas kicks things off. After the birth, the story is really about his life, his work, his death, the transformation of the world in response to his message. Those things are beautiful and worthy of our consideration and even our dedication, but in our very real lives, in our shared spiritual practice, we don’t spend too much time after Christmas focusing on those things.

But for us, the time spent during Advent is more relevant, more alive. What we do in the month of December year after year is more reflective than what we do on Christmas Day. The story of the Visitation is a reflection of so much of the socializing we do this month, and this story recasts the star of the show. The Visitation, happening in this pregnant moment, is about two women more than two male children. It’s about family and friendship and solidarity. It’s about all the relationships that happen before, about all the people who make one life – Jesus’s life in this case – possible and important. It’s a moment in history when two women share their joy and their concerns and they partner to move through the waiting, to move through the trepidation, to prioritize their bodies and their love for each other.

A few years ago, a good friend’s daughter-in-law was killed. She was shot by her own father in her home. He then shot and killed himself. My friend’s son was grieving, the whole family was grieving. My friend was holding all of them along with so much of her own sadness. Because the death was violent and stunning, people kept their distance from the family. Their minister didn’t even call. I went to their house for a visit and told my friend I was coming to sit. I told her we didn’t need to talk, she shouldn’t cook, certainly don’t clean anything. I’m coming to sit.

And we did. We sat on the couch for a long time. She told stories. She cried. Mostly, though, she didn’t speak at all. She just sat. I made tea. She held the warm cup to her face and breathed deeply. I touched her hands. I kissed her head. And I sat too. We sat and we waited as grief and fury moved through.

It was a Visitation. It was a holy time. In birth and in death, we Visit. We meet each other in our joy and grief.

It is who we are. It is what we need. Now, as much as or maybe more than ever.

The Adent season is an invitation to Visit. I’m spelling that with a capital V. Visit. Be with each other. There is an end, a new beginning later, like all stories, a place we’re heading where

this story will turn, but for now, we’re waiting, and the waiting is holy. It’s the in between space where we create the world we’re waiting for.

It feels like the whole world is waiting. Everywhere I go people are talking about fascism, authoritarianism, climate disaster, the end of democracy, the rise of the right, the disintegration of the world as we’ve known it. We don’t seem to be preparing for something, though, as much as we’re just waiting for it. We’re waiting to see what this election cycle will bring. We’re waiting to see if there will be any accountability for trying to overthrow our government. We’re waiting to see if our fellow countrymen care about the implications of the rhetoric or if they – or we – even understand it.

There’s a pall that is setting over the land. A sense of foreboding. I’m watching what’s happening at the climate conference in Dubai as world leaders – at least those who showed up – are making compromises that prioritize profit over planet and concede to concessions that are leading to our own destruction. Almost 30 years of United Nations climate conferences and emissions are still rising, making 2023 the hottest year in human history. Fish in the Irish Sea are lifting their heads above the water to get a break from the boiling sea. And we are watching them, doing the equivalent of nothing. Most of us are just waiting.

This is Advent. The time of waiting.

But, this is a time of gestation, not of passivity. Mary is creating a baby. Life happens in the dark. Worlds are conceived. There is no Christmas without Advent, there is no baby without pregnancy. It’s now that the world is created, now that we are designing and building and producing hope.

If this historical moment is fraught, if the world is hanging by a thread that seems ready to tear, then this isn’t our time for doing nothing. It’s our time to Visit. When people are feeling worried, when grief seems to be just over the horizon, we can use Mary and Elizabeth as our model.

December is often a very social month, but I’m hearing reports that it doesn’t feel that way to everyone this year. I’m not sure how universal that is, or why it might be happening. It could be a backlash from last year’s feeling of liberation after two very tempered Christmas seasons, or if the pandemic broke so many of our social bonds that we are finding ourselves without all the invitations we used to have, or maybe saying “no” is more the new normal, creating greater isolation, but there seems to be a little less celebration in the holiday season this year.

Given all of that, it’s time to Visit.

This is the hour of incubation, of construction, of creation. We do that together. If we are going to birth a new world, if we are giving life to hope, we are going to do it in community, in partnership, and please tell me we’re going to do it in Love.

Mary brought nothing to Elizabeth but her self. She brought her love, her care and concern. She offered her time, a sharing of her life. Elizabeth was in transition, pregnant, facing some level of danger, and Mary brought her Self.

That’s what we all have to offer. We bring our Selves to each other.

Next week, Leslie McKenzie had the lovely idea of having a birthday celebration for folks over the age of 90. We offer ourselves in celebration of life.

Janice has started a new gathering some Sundays for caring and exploring in community. We offer ourselves in shared spirituality.

When I hired Br. Zachary, I told him I was looking for an anam cara ministry, a ministry of spiritual presence which he has so deftly embodied. We offer ourselves in spiritual companionship.

When people are sick, Esther often brings them bone broth. We offer ourselves in healing.

When Lisa had her surgery last summer, a team accompanied her to appointments, ensuring she wasn’t alone in all the medical things she had to navigate We offer ourselves in care.

Br. Zachary and Rev. Jude have started a monthly brunch for people in their 30s and 40s. We offer ourselves in friendship.

Our choir has been opened once a month to all the people who love to sing together, who then share in bringing us beautiful music. We offer ourselves in joy.

Our Council will gather after this service for some lunch and strategic planning. We offer ourselves to our shared mission.

And we Visit. We visit each other in times of crisis, in times of celebration. We Visit each other for fun and friendship, to aid in grief, in loneliness, and always we Visit in love. Over and over again, we become the bodies of the Visitation, the people of presence who are not just waiting, but who are gestating, who are creating a new world the one that will be born of our love and companionship.

This isn’t about waiting passively for a single day of celebration, but about embodying the new world in all the days leading up to it. It’s the designing and weaving, the sitting by warm fires, embraced by the comfort of darkness. It’s incubation. It’s gestation. And it’s happening between and among us as we, here together today, are again part of the making the ground holy and ready with our Visitation.

Legacies of War & Peace

This is the sermon I’ve been actively avoiding since I started here. Before I started here. I was candidating and one question that came up repeatedly was where I stood on Israel/Palestine. I’d been in ministry a good long time and no one had ever asked me that question but it came up several times that week. I could tell there was a lot of energy around the topic, so I had a plan. Here’s my plan. Avoid the question as long as I can.

But, here I am, entirely unable to avoid it, having been told too many times by both sides that my silence is complicity.

I’m starting with my own story because who I am has everything to do with what I think about this and every issue. We cannot separate our personal narratives from our belief systems since much of what we believe has to do with the cultural worlds we were born into.

I was born into a Jewish family. As you might remember, my mother is Jewish, although my father came from an Italian Catholic background. Both had long ago rejected religion, which means that my experience of religion was entirely cultural.

Part of that experience was Passover. That holiday was central to my upbringing. Every spring my mother, father, sister and I went to my Uncle Joe’s house. Uncle Joe was my grandmother’s brother. At Uncle Joe’s house were people from three or four generations, mine being the youngest, with as many as 30 people packed into his little Long Island home. My father would bring some Italian Kosher-for-Passover wine which everyone loved and made him indispensable, even as he found this tradition a little mind-numbing.

I, on the other hand, did not. Aside from Christmas, this was my favorite holiday. It was the only time I would see our cousin Gilda who was mesmerizing in her brash, bleach-blonde wig and loud, shrill voice that seemed to fill every tiny room, and Chaim, her husband, who sat nearly still the whole night making small talk so dull I couldn’t help but stare. There were endless what-we-did-on-our-vacation slide shows and the joyful moment of opening the door for Elijiah when some fresh air could finally be let in the overcrowded living room where we’d gather around a single table snaked through the room, cobbled together with bridge tables and folding chairs.

The seating plan was prearranged so people could spend time with those they saw less often. A few times, I was placed next to the cousins with numbers tattooed to the inside of their arms. They showed me the tattoos, told me about concentration camps, talked about the trauma of starving, of being taken from the people you love, of being entirely powerless and victimized by strangers who think the world is better without you or your parents or spouse or children.

Regardless of how young we were, we heard the stories of rape. Of being dragged from our homes. Of watching our babies killed, randomly, by state-sponsored thugs. Of losing everything until the only thing left is the decision to keep breathing, a choice made only to ensure that evil didn’t win. We stayed alive in defiance.

I switched to “we” there. I always do when I tell these stories. Most Jews do. “When they came for us.” “What they did to us.” It’s how the stories were told. I sat every year to hear my family, my people, tell the stories of what happened “to us”. It happened when we were slaves in Egypt, it happened over and over again around the world in ghettos and pogroms in ancient and

medieval and then modern times, and it happened again when we didn’t expect it, in 20th century Europe. It happened in Egypt, and we’re here to tell the story- that’s what Passover is. The telling of the story of our people from slavery to liberation. And it happened again. It started in Germany, it spread through Europe. Nazis had power in the US, too. 30,000 of them gathered in Madison Square Garden with a huge picture of George Washington flanked by swastikas.

We told the story. We told the story of our suffering, enslavement, victimization, the story of genocide. And when every Seder anywhere in the world ends, we all call out, “Next year in Jerusalem!”

Every year. Millions of Jews enact this same ritual. We tell the story, reminding ourselves and passing it to the next generation. We tell of our people, and we talk about resistance. We won’t let them do it to us again. We won’t take our eye off the ball again. We won’t be lulled into complacency again. We will protect ourselves, and take care of each other, at all costs. Never Again. Never Again.

This is generational trauma and it’s intentional. It’s what we do to stay safe. Most Jews I know have some basic information almost unconsciously in their minds at all times. I know I do, and mine wasn’t anything close to a religious household. But, I know where to run when they come for me. I know to have both cash and jewelry ready, in case. And, when I hear my Jewish friends right now saying, “I know who will hide me,” I’m sure that sounds hyperbolic to some people, but that’s exactly the kind of information we were all raised to track, even when it wasn’t ever said explicitly. How will you get out? Who will hide you if you can’t leave? Next year in Jerusalem.

Israel is where we will be safe. It’s where we went when we escaped from Egypt and where we ran when we couldn’t stay in Europe any more. It’s the one place on this otherwise inhospitable planet where Jewish people can gather together, protect each other, the one place from which we won’t have to run. Every citizen a soldier. Every Jew a citizen. Ours, then and now.

I know this story deep in my bones, and I know this story was triggered for every Jew all over the world when Hamas, swearing the end of Israel, massacred people, tore into their homes, separated people from their children, kidnapped and continues to hold people very young and very old, threatening not to stop until Israel is eradicated. I could feel all those stories come alive in me, and I knew what to do because they are coming for us, again. Gather with my people. Fight Fight Fight. Never Again. Next year in Jerusalem.

But Hamas isn’t the Nazi party. And we aren’t replaying stories from ancient or Medieval or even modern history. And this story isn’t nearly as simple as those of the past.

When Israel was gifted to the Jews in response to the trauma of the Nazi genocide, there were people there. Palestinians lived there. In our trauma, we couldn’t see that we were taking on the role of the oppressor. Because we were so frightened, because we were so desperate, because we wanted to claim our power in whatever way we could, we dismissed the possibility that anyone else might claim rights to the land we so frantically needed.

Jews were pushed to the outskirts of European society, made into 2nd class citizens, and ultimately denied basic human rights, including the right to life. Israelis then did the same thing to the Palestinians. Both native and European Israelis moved in and occupied Palestine, even though there was already an ancient people on that land.

Amnesty International has declared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to be an oppressive and discriminatory system of government, committing the crime of apartheid. There are arbitrary restrictions on freedom of movement including 175 permanent checkpoints in the West Bank designed to disrupt everyday life, checkpoints that have been the direct cause of human death when people can’t get through in time to seek medical care. Israelis also engage deliberate acts of collective punishment, administrative detentions, random acts of violence, denial of the right to work, and if that isn’t bad enough, they also withhold water, force evictions of entire neighborhoods, and according to the UN, there are many meaningful accusations of torture of Palestinian citizens. Last October, Israel started denying married couples in the West Bank with passports from different countries the right to live together, an act meant to destabilize families. Israeli forces have demolished entire villages, creating a constant sense of impermanence, ensuring no one ever feels safe, guaranteeing intentionally that people are not secure and will not thrive. For instance, a year ago August, Israel launched an offensive on the Gaza Strip that destroyed 1,700 Palestinian homes, displacing all those people. 49 were killed including 8 children.

And this kind of thing has been going on since 1948. Yet, what we’re seeing now is even worse. As I wrote this sermon, an alert came in that Israeli solders had surrounded a hospital, not the first to collapse under the weight of Israeli violence. This morning, that hospital has been abandoned, as have all the people inside who will not survive without care.

There are two sides to this conflict, and each side sees themselves as victims in a fight for their survival. In some way, I was raised to know who my people are, and to protect them with everything I have.

But it’s because of how I was raised, it’s because of the stories of Kristallnacht, of occupied Austria, of concentration camps, that I know the pain of being Palestinian. Never Again means Never Again. Not to us. Not to them.

The Jewish stand can’t just be one of self-protection, but of universal protection of the human right to life for all people. Freedom of movement, of housing, to marry, to raise children, to health care, to food and water for All.

I’m finally answering the question posed to me almost five years ago. Where do I stand? I stand with the people. I stand with the suffering, with the powerless. I stand on the side of distraught children whose parents were killed and grief-stricken parents who watched their children die. I stand on the side of the sick, the hungry, the elderly trying to find safe harbor when tanks are rolling down their streets.

I know it’s not that simple. Hamas has vowed the end of Israel and antisemitism is skyrocketing around the globe. Hundreds of people are still captive. Victims abound. Everybody’s right. And everybody’s wrong.

We need a third way. We need to step out of the binary us vs. them and instead think about what new can be created, what can we birth, what alternative idea, amalgam of solutions can we design? How can we put love at the center? Is there room even to ask that question?

Part of that love is the listening. Acknowledge the deep wells of pain, the anger, the fear of being erased from both sides. Too many of us can hear only our own, so that the response to this sermon is likely to be about “them”. What “they” did. Yes, what you are saying, what you are going to say to me, is true.

And none of that makes the continuation of violence, the leveling of city streets, the bombing of neighborhoods, the kidnapping of children, or massacres of anyone anywhere any more justified.

The only way forward is for Israeli troops to cease fire and for Hamas to return those they are holding captive. Israel has to withdraw and let people back to their homes. They have to allow humanitarian aid in and the US has to fund it. There is no peace without justice, but there is no justice without peace.

What happens next in the Middle East is for other people, but what happens next here is for us. Let’s learn to hold each other’s stories. Rather than responding with “what about” let’s respond in love. When a story is told in anger, we respond in love. When a story is told in fear, we respond in love. When a story is told in self-righteous indignation, in direct confrontation and accusation, let’s respond in love.

There is so much pain, histories of pain, generations of pain, ongoing, constant, regularly triggered pain, wounds open never allowed to heal. Let’s become the balm of peace, the soothing, comforting people who can hold that pain for each other. Rather than feeding into the divisions, let’s hold people together. See them and understand their fear and anger to be real.

It won’t be enough, but it’s what we have. Where spirits have been torn and shredded, where hope is struggling to stay alive, we can share our vision of freedom for all centered in love, holding the generations of trauma but not perpetuating them, ending the pain with our commitment to love, doing all we can in every one of our relationships to say Never Again. Not to you, not to anyone. Not ever.

Thinning the Veil: Memorial Sunday

This is a story I very rarely tell. I don’t tell it because most people I know won’t believe me or won’t believe that this story means anything. Those who do believe me might get some thrill from the spookiness which isn’t really the point of the story either, so, I don’t usually tell it. I am, after all, a rational person, a person who loves science, who doesn’t generally bother with things that can’t be investigated and proven. But, I’m telling the story anyway, because what happened was real, even if I don’t know or can’t prove anything about what it meant if it meant anything at all.

In February of 2004, my grandmother, with whom I was quite close, collapsed. She was 87 and had a leaky valve in her heart. After a few days at the hospital, she went home where she entered hospice. For the next 6 weeks we all spent time with her. At first it was with the force of a crisis with everyone flying down at once, filling her living room with four generations of us. When it seemed clear death wasn’t actually immanent, my mother and her brother took turns living in my grandmother’s Floridian apartment with her as she moved slowly toward the end. They slept in the bed next to her, held her shrinking body, reminded her of the long life she lived and, as was normal for my grandmother, they – and we – laughed quite a lot. It was a very sad, but also sweet and beautiful time for our family.

One night, when I was asleep in my bed in New York, I awoke because I couldn’t breathe. I sat straight up, desperately gasping for air. There was none. Absolutely none. I couldn’t open my throat enough for even a wisp of air. I was terrified. I wasn’t making a sound- no air was going in or out. My head was spinning, trying to figure out what to do, knowing I didn’t have long before I’d pass out. More and more desperately, I kept trying to get some air into my lungs. Finally, something released and I could get a thin breath in. And another. And my body relaxed and opened and more air could move in. Now I was breathing. In and out. Oxygen was again available. My heart began to slow. The panic subsiding. I looked at the clock. 2:36. I went back to sleep.

At 4am the phone rang. It was my mother, sobbing. My grandmother had died. She apologized for calling so early, but said she’d waited a while and didn’t want to wait any more. I asked her how long she waited to call, when did grandma die. My mother said, “It was about 2:30 when she drew her last breath.”

I can’t explain what happened to me that night, nor am I going to try. Nothing like that has happened to me since or had it ever happened before. Were these things- my grandmother’s death and my inability to breath – were they related, or am I drawing conclusions from an odd coincidence? Was my grandmother’s final breath somehow felt by me, was I connecting to her or she to me as we were both seeking air? Was I experiencing her last breath? Was my breathing, was my life, tethered to hers? I don’t know, but I find my own rationalism to be a little limiting

sometimes. I can dismiss real experiences because I don’t think they are logical or because I can’t explain them scientifically. Were I listening to someone else tell that story, I might let my skepticism get the better of me, but I’m the one who lived it and it was very real. I try not to explain. I don’t have anything to say that would ease my rational brain.

Interestingly, though, the few times I’ve told that story, someone has replied with a parallel story. Others have had that or a similar experience when a beloved has died. I’m not the only one who may have touched the veil between life and death.

At this time of year, we start to feel the layers between worlds thinning. Samhain (sow-in) is the Celtic, pagan holiday we’re marking this week. Samhain literally means the end of summer. It is the time we shift from warmth to the cold of winter. It is the time of year the leaves fall and decompose into Earth which opens the space between dimensions. The presence of death, of so much plant matter moving between the worlds, the sudden loss of leaves that filled the space around us, conspire to thin the veil, bringing the two worlds of life and death closer. This is the pagan pre-curser to Halloween when the spirits could move more freely in and out. This is the time a breath breathed here might be felt in the next world.

Halloween is fun, but the theme is supposed to invoke fear. Horror films, blood and gore, scream-fests, chokie-rooms, haunted houses- they’re all designed with the idea that this thinning of the veil is frightening. I’m not critiquing any of that. It’s fun to be scared in that way, sort of cathartic. And dressing up in a come-as-you’re-not costume, walking through dry-ice-fog with sounds of a crazed clown laughing or a ghoul howling while you knock on strangers doors seeking candy is a great way to spend an evening.

Outside the holiday trappings, though, the presupposition is that this time of year, this thinning of the veil, this closeness of the other world is frightening. Or, maybe that it should be. I don’t experience it that way, though. The other world, the world of the dead, is home to my grandmother. My father is there, too, both people who loved me infinity. The other world feels friendly to me. There’s love there too. My people are there. People I miss terribly, people I wish I could talk with, or sit with, whose voices I want in my ears, whose hands I want to hold, whose advice I want to seek, whose food I want to eat. For me, the thinning of the veil is akin to feeling closer to someone I can’t see, because I know they are right there, on the other side, feeling my breath each time I exhale.

The walls will get thicker again. We’ll move back, away, the worlds will separate and we’ll be left here without our beloveds. Our grief will return, as it always does. We will again forget and remember we forgot and feel guilty and relieved and sad all over again. Even in this liminal space of feeling closer to those we’ve lost, we’ve still lost them. They are not here, even if we catch a whiff of their perfume or hear a laugh that brings us right back to some delightful moment. They are not here. They can’t see how we’ve grown or be proud of some accomplishment or accept our apology, or simply accompany us in our lives the way they once did.

Mourning is supposed to be temporary, but there’s a way in which it is constant or that it comes and goes in waves, washing over us and then away, even as time passes with the turning

of months to years to decades. It is no matter in the world of grief and longing. Time moves differently making the past feel very present and then so distant again.

Late October, early November offer us a gift of liminal space where the distance of death, the distance of love lost diminishes. People around the world are gathering in circles, are calling to their loved ones, are ritualizing their longing and the sharing of this space before the veil becomes a wall again.

Br. Zachary and I would like to welcome you to our own ritual of fire. During this time of the thinning of the veil, we are writing the names of the people we’ve loved and lost and we are casting those names into a flash as a way of calling them forth while also letting them go. We are bringing them into our space, remembering them, calling to them. And we are using the element of fire to send our love and our longing and our memory into this liminal time so they can hear and see us. We are remembering. The cleansing power of fire, the element of passion, of connection, will be our catalyst, bridging the space between here and there.

Disrupt Church

I am angry this week. So angry! Last week, too. And, maybe the week before. It’s sort of been going on for months. I mean, if I’m honest, it started last October. Someone did me wrong last October. Me and my whole family and I’m still mad. For months, when I passed their home, I’d give them the finger. They didn’t see it, but it felt pretty good. I remember a long time ago when we were still protesting Apartheid, a nun I knew used to drive into Shell stations to give people the finger. I’m taking my cue from Sr. O’Neil. It means nothing outside of registering my dissatisfaction, but sometimes that’s all we have.

When I say I’m angry, I mean it, too. And that anger has been distracting for almost a year. It sneaks into my head when I’m not thinking about anything in particular. It fills empty space. It shows up in my dreams. It slips out during casual conversation. In these last two weeks, I even think it’s blocking joy, preventing me from living my life fully.

Early in the summer, I realized I was still so angry because there’s been no accountability. These are people who treated my family badly – my son in particular – for which they’ve experienced no consequences. This is a trigger for me. I have a hard time when people behave badly and are not accountable. And, as I’ve confessed here before, I behave badly when I’m right. They haven’t been held to account and I’m right. This is a bad combination.

I actually do pretty well when I’m wrong. I don’t mind apologizing for things. I even appreciate the opportunity to grow. I find being wrong sort of liberating. If nothing else, I’m in control. I can apologize and make things better. I welcome learning I was wrong. I’m not so gracious when I’m right. In fact, I’m downright self-righteous. I need people to know I’m right. I have yet to learn the grace of being right and being quiet about it.

And this family- they’re not only wrong but they hurt my kid. I’ve been plotting revenge ever since.

I’m obviously not good at the revenge game, though, because outside of giving them the finger from time to time, an act they know nothing about, I haven’t taken any action at all.

So, a few weeks ago, this family acted-out again. My son was hurt. My husband was annoyed. So, they called a friend and went out for ice cream. They returned laughing having forgotten all about what sent them seeking fun to start with. I, on the other hand, stayed home and stewed.

It was then that I realized that I am, in fact, in the wrong.

Not about the situation. I’m wrong – or more accurately – I’m misaligned with a greater Truth. There isn’t anything I can do about what happened or continues to happen. Br. Zachary and I sometimes say to each other, “It’s people being people.” This family- they’re Peopling. Nothing I can do about it. And I’m not wrong that they’re doing the people thing badly. But, when all is said and done, I’m the one suffering from it. And that’s where I’m wrong.

So much of our suffering is forced on us. Death. Financial insecurity. Illness. The loss of human and civil rights. But this – this silly social stuff that most of us spend our time worrying about – that’s optional. Suffering is inevitable. Misery is optional. In fact, if I’m honest with myself, this year of anger is entirely on me. I’m not at fault in the precipitating event, and the feelings and intense response I had last October were appropriate. But, in the months since, my misery has been on me. If I want accountability, I may never get that for these people, but I can get it for myself. I’m creating my own pain.

It’s not the first time in my life I’ve done this and I know I’m not alone. I won’t ask you to raise your hands, but I’ve been in this business long enough to know that we humans, we do this to ourselves. We get angry and we hold on to it, and we create our own misery.

Rosh Hashanah started a week ago on Friday evening, the 15th. Yom Kippur begins this evening. If we hadn’t gone to the climate march last week, I’d have preached this sermon and invited us all into a week of reflection. Instead, I’m limiting our time to today, into tomorrow.

Self-reflection is an important spiritual practice. It’s how we bring ourselves back into alignment. It’s how we connect with our deepest selves, with the god or gods of our understanding, with the great rhythms of Earth, with the source of Love and Truth, with the Ground of Being. We stop. We look. We sit with what we see. We breathe into the reality of who we are.

It is good. We are good. We are also misguided. Unforgiving. Resentful. Reactive. Judgmental. Sometimes we’re joyless. Humorless. Inflexible. Demanding. Entitled. Self-Centered. Arrogant. Thoughtless. Stingy. Sharp. Critical. Any of this sound familiar?

And, if we’re sitting and looking and breathing, we can also see that we are helpful. Kind. Generous. Forgiving. Unassuming. Grateful. Playful. Creative. We can look at ourselves and see that we are open. Curious. Engaged. Gentle. Thoughtful. Relational.

Once we see our full and true selves, our potential for harm and grace, it’s time to repent. There is no repair, no reparations, no way to move forward in healing unless we repent. This is our moment for accountability. We stop. We look. We see. We breath into what’s real. And we begin the work of repentance. Again, there is no repair, there is no healing, if there is no repentance.

I think about this in anti-racism work too. I know sometimes white people feel like we’re being asked to apologize all the time, and often the people who feel that way point out that their families were very poor or they came from another country where they were persecuted or that they were an underclass even here for generations, all making the point that most white people alive today, especially here in New York, weren’t part of the inhumane history of slavery or segregation, so why should we apologize. The presupposition is that it has nothing to do with us. Often, at least in the circles I run in, the people speaking are liberals who understand the impact of American racial history, and they might even be open to institutional reparations.

It isn’t enough. While I might not personally be perpetuating systemic racism, repair only happens after repentance, and the repentance all white people have to consider is the inherent privilege of whiteness and the generations of opportunity on which our lives are based. If there’s going to be repair, we have to reflect honestly, even fearlessly. Acknowledge where we stand in the system. And repent. Healing comes after we say we’re sorry, even if we aren’t personally to blame. We are, nonetheless, the beneficiaries.

I wonder if it might be helpful for you all to think about something for which you might need to repent. It might be, like me, something I’m doing to myself, largely, although those who live with me aren’t protected. Or, it might be your place in our larger systems. It might be something very specific that you did or said that hurt someone you know. Think for a moment. Get that clearly in your mind.

I can ask you to do that because there’s always something. No one can say, “Nope. Nothing. I’m good.” If we’re honest, we know there’s a place that needs mending.

Think clearly about what it is you did. What part of this did you have? Was it your actions? Was it an inaction? Did you cause someone harm? See if you can name it for yourself.

Holding that in mind, how can you repent? There will be people down at the East River throwing bread into the water. Maybe that’s your way too. Or, you can go directly to the source, the person you’ve hurt and say you’re sorry and ask for forgiveness. Or, you can pray, telling the god or gods of your understanding what you’ve done. Seek accountability for yourself.

Forgiveness may or may not come next, specifically when we’re dealing with other people. Nothing we can do about that. That part is out of our hands. All we can do is acknowledge and repent. Acknowledge and repent. That’s the practice. Others will do or feel however they will. This remains true even if the one who was hurt was ourselves.

The practice is necessary either way. The only chance we can bring ourselves back to ourselves, back into alignment, is to see all we’ve done to knock ourselves off course.

Here’s the one assurance I can offer you. Regardless of what you’ve done or who you think you are, you are loved. You are held, right now, even in your brokenness, in a vast matrix of love and welcome.

I’ve been thinking about the spiritual practices of this church. It might be that I need to deepen my own spiritual life and it might be because I’ve heard similar things from some of you, but I’d love for us to think about how we lean into opportunities like the one offered by Yom Kippur. There is a natural rhythm in the human condition and part of that is a time for spiritual reflection. Because of the timing, we’ve missed much of the opportunity of this holiday, so I’m preparing you now for Lent. I am going to invite us all into a deeper, more intentional and longer time toward the end of winter so we can lean in to this kind of healing for ourselves, for those around us, and for the world.

But that shouldn’t take away from today. If you are able and willing, I’m inviting you – as I’m inviting myself – into a day of reflection. Yom Kippur begins this evening and runs through tomorrow. I’m lucky that tomorrow is my day off, so I’ll have some time. I’m going to begin my day writing my reflection. I’ll spend real

time tomorrow putting language to all the things that are blocking me, that I’ve messed up, that I’m guilty of. I’ll then sit with all of that, breathing deeply what it means to be human, what it means to be me right now. And then I’m going to bring some bread to some water and I’m going to name each of these transgressions as I throw bread into water and with each naming, I’m going to ask the god of my understanding for forgiveness.

This is my cleansing ritual, and it might be for you too. Maybe this is a good time for you to take a similar spiritual and moral inventory. Maybe tonight or tomorrow, you can sit with and breath into some of the less comfortable truths about yourself. And, maybe the ritual of bread and water will work for you. Fire is another option. Write it all down and burn it. Kitchen sinks work if you can turn off the smoke detector for a few minutes.

Whatever the actual practice, this invitation is open.

And whatever you find, whatever you see in yourself, we are Universalists. We know that Love is the ground on which we stand, that we were welcomed into the embrace of Love with our first breath, that we are surrounded by that very love in every moment of every day since then, and that we will be welcomed into Love with our last gasp of air.

With that Truth, with Love always at the Center, we will begin our litany.

Power Sunday: Leveraging Our Collective

TikTok says men think about the Roman Empire daily, but it’s the American Empire that has my attention. Mirroring the innocence of the mid and late 20th century, I grew up believing that the United States is the best nation that has ever existed. That opinion came from my white immigrant family grateful largely for opportunity and the freedom of economic prosperity. But, over time, our democracy has begun to fade, and whether or not children are told this is the best nation in the history of nations doesn’t alter our current downward trajectory.

As much as we like to say we’ve been a democracy since 1776, or maybe from the ratification of the Constitution in 1788, we’ve mostly been a democracy in process until the full realization of our potential with the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. With the codification of inclusion at the ballet booth, the United States of America became worthy of the admiration of democracies, both realized and struggling, around the world. Our system of government, standing on a strong foundation of law, had the full support of our nation’s people and our institutions, creating what we thought was an unbreakable network ensuring equal access to our founding promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

But as we approach the 60th anniversary of that peak moment, most Americans are aware that our democracy is on a downward slide. There are many key markers that support this suspicion including our decline on the Polity Index that moved us below the threshold of full democracy in recent history. President Joe Biden warned us just a few weeks ago that democracy is at risk, that the threat to our institutions and our Constitution is serious, noting extremism and increasingly disturbing threats of violence on our leaders. Of course, we don’t need scholars or even our President to tell us what we can see and hear for ourselves. The words “chaos” and “dysfunction” and “in-fighting” have become common in our national headlines as our government grinds to a halt over and over again.

Strong, healthy democracies require what we call civil society. Civil society consists of all the voluntary organizations where people gather, autonomous from the State. These groups might have some state support, funding or interaction, but they are independent of state controls and have their own agendas and goals. They are concerned with public ends, but they aren’t seeking state power. They exist for many reasons, but one is to influence law, culture, and the ways we live together. They are part of a larger piece of community living, valuing pluralism, inclusion, and a wide range of life experience and thought.

The organizations that populate civil society include educators who advocate for curriculum development to train the next generation of thinkers and leaders, and climate activists who push against corporate influence, and librarians who ensure access to a diversity of ideas, and workers who leverage their collective power to ensure fair wages and protections. Civil Society includes museums that preserve our history, dance companies that celebrate self-expression, and community theatres where new philosophies are given language and an audience.

Cults aren’t part of civil society because they want to separate people from the mainstream and yoga groups don’t generally qualify because they have no interest in influencing public life. Churches, on the other hand, do. So do all of our UU organizations like Ministry for Earth, state action networks, and UUSJ, our UU voice on the Hill. All of these institutions are part of the fabric of civil society, without which we don’t have an authentic democracy.

Scholars tell us that democracies don’t collapse because of a single, influential person. They collapse because the people who should know better align themselves with stronger, more dangerous, personalities. They, themselves, aren’t fascists, communists or extremists. They’re just too weakly committed to democracy and are ultimately opportunists who say what they think they need to say to get or keep power. Civil society is one of the key levers to keep these people in check. Groups that are themselves run democratically, giving everyone the experience of having a voice and a vote, with deep membership rosters of concerned and engaged citizens, or public forums for open discussion, become a counter-balance to self-serving individuals. These organizations create occasions for influence and can reward opportunists with the popularity or power they seek without requiring them to compromise their commitment to democratic systems. They can also create and engage systems of social accountability that keep some of these people in check.

Totalitarian nations have no civil society. The more civil society in a country, the more democratic it can be. There are very few fully totalitarian nations, but we can see these systems of government increase as civil society decreases. North Korea is completely totalitarian with no visible counter to the current government. China used to be more complete, but civil society has been growing there. When nations like Russia want to increase governmental control, they shut down parts of civil society as does every autocrat seeking to consolidate his or her power. Voluntary organizations are a crucial part of any healthy, transparent, and legitimate democratic system. We can determine the vitality of a democracy by the integration of these groups in the fabric of the nation.

Faith based organizations are historically some of the most difficult to terminate because they are often seen as the moral centers of the community. Shutting them down forces the government to admit a lack of concern with morality, an act most citizens find alarming. Instead, many authoritarian regimes work to befriend religious institutions, seeking to align religious power centers with their own. We can see this happening here in the US with Evangelical churches who have become supporters of some of the more dangerous factions in our current system. This makes our own position as a liberal religious denomination all the more necessary in our current political climate. We continue to have the moral authority to counter the current trajectory and can stand against the wave of conservative religious alignment with the radical right-wing political movement. Our existence, our internal health, and strength, is an essential part of what can turn the tide of American democratic legitimacy. It is our witness to pluralism, an embrace of science as a source of truth, our own democratic structures, our collective voice for choice, for education, for inclusion, and our training of a new leadership class that demonstrates the need for

our witness and the centrality of our voice as part of civil society right now, at this moment in history.

Sadly, this comes at the same time religion is on a steep decline in American culture. Across the country, Unitarian Universalist churches have seen a dramatic reduction in membership. We’ve lost 18,000 children from our RE programs over the last 10 years. We’ve lost 100,000 members over the last 50. In 2020, the average size of a UU congregation was half the size as 20 years earlier. We’re not alone in this freefall, and as liberal religion declines in national influence, so does American democracy.

I don’t think these things are unrelated. Just as people are turning away from institutional religion, the demons of authoritarianism are gaining ground. When the moral centers lose influence and can no longer claim to be our collective conscience, it’s easier for alternatives to take root. Our voices get weaker and are harder to hear.

But lets not pretend we’re inaudible. There are close to 200,000 people in UU churches. We have not given up our space at the table nor our moral authority, even if the tide of totalitarianism hopes to wash over us. This is evidenced, at the very least, by your decision to bring this service to your own congregation today, as so many other UUs congregations are doing. We are interdependent, interconnected, and committed to holding up our shared liberal religious values.

Power Sunday comes from UU’s for Social Justice. UUSJ was founded originally by a circle of UU churches in the Washington, DC area who wanted to leverage their geographic location to influence the federal conversation. About two years ago, UUSJ broke out of that model and opened to UUs around the country to become our collective voice, not just those positioned so closely to DC power centers. UUSJ is a small organization with no full time staff, like so many of our UU groups doing the work of our faith, but with the help of their Executive Director, have had an outsized influence in federal policy conversations. This worship service is designed to get the word out about both our UU potential as a faith community through the work of UUSJ in these national discussions and to hold up one of our own institutions, also part of civil society, in need of support in these fragile days of our democracy. In future years, Power Sunday will include an opportunity for advocacy so we as UUs can leverage our collective power.

Scholars might tell us that American democracy is deconsolidating, but it is far from collapse. Even through significant challenges, the system is holding. With the kick-off of Power Sunday, UU congregations can step into our moral authority in partnership with each other and other liberal religious members of civil society to hold strong against the tide of authoritarianism. Through our connection with UUSJ, the building of our collective power on the Hill, and as a partner with other denominations also holding back the waters of authoritarianism, Unitarian Universalists play a key role in keeping our democracy strong.

Today, in churches around the country, we are raising our shared consciousness, holding up our critical place in the democratic fabric of our nation, tuning our collective voice, and reminding Unitarian Universalists that we are necessary, that we are not alone, and that in this fragile moment of American history, we are powerful.

Yom Kippur: Atonement, Accountability, and Healing

I am angry this week. So angry! Last week, too. And, maybe the week before. It’s sort of been going on for months. I mean, if I’m honest, it started last October. Someone did me wrong last October. Me and my whole family and I’m still mad. For months, when I passed their home, I’d give them the finger. They didn’t see it, but it felt pretty good. I remember a long time ago when we were still protesting Apartheid, a nun I knew used to drive into Shell stations to give people the finger. I’m taking my cue from Sr. O’Neil. It means nothing outside of registering my dissatisfaction, but sometimes that’s all we have.

When I say I’m angry, I mean it, too. And that anger has been distracting for almost a year. It sneaks into my head when I’m not thinking about anything in particular. It fills empty space. It shows up in my dreams. It slips out during casual conversation. In these last two weeks, I even think it’s blocking joy, preventing me from living my life fully.

Early in the summer, I realized I was still so angry because there’s been no accountability. These are people who treated my family badly – my son in particular – for which they’ve experienced no consequences. This is a trigger for me. I have a hard time when people behave badly and are not accountable. And, as I’ve confessed here before, I behave badly when I’m right. They haven’t been held to account and I’m right. This is a bad combination.

I actually do pretty well when I’m wrong. I don’t mind apologizing for things. I even appreciate the opportunity to grow. I find being wrong sort of liberating. If nothing else, I’m in control. I can apologize and make things better. I welcome learning I was wrong. I’m not so gracious when I’m right. In fact, I’m downright self-righteous. I need people to know I’m right. I have yet to learn the grace of being right and being quiet about it.

And this family- they’re not only wrong but they hurt my kid. I’ve been plotting revenge ever since.

I’m obviously not good at the revenge game, though, because outside of giving them the finger from time to time, an act they know nothing about, I haven’t taken any action at all.

So, a few weeks ago, this family acted-out again. My son was hurt. My husband was annoyed. So, they called a friend and went out for ice cream. They returned laughing having forgotten all about what sent them seeking fun to start with. I, on the other hand, stayed home and stewed.

It was then that I realized that I am, in fact, in the wrong.

Not about the situation. I’m wrong – or more accurately – I’m misaligned with a greater Truth. There isn’t anything I can do about what happened or continues to happen. Br. Zachary and I sometimes say to each other, “It’s people being people.” This family- they’re Peopling. Nothing I can do about it. And I’m not wrong that they’re doing the people thing badly. But, when all is said and done, I’m the one suffering from it. And that’s where I’m wrong.

So much of our suffering is forced on us. Death. Financial insecurity. Illness. The loss of human and civil rights. But this – this silly social stuff that most of us spend our time worrying about – that’s optional. Suffering is inevitable. Misery is optional. In fact, if I’m honest with myself, this year of anger is entirely on me. I’m not at fault in the precipitating event, and the feelings and intense response I had last October were appropriate. But, in the months since, my misery has been on me. If I want accountability, I may never get that for these people, but I can get it for myself. I’m creating my own pain.

It’s not the first time in my life I’ve done this and I know I’m not alone. I won’t ask you to raise your hands, but I’ve been in this business long enough to know that we humans, we do this to ourselves. We get angry and we hold on to it, and we create our own misery.

Rosh Hashanah started a week ago on Friday evening, the 15th. Yom Kippur begins this evening. If we hadn’t gone to the climate march last week, I’d have preached this sermon and invited us all into a week of reflection. Instead, I’m limiting our time to today, into tomorrow.

Self-reflection is an important spiritual practice. It’s how we bring ourselves back into alignment. It’s how we connect with our deepest selves, with the god or gods of our understanding, with the great rhythms of Earth, with the source of Love and Truth, with the Ground of Being. We stop. We look. We sit with what we see. We breathe into the reality of who we are.

It is good. We are good. We are also misguided. Unforgiving. Resentful. Reactive. Judgmental. Sometimes we’re joyless. Humorless. Inflexible. Demanding. Entitled. Self-Centered. Arrogant. Thoughtless. Stingy. Sharp. Critical. Any of this sound familiar?

And, if we’re sitting and looking and breathing, we can also see that we are helpful. Kind. Generous. Forgiving. Unassuming. Grateful. Playful. Creative. We can look at ourselves and see that we are open. Curious. Engaged. Gentle. Thoughtful. Relational.

Once we see our full and true selves, our potential for harm and grace, it’s time to repent. There is no repair, no reparations, no way to move forward in healing unless we repent. This is our moment for accountability. We stop. We look. We see. We breath into what’s real. And we begin the work of repentance. Again, there is no repair, there is no healing, if there is no repentance.

I think about this in anti-racism work too. I know sometimes white people feel like we’re being asked to apologize all the time, and often the people who feel that way point out that their families were very poor or they came from another country where they were persecuted or that they were an underclass even here for generations, all making the point that most white people alive today, especially here in New York, weren’t part of the inhumane history of slavery or segregation, so why should we apologize. The presupposition is that it has nothing to do with us. Often, at least in the circles I run in, the people speaking are liberals who understand the impact of American racial history, and they might even be open to institutional reparations.

It isn’t enough. While I might not personally be perpetuating systemic racism, repair only happens after repentance, and the repentance all white people have to consider is the inherent privilege of whiteness and the generations of opportunity on which our lives are based. If there’s going to be repair, we have to reflect honestly, even fearlessly. Acknowledge where we stand in the system. And repent. Healing comes after we say we’re sorry, even if we aren’t personally to blame. We are, nonetheless, the beneficiaries.

I wonder if it might be helpful for you all to think about something for which you might need to repent. It might be, like me, something I’m doing to myself, largely, although those who live with me aren’t protected. Or, it might be your place in our larger systems. It might be something very specific that you did or said that hurt someone you know. Think for a moment. Get that clearly in your mind.

I can ask you to do that because there’s always something. No one can say, “Nope. Nothing. I’m good.” If we’re honest, we know there’s a place that needs mending.

Think clearly about what it is you did. What part of this did you have? Was it your actions? Was it an inaction? Did you cause someone harm? See if you can name it for yourself.

Holding that in mind, how can you repent? There will be people down at the East River throwing bread into the water. Maybe that’s your way too. Or, you can go directly to the source, the person you’ve hurt and say you’re sorry and ask for forgiveness. Or, you can pray, telling the god or gods of your understanding what you’ve done. Seek accountability for yourself.

Forgiveness may or may not come next, specifically when we’re dealing with other people. Nothing we can do about that. That part is out of our hands. All we can do is acknowledge and repent. Acknowledge and repent. That’s the practice. Others will do or feel however they will. This remains true even if the one who was hurt was ourselves.

The practice is necessary either way. The only chance we can bring ourselves back to ourselves, back into alignment, is to see all we’ve done to knock ourselves off course.

Here’s the one assurance I can offer you. Regardless of what you’ve done or who you think you are, you are loved. You are held, right now, even in your brokenness, in a vast matrix of love and welcome.

I’ve been thinking about the spiritual practices of this church. It might be that I need to deepen my own spiritual life and it might be because I’ve heard similar things from some of you, but I’d love for us to think about how we lean into opportunities like the one offered by Yom Kippur. There is a natural rhythm in the human condition and part of that is a time for spiritual reflection. Because of the timing, we’ve missed much of the opportunity of this holiday, so I’m preparing you now for Lent. I am going to invite us all into a deeper, more intentional and longer time toward the end of winter so we can lean in to this kind of healing for ourselves, for those around us, and for the world.

But that shouldn’t take away from today. If you are able and willing, I’m inviting you – as I’m inviting myself – into a day of reflection. Yom Kippur begins this evening and runs through tomorrow. I’m lucky that tomorrow is my day off, so I’ll have some time. I’m going to begin my day writing my reflection. I’ll spend real

time tomorrow putting language to all the things that are blocking me, that I’ve messed up, that I’m guilty of. I’ll then sit with all of that, breathing deeply what it means to be human, what it means to be me right now. And then I’m going to bring some bread to some water and I’m going to name each of these transgressions as I throw bread into water and with each naming, I’m going to ask the god of my understanding for forgiveness.

This is my cleansing ritual, and it might be for you too. Maybe this is a good time for you to take a similar spiritual and moral inventory. Maybe tonight or tomorrow, you can sit with and breath into some of the less comfortable truths about yourself. And, maybe the ritual of bread and water will work for you. Fire is another option. Write it all down and burn it. Kitchen sinks work if you can turn off the smoke detector for a few minutes.

Whatever the actual practice, this invitation is open.

And whatever you find, whatever you see in yourself, we are Universalists. We know that Love is the ground on which we stand, that we were welcomed into the embrace of Love with our first breath, that we are surrounded by that very love in every moment of every day since then, and that we will be welcomed into Love with our last gasp of air.

With that Truth, with Love always at the Center, we will begin our litany.

The Five Stones, Pt. V: Choose Hope

Rev. Jude Geiger, Minister of Community Engagement

September 3, 2023

The prior 4 weeks, I spoke at length about the theology of James Luther Adams and his concept of the five stones. Is this the first time you’re hearing about – real briefly – I’ll try to catch you up. He was one of our Unitarian theologians who was physically active in trying to stave off the rise of Nazism in Germany before he moved back to the States. And his teachings from a century ago, are as relevant today. In short regarding the piece about the five stones, he was looking at the story of David and Goliath and reflecting on what the 5 stones David used would be in modern language to combat oppression. I’ll paraphrase one last time all five stones – it’ll help you memorize them. ;-)

What does our liberal faith say about living? I will paraphrase the much longer piece, which itself is an edit of a sort, using language that might be more familiar to us: 1. Revelation is not sealed — in the unfolding of the human spirit we continuously experience life in new ways and so too does our experience of truth. 2. Relationships between people ought to be free — mutuality and consent are both ethical and theological principles 3. We have an obligation to work toward creating a Beloved Community — our faith inspires us to the work of transformational community that is centered in justice and love. The prophethood of all believers has a corrective effect on systems of oppression 4. Each child that’s born is another redeemer — we are all potential sources of good in the world and each have a role to play. Goodness happens in relationships with one another. 5. We choose hope — Our resources – both sublime and mundane hold all the capacity we need to transform the world.[1]

Again today’s focus is that fifth stone. “We choose hope — Our resources – both sublime and mundane hold all the capacity we need to transform the world.”

Each of these are interdependent with one another, and each is a way to stave off humanity’s totalitarian tendencies.

1) Revelation is not sealed – reminds us that there is no one right way to do all things. Strict adherence to creed is antithetical to the human spirit – and so is following propaganda and groupthink. 

2) Mutuality and Consent are ethical and theological principles. Fascism targets consent first – the show of power over, rather than power with, is the point of Fascism.

3) Building the Beloved Community, and the prophethood of all believers. Community transcends Ego and it transcends charlatans and narcissists. Where the protestant reformation made all of us priests in our own faith, JLA is anointing us all prophets to speak truth to power for the wholeness of Community.

4) Each child that’s born is another redeemer. Fascism wants to segregate, separate and scapegoat whatever “other” they can come up with. If Love is truly at our center, and every child is another redeemer, we remember that we need all of us to survive.

Again today’s focus is that fifth stone. “We choose hope — Our resources – both sublime and mundane hold all the capacity we need to transform the world.” We’ll be talking about a community vision today, and our individual choices to choose hope. Fascism wants us to feel demoralized, to wonder what the point is, or to forget our own power and agency. We began this series talking a little about science and perception, and our faith teaches about the evolution of our ethics and our expressed religious practice. (Evolution in the scientific sense, of adapting to the current reality, rather than in the sense of better and better for ever and ever. Perpetual growth for the sake of growth is a quirk of a bad take on textbook economics; JLA is teaching us about depth, not expansion.) And we’ll end with another discussion about science and ethics.

There’s a notion – I’m not sure where I first encountered it – that makes a distinction about the evolution of science and the evolution of ethics. It suggests that they differ in one notable way. As science unfolds, it progresses on what came before. Each generation is faced with new learnings that are rooted in old learnings, and the body of scientific knowing gets passed on to the next generation to pick up from where prior scientists left off. Barring catastrophes like the Dark Ages, science isn’t lost, it perennially moves forward. It will likely unfold with experts developing into further and further specializations; so that each area of sub specialty gets more and more nuanced and hopefully advanced.

Ethics is a different creature. Although our scholars in the field may function in the same way, building off what came before – as a people – each generation needs to learn and relearn the same lessons. Why is war the worst solution? Why are basic civil rights a thing each generation needs to fight for over and over? Why do we enter and recreate financial crises that we knew would occur – the proverbial market bubbles that we force upon ourselves again and again? It’s because as human creatures, our communal intellect may be willing to build off the lego blocks of past advancements, but our hearts have to start from the beginning with each new generation. And ethics has the additional challenge that there are bad actors who lie to us, or to themselves, or to both – that they are the good actors and not really the bad. For communities, ethics is learned from the ground up, with an ever changing cultural peer review panel whose rules are written and re-written for every generation…  and science starts from the shoulders of past giants; theoretically with a consensus.

Now that statement has a way about it that’s painted in broad strokes. Even if science can give a clear answer – like on the question (or non-question) of climate change – ethics deeply influences our ability to accept it as answer. Likewise, we seem to be able to make the processing power of computers multiple by 1.5 times annually, but ethics seems to stall our improvement of fuel efficiency and our choices to even research renewable resources. But the basic notion is still accurate – we have all the resources to transform the world, but we don’t always choose to do so.

Spiritually, there’s a way in which that feels exhausting. We have all the capacity to affect the changes we need, but we often don’t have the moral courage, or maybe the moral willpower, to pass on the lessons in ways that seem to match. But we can choose to flip that script.

Despair sets in when we think we can’t affect change. That’s either rooted in cynicism, or that’s rooted in facts that paint a bleak picture. Let’s look at both. Staying with the science road, history tells us that the facts of science seem to indicate we have all the capacity we need to affect change in the world. From polio, to penicillin, to the moon landing, to the ozone layer – give us a challenge that we can unite behind, and give us generations to accomplish it, and we can do it. That’s the fact. Cynicism looks at perfect outcomes and pretends that those perfect outcomes are the new benchmark to follow. If we don’t meet the benchmark of perfect, then the solution is flawed and so what’s the point. There’s some interesting blogs out there wrestling with our political situations and the impact of cynicism that I won’t go into here, but there’s a lot of thought out there on this topic of cynicism that you might want to look into on your own.

Our resources, both sublime and mundane, hold all the capacity we need to transform the world. History presents both an onerous and a hopeful record. Each generation must imprint humanity’s moral progress upon the tablets of our hearts anew. We can choose to look at that with despair for the effort, or we can choose to look upon that with awe. We have the capacity to impress humanity’s moral progress anew!!!  It’s a matter of will; it’s a matter of personal and communal choice. That’s our spiritual charge as a religious community.

In a few short weeks, we will be entering the High Holy Days in the Jewish liturgical calendar - how do we begin again in hope after seasons of hardship? As we are come upon these days of awe, can we bear witness to their lessons and apply them to the choice for hope? Do we look upon past choices with despair, or do we choose to look upon them with awe? For the month of September, our sermons and services, we will be imagining what it would mean to be a People of Renewal. How do our choices impact that imagination?

I once heard our regional lead for the Central East Region, the Rev. Megan Foley, was leading worship for 40+ clergy and she had a metaphor that’s really helpful here. She spoke of earlobes and nostrils. I’m going from memory, so I’ll get the gist, rather than quote – but I thank her for getting me to think in this direction. In the body of life, we all have a role. If you’re an earlobe, your role is to be the best earlobe you can be. It’s not to create more earlobes; it’s not to make the nostril over there act more like an earlobe. You may want to put in some effort to help the nostril be the best nostril it can be, but that’s as far as you should go from your role as earlobe – because the world still needs someone to be an earlobe.

That metaphor got me thinking a lot about our mission as a religious community in the face of hardship and hope. We function as a group of individuals; but we also function as a group of groups. There are bodies (committees) that help move forward our social justice work and our anti-racism work; who help to maintain our men’s refugee shelter; who create and curate art, who offer communal pastoral care, and on and on. We don’t need our membership team to take over our shelter, but maybe our membership team can help identify folks who are well suited for direct service work. Our Church Council doesn’t need to figure out the solutions to a better office system, but it can help us all to identify when something isn’t working, or something is working fabulously!  In a community as large as ours, the minutia matters if we want to achieve our common purpose. The earlobes and nostrils of fellowship-work, lead to a common purpose.

In religious community, we nurture our individual spirits through caring for one another and helping to heal the world.  Those are just words, but the impact is larger. We care for our members in times of crisis as best we can, when we know of the challenge; we offer a shelter in the cold weather months and collect and distribute food to those in need. We partner with non-profits the world over, our denomination and other local groups and intake shelters, to offer funds, or organizing, or marching (like on Sept 17), or simply following their lead; and on and on - and that list takes a ton of minutia to happen. We need earlobes and nostrils – as unexciting as that work sometimes sounds – makes the life-saving and life-affirming ministries happen. In these days of renewal, and the coming days of Awe in the Jewish calendar, it’s not just the sublime sunset, or the quiet of the garden that affirm our spirits, it’s the mundane everyday task that takes 30 years to build or rebuild– that also affirms our spirits and blesses our hands to do the work ahead.

In religious community, we nurture our individual spirits through caring for one another and helping to heal the world.  If I were to whittle that down to three words, what would they be? Community, Individual and World? If that were it, it would mean community draws the individual into the world. That’s true – and that’s one of our goals. Maybe, Nurture, Caring and Healing. In a too often broken-feeling world, healing can only come when people choose the path of compassion and support. That’s true too. What I see as central to our religious purpose is the reality that we need to be drawn out of our individual concerns into an accountable community that chooses to heal these corners of the world through care and justice. Sometimes that will be hard; sometimes that will be uncomfortable; sometimes that means that our individual opinions will be in conflict with another’s views, but we do so together.

I’ll close with a matched theological demand to James Luther Adam’s 5th stone. I see the matching demand of progressive faith to be this questions: Does it remind me to live with hope? When we are faced with a belief that challenges us, or leads us to despair, our faith tells us that it’s misleading. If our faith truly teaches us that – Our resources, both sublime and mundane, hold all the capacity we need to transform the world  -(and it does) – then any theology that seeks to cause us to forget hope is a theology that is misleading. Hope doesn’t mean easy; it doesn’t mean perfect; it doesn’t protect us from having to endure through periods of exhaustion or boredom or minutia – but it does make sure we face the world with a healthy sense of awe and possibility. Awe and possibility.

The Five Stones, Pt. IV: When Goodness Happens

Rev. Jude Geiger, Minister of Community Engagement

August 27, 2023

The prior 3 weeks, I spoke at length about the theology of James Luther Adams and his concept of the five stones. Is this the first time you’re hearing about – real briefly – I’ll try to catch you up. He was one of our Unitarian theologians who was physically active in trying to stave off the rise of Nazism in Germany before he moved back to the States. After many requests, I promised I would work through each of the stones in successive weeks. In short regarding the piece about the five stones, he was looking at the story of David and Goliath and reflecting on what the 5 stones David used would be in modern language to combat oppression. After today we have one more to cover, but today, I want to focus on the 4th stone in Adams’ theology. That precept paraphrased is: “Each child that’s born is another redeemer — we are all potential sources of good in the world and each have a role to play. 

Goodness happens in relationships with one another.

Each child that’s born is another redeemer. 

But like the other sermons in the series, I want to start out with a story. When I was a child, one of the worst insults another kid could make toward a boy was to say they acted like a girl; or threw like a girl, or ran or walked like a girl. “Man up”, meant toughen up. Being a guy meant being strong, and loud, and taking up space. And the barbs would come from boys for sure – but those barbs would also come from girls. It would be engrained by implicit actions by adult men, and by adult women. As kids we would voice aloud the stuff that we would quietly live by as adults.

It’s sick. It’s a sickness in our culture that strives to denigrate half our population in order to apparently lift up the other half. But it only does so in appearance. When boys and men are raised to think masculinity has only one form, we box in our boys’ potential as we diminish the worth of our girls. No one wins; everyone loses. The pain is merely felt differently for each of us; but the pain is real. And although we’re all diminished, girls’ and women’s safety is put up as the gamble.

Goodness happens in relationships with one another.

Each child that’s born is another redeemer. 

And it continues well on into adulthood. The worst excesses get normalized as harmless ‘locker room talk’, when what is actually being bantered about - amounts to sexual assault. But we don’t have to go to that extreme to see it in our daily lives. At work, or out and about, take note who takes up room in discussions. Note how we are trained and raised to speak or not to speak. Who gets to repeat the same tired point over and over until folks are beaten into submission, and who struggles to whisper their view even once? Misogyny is a sickness, and we’re swimming in it – we’re swimming in it so - that some of us normalize it, some never notice it, and some are being killed by it.

We’re living in a culture where several women can accuse a public or political figure of sexual assault, and a mainstream media pundits will punish them by tweeting out the women’s home address and phone number. If we wonder why women do not speak aloud in a timely manner after being assaulted, we only have to look to that to know one of the reasons. How is that even legal?! We give the whole public direct access to the potential victim of sexual assault. How traumatic that is for the victim. But there’s also a way in which that punishment for speaking out gets felt by all women, by all victims of sexual assault (not just women.) They’re put in their place – once again. Misogyny is a sickness that demoralizes, victimizes, and sometimes kills.

Goodness happens in relationships with one another.

Each child that’s born is another redeemer. 

Theologically, misogyny is another form of Original Sin. We don’t need to have done anything to be infected by it. Men, women, all people raised in our culture must deal with its imprint on our psyches and on our souls. We’re born into, infected by it, and live lives that replicate the systems of abuse – knowingly or unwittingly – even if we’re also victims of it; because we’re all victims of it. But even if we’ve done nothing to deserve the sin of misogyny, in order for healing, we need to address it. For some of us we’re victims and a whole range of support systems may need to be relied on for healing, for safety, or for justice. If that’s true for you, and you need help, please reach out, and our Church will help in every way we possibly can.

Some of us have internalized it so much, that we contribute without knowing the damage we do – in some ways large, and in some ways small. If I go back to my childhood – being a guy meant being strong, and loud, and taking up space. The flip side meant that being a girl meant being weaker and being a door-mouse. When we find ourselves living by either of those false truths, we need to seek to push ourselves to break free from that bind. Binding lies, break our spirits, harm our world, and risk our lives.

And for the men in the room, we need to do better. We need to be a little more believing of women who say they are in danger. We need to be a little more gracious with the space we dominate. We need to be less permissive of supposed “locker room talk” when we hear it. Women become less safe, and men become less human, when we pretend that language that perpetuates sexual assault is harmless in our personal fantasies. It’s not harmless; it doesn’t further the peace; it doesn’t make space for women (and not only women) to be themselves without fear of harm. We have to do better.

Goodness happens in relationships with one another.

Each child that’s born is another redeemer. 

Theologically, what does that mean for our culture? If every child that’s born is another redeemer, then misogyny is a lie. We’re not better than any other soul because of the happenstance of our birth. Any ethic that lifts one group over another is a spiritual lie that erodes our conscience and diminishes our humanity. Each girl that’s born is another redeemer, and we ought to treat one another appropriately with care and support. Our common humanity is wrapped up in the common redemption of all people. Each of us has the potential to redeem the broken corners of our world.

We are soon coming to the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, next month. Throughout the Jewish religious life, these holy days teach us wisely to admit our failings, and atone for the harm we’ve brought into this world – through our actions or due to our inactions. There was a teaching that comes from an 18th century Chasidic proverb. “Keep two truths in your pocket, and take them out according to the need of the moment. Let one be, “For my sake was the world created.” And the other, “I am dust and ashes.”

 This wisdom speaks to us based on where our ego and where our sense of self lie. When we’re allowing the world to step on us, and destroy our sense of worth, we need to remember that for our sake - was the world created. When we’re doing the soul-crushing of another, we need to find more humility and remember that we’re dust and ashes. Misogyny confuses the world into thinking those two proverbs apply distinctly based on gender; as if the world were created only for men, and women were but dust and ashes. If that feels extreme, take a closer look at how men and women are spoken of in the general public, on the schoolyard, and in your work meetings. I don’t think it’s that far off how culture functions at its worst. And it functions at its worst far too much.

But if each child that’s born is another redeemer; if we each have worth and we each having a saving agency to bring to Creation, then that potential for goodness is inherent. That potential for goodness also obligates us in the face of a world full of struggle. If we have agency, goodness obligates us to use that agency for the betterment of one another. To do otherwise is to turn our heads from another’s needs; to become complicit in systems of oppression and indifference that churn through the lives of our children and adults, and through our own lives. The demand this fourth stone places upon us is the perennial question: Do I live into this holy work? At times of hardship, it may be enough to simply try to survive, or to heal. But when we have the capacity to ease the suffering of those around, goodness obligates us to live into this holy work. At those times of strength, living into this holy work means taking seriously when another speaks up about violence or coercion done to them. And to be sure, when we’re going through those times of hardship, living our authentic self is the first movement toward living into this holy work.

The Five Stones, Pt. III: Out of Isolation

Rev. Jude Geiger, Minister of Community Engagement

August 20, 2023

When I was still living in Brooklyn, we had a small garden that wraps around our terrace – think herbs and some wild flowers and grasses. When the weather is nice, I wrote my sermons from there. It’s probably why I have so many nature references in my sermons. My dog would lay down in the shade of one of the flower boxes, and my cat gets the proverbial popcorn and watches the “Nature Channel” in my garden. Everything is extremely fascinating to our cat – Toby. He’ll stare at ants like they are alien creatures, but won’t go too close or engage. Bees on the other hand – bees turn him into a jerk. He’ll stalk them and swipe at them if they linger too long on a flower.

At first I was horrified – without a clue as to what to do about it. I have a mild allergy to bees, so I’m not going to get too close to intervene, but they also don’t deserve that fate before the claws of my cat. In another feat of dog-training magic, I’ve figured out how to train our dog to tackle the cat when he goes for a bee. It was based off an earlier essential lesson in tackling-the-cat when the cat scratches the furniture. Basically, we’ve trained our dog to tackle small cats on command. I think it’s fun for everyone really, but I’m sure the bee appreciates it as much as my couch does – I dare say more so. Enough times being tackled by the dog, the cat is becoming increasingly hesitant to swipe at bees (it doesn’t seem to stop him though from destroying our furniture though. Can’t have everything I guess.)

Bees are interesting creatures. The common wisdom is that they defy all laws of aerodynamics in order to fly with their wings that should be too light for their bodies to get lift; but they still do. They live cloistered away with several thousand of their closest family members. They work tirelessly, so that the next generation which they may not live to see, can be born in another season. How many millions of worker bee hours does it take to produce one jar of honey for our toast and tea? …Then they return, again and again, to the field, to gather more and more food for the honeycombed table.

From the perspective of us humans in the northeast, they are gone for half the year, isolated from the cold and inclement weather. Even raindrops can be a challenge when you’re that small. When I water my garden, they head for the hills. Then as the weather turns to spring and summer, they fly back out of seeming isolation, and live fully in the wider world. Food, and garden hoses, and allergic bystanders, and yes, even psycho-killer felines are here to greet them as they return. It’s a microcosm of the world we live in, and just as true.

We all have our times of quiet, introversion, rest and renewal, in between the periods of work, or study. For the bee, it’s the call of physical nourishment, that brings them out of their quasi-isolation from the world. No matter how much we hunker down, at some point, the reserves run dry and it’s time to go back out for connection.

This year Rev. Peggy will continue to lead us in imagining what it would mean to be a people of covenant. Maybe you know the word covenant mostly from Jewish and Christian and Muslim stories about God and God’s people. That understanding is about the promises we are given, and the promises we are held to, in light of the demands and support given to us by God in those stories. But for today though, I want to focus more on what promise is held in covenant. Community and covenant draws us out of loneliness into a shared humanity that defines our lives.

In UU Congregations, Churches, Societies and Fellowships, one thing is almost universally true - the essence of the covenant centers around our desire to be accountable to one another. In a secular world where consumerism and convenience trumps a sense of a common ethic of mutual support, it’s imperative for religious communities to stretch out to, and within, one another to build the common good. Covenant is about building the common good – or what Martin Luther King Jr commonly referred to as the Beloved Community; a phrase we each recite every Sunday as part of our services.

Last Sunday, I spoke at length about the theology of James Luther Adams and his concept of the five stones. In short, for those that missed it, he was looking at the story of David and Goliath and reflecting on what the 5 stones David used would be in modern language to combat oppression. I’d like to focus on one more of those stones. In the next two weeks I’ll get to the 4th and 5th stone. But today, I want to focus on the 3rd stone in Adams’ theology – and go a bit further with it than I was able to in the first of sermon in the preaching series. That precept paraphrased is: “We have an obligation to work toward creating a Beloved Community — our faith inspires us to the work of transformational community that is centered in justice and love. The prophethood of all believers has a corrective effect on systems of oppression.”

As I paraphrase it, community has a corrective effect on systems of oppressions. Theologically, covenant is the antithesis of oppression. You only build a covenant when folks come to it with equal footing, and when we have equal footing, we can hold one another accountable from an equal place. So when we talk here about someone falling out of covenant, we’re talking about a situation in our Fellowship, where one person is leveraging their power, or their feelings, over and beyond the shared agreement of how we work together collaboratively. It’s referring to a situation where the individual ego is leading over another person’s worth, or another person’s pain. And to be fair, we all fall for the tricks of the ego. Falling short of our covenant doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, it means that you’ve let your ego run before the rest of us, before all of us, and that’s something we all do from time to time. We all do it. It’s human, and it’s our quintessential challenge to overcome as humans. As UU’s we choose to face that challenge together; publicly, and to do that together publicly fosters some awkward moments. So when we fall for it, and someone points it out, try to hear it with love, and begin again and again. It’s being human at our best.

Last week, I also spoke about demands that our faith places upon us in relation to those precepts – those “stones” Adams proverbially spoke about. The matched demand to this third precept would be the theological question, “Does this thing or value before us, seek to bring more harmony and more equity in our relationships (– even if the work is very difficult?)” What does that mean though in every day language? When we’re trying to decide on an action, or a belief, or a value, or an angered reply to something someone says or does in our community – the essential question follows: Does our response bring more harmony and equity to our relationship? If the answer is yes, great. If the answer is no, then we are straying from the religious path our faith challenges us to adhere to. When we ask ourselves if our response or actions bring more harmony or equity, and the answer is no, we’re falling prey once more to our lone ego. The domain of the ego is isolation, and community calls us out from that lonely place. I believe that progressive faith calls us out of isolation, to do much in the world, but it also calls us out of isolation to spiritually mature past or through our attachment to ego. And it’s in that maturing through our attachment to ego, that we also begin to do much good in the world.

 See that? We sometimes joke that we can believe anything. I don’t agree with that, and if you think I’m wrong, then next week let’s plan for me to preach about whatever I personally feel like and see what happens. 

 Because we can’t. We can’t believe anything. We’re not about belief, but we have central values that are very specific, even if we don’t always see it. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be exploring together what demands our theology places upon us. Our actions in the world, as UUs, as religious people of faithful purpose – demand that we act so that we nurture harmony and equity in human relations. When we act from anger, or ego, we’re being very human, but we’re falling short of our theological convictions. We’re not evil for doing it necessarily, but we have fallen short, and our faith calls us out, calls us in, and calls us for more.

The Five Stones, Pt. II: Broken Twigs

Rev. Jude Geiger, Minister of Community Engagement

August 13, 2023

We’re at our second sermon in a five week preaching series on the ethics of James Luther Adams – an early to mid 20th century Unitarian Harvard professor who was committed to combating the rise of Nazism both abroad, and at home. We’ll take a circuitous route today through a few stories that all touch upon his second of five stones (it’s a later editors’ reference to the David and Goliath Story where with five stones, an oppressive attacker was beaten back by a kid with a sling.) It goes – “Relationships between people ought to be free — mutuality and consent are both ethical and theological principles.”

First Story:

A few years back – prep-pandemic – I  attended ten days of working conferences for religious professionals. One part of those conferences was primarily about having difficult conversations. How do we as leaders, how do we as religious people, have the difficult conversations around the big topics: money, race, death and sexuality. I was also asked to lead part of the workshops around race, identity and racism. Not surprisingly, the week started with the comparatively easy (I kid) topic of money, and (not surprisingly) saved sexuality for the last day.

One of the premises of the conference was that we needed to understand our frameworks around each of these topics if we’re to have the difficult conversations within our communities of faith. Where we start from, when we’re thinking about race or death, has as big (or even bigger) an impact than any set of facts or subset of knowledge on the topics. What’s our story about money or sexuality, and how do we tell it? One of the odd stand-outs for a very unusual conference for religious professionals, was realizing that if something happened to me, my husband would have a hard time figuring out where all of my investments, or retirement portfolios are, where my bank accounts are and so on. That’s something we’re still working on fixing, but it taught me something about myself that I hadn’t quite realized: Part of me is still living, in some ways, a story of individuality.

“Relationships between people ought to be free — mutuality and consent are both ethical and theological principles.”

Don’t get me wrong; almost everything that impacts our household goes through a rigorous schedule of fretting, and arguing – like any very happily married couple. But there are some habits of the single years, that I haven’t quite put to rest – even now 8 years into married life: shared documentation, shared calendars, and negotiating where we go for Thanksgiving and Christmas – all still trip us up – even after 8 years married and 13 years together. How do we start a shared google calendar – has become a seasonal refrain that despite all my tech savvy, I find extremely onerous. Individuality runs deep in our culture, and it’s a hard practice to unlearn – and I don’t think I’m alone here on this.

Another side of individuality is isolation. We all live in isolation at some time in our lives, even if we’re surrounded by people all the time. (And we don’t have to be alone to be in isolation.) It’s another story we tell ourselves: how alone are we…We can become most aware of it when we’re going through times of crisis – whether or not we have all the communal support we can ever dream of – how we relate to crisis can determine if we tell our story as individuals, or tell our story as part of something larger. Do we fight that struggle with cancer as lone warriors, or do we let ourselves lean on our friends and neighbors for moral support, even knowing still that we are the ones that have to go in for chemo? When our relationships wither, do we reach out, or do we hunker down? Having good friends and family – even when we have many of them – doesn’t necessarily mean we let them in when the road gets rough. Sometimes that might be the right choice – only you know that answer for yourself – but sometimes we think isolation is the best choice – even when it’s not.

Second Story:

I was listening to an interview with a comedian some of you may know, Patton Oswalt. He was being interviewed on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. At the time - He’s a man in his mid to late forties with a 7 year old daughter. His wife suddenly died in her sleep – there was no warning. She had been working very long hours and he finally convinced her to stay home and get some sleep; there was an accidental and very tragic dose of sleeping medication…. He’s been very public with his grief, and he took a long break from his work in comedy. Something he said about grief in the interview really struck me as true. “If you don’t talk about it, then grief really gets to setup and fortify its positions inside of you and begin to immobilize you. But the more you talk, the more you expose it to the air and to the light, then grief doesn’t get the chance to organize itself, and maybe you can move on better and easier…

…[grief] can’t be remedied, it must be endured – and it’s the endurance, oddly enough, that becomes the remedy.”

He goes on to talk about how he’s found that not only has talking about his grief with others helped him to move forward with his life as an individual and then as a widowed dad of a young child, but he’s learned that his sharing has helped others in extreme grief find avenues for healing. Speaking our stories has a healing power that can help us get back to living more fully after times of great loss.

“Relationships between people ought to be free — mutuality and consent are both ethical and theological principles.”

Third Story:

This reminds me of the old folk saying about twigs. Take any twig you find and try to snap it. It’ll break pretty easily. Put that same twig into a bundle with other twigs, and it gets harder and harder to break. I think when we separate ourselves too long from one another, from community or friends, we can become like that singular twig. Life’s pressures can become too much; grief or loss can become too much – and we don’t have to do it alone.

Alone or together – the story we tell about our life changes us. British fiction author Terry Pratchett said, “People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it’s the other way around.” Well, we are a people of story. Most of my sermons start by telling another type of story – basically parables of daily living. For us, we don’t have to imagine being a people of story as much as consciously realize how deeply stories impact our lives and our living.

What are the stories you come back to year after year? What stories do we raise our kids on, and why? Which stories defined your character, or pull on your heart strings, or get you in the gut when they resonate with what’s happening in your life? As Pratchett writes, people are shaped by stories – we should choose our stories wisely. And we should choose the stories we tell about our lives just as wisely. What negative story do you choose to try to convince yourself is true about you? I spoke about separation and isolation before, but there are many other stories we tell about ourselves that harm more than help.

Fourth Story:

Some time ago, a colleague of mine was sharing a story about their congregation on Facebook. (I have permission to share this here.) He wrote, “One thing that I never expected to be quite so good at – helping calm really little kids down who are missing their parents. I wonder if this sort of inherent knowledge came when I was hired as a DRE, or if it was there all along.” On one level, there’s a story we all tell about our capacity to be in the world; what we’re good at, what we’re bad at, and what our roles are in our lives. But on the spiritual level, his story reminded me about the central purpose of communities of faith – and I don’t say this flippantly. All religious life is essentially helping one another struggle through our separation anxiety: our sense of separation from the Holy, from God, from one another. In times of grief, we remember those who have died in our lives. In times of change, we hold one another’s hands to remember we’re not alone. In the every day, or maybe for you only a few times in your life, we struggle with whether there is meaning and depth to this world; whether we’re part of something greater. For some the answer is community, or compassion, or justice-building. For the more mystical among us, I believe we’re never truly alone – but despair sets in when we forget that truth. Religious life is helping one another through our struggle with separation and isolation, through grief and loss. And the other side of that struggle is a question of the spirit – and an answer that draws us back out – again and again.

“Relationships between people ought to be free — mutuality and consent are both ethical and theological principles.”

Fifth Story:

Let me try out today a new metaphor: The parable of the Chili Bake. I hope this will explain all things. Social media is sometimes an odd place to be in my friendship circle. One mid-western colleague was talking about the sounds and looks of horror in a NYC deli when she asked to put Lox on a Cinnamon Raisin Bagel, and further out west,  a bunch of my Texas friends and colleagues were talking half-seriously (but very half-seriously) about Texas state politics and a recent accusation that a certain candidate (who will remain nameless here) puts beans in his Chili. There were gasps, and comments of, ‘well this is getting dirty now isn’t it.’ Then enters the Jersey-boy/New Yorker and I slowly raise my proverbial hand and ask, “If you don’t put beans in your chili, what do you put in your chili.” Insert more gasps.

Two Texas colleagues came to my rescue and explained what their bean-less chili is – how to my Italian ear what they were describing was actually just spiced sauce – no, no, no, there’s too much meat in there for it to be sauce. Which then sounded like they were talking about hamburger helper, which produced more gasps and not a few sighs. No, no, no, it’s straight beef, not ground meat. And on, and on. I recall saying that, “Wow, it’s like we use the same words but they have different meanings.”

Then one saint stepped in and performed what I will call “Chili exegesis.” Rev. Joanne Fontaine Crawford.

She explained: “The Authenticity answer: chili is cowboy food. On long cattle drives, you didn’t have room to carry a lot of supplies. Certainly not beans. 

Texan Foodie answer: a properly made chili has no need of beans. It is not like what passes for chili in other places just minus the beans. It is usually slow cooked for hours and is full of chiles, spices, and good meat (not ground beef, shudder) and you want to taste that without the “filler” of beans. In a proper bowl of Texas red, you can stick your wooden spoon in the middle of the pot, and it will stand up straight with no help, because it’s that thick. 

Practical answer: in Texas, chili isn’t just one dish. Chili is an ingredient. It’s thinned and poured over enchiladas, thick and added to hot dogs, used to make frito pie, etc. You eat beans on the side.””[1]

It’s almost as if we are using the same words but they mean different things. And they’re both still chili; just a chili that addresses the answers for the people in the place where they are (whether that answer be cowboy food, an ingredient in another more elaborate dish, or a entrée of its own.) As my theology professor, Dr. James Cone, would often repeat, “Theology is how we make and understand meaning in the world.” Each community, each people, is going to wrestle with the answers and questions before them in their own way. (And yes, it’s still wrong to put Lox on a Cinnamon Raisin Bagel.)

“Relationships between people ought to be free — mutuality and consent are both ethical and theological principles.”

I made a choice in this sermon to focus on the everyday side of this second stone of James Luther Adams. A bunch of stories about everyday togetherness, mutuality and daily free exchange of ideas, stories and life. Consent would be a series of sermons all on its own. And we’ll get there over the years together. But I made the choice to focus on the everyday – right-relationship side – of this message because we all could benefit from honing in on how to rebuild that when we don’t all see the world the same way. Here in Metro NY, that is our next goal. Rebuilding relationships that understand what mutuality means when we don’t all understand the world in the same way; because we simply don’t – as the news daily reminds us.

The Five Stones, Pt. I: Unitarian Ethics and Theology

Rev. Jude Geiger, Minister of Community Engagement

August 6, 2023

I’ve told this story about how I found UU before, so I’ll be brief, but it’s important for today’s wider message. I was 19 when I found Unitarian Universalism. In some ways, I share the usual story for converts to our faith. In my case, I was a devout Catholic who had come to accept that there was no Hell, that God was loving, and that homosexuality was not a sin – but an expression of love. In other ways, my story was unusual. I found a UU Fellowship in northern NJ through a job. For a host of reasons, I dropped out of college in my first year studying environmental science. After getting laid off from a part-time job at a chain bookstore right after Christmas, I got word that a church was looking for a custodian. Over the next three years, that job expanded into their events coordinator (think weddings and art shows.) I was still pushing the mop, I was coordinating weddings, and I was back in college – this time studying religion and anthropology. For those of you going through a tough time with school or work, try to remember that you never know how things will turn out. Some of the worst times of our lives, still find a way to end eventually, and there can be something new in store for any of us.

In many ways, the Morristown UU Fellowship was the last place I would have imagined myself joining. They were a staunch atheist fellowship that had severe allergies to theological language – and I very much believe in God. H forbid anyone use the G word. And the J word was right out! Buddhist influence wasn’t wide-spread enough yet in the mid-nineties to inform the spirituality of the services overtly. And yet there was a lot of heart in their meeting space on Sunday morning. There was a there – there – that I couldn’t exactly place at the time. If I’m honest with myself, my younger self appreciated the stark contrast to conservative Christian teachings that I hadn’t yet worked through. It was a community that was wrestling with the nature of being. And that was enough for me. I didn’t need an answer, I needed a space to find myself, and live into community.

The next congregation I was a member of, couldn’t have been further afield in style or expressed theology: All Souls in Manhattan. Largely toted as NYC’s only New England Style white-steeple church. A 1500 member churchy-church, with an organ, actual pews, multiple pulpits, and monthly communion services. I joined there while I was in graduate school.

Both settings are Unitarian Universalist. Both hold the same values. Both are seeking a faith path that is open to hope, possibility and joy. Openness, mindfulness, reverence – have become central in most of our congregations. All of our communities have religious humanists and religious theists among us. Trappings are the difference, not content. All of our congregations have a central UU theology – in some locations it’s more clear and others it’s simply felt beneath the skin.

I’ve long identified as a sort of hybrid UU. Denominationally speaking, most of us are converts and some of us are life-long UU’s. I have converted to this faith, but I did so right at adulthood – so in many ways this feels like my life-long choice. By a show of hands, how many of you have been attending our Fellowship for 2 years or less? How many of you have been a UU since childhood (prior to turning 18?) How many for 30 years or more? (I love watching the changing demographics!)

Now I’m guessing that the folks that have been attending for 2 years or less are thinking – “Oh good! We’re finally going to hear someone tell us what the central UU theology is.” I think it would be safe to guess that the folks who have been UU for 30 years or more are thinking, “Oh good! We’re finally going to hear someone tell us what the central UU theology is.”

Being a non-creedal faith is both a strength and a challenge. Folks are reticent to assert theological claims when we have no test of belief. We don’t want to make any theological truth statement because we appreciate that we all see the world differently and that’s not what we’re about. Some years ago, I was attending an annual conference of religious professionals in Williamsburg, Virginia. One Sunday evening I attended worship at their local Episcopal church – which was led by a former professor of mine when I was studying in England, and who became a dear friend of mine over the years when he moved to the States. They got to the point in the service where the community recited the Nicene Creed. For those who are unfamiliar, this is a minute or two long creed with some very specific theological details in it (just about none of which I actually agree with.) My UU colleagues next to me were visibly shocked (one actually jumped – and he’s not a jumper by nature) when I began reciting it from memory. For context – it had been over 20 years since I had attended a Catholic Mass, and left the Catholic church in my high school years. …We have nothing like that. Although I imagine we could begin the practice of reciting our 8 principles as a covenant and it would fit that role. Our principles are promises we struggle to keep with each other. But they’re action statements – not creedal assertions.

Our UU theology is rooted in our six sources. But our sources themselves are not strictly a theology. Our sources are not an interfaith smorgasbord, although we sometimes treat them as such. “I prefer the course of cultural Christianity and a heavy dose of agnosticism please.” They ground us in our religious meaning. Any theology would need to reckon with them to be true to our core. Here they are more simply put: Transcendent mystery and wonder moves us to a renewal of spirit. Prophetic deeds challenge us to confront systems of oppression with compassion. All world religions hold wisdom to inspire our ethical and spiritual lives. Love our neighbors as ourselves. Reason and science warn us against idolatries of mind and spirit. We are part of this world and ought to live in harmony with it. (Ok, maybe that could work as our Nicene Creed.) None of these sources answer whether we ought to believe in God or not, but frankly – that’s not what our theology could ever look like again. But our Six Sources are rich in very different ways. They give us space to be true to ourselves, to learn how to live into community, and hold a rich depth in themselves. And we’d be hard-pressed to come up with a reason to disagree with any individual source – except for maybe how we apply them.

That’s a framework though, and not a theology. One friend once asked me, “but isn’t the central theology of Universal Unitarianism that there isn’t a central theology of universal unitarianism? Theological Switzerland, so to speak?” I won’t fault him on his placement of U’s in that sentence. And he’s right in a way. We tend to live with an explicit theological message that this is so: All are welcome. All can see the world the way they see it. (The only really important theological question is the nature of God so let’s just say we don’t have a theology because we’re not going to touch that one!) But that’s not the case.

I’ve been heavily inspired by the writings of James Luther Adams. He’s a mid-20th century theologian, minister and academic from the US who lived in Germany in the 1930s and was active in the clandestine resistance to the rise of Nazism. We often take our theologians out of context. And as I talk about his thoughts, keep his experience in Germany in mind.

After the breadth of his 40+ years of writing were complete, folks started pulling together bits and pieces of his thinking, jumbled them together, and came up with some pretty helpful combinations. One such is an essay on “The Five Stones.” It’s a metaphor back to David and Goliath. In the Jewish story, a teenager “David” manages to defeat the Giant named Goliath on the field of battle with a sling and five stones. It’s a violent story, but a course of action that prevented two armies from colliding. There was one death instead of thousands. For JLA, the five stones become a metaphor for how we can combat systems of oppression in the world. What are the five things we can do that will unbind the oppressed? In modern language – how do we end Racism, Homophobia, Classism and Misogyny – to name a few.

What does our liberal faith say about living? I will paraphrase the much longer piece, which itself is an edit of a sort, using language that might be more familiar to us: 1. Revelation is not sealed — in the unfolding of the human spirit we continuously experience life in new ways and so too does our experience of truth. 2. Relationships between people ought to be free — mutuality and consent are both ethical and theological principles 3. We have an obligation to work toward creating a Beloved Community — our faith inspires us to the work of transformational community that is centered in justice and love. The prophethood of all believers has a corrective effect on systems of oppression 4. Each child that’s born is another redeemer — we are all potential sources of good in the world and each have a role to play. Goodness happens in relationships with one another. 5. We choose hope — Our resources – both sublime and mundane hold all the capacity we need to transform the world.[1]

This faith statement is central to our UU theology. If you are craving an affirmation or a negation of the nature or existence of God, I can only say again – that’s not how we do theology. Our kind of theology is like the scientific method. When we learn that Newtonian Physics is only correct at certain speeds and certain proximities to really big gravitational objects (like the Earth going at about the speed we happen to be going) we don’t throw out physics and say Science (I hope you can hear the capital S) is wrong. We say that there’s a process of testing and observation to follow. Likewise, our theology is one of testing and observation. When you have questions of purpose, belief, or values ask yourself – Does this thing or view leave room for the ongoing evolution of the human spirit? Does it draw me closer into a community that is mutually supportive? Does it seek to bring more harmony and more equity in those relationships – even if the work is very difficult? Does it falsely make me forget that I have the capacity to live into this holy work? Does it remind me to live with hope?

Our theology is both a faith statement and a process of reflection. Our faith teaches us that we can expect to continue to be inspired, to learn from one another, and to seek out that spiritual growth. Wheresoever we freely choose to enter into communities with one another we are doing sacred work – not easy work – not convenient work but holy work. In this we are obligated to vigilantly transform systems of oppression with acts of love and compassion. We all have the capacity to make this happen, and everything that we need to do so already exists. There is a reason to hope in this world.

[1] This is a paraphrase of James Luther Adams. Various sources include “On Being Human Religiously”, The Tapestry of Faith Online Curricula, The GOLDMINE Youth Leadership School and the 2012 Keynote address at the LREDA Fall Conference by Dr. Raser.

God Isn’t, Can’t or Won’t: The Question of Suffering

Rev. Peggy Clarke, Senior Minister
May 7th, 2023

I stood in my kitchen on Friday with a friend of mine. Aracelly is a good woman who left Guatemala more than 30 years ago with nothing but her 3 year old son. She worked in a factory, learned how to speak English, became a US citizen, got married and today lives quite comfortably with her husband having had 4 more children and now some grandchildren. And on Friday, she was telling me how grateful she is for everything she has.

Then she reminded me that none of it mattered, that she’d willingly give it all up if only she could have her son back. That little 3 year old, some years later, died in a car accident. There in my kitchen she cried, as she’s done in my kitchen so many times. And she posed the question that she poses again and again, especially in the springtime, around the anniversary of his death.

Every time she says “Why, Peggy? What have I done? Why did I deserve this?” Her friends and her priest have given her answers like “God tests those he loves most” and “This is how God proves to others who really loves him.” Somehow it’s her job now to bear witness to her unwavering faith. Many spiritual traditions advise the benefits of suffering. It forms character, it opens us to intimacy with God, it sets “good” in clear relief, all the more appreciated for the contrast.

If those answers worked for her, she wouldn’t spend so much time asking those questions year after year, nor would the millions of other people when drowning in their own pain. “Why? Why did this happen?” We grasp for meaning when the world feels most cruel. We search for the only ground we think we might find. “Why?”

Suffering is religion’s Achilles Heel. This is particularly true for monotheistic traditions that posit a single powerful, knowing and even controlling god. God with a capital G. God as Designer. Director. It’s lovely and safe and is a very popular understanding for billions of people. But, that vision and image of God has trouble holding up to the realities of human pain.

Suffering is inescapable. No one lives without grief. In the course of a week, most people don’t talk about it, but there is no person you have met, no one any of us encounters who hasn’t experienced real pain. We’ve lost children and parents and siblings and friends and lovers to death, to addiction, to dementia, and possibly to violence. Grief is an ongoing part of the human experience.

While much of that is common, there’s also uncommon suffering. Children in Ukraine are being taken from their families to be brought to Russia for adoption. Uyghurs in China have been pushed into forced labor camps to punish them for being Muslim. The list goes on and on. Sudan. Ethiopia. Palestine. Iran. These are the modern hot-spots, but there will be a different list in a year because life on this planet is difficult.

I took a course in graduate school on the Holocaust, the uncommon suffering that is most present in my own family. That course was my first introduction to the depths of human depravity and a serious challenge to my faith. It was also the beginning of my quest to understand, to answer the “Why” that inevitably is asked when grief is unexpected. The question that haunted me then and still lives with me, especially as we see similar patterns here to those 15 years in Europe, the question I asked was: Is God all powerful and therefore evil, or is God powerless and therefore useless?

John Roth in his reflection on the Holocaust wrote, “Where was God? Off trimming the divine nails? We want to know the source of this evil, and if God was on-duty when it happened. We want to know who has hell to pay for the evil we see around us. After all, does not Hell seem superfluous?”

How can we believe in a powerful god? If god is good and powerful, why is there suffering? That is, if god could prevent suffering but doesn’t, can god be said to be good? On the other hand, if god is good, but cannot prevent suffering, can it be said that god is powerful?

The religions of the world, humans through history have been asking these things in their own contexts and they’ve left us breadcrumbs to follow, hoping one day we’ll find answers that can hold up in times of trouble.

Distilling all that wisdom down, we can see a few patterns. For instance, a very common response the world-round is the “consolation of a promise”, the notion that there’s something better coming, either in this life, or in another life, or in the after-life. We suffer now, but it’ll be OK in the end with “end” being a flexible term. In Hebrew scripture we are promised a future peace and told that “one day the wolf will dwell with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion will lie down together, and the child will lead them all.” Hindus believe in Karma, in an ultimate system of justice where balance will be found, where we all get what we deserve, but this promise will be made real in our next life. The Qur’an tells us that Allah will give good provision,

that God is indulgent in the after-life. So, in the future, in another life, or after death- at some time we will find peace and/or justice, even as it seems elusive now.

This consolation of a promise is the carrot held out in front of us. Karl Marx called it an opiate, a drug that lulls and distracts us. He suggested that we awaken and claim a more immediate response. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, when confronted with similar promises of a world not-yet, told us that justice delayed is justice denied.

This same promise of consolation comes in sayings like “God has a plan” or “everything happens for a reason”. It sooths us into feeling like things aren’t random, that there’s a purpose and that ultimately, we’re being taken care of, that all will be made right. It feels good to believe the suffering will be justified, although I suspect the good-feelings are often for those who have not been violated. It’s more a remedy for onlookers. I don’t know anyone whose suffering was alleviated by such platitudes.

This consolation of a promise feels like a denial of authentic suffering. A pat on the head and a “don’t worry, it’ll be alright”. That’s not who we are.

This sermon is part of a series called This We Believe. For the last two years, I’ve been teasing out UU theology. The challenge for today isn’t to tell you what all the other religious traditions believe about suffering, but about what we believe. What does Unitarian Universalism have to offer to people in times of tremendous pain?

We don’t deny the depths and reality of suffering. Those promises, those carrots, are necessary only after creating a worldview in which there is external force in charge. In other words, I was asking the wrong question. I was asking about power. Who’s responsible? What solid, stable worldview can give suffering meaning?

But, the precarious pathway of human life challenges the idea that god is both good and powerful, leading many believers to doubt or even to see faith disintegrate when that worldview cannot hold up under the weight of real pain. As UUs, we do not have a mythology to which we have committed ourselves so strongly that we have to continually alter reality in order for it to make sense. We have not indoctrinated a belief in an all-knowing, all-powerful god, so we do not have to struggle with that image while confronting, for instance, the massacre of children in their classroom. We don’t have to ask if god knew in advance or if god chose not to stop it and we do not have to justify god’s actions in the face of it with empty platitudes like “everything happens for a reason”. No grieving mother will ever have to hear that here.

After struggling for 2 years with writing that paper for that graduate class, (yes, 2 years – it was late) I realized I was asking the wrong question. Power isn’t at the Center. Love is. Love is the highest attribute. I was wrestling with questions of power, as is everyone asking “Why?” and wondering who’s in charge, wondering what we could have done – what prayers we were missing, what actions we didn’t take.

Immediately after the massacre at Sandy Hook, conservative talking heads claimed it happened because Connecticut had fought so hard for marriage equality. The slaughtering of their children was their punishment.

Our theology doesn’t require that we appease an angry god. We don’t think humans are sinners or that god has put us in slippery places and awaits our fall, who keeps us from the pit of hell only by his good grace. We never look into the face of pain and wonder what they did to deserve it.

Unitarian Universalists are free to be shocked when confronted with true suffering. Without an omnificent deity controlling our every breath, we don’t have to be afraid of our own horror and we don’t have to alter our faith in order to make room for reality. Our search for truth includes an embrace of unanswered questions and a confrontation with the depths of human suffering.

For most Unitarian Universalists, hope is not external. Hope does not come from the ancient god of Moses or Jesus or Muhammad. Hope comes from us, from the reality we are creating, the world we are dreaming and building together. Hope comes from this room, from this community. Hope comes from Now and Here. Hope comes from We Who Put Love At The Center of Everything.

Congregational membership, covenanted relationships, are rooted in love. This love sees the Other clearly and entirely. Love isn’t blind; it sees EVERYTHING. Love means we can see each other as whole people, with our potential for kindness and cruelty. It’s a full acceptance of who someone is now, coupled with a profound willingness to help them become more, to help us all become more- to live like we are more.

We are here in the name and in the service of Love.

The question isn’t about whether or not god is powerful. The question is about whether or not we can summon Love, live into Love, act with the open heart of Love so well that we become powerful.

There is no cure to grief. When Aracelly cries, I hold her hand. When George Floyd died, we took to the streets. We are not the source of Love, but we are her magnifiers.

I’m not going to reduce our woes to a need for more love. I know it’s not that simple. And I’m certainly

not going to suggest that if there were more UU congregations we’d be free from violence. But I am going to suggest that when we face into human suffering, it’s the strength of our shared faith, grounded in our covenanted relationships, held by Love, that will bind us when everything else feels like it might fall apart. If there’s hope, I believe it will be found in the radical, counter-cultural, witness of congregations like ours, of people who are willing to name the suffering without dismissing it with platitudes or over-simplifying it because the rabbit hole is too deep or justifying it with an absentee god. If there’s hope, it’s because we are willing to participate in the experiment of being human, moving us forward into the unknown. Awake and afraid, but not alone.

The Pleasure is the Point

The world has become a frightening place. I suppose, it’s always been that way to some degree, and I’m sure every generation is convinced they are living in the end times in one fashion or another. Change does that. Becoming awake does that. With that said, the planet is in a particularly precarious position with about 7 years left before the damage we’ve done to our climate becomes irreversible. Equally frightening is knowing that our democracy is losing the guardrails that have held it together for 250 years, making the foundation for our lives - both the platform for all life and the ground for our particular American context - unstable and dangerously close to collapse. I would argue that we are in a more fragile place than at any other time in human history, both because of the imminent collapse of our planetary systems and because of our access to global communications that force momentum at lightening speeds. While in the past, people might have had time to adjust to advancements, today we live at high velocity. While our direction is destruction, we hardly have time to catch our collective breath before another horrific thing happens, propelling us toward the disintegration of our free society faster than our minds can fully understand all that’s going on. And, even if we weren’t bringing ourselves to the edge of national disaster, climate change is bringing the whole planet there, a problem we can’t seem to summon the will to address in any meaningful way, guaranteeing global catastrophe.

There seem to be two responses to these dual realities. One is an urgent, angry activism propelling people on both the right and the left toward intense, self-righteous politicking. The other is hedonism sponsored by denial. We are either shaking people to wake them up and get them to fight or we’re keeping our heads down, reading romance novels and watching reality TV. Sometimes, we do the activist thing, signing letters, posting frightening facts, showing up for rallies, reading the news daily, and then we burn out, overwhelmed by the distance between where we are and where we need to be, so we spend the next few months keeping our heads down, reading romance novels and watching reality TV.

Neither of these is a perfect solution. I’m not sure either of them will get us anywhere close to where we want to go. It’s possible hedonism will serve those who live into it, focusing on themselves and those in their immediate circles, indulging their physical desires, and even their spiritual desires in the form of churches who preach personal success, hyper individualism through personal relationships with god, and feel-good theologies. And, it’s possible the activists who never let up, who won’t stop until every system reflects their understanding of peace, who shame us into constant participation will eventually create a world where justice rolls down like water. I’m guessing, though, that neither will create a future of balance and joy. There isn’t anything wrong with taking care of yourself nor is there anything wrong with the fire of activism. I’m just not sure that either road is leading to a utopian future.

I am imagining a new world. It’s what the novelist Octavia Butler calls writing Science Fiction. We have to imagine it to achieve it. And when I imagine this utopian future, we’re living in communities of intentionality, with people caring for each other in real and tangible ways. We’re growing food together, we’re sharing resources and skills and training, we’re living slower lives in partnership with each other. We are living with Love at the center of Everything. We don’t get to that new world or whatever science fiction you’re imagining following either the path of self-righteous activism or hedonism.

How we get there matters. We are building the plane while flying it, and the tools we use will determine what kind of plane it is. So, I’m hoping we build with joy, and love, and tenderness and pleasure.

Emma Goldman was an anarchist, which for her and the left-wing activists of the early part of the 20th century, was about liberation. There were rules, especially for women, that bound them into very small lives. They were fighting for suffrage, but also for an end to the conventions that dictated who they were allowed to be. One day, Emma received a letter from a man after her attendance at a party had been noted by some others in the women’s rights movement. The letter told her that in a time of such distress, it was unseemly for her to be seen dancing. He went on to note that her frivolity would hurt the cause and that her behavior was undignified. There were, after all, very serious matters at stake, and if they were going to be successful, they needed to reflect the urgency, especially in public. In her response she said, (I’m quoting from her memoir) “I did not believe that a cause which stood for such a beautiful ideal…for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy.” She then went on with a version of the now famous line, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”

The revolution isn’t separate from the joy. The revolution – the dramatic upheaval of the conventions that have brought us to the brink of destruction – the revolution has to include dancing. And singing. And art. And even though we don’t usually say these things from the pulpit, it has to include sex. One day we should talk about why we think sex isn’t something you should talk about in church, but that’s for another day. For today, I’m just noting that if we’re talking about pleasure and joy and art and dance, we shouldn’t forget sex.

In so many ways, we’re all feeling frightened. On Friday evening in a residential neighborhood, a man was firing his AK-15 in his backyard. A neighbor asked him to stop because his infant was having trouble sleeping. In response, he shot and killed him, 3 women and an 8 year old child. This is the world we live in. We are armed to the teeth, shooting children who accidentally knock on our door or drive into our driveway or neighbors who ask for quiet so the baby can sleep. Urgency is not unwarranted. The crisis is real.

The work is necessary, but that doesn’t mean it also has to be unpleasant. The world might feel sharp and hard, but we can greet that with softness, with kindness, with authentic care and whispers to counter the screaming. The revolution is communal, it’s deeply relational. Hyper independence brings us to a place of buying guns to protect our homes and shooting our neighbors for wanting quiet. Instead, we lean into community, into flexibility. We yield to each other. Our softness is our resistance.

Yesterday, I wasn’t feeling well. It’s been happening all week and is related to migraines which I used to get often but haven’t in years. This week was different and Saturday morning I was dragging. I had to write this sermon, take my son to get his haircut, my brother-in-law is in town and we were having dinner with him and my mother-in-law. So, early in the morning I was in my office in front of my laptop pushing through when my husband quietly handed me a banana he’d started to peel. Bananas have been my salvation all week, for reasons I don’t really understand. I feel better after eating one. My husband saw we were out, so without saying a word, he went to the grocery store to get more, then handed me one with some Excedrin and a glass of cold water. It was kind. And generous. And as I was writing about the harshness of the world, it was a reminder of gentleness.

Our activism and our restfulness, our fight for justice and our joy, our chanting in the streets and our singing in the shower, are connected. And, it’s not about needing one to continue the other. It’s that these things are the same. We are building a new world while engaging all of it. This is the revolution.

There is no “here” and “there” or “this” and “that”. It’s all one thing, one place, one life - Ours -and we’re living it as whole beings. The method is the message. So, if I want to build a world of radical inclusion, I have to live into that vision now. If I want a world where communities are the central sources of goods and services, where we partner with each other, caring for our families and the details of our lives with a larger circle of people, I have to build those communities now. If I want love at the center of everything, I have to put it there now.

The pleasure is the point. It’s not a by-product. It’s not an aside, a way to rest to go back to fight. The pleasure, the joy, the sweet love that makes our days possible – that’s the point. That’s what we’re doing here. We’re creating a world of THAT. A place everyone has that. A place everyone can safely play and dance and read romance novels.

Rest, and the centrality of love, and a shared practice of joy, and the commitment of communities of care are part of my vision for the future. Which means they need to be part of my life right now. Without apology. Without feeling badly that we’re getting ready for our climate action by painting fabric and learning paper mâché, or even though we’re furious about yet another black man being killed, we can bring singing to the streets to help heal our heartbreak. And when we’re back home, it’s OK to take a hot bath, to let a new soundtrack take you away, to eat a favorite meal or get a full body massage. More than OK. These things are all part of the creation of the new world. These are the tools because these are what the plane, is made from. The pleasure is the point. It is the vision of the new world. Communities working together, building something new, sourced by joy and a vision for something better.

I brought chocolate with me. We’re going to eat it, together. I’m calling it communion. In my theology, communion is the action we take to connect. The word comes from Latin literally meaning With Together. It’s an act of Being With. It might mean being with god or gods or connecting with others or the ground of our being. In November, I learned that there was a tradition of cornbread communion and you all introduced that to me. I’m now introducing you to chocolate communion.

Chocolate is sensual. It’s sweet and soft. The chocolate I brought will melt in your mouth, extending the pleasure. When eaten slowly, it can be joyful. And when eaten together, it can also be communal.

It feels like a window into the world I’m dreaming about. A place we rest together, enjoy life a little, experience something indulgent, in community. Not only part of the future I hope to imagine into existence, it’s part of the present I want to live into. I want us to offer each other things that are beautiful and delicious. Without

guilt or shame, without anyone telling us to do better or be more or work harder, I want to share chocolate. Chocolate, With Together. Communion.

A few notes- please don’t leave the wrappers for someone else to pick up. There’s a garbage on your way out. If you are allergic to nuts, it might be safer not to eat it. You know your own body, but Lindt says that their chocolate might have come in contact with nuts.

While the chocolate is going around, we’re going to sing. Indulge. Listen to the music. Taste the chocolate. The pleasure is the point.

Love is the Enduring Force

Rev. Peggy Clarke, Senior Minister

February 26, 2023

What would it look like if Love was at the center of everything?

What if Love was the organizing principle of your condo or coop board? What if Love was the organizing principle of your kid’s school? What if Love was the organizing principle of our city or state government? What would it look like if, when making decisions, Congress asked themselves what the most loving choice would be? What if corporations prioritized Love over profit? What if Love was the driving force, the central principle of every institution, every organization, of our lives? What if we recognized Love as the one constant, the critical reality that never loses value, over time? Millennia? The universal force for good, recognizable in every cultural context. What would happen if we put Love at the center of Everything?

I suppose, if that was a revolution we’d want to spark, the place to start would be religious institutions. And if we were starting with a religious institution, it may as well be our own. And if it was going to start with us, we may as well start now. But first, let’s look at how we got here.

It was the year 2009 and General Assembly, the annual gathering of UU delegates, was taking place in Salt Lake City. A lot of business is covered at these gatherings and thousands of people representing their congregations are there to learn and debate and embody the critical relationship between governance and theology. My husband, Graham, was there on behalf of our home church in Mt. Kisco, and there was an item on the agenda that had his attention. The language for our Seven Principles and Six Sources was potentially going to be altered and the new version, in his opinion, downgraded atheism. Graham wasn’t happy. My 15 hour days were over and I was done with GA, very much looking forward to catching a plane home, but Graham insisted we stay for this vote. He even went to the mike to speak against the proposed change. The debate was heated. Usually debate gets cut when one microphone- the pro or the con- has a long line and the other has no one, indicating that the gathered group was coming around to a conclusion, but this debate had long lines at both. When time ran out, people voted for more time, and the discussion was extended. There was no clear winner here, so Graham insisted we stay to make sure our votes are counted. Cutting our travel time very close, we remained in our seats with our pink voting cards in the air to ensure our opposition to the change was noted. With more than 4,000 people in the room, it came down to 13 votes, and two of them were ours. The motion to change the language failed. We ran for our plane.

I wasn’t as committed to keeping the language as my husband was, but I did find the whole process fascinating. The Seven Principles and Six Sources are written into the bylaws of the Unitarian Universalist Association which is a collection of congregations who have committed to a loose relationship with one another, largely bound by covenant as expressed in these bylaws, while remaining entirely independent. When the text was first written and codified, it was 1961 and was done as part of the merger between two separate denominations, the Unitarians and Universalists. Because both groups were non-creedal, they were concerned about putting anything in such a document that might, over time, ossify. They were afraid if we outline our theology even in the barest of terms, people might grow too attached, ultimately not allowing the language or the theology to change over time. We do, after all, believe that Revelation continues to unfold. So, in addition to writing a brief statement of faith intended to hold these two historic groups together, they also built in an automatic deliberation of that statement every 15 years, forcing us to at least consider changing the language periodically.

In 1961, there were 6 principles which included “to cherish and spread the universal truths taught by the great prophets and teachers…immemorially summarized in the Judeo-Christian heritage as love of God and love to man” and another that said “to encourage cooperation with men of good will in every land”. I’m grateful we assumed regular revisions. Those statements remind me of the language you’d have found in many Unitarain churches in the first half of the 20th century that said, “We believe in the Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of Man, the Leadership of Jesus, Salvation through Character and the Steady Progress of Mankind Onward and Upward Forever.”  Over time we’ve become more expansive, more inclusive, and generally more open to a larger variety of ways people connect to the world spiritually. We extended to 7 Principles and 6 Sources. We altered language first to include women, and more recently to let go of the binary altogether. We’ve also tried to do a lot of wordsmithing; the vote in 2009 was one example, but there have been others. I was part of a group hoping to alter the words “every person” to “all beings”, and we’ve all been part of a move to add the 8th Principle to encourage and support our commitment to anti-racism, anti-oppression work.  

Honestly, this is why I hate bylaws. I think every set of bylaws should say as little as possible. You’ve all seen it here when we try to change a bylaw, a task I think we’ll take on at the next congregational meeting in a few weeks. Now imagine there are thousands of people in the room. Yes, it’s as bad as you think it is. With an equal level of frustration, someone proposed something new. What if, instead of having hundreds of congregations wordsmithing our Principles and Purposes and Sources, all part of Article II in our bylaws, what if we change it completely? What if we consider broad values we all share instead of trying to get so specific?

A covenant, which is the language used to introduce these Principles, is not a creed or an unchanging declaration or the final word on anything. It’s a framework, a way of relating, an understanding between people that we are in this together, that we are partners in the work. It’s an acknowledgment of a relationship that exists regardless of how we behave. A covenant calls us to presence, to trust, and sometimes to sacrifice. It is humble, knowing change is required in response to an unfolding and unpredictable future. It is in movement, always being renewed, always seeking a new harmony with new voices. A covenant is also stable and stabilizing. It is the container within which we exist together, providing walls to lean on, keeping us within boundaries as we engage all the complexities of human relationships.

As members of this Association, we are all, technically and maybe just theoretically, in covenant with one another. One of the few ways we’ve articulated that covenant is when we say, “we covenant to affirm and promote” and then we list the Principles. And, we agree, the Principles aren’t a creed, aren’t perfectly reflective of our faith or our shared values, although they come close. And we agree that they should be reviewed and altered periodically.

To that end, the UUA Board appointed a team which was, at it happens, led by our own Rev. Cheryl Walker. There were, as you can imagine, focus groups and forums, both open and closed. There were rough drafts and first drafts and rewritings of all kinds. And what we have now isn’t done. It’s a proposal. They’ve created something they believe reflects who we are, across all kinds of boundaries and borders, mirroring what we believe.

It’s not linear. It’s not a list. It’s a dynamic image revealing so much of what we value, and at the center is Love. There’s a diagram on those handouts. I’m not sure if you have those and I’m pretty clear about the difference between a sermon and a lecture, so not having those is fine. When you get a chance, though, take a look. It’s almost a flower, or waves, or arms stretching out from the center which is the word Love and a chalice. Surrounding Love are the words that the writing team heard consistently during all the focus groups they’ve been holding. Our shared values include Interdependence, Equity, Transformation, Pluralism, Generosity and Justice.

At the center, though, is Love. Love is the heartbeat, the life-giving force that animates all these other values. In this new articulation of who we are, we are saying that Love is our organizing principle and from Love, or because of Love, we live big, hopeful, beautiful lives, and we promote choices that hold people up, that heal our planet, that support expansiveness, inclusion, and life in all its full and rich dimensions.

It’s often said that no one is going to recite the 7 Principles on their death beds. As a Catholic, I would recite the prayer often called the Our Father to myself whenever I was in need of strength or grounding. In times of grief or trauma or in times of joy, I would almost mindlessly repeat those words to myself because I found them comforting. As a UU, I don’t have something similar. I wonder, though, if the authors here have given us something, or at least a place to start.

I wonder if this might be our new mantra. “Love is at the center. I know Love is at the center. When I am afraid, when I am angry, when I am grieving, I remember Love, at the Center.” I think there’s something there. I’m even wondering if it might become our congregational covenant. “We know love to be at the center. When we are afraid, when we are angry, when we are grieving, we remember love at the center.”

Adrienne Maree Brown, in her book Emergent Strategy, wrote, “When we are engaged in acts of love, we humans are at our best and most resilient…If love were the central practice of a new generation of organizers and spiritual leaders, it would have a massive impact…If the goal was to increase the love, rather than winning or dominating a constant opponent, I think we could actually imagine liberation from constant oppression. We would suddenly be seeing everything we do, everyone we meet, not through the tactical eyes of war, but through the eyes of love…We would understand that the strength of our movement is in the strength of relationships, which can only be measured by their depth.”

This brings us back to the beginning. What if Love was at the Center? What if Love was the organizing principle for our lives? What if we knew that our strength is in our relationships, that our power comes from the depth of our empathy, that our task is not to win but to commit to the transformative power of Love. What if we let go of the lists of things we are sure we believe in and instead leaned into a more dynamic possibility, centering Love and moving from there into the world. What would that do to our church? How are we different if we center love? What does that do to the covenant we have with all the other UU churches? Does that change the way we relate to them? Should it?

Imagine the witness we could become in the world if Love was at our center. As I was writing this, I couldn’t stop thinking about the shelter. With Lisa and Austin remaining committed even though they moved to Delaware. With the committee, with the staff pouring themselves out to ensure we can provide beds for people we don’t know, but who need to be safe and warm. Br. Zachary was here only a few weeks before he grabbed the directive with his whole being, fully engaged in doing whatever it took to get us open again. Love was at the Center. So, maybe this is who we are. At the very least, this is a peek into who we can be.

What will happen to this new language is unclear. The delegates at June’s General Assembly will vote on whether they want to move the process forward. If they do, we’ll spend another year tweaking and wordsmithing I’m sure. Then we’ll vote again next year. Regardless of whether anything comes of it, though, I think the challenge has been issued and we can’t pretend we haven’t heard it.

Can you let go of everything else and live into the grand question… What would it look like if Love was at the Center of Everything?