Every dollar you spend you spend is a vote for Trump. Every dollar you spend is a vote for the Republican-led congress. This is a striking statement, but I believe it to be true in two ways. First, Trump campaigned on the promise of job creation and economic growth. Every dollar you spend is helping him to accomplish that goal, thereby legitimizing his presidency. Second, when our lives are business as usual – when we shop, spend, consume, and vacation like everything is normal – the political order of the United States becomes normalized. *** The presidency of George W. Bush provides a good example of how destructive policies can be masked by economic normalcy and how politicians depend on economic normalcy as a form of consent. Jus... Every dollar you spend you spend is a vote for Trump. Every dollar you spend is a vote for the Republican-led congress. This is a striking statement, but I believe it to be true in two ways. First, Trump campaigned on the promise of job creation and economic growth. Every dollar you spend is helping him to accomplish that goal, thereby legitimizing his presidency. Second, when our lives are business as usual – when we shop, spend, consume, and vacation like everything is normal – the political order of the United States becomes normalized. *** The presidency of George W. Bush provides a good example of how destructive policies can be masked by economic normalcy and how politicians depend on economic normalcy as a form of consent. Jus...

7) Share this post. Help it go viral.

1. Grant a pardon to all undocumented children and youth living in the United States and issue them irrevocable papers placing them on the path to citizenship.
2. Grant citizenship to as many immigrants as possible over the next 60 days.
3. Appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court and immediately sue the Senate for failing to perform its constitutional duty. This probably won’t work, but it is better than doing nothing.
4. Release the last two decades of Donald Trump’s tax returns to the media. The public has a right to know the extent of his investments in and indebtedness to foreign nations.
5. Use the powers of Presidential pardon to depopulate our nation’s prisons, especially by freeing non-violent drug offenders and others impacted by the injustice of mass incarceration.
6. Use executive orders to dismantle pieces of the federal government that a Trump administration could use to inflict harm on American citizens. This might mean, for example, destroying domestic surveillance capabilities.

Daughter, you will look back and wonder. You will look back and mourn. You will look back and judge. You will look back and know that you are so very loved and that we have worked with conviction, with resistance, with faith, and with deepest love to give you a better world. I love you. I love you.

Today I'm dusting off this blog that I haven't updated with any regularity or seriousness for years in order to record messages to my church and my world about this scary world in which we live. First, my message this morning to my beloved congregants at The Community Church of Chapel Hill, Unitarian Universalist.

We are now far away from the country of tortures, dotted with wheels, gibbets, gallows, pillories… The carceral city, with its imaginary ‘geo-politics’, is governed by quite different principles. The prison is not the daughter of laws, codes or the judicial apparatus; it is not subordinated to the court and the docile or clumsy instrument of the sentences it hands out and of the results that it would like to achieve; it is the court that is external and subordinate to the prison. In the central position that it occupies, it is not alone, but linked to a whole series of ‘carceral’ mechanisms which seem distinct enough – since they are intended to alleviate pain, to cure, to comfort – but which all tend, like the prison, to exercise a power of normalization. These mechanisms are applied not to transgressions against a ‘central’ law, but to the apparatus of production – ‘commerce’ and ‘industry’…

This is the second consecutive mediocre release by DCFC. There are some gems here, and “The Ghosts of Beverly Drive” is first among them.

Best Song: The Ghosts of Beverly Drive

Click this link to read the previous entry. Click this link to jump ahead to the next post in the series.

Before we move along to the next post in the series, here are a few shots of me working out at Crossfit Chapel Hill.



Lifting a 145# Atlas stone on 7/26/15.



265# deadlift on 5/14/15



205# back squat on 4/4/15

·         There is limited opportunity for or lesser value placed upon physical expression. 

·         Discourse about the body is marginalized or regarded as improper. 

·         Discourse about matters of the mind or spirit are privileged over matters of the body.

·         The adolescent and pre-adolescent dichotomization between “jocks” and “nerds” continues to influence social arrangements. 

·         The dualisms of the Western world continue to make hierarchical distinctions between heaven / earth, spirit / matter, mind / body, etc. 

·         Liberal social institutions tend to be at the forefront of challenging oppression. Becoming “disembodied” is a conscious or unconscious strategy for combatting ableism and gendered bodily discrimination (fat shaming, sexualization, etc.)

Click the link to jump ahead to the next post.

This lecture was delivered on 9/11/2014 at The Community Church of Chapel Hill, Unitarian Universalist, as the kick-off for the 2014-2015 Spiritual Education for Adults program.

In my column in the March DrumBeat newsletter I wrote very briefly about my own thoughts on “Politics in Church.” In that column I had to keep my remarks to a single page, but I promised I would expand and clarify my ideas in greater detail in an essay on this blog.

By the way, like my sermon on 2/17, the title of this blog entry is an empty teaser. You are not going to find any endorsement here, not even subtly.

Defining Politics
I always think it is important when discussing politics to give something of an introduction to the word itself. The word “politics” derives from the Greek word “polis” meaning “city.” Ancient Greece was a consortium of city-states. Cities (not nations or empires) were the most highly organized groupings of people. Politics, then, are matters that concern the city (or state or nation.) A politician is one who governs the city. To be political is to be involved in the affairs of the city (county, state, nation, etc.)

First Point: On Monday 2/25 I reported for jury duty in Independence, Missouri. The judge who addressed the prospective juror pool spoke to us about a number of things, including the fact that Missouri is second only to Mississippi as the worst state in the nation at compensating jurors ($6/day and $0.07/mile.) He also spoke about how judges were selected in Missouri. He spoke about how Missouri reformed the process after the big political machines of St. Louis and Kansas City had stacked the bench for years. But he also said that it is impossible to completely remove politics from the system. He said that all groups have politics: families, churches, schools, etc.

Second Point: During orientation at Harvard Divinity School one of our speakers was a local minister in Boston who served an African-American church in a tough part of the city. He described the changing point in his ministry. His church had been very insular until one evening it hosted a social dance for youth in the community. A youth gang-member shot another youth at the church dance. The minister took this lesson away: “If the church didn’t take itself to the city, the city would take itself to the church.” The church got political, in this wider sense of the term that I just defined. The church worked with the mayor’s office and the chief of police to form a task force on youth violence. Together they developed a program that involved community outreach, intervention, relationship building, and meaningful activities for youth including summer programs and internships. They managed to reduce the rate of youth violence to an astronomically low level. This all was very political in the literal sense of the word.

Political Involvement: The IRS Rules
So, clearly, a church can be extremely political. There are however, certain restrictions on certain kinds of political activities within a church. Under IRS guidelines, our church is a 501(c)3 non-profit religious organization. IRS regulations place certain restrictions on us. You can read the rules that apply to churches, but the basics of the regulations are as follows:

First, churches are strictly prohibited from candidate endorsement. No church leader may endorse any candidate for office at any church function or in any church publication or communication. Churches are also barred from supporting any candidate monetarily (no campaign donations) or materially (donating office space to a candidate, for example.)

Second, there are restrictions on how much time and money a church can devote to issue advocacy. The IRS does not explicitly set a limit, but it is generally accepted that a church can spend no more than 5% of its operating budget on issue advocacy. SMUUCh has an annual budget of $400,000. If we wanted to, we could spend up to $20,000 lobbying on a political issue. Suppose we cared deeply about keeping laws limiting stem cell research from being passed in Kansas. We could hire a part-time lobbyist or donate a considerable sum to a group working on this issue. This is all purely hypothetical. We have absolutely no plans to hire a lobbyist. But we would be allowed to do so. In fact, a consortium of UU churches in California has founded a Legislative Ministry and fund a full-time lobbyist.

It is drastically important to follow these rules. The result of our church losing its tax-exempt status would be devastating. I estimate the cost to the church would be approximately one half-million dollars if we lost our tax exempt status.

To stay in the good graces of the IRS, there are some very simple things we don’t do. I don’t tell you who to vote for on Sunday morning. I don’t endorse candidates in the all-church email or in the newsletter. I don’t even put political stickers on my car – my car is seen as the minister’s car. (My car is the one that sorely needs to get washed.) I don’t endorse on my blog, because I blog as Rev. Thom and for the Shawnee Mission UU Church. If I had a blog that was completely personal, I suppose I could endorse a candidate.

Beyond me, there is the necessity that every church leader while acting in a leadership role (teaching an RE course, speaking at the Speaker’s Corner, presiding over a church event) similarly refrain from candidate endorsement.

Political Involvement: What is Allowed?
Basically, everything (with the exception of candidate endorsement and spending large sums of money on issue advocacy) is allowed. The words, actions, and non-actions of politicians are open for either condemnation or commendation, as long as that politician is not actively campaigning during an election cycle.

Similarly, I am allowed to speak on Sunday morning or in any public forum on any issue: evolution, stem cell research, war, poverty, health care, civil rights, etc. However, I cannot tell you to vote for politicians who support these positions.

Tell Us How You Really Feel
I suppose I should tell you what I think of these IRS regulations. First, I am willing to bet that many churches in our community trespass against these regulations, if not overtly break them. They host a favored candidate at a church event. They produce slimy, biased voter-guides. They use church resources to assist a campaign. A minister out-and-out tells the parishioners for whom to vote. Two wrongs do not make a right. Because they do does not mean that we should too.

But should we be allowed to? Ah, that it is a different question. Frankly, I wish the IRS would get rid of their rules. I am generally opposed to an agency of the government keeping track of what is said from the pulpit. I am also concerned about fairness in regulation. When liberals are in office are conservative churches monitored more closely? When conservatives are in office are liberal churches more closely watched?

That said, would I endorse candidates if I could? I could think of circumstances when I would. One need only think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Dissenting Church movement in Nazi Germany to find an example of political speech that deserved to be spoken. However, I am also wary. In my opinion, the relationship between the Republican Party and the conservative Evangelical churches has been a relationship of exploitation. Those churches are getting used. Forrest Church said that when religion decides to get into bed with electoral politics, it is always religion that asks, “Will you respect me in the morning?” And the answer is always, “No.”

Beyond the Rules
This discourse on the rules has been only an introduction to what I really want to talk about. The rules and regulations are important, but most of what I want to say is not about legalisms. I want to talk about the type of community I want us to be during an election cycle.

During the 2004 election cycle, I wrote a newsletter column the September before the election that November. Even though it is not yet March, I feel like I could have written this essay several months ago. Just as states have moved their primart and caucus dates earlier and earlier and just as politicians fund-raise full-time, it seems this message deserves to be given earlier and earlier each year.

Looking across the religious landscape of our country, we see churches torn by internal political divisions. Debates around gay marriage and ordination, along with the spiritual leadership of women has wreaked havoc on the Mainline denominations in the United States. Unitarian Universalist churches have been remarkable for our capacity to embrace equal marriage and other issues without leaving a trail of carnage and brokenness as a result. I do not know of a single UU church that has imploded over the issue, whereas hundreds have in the other denominations. This is nothing new. The Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement caused problems in many churches in many denominations. Or go back to the civil war. That’s the reason we have American Baptists and Southern Baptists.

My aspiration for our church community at SMUUCh is that we are an inclusive place for people with different political views. This does not mean avoiding issues in our discussions with one another. Remember the words from the prog rock band Rush, “If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.” This does not mean that you are discouraged from wearing political buttons on your clothing or putting bumper stickers on your car. It does mean remembering that we come to church to be a community, not a rag-tag militia of supporters for a particular candidate or another. There is greater political diversity at SMUUCh than is readily evident and that is a good thing, not a bad thing.

In an ideal world, we would all come to church focused on those things that are a part of our church’s mission. I ask you to imagine a widget-dealer who comes to church with the idea of getting other people interested in the purchase of widgets. That person would be using the church for their own ends rather than arriving mindful of what they might bring to our community and what the purposes of our church are.

In UU community and theology there is a constant tension between what we might call “independence” and what we might call “taking principled stands.” We are at once a community of free-thinking souls and a part of a religious movement that has always taken stands on issues that are relevant to the principles we advocate. There will always be this tension. But, I do think it important for every member of our church to understand the positions our Association has taken on important issues of the day and that Unitarian Universalists have a long, long history of taking strong stands.

I would conclude this essay exactly how I concluded my newsletter column in September 2004:

“It is not in keeping with who we are as a church to engage in behaviors that are exclusive and make anyone feel unwelcome because of their political affiliation. As a covenanted community, we strive to treat everyone with respect. Nobody has the right to make anyone else feel attacked or unwelcome. But, our church is a place where you do not check who you are at the door. It is not a place where differences are feared, but a place of meaningful dialogue and searching that deepens us along our spiritual search. It is a place where dialogue happens and real dialogue requires both respectful speaking and respectful listening.”

So may it be!

Reading
The reading this morning comes from the book, The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell.

“On a Sunday in November, I walked up to the New York Public Library to see the Emancipation Proclamation. On loan from the National Archives, the document was in town for three days. They put it in a glass case in a small, dark room. Being alone with old pieces of paper and one guard in an alcove at the library was nice and quiet. I stared at Lincoln’s signature for a long time. I stood there thinking what one is supposed to think: This is the paper he held in his hands and there is the ink that came from his pen, and when the ink dried the slaves were freed. Except look at the date, January 1, 1863. The words wouldn’t come true for a couple of years, which, I’m guessing, is a long time when a person owns your body. I love how Lincoln dated the document, noting that it was signed ‘in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh’….

“The Emancipation Proclamation is a perfect American artifact to me – a good deed that made a lot of other Americans mad enough to kill. I think that’s why the Civil War is my favorite American metaphor. I’m so much more comfortable when we’re bickering with each other than when we have to link arms… [like right after September 11th when] Rudolph Giuliani, the mayor of New York, kissed his former opponent Senator Hillary Clinton on the cheek as the New York congressional delegation toured the World Trade Center disaster area…

“My ideal picture of citizenship will always be an argument, not a sing-along. I [suppose I] got it from my parents, [who] disagree with me about almost everything. I do not share their religion or their political affiliation. I get on their nerves sometimes. But, and this is the most important thing they taught me, so what?”

Sermon
I’d like to begin this sermon with a disclaimer. Just so you all know – and so the Internal Revenue Service knows, because I know the IRS is listening – I’m not going to endorse any candidate for President this morning. The title is just a teaser.

I do enjoy politics though and I could easily go on for far longer than my allotted time making all kinds of political observations, like this one: I recently found myself thinking that it is somewhat peculiar that at a time when “change” is the biggest campaign buzzword that the next President of the United States will almost certainly come from the ranks of the Senate. (We can safely assume that Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee will not receive his miracle.) This leaves three Senators –Clinton, McCain, and Obama – to vie for the Presidency. It odd that a race where "change" is the biggest buzzword has come down to three senators because the Senate is the legislative body least synonymous with change. The word “Senator” in Latin derives from a word meaning “old man.” Further, the Senate is the legislative body that is supposed to be the least responsive to the swings ands sways of public opinion. The Senate is not a populist body. Wyoming has the same number of Senators as California. The six-year term of a Senator is supposed to insulate them from popularity, permitting them to use wisdom even when that wisdom isn’t popular.

Not to mention, running for President as a Senator has been the kiss of death in recent years. Going back through recent history we see this: Governor George W. Bush defeated Senator Kerry four years after he defeated Senator Gore (well, sort of). Four years earlier, Governor Clinton defeated Senator Dole in ‘96. George H. W. Bush, a non-Senator, defeated Governor Dukakis in ’88. Perhaps Bush avoided the Senator curse when he lost his Texas Senatorial bid in 1970 to none other than Lloyd Bentsen, Dukakis’ running-mate. Going back further, we find that Governor Reagan defeated Senator Mondale convincingly in 1984.

That makes Richard Nixon the last Senator to be elected President of the United States, 36 years ago. However, it is worth noting that both Nixon’s Presidential victories came against other Senators: Hubert Humphrey in ’68 and George McGovern in ‘72. Likewise, Senator Lyndon Johnson defeated Senator Barry Goldwater in ‘64 just as Senator Kennedy defeated Senator Nixon in ’60. To find the last Senator to defeat a non-Senator, we need to go back to Truman’s defeat of Governor Dewey in 1948, 60 years ago!

That digression aside, the seeds to this sermon originated in an awareness of my own reaction to events half-way around the world two months ago. When Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan and leading opposition candidate, was assassinated weeks before the general election in that country, I caught myself thinking, “What a joke of a democracy they have in Pakistan!” And then I remembered our nation’s history. We have had four Presidents assassinated: Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy. That’s about one out of ten. In addition, assassins have attempted to kill eleven other Presidents, including Andrew Jackson, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and, most recently, George W. Bush. The Bush assassination attempt came when a would-be assassin lobbed a grenade in his direction as he spoke in Georgia (the former Soviet Republic, not the Peach State.) In addition, attempts were made to kill Jimmy Carter, the first President Bush, as well as Clinton (twice) but all those attempts were so bumbling as not to pose a legitimate threat to the lives of those Presidents.

Of all these assassination attempts, Teddy Roosevelt’s takes the cake. As he was preparing to give a speech Roosevelt was shot in the chest. His speech, folded inside his breast pocket, slowed the bullet. After being shot, Roosevelt calmed the crowd by announcing, “Quiet, I’ve been shot.” He then ordered the would-be assassin taken into custody, then proceeded to deliver his entire speech with the bullet lodged inside his chest before he sought medical attention.

So, now that I have the attention of the Internal Revenue Service and the Secret Service… and hopefully your attention as well, I want to offer these reflections.

Winston Churchill once quipped that, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other kinds of government that have been attempted.” Democracy essentially means rule by the people. And Democracies resist all manner of tyrannies: A monarchy is a genetic tyranny. An oligarchy is a tyranny of the elite. A theocracy equates to religious tyranny.

Democracies, however, are always in danger of acting out the same kind of tyrannies they are established to prevent. In a democracy it is more often the majority that takes on the role of the tyrant. We belong to a liberal constitutional democracy that is conceived to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. In our liberal constitutional democracy we’ve created all sorts of checks to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. If, in our country, the majority decided that communism was evil, the majority could not ban the selling of Mao’s Little Red book. That’s why we have the first amendment. Similarly, if the majority decided that Ann Coulter was evil, they could not ban her books. If a majority was opposed to Unitarian Universalism, they could not outlaw us. This is all first amendment stuff. It is what makes us a liberal constitutional democracy… and it should be noted that not all democracies function this way. In other democratic governments, a majority can mandate a state religion or a religious test for office. Other democratic governments do enforce blacklists of banned movies, books, and other media. Some ban religions or political ideologies. In these countries, the will of the people can have its way, but the majority is a tyrant to minority positions.

A democracy is also a fragile thing. As all the talk of assassinations earlier pointed out, the tyranny of a super-minority of one person can thwart the will of a majority of millions. It only takes one person to undermine a democracy.

So, when will the civics lesson end and the sermon begin? According to our Unitarian Universalist fifth principle, we are supposed to affirm and promote “the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process in our congregations and in society at large.”

What I would like to do in my time that I have remaining is to offer you a kind of meditation on our UU fifth principle. At first glance the fifth principle seems unremarkable. We support the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process in our congregations and in society at large. Who could possibly be opposed to that? Yawn.

It should be noted that this belief in democracy goes way back in our tradition and that the ideal of political democracy and the idea religious democracy were once linked in our history. The political desire of the founding fathers for self-government was one and the same with our religious ancestors’ longing for religious liberty. Recall: the British King was sovereign politically and religiously, the head of the State and the head of the Church of England. In declaring independence, we achieved political and religious freedom simultaneously. Two birds with one stone. Furthermore, the author of the Declaration of Independence was theologically a Unitarian and its others signers included Unitarians and Universalists.

Today, at the same time that we strive vigilantly to protect the democratic process in our society, Unitarian Universalists hold up the rights of conscience of those in our congregation. We say that you are not required to subscribe to a creed or a specific understanding of God or an understanding of God at all. But we also affirm the rights of conscience in other matters. You need not support one candidate for office. Remember this. And, on the societal level, just as we would believe in a vision of religious pluralism for our nation – Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Jew – we would also hold out a vision of political pluralism as a good thing for our nation.

But, let us remember Sarah Vowell’s words. “This freedom is a good thing that makes a lot of people mad enough to kill. My ideal society will be an argument, not a sing-along.” Where freedom does not exist, dissent is often the first thing that is abolished. Without freedom, there can’t be bickering. Discussing and even arguing theology and politics is a consequence of freedom.

Even though political freedom and religious freedom used to be intimately yoked, we tend to think about them differently nowadays. The reason we think about them differently is because our religious affiliation and our national affiliation represent two different kinds of associations.

To borrow language from the Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams, churches are voluntary associations. Our affiliation with them is voluntary. There are all sorts of voluntary associations to which we might belong: churches, the boy scouts or girl scouts, the ACLU or the NRA, the chess club, the community theater, the Republican, Democratic, Green, or Libertarian Party. These are all voluntary associations. We join them with our free consent. And free consent is the only thing binding us to them.

Nations are not voluntary associations. You can go down to the county election office and change your political party. It only takes a minute or two. Try showing up and saying, “I’d like to change my citizenship from US citizen to a citizen of Zimbabwe.” Our nationality, for all practical intents and purposes, is an involuntary association, much like the families to which we belong.

Sometimes liberals like to push the boundaries of voluntary and involuntary associations. Here is an example. At dinner parties that liberals attend, you can frequently hear a sentence uttered that goes, “If Sam Brownback (or insert your conservative politician du jour) were to become President, I would move to Canada.” I often wonder if conservatives do the same thing when they gather at dinner parties? Do conservatives sit around and say, “If Ted Kennedy became President, I’d move to…”? Where exactly would they move? Certainly not Zimbabwe. I’m leading us off topic here. But I do want to make the simple observation that while we remain quite good at using the democratic process in the involuntary associations to which we belong, we have become less adept at exercising the democratic process in voluntary associations. We tend to leave rather than vote, rather than argue.

The fifth principle of our faith calls upon us to use the democratic process in our congregations. I want us to take this principle seriously, not just pay it lip service. Right now the nominating committee is hard at work readying their nominations for next year’s Board of Trustees. How many of us have spoken with a member of the nominating committee about the leadership you would like to see on next year’s Board? Tomorrow night, the Board will look at the first draft of next year’s proposed budget. How many of us will talk with our leaders on the board and finance committee about our hopes for such a budget? Is that phrase, “the use of the democratic process in our congregations” an empty sentence?

Sticking with the democratic process in an involuntary association is one thing. What other choice do we have? But to stick with the democratic process in a voluntary association is much, much more difficult. It is hard to stick with an organization that you are free to leave at any time when you are not getting your way. That is the challenge of our 5th Principle.

Tomorrow is President’s Day. All this month we have been observing a month of gratitude at this church. Today’s and tomorrow’s gratitude exercises are related. Today’s is to thank a volunteer leader in the congregation. Exercise your democratic muscle by actually having a conversation with an elected church leader about an issue you care deeply about. Tomorrow is President’s Day. My challenge for you tomorrow is to send a letter or an email to a politician who you admire thanking them for their competence, their courage, or their sticking up for values that you hold dear.

I began this morning’s sermon by reading some words by NPR commentator Sarah Vowell. I want to close with a few more words by her. Earlier she wrote about how democracy is most real to her when it is an argument rather than a sing-along. In the same chapter where I found that quote, I found the following description of her image of democracy in reality. Vowell writes,

“The other day, in the [New York] subway at 5:30, I was crammed into my sweaty, crabby fellow citizens, and I kept whispering under my breath ‘we the people, we the people’ over and over again, reminding myself we’re all in this together and they had as much right – exactly as much right – as I to be in the muggy underground on their way to wherever they were on their way to.”

On the subway, Vowell notices the instructions on what to do if someone on the train experiences a medical emergency. The instructions tell fellow travelers not to pull the emergency brake as that will only delay help from reaching the person experiencing a medical emergency. The instructions say to wait until the train reaches its next stop at which point you are to get the attention of the train conductor and the station attendants. The instructions declare, quote, “You will not be left alone.”

“You will not be left alone.” In a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people… in a religion of the people, by the people, and for the people… perhaps this phrase represents the greatest ambition of a democracy: that when rule is by the demos, by the many, no one should be left alone.

Democracies, whether they are present in voluntary groups or in great nations, do not occur because of ideas and dreams. They happen because of participation, vigilance, and constant service. May our democratic church, our democratic county, our democratic state, and our democratic republic be so ennobled by your vigilant care, earnest participation, and heartfelt service. God bless. Goddess bless. Blessed be.

Reading
The reading this morning comes from a book entitled Black Preaching by Henry Mitchell. In the Black church tradition to have never heard of Henry Mitchell is like being a Catholic who has never heard about the Pope or being a Protestant who has never heard of Billy Graham.

In Divinity School I took a class under the same title: Black Preaching. I was one of two white students in the class. It was fascinating. One day, Dr. Mitchell just sort of showed up in the class. Our professor, Bishop Bobby Franklin, stepped aside cordially and Dr. Mitchell presided for hours. We all sat in rapt attention and remained long after the class was supposed to end. Besides being one of the finest preachers in the world, Dr. Mitchell is also a distinguished academic.

The reading comes from the first chapter of his book on Black Preaching:

“Culture is the accumulation over time of all the wisdom and methods of a given cultural group… Each group has a menu of acceptable foods, a collection of proper hairstyles and attire, a way to greet people, ways to sing music and tell stories, and ways to build homes and rear children. In addition to language, and included in the language, is a way to view the world – a belief system….

“There have been widespread rumors that African Americans were fully stripped of their culture by the middle passage and the breaking-in process to which slaves were subjected, but this belief is rightfully dying out. Too much evidence affirming the contrary is visible to the eye of the American Black who goes to West Africa… If American Blacks sound remarkably like some traditional Africans in worship, it is only natural. Slave bosses could change the length of the hoes and the manner of cultivating crops, but they could not change how the slaves believed. Nor how they prayed and sang at night in their cabins, or in unlawful gatherings in brush arbors and the like.

“The great strength of Black Christianity today, therefore, is not due to any great missionary activity, but to independent, clandestine meetings which adopted their African Traditional Religion into a profoundly creative and authentically Christian faith. [It] has the tremendous momentum of a faith deeply embedded in the culture.”

Sermon

[Since I preached this sermon, on Super Bowl Sunday, I couldn’t help but begin with a digression…]

I don’t have many bad habits, but one of them is that I am a frequent listener to Sports Talk Radio. I am especially partial to the programs with the most screaming and shouting and ranting. The king of this format is a guy named Jim Rome. He is actually far more interesting for his cadence, tonality, and speech patterns than for the content of his thought.

So, this past week I was listening to Jim Rome interview a football player named Chad Johnson who plays for the Cincinnati Bengals and is one of sports’ most outlandish personalities. Johnson’s new nickname is “Ocho Cinco,” a linguistically incorrect reference to his jersey number 85. The interview begins and Chad Johnson starts speaking Spanish. Jim Rome answers in Spanish and they spend the first minute or two of the interview conversing with each other in Spanish, albeit poorly. Later, I reflected on how odd this was. An African-American football player and a white radio host carrying on a conversation in Spanish.

Our Super Bowl experience is instructive about some of the points I want to make about culture this morning. If you eat popular game-watching foods, you will be participating in cultural mixing. Pizza, I would argue, is neither authentically Italian nor authentically American. It is a result of the meeting of traditions. Nachos are neither authentically Mexican nor authentically American. They are “Tex-Mex” – they occur at the intersection of cultures. So, unless you are like my white friend who always eats a Vietnamese noodle-dish called “Pho” while she watches the Super Bowl, you are likely to eat a dish that is Mexican-Texan, Italian-American, or some poor American knock-off on two things Germans do better: pretzels and beer.

February is African-American history month and I decided in honor of this fact that I would devote a sermon to speaking on how African religious traditions have impacted the religious landscape in the United States. A huge subject to explore in twenty odd minutes, especially when I waste the first few minutes blabbering about the Super Bowl.

Saying “African Religion” is a bit like saying “American Music.” John Philip Sousa is American music, but so is Willie Nelson, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Bob Dylan, Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, and Philip Glass. African religion includes ancient forms of Christianity developed in Egypt and Ethiopia. Athanasius, the most instrumental of the early church fathers in formulating the doctrine of the Trinity, was born in Alexandria. Saint Augustine was born in Africa.

Africa was also a cradle for the development of Islam. Seven hundred years before Harvard was founded and two hundred years before Oxford, the Islamic University in Timbuktu in modern-day Mali was perhaps the world’s greatest intellectual center. And then there is the enormous variety of native religious traditions including ancestor worship, animism, cattle worship, shamanism, and similar practices of the widest variety imaginable.

When European slave ships brought West African slaves to the Caribbean and the American South, they brought Christians, Muslims, and practitioners of African tribal religions. Sometimes, these tribal religions blended with Catholicism to create fascinating hybrid practices like Santeria and Voodoo. Other times, a particular aspect of African tribal theology enhanced religion in the Americas.

Let me give a couple of examples: Some religious traditions from West Africa have a concept called Nommo. Nommo means word or name, but it also has to do with the power of naming and the power of the spoken word. Nommo is the concept that helps to explain the power and style of traditional black preaching and oratory, including tonality, also known as “whooping.”

(In my experience taking that course on Black Preaching I must say the whooping was sort of the Holy Grail, the style and talent that every member of the class aspired to. Whooping held a magical aura and appeal. Whooping refers to that moment in black preaching when one ceases to speak and instead tones the words. [Click here for an example.] Whooping fascinated everyone. Someone would mention a preacher and someone would say, “Well, does she whoop?” I was once asked, “Thom, do Unitarians whoop?” I replied, “Man, I don’t even know what that is.”

Nommo is the theological basis for styles of African American oratory and preaching, but how does it play out in the world? One way is in the emphasis on names and naming. In slavery, slaves were forced to abandon even their own names and adopt the names of the masters. Malcolm X took the last name “X” to signify his African name which had been stolen from him. When African Americans began to covert to Islam, naming had just as much power. Cassius Clay and Lew Alcindor became Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar respectively. It may be a little bit abstract to think about this theology of naming, so let me share a bit about another African theological concept.

This next one is a bit timely, because Obama’s first name is a variation on the word. The word is Barakah. The word Barakah originated as an Islamic term but was then translated into Swahili. It is also similar to the Hebrew word Baruch, meaning "blessing." Loosely, the term means “wisdom,” but means something different than how we would use the term. (I learned about this from my colleague Rob Eller-Isaacs, who I paraphrase in the rest of this paragraph.) Barakah can refer both to people as well as to inanimate objects. For example, a wooden spoon that has been passed down through the generations of a family acquires Barakah. A musical instrument, expertly played, acquires Barakah. The term has to do with a quality of holiness and power that can dwell within the material world. What in your life has Barakah? How does this term make you rethink the value of the things in your life?

Finally, I might say just a few words about how African American biblical interpretation has shaped American religion. Probably the most powerful way has been in how we interpret the story of Moses and the Exodus from Egypt. How we understand that story is severely influenced by the experience of slavery and racial prejudice in the United States and Apartheid in South Africa. How we understand Exodus and other passages in the Bible that have to do with freedom are deeply shaped by our Nation’s history of slavery, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights movement. We read the Bible in terms of our Nation’s deeply-mixed history of freedom and bondage.

Let’s review just a little bit here: As part of African American History Month, we’ve taken just the shortest of glimpses at the tremendously diversity of African religious expression – Christian, Islamic, and tribal – and also come to understand that theological aspects of these traditions survived the middle passage and the efforts by slave masters to stamp out those traditions. We’ve focused on two concepts from African theology: Nommo, or the power associated with the spoken and names, and Barakah, or the wisdom that can take root in animate and inanimate objects within the material world. We have also given just a brief example of how African American history has the power to shape how the Bible is read and understood. Over-arching all the things we have learned this morning has been this idea that cultures are not so much fixed as in flux, not so much bounded but dynamic, drawing in elements and ideas from wherever they might come. Just ask “Ocho Cinco” or take a look at what you are eating during the Super Bowl.

Well, I hope I have given you plenty of mental stimulation this morning. I hope you learned something and can take away with you more understanding and more knowledge than you came with. I hope that I’ve been a bit thought-provoking. I leave you with these words of imagination:

Imagine standing on the coast, standing there right next to the water, and gazing West across the Atlantic Ocean. Yes, I said West across the Atlantic Ocean. Maybe you are standing in Senegal, Liberia, Sierra Leone. The sun rises behind you shooting its rays towards the West, lighting the way to what was once called the new world. A great nation of incredible power sits on the other side of the great ocean.

Generations ago, your ancestors were held captive, shackled on this beach, awaiting the slave ships that would bring them to the sugarcane plantations of the Caribbean and the cotton farms of the deep South.

You stand there now holding sorrow and reverence for these ancestors who would be made to face death and disease, dehumanization, rape, whippings and lynchings, economic exploitation, cultural exploitation, despair, and all of the sleights and humiliations of institutional racism. You stand there and you observe the variety of strategies your ancestors and their descendents created in order to maintain their humanity and dignity. You remember worship in the brush arbors, songs in the fields, and fomented insurrection. You remember political movements: the movement to re-colonize Africa and the founding of Liberia, the talented tenth of DuBois, Black separatist movements, the creation of new linguistic forms – jive and ebonics.

To mind also comes those moments that are not steeped in sadness and bitterness. Jesse Owens single-handedly proving the notion of racial superiority absurd; the creativity of the Harlem Renaissance; the tenacity of the boxer Jack Johnson; the wisdom of Thurgood Marshall; King, X, Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman. Plus, all of those names only known in the oral histories of communities, churches, families. In addition, those millions of lives not remembered, names erased by history. So many X’s. This is Nommo by the way, the power of the spoken word and the spoken name. And, just as a wooden spoon passed down from grandmother to granddaughter acquires Baraka, just as a blues guitar has Baraka, so too do we acquire Baraka in our expanding wisdom and our expanding understanding of the history on this side of the Atlantic. In doing our moral duty to learn the history of our nation, our city, our community.

I need to begin this sermon with a confession. For a period of several months over this past Spring, Summer, and Fall I seriously considered ending my ministry here at SMUUCh. (Hey, I never said I was good at this whole love-letter writing business.)

I also need to tell you that if I had decided to leave, the decision would have had very little to do with you. A very large church in our movement was in search for a senior pastor and several of my most esteemed and respected colleagues serving large churches in our movement urged me to apply. They encouraged me to throw my hat in the ring. Frankly, I felt my chances were quite good.

To be honest, I was tempted. This congregation is a leading one in Unitarian Universalism. That they were offering a six-figure salary didn’t hurt either.

To be faced with this opportunity – and this temptation – led me to contemplate the role that fantasy plays in our lives. In and of themselves, fantasies are always a reality of our existence. We tend to keep our fantasies private; they’re rarely voiced in public and it is even rarer to hear them voiced from the pulpit. We all, I would guess, fantasize about jobs and careers, wealth, what kind of house we could live in or what kind of car we could drive. And, of course we also fantasize about love, relationships, and sex (or so I’ve heard.) Fantasies are a fact of life; we all have fantasies.

The question then becomes one of discernment. Is this or that fantasy a healthy fantasy to pursue or is it a destructive one to pursue? Is it worth the cost of going after it? Am I exploring this fantasy from a healthy place or from an impulsive or compulsive place? Will acting on a fantasy enhance my life and the lives around me, or will it hurt me or other people?

And then there is the truth that all fantasies are abstractions. Platonic ideals don’t really exist. There are no perfect jobs, no perfect lives, and no perfect partners. Even so, there are fantasies and dreams that are worth pursuing and ones that best remain un-acted upon. The latter are the ones that are not supposed to venture outside of our imaginations where they can be safely indulged.

In the case of this very sexy and very attractive church which I was being pressured to go after and stood a great chance to get, I want to tell you why I elected not to go after it. This morning I want to tell you why I decided to stay here at SMUUCh.

A few of the reasons have absolutely nothing to do with you. Despite the obvious temptations, that fantasy church is actually not perfect. (Fantasies do not correspond to realities.) I asked myself, “Do I really want to go back to square one, to re-live the first year or two of ministry with a brand new community or do I want to experience what the sixth, seventh, tenth and possibly greater years of ministry bring?” Also, I figure I have 35 to 40 years of ministry ahead of me. What’s the big rush?

But, more than any of those reasons, I decided not to pursue that other church because I really, truly like my ministry here. In fact, I love serving this church. I, who am often painfully slow to love, sometimes fail to express this. However, I can point to the moment where I knew for sure that I loved my ministry here. It was last Summer, in late July, on a Sunday that I was supposed to be on vacation and out of the pulpit. For most of July, the members of the Preaching Practicum class led worship. On this particular Sunday, C. was delivering the sermon. Of all the people who have done the Preaching Practicum class, I don’t think I had ever pushed anybody as hard as I had pushed C. I think that by the time C. was ready to get up in the pulpit I had read about seven drafts of his sermon and he had re-written every word at least three times. C. is tremendously bright, extremely thoughtful, and he’s got some natural preaching chops. Because of his talent, I was especially tough on him. Our working together on his sermon was intense and each draft became clearer and deeper than the one that preceded it.

So, even though I had read his sermon seven times and could mouth parts of it word for word as well as tell you how each section appeared in earlier drafts, I couldn’t stand not to be there when C. delivered his sermon. I couldn’t stand not to be there. To see the fruition of all his efforts. To applaud and celebrate the fruition of all his hard work.

That July morning, I arrived for the second service – it is always good to boost the attendance for the second service – and as I walked into church, out walked some of the folks who had lingered after the first service. As they walked out into that glorious day chatting about the service, something swelled up in my heart. I spontaneously greeted them. “So glad you are here. I love seeing you here.” At that moment something changed within me.

I want to talk about our immediate future. Six months from now we will welcome an Intern Minister to the staff at SMUUCh – the first intern we have had in 25 years. This will mark a change in my ministry; I will be actively mentoring a minister-to-be who represents part of the future of our movement. This will also mark a change in our congregational life. We will be more than a church. We will be a teaching church. Our intern will be spending a year with us learning the ways of a great church. It will also be an experiment for all of us in what it feels like to have more than one minister on staff. This is in anticipation of the day that is due to come sometime soon when we will have more than one permanent minister on staff here.

But I want to bring us back to the present day because I want to say a few words about the state of our church right now and the challenges we will face over the next few months.

One challenge has to do with our service times. Out of necessity, we have been at two services for four years. For that entire time, we have struggled with a lack of any semblance of equilibrium between the services. One service often feels crowded and the other feels empty. For us to continue to grow, we will need to create equilibrium. Beginning in June, the plan is to hold worship at two attractive times: 9:30 and 11:00. But we will also need to offer a more equal range of religious education opportunities at both services to even them out. Our leaders in religious education are rightly concerned about whether they will find enough volunteer teachers to make this expanded program work. We will need an additional 25 to 30 teachers and I have no doubt that we will find them.

The second challenge we have before us is to have an excellent stewardship drive this Spring. This year, the Stewardship Drive (Canvass) will be done in a way that is somewhat different than how we have done it in recent years. Next weekend and the following week we will be holding training sessions for over 35 members of our church who have volunteered to be visiting stewards. These visiting stewards will have face-to-face visits with most members of the church. And these conversations won’t just be about money. They will be about making connections, about talking about what has meaning and worth in our lives. A successful and robust stewardship campaign will also signify our readiness to embark on a Capital Campaign to acquire facilities that will truly allow us to be a church as great as you deserve. The opposite, a disappointing Canvass, will be a sign that we may not be ready to move forward with a Capital Campaign. [I shared my own commitment to give at this point, but prefer not to make my pledge part of the public domain.]

Like I said, I’m not that good at writing love letters. But, let me say this: I love this church passionately, intensely, and totally. I love the honor of being your minister. I love the church you are and I love what you and we can become.

This love I have for you is neither sentimental nor sugary; it is a love with nutritional value instead of empty calories. At times this love is fierce and aggressive. Like a mother grizzly bear, I am times fiercely vigilant of anything that threatens our health and vitality. I love this church too much to allow harm to come to it, so sometimes my role is to be a fierce shepherd. Sometimes this love can be demanding; it can be restless, ambitiously pushing for consistent excellence in all facets of church life. At times I probably seem petulant and irritated. It is a love that is not satisfied with less than the best in myself and can be similarly demanding of others.

But, my love is also grateful. Day in and day out I am amazed, awed by the members of this church: Your stories. Your lives. Your passion for justice. Your intellect and your wisdom. Your struggles. Your recoveries. Your courage. Your generosity. Your quirks. Your humanity.

Last November I attended a summit on growth in Louisville, Kentucky along with eleven other ministers of fast growing churches. During one of the sessions we were supposed to talk about the “nuts and bolts” of growth, what tools we had used to help achieve growth. To a person, the participants balked. What came instead was a discussion about love. We wanted to emphasize love as primary. Nuts and bolts were secondary. One minister shared about entering a congregation that had a recent history of conflict. Ashamed, they tried to hide it from her. When it was brought to light, the minister told them, “I love you anyways.” Another minister in the group told about how his heart swells with love every time he sees a multi-racial group of children playing together, or two adults, separated by four decades sitting on a bench and talking. A third talked about how it was a context of love that allowed him to grow as a minister. It is like the line from the movie As Good as it Gets starring Jack Nicholson, “You make me want to be a better person.” For him it was, “You make me want to be a better minister.” A fourth shared about loving their congregation for the congregation they could become. A fifth shared that her congregation lived with the fear that they were unlovable. When they changed that perception, life re-entered the community.

You are a congregation that is immensely lovable. Love isn’t a perfect dive but it is a fantastic leap. A leap of faith; sometimes a graceful leap. I love taking this leap Sunday after Sunday, day in and day out. I love the privilege of being your minister.

Congratulations! You have made it to the final day of February and the conclusion of our month of gratitude. There is one final practice that remains:

Take a few minutes to think back on this past month. What day was most meaningful to you? What did you learn? What challenged you the most? Do you feel any different than when the month began?

The final practice is to take some time and reflect on this whole series of practices related to gratitude. Feel free to share your thoughts below.

Now, even though the month has ended, these practices will still be there for you to try out if you wish. Or you can invent your own.

I thank each of every one of you who attempted to practice gratitude this month, even if it was only for a couple of these days.

Thank You!

You are almost there! On this penultimate day of practicing gratitude, I want to challenge you to stretch your imagination and experience a sense of awe. I call today's practice of gratitude "Cosmic Gratitude."

When we are confronted with images of galaxies, celestial bodies, and other "space stuff" our reaction can be one of contemplating our own insignficance... or it can be one of utter awe and of feeling grateful for being a part of a universe more vast and mysterious than we can imagine.

When Rev. Ken Patton was minister of the Charles Street Meeting House, he had a mural of the Milky Way Galaxy painted on the wall behind the pulpit. This was a symbol of awe and reverence. Today, I invite you to browse images from the Hubble Space telescope and experience a similar feeling of cosmic gratitude. Even if you take only ten minutes to browse these images and the descriptions of them, you will be amazed!

What are your favorite hobbies and skills? Sewing or knitting? Reading? Artwork or Handicrafts? A sport you enjoy? Writing? Juggling flaming torches while standing on an orange walking globe? Playing a musical instrument? A game at which you excel? Bird-watching? Wood-working? Scrapbooking?

Whatever your skill or hobby, today make the time to enjoy it for a while. Be thankful for this hobby or interest of yours.

As for me, you might find me doing this:

What will you do today?

In this final week of practicing gratitude, we return one final time to gratitude for our religious community. The practice for Tuesday, February 26 is quite simple. Think of the other members of our church. Today, make a call to someone you particularly admire and tell them that. Simple, right?

As we come closer to the end of the month of gratitude practices, we reach what may be the hardest exercise of the entire month. The theme for Monday, February 25th is "Gratitude in Grief." At first, this may seem like an oxymoron, like the two are mutually exclusive.

Those who have deepened in their capacity for gratitude are able to cultivate thankfulness even in the midst of grieving. This is never easy. One common reading at Unitarian Universalist memorial services states that "joy and woe are woven fine." This truth recognizes that our sorrow is often proportional to the depth of happiness that is now missing.

The challenging practice for today is to think of someone who you miss, you mourn, or you grieve for. Next, tell a story about that person, perhaps the story of a fond and joyful time. Are you capable of feeling gratitude even when that gratitude is encompassed by grief?

Again, this is not easy. How was this for you?

This Sunday (February 24th) is one of our monthly "Donate-the-Plate" Sundays. One Sunday per month we dedicate the offering to a worthy cause. This month our collection will go to The Healthy Living Project. Healthy Living is an organization that does HIV testing, prevention, and education work with gay men. It also provides other services.

Our congregation has a long history with Healthy Living. Currently, several members of our church are on its board and one of our members is its Executive Director.

On this day we express gratitude to all those who work in the realms of community outreach and social justice.

In addition to coming to church and putting something in the offering basket, you may wish to also find a way to express gratitude for those who dedicate so much energy to helping our world become more peaceful, fair, free, equitable, and compassionate.

I recently engaged in a debate with a member of my congregation who works in the business sector and used to work for a very large corporation. We were discussing what moral responsibility companies have to the communities in which they are situated. I argued that businesses should be heavily involved in community development work. He argued that businesses should focus on what they do: business.

To see his side of the argument, I will concede that businesses do a lot by their very being. They provide jobs. The generate tax revenue. And, in the case of locally owned businesses, there is a greater chance that profits will be reinvested in the local economy. However, he did also mention that his company held "volunteer days" where employees could be paid for a day of work spent volunteering in the community.

This debate aside, I want to lift up those businesses in our community that take more than a passive role in giving back to the community.

My favorite coffee shop, Muddy's, is located just steps from the UMKC campus in Kansas City. A significant percentage of Muddy's income comes from UMKC students who study there or who grab a cup of coffee on their way to class. Muddy's recently endowed a scholarship at UMKC. They dedicate a percentage of their earnings on sales of some items to increase the endowment for this scholarship.

Another example of a business that gives back is the Whole Foods store located at 91st and Metcalf. Like our monthly Donate-the-Plate Sundays (see tomorrow), they give a percentage of their earnings from one day a month to a local charity. The cynic in me wishes they would disclose what percentage of their monthly profits they give to charity. On the other hand, contributing around $200,000 to local charities over the years that they have been doing this is a lot better than contributing nothing.

Practice: Do business at a store that gives back to the community as a gesture of gratitude for their commitment to the community that supports them.

I'm sure there are many more stores I could name. If you have suggestions, leave them in the comment section below.

Like three days ago, the gratitude practice for Friday, February 22nd is also taken from the book "How to Want What You Have." (I preached on this book a few years ago.)

In one of the most memorable passages from that book the author, Timothy Miller, is discussing gratitude. He says that if you try to think of something to be grateful for and draw a complete blank you could always imagine the earthworms that live underground and that pass through the soil making it better for plants and flowers. If you can't be thankful for anything, be thankful for worms!

Of all the passages in the book, this one stands out most clearly years later.

Practice: As you go through your day, make note of the "worms" all around you, things happening that you could be grateful for if you took the time to notice.

What are some of them?

Today is "Choose your own Gratitude Day."

When coming up with the activities and practices for the month of gratitude, I stumbled upon this silly and fun web-site. This site lists all of the things that it is possible to honor and celebrate during the month of February.

Practice: Read the list and choose a day that speaks to you. Then invent your own way to be grateful for what that day is celebrating or recognizing.

I am really curious about what you will choose. I hope you will leave a comment below.

We all have heroes in our life. They can be our parents, grandparents, siblings, or other relatives. They can be our teachers, mentors, or coaches. They can be community leaders or people who inspire us.

The practice for Wednesday, February 20th is to write a list of three to five people who have been heroes in your life. You may wish to go all the way back to childhood and think of a teacher. Let you memories wander where they will. Your list may also include someone contemporary.

You have your choice of practices:

+ You can make a list of personal heroes and write a little bit about them.

+ You can make a list of heroes and talk about your list with another person. Tell your stories and listen to theirs.

+ If one of your heroes is contemporary you may wish to visit, call or write them and let them know how grateful you are.

The Gratitude exercises for both Tuesday and Friday of this week are taken from a book called "How to Want What You Have" by Timothy Miller. (I preached on this book a couple of years ago.)

In HTWWYH, Miller talks about three disciplines: the discipline of gratitude, the discipline of paying attention, and the discipline of compassion. All three disciplines are somewhat inter-related.

The practice for Tuesday, 2/19 might be the most challenging of any of the gratitude practices presented thus far. It is a practice of feeling compassion for those who especially annoy or aggravate us. Practice: Today, notice whenever you see something that annoys or aggravates you. Practice thinking understanding and compassionate thoughts about the people whose behavior is annoying.

For example, if you are in line at the grocery store and someone with twenty items is trying to sneak through the twelve items or fewer line, maybe think to yourself, "Poor guy! His life is so hurried and frantic that he feels rushed wherever he goes."

How does this relate to gratitude? I have found that when we constantly pay attention to the things that annoy and irritate us we lose the ability to see things for which we are grateful. Compassion and understanding can make gratitude more available to us.

Oh, how we do love to complain about politicians! Many of us spend far more time criticizing the ones that drive us nuts than we do supporting the ones we feel stand up for our values and serve the people wisely and courageously.

Monday, February 18th is Presidents Day. Today's practice in gratitude is to write a letter to a politician you admire, expressing gratitude for their stand on issues you care about and for their service.

You can choose a local politician who serves competently and tirelessly. You can select a state-level or national-level politician who you feel does great things for our state or our country.

(I've decided to close the comment section for this day. As a web-site aimed especially at the members of SMUUCh, I don't want for the comment section to become a forum for debating the merits and demerits of different politicians. That will only distract us from the practice of gratitude, which is the point of this whole exercise. There are all sorts of other forums for criticizing politicians.)

Practice: Write a letter or send an email to a politician that says something nice.

On the third Sunday in February we continue the trend of speaking words of gratitude to others in our religious community. Today we turn our gratitude to the dozens and dozens of volunteer leaders that make our church thrive and shine.

Practice: Speak words of thanks to one of your fellow members who has taken on a position of leadership at SMUUCh.

Take the time today to thank a member of the board, the chair or the member of a committee, someone who volunteers teaching or takes responsibility for a group or activity. For all of our leaders and volunteers we are truly grateful!

I don't mean to presuppose some kind of dualism between spirit and matter, body and spirit, mind and body. But it seems we have been spending a lot of time focusing on thoughts and feelings. On Saturday, February 16th let's change the focus by expressing gratitude for our bodies.

Practice: Do something kind to your body today.

There are many ways to do this. Here are a few suggestions: take a long walk, make time to go the gym or workout, take a hot bath, receive a massage, eat a really healthy meal... or come up with your own.

I bet you didn't know that Friday, February 15th is "Susan B. Anthony Day." When I found this out I couldn't help but dedicate a day of gratitude to one of our most famous and most heralded Unitarians.

You can read more about her life at this web-site.

I also paid a visit to the children's section at the Johnson County library. There I found three books for children about the life of Susan B. Anthony. They are:

Learning about Fairness from the Life of Susan B. Anthony by Kiki Mosher
The Susan B. Anthony You Never Knew by James Lincoln Collier
and Susan B. Anthony by Lucile Davis

Practice: As a way of being grateful for the life of Susan B. Anthony, express your gratitude to a heroic and courageous woman that you know. You may wish to write a letter to a woman who is a positive role model or you may wish to thank someone you know personally who touches the lives of the women around her.

Thursday, February 14th is Valentine's Day. (You might express your gratitude to someone you love by sharing what you baked yesterday with them.) But seriously, the feeling of loving and being loved is perhaps the most important feeling we experience as human beings. Whether your love is romantic, platonic, or familial, demonstrate your gratitude to someone you love today.

Practice: Be grateful for the love you receive and the love you give.

While I was coming up with practices of gratitude to recommend for the month of February, my mind immediately turned to the Holy Days and Holidays that are observed this month: Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday, Valentine's Day and President's Day. (Unfortunately, the Jewish celebration of Purim does not occur in the month of February this year. The Pagan holy day of Imbolc does occur in February but I over-looked it.)

However, in my searching I did find a fascinating web-site that lists every possible celebration you can imagine. According to this site, February is both "Bake for Family Fun Month" and "National Cherry Pie Month." (It also happens to be, among many others, "National Bird Feeding Month", "National Weddings Month"(?), "Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month", and "Spunky Old Broads Month.")

In my sermon on January 27th, I cut this section on baking because I was short on time. I would have said,

What does baking have to do with gratitude? On the surface, nothing. But go deeper. If you bake with somebody, can you be thankful for time spent in another’s company? If you bake for somebody, can the act of baking be an act of love and an expression of gratitude? Or, ask the Ancient Hebrews. In the Jewish tradition, they commemorate Passover with the eating of unleavened bread, Matzoh. The ancient story tells of the Hebrews needing to flee so suddenly from Egypt that the bread had no chance to rise. For the rest of the year eating risen bread calls to mind freedom and having a settled home. And then, there is the miracle of nature, the magical alchemy of yeast that makes the bread rise.

Practice: I invite you to bake something on Wednesday, February 13th and to use the paragraph above to make your baking an act of gratitude.

Plus, what you bake today may come in handy tomorrow...

How I came up with this day is a little bit random. Years and years ago I heard a factoid on the radio... or maybe I read it in a book... or maybe it was some person without any idead who told me it - but regardless of my source, the factoid was that the average American sees some stupendously low number of sunsets and sunrises in a year. Each year, there are 730 sunsets and sunrises combined and I would wager that, with the exception of those glanced at while we are commuting, we see about 1%. And it is hard to be in the presence of awe while driving in rush hour traffic.

Somehow I've always found this amazing, regardless of whether the source was reliable or not. A sunset or a sunrise, besides holding the capacity for stunning beauty, announces time. A sunrise declares, "Here is a day that you have been given." A sunset can soothe us by announcing the ending of a day but it can also challenge us by asking, "What have you done with the gift of this day?"

The Practice: On Tuesday, February 12th, take the time to witness a sunrise or a sunset. Express gratitude for the gift of this day.

In my sermon "Experiments in Gratitude" I said the following:

In discussing this sermon-series with the worship committee, one of its members, T.K., shared the results of a psychological study that I found absolutely fascinating. According to this study, if at the end of your day you make a list of three things particular to that day for which you are thankful, and then speak those things out loud to another person, it has the same effect as taking a low-grade anti-depressant drug. The types of things that might be on such a list could include: hitting every green light on the way to work; receiving a compliment on your sweater while in line at the store; receiving praise for a project at work or school; getting a caring call or email from a friend or relative; seeing a cardinal; or even just enjoying a perfectly ripe piece of fruit.

On Monday, February, 11 keep track of these types of things. Who smiles at you? Was lunch particularly delicious?

Practice: At the end of the day, make a list of 3-5 small things for which to be grateful. Share this gratitude list with another person.

Or share it in the comment section below.

Whatever you do, you will not want to miss my sermon this morning entitled, "Dear SMUUCh: A Love Letter". I expect this sermon will have people talking.

But that has nothing directly to do with the practice of gratitude for Sunday, February 10th. It is the way of religious community as it is the way of all communities that people come and go, and relationships move from periods of intense closeness to times of greater separation. The Practice for today has to with expressing gratitude in religious community.

Practice:
If you are a long-time member, give a call to someone you know who doesn't attend SMUUCh anymore and tell them you are thinking of them.
If you have been attending long enough to feel like a member with some history, give a call to someone you don't see as often anymore but wish you did.
If you are new enough to the church that the above practices don't feel right to you, perhaps give a call to someone in the directory you have never met before and introduce yourself.

Who do you miss? Who do you think of with deep gratitude in your heart? Who are you thankful to have the chance to meet?

February is African-American History Month. The impact of African-Americans on our national and local history is too often ignored or under-emphasized. The month of February helps to remind us to learn more about the entirety of our nation's history.

Both Kansas and Kansas City have been locations where African-Americans have played an important role in the history of our nation. Topeka, KS provided the Brown vs. Board of Education court case which deemed "separate but equal" to be unconstitutional. (I attended the 50th Anniversary celebration of the Brown decision a few years ago.)

Kansas City has two national treasures located right next to each other: The American Jazz Museum and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. (These museums are rated as two of the top ten Black museums in the country.) Kansas City's history boasts of some of the greatest Jazz and Blues musicians of all time. The Kansas City Monarchs were one of the most heralded of the Negro Leagues teams.

I invite you to come join me at 12:00 for a visit to the Jazz Museum in the 18th & Vine neighborhood. Or, if your afternoon is busy, maybe come in the evening to hear saxophonist Bobby Watson & the Live and Learn Band.

Practice: Take some time today to learn about local African-American history. If you can't join us at the museum, go get a book from the library and also borrow a jazz CD.

If you have a favorite book about African-American history or a favorite Jazz or Blues CD, drop me a note in the comment section.

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes:

"We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. The whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many persons we meet in houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we honor and who honor us! How many we see in the street, or sit with in church, whom though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! Read the language of these wandering eye-beams. The heart knoweth."

Today's practice centers around developing a greater gratitude for that "whole human family" of which Emerson speaks. The challenge for today is to honor someone "we scarcely speak to." It may be someone we "see in the street" or someone we pass in the hallway at work. It may be someone we pass in the store.

Practice: Speak to someone you do not know. See if you can imagine this person "bathed with an element of love like a fine ether." Be grateful for this.

How did it go? Share below.

In college one of my classmates who was also a Unitarian Universalist had a very simple practice of giving thanks for the food he ate. Before each meal he would pause briefly and silently mouth the words "Thank you."

Recently, a family in our church shared the family grace they say before meals. The words are adapted from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"For each new morning with its light.
For rest and shelter of the night.
For health and food.
For love and friends.
For everything that goodness sends."

Practice: On Thursday, 2/7 express gratitude for the food that you eat. You can do this as simply as mouthing "thank you" or by finding a reading that expresses gratitude.

If you have a particular table grace that you say, feel free to list it in the comment section below.

Wednesday, February 6th is, in the Christian tradition, Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent, a serious season of purpose in preparation leading towards joy and triumph of Easter.

In our congregation we have some members who find significance and meaning in the Christian liturgical year. We also have many members who do not find Christian traditions meaningful to their own spiritual journey. (In fact, we have many members who tend to associate Lent with not being allowed to eat sugar as children and are perplexed about what that has to do with the Passion stories in the Gospel.)

Regardless of which group you find yourself in, there is a way to observe this day.

Practice: Recall the story of a person who suffered trying to make the world more fair and just. Express gratitude for the life of this hero or martyr. Tell the story of this life to someone else.

In the comment section below, I invite you to name heroes and martyrs who gave of the themselves selflessly to work for a better world

A friend of mine is fond of saying that you have no business celebrating St. Patrick's Day unless you get up to go to early morning mass on St. Patrick's Day. By his criteria, what would he say about celebrating Mardi Gras unless you plan to go to services for Ash Wednesday and commit to a spirtual practice for the season of Lent?

I think this is a fair question. Does it reflect integrity to laissez les bon temps roulez and then give no thought to the somber weeks that follow? While you ponder this question, I will say that it is a lot of fun to put on some beads, to wear bright purple and gold clothing, and to escape from winter's heavy seriousness with an attitude of celebration.

Practice: With a joyful heart, give thanks for the ability to celebrate.

But, February 5th is not only Fat Tuesday. It is also Super Tuesday.

So, go ahead and wear your beads and bright clothes to your caucus site or primary polling place and celebrate our Democracy by actively participating in it!

Practice: With a grateful heart, exercise your civic responsibility by participating in our electoral system.

A former member of SMUUCh recently send me a gift: a mix-CD with some of her favorite songs. I replied to her with an email listing some of my favorite songs and some of the music I've been listening to recently:

+ The soundtrack to the movie "Juno", especially all the songs by Kimya Dawson.
+ Two songs by the band Death Cab for Cutie: "Different Names for the Same Thing" and "What Sarah Said."
+ The song "All of the Trees of the Field will Clap their Hands" by Sufjan Stevens
+ The soundtrack to the movie "Once". (Listen to it live in concert.)

Practice: Give thanks for music.

There are a bunch of ways to do this. If you are not musically inclined, you can put on a favorite CD. If you are musically inclined, you can sing or play the instrument you play. Or, maybe share the music you appreciate with someone by lending them your iPod or some CDs from your collection.

Also, you might take a listen to a concert available for free at NPR's All Songs Considered.

What did you listen to?

The practice of gratitude for Sunday, February 3rd has to do with practicing gratitude in the context of religious community. Just as living as a thankful person means living a better life, so too does the practice of giving thanks make our religious communities healthier and more vital.

Practice: Meet someone in church that you don't know very well and let them know that you are glad that they are part of this religious community.

Not too hard, right? Of course, the key to do this is to do it authentically and in a way that is not cheesy, or forced, or fake. Learn something about that other person. Ask them why they come to SMUUCh and what the church means to them. You get the idea.

If for some strange reason you are unable to attend church this Sunday, that doesn't let you off the hook. Flip through your directory until you find a name that you don't recognize and give that person a call and introduce yourself.

What is the Biblical teaching about strangers being angels in disguise...

The spiritual practice for Saturday, February 2nd involves paying attention to and expressing gratitude for nature. Certainly this is an easier practice in mid-May than in the first week of February. But, if you pay attention you will still observe nature.

Practice: Take time out of your day to notice the natural world and cultivate a sense of awe, wonder, and gratitude for nature.

There are many ways to do this. The simplest way is to look out of your window, perhaps at a birdfeeder or at squirrels in a tree. Or, you may wish to take a walk and notice the wind, the sky, the air. Take time on your walk just to listen.

If you are interested in a group practice, I invite you to join me for a nature walk at Shawnee Mission Park. Regardless of the weather, we will gather at 9am at the trailhead of the hiking trail that is directly across from shelter number 8. (Enter the park off 87th Street. Driving south, you will bear to the left and pass the observation tower and the archery range. The trail is the next left and the parking lot of the trailhead has a statue of a bicycle near it.)

You are welcome to join me. And you are welcome to share your reflections in the comment section below.

A marathon begins with just one step...

The spiritual practice for Friday, February 1st is one that is actually quite simple. (Perhaps you will find it annoyingly simple.) But, I am a big believer into easing into a practice. The practice for today is a practice in easing in.

Practice: Make a list of three to five things in your life for which you are grateful.

Simple, right? If you want to go further you may wish to share this list with somebody like a family member or close friend. If you are practicing gratitude as a part of a family or a group, you might work together to come up with your lists and then share them with each other. Or, you may wish to share your list in the comment section below.

There are two short one-liners about prayer with which I want to begin this morning’s sermon. The first is from an episode of the Simpson’s from many years ago where the family gathers around the dinner table and Bart Simpson is invited to say grace. He bows his head and says, “Dear God, we paid for all this food ourselves so thanks for nothing.”

The second one-liner comes from spiritual writer Anne Lamott who states that there are really only two types of prayers: “Please, please, please, please, please” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Ah, and we are back talking about prayer and spiritual practice again today in this, the second sermon in the series called “Get a (Spiritual) life.” But, before we get to prayer and spiritual practice I want to back up a little bit and offer some comments for your consideration about context. [These comments are embellished from a discussion with eleven other ministers at a growth conference I attended last November.]

I want to generalize. I want to suggest that while we live in a land of plenty, a land of prosperity, a context of widespread comfort for most of us gathered here this morning, that we are not a comfortable people. I want to suggest that there is a sense of dissatisfaction for many of us that permeates and pervades our living. This dissatisfaction is often framed in terms of a disappointment with our political climate, but the dissatisfaction goes beyond politics. The dissatisfaction is often framed as concern for issues – homophobia, global climate change, or poverty – but the dissatisfaction transcends our justice concerns. I want to suggest that the dissatisfaction is rooted in our very culture. There are hungers that are our culture does not feed. Hunger for depth. Hunger for relationship. Hunger for life. To paraphrase my colleague Michael Schuler, “We are a life-seeking people in a largely death-focused culture.” We want to replace irrational fears with trust. We want to replace attitudes that divide and separate us with meaningful connections. I want to claim that there is this sense of emptiness and restlessness that we are trying to fill. And coming here, to this church, is about feeding this hunger. It is about filling this void. It is about having the courage to try to create a culture that meets the needs that our larger culture fails to meet. Further, I would suggest, spiritual practice is one part of changing ourselves and defying the culture that conspires to leave us feeling hungry and vaguely uncomfortable.

This past week I read a book entitled Worship that Works by two UU ministers, Wayne Arnason and Kathleen Rolenz, who spent a sabbatical road-tripping across the United States and visiting houses of worship – UU and non-UU – that were widely held to have outstanding and transformational worship services. Currently, I am writing a review of their book for a denominational publication, so I’ll spare you too much detail. In their book, these two ministers devote considerable attention to describing the theory behind different parts of a church service.

In their section on prayer they describe the formula most common in Protestant prayers. The formula can be remembered by the acronym ACTS, which stands for adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication.

It is interesting that for three out of the four parts the authors needed to reframe the words very deliberately to make them palatable to most Unitarian Universalists. Adoration, they say, usually has to do with titles given to God, titles like, “All powerful God, King of Kings, Lord of Heaven and Earth, creator of the universe, et cetera…” They reframe this by asking Unitarian Universalists to name feelings of awe, wonder, and grandeur.

Similarly, with confession the authors explain that this need not have anything to do with the notion of original sin. Rather, they advise, if our spiritual practice brings us into a place of utter honesty and authenticity, then we will be aware that we do not always embody our best selves. We will tell the truth about our own imperfections.

The third part they needed to significantly reframe is supplication, or asking. That is the “please, please, please” part. They explain that UUs often tend to be “rightly uncomfortable with this kind of supplication. We don’t believe in a God who is a substitute Santa Claus, dispensing favors like toys from a large knapsack.”

But, it is telling that the authors found it completely unnecessary to recast or reframe or translate the spiritual practice of gratitude and thanksgiving. They write, “Thanksgiving is probably the easiest prayer for Unitarian Universalists…. We are an appreciative people, thankful for our health, our lives, our communities, for liberal religion, for one another. We give thanks for food, for our volunteers, for our programs, for our ministers.” They said it, not me. Another UU minister once said something to the effect of, “If Unitarian Universalists had a shared and universal spiritual practice, it would be an exercise centered in the expression of gratitude.”

Beginning this Friday, February 1st, I am inviting the entire congregation to join me in a month of spiritual practices centered in gratitude. The idea for this was stolen from my wonderful colleague in Pennsylvania, Rev. Ken Beldon. The concept was his; the content is mine. In your order of service, you’ll find an introductory sheet describing the practices for each day. But that is just the beginning. On my blog you will be able to find entries for each of the 29 days of February and a lengthier description of the practice for each day, plus resources, and perhaps some quotes or additional reflections. You will also notice that I will leave the comment section open. You can write your own reflections about participating in the daily practice of gratitude.

A few “nuts and bolts” comments: First, any of these practices can be easily modified for solo practice or family practice. On my blog there will be some suggestions on how to do this. Second, most of the practices can be done in 5 to 15 minutes. Third, all but two or three of them cost nothing. Fourth, you are grown ups. You can alter them, switch days, or whatever. Fifth, have fun.

Finally, I can’t force any of you to participate. All I can do is offer the invitation. What will be the results of the month of gratitude? I have no idea. This is a big experiment. But I am curious about the results of the experiment. What will happen to us individually if we commit to a daily practice of gratitude? What will happen to our congregation if enough of us take up this challenge? Like I said before, I have no idea. That is why it is a big experiment. But, I think we’re on the right track. After all, gratitude is the practice that comes easiest to Unitarian Universalists.

I do, however, have a few hypotheses about what might happen. In discussing this sermon-series with the worship committee, one of its members, T.K., shared the results of a psychological study that I found absolutely fascinating. According to this study, if at the end of your day you make a list of three things particular to that day for which you are thankful, and then speak those things out loud to another person, it has the same effect as taking a low-grade anti-depressant drug. The types of things that might be on such a list could include: hitting every green light on the way to work; receiving a compliment on your sweater while in line at the store; receiving praise for a project at work or school; getting a caring call or email from a friend or relative; seeing a cardinal; or even just enjoying a perfectly ripe piece of fruit.

There are some things on the list that may seem like they have nothing to do with gratitude. For example, on one day, I ask you to celebrate the fact that February is National Baking Month and National Cherry Pie month by baking something. What does baking have to do with gratitude? On the surface, nothing. But go deeper. If you bake with somebody, can you be thankful for time spent in another’s company? If you bake for somebody, can the act of baking be an act of love and an expression of gratitude? Or, ask the Ancient Hebrews. In the Jewish tradition, they commemorate Passover with the eating of unleavened bread, Matzoh. The ancient story tells of the Hebrews needing to flee so suddenly from Egypt that the bread had no chance to rise. For the rest of the year eating risen bread calls to mind freedom and having a settled home. And then, there is the miracle of nature, the magical alchemy of yeast that makes the bread rise.

About two years ago I delivered a sermon on a book by the title, “How to Want What You Have.” The book described three practices: the practice of compassion, the practice of paying attention, and the practice of gratitude. What I discovered was that these practices were inseparable, not bounded, not hermetically sealed one from the others. As you pay more attention you become more thankful; as you become more thankful you also become more compassionate. Work on any one of the three and the other two develop as well. There is an interconnectedness that is evident in all of this.

So, I want to explore gratitude with you, first with a couple of examples and then from a more theoretical basis:

During my entire four and a half years as your minister I have only received two anonymous letters of criticism. Now, my official policy about anonymous feedback is that it goes directly to the shredder and I ignore it as if it was never received. There are two reasons for this. First, anonymous criticism goes against the democratic values for which our religious tradition stands. A democracy aspires to transparency and openness. Our legal system demands that the accused know who their accusers are. The whole point of free speech (or free press, or free assembly, or free anything) is that people can express their own opinions in their own name. The second reason I have the policy of ignoring anonymous criticism has to do with the type of community we hope to build. In such a community, communication is open and direct. Secret and indirect communication has a toxic effect on communal life. But, of course, there is policy and there is reality. The reality is that I do read it, and even though I pretend to ignore it, I do actually stew and steam.

I consider it a sign of health that I’ve only received two anonymous letters of criticism in my 4 1/2 years here. (And, to be honest, I’ve received many, many more letters of anonymous praise, some of them with money inside, and I don’t shred those so I guess that makes me a bit of hypocrite. But I’d still love to know who sent them, so I could thank them.)

In any event, back in 2003 after my first couple of months here I got this anonymous note that said that I chewed with my mouth open. I had already broken bread with dozens and dozens of church members and I had no idea whatsoever who sent it. My decision was immediately two-fold. I could cultivate and direct hatred, irritation, indignation, and wrath towards this mystery person. I could say, “Well, you ain’t exactly Emily Post, either.” Or further, I could fantasize about this person as being someone with horrible body odor, someone who trails six feet of toilet tissue from their shoes, someone who possesses a great fondness for velvet Elvises. Or, I could choose compassion instead – openness on my part despite their anonymity that cut off connection. And from compassion to gratitude – a kind of gratitude that does not condone anonymous criticism but can hold that other in a compassionate place – maybe they would be too embarrassed, too introverted, too intimidated to approach me directly.

One of my colleagues with whom I am most intimate about sharing the joys and sorrows of our ministries and our lives once described a particularly painful situation in her personal life, but then framed that grief in the language of gratitude. At first I wanted to tell her that there is a whole selection of emotions that one very well might feel under these circumstances, but gratitude is not among them. It turns out I was the one who was wrong. For her, a combination of attentiveness and compassionate resulted in gratitude, as unlikely as that was.

Recall one of the most challenging passages from the Christian scriptures: “Love you enemies, do good to those that hate you. Bless those that curse you; pray for those that persecute you.” Gratitude may seem like the easiest of practices, but it just may have the capacity to lead us to places of tremendous strength and depth.

So, this is my challenge to you. Over the next month, experiment with the practice of gratitude. Experiment with gratitude by yourself and experiment with gratitude in cooperation and in community with other people.

What will be the result? I can’t promise anything. But the result may be greater attentiveness, greater compassion, greater awareness of the world around you and – as a consequence of that awareness – a deeper investment in the world around you. It may help you to recreate the culture of this world when you find that culture wanting and diminishing of human life.

Take some risks.

Try out something new.

Bake something.

Being grateful is much better than the alternative.

On January 14, I began a three-part sermon series entitled, "Get a (Spiritual) Life." You can read the sermons here:

Part 1: Prayer Follies & Meditation Misadventures
Part 2: Experiments in Gratitude
Part 3: I Have a Spiritual Life, Now What?

During the month of February every person in the SMUUCh community is being invited (some may call it "challenged") to a daily spiritual practice centered in Gratitude. Each day will have its own unique practice. Most of these practices can be done in 5 to 15 minutes, though you may wish to spend longer. My UU colleague in Pennsylvania, Rev. Ken Beldon, shared the concept of "A Month of Gratitude" with me; I designed the content myself.

Below you will find more information about each day’s practice. Click on each day to find out more about the practice, words of reflection, and other resources. I will also leave the comments section open on each day so you can write about your experiences.

Remember: Feel free to modify, swap days, or invent your own practices. You can practice alone or with another person. Most of all, have fun.

Fri. 2/1: Beginning simply
Sat. 2/2: Gratitude for Nature
Sun. 2/3: Practice Gratitude in Religious Community (Part 1)
Mon. 2/4: Gratitude for music
Tues. 2/5: (Mardi Gras) Celebrating Gratitude
Wed. 2/6: (Ash Wednesday) Gratitude for martyrs and heroes
Thur. 2/7: Gratitude for food
Fri. 2/8: Gratitude for the whole human family
Sat. 2/9: Gratitude for African-American History Month and the contributions of African Americans to the Kansas City metro area
Sun. 2/10: Practice Gratitude in Religious Community (Part 2)
Mon. 2/11: Practicing attentiveness
Tues. 2/12: Gratitude for day's beginning and day's end
Wed. 2/13: Gratitude through baking
Thur. 2/14: (Valentine's Day) Gratitude and Love
Fri. 2/15: (Susan B. Anthony Day) Gratitude for brave women
Sat. 2/16: Gratitude for our bodies
Sun. 2/17: Practice Gratitude in Religious Community (Part 3)
Mon. 2/18: (President's Day) Gratitude for public servants
Tues. 2/19: Practice compassion and understanding
Wed. 2/20: Gratitude for role models
Thur. 2/21: Choose your own Gratitude
Fri. 2/22: Gratitude for small things
Sat. 2/23: Gratitude for businesses that practice responsibility to the community and the environment
Sun. 2/24: Donate the Plate Sunday. Gratitude for Social Justice
Mon. 2/25 Gratitude and grief
Tues. 2/26: Practice Gratitude in Religious Community (Part 4)
Wed. 2/27: Gratitude for hobbies and skills
Thur. 2/28: Cosmic Gratitude
Fri. 2/29: Reflections on Gratitude

Reading (from the sermon “What is Spirituality Anyway?” by Rev. Peter Morales)

"What experiences are part of my spiritual journey? What experiences are not? Why are we more likely to think the experience of listening to Mozart's Requiem as spiritual and listening to background music at Wal-Mart as other than that? What makes a religious retreat more of a sacred experience than being stuck in traffic? What makes reading poetry more holy than looking up a dentist's phone number in the Yellow Pages? Can dancing be a religious experience? Painting? Gardening? Making love? Writing computer code? Writing a letter? Cooking dinner? Eating a peach? What makes a spiritual experience? Are there real spiritual experiences and phony ones? Last week someone left a seven-page, single-spaced letter in my box here in the office. It was unsigned, save for a handwritten note on the outside that said simply "I'm back." The letter spoke, among other things, of a "spiritual" experience of channeling Jesus. It went on to talk about the evils of ancient pharaohs and their modern descendants, of platonic solids, and of heaven being reachable through a vortex in the Orion Nebula. The writer feels a deep connection to God and Truth. I see the evidence of a disturbed, confused mind…

"How do we know if we are growing spiritually? Can one shrink spiritually? Walk into any bookstore. You would need a truck to take home a copy of every book on spirituality. It is big business. In our own churches we have those who want more spirituality, and others who are disturbed by what they think that might mean. There is great confusion about this."


Sermon

About seven years ago I performed my first wedding. The couple, aged 21 and 19, was just a few years younger than I. When I sat down for the first time to meet with them, I asked them, “So, will this be the first marriage for each of you?” They nodded in affirmation. This prompted me to blurt out, “Well, this is my first wedding too, so I guess we’re all in this together.”

That story though has nothing on the story of the first funeral I ever performed. I received a call at the church I was serving from someone who had no connection with the church whatsoever. They were asking for a simple graveside ceremony. I went to the funeral home the day before to talk with the family about their wishes. I asked the family members there (including a pair of ex-wives) to tell me a little bit about the life of the man who had died. The family was silent. Finally, one son broke the silence and stated, “Well, we were kind of discussing things and we all came to the conclusion that there is nothing positive that can be said about his life.” Now there was a conversation stopper. I took this as a challenge. I asked about what he enjoyed and one family member replied “Jack Daniels.” This response was met with a round of vigorous nods. I asked about how he spent his time. The answer was “mostly in front of the television.” Feeling hopeful, I followed up on this by inquiring about his favorite programs only to be told that he didn’t watch TV for enjoyment, but rather to yell at it. I pressed on. “Did he have any hobbies?” One son mentioned that he liked hunting. I tried to embellish this. “So, he enjoyed spending time in nature.” The son corrected me. “No, he hated nature. He just liked to shoot things.”

Over the last several months I have received a number of requests from people in this congregation to preach on the subject of prayer, meditation, and spiritual practice. I decided to turn these requests into a three part series that I’ve entitled, “Get a (Spiritual Life)”. The next sermon in this series will be delivered the last Sunday in January and the concluding sermon in the series will be delivered the first Sunday in March. This morning’s message will be more theoretical than practical, but at the end of this month I will preach a sermon introducing spiritual practices centered on gratitude. Then I will challenge the entire congregation to a daily practice of gratitude during the month of February. I don’t know if that sounds bad, but it won’t be that bad.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself here. This morning I want to explore the obstructions – the hurdles and hindrances – that so often get in the way of our cultivating a regular spiritual practices in our weekly or daily lives.

I am curious: how many of you currently engage in an activity that you would describe as a regular spiritual practice? [Answers included walking in nature, saying grace before meals, channeling ancestors through cooking, and meditation.]

I am also curious, how many of you have ever made a plan, made a resolution, to engage in a regular spiritual practice, but then abandoned that practice? [Answers included journaling, meditation, and walking in nature.]

Thanks for your answers. But, let me back up just a little bit and explain why it might be a good thing to have a regular spiritual practice. There are certainly dangers to spiritual practice; none of us want to wind up fixated on vortexes in the Orion nebula. But, the greatest danger, I might offer, has to do with becoming too inwardly focused, too self-centered. There is the danger of the practice becoming a kind of narcissism, a solipsism. A quote was recently brought to my attention by the legendary Reverend William Sloane Coffin, who once quipped, “There is no smaller package than a man wrapped up in himself.”

On the other hand, there is a sense that while “prayer does not change things. But prayer does change people and people change things.” Those of us who dedicate our lives to serving others, and especially those who are called to invest their lives in fighting for social change, for justice and against oppression are regularly cautioned on the importance of maintaining a regular and robust spiritual practice. This fact is as true for parents as it is for activists.

We are told, they are told, that a regular spiritual practice is what will keep you from growing depressed and despondent, angry and uncivil, negative and burned out. Rather than being self-centered, we’re told that spiritual practice will give us the strength to stick with the struggle. What do Gandhi, Desmond Tutu, Henry David Thoreau, Martin Luther King, and Mother Teresa have in common? All made time for regular spiritual practice.

I want to switch things up a little bit and approach the question of spiritual practice indirectly rather than directly. In this digression, I would like to call your attention to a remarkable article that appeared several years ago in The New Yorker. The article was called “The Learning Curve” and it was written by Atul Gawande about his experience as a surgical intern. (Gawande has since written two books on his experience as a surgeon.) “The Learning Curve” deals with a great medical irony: it is never in the best interest of the patient to have a surgeon performing the procedure who has never done the procedure before. Yet, it is essential to the continuation of medicine for surgeons to perform procedures for the first time. Even the greatest brain surgeon in the world had to do brain surgery for the first time.

In the opening paragraphs of the article, Dr. Gawande attempts the insertion of a chest tube (a relatively simple procedure) for the first time, and is unsuccessful. The attending surgeon offers him this advice. “Don’t be so tentative. Keep practicing. You’ll get it.”

Allow me to read at length from Dr. Gawande’s essay: [I originally found the text to this essay on-line, but am unsure whether it continues to be available on-line. However, you can find an audio version of the essay here.]

“Surgeons, as a group, adhere to a curious egalitarianism. They believe in practice, not talent. People often assume that you have to have great hands to become a surgeon, but it’s not true. When I interviewed to get into surgery programs, no one made me sew or take a dexterity test or checked to see if my hands were steady. You do not even need all ten fingers to be accepted. […] Skill, surgeons believe, can be taught; tenacity cannot. It’s an odd approach to recruitment, but it continues all the way up the ranks, even in top surgery departments. […]

“And it works. There have now been many studies of elite performers -- concert violinists, chess grand masters, professional ice-skaters, mathematicians, and so forth -- and the biggest difference researchers find between them and lesser performers is the amount of deliberate practice they’ve accumulated. Indeed, the most important talent may be the talent for practice itself….

“Surgical training is the recapitulation of this process – floundering followed by fragments followed by knowledge and, occasionally, a moment of elegance – over and over again, for ever harder tasks with ever greater risks. At first, you work on the basics: how to glove and gown, how to drape patients, how to hold the knife, how to tie a square knot in a length of silk suture. But then the tasks become more daunting: how to cut through skin, handle the electrocautery, open the breast, tie off a bleeder, excise a tumor, close up a wound. At the end of six months, I had done lines, lumpectomies, appendectomies, skin grafts, hernia repairs, and mastectomies. At the end of a year, I was doing limb amputations, hemorrhoidectornies, and laparoscopic gallbladder operations. At the end of two years, I was beginning to do tracheotomies, small-bowel operations, and leg-artery bypasses.

“I am in my seventh year of training… Only now has a simple slice through skin begun to seem like the mere start of a case. These days, I’m trying to learn how to fix an abdominal aortic aneurysm, remove a pancreatic cancer, open blocked carotid arteries. I am, I have found, neither gifted nor maladroit. With practice and more practice, I get the hang of it.”

This, by the way, is one of the reasons we will have an intern minister beginning next Fall. But breathe easy, she will not be doing chest tubes, laparoscopic gall-bladder surgery, or amputations. We hope. I remember my time as a hospital chaplain several years ago when I reassured myself with the knowledge that a practicing chaplain had never killed a patient.

What’s the joke... how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. The same could probably be said of spiritual growth.

So, let’s bring this whole ship back around to spiritual practice, prayer, and meditation. There are all types of stories and jokes that can be told about prayer follies and meditation misadventures. There is the one about the elementary school aged child who learns the Lord’s Prayer as “Lead me not into Penn Station, but deliver me from people.” Sharon Salzberg, a leading American Buddhist, tells a story of listening to the Dalai Lama and not being able to concentrate because she was hyper-focused on the shoes she was wearing.

I will ever so reluctantly admit that prayer follies and meditation misadventures can’t hold a candle to surgical residency horror stories. Maybe that is just as well. But the stories tend to have recurrent characteristics. People talk about falling asleep during meditation. People talk about what Buddhists call “Monkey Mind” – a mind that is unable to focus but instead jumps from branch to branch, screeching raucously all the time.

With prayer, the issues encountered are usually slightly different. First, there is always the question of whether the prayer is received. And for Unitarian Universalists, there is often an ambiguity or uncertainty about who or what is being prayed to. And there is even debate as to whether prayers need to be directed to anyone or anything at all.

My colleague, The Reverend Ken Sawyer once addressed a similar question in a sermon. He asked, do religious verbs like pray and worship require an object? Can you just worship or does something need to be worshipped? Can you just pray, or does something need to be prayed to? In the case of worship, his answer, like mine, is no. To quote Reverend Sawyer, “The other answer – and the dictionary approves of it, too – is to say that worship is not a transitive verb but intransitive. It requires no object. We don’t gather to worship anything or anyone, we gather to worship, period. It is something we do.”

He should know about transitive and intransitive verbs. He earned a Bachelors degree in English Literature from Amherst. When I checked the dictionary, I found that the verb to meditate is also intransitive. It does not require an object. However, the dictionary did identify the verb “to pray” as transitive, as requiring an object. This may be a reason that many of us are more comfortable with meditation than with prayer.

To those of you who are anxious about the transitive nature of prayer or worship, who are uncertain or cautious about exactly what is being worshipped or to whom or what we are praying, I have two responses.

The first response is not to worry, because it is not your responsibility to know. Among the dozens and dozens of pithy sayings in Alcoholics Anonymous there is a saying that goes something like this: “Take care of your side of the street.” The expression tells people to stop worrying about the things that they can’t actually change… “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” However, as I am using this saying, it means that if the verb is “to pray” or “to worship” focus less on the verb’s object, whatever that is or isn’t, and more on the verb’s subject, or, in other words, you.

And, if you aren’t buying that, let me recommend one other way of dealing with this problem. Focus not on “praying to” but “praying with.”

In his aforementioned essay, Dr. Gawande describes a study conducted by Harvard Business School on a number of different surgical teams that were pioneering a new surgical technique. They studied why some teams adapted quickly and others learned slowly. In their study the surgical team that fared the best scheduled six surgeries in the first week, debriefed after each surgery, and remained a cohesive unit. It was the sharing of practice that made the difference. If your own spiritual practice lags, try doing it with someone else. And practice, practice, practice.

The first time I performed a wedding or a funeral I had no clue what I was doing. I did it. And then I did it again. And again. And again. Now, I’m pretty good at it. It is the same with sermons: now having delivered over two-hundred of them (201 to be exact) they come naturally. I’m sure if I had attempted hundreds of chest-tube insertions rather than hundreds of sermons, I’d be proficient at the former. Fortunately, that’s not in my job description. So, if in prayer or meditation, you have no clue what you are doing, that is OK. You can’t kill anybody, anyways, and you won’t feel comfortable until you’ve done it a bunch of times.

The input that led me to preach this message today was that members of this congregation were hungry for instruction and practical guidance in spiritual practice. The next sermon in this series, two weeks from now, will introduce a spiritual practice centered on gratitude and challenge us to a daily practice of gratitude during the month of February. Whether you pray or meditate, whether you say grace before meals or journal, whether you take time to commune with nature or read scriptures from the worlds religions, I ask you to be forgiving of yourself, to understand that it takes practice, and to keep at it. To keep at it. Blessed be.

[This is the 200th Sermon I've ever delivered]

Each year we gather for a time to remember lives that have ended in the past year. In your order of service you will find a list full of names recognizable and foreign, individuals who transcended the particularities of their communities and families and were deemed notable for some wider influence. The list is dominated by names known for artistic or athletic feats, political service, intellectual achievement, or the ability to simply attract media attention. Some of these lives blessed the world with their contributions to human knowledge, to beauty, to peace, to human equality. Other lives are remarkable for how they were squandered.

Each year there are a few names that rise up and are of particular interest to Unitarian Universalists and the demographics commonly represented in this congregation. But, I also like to point out those names we are likely to miss. If you ever drink Gatorade, you may think to note Robert Cade who died this past year, the inventor of the original sports-energy drink and the reason we have two and a half drink coolers in every Quick Trip stocked with fluorescent energy beverages. If you ever ate Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat, you have Vincent DeDomenico to thank. He died this year at age 92. Next time you drive by a Bob Evans restaurant or a Les Schwab tire center, you may recall that both men are no longer of this world.

In the world of sports, this year saw the deaths of a plethora of young athletes – Josh Hancock, Sean Taylor, Damien Nash, Darrent Williams – the victims too often of youthful bad decision making. And it was certainly a bad year for professional wrestlers, if it can be said that there is ever a good year for professional wrestlers.

It was also a bad year for televangelists, most notably Jerry Falwell, but also James Kennedy, the founder of Coral Ridge ministries in Florida, and Billy Graham’s wife, Ruth.

While Falwell garnered the most attention, three religious figures passed with much less fanfare. One was the Anglican priest Chad Varah who founded the Samaritans suicide-prevention hot-line. The second was Father Robert Drinan, a Catholic priest whose religious views about the Vietnam War led him to become the first Catholic Priest to serve in Congress. Drinan ran on an anti-war platform and tried unsuccessfully to add military action in Cambodia to the list of charges for which President Nixon was impeached. And the third is Bruce Metzger, an academic and ordained Presbyterian minister, who was among the world’s greatest authorities on the Bible. In fact, Metzger headed the translation committee that produced the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, the version most accepted by scholars and theologians. If your name appears on the cover page of the Bible, you are certainly worth mentioning!

There are people on the list who you might imagine I would mention at great length. I know a number of you adored Art Buchwald and a number of you adored Kurt Vonnegut and I know for many of you the name Molly Ivins stands above all others. But I would like to take this opportunity to lift up the lives of a couple of people it might be tempting to skip over.

The first person I want to explore is Tammy Faye Bakker Messner. In 1942, Tammy Faye was born in rural Minnesota and into an unstable family environment. Her parents divorced shortly after she was born and she found refuge from her tumultuous family life in the steadiness and security of a Pentecostal church. She thrived in this environment that offered her certainties and absolutes and she was encouraged to pursue training for the ministry. Attending a Bible College, she met Jim Bakker; they moved South; and their ministry soon grew into a television empire worth millions of dollars. Corruption, scandal, and fraud soon followed. Jim had an affair with his 21-year old secretary, Jessica Hahn, and spent nearly $300,000 in church donations to attempt to buy her silence. This was just the tip of the iceberg, as financial details about PTL came to light, including information on the Bakker’s opulent lifestyle with lavish properties, private jets, and even (rumor has it) a doghouse with central air.

Tammy Faye divorced Jim Bakker while he served time in jail and went on to marry Roe Messner, a religious architect who had designed buildings for the Bakkers. Messner’s local roots would eventually see the family relocate to the greater Kansas City area. Messner would also go on to serve time in jail for his financial mis-deeds.

In 1996 Tammy Faye was diagnosed with colon cancer and would spend the last decade of her life battling and eventually succumbing to cancer. It was also in these last years of her life that she would find redemption. It is ironic that as she declined physically, she was healed spiritually. As her body was eaten away, her soul expanded.

This growth is hard to understand. In fact it is multi-faceted. One aspect has to do with her relationship with parts of the gay community. On account of her extravagant make-up, fake eyelashes, and one-of-a-kind approach to fashion, Tammy Faye became somewhat of an ironic cult-hero and icon among some segments of the gay community, especially among drag-queens and cross-dressers. They identified with her on a superficial level, but also on a deeper level. Who was the real Tammy Faye Bakker?

In a most surreal way, Tammy Faye’s theology changed when she was featured on a reality TV show called The Surreal Life in which eccentric B-, C-, and D-list celebrities are filmed living in a house together. At first, Tammy Faye was prepared to decline the offer to appear on the show because she didn’t want to mix with “sinners.” Then, she had a kind of awakening, realizing that God’s love should lead us to meet people where they are. Her theology morphed into one that was far less judgmental, more accepting, and one in which she had something to offer and something to learn from those “sinners.” I’ve never watched it, but it is said that on this show she came across as practically saintly, or at least mature. Her interactions with the other people on the show were humane, compassionate, caring, and understanding.

A colleague of mine, a Unitarian Universalist minister, went to hear her preach in Tulsa, Oklahoma in a few years ago. Theologically, she was still very much a Christian. She had a personal relationship with Jesus. She now responded to her faith by living non-judgmentally, by seeing those around her as children of God, and by having a special compassion and message of hope and encouragement to those wracked with disease.

Tammy Faye went from being the object of ridicule and a punch line to many an off-color joke to an inspired, courageous, and whole person.

The second person I want to focus on is far more obscure and unlikely than Tammy Faye Bakker Messner. I’d wager that most of you have never heard of him unless you happen to be a baseball fan, and even then. The man I am speaking of is a relief pitcher named Rod Beck. He played thirteen seasons in the majors with the San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs, Boston Red Sox, and San Diego Padres. He was a 3-time All Star, racked up 286 saves (good for 23rd all time) and earned a cool 26 million dollars during his playing career. By 2004 at age 35, injuries and wear and tear had taken their toll on his body and he was washed up and out of the major leagues for a second time.

The other thing worth saying about Rod Beck is that he was one of the more colorful players in the game. He was a big dude with a big gut. He wore his hair in a mullet and was perhaps most recognized for his Fu Manchu moustache. His nickname “Shooter” was a nickname that fit him. In fact, he seemed more likely to be a member of a Harley Davidson motorcycle gang than a baseball player.

For those of you who are thinking to yourselves that I am abusing my ministerial privilege a bit here by going on and on about a good, but by no means great, baseball player, I want to switch up the focus a little bit. I want to talk about the time after he washed out of the major leagues the first time. It is not a happy story, or a heroic story. A remarkable article describes Beck’s days after he washed out of the Major Leagues for the first time.

He wouldn’t give up the dream. After the first time he washed out of the majors, he accepted a position on the roster of the Cubs minor league team in Des Moines and bought an RV that he parked behind the wall in centerfield. His walk to work was about 100 steps. There he entertained his teammates, curious fans, anybody who wanted to come and hang out. Dozens of strangers every night just made themselves at home in his camper, hanging out and talking baseball as Beck waited for a major league team that would be willing to take a chance on him.

That chance came but his comeback was cut short and he retired for good. As far as I can tell, he didn’t donate his millions to an orphanage or to cancer research. This is not one of those types of stories. Rod Beck was not a healthy guy. He drank a lot more than he should have, smoked, and several articles on his death implied that he also abused harder, illicit drugs. He was found dead at his home in Arizona at age 38.

So, why do I bring up Rod Beck, of all the worthy souls I might have focused upon? He didn’t exemplify Unitarian Universalist values in some exemplary way. He was not some great humanitarian. He was a tragic figure, with quite a bit of self-destructiveness thrown in. But, his life calls to mind certain lessons. While living in his RV behind the center field wall of the minor league baseball stadium in Des Moines, someone asked Beck about his desire to continue playing. He replied, “If plumbing was a sport, all those guys would be on TV and I’d be working 9 to 5 playing baseball. And it wouldn’t mean a difference to me at all?”

Have you ever felt that way about what you do? How many of us have ever had to leave what we loved the most? How many of us, having discovered that one thing that the universe intended for us to do and blessed us with the ability to do well have ever had to stop doing that thing? I speak not only of work, of professions and vocations. The idea of retirement, whether you are a 33 year-old ballplayer or you are in your sixties or seventies, is a scary notion for many people. But it happens in other ways. A great singer loses her voice. A cycling enthusiast is diagnosed with degenerative arthritis. A reader loses her eyesight. A world traveler becomes too frail to travel.

This is the reason I selected Beck’s life. It is not that he was a colorful ballplayer. It is that he was an example of human living, one who struggled with transition, with letting go, with moving on. We can learn something from his story.

We can learn something from TV evangelist, fallen from grace, who in the face of her own mortality discovers a faith worthy of life.

We can learn something from the ballplayer who strained and strained to reach the summits of competitive achievement just one more time.

We can learn something from all these stories. These poets and artists. These musicians and actors. These athletes and inventors. These politicians and professors. These lives. These lives among so many worthy lives deserving of our remembering.

Closing Words
When Kurt Vonnegut passed away in April 2007, one of my favorite websites, The Onion AV Club, ran a memorial tribute to him. One of their features is a weekly list, and on April 24, 2007 they posted an article called “Fifteen things Kurt Vonnegut said better than anyone else ever has or will.” I leave you this day with a few of those fifteen things:

On conflict, he wrote: "There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, [or] to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too."

On Theology, he wrote: "She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is doing."

On Gratitude, he wrote, "I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'"

On Relationships, he wrote, "There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind."

And finally, on Perseverance and Perspective, Vonnegut offered these three immortal words, “So it goes.” So it goes, indeed. Life and death, days and years. How blessed we are. Amen.

[The following list of Notable People Who Died in 2007 was included in the Order of Service. A feature on Wikipedia was immensely helpful in assembling this list.]

Notable People Who Died in 2007

Brooke Astor (105) American philanthropist, novelist, and socialite
Jean Baudrillard (77) French post-modernist philosopher and sociologist
Rod Beck (38) Colorful relief pitcher for Giants, Cubs, and Red Sox
Chris Benoit (40) Professional wrestler, steroid abuser, and murderer
Ingmar Bergman (89) Swedish film director and 3 time Oscar winner
Benazir Bhutto (54) Twice Pakistani Prime Minister. Assassinated while running for office
Scott “Bam Bam” Bigelow (45) Professional wrestler known for tattooed head
Joey Bishop (89) Comedian and last-surviving member of Sinatra’s Rat Pack
Philip Booth (81) Accomplished poet and professor
Art Buchwald (81) Pulitzer winning humorist and political satirist
Bobby Byrd (73) Funk/soul singer was side-man for James Brown
Robert Cade (80) Inventor of Gatorade sports-energy drink
Sri Chinmoy (76) Indian guru/philosopher known for feats of strength
Liz Claiborne (78) Fashion designer and entrepreneur
Jo Ann Davis (57) US Rep. from Virginia since 2001; died from breast cancer
Brad Delp (55) Lead singer of 70’s rock band “Boston”
Vincent DeDomenico (92) Inventor of “Rice-a-Roni”
Mary Douglas (86) Brilliant British social anthropologist; author of “Purity and Danger”
Robert Drinan (86) First Catholic Priest to serve in US Congress. Called for impeachment of Nixon
Kevin DuBrow (52) Lead singer for rock-metal band “Quiet Riot”
Thomas Eagleton (77) 3-term Senator from Missouri; kicked off ticket as McGovern’s running mate in the 1972 Presidential election.
Lillian Ellison (84) Pioneering female professional wrestler the “Fabulous Moolah”
Bob Evans (89) Founder of eponymous restaurant chain
Jerry Falwell (73) Fundamentalist minister and co-founder of “Moral Majority”
Dan Fogelberg (56) Folk singer-songwriter
Robert Goulet (73) Actor and singer; caught break playing Sir Lancelot in “Camelot”
Ruth Graham (87) Wife of evangelist Billy Graham
Merv Griffin (83) Television personality and creator of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune
David Halberstam (73) Pulizter winning journalist and author. Wrote 21 books about Vietnam, politics, economics, history, culture and sports
Josh Hancock (29) Baseball pitcher for St. Louis Cardinals. Died while drunk driving
Johnny Hart (76) American cartoonist best known for “B.C.” comic-strip
Lee Hazlewood (78) Country recording artist and songwriter. Nancy Sinatra collaborator
Leona Helmsley (87) Flamboyant and ruthless real-estate/hotel billionaire and tax evader
Joe Herzenberg (66) North Carolina politician and gay rights activist
Don Ho (76) Hawaiian musician and entertainer known for song “Tiny Bubbles”
Henry Hyde (83) Conservative congressman from Illinois served from 1975-2007
Molly Ivins (62) Populist newspaper columnist and best-selling author from Texas
Richard Jewell (44) Security guard suspected then vindicated of ’96 Olympic bombing
Lady Bird Johnson (94) First Lady and wife of LBJ
Robert Jordan (58) Renowned fantasy author of “Wheel of Time” series
Bruce Kennedy (68) For 12 years the CEO of Alaska Airlines (1979-1991)
James Kennedy (76) Televangelist and founder of Coral Ridge Ministries
Yolanda King (51) Eldest child of MLK, Jr.; actress; activist for gay rights and peace
Evel Knievel (69) Stuntman known for daring motorcycle jumps
Hilly Kristal (75) Owner of famous New York punk/rock club CBGB
Madeleine L’Engle (88) Author of young adult fiction; most know for A Wrinkle in Time
Richard Leigh (64) Co-author of Holy Blood and Holy Grail. Unsuccessful in plagiarism lawsuit against Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown
Ira Levin (78) Author of Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives
Charles Lindberg (86) Last surviving US Marine who helped raise flag at Battle of Iwo Jima
Peter Lipton (53) Brilliant philosopher most known for his work on scientific theory
Norman Mailer (84) Macho author and Pulitzer winning journalist; wrote “The Naked and the Dead”
Marcel Marceau (84) World-famous French mime
Tammy Faye (Bakker) Messner (65) Televangelist wife of Jim Bakker and felon in the PTL scandal. Known for outrageous make-up. Later became theologically liberal
Bruce Metzger (93) Princeton Biblical scholar who chaired translation of NSRV Bible
Richard Musgrave (96) Influential economist in 1950s and 1960s
Ralph Myers (90) Local architect who designed Chiefs/Royals sports complex
Grace Paley (84) Short story author, poet, and activist for nuclear non-proliferation
Luciano Pavarotti (71) Italian opera singer was one of The Three Tenors
Phil Rizzuto (89) NY Yankees Hall of Fame shortstop and later sports announcer
Max Roach (83) Jazz drummer for Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and many more
Richard Rorty (75) Prolific philosopher of pragmatism, liberalism, etc.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (89) Historian, social critic, and speechwriter for JFK
Les Schwab (89) Businessman founded eponymous chain of tire stores
Joy Simonson (88) Washington D.C. based advocate for women’s rights
Anna Nicole Smith (39) Tabloid celebrity was sex-symbol, model, and actress
Kelsey Smith (18) Overland Park teenager and murder victim
William Sturtevant (80) American Smithsonian Institution curator
Sean Taylor (24) Football star for Washington Redskins. Murder victim
Hank Thompson (82) Country / Honky-Tonk recording artist for six decades
Paul Tibbets (92) Pilot of the Enola Gay in WWII; dropped Atomic bomb on Hiroshima
Ike Turner (76) With Tina an influential blues, soul, and funk musician and producer. Musical legacy tarnished by history of domestic violence and legal trouble
Chad Varah (95) Anglican priest; founded the Samaritans suicide prevention hotline
Kurt Vonnegut (84) Prolific and distinctive author; works included Cat’s Cradle, Slaughterhouse 5, Breakfast of Champions, and Man Without a Country
Mike Wieringo (44) Comic artist worked on “Flash” and “Fantastic Four” comics
Bill Walsh (75) NFL coach won 3 Super Bowls with San Francisco 49ers
Donda West (58) Mother of hip-hop artist Kanye West; English prof. at U of Chicago
John Woodruff (92) Gold-medalist for US track & field team at 1936 Berlin Olympics
Jane Wyman (90) Oscar-winner and soap opera actress; first wife of Ronald Reagan
Boris Yeltsin (76) Two-term President of Russia (1991-1999)
Robert Young (83) 5-term U.S. Congressman (1977-1987) from Missouri

SMUUCh Members:
Betty Friauf
George R. Young

US Military Deaths
921 in Iraq
116 in Afghanistan

Opening Words
It is late Summer on a farm not far from here. The children all head back to school and when they do all of the barnyard animals are lonely without the children to play with. So they decide to take a field trip to the local library. The horse walks in and says “Neigh.” The librarian answers that she doesn’t understand what the horse is saying. Next, the pig walks in and oinks. The librarian answers that she does understand. Finally, the chicken walks in and says, “Book-book-book.”

“Aha!” the librarian exclaims and soon the animals are headed back to the farm with a copy of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. They entertain themselves reading the book except for the frog, who pouts and frowns. The other animals ask the frog what has him feeling down. The frog responds, “Read it, read it.”

For those of you who don’t know, I am a voracious reader. It was my New Years Resolution last year to read a book each week, a goal I achieved. Recently, I told one of the members of our 30-somethings group about this goal. Unimpressed, he told me he read twenty books per week, but then admitted that they were all titled, Goodnight Moon.

In our faith as Unitarian Universalists, we do not draw inspiration from a single Good Book, but from many good books, as well as inspiration from experience, nature, other religious traditions, and science. Today, we focus on that source of learning and insight that comes from books.

In this week between Christmas and New Years, it is a great joy to take out a blanket and to cozy up with a good book. Let us cozy up this morning, encounter characters we do not know, and explore new worlds together.


Sermon
Each year on the Sunday after Christmas I preach on a book that our fiction book club challenges me to read. The book they assigned me was Jamesland by Michelle Huneven. Set in Los Angeles, the novel explores the intersection of three different lives. One character is Pete Ross, a mentally ill and misanthropic gourmet chef. A second character, Alice Black, is the great-great granddaughter of William James. Alice is in her early thirties and is stuck working at a slummy bar and dating a married man who dumps her in the book’s opening pages. The William James connection provides a mystical aura around Alice’s life. Alice’s eccentric aunt holds regular conversations with William James’ ghost. Our third character is Helen Harland, a middle-aged Unitarian Universalist minister serving a small church that she can’t stand.

So, I thought there were several directions I could take this sermon. Perhaps, I imagined, you would love to hear about William James – the late 19th century psychologist, philosopher, and religious scholar. So, I picked up Robert Richardson’s brand new book on James, William Jams and the Maelstrom of American Modernism, and I am actually planning on reading all 600 pages of it at some point. Or maybe you would want to hear more about Pete the chef. So, I dug out my copy of the Joy of Cooking. I bet you didn’t know that Irma Rombauer, the author of the Joy of Cooking, was a Unitarian?

Of course, the other option is that I could focus on Rev. Helen Harland and her relationship with her church, but none of you would be interested in that.

In fact, I surmise that is why the book club selected this title: it is not very often that you find a mainstream novel where one of the protagonists is a Unitarian Universalist minister and where terms like “The 7 Principles” and “The Flaming Chalice” get referenced in a matter of fact way. Indeed, all through the novel the references to Unitarian Universalism appear in the most matter-of-fact ways, as if they don’t require explanation for the general reading public.

So, let me talk a little bit about Helen’s church for a little while, because I think that is what the Book Club wants me to do.

While it is very cool that a mainstream novel would feature Unitarian Universalism so prominently, it is unfortunate that the church doesn’t come across a little bit better. Helen’s relationship with her church is strained and uneasy. She follows a long time pastorate of an older male minister who took a laissez-affaire attitude to the church in general. Helen’s predecessor is mostly remembered for the long hours he spent tending his rose garden on the church premises.

By contrast, Helen is energetic, evangelistic about the UU faith, and, according to her many detractors, too fond of “spiritual language.” She is also meddlesome in the committee life of the church and leaders feel like she is trying to change the way they do things. In fact, she IS trying to change the ways they do things.

The focus of the conflict soon centers, soon focalizes, on a series of mid-week spiritual services that Helen institutes. These vesper-style services are more overtly spiritual than Sunday’s services. For Helen they are an outlet for the types of worship that she couldn’t get away with on Sunday morning. Her own congregation mostly takes no interest in these services and the mid-week services begin to attract a different demographic to her congregation.

In what I find to be the most telling interchange between Helen and her congregation, the membership committee gets wind of the fact that Helen is bringing the membership book to these mid-week services and inviting new people to join the community. The membership committee is irate. Their toes have been stepped on and they complain to the board. Rev. Harland apologizes and invites a membership committee member to come to the midweek services to help new folks join the church. The membership committee responds that they are overburdened and couldn’t possibly add this extra task to their duties. Helen says that she is just trying to bring new faces into the church. The membership committee replies that their job is not to get new people to join; their job is to screen prospective members to make sure that only the right types of people join. They forbid her from bringing the membership book to the mid-week services. Rev. Harland accepts those limitations and then heads straight to a stationary store to purchase a second membership book that SHE will get to control and bring wherever she darn-well pleases.

I hope I’m not scaring you by talking about this dysfunctional, conflict-ridden fictional church. Some of the members of the book club said they were disturbed when they read about the relationship between Helen and the congregation she serves. To them it seemed so different from their experience here at SMUUCh. I’m glad for that. I also need to say that there are a whole lot of UU church’s like the one in this novel, and some that are even worse.

A few comments on the relationship between Rev. Harland and the congregation she serves. During my first year here I repeated the mantra over and over again that most conflicts in churches are caused by breakdowns in communication. One person steps on another’s foot. Another person undoes what another has done. An email causes emotions to explode. A comment is misconstrued. A change is made and someone is not notified. People fail to talk directly to each other about how they feel. There is that old saying, “A tongue is very light, but nobody can seem to hold it.”

Now, I want to change my mantra. Conflicts in church are either about breakdowns in communication or struggles for power and often both. Communication itself, after all, is an exercise of power. But it is clear to me that Helen is involved in a power struggle with her congregation. She has a vision for her ministry that does not fit the laissez-affaire, rose-tending approach to ministry of her beloved predecessor. She is excited about bringing new people into the church. The church wants to remain a club. The church gets their way, by the way; while she is on vacation towards the end of her first year they vote to fire her.

I want to make a bold and perhaps unwise statement about these types of conflict. That bold statement is that in a clash of wills between a minister and a congregation, the minister (if they choose to) can get their way nine times out of ten. Yes, I actually just said it! The reason that this is the case is simple. A minister’s normal work-week is sixty hours. A heavy work week is seventy hours. Eighty-plus hour work-weeks are not unheard of. If the minister is focused, determined, and driven the minister will figure out a way to make happen what they want to see happen. The minister can simply throw more hours at a problem than any volunteer could ever muster. But, there is an important caution to attach to this bold statement. The caution, as anyone who has ever been in a relationship knows, is that getting your way has consequences. Winning the battle can mean losing the war, so speak. Getting your way can cause an awful lot of collateral damage. As one of my senior colleagues puts it, “You have to choose which hill you want to die on.” Getting your way can cause a whole lot of damage.

A second bold statement I want to make is that in the book the church gets the majority of the blame, but the story is biased to make Helen seem flawless and this just isn’t the case. Her failure is a failure to love them. If a minister does not love their church, the ministry will not last. It is important to love your faith, but that is not enough. It is important to love the holy, but that is not enough. It is important to love your calling, but that is not enough. It is important to love your vision of what the church may become, but that isn’t enough either. You’ve got to love the congregation for the ministry to last. That does not mean taking a laissez-affaire approach or not challenging the congregation or not working for change. But if the congregation does not feel loved, the minister will find frustration rather than success. That is, in my opinion, what happens to her ministry in the novel.

That really wasn’t where I had planned to go. But, now that I have introduced the theme of love, I want to talk about the book, the story, in wider terms than just dwelling on the politics within a fictional church.

What Jamesland is about, I want to suggest, is how to love those that are difficult to love. I will talk about this in the context of the novel but then put the book aside and speak in more general terms.

In the novel our three main characters – Rev. Helen Harland, Alice Black, and Pete Ross – each struggle with loneliness and isolation. I’ve just spent a bunch of time bashing Helen, but now I want to speak about her with admiration. She is fantastic with dealing with loneliness. She is seeking a network of friendship outside of congregational life and seems to have this magnetism that attracts everyone she comes into contact with. (She is way more extroverted than I.) And Helen does make the mistake of trying to assemble these people into a second congregation, but then again, she IS a minister. Pete Ross is lonely, isolated, and mentally ill. He is also socially boorish and confrontational, pushing people away with his sarcasm and hyper-critical nature. What is surprising is his ability to bond with those who are very bad off. He enjoys walking down by the river and visiting the homeless inhabitants of the tent cities of Los Angeles. He is surprisingly friendly to an eccentric, cross-dressing prostitute. Alice is more difficult to peg down. She comes across as struggling between a reclusive existence and participation in community. She tends to be standoffish and suspicious and to have a keen eye for the faults of others.

Together though, these three become “friends by shame undefiled.” They seem to open themselves up to each other in ways that diminish the personal faults they each possess.

There is a reading from the back of our hymnal by Ralph Waldo Emerson where Emerson writes, “How many person we meet in houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we honor and who honor us! How many we see in the street, or sit with in church, whom though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with!”

If there was a central point to take away from Jamesland, I think Emerson’s words here might nicely sum that point up. Connection is all around us if only we could put away our stubbornness, our delusions, our fantasies, our sarcasm, our hyper-critical instincts, our prejudices, and just find a way to rejoice with the persons we meet. Reflexively, I wonder if the act of reading helps us to expand our hearts. I wonder if encountering characters like Helen, Pete, and Alice help us to encounter and honor each other, in houses, in the street, in church. I hope so. Amen

Benediction by Ken Patton
“We arrive out of many singular rooms, walking over the branching streets. We come to be assured that brothers and sisters surround us, to restore their images on our eyes. We enlarge our voices in common speaking and singing. We try again that solitude found in the midst of those who with us seek their hidden reckonings. Our eyes reclaim the remembered faces; their voices stir the surrounding air. The warmth of their hands assures us, and the gladness of our spoken names. This is the reason of cities, of homes, of assemblies in the houses of worship. It is good to be with one another.”

I was asked to make an appearance as "Thom the Juggler" at our Family Fellowship Christmas Party. Unfortunately, it had to be cancelled due to inclement weather, but an abbreviated version of the party was held between our worship services on December 23. I couldn't help but perform what was to be my grand finale! (Thanks J.T. for the great photos!)




Yes, that's me juggling machetes while eating an apple!

I had so much fun putting together my reading list and essay for 2007, that I decided to make the 2008 list an ongoing project. So, here is how 2008 is shaping up reading-wise so far:

Books Finished

1) Bowl of Cherries - a novel by Millard Kaufman (326 pages)

Eat your heart out Holden Caulfield! This coming-of-age novel tells the tale of Judd Breslau, kicked out of the Ph.D. program in English literature at Yale at age 14. ABD (all but dissertation), Breslau takes up residence with a burned out Egyptologist, his captivating daughter, and his stable of washed up academics. Judd's life journeys then take him to Colorado, to New York City, and, finally, to an obscure Iraqi province where he awaits punishment for a capital offense. The story is witty, satirical, and epic.

What makes this story all the more remarkable is that it is the first novel by the 90 year-old Kaufman. (The dust jacket says he is at work on his second novel.) Plus, I have read only one other author, David Foster Wallace, who matches Kaufman's grand and enormous vocabulary. Bring your dictionary and prepare to be amazed. A book this unusual could only be published by the great people at McSweeney's.

2) After - poetry by Jane Hirshfield (93 pages)

I am going to say something heretical here. I like Jane Hirshfield better than Mary Oliver. While Oliver's nature poetry is about revelation, Hirshfield conceals as much as she reveals. Her poems are ethereal, beautiful, and often imbue the world with mystery. Her poems do not exclusively deal with nature, but those poems are among her best. Check out her poem: The Woodpecker Keeps Returning.

3) McSweeney's Volume 21 (279 pages)

This issue of McSweeney's featured 14 short stories, most of them loosely themed around the emergence of one's honest and authentic self (for better or for worse). Of particular note are Rajesh Parameswaran's story of a man with a fake medical practice, Christian Winn's story of a fistfight with a Mormon missionary, and especially Greg Ames' story of a mellow guy who gets more than he bargains for when he begins a relationship with a vivacious woman and tries to decide whether and how he will stand up to her dangerous ex(?)-boyfriend. Also, fantastic stories about forensic canine taxonomy in South America, haunted baby-strollers, and a hilarious Good Samaritan story involving rattlesnakes and weddings.

4) Worship that Works: Theory & Practice for Unitarian Universalists - by Wayne Arnason and Kathleen Rolenz (176 pages)

This is a book that I will post more about later as I am reviewing it for the Spring UUMA Newsletter and plan to cross-post that review on my blog. This book is the result of a sabbatical by the co-ministers of the West Shore Unitarian Church in Cleveland. They took a cross-country road-trip experiencing the best transformational worship services - both UU and non-UU - that our country has to offer and wrote this book about what they discovered. At first I wondered how they could do justice to their subject in less than 200 pages, but the book manages to be packed with substance without being dense. Of particular note were sections of the book in which they offered a theoretical and theological framework for understanding the various parts of UU liturgy, from announcements to candles of joy & concern to prayer and meditation. In writing it in a style that is accessible to lay-people, these two colleagues have done our movement a great favor!

5) Did I Say that Out Loud? - meditations by Meg Barnhouse (110 pages)

I had the pleasure of sitting next to Meg Barnhouse during the Service of the Living Tradition as last June's UUA General Assembly in Portland, Oregon. Since then, this is the second book of meditations by her that I have read. Her short pieces are usually hilarious (a meditation on the theological significance of seeing a goat riding in the back of a pickup truck) and occasionally fierce (a piece about being asked to perform a baptism for a family member at a church that is extremely sexist.) As a UU minister in South Carolina, a Southern flavor manages to creep into much of her writing. At other times, she captures odd moments perfectly well, like when she works out a deep significant meaning from a line from Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" only to discover later that she had misheard the line. One line from one of her mediations sums up this book quite nicely: "The present moment is my wealth." It is a wealth she seems completely incapable of squandering.

6) McSweeney's Volume 13 (264 pages)

OK, you shouldn't hold it against me that Volume 13 of McSweeney's was 264 pages of comics by many of today's most creative independent cartooists. After all, I am trying to read the whole McSweeney's catalogue and it would be elitist to skip this volume because it is filled with comics. Plus, there are also some incredible nuggets thrown in besides like an essay on the influence of cartooning on the abstract expressionist painter Philip Guston, an exploration of the last, unfinished Peanut's comic strip, and a piece on how Michael Chabon, author of the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, became interested in comics.

7) Letters to a Young Poet - by Rainer Maria Rilke (121 pages)

As part of my reading discipline, each year I try to read a couple of "classics" that I've never previously read. In that spirit, I picked up Rilke's most famous work, from which I've quoted innumerable times at weddings and during worship services, but never read in its entirety. I went into it expecting something transcendent and earth-shattering. It didn't live up to my lofty expectations; in fact, it was somewhat flat.

8) This Book Will Save Your Life - a novel by A.M. Homes (372 pages)

This is the sixth book I've read by A.M. Homes. The only books by her that I've not read are her two earliest novels and a travel memoir. Eventually, I plan to finish off her entire oeuvre.

While reading TBWSYL, I couldn't help imagining that some English major at UCLA or USC is working on a term paper, or maybe a thesis, in which she is contrasting this book with Michele Huneven's Jamesland. The two books are remarkably similar. Both are resurrection tales of lonely, empty, desperate lives returned to wholeness. Both are set in the City of Angels. Both feature restaurant openings. Both have threads of natural supernaturalism running through them: In Jamesland it is the ghost of William James and a recurrent deer motif. In This Book Will Save Your Life there's meditation, sinkholes, wild-fires, feral Chihuahuas, and a saber-toothed tiger roaming the city.

We should find Richard Novak (50-ish, divorced, estranged from his family, super-wealthy, and paying for all his human contact) loathsome. Instead, we find ourselves pulling for him at every turn. The author allows us to feel for a character who we would otherwise see as a stereotype.

9) The Death of Adam - essays by Marilynne Robinson (263 pages)

In honor of Women's History Month, I plan to read exclusively books by women this month with the probable exception of a volume of McSweeney's with contributions by male and female authors. I could scarcely have started with a better choice than this collection of essays on modern thought by Marilynne Robinson.

I had the great delight of meeting her in the Spring of 2006 when she spoke at a conference I attended in Iowa City, where she resides and teaches at the prestigious Iowa Writer's Workshop. She is an intellectual giant.

It is worth noting that 25 years passed between her debut novel, Housekeeping, and her second, the superb novel Gilead. She writes like someone who would take 25 years between novels. Each word of every essay is exact, deliberate, precise, and intentional. As a whole, these essays are indispensable to anyone who would like to be considered thoughtful about the world in which we live. Robinson's introduction is a bold and shaming essay declaring that we are ignorant about the great books that shape our world - The Bible, Calvin's The Institutes, Darwin's writings - precisely because we have not read them and permitted others' flawed interpretations of them to dominate our thinking.

She follows this by moving directly to her most important essay of the collection, a scathing critique of Darwinism that I universally recommend. In the ten subsequent essays, she rescues the term "reality" from those who use it to construct a hegemony of thought and does battle with free-market capitalism in her essay on "Family." Later essays are particularly devoted to rescuing the figure of John Calvin whose bad rap, she argues, is undeserved. Her concluding essay, "The Tyranny of Petty Coercion," is inspiring of courage.

The Death of Adam was originally published in 1998 and most of her essays were composed in the mid-90's. It has been a long decade and that pre-9/11, pre-Iraq War world seems more distant than it really is. Thus, her essays leave certain things unsaid that, had they been written yesterday, would have certainly merited comment. I am left to wonder whether Robinson would change these essays or just more strongly emphasize them if she were to revise them for the current day. Whatever she did to them would certainly be worth reading.

[We interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you this news: today I received a box in the mail from a man named Jim McGorman who lives in Pennsylvania. Jim sold me seven out-of-print volumes of McSweeneys. Now, I've added volumes 4-10 to my collection. They are beautiful! Volume 8 is guest edited by Paul Maliszewski, Volume 10 is guest edited by Michael Chabon, and Volume 6 contains an original CD by the band They Might Be Giants. Jim McGorman is a very cool photographer and film maker whose films have been featured on Wholphin which is put out by McSweeneys. You can watch his film, "A Taste of Nate", here. But don't confuse him with this Jim McGorman, also from Pennsylvania, who is in Avril Lavigne's back up band.]

10) Famous Fathers - short stories by Pia Z. Ehrhardt (166 pages)

I first encountered the writing of Pia Z. Ehrhardt (what a name!) in the 2004 book The Future Dictionary of America in which the words she invented were hilarious and clever. I later read her short stories in McSweeneys (where else?) This collection contains 11 short stories mostly set in and around New Orleans and mostly about various kinds of adultery and infidelity. They allow us a beautiful and disturbing glimpse into characters' longings, temptations, rationalizations, and desperations. The story "A Man" which is not set in Louisiana and does not deal with infidelity (I think) is probably one of the most haunting stories I have read in quite some time.

11) 365 Ways to Criticize the Preacher - a short novel by Pat Jobe (120 pages)

To the contrary of what I had assumed, Rev. Pat Jobe is not a woman. (Oops!) He is a United Methodist minister in North Carolina who has written a book with an irresistible title! 365 Ways... chronicles a year of diary entries by Beverly Roberts, a 70-year old church lady who hates her minister. The first entry is a litany of all the things wrong with the children's Christmas pageant. Her January 1 entry reads, "My new year's resolution is to keep Rev. Chister on his toes. If I always let him know when folks need a visit or a comforting word, he'll appreciate all my help. Or if he doesn't, he'll hear about it." By March she is cutting her pledge. By April she is trying to gather a majority of the Deacons Board to fire Rev. Chister.

There are issues of plausibility in the portrait painted of Beverly Roberts. Her racism, xenophobia, and sexism are a bit too strong. Similarly, her "conversion" raises the question of how people actually do change their ways. Do changes happen suddenly or gradually? Are there miraculous transformations or do changes happen only over a period of time and with lots of effort?

Despite its many shortcomings, 365 Ways... is a valuable reminder of how anger, meanness, and destructive behaviors so often stem from our own unresolved pain and trauma.

12) Prophetic Sisterhood: Liberal Women Ministers of the Frontier, 1880-1930 - a history by Cynthia Grant Tucker (240 pages)

In preparation for my March 16th Women's History Month sermon I read this history of midwestern women who were Unitarian ministers in the late 19th Century. My sermon contains a lot more information about this book, but let me just make one comment: as a UU living in the Midwest this book described theological tensions and social realities that I still recognize today. Our history does help us to understand ourselves.

13c) McSweeney's Volume 26: Where to Invade Next (80 pages)

The 26th volume of McSweeney's arrived in three pieces. It contained two booklets of short-stories and a hard-bound book(let) bearing the title Where to Invade Next. The epigraph is a quote from General Wesley Clark:

"About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, 'Sir, you've got to come in and talk to me a second.' I said, 'Well, you're too busy.' He said, 'No, no.' He says, 'We've made the decision we're going to war with Iraq.' This was on or about the twentieth of September...

"So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing Afghanistan. I said, 'Are we still going to war with Iraq?' And he said, 'Oh, it's worse than that.' He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, 'I just got this down from upstairs' - meaning the Secretary of Defense's office - 'today.' And he said, 'This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years.'"

McSweeny's is a liberal press. Where to Invade Next is written in the voice and from the perspective of a neo-conservative Pentagon insider. It makes the case for pre-emptive war with Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Syria, Sudan, and North Korea. It is a chilling read. Inside the isolated logic of this book, it seems not only wise, but imperative, to "take out" these seven countries. McSweeney's has done it again by producing an innovative and affecting piece of experimental writing.

14) Housekeeping - a novel by Marilynne Robinson (219 pages)

Written 25 years before her second novel, Gilead, Housekeeping describes the childhood of two sisters raised alternately by a grandmother, a pair of great aunts, and an aunt in the Northwest town of Fingerbone. Like everything else that Marilynne Robinson writes, this novel features her always meticulous language. It is as if every single word is intentionally and carefully placed on the page. (A random side-note: While reading it, I thought often of my visit to Kansas City's Steamship Arabia museum.)

13a & 13b) McSweeney's 26 (235 pages)

As a companion to Where to Invade Next (see 13c above) McSweeney's 26 also contained two volumes of short stories. Both volumes contain present-day short stories but are packaged to model World War II-era Armed Services Editions released by the Council of Books in Wartime. (During the 1940's more than 1,300 pocket sized titles were released and there is even an account of a soldier who had been shot in the ankle who pulled out his armed services edition of Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop while waiting for help to arrive. Who knew?) Each story is also fronted by a reproduction of a winning work of art entered into the National Army Arts Contest in 1945. (Again, who knew?)

In my opinion, the best of the featured short stories are "Porcus Omnivorus" - a tale about an unusual encounter by a pair of Bosnian Muslims who have moved to the United States, "Moving Crucifixion" - a story of internet dating deceit in the United Arab Emirates, and "How Jesus Comes" - the story of a highschool track & field team's encounter with a tornado in 1976.

15) Coyotes – by Lauray Yule (61 pages)

In mid-April I got to spend a week in the high desert of New Mexico. I was meeting with the Unitarian Universalist Minister’s Association Executive Committee at Ghost Ranch, now a Presbyterian retreat center and once home to Georgia O’Keefe. My time in the Southwest was very enjoyable and included the opportunity to see wildlife such as mule deer, elk, wild turkey, as well as a wide array of bird species. On top of this, the land was simply breathtaking.

As a souvenir I bought this short book about coyotes, an animal that I became fascinated with after reading UU minister Webster Kitchell’s coyote books. One interesting factoid I learned from the book: Coyotes and badgers have been known to form cooperative hunting partnerships, combining the badgers’ excellent digging skills and the coyotes’ speed in order to catch burrowing rodents.

Unfortunately, I did not get to see any coyotes while I was in New Mexico. However, it turned out that I was an American Airlines casualty and due to flight cancellations I had to take the train home to Kansas City from Albuquerque. Riding in the lounge car, writing my sermon, I periodically gazed out the window at the spectacular terrain. In the late dusk I peered out the window and glimpsed a four-legged silvery ghost running across a field. I would like to believe it was a coyote.

And, what would a coyote be without a road-runner? I took this picture on the streets of Albuquerque a block or two from the University of New Mexico.

16) Trading Up: Why Customers Want New Luxury Goods and How Companies Create Them – a business book by Michael J. Silverstein and Neil Fiske (284 pages)

On earlier reading blogs I mentioned that I intentionally try to diversify my reading by including books from different genres in my yearly reading list. Each year I try to read at least one business book.

Why are people willing to pay 2.5 times the cost of bottle of Budweiser for a bottle of Sam Adams? Why do people pay premiums for products as diverse as wine, coffee, and beer to home appliances to cars to lingerie to golf clubs? This book chronicles the "trading up" phenomenon and the habits of consumers who purchase "New Luxury" items. The answer is more complicated than, "Well Sam Adams tastes a lot better than Bud."

Sociologically, I found this book to be fascinating. One observation is that people don't spend with consistency. People in the middle-class "trade up" in some areas and "trade down" in others. The book mentions a woman in her twenties who spends hundreds of dollars on undergarments from Victoria's Secret but buys generic in almost every other category. Some people will drive a BMW but eat Ramen noodles. The business success of ritzy companies is intimately tied to the ability to buy cheap at Wal-Mart.

At other times I cringed. The book spoke about how people are turning to expensive products in order to sooth pain and escape loneliness. One person spoke of her expensive washer and dryer this way, "They are our mechanical buddies. They have personality. It's cool when they are all lit up and you are at the end of the cycle. The washer and dryer are the domestic hub. When they are running efficiently, our lives are running efficiently. They are a part of my family." Yikes! Talk about confirming my deepest, darkest fears about materialism and consumerism.

I did have one thought all throughout reading this book. I wondered, forgive me the blasphemy of asking, if this book had any relevance to church life. If you are a person in the business world or a minister who has read this book, I'd love to ask you this question.

17) Diva Julia: The Public Romance and Private Agony of Julia Ward Howe - a biography by Valarie Ziegler (171 pages)

Things I knew about Julia Ward Howe before I read this book: Unitarian, author of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic", inventor of Mother's Day, outspoken pacifist and suffragette, wife of Samuel Gridley Howe who was famous for his work with the blind.

Things I didn't know about Julia Ward Howe until I read this book: how filled with drama her personal life was, that she forced herself to study foreign languages by tying herself to a chair, that she relaxed from the hectic demands of motherhood by reading Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason(!)

Recurring thought: If the story of the Howe family (or the Ward family) were made into a movie, it might strongly resemble the movie The Royal Tenenbaums. In fact, I would be greatly tempted to cast Anjelica Huston as Julia Ward Howe.

18) The Holy Man - spiritual writings by Susan Trott (173 pages)

My colleague Rick Davis who serves the UU congregation in Salem, Oregon introduced me to this book. It is a light read about a famous monk who lives at a hermitage on top of a mountain who dispenses wise advice from the Buddhist and Christian traditions to the throngs of pilgrims who come to seek answers to the questions of life. With a meandering, episodic plot I found it to be warm and humorous although it did leave me short of enlightenment.

19) Every War Has Two Losers – an anthology of writings on peace and war by William Stafford (164 pages)

I read this book in preparation for my Memorial Day sermon. It was my mother who influenced me to look into the writings of Stafford. She read a poem by him, "At the Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Border" at her church's Easter sunrise service. Stafford, a Kansas native and conscientious objector during World War II, is an acclaimed poet and unusually deep thinker about the human condition.

20) American Nerd: The Story of My People - non-fiction by Benjamin Nugent (224 pages)

I had to pick up this book; I went to college with the author. (Last year, I greatly enjoyed reading his first book, a biography of Elliott Smith.) While you might assume that this book will be somewhat fluffy, this turns out not to be the case. The opening chapters feature discussions of characters in novels by Jane Austen and E.M. Forster and advance the theory that the character of the nerd was first invented by Victorian authors who worried that the rise of industrialization would bring an end to feeling. The book also contains a look at the character of the nerd through the lens of racist stereotypes and a controversial mini-essay on Asperger's syndrome. Alongside this thoughtfulness, American Nerd also manages to be fun (without poking fun) and deeply empathetic. (My only complaint is that Nugent has avoided mentioning our alma mater, Reed College, in both of his books. This seems odd because this college is relevant to the subject matter he has taken up in each of his books.)

21) What Narcissism Means to Me – poetry by Tony Hoagland (78 pages)

Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs introduced me to the poetry of Hoagland when he read Hoagland's poem "The Change" at a gathering of ministers. "The Change" is a majestic poem about the tennis star Venus Williams. This short collection of poetry is an extremely pleasant read. Hoagland is hard to pin down, striking a tone that is at some points narcissistic and at others extremely self-effacing, and usually a tad depressive, but also witty and socially conscious. What you will certainly run into is lines that take your breath away, such as in his poem "Grammar of Sparrows" where he exclaims, "As if my mood was a coastal wetlands area in need of federal protection..."

22) McSweeney's Volume 20 (199 pages)

This past volume of McSweeney's contains 13 short stories and 50 reprints of original artwork. Stories of note include one in which a father is punched in the face in Puerto Rico, one in which two characters begin a courtship in a manatee pool, one in which a man marries a tree, one in which a pair of amateur private investigators track down an innocent French ornithologist in Alabama, and one in which a Jewish man convicted of manslaughter befriends the leader of a white supremacist gang in prison.

23) The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier – by Tony Jones (242 pages)

At "Ministry Days" prior to the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly I will be facilitating a collegial conversation about the intersection of Emergent Christianity and Unitarian Universalism. This topic has been of interest to me after I spent a month attending Kansas City's leading Emergent church, Jacob's Well in Westport, for one month during my vacation in the Summer of 2005. Jones' The New Christians is an introduction to the Emergent movement tracing the history, theology, philosophy, and culture of this fascinating movement. I find myself inspired and challenged by many of their ideas: a hermeneutics of humility, an ancient-future orientation, and a strong commitment to the practice of open conversation. A great book for anyone interested in acquainting themselves with the Emergent landscape.

24) Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance - non-fiction by Dr. Atul Gawande (257 pages)

I first encountered Dr. Gawande's writings when I read an essay of his that was published in the New Yorker. That essay, entitled, "The Learning Curve" or "The Education of a Knife" begins with a remarkable scene: Gawande, then a surgical resident, fumbles in attempting to place his first central line in a patient while his supervising attending doctor, a man who has performed this procedure thousands of times, observes. This example illustrates a tremendous paradox: it is in that particular patient's best interest for Gawande not to attempt the chest tube; it is in the best interest of the continued availability and advancement of medicine for Gawande to learn this procedure. The essay goes on to discuss how we learn new things and the great genius of the essay is that the topic is relevant to far more than medicine.

I picked up Better hoping for essays just as powerful. All of the essays in this collection are good, ranging in topic matter from handwashing in the hospital, to C-sections, to polio in India, to advancements in the treatment of Cystic Fibrosis. But none of these essays pack the same punch that "The Learning Curve" did.

25) The Children's Hospital - a novel by Chris Adrian (615 pages)

I first encountered the writing of Chris Adrian in McSweeney's Volume 14 which featured a haunting and inventive short-story of his. If that short story was not enough to inspire me to read this lengthy novel, then the author's bio on the back cover certainly did the trick. "Chris Adrian is the author of Gob's Grief. He recently completed a pediatric residency at the University of California, San Francisco, and is currently a student at Harvard Divinity School."

The Children's Hospital begins with a flood that submerges the entire surface of the Earth beneath 7 miles of water. The lone survivors are those persons who make up the population of a children's hospital that, with the assistance of angelic forces, is transformed into a floating fortress. From there, the story only gets weirder and weirder. If you've ever wondered what would happen if you merged Grey's Anatomy with the story of Noah's Ark, you might be interested in this supernatural, medical, apocalyptic novel.

26) World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie Wars - a novel by Max Brooks (342 pages)

As a minister I frequently receive book suggestions from those in the congregation I serve. The range of books I am invited to read (and often given as a gift) is immense and far more than I could possibly read even if avoided all of the books that are on my reading list. So, when R. gave me two books by Max Brooks, World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide, I couldn't help but smile. Of all the books I've received - including titles about church history, world religions, and spiritual practices; humanist classics; obscure novels; and even a romance novel (seriously!) - nobody has ever asked me to read about zombies.

I have a confession: I adore zombie movies. I generally dislike most horror movies and avoid most films with lots of violence. I do catch some action films - I saw the newly released Indiana Jones film a few months ago and will probably see the new Batman movie this week - but I am highly selective in that genre as well. But, if the movie has zombies, I'm there in a heartbeat.

The zombie movies created by George Romero were works of social commentary and the social commentary was not subtle in the least. They asked questions about the nature of our own humanity, free will, and depict civilization as often less than civil.

I was curious about whether a zombie book would work as well as a zombie movie. I am pleased to report that it did. Brooks' novel is written in the form of face-to-face interviews conducted around the world with the survivors of World War Z. He captures characters of different cultures, races, classes, and worldviews. Together, their individual stories flesh-out (no pun intended) the history of the zombie war. Along the way, we also receive plenty of pointed critique on everything from the military-industrial complex to suburban lifestyles to media responsibility and so on. A quick, light, and enjoyable summer read.

27) Waking Up the Karma Fairy: Life Lessons and Other Holy Adventures - meditations by Meg Barnhouse (134 pages)

A month ago at General Assembly I ran into Meg Barnhouse. She remembered me from the year before. Smiling, she reminded me of when we met. We had been standing together in a makeshift robing room at the convention center in Portland, Oregon as we waited for the Service of the Living Tradition to begin. Playfully, I had remarked to her, "You sure do have some mouth on you." (Or something to that effect.) She busted up with laughter and told me I hadn't seen anything.

I hadn't. Waking Up the Karma Fairy is the third book of meditations by Barnhouse I've read in the past year. Like the other two, this book was fun, original, opinionated, brazen, and true.

28) Love & Death: My Journey Through the Valley of the Shadow - by Forrest Church (148 pages)

You can read a lengthier piece on this amazing book here.

29) McSweeney's Volume 15 (303 pages)

With the completion of this volume of McSweeney's, I've now read 15 of the 27 volumes! McSweeney's 15 is an interesting collection, featuring 10 short stories by American authors and 9 short stories by Icelandic authors (translated, of course.) In addition, this issue was printed in Iceland which may be the most literary country in the world. Of the Icelandic stories, I particularly enjoyed "Nerve City" and "Interference." However, Steven Millhauser's "A Precursor of the Cinema" is the clear gem of this collection. Written in the prose of a historian, his story reports about a mysterious late 19th Century artist and inventor. It succeeds as a riveting and intriguing story. I will definitely have to go out and see what else he has published.

30) Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto - essays by Chuck Klosterman (243 pages)

Have you ever wondered if Marilyn Monroe : 1950s :: Pamela Anderson : 1990s is a valid analogy? Have you ever pontificated why, if being a rock star is a common fantasy, seemingly nobody ever fantasizes about being Billy Joel? Me neither. But I do know that I've been told that it is essential that I read Chuck Klosterman about 150 different times.

Klosterman (along with Douglas Coupland) is probably one of the most lauded critics who writes about Generation X and popular culture. I fully expected to find this book enjoyable; I rarely pan anything I read. Yet, this book was a disappointment.

My reason for not liking Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is not purely utilitarian although, surely, someone with such a collossal accumulated knowledge of pop culture could put that energy to better use. My reason is not based in feminism, although Klosterman seems to have some unresolved issues with women and that worried me a little bit. My reason is not even aesthetic. He actually is a talented and engaging writer. Instead, I just found most of the book not all that insightful and it seemed like you could use the evidence he presents to argue the opposite of every "crucial" idea he posits. There is no nutritional value in this breakfast cereal.

However, one essay did have me laughing uproariously. His chapter in which arguments against the sport of soccer bookend an account of his brief and controversial tenure as a little league baseball coach is the high point of this book. Or maybe I am just being too generous.

31) The Age of American Unreason - non-fiction by Susan Jacoby (328 pages)

In 1963 Richard Hofstadter published the influential book Anti-intellectualism in American Life. Forty-five years later, unreason, irrationality, and anti-intellectualism continue as powerful forces shaping American culture, education, and government policies at home and abroad.

Jacoby does not spend the majority of her book focused on the last 40 years. She begins with a cursory history of intellectual and anti-intellectual currents in American thought from the colonial period to the 1960's. (The index lists 10 mentions of Unitarianism and 13 mentions of Ralph Waldo Emerson. We seem to be the group Jacoby turns to in order to lift up intellectual currents in American history.)

To be honest, I have my own quarrels and quibbles with how Jacoby depicts parts of our nation's history. In particular, I am critical of how she frames the First and Second Great Awakenings and how she portrays Emerson.

It is in the final third of the book that Jacoby comes to discuss current trends of unreason and anti-intellectualism. While I found myself agreeing with her on most of her points I was struck by how she arranged her critiques. It is curious that she describes the omnipresence of iPods among American youth with the same level of consternation that she directs at schools that have abandoned the teaching of evolution. She complains about politicians and media figures who have abandoned the use of the word "soldiers" by substituting the word "troops" in its place and she derides the astounding paucity of US ambassadors to the Middle East who actually are able to speak Arabic.

At first, this lumping of major ignorance with minor annoyance is jarring. However, soon you realize that she is arguing that all these things are interlinked. This argument is challenging. Is it fair to lump together parents who show Baby Einstein videos to their children with fundamentalists who teach their children that dinosaurs and humans roamed the earth at the same time?

Although I have my reservations, Jacoby does succeed in being provocative. Unfortunately, she also comes across as condescending, snobby, and even joyless at times. For this reason, her authorial voice distracts and detracts - something that can not be said about the intellectual giants, thinkers, and geniuses whom she praises.

32) Roller-skating as a Spiritual Discipline - meditations by Christopher Buice (55 pages)

My morning spiritual practice has two key elements. One is reading and reflecting on one or two brief meditations, poems, or passages from scripture. The second element is an expression of gratitude, in which I write a hand-written note (or at least an email) to someone for whom I am thankful.

For the meditations, I often turn to the meditation manuals published by the UUA. In solidarity with the Tennessee Valley UU Church which suffered an horrific shooting in July, I picked up this collection by The Rev. Chris Buice, TVUUC's minister.

UUA meditation manuals can be generally divided into two categories: serious and silly. Serious ones, like Elizabeth Tarbox's Evening Tide, are beautifully written and poignant. But the silly ones are a lot more eye-catching. Who knew that you could glean spiritual insights from pig-racing (Jane Rzepka) or hosting a drag queen fundraiser (Vanessa Southern). The title of Buice's meditation manual gives it away. He begins meditations with lines such as: "I learned the Hindu concept of 'non-attachment to ends' from a 1974 Volkswagen Beetle." "The teenage cashier in the local fast food restaurant is my guru." "There is a controversy among those who search for Bigfoot." And, "I think about the Buddha when I am bowling."

Of course, all ministries require a sense of humor and an ability to be serious. It is all about picking your spots. How blessed TVUUC is to have a minister who is also capable of laughing at life's absurdities.

33) McSweeney's Volume 28 (117 pages)

Although beautifully packaged, this latest volume of McSweeney's literary quarterly was the lightest issue so far. Eight handsome little books explore the reinvention of the fable, with contemporary authors composing original fables. A few of them bear a striking resemblance to Friedman's Fables by psychologist and family systems theorist, Edwin Friedman. In this collection, the fable that truly stands out is "Virgil Walker" which features an octopus who is also a social climber.

34) The Audacity of Hope - by Barack Obama (362 pages)
35) John McCain: An American Odyssey - by Robert Timberg (207 pages)

Is this blog the place to make opinionated statements about candidates for public office? I've decided that it is not, but do not infer from that decision that I lack opinions. I have more than enough. When it comes to candidates for public office I try to follow the same rule on this blog that I follow in the pulpit: to discipline myself to as much neutrality as I possibly can.

I did decide however that it would be an interesting exercise to read a biography of each of the candidates during their respective conventions. In choosing the books, I elected for fairness. I was not going to read a puff piece about one candidate and then a book smearing the other. So, after choosing to read a book in which Obama writes in his own voice, I decided that fairness dictated that I select a book about McCain that, while short of a hagiography, does present McCain in a positive light. During the DNC I read Obama's Audacity of Hope. During the RNC I read Timberg's biography of John McCain. I am embarrassed to admit that I had never previously read anything of any significant length about Obama. I had, however, read a good-sized piece about McCain.

During the 2000 primaries, Rolling Stone dispatched well known authors to spend some time on the trail with each of the four major candidates: Bill Bradley, George W. Bush, Al Gore, and John McCain. David Foster Wallace spent a week on McCain's "Straight Talk Express" leading up to the South Carolina primary. (McCain had won New Hampshire, but it was at this point in the primaries that Bush pulled ahead, his backers using push-polling to insinuate that McCain had fathered a black child with a prostitute. The reality was that John and Cindy McCain adopted a girl from an orphanage in Bangladesh.) Anyways, I have no idea what Rolling Stone wound up publishing, but a 79 page essay about McCain under the title "Up, Simba" can be found in DFW's magnificent essay collection Consider the Lobster.

I hope that you are registered to vote and plan to go to the polls on November 4th. If you are like most American voters, you probably have your mind already made-up. But even if you know with 100% certainty for whom you plan to vote, I think the exercise of reading about each is worthwhile. I am glad that I did.

36) Donkey Gospel - poetry by Tony Hoagland (71 pages)

I enjoyed reading What Narcissism Means to Me, another collection of poetry by Hoagland, so much that I decided to pick up this collection of poems. Likewise, this collection did not disappoint. He is one of the brightest shining lights in contemporary poetry.

37) Gob's Grief - a novel by Chris Adrian (356 pages)

The other day I mentioned author Chris Adrian to my primary care physician. After telling him a little about Adrian’s life, my doctor remarked, “Don’t you just hate people like that?” Adrian is an overachiever of epic proportions. After receiving a degree from the prestigious Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Adrian went to medical school in Virginia. While in medical school, Adrian published his debut novel, Gob’s Grief. While completing his pediatric residency at a hospital in San Francisco, Adrian published his second novel, a 615 page masterpiece under the title The Children’s Hospital (see #25 above.) According to the “about the author” section of The Children’s Hospital, Adrian is now a Divinity School student at Harvard. I think my physician said something to the effect of, “People doing their medical residency don’t even have time to sleep; they don’t write 600 page novels.”

While Gob’s Grief is not as strong as The Children’s Hospital, it is a fascinating book and the two do share several characteristics in common. Both explore the telling of a story from several different perspectives. Both feature an epic, surprising climax. Both include a mysterious child named Pickie Beecher.

Gob’s Grief is set in New York City in the years following the American Civil War. There, two men named Gob and Will who each lost brothers in the civil war obsessively work to create a machine that will bring the war dead back to life. The two turn to industrialization and spiritualism to help alleviate the grief for their own and the nation’s losses. Historical figures including Walt Whitman as well as key feminist leaders from this time in American history play fascinating roles in this fictional story. I will eagerly look forward to Adrian’s next novel.

38) Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War – non-fiction by Evan Wright (370 pages)

Earlier this month I shared a room at a retreat for ministers with another minister from my generation who was reading Generation Kill. Written by a reporter embedded with an elite battalion of Marines, Generation Kill tells the story of the first few weeks of combat faced by this unit at the outset of the Iraq War in 2003.

My experience was that this book was an engaging page turner; I couldn’t put it down. While both the madness and the horror of war are made clear, what stood out are the depictions of the Marines as they faced combat. The book shines a light on how Generation X and Y respond to and interpret war. One Marine relates combat to playing the Grand Theft Auto video game. The author observes that this generation’s low tolerance for boredom and stimulation deprivation contributes to excitement about combat. More humorously, the author describes how, in the days leading up to the invasion, a rumor about the death of Jennifer Lopez circulates among the servicemen and women.

Generation Kill is a powerful, profoundly troubling, and perception-altering account of the War in Iraq.

39) Never Call Them Jerks: Healthy Responses to Difficult Behavior - non-fiction by Arthur paul Boers (139 pages)

Originally I read a good portion of this book for my sermon on October 12. I returned to it and decided to finish it up. This Alban Institute publication combines a deep insight into family systems theory with biblical interpretation. While I longed for the author to spend more time on case studies, I think this is a book that contains many worthy insights into congregational leadership. Perhaps the book's most commendable feature is the sincere humility and gentleness of the author.

40) In Between: Memoir of an Integration Baby - by Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed (268 pages)

I received a free copy of In Between in exchange for agreeing to review it in a forthcoming issue of the UUMA News, the newsletter of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association. I will post that review on my blog when it is complete. This book also formed the core of a sermon I preached on November 9th.

41) The Wordy Shipmates - a history by Sarah Vowell (248 pages)

During the Summer of 2007 I read three books by Vowell. In Shipmates, Vowell's quirky and endearing presence is not nearly as pronounced as it was in her earlier books. Still, she manages to do something special. She tells the story of the early Puritans in a way that is both sympathetic and compelling. Her recounting of the lives of John Winthrop, John Cotton, Roger Williams, and Anne Hutchinson is entertaining and accessible. This is a must read for any Unitarian Universalists or any Americans who seek to understand themselves better.

42) The Care of Troublesome People - by Wayne E. Oates (78 pages)

Like Never Call Them Jerks (see #39 above) I read parts of Troublesome People for my sermon on October 12. Oates' book is far inferior. At points it seems sloppy and simplistic. It is also surprisingly repetititve for such a short book. Boers' book is by far the stronger of the two.

43) The Complete Persepolis - a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi (341 pages)

I enjoyed this gripping, autobiographical tale of the author's childhood in Iran, her adolescence and coming of age in Austria after fleeing from religious repression, her subsequent return to Iran and struggles as a young adult, and finally, her bittersweet exodus to France.

44) The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game - non-fiction by Michael Lewis (299 pages)

In 1985 Lawrence Taylor, a linebacker for the New York Giants, tackled Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann, breaking his leg and ending his career. Taylor was big, fast, powerful, and relentless. He was probably the greatest linebacker ever to play the game.

In The Blind Side, author Michael Lewis tries to do for football what he did for Baseball in his book Moneyball. Moneyball set out to answer the question of how the Oakland Athletics could be playoff contenders year after year despite having one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. Its controversial conclusion was that the front office of the A’s used mathematical analysis to determine the skills needed for winning games and found that the market for baseball players undervalued certain skills.

In The Blind Side, Lewis sets out to answer why the left tackle is one of the highest paid positions in football. It turns out that football has been slowly growing more focused on passing over the past thirty years. Thus, the quarterback is the most valuable commodity on the field. Linebackers and defensive ends like Lawrence Taylor made life hard (and dangerous) for quarterbacks so teams schemed to protect the quarterback’s blind side. However, the most elite defenses could not be stopped by overloading the left side with an extra blocker or by pulling a guard as these strategies left other glaring weaknesses that an adaptive defense could exploit. The answer came in the form of the superstar left tackle.

The prototypical left tackle is at least 6’5”, though taller is better. He weighs between 325 and 350 pounds though that weight should be carried in the thighs and in the behind instead of in the gut. He should have oversized hands. He should be one of the quickest players on the team in terms of a short burst of speed. And, he should be agile. If the sport were basketball instead of football, you’d say you were looking for someone the size of Shaquille O’Neal who moves like a point guard. Players like Jonathan Ogden and Walter Jones fit this mold and commanded some of the largest contracts in professional football because they were able to protect the quarterback’s blind side.

If this was Michael Lewis’ book, he could have written it in thirty underwhelming pages. Instead the majority of the book focuses on the life of a young man named Michael Oher who comes from the most underprivileged background imaginable and is blessed with all of the physical tools to become a star left tackle. Lewis’ book becomes a biography of how Oher is saved from his environment and given a chance to live out his potential for football stardom. It is a good thing that Lewis tells the story of Oher’s life. If he did not, the book would have been tremendously disappointing.

Total pages read: 9,941

This post has been created to provide links to my annual reading list.

Here you'll find a regularly updated list of books read in 2008. [Updated 12/21/08]

Here is my list of books read in 2007. Also check out the essay on my reading in 2007.

Here is a list of books read in 2006.

Preface
When I was in Divinity School, I took a preaching course taught by two Unitarian Universalist ministers. I remember the advice one of them offered: That to be a good preacher, much less a good minister, you have to be a voracious reader. The instructor’s advice continued, suggesting, if I recall correctly, reading (at least) a book per week in addition to holding a greater than average number of magazine subscriptions and reading the daily paper.

The instructor also recommended that our reading embrace a wide diversity of subject matter. If we only read mysteries or romance novels we better have congregations of people with entirely identical reading interests. We were advised to read fiction, non-fiction, and poetry; books from different cultures; classics and contemporary literature; and books on subjects we knew nothing about and in which we were not in the slightest way interested.

One day in class we were assigned to write a brief paragraph about the most recent book that we had read that was not assigned for an academic class. I wrote about the then brand-new David Leavitt novel Martin Bauman: or, a Sure Thing about the coming-of-age and rise to success of a young gay writer. (Leavitt will come up later in this essay.) The instructor responded that I might read something more "substantial."

I will admit that my magazine and newspaper reading tends to lag. But, then again, the preaching instructor said nothing about on-line magazines and blogs, which I do read voraciously.

My goal for 2007 was to read 52 books, to average a book per week. What follows is my year in books more or less chronologically. Click here for the full list.

Addicted to Eggers
When I find an author I like, I tend to read his or her catalogue of works in their entirety. In 2006 I read all eight titles by David Foster Wallace which included two novels, three short-story collections, two collections of essays, and an impenetrable (to me) book on the mathematics of infinity. In 2007, it was another Dave: Dave Eggers. In 2008, maybe I’ll continue this pattern and read everything by David Sedaris.

I approached Eggers in 2007 the same way I approached Wallace a year earlier. Wallace’s magnum opus is the 1,079 page novel Infinite Jest. In order to warm up and prepare myself, I first read one of Wallace’s collections of essays. Eggers’ most well-known book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, comes in at 482 pages. Was I ready to be heartbroken and staggered? I decided to ease into Eggers by first reading his around-the-world-in-eight-days novel You Shall Know Our Velocity! With a taste for Eggers, I moved on to A.H.W.O.S.G. and then his short story collection How We Are Hungry. I finished these just in time to pick up his heart-rending novel What is the What. Written as the autobiography of a true-to-life Sudanese lost boy named Valentino Achak Deng, What is the What is a haunting and deeply affecting book. Over the course of reading it, at least ten times it moved me to such tears that I literally had to put the book down and take a walk around the block before I was emotionally ready to continue reading.

How are we hungry? For more Eggers! I soon discovered that Eggers was the founder of McSweeney’s, an exemplary and experimental literary quarterly of contemporary short stories. I decided to subscribe; the first issue I received was number 24. I also decided it might be worth it to go back and read the first 23 issues. At a rate of one issue per month, I would be caught up within two years. I began in April and by the end of December I had read issues 1, 2, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 24, and 25. These collections of short stories and experimental writing by contemporary authors range in size from 137 pages (volume 1) to 463 pages (volume 22) although, as the pictures below will indicate, counting pages isn’t exactly easy.



McSweeney’s volume 17 (above) is packaged in the form of junk mail.



McSweeney’s volume 19 (above) contains several short stories, a novella by T.C. Boyle, and reprints of government pamphlets and documents (including George W. Bush’s dental records from 1973) piled inside of a makeshift cigar box.

I could write pages upon pages about McSweeney’s. Allow me to say that it is a treat to get to read brilliant, quirky, cutting-edge, experimental literature. While I can’t do justice to the 10 volumes I read in 2007, let me give a brief list of the plots of just a few of the stories.

● A story about attempting to find love written in the form of a diary of a character inside the Oregon Trail video game. (Volume 25)
● A young man trying to impress a young woman decides to play hero during a hostage situation at a fast food restaurant. (Volume 24)
● A lion lays down with a giraffe in Africa. (Volume 22)
● KU professor of creative writing Deb Olin Unferth writes about Deb Olin Unferth. (Volume 18)
● A history of suburban Sasquatch in Southern California (Volume 17)
● Pia Z. Ehrhardt writes about a southern woman contemplating adultery. (Volume 16)
● A haunting story in the voice of a precocious patient in a pediatric cancer ward. (Volume 14)
● Giant capybaras roam across Sicily. (Volume 2)
● Egotistical architects engage in intellectual battles… in Marfa, Texas! (Volume 2)
● Famous U.S. Supreme Court decisions are diagrammed as basketball plays. (Volume 2)

Beyond Eggers
In 2007 I did read more than publications from Eggers’ literary empire. In early 2007 I read Sharon Salzberg’s The Force of Kindness. An American Buddhist nun with a retreat center in Barre, Massachusetts, Salzberg writes accessibly about Buddhist principles. It was a treat to revisit her writing as I had heard her speak in June 2006.

I also opened up some volumes of poetry this past year beginning with a tour de force anthology edited by Roger Housden called Risking Everything: 110 poems of Love and Revelation. This collection does not lack for power. It is sort of a collection of poetry’s greatest hits. Just consider a few of the poets he includes: Wendell Berry, e.e. cummings, Billy Collins, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Seamus Heany, Mary Oliver, T.S. Eliot, and William Wordsworth. Previously, Housden had published short, popular anthologies with titles like 10 poems to change your life, 10 poems to last a lifetime, 10 poems to open your heart, and 10 poems to set you free. These anthologies contain the poems and then brief essays on what they teach. I’m torn. On one hand, the canonization of the major poets might make it difficult for more obscure poets to get noticed. On the other hand, poetry is not exactly doing so well right now and any attempt to get people to read more poetry is commendable.

Following the Housden anthology, I felt inspired to pick up a major poet I had somehow never previously read. T.S. Eliot came from a family of elite New England Unitarians but renounced this heritage, moved to England, and became Anglican. As a side note, one of my friends at Harvard got to live in the same dorm room where Eliot had lived a century earlier. Her door actually had a plaque on it, announcing, “T.S. Eliot lived here 1907-1908.” Incidentally, this same friend also briefly dated James Iha, the guitarist for the Smashing Pumpkins. When she told me, I didn’t believe her. So, she took out her cell phone and called him up. He answered as he was about to enter a recording studio in Chicago and I got to talk on the phone for two (awkward) minutes with a Smashing Pumpkin!

So, I read Eliot’s Four Quartets and The Wasteland. Reading these made me feel like I should be taking a college-level literature class. I found The Wasteland to be practically impenetrable and not much fun. Four Quartets, while also coded, is transcendent – the unfolding of a powerful mystical vision.

The Prodigal Reader
One morning in late February as I dropped by Muddy’s, my local coffee shop, I ran into my friend John Herron, a history professor at UMKC. He was reading a thick book with the image of a threadbare American flag on the cover. I recognized it instantaneously. It was Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club. I told him that I had once started it, but abandoned it. He told me that there was no good excuse for that; it is a great book. I actually think I did have a good excuse. My copy was originally given to be (along with a $250 Amazon.com gift certificate!) when I concluded a student ministry at a church in Boston. I took the book with me during my internship year in Texas where I tried it out as poolside reading. This book is not poolside reading! And then it got dropped in the pool. I honestly don’t remember whether this was intentional or not, but on a subconscious level, I AM sure. If you visit my office at the church, you can see the water-warped copy for yourself.

There are not many books I’ve abandoned in my life: Dostoyevsky’s Crime & Punishment when I was 15; Michale Chabon’s Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (twice); Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove; and Christopher Moore’s Lamb are the only ones that come to mind. All of them I mean to come back to at some point in my life.

I came back and this time I loved The Metaphysical Club. It is about the intellectual life of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., William James, Charles Pierce, and John Dewey and how these pragmatists were instrumental in changing the way Americans thought about freedom and diversity during the post-Civil War era and through the beginning of the twentieth century. While intellectually demanding, this book is chock full of fascinating anecdotes describing the changing thinking in the United States following the civil war. For example, they describe a court case involving a likely-forged will. Charles Pierce appears as an expert witness and tries to use statistics to prove the impossibility of identical signatures. The jury is incapable of understanding that math could tell them anything about signatures!

Around the time that I was reading The Metaphysical Club I also read two books by Christopher Hedges in preparation for a Memorial Day sermon. These two books work well together. In War is a Force that Gives us Meaning, Hedges waxes philosophical while also sharing details of his time spent as a correspondent during the wars of the last quarter century. By contrast, What Every Person Should Know About War is presented in a stark question and answer format that lacks embellishment, philosophizing, or descriptiveness. Each book is powerful, one for its direct simplicity and the other for its relentless humanization of such a powerful de-humanizing force.

Apropos of Nothing
Sometime during the first half of 2007 I also read J.D. Salinger’s Franny & Zooey. I found is respectable but not spectacular. I’m completely at a loss for what else to say about it, as I can’t think of how it relates to anything else I’ve read or done this year. I suppose that most of us can make a list of books we think we should have read. Well, I guess I get to cross one of those books off the list.

Summer Fun and Summer Fluff
Now we come to what I call fun, summery reading. Back in June of 2005 I got hear Nick Hornby speak at the Chicago Book Fair. I had loved the movies based on his books, but wasn’t expecting much from the books themselves. I was greatly impressed by his talk and immediately set out to read his books. By the end of that summer I had read his three fantastic novels (How to Be Good, About a Boy, and High Fidelity), his one atrociously bad novel (A Long Way Down), his soccer-fanatic memoirs (Fever Pitch), and a collection of short stories he edited called Speaking with the Angel. In terms of interesting connections, my favorite piece in Speaking with the Angel is the immensely creative short story “After I was thrown into the river and before I drowned” by Dave Eggers. This was the first piece of Eggers’ writing I had ever read and a foreshadowing of reading to come.

This summer I decided to finish off Hornby’s oeuvre by reading all three of his books of critical essays. These books include two collections of columns he writes for The Believer magazine (published by Eggers’ McSweeney’s, by the way) and his book Songbook in which he writes about his favorite songs. I find Hornby to be as gifted a critic as he is a novelist. The Believer column is a simple idea that he makes fresh and fascinating. He begins the column by listing all the books he has purchased in the past month and all the books he has read in the past month and then writes a critical essay about them. The two collections – The Polysyllabic Spree and Houskeeping vs. The Dirt – consist of approximately three years’ worth of his columns. Reading these columns led me to add dozens of books to my “to-read” list.

Here is where we start to get lots of intersections between these books. Hornby has an autistic son and the proceeds from Speaking with the Angel go to benefit a school in London for children with autism that he started. (Half the proceeds from The Polysllabic Spree also go to the school with the other half going to a center for young writers being opened in New York City by the good folks at McSweeney’s.)

I paid particular attention to Hornby’s thoughts about Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a book written from the point of view of an autistic teenager, because autism is so close to Hornby’s life. I found Haddon’s book to be compelling, quirky, and endearing while also bothersome because Haddon’s protagonist seems at times to be too competent. I worry about its effects on the parents and family members of those with autism. Hornby’s review is equally as mixed. He finds the book “absorbing, entertaining, [and] moving” while at the same time he admits to being bothered by the protagonist’s ability to overcome his own severe limitations by the sheer application of will-power.

The rest of my summery reading included three books by Sarah Vowell and two books by long-time favorite authors of mine written outside of their usual genres.

First up was NPR commentator Sarah Vowell’s Assassiantion Vacation, a unique piece of travel writing about places and people connected with the murdered presidential triumvirate of Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, and William McKinley. I followed that up by reading The Partly Cloudy Patriot, a book of essays dealing with her complicated feelings about American history and being an American, and then her autobiographical essays contained within Take the Cannoli. Vowell, a regular NPR commentator and the voice of Violet in The Incredibles is one of the most quirky and hilarious writers around. Her essay about taking driving lessons from Ira Glass had me stifling tears of laughter.

Unusual Books by Two of My Favorites
Before it was time to go back to work in August I read two books by a pair of authors I deeply admire: A.M. Homes and David Leavitt. I originally encountered A.M. Homes when I read her short story “Raft in Water, Floating” in the June 1999 issue of the New Yorker. From there I went on to read her two brilliant collections of short stories The Safety of Objects and Things You Should Know as well as her conceptual, anti-suburban novel Music for Torching and her deeply-disturbing and graphic Lolita-meets-Charles-Manson novel The End of Alice. I discovered a new Homes title while browsing at the Harvard Coop in Cambridge, Massachusetts while on the Coming of Age pilgrimage to Boston. The Mistress’ Daughter is a memoir. Homes was adopted at birth. Her biological parents were a sleazy married businessman and his underage mistress. In her early twenties, Homes was contacted by her biological parents. Her book is a rich reflection on identity, family, genealogy, and the rights of adopted children.

I first read David Leavitt when I was assigned his short-story “Territory” in a high school English class. That short story, about a gay young man taking his partner home to meet his parents for the first time, produced one of the most memorable and powerful experiences in my public school education. Years later, I picked up Leavitt’s short-story collection Family Dancing, his collection of three novellas published under the title Arkansas, and the afore-mentioned novel Martin Bauman. About a year and a half ago I discovered that Leavitt had authored a book about the life of Alan Turing. This book is a part of W.W. Norton’s Great Discoveries series in which well-known authors are enlisted to explain complex mathematical and scientific discoveries in a manner accessible to non-scientists. From this series I had previously read David Foster Wallace’s book about Georg Cantor’s mathematical work on infinity.

Leavitt’s The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer is an accessible glimpse into Turing’s remarkable and tragic life. Leavitt is particularly sympathetic to Turing’s homosexuality and advances a creative hypothesis about the connection between Turing’s sexual orientation and his academic focuses. Before Turing’s suicide in his early forties he had, among other things, developed a tremendously creative proof of the insolubility of the Entscheidungsproblem, led the team responsible for cracking the Nazi enigma code at Bletchley Park during WWII, designed the world’s first computer, and pioneered the concept of artificial intelligence. Despite being one of the 20th century’s greatest minds, Turing was prosecuted under England’s anti-homosexuality laws and soon thereafter committed suicide.

Despite the tragedy Turing’s life, one of the more humorous realizations I had while reading this book was that I regularly face the insoluble problem of mathematical logic known as the Entscheidungsproblem. Suppose I am sitting at Muddy’s Coffeeshop working diligently on my sermon and suppose I need to use the restroom. Rather than go through the hassle of packing up my laptop to take to the restroom, I might ask my neighbor at the table next to mine if they would be willing to watch it for a minute. So, I ask my neighbor if they are trustworthy. Logically, the only answer they can give is “Yes.” If they are trustworthy they will tell me the truth. If they are not trustworthy they will lie and say that they are. It is impossible for them to answer that they are not trustworthy because that answer is a logical fallacy. Either they are trustworthy and they are lying about it, thus making them untrustworthy, or they are not trustworthy but telling me the truth about it which makes them trustworthy. The Entscheidungsproblem (to simplify it greatly) deals with whether we can find out for certain whether a person is telling the truth or lying by asking them a single question like this. We can’t. We have Turing to thank for proving the insolubility of this dilemma. Oh yeah, he also played an instrumental role in defeating the Nazis and invented the first computer.

Reading as Spiritual Practice
The calendar turned to August and church work picked up in earnest. I began the new church year by committing to a brand new spiritual practice. The UUA publishes a wide array of meditation manuals, most of which are written my ministers. These manuals contain 30 to 50 reflections, most of which are two or three pages long. I decided to begin each morning by reading one or two of these meditations and spending a few minutes in silent reflection on their significance and relevance to my life and ministry. I know this is a simple spiritual practice, but it one that I have been able to keep daily without fail for five months, so that is worth something. The first meditation manual I selected was Amethyst Beach by Barbara Merritt. Of all the meditation manuals I’ve perused over the years, this one ranks right at the top, along with Jane Rzepka’s A Small Heaven and Nancy Shaffer’s Instructions in Joy. (In late October I mentioned this practice to Jane Rzepka who sent me a copy of her meditation manual. I’d already read it about ten times, but am thankful for her gift.)

I continued this spiritual practice by picking up Delights & Shadows, a volume of Ted Kooser’s poetry. Ted Kooser is the Poet Laureate of the United States and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Lincoln, Nebraska. I think the word that best describes his poetry is “nostalgic.” For that reason, I’ve always found it slightly inaccessible even though he writes extremely plainly and straightforwardly. I found spending time with his poetry rewarding this time, because I forced myself to sit with it.

I continued my daily spiritual practice by reading meditation manuals by Robert Walsh, Mary Wellenmeyer, and Meg Barnhouse. Despite having written at least a half-dozen books of spiritual writing, I had never read anything by Barnhouse. Since I sat next to her when I received Final Fellowship at the UUA General Assembly in Portland, I knew I had to read her. She is a hoot!

Barnhouse occupies an interesting niche in the genre of spiritual writing. It is a niche she shares with authors like Anne Lamott and Sark: outrageous, quirky women who approach spirituality with a no-holds-barred, no-subject-off-limit attitude. I love this genre.

However, I despised the book by the latest author trying to join the club. Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love was easily the worst book I read during 2007. In this book, Gilbert goes through a tough divorce and then sets off to heal herself, receiving a book deal to spend four months each in Italy, India, and Indonesia. Hers was not so much a spiritual pilgrimage as an exercise in selfishness. In India she agonizes about her meditation practice at a tourist-y Ashram but never says so much as a word about disease or poverty. In Indonesia she does do her good deed for the year. She buys a house for a local friend of hers. She writes her New York writing friends to raise money and together they come up with around $15,000. Her fifty friends are able to just barely raise the needed funds. This does not say much about her friends. If I felt moved to do the same act of charity, I could come up with the cash on my own, even though it would be a bit of a sacrifice. I guarantee you Elizabeth Gilbert is leaps and bounds ahead of me financially, not to mention the wealth of her circle of friends.

That is what bugs me about Eat, Pray, Love: Italy, India, Indonesia. I, I, I. Me, Me, Me. Maybe she can do a sequel in which she travels to Ireland, Iceland, and Indiana. How different a book it would have been if she spent a year in Uganda, Uruguay, and Uzbekistan! (U-U-U; You-You-You) Imagine a year spent working with women fighting for gender equity in Uruguay, doing AIDS prevention education in Uganda, and using her tremendous writing skills to bring to light human-rights abuses in Uzbekistan. Which of these books would be more spiritually-liberating? Feel free to argue with me here.

Sermon Reading
During the course of a year, I always read a number of books for the purpose of sermon-preparation. Here are some links to sermons based on books I read in 2007:

● Two books by Christopher Hedges deeply informed my Memorial Day service.
● I preached a sermon in September based on Stephen Prothero’s Religious Literacy.
● In October I read an anthology of Gandhi’s writings for a sermon on his life.
● In November I read two books about Mother Teresa for a sermon on her life.
● In December I read two books about Depression for my sermon on the same theme.
● Finally, I will end the year by preaching a sermon based on Michelle Huneven’s novel, Jamesland.

Four Books Recommended to Me
Every year I try to read a book on business. SMUUCh member M.L. gifted me with a copy of The Halo Effect, which surveys previous decades of writing about what makes for successful companies and shows how all of those books are methodically flawed. I found it interesting not so much because I care about what makes IBM or WalMart successful or unsuccessful, but because the ways of thinking the book exposes are traps that we all fall into in other areas of life. How do we measure success in church life for instance?

Another church member, E.A., lent me her copy of Grave Matters which was a great read. Who knew that the environmental impact of the funeral industry could make for such compelling reading? I continue to be amazed by the concept of the burial reef, in which a person’s “cremains” are mixed with concrete and sunk in an area where environmentalists are attempting to rebuild the diversity of aquatic life.

A third church member, T.K., loaned me Roberta Gilbert’s Extraordinary Leadership, a book on Bowen family systems and ministerial leadership. Every minister learns Bowen family systems in seminary, but these concepts are easily forgotten. I try my best to stay current by reading a refresher book every year.

Along with the entire Church Board I read Thomas Bandy’s provocative book Kicking Habits about how to help churches to become transformational. (Thank you, Ron Robinson and Angela Merkert for turning me on to Bandy.) For a class on UU theology I read George Beach’s Questions for the Religious Journey. The class unanimously agreed it discouraged them from theological inquiry.

Two Books I Recommend
If you know anybody in their 20’s and 30’s I suggest you buy two copies of Strapped by Tamara Draut, one for them and one for you. This book brilliantly describes the economic context in which today’s 20- and 30-somethings try to make a life, the history of how this context came to be, and a prophetic call to action. The book is a bit heavy on the statistics, to its own detriment at times, but it completely reshaped my own understanding of how my generation deals with personal finance.

The second book I recommend is by Ben Nugent who happened to live in the dorm next to mine when I was a freshman at Reed College. Ben Nugent’s biography of the tragic life of folk-rock singer Elliott Smith is sympathetic, insightful, and a worthy tribute to one of the 1990’s greatest musical geniuses.

Bear V Shark & U.S.!
The last word in this sprawling diary of books I read in 2007 goes to two extremely creative novels by Chris Bachelder. In Bear V Shark, the entire nation is experiencing BvS mania. The book asks the great philosophical question, “Given a relatively level playing field – i.e., water deep enough so that a Shark could maneuver proficiently, but shallow enough so that a Bear could stand and operate with its characteristic dexterity – who would win in a fight between a Bear and a Shark?” (It really is a book about mass consciousness, media spectacle, etc.) While reading this experimental novel I conducted my own poll. I found that 90% of people choose the bear, thus displaying a clear mammalian bias. I am a shark man. No, I will not tell you how it ends!

The second novel by Chris Bachelder is even weirder. U.S.! has a triple entendre. It stands for the United States. It stands for us. And it stands for Upton Sinclair, the turn of the century American novelist and socialist. In Bachelder’s novel, Sinclair is repeatedly resurrected only to be assassinated by right wing Americans. The book is an allegory for the dashed hopes and resurrected hopefulness of the American left through the 20th century. Brilliant!

Turning to 2008
Before me sits a stack of books I aspire to read in 2008. First among them is a debut novel Bowl of Cherries by 90-year-old Millard Kaufman. Ask me in about a week what I thought of it.

And, in case you are interested, here are my ten favorite contemporary authors:

1) David Foster Wallace
2) Dave Eggers
3) Nick Hornby
4) Marilynne Robinson
5) A.M. Homes
6) Chris Bachelder
7) Sarah Vowell
8) David Leavitt
9) Pia Z. Ehrhardt
10) Anne Lamott

Every year on the Sunday after Christmas I lead a worship service called "Cozying Up With a Good Book." The Church book-club selects a book on which they challenge me to preach a sermon. This year I'll be talking about Jamesland by Michelle Huneven. But, I thought it would be fun to make a list of all the books I read in 2007. (If you didn't know it, I happen to be a big-time list-maker.) One of my New Year's Resolutions from last year was to read, on average, a book each week. Click here for a longer post about these books. So, without further ado, here is my list of Books Read in 2007:

Key:
[F] Fiction
[NF] Non-fiction
[SS] Short Stories / Literary Anthologies
[P] Poetry
[B] Autobiography / Biography / Memoirs
[CR] Critical Essays
[REL] Religion, Spirituality, and Ministry

1) You shall know our velocity! by Dave Eggers [F] 351 pages
2) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers [NF/B] 482 pages
3) How We Are Hungry by Dave Eggers [SS] 218 pages
4) Risking Everything edited by Roger Housden [P] 155 pages
5) The Force of Kindness by Sharon Salzberg [REL] 85 pages
6) What is the What by Dave Eggers [NF/B] 475 pages
7) Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot [P] 59 pages
8) War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning by Christopher Hedges [NF] 199 pages
9) Franny & Zooey by JD Salinger [F] 201 pages
10) The Wasteland by T. S. Eliot [P] 27 pages
11) The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand [NF] 446 pages
12) McSweeney’s Volume 1 [SS] 137 pages
13) A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night by Mark Haddon [F] 226 pages
14) McSweeney’s Volume 2 [SS] 191 pages
15) McSweeney’s Volume 22 [SS/P] 454 pages
16) The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby [CR] 140 pages
17) Housekeeping v. The Dirt by Nick Hornby [CR] 153 pages
18) What Every Person Should Know About War by Christopher Hedges [NF] 125 pages
19) Songbook by Nick Hornby [CR] 206 pages
20) McSweeney’s Volume 18 [SS] 250 pages
21) Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell [NF] 258 pages
22) McSweeney’s Volume 14 [SS] 304 pages
23) Religious Literacy by Stephen Prothero [REL] 148 pages
24) Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell [CR/B] 196 pages
25) Take the Cannoli by Sarah Vowell [CR/B] 219 pages
26) McSweeney’s Volume 16 [SS] 230 pages
27) The Mistress’s Daughter by A.M. Homes [B] 238 pages
28) Kicking Habits by Thomas Bandy [REL] 258 pages
29) The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer by David Leavitt [NF/B] 280 pages
30) Amethyst Beach by Barbara Merritt [REL] 63 pages
31) Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert [B/REL] 334 pages
32) McSweeney’s Volume 17 [SS] 215 pages
33) Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser [P] 84 pages
34) Bear V Shark by Chris Bachelder [F] 251 pages
35) The Halo Effect… and the 8 Other Business Delusions that Deceive Managers by Phil Rosenzweig [NF] 174 pages
36) Elliott Smith and the Big Nothing by Benjamin Nugent [B] 225 pages
37) Noisy Stones by Robert Walsh [REL] 50 pages
38) U.S.! by Chris Bachelder [F] 304 pages
39) McSweeney’s Volume 19 [SS] 296 pages
40) Questions for the Religious Journey by George Kimmich Beach [REL] 175 pages
41) Strapped: Why America’s 20- and 30- Somethings Can’t Get Ahead by Tamara Draut [NF] 244 pages
42) The Rock of Ages at the Taj Mahal by Meg Barnhouse [REL] 69 pages
43) The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas by Mahatma Gandhi, edited by Louis Fischer [REL/B] 343 pages
44) Extraordinary Leadership: Thinking Systems, Making a Difference by Roberta Gilbert [REL] 184 pages
45) Admire the Moon by Mary Wellemeyer [REL/P] 61 pages
46) Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial by Mark Harris [NF] 181 pages
47) McSweeney’s Volume 24 [SS] 207 pages
48) A Revolution of Love: The Meaning of Mother Teresa by David Scott [REL/B] 160 pages
49) Come Be My Light: The Secret Writings of the “Saint of Calcutta” by Mother Teresa, edited by Brian Kolodiejchuk [REL/B] 362 pages
50) Talking to Depression: Simple Ways to Connect When Someone in Your Life Is Depressed by Claudia Strauss [NF] 194 pages
51) Undercurrents: A Life Beneath the Surface by Martha Manning [NF/B] 200 pages
52) Jamesland by Michelle Huneven [F] 384 pages
53) McSweeney’s Volume 25 [SS] 198 pages

And, in case you are wondering, that equals: 11,584 pages

Readings

The Gospel According to Matthew 1:18-25
The Gospel According to Matthew 2:10-15, 19-21

Homily

“Joseph got a raw deal.” At least that is how one member of this church sees it. For him, Mary seems to get all the glory and accolades. And Joseph? Well, Joseph gets a raw deal. Allow me to elaborate on how this man views Joseph. To him, Joseph is a praiseworthy figure. He is more trusting and more loyal than many men might be under similar circumstances. He also has a self-denying, self-sacrificing quality to him, almost to the point of being self-less. And, of course, we know that the child he raises as his own son turns out pretty well. Can a father get some credit? The bottom line seems to indicate that Joseph is a nice guy, and we all know that nice guys finish last.

Where am I going this evening? I don’t want to make this a battle of the genders. That is not what this is about. I merely want to say that Joseph gets overlooked, and so tonight I thought we would give him his moment in the sun. So, let’s begin the basics of the story.

In the four gospels, Mark and John make virtually no mention of the parents of Jesus. Matthew, from which we’ve just read, contains a birth narrative as does the Gospel of Luke, however there is even less about Joseph in Luke’s Gospel than in Matthew. So, those 15 verses from Matthew which we read earlier are about all we know about Joseph. But those 15 verses are enough to allow us to make some judgments.

First, we are told that Joseph is a descendent of the royal lineage of King David, but he seemed not to inherit the traits of David’s son, Solomon, if you get my drift. On Christmas Eve I don’t want to spend too long rehashing matters of private human intimacy, just to say that poor Joseph is emasculated in the story, what with hanging around to raise a child who is not his.

Joseph’s emasculation goes deeper than just the fact the Mary’s child is not his. Joseph’s failure to secure a place at the inn is a sign of his impotency. We can imagine Mary saying, “Hey Joe, go get us a room at the inn.” And Joseph comes back empty-handed.

Then there is the whole matter of the scene that follows the birth itself, a scene that is practically reminiscent of a circus. We should have this image – Joseph, Mary, and Jesus in the stable, with maybe some cows and sheep to fill in the margins. Instead get a parade: Shepherds, wise-men, Kings, angels, gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. Poor Joseph gets pushed out of the picture.

I’ve always had a little difficulty identifying Joseph in crèches and nativity scenes. You’ve got all these figurines of bearded wise-men, shepherds with head pieces, and I find myself having to take a second or third take to figure out which figurine is Joseph. Who is the father?

The good news is that it does get better. The story tells us that the earliest years of their family life together involve them fleeing as refugees to Egypt where they live in exile only to return later once things have calmed down following the death of Herod. Joseph, the text implies, displays competency leading his family to a new land and making the most out of life in exile. However, upon returning and settling down in Nazareth, Jesus’ parents suddenly drop out of the story entirely and Jesus goes off to get baptized by John the Baptist.

That’s the story. We all know how for Mary and Joseph in the church tradition. Mary becomes a celebrated figure within the Christian Church, literally elevated to glorious (and sometimes divine) levels of adoration and devotion. A cult of the Virgin Mary, the Madonna, thrives in the popular practice of Catholicism. Mary is petitioned directly in prayers. “Hail Mary, full of grace.” Joseph does get made a saint, but he is clearly playing second fiddle. So, did Joseph get a raw deal? (The city of St. Joseph, Missouri is named for him, so at least he has that going for him.)

It turns out whether Joseph got a raw deal or not is not really the question I am so keen on asking this evening. Has anyone ever felt like just a bystander as miracles unfold around them? Has anyone ever felt as though things – important things, meaningful things, earth-shattering things – were going on around them, but that your role was more witness than participant?

I tend to see Joseph this way. There is this wild party taking place – Mary is giving birth, farm animals are causing a ruckus, a bunch of shepherds show up, a bunch of Kings and wise men show up with groovy gifts, a star lights the whole scene, a multitude of angels are blasting away on trumpets… and Joseph is just a wallflower standing in a corner.

I can certainly imagine Joseph’s ego shouting: “Hello? What about me? Don’t forget about me? I am betrothed to Mary after all? I’m going to be the father to this child you are all getting so excited about. What am I, chopped liver?” But, he doesn’t seem to have an assertive bone in his body. Instead, he just kind of stands there and smiles and wonders quietly to himself, when are all these people going to leave?

OK, so maybe this is not the most impressive religious insight I have ever delivered. But, I do wonder about Joseph’s place in all of this. I think I can relate to it sometimes. Things are happening, the world is changing, history is being made that is going to change the course of human events forever… and Joseph is just there watching it all go down.

I wracked my brain trying to think of contemporary examples where a son completely passes the legacy of the father. We are used to stories where a son tries to live up to the father’s brilliance, success, and greatness. The example I thought of that involves the son surpassing the father is Peyton Manning winning a Superbowl while his father Archie looked on. Take that and multiply it by about a million and you’ve got Joseph and Jesus.

What I am talking about isn’t jealousy. It isn’t the need for attention. Rather, it is about feeling like you have a place in the larger scheme of things. It is about feeling like you matter. It is about feeling like you have something to contribute to the world that’s worth a nickel.

And I imagine Joseph in that moment of Jesus’ birth feeling this profound ambivalence (or maybe even doubt and despair) about whether he has a place in the larger scheme of things.

But here is the amazing twist: central to Jesus’ ministry was demonstrating to people that they have a place in the larger scheme of things, that they matter. He would say things about the last being first. He would praise the widow’s mite, the Samaritan’s compassion, the basic hospitality of Mary (the sister of Martha.) “The least of these.” Jesus’ ministry took the “Josephs” who occupy the margins and corners and pulled them into the center of things.

And we’ve come around, full circle. Let us keep before us all those things that we do that matter. And let us recognize what we do matters. I know so many of you in this congregation give of your time and your energy so selflessly, whether it is given to our church, to boards and community organizations, to volunteer efforts. Let us not forget that what we do matters.

I hope that you leave here tonight with perhaps a newer appreciation for Joseph. Not some loser who doesn’t know how to make hotel reservations. Not some guy off on the fringes. Not someone written out of the story. Let’s bring him back to his spot in the midst of miracle and wonder. And, in doing this, let’s bring ourselves back to a place where we can be certain that what we do with our lives matters. It matters more than we can know.

Epilogue

Just hours after preaching this homily I received an email. The email asked if I was familiar with a painting by Carvaggio entitled, “The Rest on the Flight into Egypt.” In this painting, Joseph fills a very important role: he acts as a music stand for an angel. I think I was on the right track in my interpretation of Joseph...

Movie Clip

Before the sermon I showed the final scene from the 1967 film “The Graduate.” In this scene, Ben disrupts the wedding of Elaine, with whom he is in love, in a most dramatic fashion. He fights off the father of the bride, tackles the groomsmen, grabs a crucifix (pictured below) to fend off the wedding guests, and then uses the crucifix to bar the doors of the church while he and Elaine run to catch a bus.

Sermon

Before I became a minister I used to think that scene was very funny. Now, whenever I perform a wedding (and looking out at you I see many couples I have married) I always harbor this fear that Dustin Hoffman will come and disrupt the ceremony.

So we come to the final, concluding sermon in this series on “Covenant in Liberal Religion”, a series that I began in the heat of July when I broke out a whip and used a film clip from Indiana Jones & Raiders of the Lost Ark to introduce our thinking about covenant.

Over the last six months we’ve explored different facets of covenant: the difference between covenantal religion and creedal religion; the covenant of membership and what we promise to each other as committed members of a religious community; the covenant of the free pulpit and our obligations to encourage each other to grow spiritually. We’ve explored the covenant between churches, how churches are expected to relate to each other and we’ve inquired about larger social covenants: what we might owe to and expect from the society of which we are a part.

Today we come to the conclusion of this series. What I would like to talk about is the future of covenant. I want to prophesy – to name and claim and describe – the covenants that those of us in liberal religion may claim in the future. Throughout this series I have defined covenant this way: “A covenant is a set of promises a community enters into which expresses its highest ideals. These promises are not made lightly. They are held sacred and they are demanding. It is expected that these promises will be hard to live up to, that we will fall short, but that when we do we will not give up, but re-make those promises and go forth again trying our best to live by them.”

The other important thing to remember about covenants is that they are evolving. In the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh and Abraham establish a covenant which, as we move through the book of Genesis, gets altered, expanded, broken, and re-established. In the Christian scriptures, Paul interprets Jesus’ death and resurrection as a signal to replace the established covenant with a newer one. Paul’s letters represent one side of an animated conversation about what this new covenant ought to look like. As Unitarian Universalists, we are a part of a living tradition. Revelation is not sealed. Our faith evolves. And so our covenants, expectations, promises must evolve as well.

Before I conclude this series with my own remarks about the future of covenant for us as Unitarian Universalists, I want to tell you a little bit about the movie clip I just showed you.

The Graduate is probably my all-time favorite movie. Released in 1967, three of its actors – Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, and Katharine Ross – were nominated for Oscars and its director, Mike Nichols, won the Academy Award for achievement in directing. Plus, Simon & Garfunkel’s soundtrack brought us “The Sound of Silence”, “Scarborough Fair”, and, of course, the hit “Mrs. Robinson.” Their soundtrack knocked The Beatles’ White Album off the top spot in the Billboard charts. But, The Graduate is not a film that is often shown in churches. Seduction, adultery, stalking, and crucifix-swinging are not a recipe for moral instruction. In fact, the whole movie is spiritually and morally bankrupt.

As a work of art, it falls into a genre I like to call the “banality of American middle-class life” genre. The Graduate fits into a larger canon of work that includes novels like Peyton Place and the contemporary writings of authors like A.M. Homes. The canon also includes movies like American Beauty and TV programs like Desperate Housewives and songs like Malvina Reynolds’ “Little Boxes” and Green Day’s “Jesus of Suburbia.”

How many of you have seen The Graduate? I want to offer you an interpretation of it and then tie it back to the idea of covenant. The Graduate begins with 21-year old Ben returning to California from having graduated from an elite school in the Northeast. He moves back in with his parents. He is uninspired, stalled, and looking for meaning. At his graduation party, his neighbor pulls him aside and tells Ben, “I’ve got one word of advice for you: Plastics.”

Ben may not know what he is looking for, but he is seeking meaning in his life and doesn't find "plastics" to be satisfactory advice. As the film unfolds, the facades of middle-class life drop away and a banal, seedy under-belly asserts itself. Then we come to the climax of the film. Ben breaks up the wedding of Elaine to the frattish “make-out king” to whom she is engaged. He disrupts this perfect ideal image. In a stunning use of symbolism, he grabs a cross and puts this symbol to use: locking people within the confines of their conventional faith and normal life while he and Elaine make a run for it. Towards something else. And then the movie just ends – not happily ever after – but deeply, deeply uncertain. Just remember the look on their faces. “What have we done?” “Where do we go from here?”

I’m surprised they never made a sequel. What becomes of Ben and Elaine? We never find out. They are perpetually stuck on the bus, heading towards some future that they, and we, can barely imagine.

I’m not interested in wild wedding stories and runaway brides. But, I would suspect that some of you can empathize with the feeling of desperately running from the church you were in, just seconds before the doors were barred by some over-sized crucifix. And I imagine that some of you here this morning can identify with, after having fled from the church you fled, sort of feeling this blank stare, “well-what-next?” feeling at the pit of your stomach.

Well, what next? For those of us who are more established within Unitarian Universalism, what does the future hold for us? Where is our living tradition headed? What covenants will bind us in the time to come? Where is the bus going?

Last month I went to Louisville to participate in three days of conversations about growth in our congregations. I was one of twelve ministers of growing churches selected to gather together for these conversations and denominational leaders including Bill Sinkford, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, came to listen to what the twelve of us had to say. Personally, it was an honor to be asked to help shape the future of Unitarian Universalism in this way. But it was also a deeply enriching experience.

The first part of our program involved each of the invited ministers standing up and saying in a single sentence what the saving message of their church is: one by one the twelve of us stood.

Each and every one of us had no problem articulating the work of our churches using these terms. We each had a conviction that our churches – and our faith – had a life-changing and life-saving message. One minister stood and said, “Our church offers a life giving community in a life-destroying culture.” A second stood and said, “All souls are welcomed, including even and up to and especially you.” When I stood I shared our mission: through inviting all into a caring community, inspiring spiritual growth, and involving people in working for peace, fairness and freedom, our church transforms lives and those lives transform the world.

And so I wonder, I wonder what if we were to attach covenantal significance to the mission of our church? What if we were to frame our mission in the language of covenant, to say that our mission actually articulates sacred promises? Not eternal promises, because mission and covenant can change, but promises for right here and right now.

What kind of promises could we make around inviting? One part of that promise would be that every single person in this community has a responsibility, an expectation, that they will help to welcome people when they come through our doors, and help them to find a home here. Another part of that promise would be that every single person in this community has a responsibility to help people who are searching for the blessings of a liberal religious community such as ours to actually find out about us.

(Here is the way I figure it. The population of Johnson County alone is 600,000. Our church has 300 members. So, roughly one out of every 2,000 people – or one-half of one-tenth of one percent – in our county belongs to this church. Might our religion speak to one-tenth of one percent, two tenths of one percent? One percent? What promise can we make here? Can we transform lives?)

The second part of our mission talks about inspiration and spiritual growth. What would happen if we made that into a promise? Might we promise to engage in spiritual practice? Might we promise, whenever we feel burned-out, cynical, out of touch with our sense of awe and wonder, to engage in practices of spiritual renewal? Might we inquire of one another, “How is your spiritual life?” And if the answer is “blah” might we promise to use our own gifts to lift up others’ lives?

Finally, the third part of our mission describes the fruits of belonging to this community: a life transformed that responds to that transformation by working to transform the world. Do we, in our living, evidence the fruits of a transformed life?

Maybe, just maybe, Ben and Elaine’s bus drops them off in front of the Unitarian Universalist church in Santa Barbara. You have to use your imagination. Maybe the bus makes a wrong turn and winds up in Overland Park, KS where they are dropped off right in front of SMUUCh. Hey, it could happen. What would Ben and Elaine find here? Imagine it. Imagine them: they arrive looking rugged and desperate. They arrive confused, angry, describing a troubled relationship with their families. They arrive with some issues in their own relationship, certainly. And they’re kind of unsure about what they ought to do with their lives, although Ben knows he doesn’t want to have anything to do with plastics. None of us arrive here exactly like this. We all arrive here a bit like this, though.

What do Ben and Elaine find? It depends on the promises our church has made with itself and the covenants we’ve freely entered into with each other and the source and resource of their very being. In need of a caring community, do Ben and Elaine find a “Bridge over Troubled Water”? Hungry for a spiritual growth, do they find the “Sound of Silence”? And, would it be a stretch, would it be a stretch to imagine Ben and Elaine, someday, many years from now walking down a strange street, a street in the third world, where they don’t speak the language. Perhaps they have come to care for the scatterlings and orphanages and when they look up they see angels in the architecture. Maybe Ben and Elaine are now Betty and Al. (By the way, that is a reference to the Paul Simon song “You can Call Me Al.”)

When I first began this sermon series back in the heat of July, I described our covenants in passive language. The covenant had to do with promises of acceptance, tolerance, inclusion, freedom and choice. Recently, I encountered a quote that I found provocative. The quote said, “I don’t want more choices; I want better things.” Our new promises, new covenant, will be active. The new covenant will describe our promise to work for better things: Invited, Inspired, and Involved we promise to help you discover better living and a better spirit to the end of helping you make a difference in working for a better world.

Intro. to the Sermon

Our guitar player, Tom K., helped me to work up a song we’d like to share with you this morning. The song is called “No Depression in Heaven” and the version of it I’m familiar with was recorded by the band Uncle Tupelo from Belleville, Illinois, a few miles from where Tom grew up. The song has also been recorded by Sheryl Crow. But the first group to do this song was the Carter Family in 1936. I’d like for you to imagine that it is 1936. The Great Depression had knocked the American economy off its tracks. Here in Kansas, the Dust Bowl cost people their livelihoods and their lives. Wishing for something better, people might have found strength in singing a song like this:

Fear the hearts of men are failing
These our latter days we know
The great depression now is spreading
God's word declared it would be so

I'm going where there's no depression
To a better land that's free from care
I'll leave this world of toil and trouble
My home's in heaven
I'm going there.

In this dark hour, midnight nearing
The tribulation time will come
The storms will hurl the midnight fear
And sweep lost millions to their doom

I'm going where there's no depression
To a better land that's free from care
I'll leave this world of toil and trouble
My home's in heaven
I'm going there

Sermon

“I’m going where there’s no depression / to another land that’s free from care / I’ll leave this world of toil and trouble. / My home’s in heaven. I’m going there.”
The lyrics seem to tell us to give up hope in this world; our reward will come in heaven. They tell us to accept our suffering and sadness in this world; they’re only transient and temporal. There is no depression in heaven. Needless to say, this is NOT the message I am going to deliver this morning.

While we may reject the other-worldly escapism of this song, we can embrace the defiance in these lyrics. Whether we consider the word “depression” to be a nod to a mental health condition or to the state of the economy in 1930’s America, we can find in the lyrics the empowering and decidedly bold statement: the present reality is not my destiny. I am not stuck here. My home is not here. There is somewhere, somewhere, where there is no depression and I will get there. I know I will get there. I know I will.

Each year on the first Sunday in December I preach about a different spiritual affliction, one that many of us may tend to face. The timing of these sermons is intentional. With the likelihood of added strain and anxiety around the Holiday season, added expectations, stressful family dynamics, financial woes, and so on, this is a time when spiritual afflictions tend to surface.

Two years ago this week I preached on Loneliness. (This wasn’t the easiest sermon I’ve ever preached considering the dating relationship I was in at the time had come to its official end exactly twelve hours before I was due to step into the pulpit and speak words of comfort to those who suffer from loneliness.)

Last year I preached about Anger. I had recently begun my discipline of Friday sermon writing at the coffee-shop I frequent. I remember sitting there with my lap-top and a book Peggy K. had loaned me called the Anger Management Workbook. The title of book was written in large, bold, angry red letters. Nobody sat next to me. People glanced at me warily.

And this year, sitting in the coffee-shop with books carrying titles like Struggling with Depression I got an equal number of uncomfortable looks. At first, I would turn over the book to hide the title, but by the end of my preparation and studies, I placed the books face-up for all to see.

A few preliminary remarks: I am a minister, not a psychologist and not a medical doctor. So, in this sermon about a psychological disorder and medical disease, I am going to try to discipline myself to stay in the role of minister and consider the spiritual dimensions of depression. Which is not to diminish the importance of psychological and psychiatric medicine – I am not Tom Cruise jumping up and down on Oprah’s couch and shouting that psychology is a fraud – but I’m going to try to speak from my area of specialized knowledge. I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one in the pulpit.

That said, there are a few things I learned during my preparation. The first is that depression is tremendously wide-spread. It is estimated that at any given time, ten percent of the population wrestles with some form of depression. That means that if there are nine people in your life who are important to you, chances are good that one of you struggles with depression. A friend of mine in medical school who studies at the same coffee-shop where I write my sermons told me that they were taught that 70% of all people will experience clinical depression during their lifetime.

Another thing to remember is that not all depressions are equal. Claudia Strauss distinguishes between what she calls Depression with a capital “D” and depression with a lower-case “d.” The best analogy can probably be found in the language of 12-step programs where they talk about “low bottoms” and “high bottoms.” A “high bottom” is someone who is an addict but manages to hold down their job, remain stable in their relationships, stay free of legal trouble, and so on. “Low bottoms” tend to lose their jobs, wreck their relationships, and winds up on the streets or in jail. Similarly, some who live with depression are high functioning. They succeed in school and in their careers; some even excel. They maintain relationships. For others depression causes everything to fall apart. I do not mean to dismiss the actual struggles of those who function at a high level with depression. One of the books I read was the memoir of a successful psychotherapist who chronicles her descent into and recovery from a deep, deep depression. When she first goes to see a therapist she says, “But I’ve felt like this all my life and I’ve gotten along okay.” “All that means,” her therapist answers, “is that you have a high tolerance for pain and a lot of determination.”

I also was reminded that while mental illness has become better understood, and while the stigma is diminishing, mental illness is still stigmatized. Consider my initial impulse to cover up the books. Consider the worried, anxious glances I received after I decided to display them. In the interest of honesty, I have no shame in letting you know that from time to time I have seen counselors and therapists. I’ve also taken anti-depressants. In my thinking, you join a gym to improve and preserve your physical well-being. You turn to mental health professionals to improve and preserve your emotional and psychological health.

One final piece of learning from my study and preparation: We would never look at a person in a wheelchair or on crutches and say, “You could get up and walk if you really wanted to.” We’d never say to someone with Alzheimer’s, “You’d remember my name if you just tried harder.” But, with depression sometimes we do fall into the false idea that if the person just bucked up, just tried a little harder, just had some willpower, they’d be OK. Why do we slip into assuming that this illness can be treated with will-power when we wouldn’t tell somebody with a broken leg to “walk it off”? Martha Manning says that we easily fall into taking a “moralistic view of depression as a personal weakness and a condition under one’s own control.” We should see it a different way. Those afflicted with depression, whether they function at a high level or not, are heroic. To simply live requires courage. If you are without hope, if you see your life through gray-tinted glasses, if joy and satisfaction are always elusive, then to keep living and fighting is a testament to strength and bravery.

Let me work something out right here. So, I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one in the pulpit. As a minister my call is to speak to the spiritual dimensions, the soul dimensions, of issues. So, the sermon reaches an impasse here. If I compartmentalize my thinking, what does theology have to say to medical science? It is like saying that there is a religious meaning to Tommy John surgery, the reconstruction of the ulna collateral ligament in a person’s elbow. (Unless of course it is a baseball player for the Yankees getting the surgery, in which case, clearly, God has acted with righteous judgment.)

But, what if I don’t compartmentalize my thinking? What if we say that spirituality, prayer, faith, meditation, and theology DO speak to depression? There is some danger in going down this road. I don’t believe prayer or faith is a sufficient treatment for depression. But, allow me to say that faith and medicine can at least be in conversation with each other.

At a basic level, religion can be in conversation with depression in the form of religious community. In the book Traveling Mercies author Anne Lamott describes finding a church when she was in the depths of sadness and despair. She talks about how, at first, she just slipped in to hear the congregation sing hymns at the very end of the service, and how she just sat in the very back row and cried through them. As she began to make connections in the community she describes it in these terms: “I came to this church at the end of my rope. The members of this church tied a knot in the rope for me to hang on to.”

One of the books on depression that I read explains that depression involves neural pathways being fixed in such a way that negative feelings and negative thoughts repeat constantly. The book suggests that depression can be improved by doing things that interrupt these neural pathways. This can be something as simple as changing the colors of your wardrobe, adding a plant to a room, rearranging the furniture, or taking an alternate route to work. Five minutes jumping on a trampoline or five minutes on a swing can flood your brain with feel-good chemicals. Laughing or singing or listening to music can stimulate your brain chemistry. In church community we can make relationships with others who can break us out of our fixed patterns. We can sing and laugh and listen to music that pumps up our brain chemistry.

While I cannot underestimate the worth of community and the effects it has on stimulating positive mental health, it is far from the only thing about religion and spirituality that can be in conversation with depression. I have a friend who has a relative who believes in a more conventional Christian theology. This relative suffers from severe depression and entertains thoughts of suicide. At times he has said that the only thing that keeps him from taking his own life is his belief that God would be angry with him if he acted on the impulse. His relief is not found in escapist ideas of heaven. God, he believes, wants him to live. In our church, I suspect few of us would articulate this the same way as he does. But I think we can speak of having a holy purpose and a sacred calling. In this church we talk about our mission to invite everyone into caring community, to grow spiritually, and to become involved in working for a peaceful, fair and free world. For us, it is not so much about avoiding the chastisement of a divine parental figure. For us, it is realizing at a profound and essential level that our lives are not just our own. I am a part of something bigger than I am and you are a part of something bigger than you are. Your life does not only belong to you. You are a part of something greater. The world has need of you.

And there is more. There is more than the importance of church community as an instrument for our further wholeness. There is more than the mission of our Unitarian Universalist faith that calls us to live lives of meaning and service, and that tells us that we are a part of an interdependent web where that space in the web that we occupy is important and that we should bless the entire web of life through our living.

There is more. I cannot end this sermon without saying something about creativity. One web-site I visited listed people who suffered from depression and bipolar disorder. The list included Abraham Lincoln, Beethoven, Isaac Newton, Michelangelo, Vincent Van Gogh, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams. They all suffered from some form of depression or bipolar disorder. The same can be said of any number of contemporary artists, like Kurt Cobain. Of contemporary depression sufferers, I think in particular of Elliot Smith, one of the most beautiful songwriters of the last two decades.

These lives may be described in terms of beauty and in terms of tragedy. What beauty and what waste of life! What beauty and what waste! A couple months back I picked up a biography of Elliot Smith, a songwriter from Portland, Oregon. The biography was written by Ben Nugent who lived in the dorm across from mine in college. Whenever I play an Elliot Smith record, I am simultaneously thankful and angry: thankful for the gift of his beautiful music, angry that he took his own life in 2003 and isn’t still making beautiful music. What beauty and what waste!

But creativity and inventiveness are not the sole possessions of depressed artists. Far from it. I believe that the holy is found in nature; the holy is found in relationship; the holy is found in justice work; and that the holy is found in creativity. Our faith helps us to experience awe, to sense the holy that is all around us in nature and relationship and justice and creativity.

What I have found in my experience with depression, in my experience with those who suffer from depression, in my research, in my intuition, and in my heart is that depression keeps people from being able to recognize and fully sense the holy. And so, while religion and spirituality are no substitute for counseling and therapy and medication, that practice of being able to name and recognize what is holy may be a way of resisting depression.

I began the sermon by living out a small dream of singing. I don’t claim any skill or ability in that act. But it was joy to collaborate with Tom K. And it was joy to sing. And I suspect some of you will find joy in teasing me about my singing. Even simple joys can be sources of hope and resilience!

In this season of advent, may absence turn to presence. May despair turn to hope. May indifference turn to joy. May all those who suffer from depression, directly or indirectly, be especially held in community, encouraged by a sense of purpose, and surrounded by an awareness of the holy that always, always pervades our living.

Benediction

If you are feeling depressed, may you go forth in the knowledge that this does not have to be your destiny. May you come fully to know the treasures of religious community. May you know that your life has purpose and that the world has need of you. And, may you grow in awareness of the holy, responding to it with joy, a joy to receive as well as to give.

Bibliography and Acknowledgments

Peggy K. loaned me two important books I read for this sermon: Talking to Depression: Simple Ways to Connect when Someone in Your Life Is Depressed by Claudia Strauss and Undercurrents: A Life Between the Surface by Martha Manning. In addition, Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies (like all her other writings) contains significant insight about the intersection between mental illness and spirituality.

Tom K. & Peggy K. each contributed in many ways to make this sermon what it was. The worship committee encouraged me to explore this topic. Dan D. began the worship service by reading the opening words with his wonderful voice. Jan L. and Ruth S. moved us during the service by playing a beautiful flute/piano duet. Allen G. took the time to share his wisdom. Sarah P. talked with me as I wrote the sermon, giving me the medical school take on the subject and otherwise sharing her wisdom. Finally, thank you to everyone who trusts me to be their minister. I always, always learn from you.

If you are in the Kansas City metro-area this Sunday morning (12/2) make sure you join us for worship at the Shawnee Mission UU Church at 10:00 or 11:30. I will be preaching on "The Spiritual Dimensions of Depression" but more than that I will be making my singing debut. Joined by Tom K. on acoustic guitar I will be singing a rendition of "No Depression in Heaven."

"No Depression" was a country song originally performed in 1936 by the Carter Family. The song originally referred to the Great Depression. Over the years it has been covered by numerous artists. (Click here to listen to version of it as sung by Sheryl Crow.)

However, the most famous version of the song was the one done by Uncle Tupelo. This band, based in Belleville, Ill. and fronted Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy, recorded and toured from 1987-1994. Although heavily influenced by punk-rock, Uncle Tupelo played country music in order to find success within the St. Louis music scene. What resulted was a brand new genre of music: alternative country.

When Uncle Tupelo broke up, they spawned two important groups. Jeff Tweedy would go on to front Wilco, an experimental alternative rock band that has since released 6 studio albums as well as collaborations with Billy Bragg and the Minus 5. Their 2002 album "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" would go on to make Rolling Stone's list of the top 500 albums of all-time.

The other half of Uncle Tupelo, Jay Farrar, would go on to front Son Volt, a band that would stay closer to the alternative country formula and record 5 full-length albums including the brilliant 1995 release "Trace", the under-rated 2005 "Okemah and the Melody of Riot", and the brand new album "The Search."

I can't wait to sing on Sunday!

Reading

The reading comes from a new collection of writings by Mother Teresa entitled, Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the “Saint of Calcutta”. While the words of Mother Teresa below may sound surprising, they are not the product of some muckraker trying to discredit her. The book is edited by Father Brian Kolodiejchuk who is leading the case in the Catholic Church to recognize Mother Teresa as a saint.

Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me, the child of your love? And now I’ve become as the most hated one, the one You have thrown away as unwanted, unloved. I call; I cling; I want: and there is no One to answer, no One on Whom I can cling – no, No One. Alone. The darkness is so dark and I am alone, unwanted, forsaken. The loneliness of the heart that wants love is unbearable. Where is my faith? Even deep down, right in, there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. My God, how painful is this unknown pain? It pains without ceasing. I have no faith. I dare not utter words and thoughts that crowd in my heart and make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me. I am afraid to uncover them because of the blasphemy. If there be God, please forgive me. [I] trust that all will end in Heaven with Jesus. When I try to raise my thoughts to heaven there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my soul. Love – the word – it brings nothing. I am told God loves me, and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Before the work started there was so much union, love, faith, trust, prayer, and sacrifice. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the call…? [p. 186-187, I have taken the liberty to alter the punctuation because Mother Teresa used dashes in her writings in the place of distinct punctuation marks.]

Sermon

Earlier this Fall, Leslie G. approached me after a worship service (or was it before a worship service?) and told me that she thought the recent media attention that had been paid to Mother Teresa was very interesting, and that she would enjoy hearing a sermon on her. In the frenzy of Sunday morning, where ideas and suggestions are more likely to overwhelm me than inspire me and those offering ideas are most likely to be met with a blank, panicked stare, I believe I responded to Leslie that I would think about it. But good ideas have a way of rising up, of resurrecting themselves days or months or years later.

What Leslie was referring to when she recommended I preach about Mother Teresa was a great volume of her private letters and diaries that have recently surfaced. These letters are surprising. In them, Mother Teresa confesses that she carried out her dutiful work for decades and decades, all the while feeling the absence of God. In her writings she speaks of the proverbial “Dark night of the soul”, only one that lasts not a night, but almost half a century. She writes of God’s absence, which she felt to such a degree that she, at times, went as far as to doubt God’s existence. I will say a lot more about this later, but this, I believe, is what piqued Leslie’s attention.

The sermon this morning will contain three parts. First, I will offer the briefest of overviews of the life of Mother Teresa, a cursory biographical sketch. Next, we will consider many of the ways that people have reacted to and criticized her life and ministry. Finally, we will engage with the mysterious reality that so much of Mother Teresa’s life was spent in utter spiritual desolation and abandonment, that when she searched for God she found emptiness.

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Macedonia in 1910. She was raised an Albanian Catholic and grew up with some degree of privilege as part of a political family. The Balkans in that day were as violent and unstable as they were in the 1990’s due to ethnic and religious strife. At age two, she and her family survived a violent massacre that claimed the lives of many around her. Later in life, her father would be poisoned by his political opponents.

During her teen years, Agnes Gonxha decided to become a nun and at 18 she was accepted as a novitiate into the order of the Sisters of Loreto, a Catholic order that specialized in education. She chose Saint Therese de Lisieux as her patron and asked to be sent to serve in India. In 1928, at the age of 18, she set off with the Sisters of Loreto to serve in India where she would serve as a school teacher for the next 18 years of her life. Then, in 1946 on a train ride to Darjeeling, she had a mystical experience in which she heard Jesus speaking to her, telling her to leave the Sisters of Loreto and begin a new order working directly with the poor and the sick of Calcutta.

She spent the next two years working within the Catholic hierarchy to get permission to follow this calling. (In many churches, things tend to move slowly.) The new organization she formed was called the Missionaries of Charity. They lived among the poor and the sick street people of Calcutta, serving them directly. Their ministry was to the sick, the hungry, and the dying believing that all people were children of God and that God loved even and especially the lowliest.

For the next fifty years until her death, Mother Teresa headed up the Missionaries of Charity. Her order spread and became a worldwide movement with sisters in her order serving the world’s poorest and most destitute in dozens of nations. In 1979, Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize. She became recognized as a living Saint and continued her work until her death in 1996. In 2002 she was beatified by Pope John Paul II. Beatification means to be regarded as “blessed” by the Catholic Church. It clears one’s way for canonization as a Saint and those canonization procedures are still on-going as we speak. (Again, the point about things moving slowly in churches.)

It is intriguing to note the way that various people have responded to Mother Teresa’s life and ministry. She was definitely a figure of selfless humility and mostly did her best to stay out of the spotlight. She constantly worried that praise for her was really praise that was owed to Jesus Christ so she made herself small and referred to herself simply as an instrument of God’s love. She sometimes called herself “God’s little pencil.” Perhaps, in the absence of a larger-than-life personality it has been easy for others to project their own ideas onto her. She was neither a prolific nor an especially talented writer. She hoped her private letters would be destroyed, perhaps out of modesty, and later agreed to write books under the condition that her papers would be burnt. (Those who held on to her private papers didn’t keep their end of the bargain.)

To this day, Mother Teresa remains one of the most frequently misquoted figures of the 20th century. If you go looking on the internet, you will find all sorts of sentimental writings that claim her authorship. Most notable is a poem called “Do it Anyway” which was actually written by a guy named Kent Keith. Which is just as well, because it is a lousy poem.

But more telling are Mother Teresa’s many critics. Let me share three kinds of criticism that are frequently leveled against her. The first criticisms come from fellow Catholics, particularly Catholics who embraced Liberation Theology. Primarily Central- and South American, Liberation Catholics drew their inspiration from reading Jesus as a social radical and were also inspired by socialism and Marxist critiques of wealth and society. This school of Catholicism thought Mother Teresa was too much a part of the establishment. Her ministry, they said, amounted to treating cancer with a band-aid. They were calling for a radical reshaping of the social and economic order and thought that direct care of the poor and hungry without addressing the underlying reasons for poverty and hunger was in error.

Mother Teresa was also criticized by those outside of Catholicism. These criticisms came from extreme secularists as well as from religious liberals, and while these criticisms frequently overlap, they are distinct as well.

Leading the charge of the extreme secularists is Christopher Hitchens. Immediately following Mother Teresa’s death, he released a book that was a harsh screed against Mother Teresa. The book carried the tasteless title, The Missionary Position. But the book actually raised a number of important questions, ranging from the quality of medicine and medical ethics practiced in the hospitals Mother Teresa built, to questions about how Mother Teresa raised and used funds, to larger questions about how Catholic doctrine influenced for the worse her care for poor. A full decade later, Hitchens was still at it. In his most recent book about why religion is evil, the best-seller God is not Great, Hitchens finds three opportunities to take further shots at Mother Teresa.

His two most legitimate points of critique involve her flying to Ireland to speak in support of a law that would outlaw divorce, and her quixotic and harmful attempts to improve public health while simultaneously teaching that contraception is immoral. (Is it really unreasonable to suggest that the victim of domestic violence should be able to leave her spouse, or that condom use should be encouraged to stem the spread of AIDS across the Indian sub-continent?)

Religious liberals have also found opportunity to criticize Mother Teresa. After all, she chose to devote her entire Nobel Prize acceptance speech to condemning abortion. While not all religious liberals can be labeled as “pro-choice”, I am confident that most would be able to imagine situations in which abortion would be the best outcome of an unfortunate situation. And few of us would take seriously her claim that, quote, “Abortion is the greatest destroyer of peace.”

Religious liberals should also take issue with Mother Teresa’s adherence to Catholic doctrine on the issue of contraception. When AIDS is spreading rampantly, it is bad health policy following from bad theology to teach that condoms are evil.

We can debate and deliberate these matters as much as we like. We can weigh her decades upon decades of brave, self-forgetting service in the slums of Calcutta against our concern with aspects of Catholic teaching and criticisms of Mother Teresa’s method. We can do this. But, there is no chance Leslie G. would be asking me to give a sermon on Mother Teresa if not for what came to light months ago in her letters and private writings.

What do we do with a Saint who loses her faith? What do we make out of someone who spent her life surrounded with people with leprosy, tuberculosis, festering wounds… what do we make out of someone who willingly chose poverty and despair at its most extreme levels in order to live according to a faith that so often wasn’t there? And why does this appeal to us as Unitarian Universalists?

I think we often fall into the trap of assuming things about other people’s faith lives and belief systems that aren’t exactly representative of the reality of their faith lives and belief systems. For example, while we are the only Unitarian Universalist church in Johnson County, we are far from the largest Unitarian Universalist church in Johnson County. I would wager that there are more people who are theologically Unitarian Universalist at Adam Hamilton’s Church of the Resurrection in Leawood than there are here. And there are probably more people who are theologically Unitarian Universalist at many of the UCC churches in our area than we claim as members of our church.

But what about religious leaders? I think we tend to assume that religious leaders of such a magnitude as Mother Teresa are either completely convinced of their religious convictions or are charlatans and fakers. Whether we are talking about the Pope or the President of the UUA, the Dalai Lama or Jerry Johnston we tend to believe in this all-or-nothing stance. So, what do we do with Mother Teresa?

As we move towards the conclusion of this sermon, let me say just a few words about her crisis of faith. In the tradition of mystical spirituality, the hidden divine who refuses to be known or comprehended is actually a common occurrence. In religious scholarship this is known as “apophaticism.” A mysticism of God’s inability to be known. The proverbial “dark night of the soul” is also a familiar concept. In our own Building Your Own Theology class we talk not only of peak religious experiences – “I have been to mountaintop” – but also “valley” religious experiences, the development of faith that occurs in the depths of grief and agony.

But, in the case of Mother Teresa, my goodness, that is one deep valley. That is one long stretch to feel the absence of God.

The title I gave this sermon, “Is Mother Teresa a Candidate for UU Sainthood?” is a tongue-in-cheek title. But, perhaps what was so appealing and even inspiring to some of us about Mother Teresa’s secret writings is the fact that someone can express doubt about the divine and still continue to live out their faith in a passionate way.

Maybe that is the lesson for us to take away with us this morning: we are not the only faith that leaves room for doubt, that can truly say, in the words of a popular reading from our hymnal that we should “cherish our doubts, for doubt is the attendant to truth. Doubt is the key to the door of knowledge and it is the servant of discovery.”

Those confidential letters by Mother Teresa humanized her for me. I found myself able to empathize with her in a way I had never been able to before. All of sudden, Mother Teresa was not this angel on earth. She was not some larger than life abstraction. She was someone I could stand in the same room with. She was human. Just like us. Just like us. In Unitarian Universalism, we speak of the “Prophethood of all Believers” by which we mean the potential sainthood of all souls. I am deeply thankful for this reminder of human-ness in a life we might think of as so ethereal. How grand is that mixture of humanity and divinity!

Call to Worship

With Thanksgiving coming later this week, let us begin the service this week by thinking back to the Pilgrims. In 1620, the Mayflower anchored off the shore of Cape Cod. Aboard the ship, the passengers agreed upon a set of laws that would govern them and they called this “The Mayflower Compact.” The Compact was written in the tradition of covenant, which, the Puritans believed, existed not only between God and humankind, but also between human beings. Part of the Mayflower Compact read as such:

“[We] solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one of another, Covenant and Combine ourselves together into a Civil Body Politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance… and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices… as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.”

It may be appropriate to say that our nation began with an idea of covenant, and, more than that, with an idea that we each have a sacred responsibility to the civil body politic, to the general welfare of all. This morning we will wonder whether this can truly be said of our nation today. Do we have a social covenant anymore? Let us discern and discover together. Let us worship together.


Movie Clip
Before the sermon, I showed a film clip from “Sicko”, Michael Moore’s powerful documentary about the dark side of the American health care system. The clip I chose to show was of a hospital in California that practiced “patient-dumping.” Patient-dumping involves putting patients who are not profitable or unable to pay in a taxi and sending them to be dropped off near a homeless shelter. Following the footage, Moore’s voice breaks in and asks, “Who are we?... It has been said that you can tell the character of a nation by how it treats its most needy.”



Sermon

Who are we? Who are we?

I have my own “Michael Moore” story. In the summer of 2001 I worked for Parkland Hospital in Dallas, a large county hospital that served the indigent of that city. Think of Truman Hospital here in Kansas City and you’ll get the idea. To this day, I consider the emergency waiting room of Parkland Hospital to be the scariest place I have ever visited on Earth. On account of its air-conditioning and free drinking fountain, it was actually a favored place for many of Dallas’ homeless. Imagine being so bad off that you would choose to spend the day in a hospital emergency waiting room. I have no idea if Parkland practiced “patient-dumping.” In fact, I met many of the head administrators of the hospital and found them honorable and decent human beings. But, anyone who spent any time around Parkland Hospital knew that many patients left walking, or limping on crutches, or sometimes in wheelchairs – and sometimes in hospital gowns – to cross a six-lane street and wander a few blocks down Harry Hines Blvd. to the homeless shelters of Dallas. So, even if you think of Michael Moore as being someone with a flair for the sensational, in this case I have with my own two eyes seen something comparable to what he shows happen on a daily basis.

This sermon is the fifth in a six-sermon series on “Covenant in Liberal Religion.” In July we explored the difference between a creed and a covenant, between creedal religion and covenantal religion. In August we examined the covenant of membership, of what we promise to one another as members of this church. In September, we talked about the covenant of the free pulpit and the free pew as essential elements of free religion and we also explored what covenants we shared to encourage one another to grow spiritually. In October, I preached on the covenant that exists between churches. But this morning, I want to expand our idea about covenant; I want to talk about covenants that are larger than those that we share with the people of this church or this faith.

The ancient Greek word for city is “polis.” “Pi – Omicron – Lambda – Iota – Sigma. From which we derive the word, “politics.” A politician, then, is one who helps to govern the city. The word political means “having to do with the city.”

So, if we were to ask the question, “should a church be political?” we would really be asking, should a church have anything to do with the city? And, let me expand this a little bit. In Ancient Greece, if I remember my humanities classes correctly, there was not really a concept of nation. Greece was a consortium of city-states. The city, the polis, was the largest grouping of human beings. In the Trojan War, Athens goes to war with Troy. That may seem like Atlanta going to war with Tallahassee – but cities were considered to be their own sovereign states.

If we say that the church should not be political, we are saying that it should have nothing to do with the city around it, or the nation around it. Which is an idea I completely, and absolutely, and resoundingly reject. Emphatically reject. Being political has very little to do with endorsing candidates. It has to do with claiming a voice in the city in which we live, the state, and the nation. It has to do with answering the question, “Who are we?” This is a religious question if ever there was one.

The aspect of covenant we are talking about this morning is “social covenant.” A covenant, I remind you, is a set of serious and abiding promises into which we enter with the whole of our beings. These promises are so serious and so demanding that it is accepted that we will never fully live up to those promises – we will fail them – but that when we do we will re-enter into the covenant, do our best to live up to it knowing we can never perfectly live it out.

The idea of social covenant, or contract, or compact, has two roots. One root is the Enlightenment. Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau, to name just a few, articulated ideas about social covenant. For Hobbes, our lives were nasty, brutish, and short and so there was a great need for social covenant to keep us from being our natural nasty and brutish selves. French political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote a book called Social Contract, in which he asserted the idea that a kind of democratic socialism was the best way to protect individual freedom.

But, the other root of social covenant is Biblical. When the Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower composed and signed the Mayflower Compact, they understood themselves as acting within the tradition of Biblical covenant. When they wrote of covenanting to combine themselves into a “general body politic” for their own better ordering and general good, they imagined themselves fulfilling a religious commandment. Of course, it should be noted that it was the 41 men aboard the Mayflower and none of the women who signed their names to the covenant. And, the covenant included only them, and not the Native Americans whose land they were about to set foot upon.

In the Biblical tradition, it is the Hebrew prophets who most passionately speak to an enlarged sense of social covenant. Some of the most well-known prophets call for justice in the community. Amos speaks against the practice of making the measure of wheat great and the shekel small, dealing in dishonest measures. He declares, “You shall not buy the needy for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals.”

Micah famously claims that the Lord is not impressed with ostentatious demonstrations of wealth, or fancy sacrifices, or showy piety. Rather, according to Micah, the Lord commands simply that we act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly.

The prophets did not just speak about how to treat one another within a given community. They also called for justice between nations. Isaiah calls for “swords to be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, and neither shall they learn war anymore.” And, I cannot recall who said it, but I think to a more contemporary elaboration on Isaiah’s words that after we have beaten our swords into ploughshares, we shall beat our ploughshares into kettles so that if we ever have need of swords we will first have to beat our kettles back into ploughshares before we beat them into swords.

Whether we derive the idea of social covenant and compact from Enlightenment philosophy or Biblical roots, I want to say a few words about what social covenant might exist for us today. Numerous social and political commentators have talked about the decline, even the death of social covenant. Looking at employment, they point to the decline of job security, pensions, health care benefits, benefits like maternity leave or child care, as well as the lack of a general sense of loyalty between employee and employer. In the governmental sector, they point to the weakening of the safety net, the abolishing of state and national programs to help the neediest and most vulnerable in society. In education, they point to the disappearance of music and arts in many schools and the declining investment in teachers. How many of you have had to do private fundraising to keep a music program or club alive?

I am thankful to have grown up in a phenomenal public school system, the result of living in an economically bifurcated town in which half the town had tremendous wealth and the other half was a mix of working class and lower-paid professionals who together had the voting power to keep taxes high. The town had some of the highest taxes in the whole state. But my second grade teacher had a Ph. D in education. My high school English teacher had a Ph.D. in English literature from Stanford. My high school biology teacher had a Ph.D. in biology. My American history teacher had published articles about Native American history in scholarly journals. Six-figure salaries for public school teachers were not unheard of. When I think of social covenant that works, I think of my public school education. Which was not perfect. I remember that we were a school system that was part of the larger Boston area’s bussing program, which brought underprivileged students from the inner city to school systems such as the one I went to. I remember one year they decided to cut the late bus, which meant students from the inner city would not be able to participate in after-school sports, clubs, and other activities. In response to the threat of this cut, a large team of teachers collected pledges and ran the New York City marathon in order to keep the bus available to all students.

This story is inspiring, and at the same time, a bit troubling. Who are we? Are we a society that turns to bake sales to buy textbooks? That turns to garage sales to pay medical bills? That sends the sick away in taxis to be dropped off somewhere else? Who are we?

Last week, my colleague Peter Luton from Bellevue, Washington shared with me a wonderful story that illustrates the idea of social covenant.

The story involves a milk man in a small town who earns his living by going door to door each morning with a large jug of milk. For lunch, he stops in a sunny clearing and sets his jug on a rock while he unpacks his humble lunch of bread and hard cheese.

One day, the goat herder came by as the milk man was having his lunch. The milk man hollered a greeting which spooked one of the goats which sprang upon the rock and knocked the jug over, shattering it and spilling its contents. Not only would the milk man lose the rest of his day’s wages, but it might take up to a month to fashion another jug. How would he live without a month’s income? The milk man demanded the goat herder sell his goats to pay for the milk man’s losses. The goat herder responded that to do so would bankrupt him.

The two men went to the village judge. After hearing both of them plead their cases, the judge declared that is was neither the fault of the goat herder nor the fault of the milk man. To truly find out whose fault it was, he would hold a trial between the goat and rock. The judge sent his bailiffs to bring forward the goat and the rock. The goat came fairly easily. It took twenty bailiffs to carry the rock.

Soon, word of the trial spread throughout the village. The trial was to be held in the town center, and by the next day all of the townspeople had come to witness the spectacle of such a ridiculous trial. The judge ordered his bailiffs to seal all of the gates to the town center, trapping everyone inside. Then the judge spoke. “You have come to see a trial between a rock and a goat, which is a foolish thing. Thus, you have come to see me make a fool out of myself. The only fair judgment is to fine each of you a few coins for ‘improper thoughts.’” The money was given to the milk man who was able to purchase a new jug and continue his work.

We are entering an election cycle. We are a little more than 11 months away from a Presidential election, along with a whole slate of national, state, and local candidates. I would encourage you all, at minimum, to explore your religious convictions. How does the idea of social covenant speak to you? I would encourage you to pay attention to which candidates express a vision of a social covenant. How do they answer the question, “Who are we?” Better yet, I call on you to demand of them an answer to this question: Who are we? and Who ought we to become?

Then, perhaps, may it be said again that, “[We] solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one of another, Covenant and Combine ourselves together into a Civil Body Politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance… and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices… as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of all.” Amen.

I will be spending the next week in two Southern cities. First, I will be traveling to Durham, North Carolina where I will be the guest minister for the weekend at the Eno River Unitarian Unitarian Fellowship. If you don't count the Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C., Eno River is the second largest UU Church in the American South (VA, NC, SC, GA, FL, TN, KY, MS, AL, and AR). I will be holding an organizing meeting with their young adult group on Saturday evening, preaching a version of my Indiana Jones sermon, and then meeting with ERUUF's leadership to do a workshop on how to make religious communities more Young Adult-friendly.

Then it is off to Louisville, Kentucky to attend the Summit on Growth hosted by the UUA Growth Task Force. This Task Force has invited twelve ministers of growing churches to come and share their learnings about church growth. I will be joined by the following amazing colleagues: Marilyn Sewell (Portland, OR), Michael Schuler (Madison, WI), Peter Morales (Golden, CO), Rob Hardies (Washington, D.C.), Christine Robinson (Albuquerque, NM), Victoria Safford (White Bear, MN), Liz Lerner (Silver Springs, MD), Helen Carroll (San Luis Obispo, CA), Kendra Ford (Exeter, NH), John Crestwell (Camp Davies, MD), and Ken Beldon (the newly forming Wellsprings Church in PA.)

Before the Summit on Growth, you know where I'll be making a pilgrimage:

Reading
This Sunday’s reading was a poem by Robert Bly entitled “The Resemblance Between Your Life and a Dog.” Rather than reprint it here, you may find the poem here, here, and here.

Sermon
A member of our church gave me permission to tell the following story:

Some years ago a friend of hers was faced with tragic circumstances. Her son had been involved in a horrible car accident and suffered a traumatic and life-altering head injury. As any good friend would do, our church member reached out to her friend and was rebuffed at every turn. The friend acted as if nothing was wrong, as if everything was normal. You could tell that the pieces of her life were falling apart around her, but even so, she shut her friends out from her pain. As a result, the friendship dissolved. The friendship now seemed superficial, almost false. What kind of friend will not share their pain with you? As you can imagine, from then on these two had a failure to connect. One member of the friendship refused to be her true self around the other person. When she was vulnerable, she put up walls and kept the other person out.

I distinctly remember a time in my early twenties when I experienced sudden vulnerability. It was also a car accident and at that time I was the intern minister at a church in suburban Dallas. I found myself stranded with a long commute, no automobile, and no means of acquiring one. I remember feeling a sense of shame and embarrassment with having to ask for a lift, with having to ask my internship supervisor for money from the minister’s discretionary fund so that I could rent a car until I figured out what I was going to do for transportation, and with having to go to my parents for help securing reliable transportation.

My internship supervisor said something insightful to me when I confessed my shame and embarrassment. He said, “This is why human beings live together as families. This is why they come together in communities and in churches.” This is why we form bonds with others, why we create community.

When he said this to me I was taken aback. “Of course, it was so obvious!” That is why we have things like families, like community. It was so obvious – and I kind of had to search myself and ask, “What was it about this moment of pain and need, what was it about this moment of necessity, that caused me to shrink inwards, to cut off, to distance?”

The sermon this morning is really an exploration of this question. It is premised on a couple of statements that I hold to be intellectually true. The first statement is this: When you are having trouble, when you are sinking, when you have need – that is the most important time to reach out for help. The second statement is complementary: Giving somebody permission to help you, to really help you, in your moment of need is one of the greatest gifts you can give to another person. Both of these statements are intellectually true, but harder to live by, at least for me and maybe for you.

And so I want to explore these statements a little bit. I want to explore why our actions are so often the opposite of what we might admit intellectually. I want to speak about the forces that cause us to distance in our moment of need and not to accept the hands that may reach out our way.

When I was thinking of a title for my words this morning I began humming the tune to that old Cheap Trick song. “I want you to want me. I need you to need me.” I could have just as easily thought of the Peter Gabriel song “Love to be loved” where he uses almost the same formula. “I need to be needed… like to be liked… want to be wanted… and love to be loved.” The musical choices are endless. I might have chosen The Beatles singing about getting by with a little a help from their friends, or, more obviously, “Help! I need somebody. Help! Not just anybody. Help! I need someone. Oh, please, please help me, help me.” Or, the good times, the bad times, I’ll be on your side forever more, that’s what friend are for. Or, as we’ll sing later in the service, “Lean on me, when you’re not strong.”

Pop music trivia does not count as advanced theology, but there seems to be something primitive, something innate and primal and natural, about these songs. Which is not to say there aren’t songs extolling the virtues of independence. Simon & Garfunkel’s “I am a rock / I am an island / and a rock feels no pain / and an island never cries” is just one example. But please notice: the Beatles did sing about help and did not sing, “I get by just fine, friends. Thanks for asking. No, really, I’m okay. Please leave me alone.”

So, if “all our lives we are in need of others” as George Odell puts it, and we each have a need to be needed, as Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick puts it, then what exactly gets in the way? How do we explain the turning away? How do we explain refusing to ask for or to accept the helping hands that are offered to us?

I am no psychologist, but I would tender a guess that modern psychology has pathologized neediness to a greater extent that it has pathologized independence. (And, no I have not consulted the DSM-IV in making this claim and no insult is intended to the many here more adept in psychology than I.) But, it occurs that we often talk about dependency issues and even co-dependency – a need for others to need us – as abnormal psychological categories. Dependency is often a term used to indicate addiction. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anybody saying, “That person has an independency issue.”

When we pay taxes, our government gives us tax breaks for the number of dependants living with us. They are such a burden, those dependents. If you tried to get a tax break for the number of independents living with you, you’d surely get audited. There is this mixed message going on. On one hand, we see emotional dependency as a diagnosable condition and economic dependency as a lower state of being. On the other hand, there is this primal sense that says that we all need others and that others need us. Which is it?

Turning to the Bible, we find dependency clearly in its passages. You don’t have to go very far in to find the first needy character in the Bible. It is the first character in the Bible: Adam. Now, I know that this story is problematic for many reasons. Just as Genesis 1 has been used to justify environmental degradation and unsustainable relationships with other living beings, so has Genesis 2 been used to justify every sexist and heterosexist argument known to humankind. But it is telling just how quickly need comes up in this story. In Genesis 2, God makes Adam. God gives Adam everything he needs to survive. It is not enough. Adam turns out to be utterly needful of others.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of sexist ways to read Genesis 2. And I don’t want to dismiss those readings. You can read it, as many have, in a way that suggests that a woman’s reason to exist is to serve and satisfy the needs of men. But that is a reading I want to resist, because I think that the meaning is more general than that, and more profound. The general truth that I believe is evident in these earliest chapters of the Bible is that we all have need for others and that we all have a need to be needed. Alone, the garden is a lonely place.

These truths are obvious to me. They are evident. I hear them and I say, “well, duh.” So what gets in the way of us understanding this? Why do we not accept our vulnerability? I think there may be a couple of reasons for why this is.

The first reason comes from our Unitarian theological tradition that has long upheld individualism. Unitarian Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote about Self-reliance, and told people to “refuse the good models and go alone.” William Ellery Channing wrote about something called “self-culture”, a complex concept that told us that our genius and our strength should come from inside ourselves. Channing said, “There is no moral worth in being swept away by a crowd.” In Unitarian Universalism, you build your own theology. These ways of thinking, I would argue, often lead us to deny that we need others.

Individualism is not the sole province of Unitarian Universalism. While it may have been the Unitarian minister Horatio Alger who coined the phrase, “pulling oneself up by one’s own bootstraps”, that is far from the only individualistic saying out there: “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” “Where there is a will there is a way.” There’s also my favorite feminist quotation, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” And just go to any bookstore and check out the “self-help” section. I’ve never seen an “other-help” section. These kinds of examples seem to be very prevalent throughout American culture.

And, I think they are particularly prevalent in American suburban culture, which emphasizes privacy, the insulation of discreet family units, and the keeping up of an image no matter what might be happening inside. I dare anyone to drive through an economically disenfranchised neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas or Kansas City, Missouri. What you find is what I call “the culture of the front porch,” where people sit in rocking chairs or lawn chairs and look out at what is happening to their neighbors and on their streets. Then drive around your average neighborhood in Johnson County. The houses around here don’t have front porches. They have backyards and decks. This makes it hard to make yourself visible, put yourself out there, let others know what is going on in your life. In your daily living, are you more of a “front porch” type, or “back deck” type?

In the poem by Robert Bly that we heard for our reading, Bly suggests metaphorically that we imagine that in our lives we will be like winter sparrows – impervious to the cold, flying free. (Like the words of another pop-song about independence, in which Nelly Furtado sings, “I am like a bird, I’ll only fly away.”) But, though we may aspire to a sparrow-y life, Bly tells us that our life will come to resemble that of a dog. When it comes to that time where we are road-weary, hungry, and cold we will come to the door and beg to be let in, fed, and warmed by someone other than us.

In Admire the Moon, her book of poetic meditations, UU minister Mary Wellemeyer uses a different image. Here is a short sample from the poem “Country Waltz:

Contradancing, in lines
to old timey music,
Lots of laughter
and changing of partners

[…]

An invisible window may open sometimes,
With a rush of feeling.
Not so much sexy,
As intimate
and somehow dangerously delicious.
Is this dance an entrance
to a more luscious life?

As we wind down, I want to tell you something. Sometimes I think there are two types of sermons. There are those sermons that the preacher knows so well and lives so seamlessly that the preaching comes effortlessly out of this faith and conviction. And then there are those sermons that a preacher gives because they feel like they need to remind themselves of it. The sermon is being preached to the preacher as much as to anyone in the congregation. That is the type of sermon this one is. Vulnerability is not something I excel at. Revealing my needs is not always easy for me. I aspire to front porch, but I’ve got some back deck in me. I know I’m like the hungry dog, but think I can live like the flighty sparrow.

To get better at this requires practice. And practice begins with acknowledgement.

So, I would like everyone to begin with something easy. First, I invite everyone here to be silent and to think to themselves of something that other people depend on you for. What needs do you serve? [Pause for silent reflection.]

Next, we’re going to get a little bit more difficult. I invite everyone here to be silent and to think to themselves of a need that you have expressed to others and that others have responded to. [Pause for silent reflection.]

Finally, and here we are going deep, I invite you to a quiet place where you think of something you need that you have been too shy, too independent, too ashamed, too proud, too embarrassed, too self-sufficient to admit. [Pause for a final silent reflection.]

Amen.

Our Annual Auction will be Saturday night, November 3. The Silent Auction kicks off at 5:30 (come early for the best deals) and the fun lasts throughout the evening. Here are the items that I will be offering:

The Minister in the Kitchen
Number of Spaces: 6
Date: April 2008
Take your life into your own hands as you join Rev. Thom at his Brookside Condo for a 100% home-cooked (Vegetarian) dinner. Thom is no Julia Child and he is certainly no Kristin Leathers. But, he will near-fearlessly don an apron and slave away in the kitchen for you. Nice wine will guarantee you get your money's worth. "Behold, I am doing a new thing." (Isaiah 43:19)
**Warning: Eating raw or undercooked meat or fish may cause food-borne illness. (Just kidding!)

Wholphin Independent Film Night
Number of Spaces: 100+
Date: February 3, 2008
Wholphin is a quarterly DVD magazine of rare and unseen short films published by McSweeney's. The short films range from the silly to the sublime, from the bizarre to the weird. We will gather in Fellowship Hall, enjoy popcorn and soft drinks, and watch selections from the best of Wholphin. Door prizes may include Wholphin merchandise and subscriptions. You've never seen film like this. Perfect for teens too! Go to the Wholphin web-site to preview some of the films.

Juggling Performance
Number of times offered: 1
Date: TBD
Thom the Minister will transform into Thom the Juggler and appear at a child's Birthday Party or other event of your choosing. Included in the performance: Five-ball juggling, flaming torches, machete juggling, and amazing feats of balance.

Juggling Lessons
Number of times offered: 2
Date: TBD
Do you know how to juggle but want to learn some new tricks? Have you always wanted to learn to juggle? I will offer two hours of juggling instruction. Lessons may be 1-on-1 or you may invite friends and make it a group lesson.

KC Brigade Tickets
Date: Spring 2008
Winning bidder will receive a voucher good for two tickets to any Kansas City Brigade (Arena Football League) home game. This year, the Brigade is playing in the brand new downtown Sprint Center. I hounded the good folks at the Brigade corporate office for these tickets, so come and bid for them.

You can find out more about the Auction here, or click here for the rest of the catalogue. See you November 3rd!

From Monday, October 29 through Friday, October 2 I will be in the Boston area meeting with the Executive Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Minister's Association. I was elected to the 10-member UUMA Exec. in June of 2006. I was definitely the junior member of the Exec. Here are my colleagues on the Exec., their role on the committee, and their years of experience in UU ministry as of 6/06.

Ken Sawyer (President) 36 years
Rob Eller-Isaacs (President-Elect) 31 years
Mary Katherine Morn (Vice-President) 18 years
Gail Geisenhainer (Treasurer) 10 years
Don Southworth (Secretary) 6 years
Susan Manker-Seale (Good Offices) 20 years
Randy Becker (Arrangements) 34 years
Jane Rzepka (Chapter Visits) 30 years
Joan Van Becelaere (Continuing Education) 6 years
Clyde Grubbs (Anti-Racism) 11 years
Thom Belote (Communications) 3 years

That is an average of 18.5 years in the ministry, and a median of 18 years. The current 2007-2008 Exec. consists of:

Rob Eller-Isaacs (President) 32 years
Sarah Lammert (Vice-President) 14 years
Gail Geisenhainer (Treasurer) 11 years
Don Southworth (Secretary) 7 years
Fred Muir (Good Offices) 32 years
Randy Becker (Arrangements) 35 years
Jane Rzepka (Chapter Visits) 31 years
Carol Huston (Continuing Education) 15 years
Hope Johnson (Anti-Racism) 5 years
Thom Belote (Communications) 4 years

That is an average of 18.5 years in the ministry, and a median of 14.5 years.

My portfolio on the Exec. is Publications / On-line Communications. My tasks include serving as the Executive Editor of our quarterly newsletter, managing the website (which we've hired a contractor to overhaul), and other duties related to communications and publications. One of my projects last year was to create an interactive blog for remembering deceased colleagues. I also am the liaison to our liaison to students, the UUMA volunteer who keeps in touch with students preparing for ministry.

I like to say that the UUMA is two parts professional organization and one part union. As a professional organization we set guidelines for professional conduct (and on occasion have to discipline colleagues who violate professional standards.) We also provide a variety of professional development opportunities and services aimed at promoting excellence in ministry and enhancing collegiality. Our other function is to represent the interests and concerns of the over 1,600 members of the UUMA in our movement as a whole. During our meetings in Boston, we will hold meetings with the UUA President (Rev. Bill Sinkford), UUA Moderator (Gini Courter, as well as members of the UUA Board and Staff and other leaders. This is the more political side of serving on the UUMA Exec.

That's what I'll be doing in Boston next week!

You can find more Gossip Column entries here.

Two stories I've been told are true about two different ministers:

The first minister served a large and vibrant church that had to offer 3 services on Sunday morning (8:30, 10:00, and 11:30) to accomodate all who wanted to worship. In order to preserve her sanity, here is what she did: following the benediction, she asked the congregation to be seated for the postlude. During the postlude, she exited the sanctuary through a side door, walked an unfrequently traveled hallway to a private office, and locked herself inside until the beginning of the next service when she would enter during the prelude. It was possible to go an entire Sunday morning without speaking to a single member of her congregation.

The second minister served a congregation that had only a single service on Sunday morning. But this minister dreaded coffee hour. He exited after announcing the final hymn. According to legend, if the pianist left a pregnant pause between the end of the second verse and the beginning of the third verse (as it became the custom to do), worshippers could hear the minister starting his car and driving away.

I empathize with these ministers even if I don't duplicate their actions. Leading worship is physically and mentally exhausting and there is a lot on my mind.

Before the first service, here are some of the things that are on my mind: Is my water glass full? Are my papers in the right order? Are all my right props in their rightful places? Who asked me to make announcements and for whom am I supposed to light a candle? Has the lay reader or guest musician arrived? Are the microphones working and are they set to the correct volume? Is my tie on straight? Oh, and is my sermon any good... especially that seventh paragraph where I have some lingering sense that I could be communicating that idea better and maybe I should just skip that part and say something else instead.

After the first service, even more is racing through my mind. I have 25 minutes before I need to be ready for the next service. I need to eat a cookie and drink a little juice or coffee so I don't pass out. I need to refill my water glass and make a quick stop in the men's room. Papers need to be re-sorted, props re-set, and equipment re-checked. And, yes, that seventh paragraph was pretty bad, and what did I say at the first service again? Not to mention that the prayer could have been better, I need to remember not to announce the wrong hymn or skip the offering, and I need to nix that joke that didn't go ever well... even though it was a good joke, really it was.

Following the second service, I am just ready for a nap. Many Sunday afternoons are spent passed out on my couch.

Leading worship is not "performing" but it does require physical and mental stamina similar to someone playing a part in a play, delivering a speech, or giving a recital.

With that in mind, I try my best to have conversations with members and visitors on Sunday morning. But to be completely honest, it is tough and I know I fail to be my most attentive self at times.

(There is a tradition in African-American churches where several deacons surround the minister after the service and allow no more than ten seconds of interaction with any one person. I'll admit to being a bit envious of that tradition!)

If the service caused you to have an epiphany or reminded you of a story from your personal life, I would love to hear about it. If you write me an email, I promise to respond. Similarly, if you want to argue or discuss a point that came up in the service, I would love to engage with you. Write me an email and I promise to respond. This way I can promise to give you my fullest attention, which you deserve.

This is the paradox: the time of the week where I am most accessible to the congregation is also the time when, like the performer about to go on stage, I am most in need of "space" to prepare making me less accessible. I love to visit in the barn chapel and greet people in the foyer, but be forewarned: if you approach me with an idea that is complex or an issue that is complicated my brain is as likely to shut off as it is to engage to the fullest extent that your idea or issue deserves.

This holds true for pastoral issues that you hope to call to my attention. It is very helpful for me if you would write me a note and stick it in my pocket. Otherwise I might visit the wrong person at the wrong hospital on the wrong day.

Rest assured, I am not going to hide out backstage until the curtain rises. I'm not going to peel out of the parking lot while the worship service is still taking place. This mini-essay is just to say a few of the things that I might have on my mind on Sunday morning. And remember, I want to hear from you not just on Sunday morning but throughout the week!

You can find other Gossip Column entries here.

This, the first installation of the Gossip Column, actually deals with old news.

Back in August when I returned from my vacation a lot of folks at SMUUCh noticed that I looked different. Had I lost weight? Was I dieting? Was my health OK? Why did my suits look so baggy?

These observations were valid. I had lost a lot of weight - around 25 pounds, to be a bit more exact. Here is the skinny on how I became the skinnier minister.

It wasn't intentional. In the middle of June I got sick with acute abdominal discomfort, distress, and pain. This lasted almost a month during which I lost 25lbs. From the time I got sick until after I began feeling better I was under the care of excellent doctors, including my great primary care physician and a couple of consulting gastro-specialists. All in all, it was a pretty miserable month and my short vacation in San Francisco and trip to General Assembly in Portland, Oregon were not much fun at all. I guess on the positive side I can say that I learned a lot more about gastro-intestinal medicine than I knew previously.

So, what was the final diagnosis? Uncertain. Although I did go through a battery of tests that ruled out all the big, bad conditions (which all begin with the letter "C"): Cancer, Colitis, Crohns, and Celiac.

Towards the end of July, all my symptoms went away entirely. I am in fine health and I'm doing some things to make sure I stay that way. I've altered my diet and am eating healthier. I've also been making it to the gym at least four times each week. I've even been attending the twice-weekly "ripped abs" class at the gym.

I feel great for which I am deeply thankful. I'm not so thankful that I am having to assemble an all new wardrobe because I'm swimming in my old clothes. But, then again, I could have a lot worse to complain about.

You can find out more about the Gossip Column here.

Do you want the juiciest Church gossip? Looking for confirmation of rumors or tantalizing information that's not your business? Well, you're not going to find it here!

A couple of months ago I had the idea of publishing a column on my blog that would contain information that just didn't fit well with the other communication avenues available to me. I had ideas I wanted to share and information I wanted to disseminate, but these ideas and this information wouldn't work well in a sermon or newsletter column.

Rest assured, you won't find any gossip here: just my writing about facets of ministry and church life that I haven't had a means of sharing widely... until now.

Below you'll find the Gossip Column archives:

Rev. Thom's Endorsement for President

Will Thom Sing? (11/30/07)

Why is Rev. Thom Going to the South? (11/6/07)

Why is Rev. Thom going to Boston? (10/24/07)

A Minister's Mind on Sunday Morning (10/23/07)

The Skinnier Minister? (10/23/07)

Reading
The reading this morning comes from a text that dates back almost 360 years, called “The Cambridge Platform of Church Discipline.” What the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are to the United States, the Cambridge Platform is to American Congregationalist churches, many of which later became Unitarian churches. Yes, the reading is boring and tedious. So, let me give you just a flavor of the 15th chapter, which deals with the “Communion of Churches One With Another.”

“Although churches be distinct, and therefore may not be confounded one with another, and equal, and therefore have not dominion one over another; yet all the churches ought to preserve church communion one with another, because they are all united unto Christ, not only as a mystical, but as a political head; whence is derived a communion suitable thereunto.

“The communion of churches is exercised sundry ways.

“[First] By way of mutual care in taking thought for one another’s welfare.

“[Second] By way of consultation one with another, when we have occasion to require the judgment and counsel of other churches, touching any person or cause, wherewith they may be better acquainted than ourselves. […] In which case, when any church wants light or peace among themselves it is a way of communion of the churches, according to the Word, to meet together by their elders and other messengers in a Synod to consider and argue the points in doubt or difference; and, having found out the way of truth and peace, to commend the same by their letters and messengers to the churches whom the same may concern. But if a church be rent with divisions among themselves, or lie under any open scandal, and yet refuse to consult with other churches for healing or removing of the same, it is matter of just offense, both to the Lord Jesus and to other churches, as betraying too much want of mercy and faithfulness, not to seek to bind up the breaches and wounds of the church and brethren; and therefore the state of such a church calls aloud upon other churches to exercise a fuller act of brotherly communion, to wit, by way of admonition.

“A third way, then, of communion of churches, is by way of admonition; to wit, in case any public offense be found in a church, which they either discern not, or are slow in proceeding to use the means for the removing and healing of. […] In which case, if the church that lies under offense, does not hearken to the church which does admonish her, the church is to acquaint other neighbor churches with that offense, which the offending church still lies under, together with their neglect of the brotherly admonition given unto them. Whereupon those other churches are to join in seconding the admonition formerly given; and if still the offending church continue in obstinacy and impenitency, they may forbear communion with them, and are to proceed to make use of the help of a Synod or counsel of neighbor churches, walking orderly (if a greater cannot conveniently be had) for their conviction.

“A fourth way of communion with churches, is by way of participation; the members of one church occasionally coming unto another, we willingly admit them […].

“A fifth way of church communion is by way of recommendation, when a member of one church has occasion to reside in another church; if but for a season, we commend him to their watchful fellowship by letters of recommendation. […]

“A sixth way of church communion, is in case of need to minister relief and succor one unto another, either of able members to furnish them with officers, or of outward support to the necessities of poorer churches, as did the churches of the Gentiles contribute liberally to the poor saints at Jerusalem.”

[You can find the full text of the 15th chapter and the rest of the Platform here.]


Movie Clip
For each sermon in the series on “Covenant in Liberal Religion” I begin by showing a clip from a popular film. For this sermon, I chose to show a clip from Footloose. In this film, a young rebel played by Kevin Bacon arrives in a ultra-strict Midwestern town that has outlawed dancing and popular music. The scene I showed begins in a locker room. Bacon tells one of his classmates that if he is going to be brave and go before the town council, his friend is going to have to learn to dance. What follows is a scene set to the song “Let’s Hear It for the Boy” by Deniece Williams in which Bacon instructs his rhythm-challenged friend in the finest of 80’s-style dance moves.


Sermon
Give me a break! It isn’t easy to find a movie clip that exemplifies the principles of the Cambridge Platform of 1648.

As hard to believe as it may be, this is the fourth sermon in my series on Covenant in Liberal Religion. The series began in July with a definition of covenant. A covenant was defined as a series of important and enduring promises made amongst a group of people. Within a covenant these promises are taken seriously and they are hard promises to keep. Covenant expects that inevitably we will all fail from time to time to live up to the high and commanding promises we make, but that we will re-enter into those promises when they are broken.

In the second and third sermons in this series I spoke about the covenants we make as individual members of a church and also about the covenant within community to encourage each other to spiritual growth.

Now, as we begin the second half of this sermon series, the focus changes from the covenants we participate in as individuals to the covenants that exist between groups of people. Next month, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, I am going to preach on the idea of social compact or social covenant, an idea first articulated by the Pilgrims when they wrote the Mayflower Compact. But today, I’m going to speak about the relationships that exist between churches, and the covenant between churches as described by the Cambridge Platform.

So, what are we to do with this old document that tells our church community that we are supposed to be in covenant in six ways with other Unitarian Universalist churches? Those six ways are: care, consultation, admonition, participation, recommendation, and ministerial relief.

My colleague in Massachusetts, Hank Peirce, points out that often the help the churches gave to each other was less than exemplary. Old history books of colonial New England include accounts of “church raisings” where towns would band together to help construct a meetinghouse. One account reads: “When the Medford people built their second meeting-house, they provided for the workmen and bystanders, five barrels of rum, one barrel of good brown sugar, a box of fine lemons, and two loaves of [bread.] As a natural consequence, two thirds of the frame fell, and many were injured. In Northampton, in 1738, ten gallons of rum were bought for £8 ‘to raise the meeting-house’ – and the village doctor got ‘£3 for setting the bone of Jonathan Strong, and £3 10s. for setting Ebenezer Burt's thy’ which had somehow, through the rum or the raising, both gotten broken.”

So, what exactly are we to do with this? We are all busy people doing the best we can, on our own spiritual journeys, coming to religious community – this religious community – seeking some co-travelers and some inspiration for the journey. But, at the same time, it is good to find out a little bit more about where we’ve come from, why we are, and some of the old forgotten ways that we don’t really think about much any more.

So, I want to tell you about some of the ways we do (and some of the ways we don’t) embody these principles set forward in the Cambridge Platform. Our Music Director, Dave Simmons, has been a key-organizer of the I-70 choir, where the respective choirs of Lawrence, Manhattan, and SMUUCh will merge to perform concerts this Fall. They are playing here at SMUUCh this coming Saturday evening and in Lawrence in mid-November. This counts as participation, and not only that – it is participation done the best way, in a way that is mutual, and mutually supportive.

The following weekend, we will be visited by a brand new minister from Maine who serves a congregation of a little less than 200 members. She looked around the country and identified us as a model congregation for the growth and change she hopes to facilitate in her church in the coming years. This is consultation.

The weekend after that, I will be visiting the 700-member Eno River Fellowship in Durham, North Carolina as their guest minister for an entire weekend.. They’ve asked me to consult with to help them think about ways to attract and involve young adults to their congregation.

And, from college students moving away to those members who’ve moved, I have sent emails, made phone calls, and helped our departing members to find welcome in other UU congregations across the United States. Most recently, I’ve helped a family to get connected with the UU community in Pennsylvania where they are in the process of moving. This is an example of recommendation.

But, we do less well at others of the six ways. Fortunately, we have not recently had much need to offer or receive minister relief, but I have a great example of this. When the Virginia Tech shootings happened in Blacksburg, Virginia, the minister of the Blacksburg UU congregation was on sabbatical and out of the country. Upon hearing about the shootings, UU ministers from distances up to four hours away headed there to offer care and crisis counseling to UUs in Blacksburg, many of whom work for the University.

But one of the six on the list is puzzling: Admonition. I’ve never attended a board meeting where there was discussion on the agenda about whether or not to admonish another UU church for something it was doing or not doing. I think we should do this just to practice being covenantal. Our Board President will be taking suggestions for churches we can admonish. (Just kidding.)

So, those are the six degrees of communion between churches as enumerated within the Cambridge Platform. This ties in to my movie clip in kind of a forced and unnatural way. (We’ve all heard of six degrees of separation. Well, a couple of years ago someone pointed out that if we are all separated by no more than six links, we are all six degrees from the actor Kevin Bacon.)

In the movie Footloose, young and rebellious Kevin Bacon arrives in an isolated, fundamentalist Midwestern town, which he turns upside down by introducing them to pop music and teaching them to dance. It’s hardly what the writers of the Cambridge Platform had in mind, but throughout the movie we find multiple examples of care, participation, admonition, and – especially in the cheesy scene we watched – consultation. Let’s hear it for the boy!

This is very much a stretch but perhaps on some greater level Footloose warns us against the dangers of isolation, parochialism, and sectarianism. In covenant, in community, in connection with those outside ourselves we learn to dance (and maybe better than they danced in the 80’s.)

If I’ve accomplished what I set out to accomplish in the first part of this sermon, you will have your minds tuned in to a few ideas: That in our tradition we have this document called the Cambridge Platform. That one part of it calls us to be in covenant with other churches. That the covenant includes fairly gentle ways of relating like caring, supporting, and participating as well as more intense and difficult ways like consulting and even admonishing.

But, let’s get away from the history lesson (and away from Kevin Bacon, thankfully.)

What I want to do is abruptly switch tracks and take the message in a bit of a different direction. I want to reference a man named Clifford Geertz, one of the most influential anthropologists of the twentieth century. Geertz wrote about complex, academic topics in exciting, gripping ways.

One story Geertz told was of a tribal village in Java where inside one of the villager’s huts there appeared one day a large, oddly shaped toadstool that grew immensely in the span of just a few days. Not much happens in Javanese villages and soon the giant toadstool was the talk of the village and all of the neighboring villages, with people coming to gawk at it and to try to explain this unusual occurrence.

When a lot of people discover a church like ours – a church that dares to put on heart-wrenching exhibits about the cost of war, like we are showing this morning in the barn chapel; a church that shows cutting edge documentary films on current issues; a church that publicly and gladly affirms it is welcoming to Gay and Lesbian and Bisexual and Transgender people; a church where its members conceive of God in many different and creative ways and includes members who do not possess a belief in God – when a lot of people a church like ours they are amazed, thinking we must be like some kind of unusual toadstool that just rose up one day out of the ground on 87th Street.

We did not just rise up out of the ground like an unusually large and peculiar toadstool. We are a product (directly) of Unitarians in Kansas City, Missouri who had a vision of extending liberal religion into Johnson County. But we are here historically because of a tradition stretching back to the earliest days of our country. And I suppose, if there is a lesson to be taken from this morning, it should be this:

We are a part of a religious movement that came long, long before us – and more than that – has told us that we become our best when we are in covenantal relationship with other churches, when we practice care, consultation, admonishment, participation, recommendation, and relief. Our religious homes are not supposed to be like unusual, isolated toadstools, but are connected in covenant. May it be so.

On 10/20, Don, Elizabeth, Randy, and Rev. Thom from the Quarterlife Quorum went to go see a live theatrical version of Night of the Living Dead at the Coterie Theater.

As you can see, I'm the only one who dressed as a zombie! (Rev. Thom = Zombie. Don = Not a Zombie.)

Here is a picture of me with a couple of Zombies from the cast!


The Quarterlife Quorum is a group for folks in their 20's and early 30's. As a group we go to social activities and participate in social action projects. To find out more, send me an email: minister [at] smuuchurch [dot] org

[In preparation for this sermon I read The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas edited by Louis Fischer and with a preface by Eknath Easwaran. This book is a redacted version with commentary of Gandhi’s autobiography, The Story of my Experiments with Truth. Bracketed numbers below refers to pages in The Essential Gandhi.]


By the year 1757, India lived under colonial rule. However, the colonial ruler was not in actuality a political nation or an occupying army. Rather, India dwelled under the rule of a corporate entity – The British East India Company. This company exercised tremendous power. It had the power to raise armies, create laws, and establish government in the form of “puppet regimes.” And while wielding this power, the British East India Company methodically transferred vast amounts of India’s material wealth into its own hands. India’s economy was raped. Natural resources were depleted. Villages were forced to grow crops for export rather than local use. These agricultural changes would eventually cause the death by starvation of 20 million Indians in the 19th century. By any historical comparison, “the fortunes made by the British were simply staggering.” [x-xi]

Under the rule of the British East India Company, there were various rebellions that attempted to drive the colonial forces out. Such insurrections were quashed mercilessly, and were punished with severe reprisals. Usually these rebellions were uncoordinated. India was a fractured nation, divided by religion and caste. British rule was accomplished easily because Indian Muslims could be turned against Indian Hindu’s. They could be manipulated into killing one another. Eventually, the rebellions grew in strength and the official military might of Great Britain was summoned in 1857 to establish official domination over their crown jewel. [xi]

And so it is with all occupations! We see this today in Iraq, with opportunists like Bechtel, Halliburton, and Blackwater seizing the fortunes of Iraq while double-dipping and getting our tax dollars to pay them to do so. In Iraq, we see a nation weakened by its inner divisions. So long as Shiites hate Sunnis and Sunnis hate Shiites and both hate the Kurds, and so long as terrorist groups see this as an opportunity to foment instability by targeting those who would try to bring unity, the occupation can continue, largely unchallenged. And, as in India 150 years earlier, the widespread consequences of occupation are disease and malnutrition for the populace at large. The human cost of occupation is staggering.

It was into such a climate that Mohandas Gandhi was born in 1869. Gandhi was born into an upper-middle caste family, was sent to be educated in law in England, and accepted a position practicing law in another part of the expansive British Empire: South Africa. Gandhi’s first day in South Africa would forever change the course of his life to follow. Arrangements had been made for Gandhi to travel in a first-class sleeper car on a train from Durban to Pretoria. However, mid-journey, he was told that he would have to go to the third class car on account of his skin color. Gandhi wrapped his arms around the armrest and it required several police officers and train agents to pry him loose. Following this event that Rosa Parks would reprise sixty years later, Gandhi spent the cold night on the station platform.

That night on the station platform would prove to be similar to Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, or Martin Luther King’s kitchen table conversion, or Buddha’s enlightenment, or Moses’ encounter with the burning bush. Gandhi dedicated his life to the end of oppression for his people. Gandhi was 24, the same age that Dr. King would be when he led the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and for the next twenty years Gandhi worked to reform South Africa.

This morning I am not going to re-tell the story of Gandhi’s life. You are probably familiar with at least some of the episodes of his amazing life. Instead, I am going to present several of Gandhi’s principles that I believe to be worthy of our consideration. My choice of Gandhi this morning coincides perfectly with a number of current events. Last Tuesday, October 2nd, was Gandhi’s Birthday, observed as a national holiday in India as “Gandhi Jayanti”, much the same way we set aside Martin Luther King’s birthday as a national holiday. The United Nations also proclaims each October 2nd to be International Non-Violence Day. Gandhi’s teachings continue to live on this week, as on the other side of the world we witness the human rights violations and atrocities in Myanmar where killings, torture, and mass detention are employed by the military dictatorship of that country to suppress pro-Democracy demonstrations led by Buddhist monks.

Gandhi’s teachings also continue to live on right here in our community as tonight our church hosts the first public meeting of Julia’s Voice, mothers and others against the war, as they mobilize to confront violence that they see as unjustifiable.

It is worthwhile to hold up the chain of the great thinkers in non-violence that influenced the world for the better part of the last two centuries. The chain begins with Unitarian Henry David Thoreau who wrote his essay “Civil Disobedience” about his night in jail for refusing to pay taxes to a government that promoted slavery and wars of territorial expansion. Thoreau’s essay would reach Leo Tolstoy in Russia, who infused Thoreau’s teachings with spirituality. Tolstoy’s book, The Kingdom of God is Within You, was read by Gandhi in South Africa when it was among the books given to him by Christian missionaries who were trying to convert him. These teachings informed Gandhi’s own philosophy of non-violent, civil resistance which he called Satyagraha, literally, “The force which is born of truth and love.” [xxiv] Gandhi’s life would then serve as an example to Martin Luther King, and the civil rights movement in our country.

Gandhi’s principle of Satyagraha can be thought synonymous to many other terms, both secular and religious: non-violence, civil disobedience, civil resistance, as well as soul-force. But it is not so important to define it, because it was a principle that was unfixed, and constantly being modified, tested, and revised. It was under-development.

Gandhi chose to title his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth. I love that term, “Experiments with truth.” I think this phrase would be particularly welcome to Unitarian Universalists, who see faith as something evolving. For Gandhi, the practice of Satyagraha, the force born of truth and love, was constantly evolving. For him, the task of liberating India was a form of spiritual warfare in which it was taken for granted that he would have to continuously develop, refine, and experiment with truth.

All his life, Gandhi was an experimenter. As a child, he attended a British school and was told that one of the reasons the Indian race was inferior to the Anglo race was their vegetarianism. In secret Gandhi began to eat meat during his teen years to see whether what he was told was true. [11-12]

In India Gandhi founded an Ashram, a spiritual community, committed to developing the spiritual practice of Satyagraha. People visited seeking advice. There is a story of a woman in a far-off village whose child was too fond of sweets. She decided to travel to Gandhi to have him instruct the child to stop eating sweets. Gandhi met with the woman and her son and told them to come back in several weeks. After several weeks had passed, the woman and her son returned and Gandhi told the child “stop eating so many sweets.” At this point the mother became irritated. “Why couldn’t you have just told him this week’s ago. Why did you make us travel all the way here a second time?” Gandhi replied that before he instructed the boy to give up sweets he needed to see for himself whether it was possible.

According to Eknath Easwaran, a student of Gandhi’s, two basic principles informed Gandhi’s non-violence resistance. [xxiv] The first of these principles was that oppression hurts the oppressor as well as the oppressed. Race prejudice degrades both whites and non-whites alike. Thus, knowing that the oppressor is suffering requires us to have compassion for the oppressor. And the victory we seek in ending oppression does not result in winners and losers, but rather in both sides feeling nobler at the end.

In South Africa, one of Gandhi’s major victories was in over-turning a government law that would require all Indians in South Africa to carry special identification permits. (There was, at this time, more Indians than whites living in South Africa.) Gandhi organized a series of strikes and got Indians to either refuse to register or to burn their ID cards. The jails were flooded. Indians lined up to take their turn serving jail sentences for disobeying the law. Many served jail terms sequentially, leaving jail and immediately going to the police to turn themselves in for failure to comply. Meanwhile, Gandhi organized farms and other forms of collective sharing to assist those families who struggled without income. And, perhaps most impressively, Gandhi encouraged his followers to show no ill will to those Indians who elected not to participate in the strike, who obediently registered themselves and crossed picket lines. The law only works if the people choose to abide by it.

Decades after this victory was achieved in South Africa, many of the British officials who were charged with carrying out the registration policies stayed in contact with Gandhi and treated him with respect and admiration. [98]

The second important principle underlying Gandhi’s teachings was to embrace voluntary suffering. According to Eknath Easwaran, “Gandhi discovered that reason is ultimately impotent to change the heart. Race prejudice was already causing suffering; the task of [Gandhi’s method] was to make that suffering visible. Then, sooner or later, opposition had to turn to sympathy, because deep in everyone, however hidden, is embedded an awareness of our common humanity.” [xxiv]

For Gandhi, such voluntary suffering meant accepting beatings and other acts of violence. It meant accepting imprisonment. It meant hunger fasts. And it meant giving up all manner of worldly goods.

His own willingness to take on voluntary suffering was crucial, because his non-violence resistance depended on all of his fellow citizens doing likewise. He cast off his own clothes, electing a simple homespun loincloth over dependence upon British clothing. He symbolically harvested his own salt, refusing to buy allow the British to profit from the sale of India’s resources. As he pointed out, there was no way one hundred thousand British could keep domination and rule over three-hundred million Indians unless the three-hundred million consented.

These were lessons the Civil Rights movement would emulate in order to successfully abolish Jim Crow. Non-violence, voluntary suffering, and unity in the cause. Sadly, these are also the lessons that I believe could have been used effectively to achieve victory over oppressive forces in the world today. Had the Palestinians taken the road of disciplined non-violent civil-disobedience, would the world not recognize their humanity and identify with their cause? In Myanmar we may be seeing the end of a brutal and repressive regime. In Iran, it is my hope that the progressive underground youth movement does not resort to violence in order to oppose a ruler who seems to court the apocalyptic destruction of his own country. I believe Gandhi’s teachings on non-violence are still viable today on whatever scale: local, national, or international.

Let me conclude with one last comment on the life and teachings of Gandhi. The success he had in liberating an entire nation depended upon his ability to bring together people of different faiths and classes. He frequently would say, “I am not only a Hindu; I am a Moslem, a Christian, and a Jew.” His Ashram accepted persons of all castes, including untouchables. Gandhi referred to the untouchable class as the Harijan, the favored children of God.

There is an amazing story that exemplifies Gandhi’s commitment to human unity. The story goes that he is at his simple dwelling one day, when, among the throngs who come to him for advice, there comes a Hindu man. The man explains to Gandhi that he is wracked by guilt. His son, he tells Gandhi, had been killed by a Muslim. In anger, the Hindu man went and killed a Muslim man, thus leaving the child of that man fatherless. Gandhi listened compassionately as this man confess his anger and shame. Finally he spoke and addressed the Hindu man and said, “Here is what you must do. You must find the Muslim child whose father you killed. You must raise him as your own son. But, that is not all. You must raise him to be a Muslim.”

Spending the past weeks reading Gandhi’s autobiography has been a joy, a true spiritual experience. I thank you for the gift you give me to explore and discover such inspiration. I pray that as you conduct your own experiments with truth, you discover a soul force within yourself that is born both of truth and of love.

[This service was co-led by Sara Sautter, SMUUCh's Director of Religious Education, and I.]

Opening Words by Sara Sautter, Lead Archeologist
Today, as your lead archeologist, I would like to welcome you to our SMUUCh Archeological Dig: Exploring the Church Basement. My archeological colleague Thom Belote and I have assembled here for you this morning several artifacts exhumed from the depths of the church basement. These artifacts hold the stories of the thousands (yes I said thousands) of children and youth who have passed through our subterranean classroom hallways. These artifacts, some old, some new, some silly, some sacred, are windows into religious education and its vast importance to our faith.

Some of our SMUUCh children, now grown, like Kristin Leathers have come back to our religious education program with their own children. Others, like Brandon Jacobs are now teaching in our religious education program. Still other lifelong Unitarians are part of our adult religious education program. That’s because the story of our spiritual search does not end when childhood does. Our own personal Unitarian Universalist search is a lifelong one.

So in a moment, we will don our virtual pith helmets and armed with our virtual shovels and delicate brushes we will tenderly sweep aside the dust and dirt that may have settled on our treasures and look together at these artifacts from our basement. We will explore religious education and the stories they tell us…

And after we explore some artifacts here in Fellowship Hall we invite you down to the actual archeological dig where you can see first hand the many treasures of Religious education. Among them, our actual children and some real and actual teachers! Indeed, if you wish to drink from the sacred Urn of Caffeine, you will need to come to the basement – cuz that’s where the coffee hour is this Sunday!


Artifact #1: “Banner” – Rev. Thom
As you descend down the stairs into the children’s religious education level, you pass a banner that declares a bold slogan. This slogan is as powerful for what it proclaims as for what it does not proclaim. It does not say, in the words of The Gospel of John 8:32 “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” It doesn’t say, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” And, no it does not utter Dante’s famous warning “Abandon Hope all Ye Who Enter Here.”

The banner simply says, “Never stop asking why.”

For someone who grew up as a Unitarian Universalist, and perhaps for our children, it is easy to take a slogan like this for granted. But I am reminded of those adults in this congregation who I have met in the class for those exploring membership, or in my office, or in another UU class who tell stories that are often eerily similar. These adults tell the story of their first falling out with organized religion, and the story goes, “I asked my Sunday school teacher ‘why?’ and she told me not to ask ‘why.’” Or, “I asked my Catholic school teacher ‘why?’ and was told not to ask ‘why?’” Or, “I asked my minister ‘why?’ and he said, ‘You just need to have faith.’”

But, here in our church, we pass a banner that declares “Never stop asking why!”

This can, of course, be difficult advice. Many small children go through a “why?” phase. “Why is the sky blue?” “Why is Grandpa’s nose so big?” “Why do I have to eat my broccoli?” Why can’t I have candy bars for breakfast?”

Asking why can pay dividends as we grow. “Why do children in Ethiopia not have enough to eat?” “Why does this ethnic group hate that ethnic group?” “Why am I treated differently because I am a girl?”

We also hope that children will internalize these whys, asking them not only of other peoples’ faiths, but more importantly of their own. In this way, questioning becomes reflexive. “Why do I believe what I believe?” “What has shaped my own faith?” “Why do I think the way that I do, and not some other why?”

Hooray for our banner! A great archeological discovery!


Artifact #2: “Weaving” – Sara Sautter
The artifact I will soon show you has hung in the hallway of the Clara Barton Wing for the past two years and was created in our Art Center by a class of nine year olds. The lesson was entitled “Weaving Our Lives Together”. The message of the lesson was to help the kids understand our third principle – acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations, or the children’s version which says, “We believe that our churches are places where all people are accepted, and where we keep on learning together.” The children were told the how these Navajo weavings always told a story. You can imagine how the weaver, one day thinking of her first child with eyes so soft and deep and brown that she wove with the deepest softest brown yarns she could find. And on another day, feeling the weight of the coming winter’s sky on her soul and wove with the coldest grey and stiffest thread she could find. And so the stories of the weaver’s thoughts, feelings and personality became the story of the weaving itself.

The children were then asked to share important things that had recently happened in their lives – a book recently read, a two wheel bicycle finally conquered, a new sister born. Then our children were given a pile of “stuff” – ribbons and beads and feathers and sticks, pipe cleaners, yarn and rolled up fabric. They were invited to find the threads or objects that most represented how them – strips of newspaper to symbolize the new skill of reading, a fuzzy brown yarn for the loss of a dog, a blue ribbon for the color of a baby sister’s eyes. Each child – one at a time – spoke their story and then wove a chosen item into the weaving. They spent some time weaving their lives together.

There are four more weavings just like this hanging on the wall in the Clara Barton Wing. This weaving represents the stories of a group of children one day in the winter of 2006. A group of children, who shared with each other, accepted, celebrated and mourned with each other. A group of children who formed a small – and very beautiful – little community.


Artifact #3: “Thoreau Plaque” – Rev. Thom
Before I arrived as the minister of SMUUCh, before many of you arrived as members of SMUUCh, the congregation was invited to name the classrooms downstairs. A list of dozens of Unitarians and Universalists was proposed and the members got to cast votes for their favorites. And the top finishers got their own rooms named after them. The rooms run from A to almost Z, from Louisa May Alcott, the feminist and author of little women, to Whitney Young, the African American civil rights leader.

There is an interesting method to the naming. For example, the newer and much more sterile wing that was added with the 1997 building expansion is named for Universalist Clara Barton, the founder of the Red Cross and one who dedicated much of her work to improving the sanitation of soldier’s conditions during the civil war. Meanwhile, the older wing which consists of refurbished animal stalls is named for Charles Darwin. If he hadn’t composed the Origin of Species aboard his boat The Beagle, he might have done so under the barn chapel.

The nursery is named, fittingly, for Beatrix Potter. The teen room is named, also fittingly, for the Universalist circus promoter P.T. Barnum. The congregation even saw it fit to name two of the rooms for men with no Unitarian connections whatsoever – Ben Franklin and Isaac Newton.

But, the artifact I want to show you is the plaque of Henry David Thoreau, a Unitarian naturalist, writer, and philosopher. (I originally planned to show the Susan B. Anthony plaque, but she was screwed in too tight.) Next week I will be preaching about Gandhi. Gandhi originally learned about the doctrines of non-violence from Leo Tolstoy. Leo Tolstoy learned about the idea of non-violent civil disobedience from Thoreau. And Gandhi would later inform Martin Luther King.

What a great thing it is that we should lift up so many of these strong, principled, brave women and (mostly) principled and brave men! What a way to reinforce for our children our hopes and dreams for them: That they could stand up injustice like Susan B. or Whitney Young, that they could work for the betterment of human kind like Clara Barton, that they could advance human knowledge like Darwin, or human liberty like Jefferson.


Artifact #4: “Buddha Statue” – Sara Sautter
Here sits Buddha! OK, he IS the happy jolly, fat Buddha that is probably less historically accurate but the version most beloved by children and by many adults. This jolly Buddha was used to help our children understand that Buddhism, along with many other great religions of the world, has many lessons to teach us as Unitarian Universalists. Indeed, as UUs we hold up “wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life” as one of our great sources.

Several years ago I wrote a curriculum called “A World of New Friends” which introduced our children to world religions by helping them meet virtual friends from most of the world’s larger religions. For the lesson on Buddhism, the children met an imaginary student named Sumalee whose family was from Thailand. Sumalee was actually a large doll and made by the children – a sort of scare crow girl with a paper sack for a head and wearing clothing stuffed with newspaper but, none the less, Sumlalee became the classroom star for the day.

As the classroom star, the children learned all about her as she showed her All About Me Poster for show and tell. Remember this? A time when YOU got to tell everyone in the class all about your self – your favorite foods, your pets, what sports you liked. When YOU were the classroom star you had an actual REASON to dominate the classroom for a very short time.

Anyway, Sumalee was our Classroom Star but instead of talking about her favorite foods and games, her Star Poster explained her religious traditions and favorite holidays. She explained that her name Sumalee meant beautiful flower and that her family was Buddhist. Her family’s religious tradition was to meditate every day. Sumalee explained that her favorite holiday was Vesak, a time when she would clean the family’s shrine, decorate the old fat Buddha and then bring flowers to her temple.

The lesson was in Sumalee’s name; it was in the flowers. These temporary flower offerings reminded Sumalee and her family that just as beautiful flowers wither away after a short while, so TOO is life both beautiful and temporary. On Vesak, Sumalee was reminded of the first of the three universal truths on Buddhism – that life is impermanent and always changing. Through the traditions of the holiday she was encouraged to understand the second universal truth – because nothing is permanent, a life based on possessing things or other people doesn’t make you happy. And next, the customs of the holiday helped her understand the final truth: that our “self” is simply a collection of constantly changing personal characteristics. Sumalee explained to the class how birds, insects and animals are released by the thousands as a symbolic act of giving freedom and of transience.

Is there a lesson for Unitarian Universalist youth here in the wisdom of our fat Buddha and in the stories of a scarecrow girl named Sumalee? As growing, changing children fitting into clothes one day and not the next, loving Teddies one day and discarding them the next perhaps they already understood the qualities of our changing selves better than we do.


Artifact #5: “Sauerbrei Chalice” – Rev. Thom
We have many chalices at SMUUCh. We have the one that sits in front of us, dedicated in honor of our 40th anniversary last May. We have the Anderson Memorial Chalice that we use on special occasions – like the memorial services for beloved members and other rites of passage. Our classrooms have chalices: from felt ones that the youngest get to Velcro a felt flame to, to children’s chalices made out of clay pots. We have chalices on our orders of service, some of us wear chalice jewelry, and I have a chalice tattoo.

But the chalice I want to show you here was created by Donna Sauerbrei, a member of our church with immense talents at pottery. I purchased this chalice at last year’s Auction – in a month you may be lucky enough to get your own! – and it has been used in our Adult Religious Classes, from our Exploring Membership class to my current class on Questions for the Religious Journey. Many families have their own chalices in their homes which they light before a family meal.

The chalice’s history and origins are a great story. The concept was developed for a purely utilitarian purpose – to look official on stationery when the Unitarian Service Committee (for whom we will be taking up a collection next month) was busy helping to rescue Jews and other enemies of Hitler from Nazi occupied Europe. Two years ago, service committee leaders Waitsill and Martha Sharp, both Unitarians, became only the second and third Americans honored by the State of Israel as “Righteous among the nations” for their human rights work during the Holocaust. The design combined Christian and Greek imagery – cross and flame – into a chalice. I like to say that the chalice symbolizes that the flame of truth, of passion, of justice, of compassion always needs to be held within the cup of community. Our own lights are delicate – and it is the church with its classes and teachers and groups and friendships that help us each to sustain those tender, precious flames.


Artifact #6: “The Machine” – Sara Sautter
This artifact is from our classroom for our youngest Unitarian Universalists – The Flower Garden. While these very tiny Unitarian Universalists are often too young to understand concepts like truth and wisdom, they are not too young to understand faith, belonging and the joy of wonder. And this artifact is a tool for producing awe and wonder.

Our 18-month olds learn trust and faith simply by having faith that when their parents drop them off that they will, indeed return for them! Now this lesson is easier on some days than on others. But after time when they are placed in our cheerful classroom attended by the same happy staff face each week – Susan Culey’s – they develop faith that their parents will return for them. Perhaps some Sundays a little less faith than others, but as time goes by the faith grows.

And these Flower Garden two year olds do learn to feel a part of something special as together they learn to make the letter U with their fingers, and together they sing the same song as a group and see special friends together each week.

This AA battery operated, 100% plastic, made in China machine is used to help our children experience awe. Yep – this little machine creates an awe inspiring wonder. The wonder of something that a three year old can dance under – an effluent cascade of delightful bubbles. Something that is here one moment and gone the next. Something that makes us smile. Behold our wonder machine!

In my role as minister, one of the things that I find myself regularly having to check myself on is that I don’t advise you to do things that I, myself, am unwilling to do. Two weeks ago I preached a sermon about how we encourage each other to spiritual growth. In delivering that sermon, I had to examine myself and ask of myself, “Do I have a spiritual practice that I adhere to?” Because it would lack integrity to encourage you to do what I myself am unwilling to do.

Every year I preach, at least once, on the subject of generosity. Often these sermons coincide with our annual stewardship drive. But before I ask you to practice generosity as a part of meaningful living, I need to examine my own practice. Last year, I gave over ten percent of my income to tax-deductible, charitable organizations. Over half went to this church. It would lack integrity to stand before you and preach what I do not, myself, practice.

This is not boasting: I am far from perfect, but fortunately being perfect is not what we are expected to be, especially in church. A church is not a place for the already perfect; it is the home of the human. We aim, not for perfection but for authenticity and integrity.

There is an old, slightly tasteless joke that claims that there are three religious truths. The first religious truth is that Jews do not recognize Jesus Christ as the Messiah. The second religious truth is that Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the head of the Christian Church. And, the third religious truth is that Methodists do not recognize one another at the liquor store. (This joke is about integrity.)

In the Jewish tradition, there is an extensive collection of texts known as midrash. These texts preserve argumentation, disputation and varying interpretations about the meaning of scriptures, especially as they pertain to how to live out the Jewish laws. At one point in these extensive writings a hypothetical scenario is posed that goes like this: You are a Rabbi and your neighbor is a gentile. Your neighbor breaks his leg and is unable to go to the market. According to Jewish teachings, you are expected to practice the mitzvah, the good deed, of human kindness and compassion, by offering to do your neighbor’s shopping. But, your Christian neighbor gives you a shopping list that includes buying pork chops (or ham or pigs feet or… whatever.) And the authors of the Midrash dispute whether it is acceptable to give the impression of breaking the law in order to do a good deed. One line of thought says that not only should you obey the laws, but you should not even give the impression of violating the laws. Imagine you are the Rabbi, standing there at the deli counter, and up walks a member of your synagogue, one who is particularly prone to gossip, when the butcher simultaneously blurts out, “Here you go, the juiciest pork chops right off the pig.” And you find yourself going on the defensive. “Oh, these are not for me. They are for my neighbor.”

I had an experience like this my first year in Kansas City. I was told that I needed to drive up Metcalf and get a cheesesteak from the Chartroose Caboose. The Caboose has the town’s best cheesesteak. So, I drive up there during my lunch hour one day and the only parking space in the entire lot is right in front of the front door of the adjacent store – a Hooters. And I mean right in front of the door. So, I kind of weigh the options: Do I park my car with its Unitarian bumper sticker and divinity school decal right in front of Hooters or do I drive all the way around back and park in a completely inconvenient place? That’s what I did. I was adverse to even give the impression that I went to Hooters for lunch. This, too, has to do with authenticity and integrity.

But, I’ve really digressed here. This morning I want to talk about apologizing. This is a very basic, and universal religious theme: taking responsibility for one’s actions, expressing contrition, setting things right, atoning for the harm we have caused others, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

Yesterday was the Jewish high holy day of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. Part of the Yom Kippur observance involves settling affairs with all those you have wronged in the previous year. It is a fast day, a serious day, and it also involves confessing wrongs and preemptively seeking forgiveness for the promises we will all inevitably break in the coming year.

Keeping with the theme of Yom Kippur, I had planned to give a sermon about apologizing. In planning this sermon, I remembered my own self-instruction about integrity and authenticity: Do not ask others to do what you yourself are unwilling to do. So, I sat down and made a list of people I felt I owed an apology. Some apologies were for things I had done or said, or not done or not said in the past couple of weeks. Others harkened back as much as a decade. You know, “I still feel bad about that.” And, so I sort of mapped out some adventures in apologizing. I thought, in the spirit of Yom Kippur I would set out to apologize to these people. And I did. But then, when it came time to put fingertips to keyboard, I stalled. What if one of those people to whom I apologized stumbled across this sermon on the web? Would they regard my apology as insincere, as motivated by my desire to come up with something to say to my congregation on Sunday? Would they regard me as trying to profit off my apology by appearing contrite and authentic?

Here is what I can tell you. I had over the past month some adventures in apologizing. I will not tell you to whom I apologized or for what I apologized. I will not tell you whether I was forgiven or whether I even got a response. That is not your business. It is literally between me and other persons, and is unfit for public comment.

Which kind of leaves us stuck. It just isn’t that much of an adventure without a who, a what, a where, or a how. So, there just isn’t that much of a story. Except for just a few general lessons I took away from this experience.

Those lessons are: First, the more you apologize, the better you become at it. Second, you do not control the outcome of an apology. And, third, the vulnerability created by an apology can actually be a constructive force.

First of all, I discovered that the more you apologize, the better you become at it. Apologizing is a bit like a cardiovascular exercise. The more you do it, the easier it becomes and the more capable you find yourself of doing more of it. I found this literally true. And perhaps, it is metaphorically true as well. Open up the heart and you find your heart stretches wider. I noticed becoming quicker to apologize, more aware of the small wrongs I do, as we all do, on a day to day basis. The word “sorry” came more easily to the lips, but not with less sincerity.

Second, I learned that you do not control the outcome of an apology. Apologizing is not like casting a fishing line. It is like sending a message in a bottle out to sea. When I first sat down to plot out my adventures in apologizing, I imagined attaching the apology to the end of a fishing line and casting the apology out there in the hopes of reeling something back. Send out contrite feelings; reel back forgiveness. Send out expressions of regret; reel back a relationship that recommences. But it doesn’t work that way. Apologizing is more like putting a note in a bottle and throwing it out to sea. Once sent, you have absolutely no control about whether it will ever be answered, or how. You control your end, but not the other end.

And finally, I learned that in apology one becomes vulnerable, but this is necessary and can actually be constructive. I want to tell you about the greatest apology I ever received. When I was twenty I had a friend who treated me rather lousy. That is not my interpretation. That is an objective fact. Eight years later I am living here in Kansas City and I receive an email from her out of the blue – after 8 years of no communication whatsoever. The email read: “I will be traveling to the KC area for business and heard from a friend that you were living there. Would you like to have dinner with me?” Then her signature. Then a post-script that read, “I completely understand if you turn down this invitation because I treated you so badly.” Those were not her exact words. Her exact words were unrepeatable in church and very self-deprecating.

When I read the top half of that email, my answer was “No way in Hell.” When I read the post-script, my answer changed to “Sure, why not?” It is actually the vulnerability that is part of an apology that makes it powerful, and potentially constructive.

Since I can’t recount my own adventures in apologizing in as much detail as I might, let me share two other sources of wisdom that expand our thinking about apologizing.

Last Wednesday, Forrest Church was in town to deliver a lecture about his most recent book, which is brilliant and intelligent and has nothing to do with apologizing. I was glad to see about thirty members from our church in attendance. Earlier that day, I was fortunate enough to get to join him for lunch along with two dozen other ministers. He gave us a similar talk, but ended with telling us something he didn’t repeat in his evening speech. He told us that a year ago he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of esophageal cancer and told that most likely he had two to six months to live. Against the odds he beat the cancer.

Talking about his experience with cancer, he said that when he was first diagnosed, his immediate reaction was one of acceptance. (No denial, no anger, no bargaining, no blaming.) Immediate acceptance. He questioned this acceptance though. Perhaps it was ego-deception. Perhaps it was that he had spent thirty years ministering to people who were dying and helping them to accept the end of their own lives and so he could not tolerate having anything but the most peaceful thoughts when it was his turn?

But, upon further reflection, as least as far as I’ve been able to recall, Forrest Church said he was able to approach the diagnosis in the way that he did because he was able to tell the difference between unfinished business and ongoing business. The long, brilliant book he was working on was ongoing business. It didn’t need to be completed before he died. But other things were unfinished business, he could not accept death until the business was finished. We never finish all of our business. We all die in the middle of something. But we can finish those things that need to be done so that we can be at peace.

I would put apologizing, the healing of relationships, the needing to say “I am sorry” or to accept an apology in the unfinished business category. We’ll be restless until we do these things. Forrest Church had very, very little unfinished business and therefore acceptance came easily. We all have ongoing business, because life is ongoing beyond our living. We never complete everything; we just need to finish the things that are unfinished and accept that what is ongoing is ongoing. [Thanks to Vern Barnet and Mitra Rahnema for helping me to recall Church's deeply insightful words.]

I want to end this morning with the words of another Unitarian minister, Robert Walsh. Walsh writes about a man who he knew who had stationery that carried the proverb: “Nothing is settled. Everything matters.”

Walsh goes on to write that this proverb got under his skin, and he vehemently disagreed with it. His protest went like this:

“It’s not true that nothing is settled. In the past year choices have been made, losses suffered. There’s been growth and decay, commitments and betrayals. None of which can be undone… One day this year I was present when someone needed me; another day I was busy doing something else at the moment someone needed me. One day I said something to a friend that injured our relationship; another day I said something kind. The best and worst of those days are written. And nothing, not tears, not joy, not sorrow can erase it.”

Following this rant, Robert Walsh comes to see the proverb in a new light. Perhaps, he thinks, that “even though the past is the past, what is not settled is how the story turns out. As long as we are alive, the story of our life is still being told, and the meaning is still open. What is done is done, but nothing is settled… and if nothing is settled then everything matters: every choice, every act, every word, every deed. They matter in the days ahead and, most of all they matter today.” [from his meditation manual, Noisy Stones, p. 22-23]

We often think of an apology as an ending, a way to put the final period on an unfinished story. An apology ties up the loose strings and closes the open ends. But, this in fact may not be true. Perhaps an apology is just another act in an ongoing story, which although is not final, is still worthwhile.

Preface
Every year at the Church Auction I offer to the highest bidder the right to assign me a sermon topic. The person who buys the sermon doesn’t buy my opinion or my voice; they purchase the right to assign me study in their field of interest and the challenge of creating a sermon out of it. At the last church auction, the sermon was purchased by a man with almost a half-century experience in the energy industry engineering coal-fired power plants. He wanted me to preach an environmentally-themed sermon and furnished me with an enormous pile of literature – everything from a book sub-titled “Saving the Planet from the Environmentalists” and a book claiming humans are not causing global warming to articles about creative developments in the field of clean energy including wind, solar, and even more ingenious new technologies. The sermon below represents my best effort at honesty, fairness, and provocation.

Acknowledgements
I have to thank Dr. John Herron, professor of Environmental History at UMKC who pointed out the wealth of articles available at the environmental web-site www.grist.org/ At this web-site, you can find the essay “The Death of Environmentalism” and a series of responses by leading environmentalists such as Bill McKibben.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to an anonymous engineer with 32 years experience building coal-fired power plants who generously allowed me to interview him and gave frank and forthcoming answers.

Finally, I thank Dick Rinehart for purchasing this sermon at the Church Auction. I hope you feel you got your money’s worth.

Sermon - Introduction
I am going to throw down the gauntlet. I am going to draw a line in the sand. Before you [waving folder in the air] I hold Exhibit A. Exhibit A consists of my home utility bills for electricity, gas, and water for the year 2006. My home utility bills for 2006 totaled $956.26. If we break that down on a month-by-month basis, that averages out to $79.94 per month.

So, [setting down the folder in front of the pulpit] this is the gauntlet I am throwing down. You may like this sermon. You may not. You may agree with me. You may not. But, if you want to disapprove, or argue, or dispute what I say you will need to step across this line in the sand. And when you do that, you should be prepared to tell me what your monthly home utility bills are. And, if they are, on average, higher than $79.94 per month, I will point out that you are criticizing me even though you consume more energy than I do. If, and only if, you spend (on average) less than eighty dollars a month on your electricity, gas, and water, are you free to criticize me.

In fact, I am interested in what your home utility bills are. I invite you to go home and calculate it out and send me the results. We can post the findings on the bulletin board. OK, maybe not. But, I do want to make the point that the religious life should lead us to a larger sense of integrity and authenticity, a correspondence between our words and deeds, what we say and how we live.

I will say just a few words about how I live: I do not believe in wasting energy. I run my utilities sparsely. I have top notch energy conserving windows. Every piece of plastic, glass, metal or paper that comes into my house gets recycled. Every scrap of food waste gets composted. (I actually bring it with me to church to throw onto our church compost piles behind the garage.) But I am not perfect. I should have my own portable mug to bring to the coffee shop, considering how frequently I frequent the coffee shop. I should have my own canvass shopping bag to bring to the grocery store. But nobody is perfect; we can all stand to get better.

But, I have thrown down the gauntlet. I’ve drawn a line in the sand. If you don’t like what I say this morning, I will point to the line in the sand, paraphrase Cuba Gooding, Jr. in Jerry Maguire, and say, “Show me the bills.” I will paraphrase Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, and ask, “Do you feel environmentally clean? Well, do ya?”

Part 1: “The Death of Environmentalism”
In 2005, authors Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus rocked the world of environmentalists with a provocative 37-page manifesto entitled, “The Death of Environmentalism.” Their criticism came from within the environmental movement – they each had a long history supporting environmental causes – and many environmentalists branded them traitors and turncoats. In this paper, they accused contemporary environmentalists of being ineffective at best, counterproductive at worst, out of touch, and strategically misguided. They wrote,

“Of the hundreds of millions of dollars Environmental groups have poured into the global warming issue, only a small fraction has gone to engage Americans as the proud moral people they are, willing to sacrifice for the right cause. It would be dishonest to lay all the blame on the media, politicians or the oil industry for the public's disengagement from the issue that, more than any other, will define our future. Those of us who call ourselves environmentalists have a responsibility to examine our role and close the gap between the problems we know and the solutions we propose.
“So long as the siren call of denial is met with the drone of policy expertise -- and the fantasy of technical fixes is left unchallenged -- the public is not just being misled, it's also being misread. Until we address Americans honestly, and with the respect they deserve, they can be expected to remain largely disengaged from the global transformation we need them to be a part of.”

They celebrate the early victories in the environmental movement – clean water and the banning of chemicals like DDT – but then claim that the last quarter-century of the environmental movement has little to show for itself. The authors point out that the average car on the American road gets worse gas-mileage today than it did in 1980 and that China(!) has stricter automobile fuel-emission standards than the United States. They point out that while virtually every Western European country has pledged to cut power plant emissions by 50-80% in the coming decades, the United States Senate voted 95 to zero against signing the Kyoto protocol in 1998.

The authors of this article continue by saying that environmentalists have failed to form the types of powerful alliances necessary for political change. They’ve either formed shallow allegiances or alienated potential allies (like auto unions, for example.) The authors claim that environmentalists have, by and large, been arrogant in seeking to enlist allies, asking allies what they can do for the environment but seldom reciprocating. To quote from their report once more:

"Even the question of alliances, which goes to the core of political strategy, is treated within environmental circles as a tactical question -- an opportunity to get this or that constituency -- religious leaders! business leaders! celebrities! youth! Latinos! -- to take up the fight against global warming. The implication is that if only X group were involved in the global warming fight then things would really start to happen.”

In effective organizing, environmentalists would begin by asking churches or minorities, unions or youth, what they need and how the environmental movement could help them with the problems that most concern them. They would begin by listening to the constituencies they court. Then, they would connect the concerns of their allies to the environmental agenda. The health of urban minorities would be framed as an environmental issue. The concerns of auto unions would be framed as an environmental issue. In doing this, environmentalists would shift back to thoughts expressed by Sierra Club founder John Muir, who wrote, “when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”

Finally, Nordhaus and Shellenberger point out how the American public has changed in recent years. In 1996, 17% of Americans agreed with the statement that “In order to preserve jobs, Americans must be willing to tolerate higher levels of pollution.” In 2000, 26% agreed. In 1996, 32% of Americans agreed with the statement that, “Most of the people actively engaged in environmental groups are extremists and not reasonable people.” In 2000, 41% agreed with that statement. When asked in a survey to name pressing issues that concerned them, environmental issues did not crack the top ten. Of course, this article came out a couple of years ago – before Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth and a variety of other movies featuring the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Alanis Morrisette, and Keanu Reeves. Perhaps the pendulum is swinging back.

Part 2: Coal: For your stocking or for your electricity?
But, I didn’t want to spend all my time this morning rehashing a provocative article by two dedicated environmentalists. I want to talk about coal-fired power plants. Well, sort of.

Currently, the effort to build more coal-fired power plants is an issue that environmental groups in the United States are strongly opposing. Coal-power was the big thing for decades in this country until came along and seemed to be the fossil fuel of the future. Natural gas, however, has since turned far more expensive and coal has made a comeback as the fossil fuel du jour. At this moment, coal power is booming, and not just in the United States.

A 2006 New York Times story reported that China is building a coal-fire power plant big enough to provide energy to a city of five million people at a rate of one plant every week. China burns more coal than the United States, the European Union, and Japan combined. And India, with a population expected to exceed China’s in two decades, is trying to keep pace with China’s energy production. Even more troubling, China and India are using power production technologies that are comparable to those used in the United States forty years ago. Pollution from Chinese coal-fire power plants has been discovered in Lake Tahoe, California and Yosemite National Park. The plants built in China and India are far more polluting than those built in the United States.

In the course of research for this sermon, I decided to have a conversation with a person who has designed coal-fired power plants for thirty two years. In the conversation, he may have been biased, but I found him to be frank. He explained to me, speaking in general terms, that burning coal has some advantages. For one thing, it is our most abundant resource. It is cheap. And, considering issues in global security, coal allows our country to move in the direction of being completely energy self-sufficient, not a bad thing if we could wean ourselves off dependence on Middle East oil. Finally, this engineer insists that we are about a decade away from having the technology to implement 100% capture of carbon emissions, technology we could implement in the United States even if it wouldn’t be used in China or India.

I asked the engineer, “So, tell me. If you were in charge of energy policy, what would you do?” He replied that he was completely in favor of expanding renewable energy sources including solar and wind power, but we are delusional if we think that those will be sufficient to feed our energy needs. He also replied that he considered the best solution to be nuclear power, even though it is unpopular and isn’t as cheap as coal. Nuclear power scares us though, and, like coal plants, nobody wants them close to where they live.

I had this experience when I lived in the Pacific Northwest. Politically, I was strongly in favor of clean energy, but I absolutely hated the series of hydro-electric dams that had been built along the Columbia River. They were eyesores. They disrupted the migration of the native salmon. I wished they had never been built. I wanted them gone… but I also didn’t want big fossil fuel power plants… or nuclear plants… but I wanted my lights to turn on.

I wanted plentiful energy, clean energy, and free-flowing rivers. And probably the most insightful thing that the engineer I spoke with told me was this: “People need to figure out what they want.” Do they want air-conditioning during the Summer and heat in the Winter? Do they want the lights to turn on when they flip the switch? And, how much are they willing to spend for this? Answer these questions, he said, and then we can explore the energy options. When I lived in the Pacific Northwest, I wanted things that were, ultimately, irreconcilable.

Part 3: Making Religious Sense of these Issues
And, now I’m going to say something marginally religious: that if we want these things (cars, air-conditioning, electricity, etc.) for ourselves, we have to want them for everybody. If we want to drive cars and turn on the air-conditioner, then we have to want these things for everybody else, including the populations of China and India. We can’t say, “I want to be able to drive and turn on my lights, but you do not get to.” And from the perspective of your person living in China or India or Indonesia or Brazil, they would say: “Well, you’ve been able to guzzle gas and heat your homes and so on for the last half-century. We only want what you’ve had all your life.”

There are some who would say, “Well, the world is over-populated. There are just too many people.” Which may be a factual statement, but it is a morally in-actionable one. The second you declare that there are too many people, you need to propose a solution: namely, who should there be less of and how should we make that happen? (The answers to that question are so often tinged with racism – the world is overpopulated and we need less black and brown and tan and yellow people.) And really, if you look at it honestly, shouldn’t there be less of those who are the biggest energy consumers, by which I mean, upper class and upper-middle class suburban Americans?

You can go ahead and propose that there should be less of us, but to propose that with any sincerity is ill. Imagine you are at your company holiday party, and you remarked, the environment would be better if half of us just disappeared. Most people would politely excuse themselves from your company and regard you warily. There used to be a nihilistic bumper-sticker about a decade ago that read, “Save the planet, kill yourself.” It was a witty sticker, because if you take the logic to its natural conclusion, you end up somewhere close to that.

Environmental activism is different than just about every other kind of activism. Suppose you are someone who is against homophobia. You can do all sorts of things to support GLAAD. You can vote for politicians that will stand up for Gay Rights. You can re-arrange your retirement investments so that you only own stock in companies that give same-sex partner benefits.

If you are a peace activist, you can march. You can vote for politicians who oppose the war. You can even refuse to pay your taxes as a statement against the war – of course you’ll go to jail for this. But you can move to a country that opposes the war. You can move to Switzerland.

If you are an environmentalist, even as you organize and vote and letter-write and educate and everything else you do, you will also consume natural resources. You will use energy. Even if you decide to move and live on the side of a mountain and eat berries and roots and twigs, you will still need to build yourself a campfire that adds carbon to the atmosphere.

What did John Muir say? “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” We are all hitched to everything else. We all consume. It is worthy to attempt to consume less and consume more wisely than our neighbors. Although, if you think for a second that I feel morally superior to only spend $79.94 per month on my utilities, I don’t. In the larger analysis, I still consume more than 95% of the world’s population. If everybody lived like me, the environment would be worse, not better.

But I also like how I live. I find my life has meaning… purpose, and worth, and love. It is worth living, albeit imperfectly. And maybe I can stand to live a little better. I wonder if I can lower my energy bills by ten dollars per month?

I am looking forward to next Tuesday's (9/18) release of the new full-length album "Spirit if..." by Broken Social Scene, their fourth as a group.

BSS, based in Toronto, is a rock band with up to 19 members, almost a collective of musicians. I got to see them play in Lawrence, KS in 2006 when they opened for Death Cab for Cutie and BSS put on a mesmerizing show. They featured anywhere from 6 to 11 musicians on stage at any one time, but it was difficult to count as the members of the band often wandered from instrument to instrument (as well as on and off stage) in the middle of their songs. At one point the line-up had six electric guitars and two drum-sets. At another point, a five piece brass ensemble. And, at still other points a mix of keyboards, violin, tambourine, maracas, you name it. One band member spent an entire song manipulating guitar-feedback.

I can't wait to hear the newest tunes by one of the most innovative bands on the scene today. Next Tuesday can't come soon enough!

So, a Catholic Priest walks into a bar…

The film clip we’re about to watch comes from Keeping the Faith, a romantic comedy that came out in the year 2000. The plot involves best friends – a Rabbi (Ben Stiller) and a Priest (Ed Norton, Jr.) – who simultaneously fall in love with their long-lost childhood friend Anna (Jenna Elfman), who has, in the intervening years, blossomed into a gorgeous and successful businesswoman. In the scene we’re about to see, the Priest, after a clumsy and failed attempt to seduce Anna, has just been informed by her that she is in love his best friend the Rabbi instead of him. The scene commences with Norton’s encounter with an eccentric bartender as he tries to drink his sorrows away and concludes with a heart-to-heart discussion with another priest.


This is the third sermon in a series on Covenants in Liberal Religion. In July’s sermon I showed a film clip from Raiders of the Lost Ark and talked about the difference between faiths that gather around shared creeds and beliefs, and faiths (like ours) that gather around shared covenants. Last month, in August, I showed a film clip from the movie “Friday Night Lights” and talked about the covenant of membership in a Unitarian Universalist church. What do we promise to each other as members of this church?

This sermon is about the covenants we share about helping one another to grow spiritually. Just as the film clip I just showed had a couple of different parts, this sermon will also have a couple of different parts. In the first part, I will speak of the traditional covenant we share around spiritual growth. In the second part, I will speak about the ways we actually live that covenant in community.

Part 1
In traditional Unitarian Universalism, part of the covenantal relationship we share is called the “Covenant of the Free Pulpit.” It has a corresponding element that is called the “Covenant of the Free Pew.” Yes, this is boring. But it is also important. So, indulge me for a minute or so.

The Covenant of the Free Pulpit says this: I am called to speak the truth to you, as best I understand it and according to my conscious. And you are expected to expect me to do this. It is actually in my contract. The precise wording in my contract is this: “It is a basic premise of this Congregation that the pulpit is free and untrammeled. The minister is expected to express his values, views, and commitments without fear or favor.”

Let’s unpack that a little bit. Free and untrammeled… a trammel is what you put on horses. It is a fetter or a shackle designed to restrain movement. “Untrammeled” means you expect me to preach the truth howsoever I see it. And to preach it “without fear or favor” means two things. Preaching without favor means that there is nobody pulling puppet strings, nobody in my pocket instructing me in what to say or not say. Preaching without fear means that you agree to respect that what I say comes from my own convictions – my own life passed through the fire of thought – and that even if you disagree strongly with me, you will respect that my preaching comes from a place of conviction and conscience.

(By the way, this whole concept is going be to put to the test next Sunday. Each year at the church auction I put a sermon up for sale. The person who buys the sermon buys the right to assign me to preach on a topic that they find interesting. They buy the right to assign me research, or experiences that will expand my understanding. What they don’t buy however is my conscience. For example, if the person who buys the sermon wants me to preach about Alien Abduction, I don’t have to come out and say that Alien Abduction is a real phenomenon. I will preach to you what my own reason and conscience have to say about it. Last year, the winner of the sermon for sale was a distinguished engineer who works on coal-fired power plants and whose views on the environment differ from the views of others in this church on the environment. He wanted me to learn some of what he knows about coal energy and preach a sermon in light of it, which intend to do, but he didn’t buy my voice. My voice will be my own as I consider a topic that many of you have strong feelings about. It is not his sermon. It is my sermon on a theme that he bought the right to assign me.)

I want to share with you the extremely provocative saying of one of the most respected senior ministers in Unitarian Universalism. He once told his congregation, before preaching a controversial sermon, that if he offended them, if he angered them, if they thought that he was absolutely wrong, then their correct response should be to immediately and significantly increase their financial pledges to the church because his willingness to take an unpopular position proves that the pulpit is, in fact free, and that he was not trying to be political and dishonest to keep them satisfied, but that he was freely speaking the truth as he knew it – and not just telling them what he thought they wanted to hear.

The corollary to the covenant of the free pulpit is the covenant of the free pew. This covenant expects that you will come to listen to what is said from the free pulpit and pass what you hear through the fire of your own thought. As Suzanne Meyer puts it, “You’re not expected to take what I say on faith. You’re expected to engage it with your mind and with your heart.”

This covenant of free pulpit and free pew are interactive. We’re only living within this covenant when we actually engage in the weekly act of worship together. If you do not exercise your freedom of the pew, you deny the freedom of the pulpit. If I do not exercise my freedom of the pulpit, it isn’t worth your time to show up and sit and listen to me go through the motions.

A covenant is a set of commonly held promises… a set of commonly held promises that are enduring, but evolving… a set of commonly held promises that are taken seriously, taken so seriously that they are treated as sacred… but they are difficult promises to live up to, and so a covenant accepts that we will fail to live up to them, but that when we fail to live up to them we will not give up. We will re-enter into covenant, try our best again, but still may never fully live up to the promises we have made.

Part 2
I don’t want to spend the whole sermon talking about promises we make between the pulpit and the pew. I want to make it about something broader. In our Unitarian Universalist seven principles, there is in the third principle this very interesting phrase: “Encouragement to spiritual growth.” The seven principles, by the way, articulate the basic covenants we share as a religious community.

So, what does it mean “to encourage one another to spiritual growth?” “Growth” can be kind of buzz word when we talk about churches. We can talk about growth in numerical terms: How many members do we have? How many seats are full on Sunday? We can talk in terms of a growing budget, a growing number of programs, even a growing number of social service opportunities. All these are measurable. But, how do we actually measure “spiritual growth”?

Well, one way is we conflate these, to assume that one is a sign of the other. We think – well, if we have more people, more full seats, more programs, more social service opportunities – then we must be growing spiritually! Maybe. Or maybe it is a false correlation. Does a growth in membership mean that we have grown in the spiritual practice of hospitality? Does growth in budget mean that we have grown in the spiritual practice of generosity? Do more social action opportunities mean we are growing in the spiritual practice of prophetic outreach and service? Maybe. Maybe not.

But this brings us back to the question. What does the phrase “encouragement to spiritual growth” mean? And how do we encourage each other to spiritual growth? Do we offer the encouragement with abrupt frankness, “Hey you. Grow spiritually!” Do we encourage with more subtlety? “Hey, have you ever considered spiritual growth?”

But seriously, what does this encouragement to spiritual growth look like, besides my earlier encouragement for you to practice the freedom of the pew in partnership with my practice of freedom of the pulpit. How do we encourage each other to grow spiritually?

As I stand here, my first temptation is to resort to a list of programs that this church offers. Adult religious classes; volunteering in meaningful ways; getting involved in social action initiatives or starting your own; those types of things. But I want to resist that temptation because I think those kinds of answers take all of us, as individuals, off the hook. It says you grow spiritually through a class or a committee or a group or Sunday morning (and we do grow that way) but what about that sense of personal encouragement? I don’t want to take us, as individuals, off the hook that easily.

In our UU tradition, I think back to the intense, up and down friendship shared by the older Ralph Waldo Emerson and the young upstart Henry David Thoreau. You can imagine them taking their long philosophical walks through the woods of Concord. They challenged each other intellectually, provoking each others’ genius. It was also in each other’s presence that Emerson had many of his earliest transcendently spiritual experiences. According to Emerson biographer Robert Richardson, Henry David Thoreau had taken Emerson on a canoe trip, about which Emerson remarked, “We went to the boat and left all time, all science, all history behind us, and entered into nature with one stroke of the paddle.” He goes on in his journal to describe this canoe trip in ecstatic terms.

So, I have an inclination not just to tell you to sign up for classes or programs and come to worship, but to actually do that Emerson / Thoreau thing with each other. How would that work?

I have an outstanding colleague with whom I serve on a national-level UU committee. The first time I met him, he asked me within three minutes of meeting me, “How is your spiritual practice?” I was without a good answer. I got defensive and think I might have barked something back like, “How is YOUR spiritual practice.” And then the second time he met me, he asked, “Thom, how is your spiritual practice?” And then the third, and then the fourth, this same question. By the fourth time, I knew I was going to have to answer him. Yes, this was annoying. It was relentless. I was being encouraged to spiritual growth.

How often do these questions turn up in the relationships we share with each other in this congregation? How often do we ask each other questions like:

“How is your prayer life?”
“How is your meditation going?”
“How are you dealing with that (choose one of the following) anger, insecurity, fear, disappointment, loneliness, grief, guilt, frustration, emptiness, depression, etc.?

How often do we ask one another:

“Where is the holy in your life right now?”
“For what do you thirst?”
“What are you talking about with God these days?”
“How is your spiritual practice?”

I want to end today by suggesting to you that part of our covenant is, in the words of our third principle, to “encourage one another to spiritual growth.” How to do this without sounding condescending may be a challenge. But, what if this is a part of the promise we are expected to make to each other?

In the film clip I showed you at the beginning of the sermon we find the Priest played by Ed Norton, Jr. dousing his woes with spirits. In the next scene he has sobered up. It is this that scene I find touching: a young priest going to an older priest for advice, and the older priest encouraging him to spiritual growth. The Catholic tradition may or may not make a whole lot of sense to us, but I find in that exchange to be sweet and caring and meaningful.

May every Ed Norton find their confidant. (But not an eccentric bartender.)

May every Emerson find their Thoreau.

May we all become confident enough in ourselves to encourage each other to spiritual growth and may we all become secure enough to receive the encouragement of one another.

Opening Words
One of the recurring features on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno is a segment called “Jaywalking” in which Leno takes to the streets and asks easy questions to the people he encounters, who, in turn, offer up answers that are pathetically wrong. Asked to name the first President of the United States, someone might answer “George Bush.” Asked to name the Secretary of State, another person might answer, “Osama bin Laden.” (Letterman is better than Leno, by the way… just a personal opinion.) But, the humor in Leno’s segment is supposed to derive from our feeling that the wild ignorance of the person on the street is funny, and that we the people watching at home are smarter and more sophisticated.

Every couple of months, you can count on some newspaper or internet story decrying the lack of knowledge of some wide segment of the American populace. One story, detailing our geographic ignorance, tells us one out of five American adults can’t locate the United States on a world map. (You can watch the Youtube video of Miss South Carolina offering her thoughts on this.) Another article says that one out of four American adults did not read even a single book in 2006. I’ve heard of a middle school in at least one city whose teachers offer evening math classes for parents because the school district realized so many of the parents could not understand the homework assignments their twelve year-olds were bringing home. These stories can tend to make some of us feel smart and superior, but they are also saddening and depressing. The health of our nation is and has forever been intimately bound to education.

As Unitarian Universalists, we see nothing wrong with eating from the tree of knowledge. We are also aware that knowing about religion and practicing religion are two different things. And so this morning, as we consider a book about what we actually know and don’t know about religion, we will also be asking deeper questions about how our lives can live up to our minds.

Reading
The reading this morning comes from the newest book by Stephen Prothero called “Religious Literacy: What Every American should know about religion – and doesn’t.” Here is how Prothero’s book begins:

“A few years ago I was standing around the photocopier at BU when a visiting professor from Austria offered a passing observation about American undergraduates. They are very religious, he told me, but they know next to nothing about religion. In Austria, compulsory religious education begins in elementary school and European students can name the twelve apostles and the seven deadly sins, even though most of them wouldn’t be caught dead going to church or the synagogue. Amercian students are just the opposite. Here faith without understanding is the standard; here religious ignorance is bliss.

"Americans are both deeply religious and profoundly ignorant about religion. They are Protestants who can’t name the four Gospels, Catholics who can’t name the seven sacraments, and Jews who can’t name the first five books of Moses. One of the most religious countries on earth is also a nation of religious illiterates….

"According to recent polls, most American adults cannot name one of the four Gospels, and many high school students think that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife. A few years ago, no one in Jay Leno’s Tonight Show audience could name any of Jesus’ twelve apostles…

"One might imagine that ignorance of Christianity and the Bible is restricted to non-Christians or at least to non-Evangelicals. But born-again Christians do only moderately better than other Americans on surveys of religious literacy.

"[And], when it comes to religions other than Christianity, Americans fare far worse. One might hope that US citizens would know the most basic formulas of the world’s religions: the five pillars of Islam, for example, or Buddhism’s four noble truths. But most Americans have difficulty even naming these religions. In a recent survey of American teenagers, barely half were able to name Buddhism and less than half Judaism when asked to list the world’s five major religions. Far fewer could name Islam or Hinduism.” [p. 1-6]

Sermon
I grew up as a Unitarian Universalist in a small town in Massachusetts. In sixth grade our religious education curriculum covered Eastern religious traditions. We saw slide shows of Muslim minarets and mosques, Buddhist temples and Hindu shrines, statues of the Buddha, Shiva, and Kali. We also learned about Confucian, Taoist, and Shinto traditions. I have no doubt that as a result of my UU religious education I was more informed about religious diversity than the children of any other religion in my town. I was also better informed about religious diversity than the children of no religious tradition in town.

Here, in our congregation, we offer on alternating years the Neighboring Faiths curriculum in which our middle schoolers learn about, are exposed to, and visit the faith communities of our neighboring faiths. I have no doubt that as a result of our UU religious education program our children are more informed about religious diversity than the children of any other religion in Johnson County. Our children are also better informed about religious diversity than the children of no religious tradition.

I am going to try hard not to make this a book report sermon, but I want to introduce you to Stephen Prothero’s book, which is a lot richer than just a ranting lament about how few Americans know any of the four noble truths of Buddhism (very, very few it turns out) or know that the two clauses in first amendment to the United States Constitution that concern religion are the establishment clause and the exercise clause. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Those are the first words of the Bill of Rights, by the way.

Far from a rant, Prothero writes of what we once knew about religion, how we forgot it, and how we might grow in religious literacy once again. I do not know of Prothero’s personal religious beliefs, but I am certain that he is not trying to promote any specific religious agenda.

Prothero begins by going back to the origins of our country and points out that ours was the first country in human history to insist on universal literacy for every man, woman, and child. The reason for this insistence was religious, based on a particular theological idea that we were called to understand the scriptures for ourselves, rather than leave their interpretation to priests and Popes. The purpose of literacy was to be able to read and understand the Bible and most of the earliest books for children were overtly religious. “A is for Adam” began the New England Primer, “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.” While Prothero insists these early Americans knew their Bible forwards and backwards, I think we would hesitate to call this world paradise.

The author then chronicles the causes of religious illiteracy in our nation. He points out that Evangelicals like to point to a Supreme Court case from the early nineteen-sixties banning school prayer and to the secularism of the sixties and seventies as the reason for our religious illiteracy today. But, according to Prothero, the cause goes back more than a century earlier. The First and Second Great Awakenings of the mid-1700’s and early-1800’s – the first evangelical movements in America – were the heart’s answer to the heady piety that had pre-existed it. Those revivalists stressed not reading the Bible but feeling the spirit. They stressed devotion over doctrine. As Prothero puts it, “Ironically, the United States became a nation of forgetters at the same time it became a nation of evangelicals.”

But, in Prothero’s telling of history, liberals share the blame as well. In pushing for universal public education, Unitarian Horace Mann advanced a non-sectarian solution to education. Mann’s vision for public education included teaching piety and virtues, but thought the only doctrines that should be taught were the ones on which all denominations could agree. (Or, not that many.) You might imagine a religious melting pot that would first include all the Protestants, then the Catholics, then the Jews, and now, most recently, the Muslims as well as we talk of the religions of Abraham. What this does is blur distinction and difference for the sake of unity, but at the expense of literacy.

This continues even today, by the way. Today’s largest mega-churches are truly post-denominational. Whether we are talking about Joel Osteen’s 50,000 member Lakeland mega-church in Houston or Rick Warren’s 35,000 member Saddleback church in Orange County, what these churches have in common is that they have abandoned denominational identity entirely. Consider the titles of the bestselling books by the ministers of these churches, titles like: “Your Best Life Now”, “Become a Better You”, “The Purpose Driven Life.” These are not the type of books that make you more knowledgeable about your religious tradition. No wonder many Evangelicals (and the rest of us) are stumped when asked to name the four gospels. No wonder, according to Prothero's book, ten percent of Americans think that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife.

As a solution to the problem of religious illiteracy, Prothero makes an impassioned plea for teaching religion in public high schools, colleges, and universities. He imagines religion becoming the fourth “R” – alongside reading, writing, and arithmetic. At the college level, he insists that all students should, at minimum, take a course in Bible 101 and World Religions 101. He also favors making courses on religion normative at the high school level. This suggestion I find to be anxiety producing for those on the religious and secular left and those on the religious right. On the left, there would need to be vigilance that the course material and presentation is absolutely objective and academic and does not devolve into sectarian proselytizing from the teacher. However, the religious right would feel anxiety as well. It is easy to imagine their objections to teachings that would open the minds of their children and undermine the teachings they receive at church. For example, if their church believes that being a Christian is the only way to heaven and that all other religions are the works of Satan, how would they respond to their child taking a survey course on those world religions in which those other beliefs and practices are presented as no more and no less valid than Christian beliefs and practices?

Stephen Prothero is more optimistic than I am. I imagine a conflagration of lawsuits from secular parents claiming their children are being indoctrinated as well as protests and lawsuits from the right claiming that their own faith’s teachings are being denigrated and undermined by classroom instruction. It is worth recalling the words of Supreme Court justice Robert Jackson, cited in Prothero's book, who said, “The task of separating the secular from the religious in education is one of magnitude, intricacy, and delicacy.” It sure is.

It is worth remembering that in the UU church that I grew up in, just as in this church, the teaching that we provide about world’s religions is not objective, nor is it value neutral. We teach that those who practice Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, neo-paganism, and Native American spiritualities deserve to have their faith respected. We teach that diversity in religion is good for our community and world. We teach that we have something to learn from them. We teach that their existence, by virtue of its existence, enriches our lives. This sounds benign, almost obvious to us. But these are all ideas that come out of our values. And so I find myself wanting public school students to learn about the world’s religions the way I learned about them in church. That isn’t exactly neutrality though.

I said I wouldn’t give you a book report this morning. And so, I bracket Prothero’s commentary on religious literacy and illiteracy for a moment. As a life-long Unitarian Universalist I tend to be fairly opinionated in matters of religion. As the child of two parents with over 55 years combined of public high school teaching experience, I tend to be fairly opinionated about public education as well. And, if we were looking for the so-called “fourth R”, besides reading, writing, and arithmetic, I am not sure that religion is the top choice. I can tell you that the current fourth “R” is preparing for standardized tests. (Perhaps, it is more fair to say that preparing students for standardized tests is now the first “R.”) But what should be the next top priority? I can imagine several. I can see someone making the point that every student should be expected to learn Spanish. I can see someone making the point that every student should be expected to learn Chinese. Considering the woes that many in our nation face, I can imagine someone making the point that every student should be expected to learn personal finance – then we might have less financial ruin, less bankruptcy, less people signing papers for sub-prime mortgages, less pay-day loan shops. I can imagine any of you who work in the health field saying that schools should teach better health habits, exercise, nutrition, sexual health, especially in light of our nation’s health woes. And I can imagine some of you advocating for other areas.

Is religious literacy more important than financial literacy? Is religious literacy more important than health literacy? Is religious literacy for important than language fluency in a world where we who live in this country may need to be functionally bi-lingual in Spanish in order to live from day to day and any of us who aspire to careers in business will be required to know Chinese?

But, it wasn’t my goal this morning to present a book report. And, it wasn’t my goal to offer an impassioned discourse on the present and future of public education. I want to return for a few moments to the religious side of religious literacy and say a few words about its importance.

First of all, religious literacy allows us to actually be conversant within our own culture. And, I’m not just talking about being able to understand pieces of art at the Nelson-Atkins museum. It has been frequently pointed out that a lot of political speech is coded theology designed to speak to conservative Evangelicals. Consider one of the questions from the quiz you’ve been given. The question asks what story George Bush was referencing in his first inaugural address when he spoke of the Jericho Road. Be honest, how many of you knew he was referring to the story of the good Samaritan?

Allow me to quote the passage from the President’s address that contains that reference: “Many in our country do not know the pain of poverty. But we can listen to those who do. And I can pledge our nation to a goal: When we see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side. America, at its best, is a place where personal responsibility is valued and expected.”

Whoa! Hold on a second here. If you are religiously literate… if you are familiar with the story of the Good Samaritan… if you understand the context of that story from the Gospel of Luke – then you can actually enter into this discussion. The question I would ask is this: is the story of the Good Samaritan a story about personal responsibility? Is this story being interpreted correctly, or is it being mis-used? Is his use of the Good Samaritan story valid?

We are called to be discerning people. We are called to ask – is this newspaper’s use of statistics valid? Is that scientific research valid? And, as well, is that biblical interpretation valid? Is that depiction of religion valid? The first reason to become religiously literate is that knowledge equals power.

A second compelling reason to be religiously literate is that it actually has the potential to change the depth and quality of your own faith. Let me explain what I mean by that.

For the last four years I have met intermittently with a support group for young clergy here in Kansas City. The group is composed mostly of mainline Christians: UCC and Disciples, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Lutherans. There is a widely accepted truth that Mainline Christian clergy tend to be more liberal than the congregations they serve. The reason for this is that the seminary experience for these clergy tends to be mind-opening. At a place like St. Paul’s or Brite or Vanderbilt or the Pacific School of Religion they are exposed to those of different faiths and traditions – those who interpret the Bible differently, pray differently, emphasize the sacraments differently. They learn that there isn’t just one way. (By the way, this liberalizing experience does not hold true at the Bible institutes that tend to train the more evangelical Christians.) And then, after seminary, Mainline pastors tend to seek out ecumenical if not interfaith groups to be a part of… for fellowship, for sanity, for creativity. Such reinforced exposure to difference has a naturally liberalizing influence.

Such an influence can also be found by learning about different faith traditions. Diana Eck, one of the foremost thinkers on religious diversity, has a saying that she is fond of. “If you know one religion, you know no religion. If you know more than one religion, you know your own religion.”

In the end, that might be the most compelling reason for religious literacy. The more you know about faiths other than your own, the more you know, implicitly about your own. Religious literacy is much more than being able to answer trivia questions. It is about understanding – a worthy goal for the seeking.

The beginning of my homily this morning got all messed up because I mis-remembered a quote by Kurt Vonnegut, the famous novelist and avowed humanist and free-thinker. Earlier this week I was thinking about some of my favorite Psalms from the Hebrew tradition and I seemed to recall something about Vonnegut saying that Psalm 23 was the finest piece of writing ever written. I searched frantically for this quote, only to find that Vonnegut had expressed these sentiments about the Sermon on the Mount.

Some do consider the Twenty-third Psalm, with its imagery of walking through the valley of the shadow of death and of cups runneth-ing over, to be the greatest piece of writing ever. Just not Kurt Vonnegut.

Me, I’ve always been partial to Psalm 150. Psalm 150 is the final psalm and also the shortest. It is only six verses. In the third and fourth verses, the psalm lists how we are to praise. Praise with lute and harp, with trumpet and tambourine. And then the fifth verse arrives, and we are told to quote, “Praise the Lord with clanging cymbals; praise the Lord with loud, crashing cymbals.” I’ve always loved that particular verse. First of all, it is superfluous, unnecessarily repetitious for such a short little psalm. It is driving the point home. It is as if the psalmist is saying, “Praise with loud cymbals… no, I’m serious here, we’re talking crashing, clanging cymbals. Bring the noise. Bring the funk.” I like to think of myself as a clanging cymbals type of guy. I like to imagine Animal from the Muppet Show as the exemplar of this sort of piety.

But, there is a third Psalm that I think is just as good. It is the forty-second Psalm that begins with this great line, “As the deer thirsts for water, so my soul thirsts for you.” Depending on the translation, the word thirst comes across differently. The King James version uses the verb “to pant”: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so paneth my soul after thee, O Lord.”

In our service today, I am going to talk a little bit about thirsting and invite you to think about what you are thirsty for. For what do you thirst?

One of the books I have been reading this past month is called Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. It has kind of been a hot best-seller this Summer. It falls into the genre of spiritual writing and it even has an enthusiastic blurb by Anne Lamott on the cover, which is good enough for me. In a nutshell, the book is the memoir of a successful writer in her mid-thirties from New York City who goes through a tough divorce and decides to set out around the world to heal and find herself. She gets a book deal to do this and spends four months in Italy, four months at an Ashram in India practicing meditation, and four months in Bali, Indonesia studying under a Balinese medicine-man.

I decided to read the book as an experiment. I know dozens of people who have read Eat, Pray, Love and have seen dozens more reading it on airplanes, but I don’t know a single man who has ever read it. It is distinctly possible that I am the first man to have ever read it. I wanted to know whether a man could enjoy it. So far, I have strongly disliked it, and with only fifty pages to go, the window of redemption is closing quickly. (And if you accuse me of not giving this book fair shakes, consider that several years ago I read Anne Lamott’s Operating Instructions, a diary of her first year as a single mother to her son. I was riveted, even when she goes on for twenty pages about dealing with her colicky son. I’m open-minded. But Eat, Pray, Love doesn’t do it for me.)

But, here is one of the few passages in Eat, Pray, Love, that I actually found redeeming and insightful. It deals with the subject of thirst we are considering today. Gilbert writes,

I found during the beginning of my stay here at the Ashram that I was often dull-witted during [my meditation practices.] Tired, confused, and bored my prayers sounded the same. I remember kneeling down one morning, touching my forehead to the floor, and muttering, “Oh, I dunno what I need… but you must have some ideas… so just do something about it, would you?” This is similar to how I often spoke to my hairdresser.

There’s a wonderful old Italian joke about a poor man who goes to church every day and prays before the statue of a great saint, begging, “Dear Saint, please, please, please… give me the grace to win the lottery.’ This lament went on for months. Finally the exasperated statue comes to life, looks down at the begging man and says in weary disgust, “My son – please, please, please… buy a lottery ticket for crying out loud!”

If I want transformation, but can’t even be bothered to articulate what, exactly, I’m aiming for, how will it ever occur…. If you don’t have this, all your pleas and desires are boneless, floppy, inert; they swirl at your feet in a cold fog and never lift. So now I take the time… to search myself for specificity about what I am truly asking for. [pages 176-177]

Listen to these words again: “I want transformation, but I can’t be bothered to articulate what I’m aiming for… so now I take the time to search myself for specificity about what I am truly asking for.” For what do you thirst?

Over the summer our Board of Trustees and senior staff read the book Kicking Habits by Thomas Bandy, one of the leading thinkers about healthy church life. Bandy begins his book by pointing out that the vast, vast majority of people (especially those under the age of 50) who begin attending church do so because they are longing for some change to take place in their life. They are seeking to be transformed though they may not even be aware of what that change might look like or what the transformation entails. They have a vague sense of something missing or something that they want to be altered.

Not to drill the point home too hard, but Bandy says that they don’t come to find friends; they tend to already have plenty of friends. He says they don’t come seeking service opportunities; they already have more than enough places making demands on their time. No, they come for something they cannot get through going out with friends or serving on the PTA; there is some change they wish to make in their life. Now, the catch is that to make that change happen will involve creating intimacies and to make that change happen will involve doing something akin to service, but the intimacy and service follow from a longing, panting thirst for change.

I find myself now trying to integrate this into the way I approach ministry. I used to ask visitors to the church what they did for a living, hoping they would say they were a plumber (yay, a potential new member for the facilities committee) or a financial planner (Hooray – a future finance committee chair) or a teacher (send them down to the classrooms right away!)

Now, I try to ask people, “What transformation do you want for your life to undergo? What is missing? What do you want to change?” And only then do I ask them how can this church community be an agent of that transformation. How can we quench that desperate, panting thirst?

For what do YOU thirst?

Let’s do an exercise. In just a moment I am going to sound our little Buddhist meditation bowl and invite us to join in a few moments of quiet thought about this question. When I sound the bowl a second time, I invite you to be brave and turn to your neighbor and maybe ask them to tell you one thing in their life that they thirst for. If your neighbor is not brave, I invite them to share with you their prediction for what the Chiefs’ record will be this year. When I sound the bowl for the third time, I invite your attention to return up front.

First ring: quiet reflection on your thirst.
Second ring: sharing with your neighbor.
Third ring: come back.

If this exercise has been anything what I imagine it has been like, the conversations out there among you have been diverse. Some of you may not have been able to name any thirst; perhaps you have come to discover and discern. Some of you may have been able to name a thirst but have no idea how to make it happen; perhaps you have come to be empowered. Some of you may have been able to name a thirst and have a very developed plan about how to satisfy that thirst; perhaps you have come to be turned loose. Some of you may not have been able to name any thirst, but perhaps only a thirst you once had, a thirst that has been sated and satisfied; perhaps you have come out of a sense of abundant gratitude and fulfillment.

This morning as we start up a new church that never ended, as we come back to a place we never left, let us continue to ask each other what we thirst for. Let’s listen to each other’s longings. Let’s share and be receptive, understanding that just as we do not all share the same image of divinity (and that’s OK) neither do we all thirst for the same things (and that’s OK too.)

A. Powell Davies once said that life is a chance to grow a soul. It is that enterprise that we try to be about here in this religious community. There is so much before us.

The newest book by Boston University religion professor Stephen Prothero (author of the fascinating book American Jesus) is called Religious Literacy: What every American needs to know - but doesn't.

On Sunday, September 2nd I will be preaching on this book and examining some of its bold suggestions, such as religion becoming the fourth "r" of American public education alongside reading, writing, and arithematic.

So, I bet you are wondering: How religiously literate are you? Prothero's book begins with a handy quiz. I've reprinted the quiz from this website. Take it and see how you do. I've hidden the answers on another section of the blog. Good luck and no cheating!

1) Name the four Gospels. List as many as you can.
2) Name a sacred text of Hinduism.
3) What is the name of the holy book of Islam?
4) Where according to the Bible was Jesus born?
5) President George W. Bush spoke in his first inaugural address of the Jericho road. What Bible story was he invoking?
6) What are the first five books of the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Old Testament?
7) What is the Golden Rule?
8) "God helps those who help themselves": Is this in the Bible? If so, where?
9) "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God": Does this appear in the Bible? If so, where?
10) Name the Ten Commandments. List as many as you can.
11) Name the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism.
12) What are the seven sacraments of Catholicism? List as many as you can.
13) The First Amendment says two things about religion, each in its own "clause." What are the two religious clauses of the First Amendment?
14) What is Ramadan? In what religion is it celebrated?
15) Match the Bible characters with the stories in which they appear. Draw a line from the one to the other. (Hint: Some characters may be matched with more than one story or vice versa)

Biblical Characters:
Adam and Eve
Paul
Moses
Noah
Jesus
Abraham
Serpent

Biblical Stories:
Exodus
Binding of Isaac
Olive Branch
Garden of Eden
Parting of the Red Sea
Road to Damascus
Garden of Gethsemane

Want to see how you did? Click here!

[A couple things to know about this sermon. First, I delivered it while wearing a Faux-Hawk. Second, the reading before the sermon came from p. 190-192 of Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird. On these pages she tells the story of friends of hers whose child suffers an extreme brain injury during delivery. Expected to only “live” for a few days, the family brings the baby home to be around family and friends. Anne and her five-year old son Sam visit frequently and read Dr. Seuss books to the baby. When the baby dies, Lamott describes her son’s reaction to seeing his first dead person.]

Sermon – Part 1
I want to follow up on the very emotional reading sharing another reading by Anne Lamott, this one coming from her book Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith. This reading deals with a sad reality of life at its other end. Just as I know (and it is a sad but sacred privilege to know) that some of you can relate to the things described in the first reading, I know (in the same sacred and privileged and sad way) that many, many of you will relate to what Lamott describes in the second reading. She writes:

What are you supposed to do, when what is happening can’t be, and the old rules no longer apply? I remember this feeling when my mother was in the last stages of Alzheimer’s, when my brothers and I needed so much more information to go on than we had – explanations, plans, a tour guide, and hope that it really wasn’t going to be that bad. But then it was that bad, and then some, and all we could do was talk, and stick together. We managed to laugh at ourselves and at her, and at the utter hopelessness of it all, and we sought wise counsel – medical, financial, spiritual. I prayed for my mother to die in her sleep. I prayed that I would never have to take the cat out of her arms and put her in a home. A nurse summoned from the Alzheimer’s Association entered into the mess with us. We said, “We don’t know if we should put her in a home, and if so, when. We don’t know what’s true anymore. We don’t know what we’re doing.” The nurse asked gently. “How could you know?”

How could you know? How could you know? When I read this Lamott piece for the first time I was halted, moved. What a brilliant response from the Alzheimer’s Association nurse; how could you know? I found those words extremely comforting. Comforting to the Lamott family, but also comforting to me, who regularly operates under the delusion that I am expected to know, well, everything.

Each mid-August, as I return from vacation and study and denominational travel I like to preach a sermon that is both an anniversary sermon and a birthday sermon. This coming week is my birthday. It is also the anniversary of my first Sunday in the pulpit as your called minister. I try to make it reflective without being self-absorbed, contemplative without being self-centered.

This year, mid-August represents both the beginning of my fifth year as your minister and my turning 30 this Wednesday. I originally planned to preach about what I had learned in these past four years, and several weeks ago I sat down and actually composed a list of everything I thought I had learned in the past four years. I composed the list in a column on the left hand side of several sheets of loose-leaf paper. But then, on the right side of the paper I began a different list, a list of all the things I didn’t manage to learn in the last four years. This exercise was sobering so I decided to preach instead on this odd grammatical construction that I’ve titled my sermon – “Things I shouldn’t have learned by now.” A grammatical construction that doesn’t really convey what it is supposed to convey, because I messed up the title and it came out wrong. The title of the sermon sounds smug in its present form. It seems to indicate that I am going to talk about things I do know even though I’m not really expected to know them yet. Look at me, all preternaturally precocious. But, it is not meant that way, it just turned out like that - conveying the impression that I will talk of things I know that I shouldn’t be expected to know. And that just sounds plain arrogant.

But that is not what I intended. The awkward grammatical expression – “Things I shouldn’t know by now” – is meant to refer to something entirely different. It is meant to encompass those things of which Anne Lamott speaks when she quotes the Alzheimer’s Association Nurse, “How could you know?” What do you say to your five year-old son after you’ve taken him to visit a dead baby? When do you take the cat out of your mother’s arms and put her in a home? You do what you do, without really knowing for sure. Because how could you know?

Part 2
Go back about ten years in my life. I either just turned twenty or am about to. It was my junior year in college and I realized that over Spring Break in April I would be visiting seminaries as a prospective student. This was serious stuff. So I decided I needed to do something to mark this transition. I dyed my hair a brilliant shade of turquoise-blue and cut it into a Mohawk. It felt sacramental. [Random fact: What do you use to get a Mohawk to stand up? Actually, you use a paste composed of fifty percent Elmers glue and fifty percent raw egg whites.] And then I got rid of the Mohawk, grew out my hair all decent looking, did prospective visits to seminaries, and the rest was history: admission to Harvard, four years of classes, internships, chaplaincies, student ministries, and more.

And then, four years ago, you courageously invited a quite presentable, nicely-coiffed, 25 year-old young man to be your minister. Of the several choices I had of churches at which to serve, you Shawnee Mission stood above the others head and shoulders for the way you described your dreams for a future minister. You said, and here I literally quote what you said, “Our church is poised to grow significantly in the coming years – in spiritual depth, in commitment to the community, and in membership… the worst mistake that our new minister could make would be to not show enthusiasm and energy. We are eager for energy and enthusiasm.”

Here I am! Sign me up! We seemed to be a good fit for one another. So, four years ago you turned over the spiritual leadership of this church to a young man with a very presentable hair-do, not yet twenty-six, but with enthusiasm and energy. And you knew I would make lots of mistakes, and I did. But you agreed to forgive and forebear as long as the mistakes were not the worst mistake I could make: to fail to show enthusiasm and energy.

So, my faux-hawk this morning? It is not the melodrama of existential angst and despair at turning thirty. OK… maybe a little. It is sacramental too, I think. It commemorates the decade sinced I got rid of the bright turquoise Mohawk at age 20, a full decade of serious dedication – a decade that coincided exactly with my twenties. Thanks for letting me celebrate this in your presence.

Part 3
More than enough about me, though. Because this morning is not about what I have learned or what I have not yet learned. It is about some other kind of third thing. Not exactly things I shouldn’t know by now, but the things that more or less transcend our pure knowing. What were the words of that Alzheimer’s Association nurse? “How could you know?” This wasn’t a condescending “How could YOU know?” It was a hands-up-in-the-air surrender to the reality that there will be some things we just can’t know the answer to for sure. What is the right thing to do after you’ve taken your five year-old to visit a deceased baby? How could you know?

For some of us, these non-answers can be challenging. As Unitarian Universalists we may be very comfortable believing that there is not one single, orthodox, right, correct answer to the question of whether God exists. As Unitarian Universalists we may be very comfortable believing that there is not one single, orthodox, right, correct answer to the question of what happens to us after we die. As Unitarian Universalists we may be very comfortable believing that there are not certain, final answers to some religious questions.

But, what about when the questions aren’t metaphysical? What about when the question is right there in your face and hits you personally, when it comes to medical treatment for an aging parent, or what to say to grieving parents? Or, even what about when it is choosing a major in college or deciding to leave that position and go a different direction that carries a lot of risk? What about those times when there are wrong answers, to be certain, but there may not be one exact right one?

God’s eternal truth is that sometimes we can’t know for sure. Earlier we sang, “Light of ages and of nations, every race and every time has received thine inspirations, glimpses of the truth sublime.” But, the sublime truth is that sometimes we just can’t know.

Too often we think of life this way: Imagine a young girl 5 or 6 years old who is running around the pool. The child trips and skins her knee raw. The first time this happens, we might say something like, “Now you’ve learned why it is dangerous to run around the pool.” It is the lesson of experience, right? “Now you know.” “Well, this is a learning experience.” “Life has just taught you a lesson.” This is kind of childhood development type stuff. We turn even the painful into a learning experience.

But, the next time the young girl slips running around the pool, we might say something less educative. “Haven’t you learned this by now?” “Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time?” “Didn’t last time teach you anything?” “You should know by now…”

And we can break it all down into these two categories, this dualistic epistemology, where everything can be neatly divided into something you don’t already know and will someday learn or something you should know by now.

To use a different, funny example, that came to me, we either tell the child: “Well, I guess you learned a lesson that it is not nice to pull the cat’s tail,” or “you should know better than to pull the cat’s tail. Remember what happened last time you did that?”

This is not only for children, though. We can tend to chalk up our own failures and disappointments, our own gains and losses as either learning experiences or as a failure to have learned that lesson the first time, or the second, or the third, or…

But, if we are true and honest to ourselves, we might also imagine things we shouldn’t have learned by now. How could you know? How COULD you know?

When faced with religious questions, when faced with spiritual questions, we are not expected to respond with correct answers, with the right answers, but with honest and authentic answers.
Similarly, when faced with life’s hardest questions, when faced with life and death itself, we are not expected to respond correctly, only honestly, and authentically.

These thoughts I’ve shared with you this morning come, if anything, not out of any celebratory angst I am feeling about a certain birthday. If anything, it is coming out of the reality that the past two weeks have been a bit remarkable for the pastoral care demands at this particular time, including, among other pastoral care needs, visiting with families who have lost loved ones.

All of which, all of which has caused me to pause, to grow introspective, to search my own heart for the answers to this life, and to respond this way:

Not to proudly and precociously and triumphantly boast of what I do know.

Not to chastise myself for that which I have not yet learned.

But to return, in peace, to a place where I am able to admit what I should not know. Because how could you know? How could you know?

Benediction
Go forth not with abundant pride for all the things you know.
But, also, do not go forth beating yourself up over the things you have not yet learned.
Go forth honestly and authentically, with the knowledge that sharing your honest and true self with others will be enough and more than enough.



My Faux-Hawk, in honor of turning 30!

In July 20007 I began a six-month sermon series (one sermon per month) on "Covenant in Liberal Religion." Each sermon in the series will explore an aspect of covenant. Moreover, each sermon will be preceded by a clip from a movie that helps to illuminate the aspect of covenant being considered that morning.

My July sermon, Raiding the Lost Ark, introduced the concept of covenant and explained the difference between a covenantal and a creedal faith.

My August sermon, Sunday Morning Lights, explored the covenant of membership in liberal churches.

My September sermon, Keeping the Faith / Encouraging Faith dealt with what is known as the "Covenant of the Free Pulpit." But it really asked a more important question: "What covenant do we share to help each other grow spiritually?"

In the October sermon, Six Degrees of Covenant (and Kevin Bacon) I considered the historical idea of covenant between churches.

In November, apropos of Thanksgiving, we examined the idea of the social compact, or social covenant, and how we might restore this idea.

In December I concluded the sermon series by asking, "What brave new covenant is needed right here, and right now?"

We are going to start the sermon this morning by showing a film-clip from the movie “Friday Night Lights”. The movie follows the season of a high school football team from Odessa, Texas as they reach the Texas State Football Championship game only to – having lost their star player to injury – face-off against a team from Dallas against whom they are under-matched in every possible way. In the first half, the team from Odessa is crushed by their superior opponents. We pick up the movie with the half-time speech by the coach, played by Billy Bob Thornton:

“You all have known me for a while... and for a long time now, you've been hearing me talk about being perfect. Well, I want you to understand somethin'. To me, being perfect... is not about that scoreboard out there. It's not about winning. It's about you and your relationship to yourself and your family and your friends. Bein' perfect...is about being able to look your friends in the eye... and know that you didn't let them down. Because you told 'em the truth. And that truth is, is that you did everything that you could. There wasn't one more thing that you could've done. Can you live in that moment...as best you can with clear eyes...and love in your heart? With joy in your heart? If you can do that, gentlemen, then you're perfect. I want you to take a moment...and I want you to look each other in the eyes. I want you to put each other in your hearts forever. Because forever's about to happen here in just a few minutes. I want you to close your eyes… and I want you to think about Boobie Miles, who is your brother. And he would die to be out there on that field with you tonight. And I want you to put that in your hearts. Boys, my heart is full. My heart's full.”

This second sermon in the “Covenant and Liberal Religion” series deals with the covenants we enter into that involve membership in this church. And, to tell you the truth, I struggled to find the right film clip to show you. I wanted to find the perfect “initiation scene” from a movie. And I was tempted – oh, was I tempted – to show you the hazing scene from Animal House. “Please sir, may I have another.” But, you just can’t show scenes from Animal House in church. So, I asked around. I was out on a date with someone who said she was a huge fan of movies. I shared that I was looking for a great initiation scene. She instantly replied, “Oh, there’s a wonderful hazing scene in Dazed & Confused. And there is another hazing scene in Old School too.” I also asked Jim Eller, the minister at All Souls, when he invited me to a Royals game two weeks ago. I also sent an inquiry to the Minister’s email chat-list and received responses that I should show a boot-camp scene from a movie like Jarhead or Full Metal Jacket. One colleague suggested I show the climax scene – I mean the climactic scene – from Steve Carell’s 40-Year-Old Virgin. I suppose that qualifies as an initiation of sorts.

But it was my colleague Brent Smith who suggested the Friday Night Lights clip. In support of his recommendation, he wrote, “the covenant of membership does not involve the relationship of one individual and another, but the relationship of an individual to a group… the team has an existence aside from the individual… and when an individual joins a group the identity of the group becomes added to the identity of the individual.” Paraphrasing Brent Smith’s email to me, he added, “Of course, some orthodox groups, the identity of the group supplants the identity of the individual. But joining a team or a group or a church need not be like that. The half-time speech in Friday Night Lights explains that the mission of the team is not what its members think it is. It points to a different identity when its members truly live out the mission of the team.”

[By the way, the next sermon in this series in September will be about what in Unitarian Universalism is called the “covenant of the free pulpit and the free pew.” If that sounds boring, you are right; it is. But that is just going to be an entry-way into a larger question about covenant. What is the covenant we share to help each other to grow spiritually? That’s the question I really want ask next month. And the movie clip we will show next month will have to do with people sharing a moment of spiritual growth together. And, unless I get a better suggestion from someone in the next month, I think the scene will feature Luke Skywalker and Yoda. If you think you can do better than that, I challenge you to send me your idea.]

Last month, in my introductory sermon in this series I defined covenant in this way. A covenant, I said, “is a set of commonly held promises… a set of commonly held promises that are enduring, but evolving… a set of commonly held promises that are taken seriously, taken so seriously that they are treated as sacred… but they are difficult promises to live up to, and so a covenant accepts that we will fail to live up to them, but that when we fail to live up to them we will not give up. We will re-enter into covenant, try our best again, but still may never fully live up to the promises we have made.” In my sermon last month, I explained that we are not a creedal church, held together by the beliefs we claim to share in common. We are a covenantal church, held together by the promises we make about how we will be together.

So, what are the promises we make about how we will be together as members of a church community? I want to give you two examples about how a couple of other UU churches approach membership. I will warn you, these examples are extreme. I mention them, not because I agree with them, but instead to provoke you.

First example: A colleague of mine talks about the expectations of members in the church that she serves. When a member inquires about joining they are told that their first pledge to the church will be no less than two-and-a-half percent of their income with the expectation that they will increase their pledge to no less than five percent of their income within three years. Further they are expected to attend church three Sundays out of four. And falling short of either of these expectations means a leader in the church visits them and asks, “Do you wish to continue to be a member here?” I repeat, this is a UU church.

Second example: another UU church understands membership to be nothing less than a life-long commitment. You join the church and you are a member for life. That is the expectation. Nobody is ever dropped from their rolls. But, you may ask, what if you move to another city in another state? You are made a “member emeritus.” What if, you ask, you decide you are no longer a UU and go join a Presbyterian church? You are made a “member emeritus.” Members emeritus continue to receive church publications and are approached for donations. You are a member for life. What provokes this church to have such an understanding of membership? Well, the church believes that as a result of participating in the church that your life will be forever changed. You will be different as a result of belonging to the church, and since you will be different, you continue to have a relationship with the church even after that relationship is not immediate. Because you are changed, the church continues to impact your life, even at a distance, and so there is an expectation of reciprocation. Membership is for life.

Like I said, I offer you these two examples not because I necessarily agree with them, but because I find them provocative.

At our church we name our expectations a bit differently. In fact, at our Exploring Membership Class (formerly known as the Seekers class) we actually distribute a hand-out that is called the expectations of membership. This hand-out lists those three expectations:

First, show up. You won’t feel like a part of the church community if you don’t come regularly to worship and church events.

Second, help out. Find a group to participate in and place to contribute your talents to the mission of the church.

And, third, give financially. We expect members to make a generous pledge of financial support to the church.

These three expectations are often abbreviated as time, talent, and treasure.

The chairperson of the membership committee is fond of saying something that goes like this: deciding to become a member does not confer unto you all sorts of special benefits, unless you count having the right to vote at congregational meetings and being eligible to serve on the board of trustees. Membership, she says, is a willingness to put your name where your heart is. It is a willingness to stand up and be counted as a part of the faith you’ve freely chosen and the community you’ve freely chosen. You put your name where your heart is. You claim what you belong to.

But, this is not a sermon about the expectations of membership, as important as it is to remind ourselves of those expectations from time to time. It is a sermon about membership as a covenant. What are the promises we make as members of the church? What do we promise to one another? Let’s hold that question before us for just a minute or two. What do we promise to one another?

You know, it is a funny thing that when I think about movies with memorable initiation scenes, with memorable scenes of an individual adding a group to their own identity, so many of those scenes are just so horrible and painful.

My first thought, after all, was a hazing scene from Animal House. What is that all about? The way to enter into a group is through abuse and humiliation. Really? As Indiana Jones, last month I brought the whip, but this month I didn’t go looking for the fraternity paddle – that is not a liturgical instrument in a UU church. Membership in this type of church does not involve hazing, unless of course you consider being invited to make coffee cruel and unusual.

And, the second thought was to turn to boot camp scenes from films like Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, or Jarhead, or Stripes. And, what is this all about? Is this a way of saying that membership requires tests of strength and intimidating challenges.

Or then, I thought about a movie like Star Trek that features the Borg… that great collective of cyborgs, stripped of identity. “You will be assimilated.” And these are all such scary and screwed up depictions of what it means to become a member. You’re either humiliated, or you’re put through a grueling obstacle course to prove yourself, or you’re assimilated – stripped of your personality, your ideas, your individuality, your self-hood to become part of a larger collective.

And the covenant of membership here has absolutely nothing to do with any of these things. I should certainly hope! So, what are the promises we make to one another?

Did anyone catch the biblical reference in the speech by the coach in Friday Night Lights? It was subtle, but did anyone catch it? I guarantee you, no West Texas high school football coach is going to give a half-time speech that doesn’t have something to do with the Bible. If you didn’t catch it, the biblical reference was from the Sermon on the Mount. The coach’s speech was really a sermon on Matthew 5:48 and Jesus’ injunction to “be perfect.” This is good stuff here. We Unitarian Universalists are OK with Sermon on the Mount.

Let’s pick it up five verses earlier so we get the full context. So, starting we Matthew 5:43 we get this: “You have heard it said Love you neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say love your enemies and pray for your persecutors – only in this way can you be the children of God, a God who causes the sun to shine on good and bad alike and causes the rain to fall on the innocent as well as the wicked. If you only love those who love you, what good can you expect? Even the wicked do that. If you greet only your brothers and sisters, tell me how is that extraordinary? Even the hateful do likewise. But I am calling you to be perfect, just as God in heaven in perfect.”

Let’s look at what the coach says: Being perfect is not about the scoreboard… it is about our relationship with each other… being perfect is living in the moment and putting each other in our hearts forever. Then he ends by saying, his heart is full – enemy and friend, teammate and opponent alike. The whole team, from the star to the scrub. His heart is full.

This morning, I’m not asking you to be football fans, or Billy Bob Thornton fans, or mushy macho movie fans – I’m such a sucker for that scene, though. I’m not asking you to be Jesus fans or Sermon on the Mount fans, or fans of picking up on subtle biblical references, really I’m not. I don’t care if you read the Sermon on the Mount or not.

But, what if the covenant of membership was simply this: I am called to love not only my friends, not only my peers, not only those of my demography, not only the ones that I am easily inclined to like. But to be perfect, my covenant is to love everybody. Every person who comes through our doors. Every person who might ever come through our doors. Every person who our doors are held wide for but it is doubtful that they will even darken the doorstep.

And what if the covenant of membership was simply to look into each others eyes, put each other in our hearts forever, and then say, “Teammate of mine. Church member of mine. I will be a good teammate of yours. As best I can even though I’m going to fail to keep my promises sometimes.”

What do we promise to each other? I hope that in the making and in the keeping of these covenantal promises our hearts will be filled to the brim, and over-flow, and over-flow some more.

This sermon is the first in a six part series on “Covenant and Liberal Religion.” For the next six months, I will preach one sermon per month on an aspect of covenant.

[Before the sermon, we showed a scene from the film Indiana Jones & The Raiders of the Lost Ark. The scene began with Professor Jones lecturing to a thoroughly bored (and, for a University in 1936, surprisingly co-educational) class. Summoned from the classroom, Prof. Jones meets with some government officials who are concerned about a Nazi archeological dig in Egypt. Jones deduces that they are trying to find the Ark of the Covenant!]



Let me begin this sermon by saying, “Happy Birthday” to Harrison Ford who turned sixty-five on July 13th, 2007.

So, where is all this going? Well, probably the best way to begin to explain the whole idea behind this sermon and this sermon series is to tell you about an experience that happened to me last Thursday. Last Thursday, I was participating in a protest down by the Nichols Fountain on the Plaza. Missouri Governor Matt Blunt recently signed legislation that called for abstinence-only sex education in all Missouri schools and also restricted outside instructors in health classes to those with no connection at all to any health care system that offers abortion as option. Meaning, of course, that someone who is trained and has expertise in teen health counseling but who works for, say, Planned Parenthood would be barred from speaking to a health class at a public high school.

So, I went down to the Plaza to hold signs and talk with passersby and advocate for an approach to health education for young people that says that information and education is better health policy than ignorance.

But that is not really the point. You see, down at the protest these two young women were hanging around. They approached the protesters, and lied that they were writing for a student newspaper. In reality, they were amateurish reporters for a fundamentalist Christian magazine. Soon, word got out that a minister was at the protest – and that minister happened to be me – and so these two amateurish fundamentalist infiltrators made a bee-line to me to interview this minister (can it be believed?) who actually supports sex education. I introduced myself as a Unitarian Universalist minister and they asked me to explain what UU’s believe. I explained that we are a covenantal faith, not a creedal faith. We share a covenant of how we try to be together, not a creed of what we all must believe together.

Then the questions began: “Well, does your church believe in the Bible?”

I responded: That is a creedal question. We are a covenantal church. We share a covenant of how we try to be together, not a creed that says what we are expected to believe together.

“Does you church believe in God?” they ask.

“That is a creedal question,” I respond. “We are a covenantal church. We share a covenant of how we try to be together, not a creed telling us what we are expected to believe together.”

This went on for a while. It took them a while to get this. They were being challenged to think in a new way.

I think that sometimes in our churches we tend to stress the fact that we are NOT a creedal church a lot more than we stress that we ARE a covenantal church. We emphasize the creeds we are not asked to recite more than the covenants we are asked to share. We over-emphasize the fact that we are not required to believe in God necessarily or believe a certain doctrine about the Bible or the afterlife. We under-emphasize the covenantal dimensions of our shared faith and we stress the non-creedal aspects.

This morning is the first in what I plan to be a six month sermon series on the dimensions of covenantal faith, one sermon per month. As a covenantal church, we should spend some time taking seriously what those covenants are about. Next month, I want to talk about membership… about the covenant of belonging to community. In September, I will talk about the free pulpit and the free pew, but really that sermon will be about the covenant we share about growing spiritually. In October, I will talk about the covenant we share with our larger movement. What is our responsibility to other churches? In November, fitting in perfectly with the celebration of Thanksgiving, we’ll be going back to the idea of the Mayflower Compact and asking questions about whether we share an American covenant and what that ought to be. (And, I will tell you: if you’ve gone to see the Michael Moore movie “Sicko” this question is so in need of asking. What is our covenant? What do we owe to one another?) And finally, in December we’ll be tying it all together and coming to some sense of a new and renewed covenant.

I plan to have a lot of fun with each of these sermons. We’ll use some more movies and maybe some costumes and drama. Surprises are in store. So, don’t miss out on this.

As you can tell, I’m really passionate about this and I think this strikes at the core not only of our identities as Unitarian Universalists, but I really believe that covenant can shapes our lives and our living – can be a central motive force in our lives.

Covenant is one of those religious lingo words – like creed, or catechism, or charism, or co-substantial. It is a word that tends to come across as jargon-y and overly-intellectual. I might as well be writing neo-lithic on the chalkboard like Professor Jones did in his classroom, only to receive bored stares.

And here is where Indiana Jones comes in. On one level Indiana Jones lives sort of a double life. Part of the time he is a stuffy archeologist, giving lectures to bored students who do not share in his passion for ancient Sumerian gravesites. But, the other half of the time he is this rough and tumble adventurer, traveling the globe, risking death, saving ancient antiquities, and saving the world from the Nazi’s.

Conventional church often has this double-life motif. In a conventional church you show up on Sunday to hear a 2,000 sermon about a 2,000 year-old story, and you learn what this word meant in Greek or that word meant in Aramaic or Hebrew. And then you go off: to lunch, to your real life, and your real life is just about as far removed from the idea of the Hebrews carrying an ark through the desert as can be.

But, what is interesting about Indiana Jones is that his is not really a double-life. He is the archeologist in the classroom and the archeologist when he is racing to excavate ancient cities. This is different than other super-heroes. Peter Parker is a bumbling pizza-delivery boy and a frustrated photographer – he is the confused college kid trying to pick a major – but he also gets to be Spider Man and do heroic good deeds in his second life. But, the one life has nothing to do with the other. Bruce Wayne is a business tycoon haunted by his past, who despite his riches feels empty, unfulfilled, and lonely. But then, at night, he gets to transform into Batman and be an avenger of the weak and the defenseless. The one life has nothing to do with the other.

These are split lives. Heroic and purposeful in one moment, but pointless and empty in the next. And with Batman and Spiderman there is always this constant frustration and friction. One life is unsatisfying; the other life is unsustainable. Saint Paul expressed this better than anyone: “For I do not understand my own actions. I do not do what I want, but I do the very things I hate.” (Romans 7:15)

But, my point is that Indiana Jones is not like this at all. Passion and purpose and calling infuse his life at every moment. His is not a double life – part heroic and part counting the hours until he gets to be passionate again – he is living his passion constantly. He is living his calling. And maybe he is way more excited about archeology than anyone of us ever could be, but that is OK. He is not trying to force us to be passionate about archeology. He is living his calling and using his passion to do something meaningful.

[It was at this point in the sermon that I donned an Indiana Jones style hat and brandished a whip – for theatrical effect. I felt very cool doing this!]



So, I want to bring this back to covenant – that jargon-y word – because we are going to be diving deep into aspects of covenant. So, what does it mean to say that we are a covenantal faith anyways?

A covenant is a set of enduring but evolving deeply held promises made between people. And while the covenant is taken seriously, the promises are often so intense that it is impossible to always live up to them. We will never exactly live up to the covenants into which we enter. So, we will always admit a falling short – and respond by re-covenanting, recommitting to those promises.

The model for this is Biblical. It has to do with Abraham promising devotion and sacrifice to the God Yahweh, and Yahweh in turn promising family health and wealth and chosen status. A few chapters later, the covenant is renewed and Abraham’s whole family is included in the covenant. From them is expected even more devotion and sacrifice and obedience and, in turn, Yahweh promises all of them greater wealth, not to mention military protection. I admit this really isn’t all that interesting. Later, in the New Testament, the leaders of the early church speak of a new covenant. The new covenant has to do with who else is included and what the expectations for remaining in covenant are. Again, the particulars are not that interesting unless you are into Biblical scholarship. Like Professor Jones, you are not expected to share that passion, either.

But the point I want to make about all this covenant stuff is that, inevitably, neither side keeps their end of the bargain. The Hebrews begin not to hold up their end of the bargain more or less right off the bat. And God, Yahweh, doesn’t always live up to the divine end of the bargain either. All throughout the religious tradition there is a need for prophets and others who point out ways the covenant is broken and call for repentance and renewal. The same thing can be said about the new covenant imagined by the early Christians.

So, what happens when the covenant is broken? A covenant is different than a contract. One party breaks a contract and it can be voided. Both sides are released from obligations and sometimes the offending party is penalized. But covenants are different. They go on. It is almost expected that they will not be fulfilled, but still they are re-entered with hope, re-entered with the intention of living up to them.

So, instead of being a creedal church where we’re united by the beliefs that we are expected to hold in common… and instead of being a creedless church where we don’t have any beliefs we are expected to share… instead, as a covenantal faith, what is this covenant we share together? I am just going to begin to explore the substance of that covenant this morning – and we will be exploring it in depth one Sunday per month over the next five months. I hope that you will be co-explorers, co-adventurers with me.

A few simple, elementary things I might say about the covenants of this covenantal faith: covenants are promises about ways of being together. Here in this church, it is obvious that one of the promises we make in covenant is to be together in ways that respect each other’s worth and dignity, ways that are safe. Being non-creedal we can’t expect to all believe the same things, but in covenant we can respect each other even and especially when we don’t agree with them.

Our covenant includes inclusion – we are all equally chosen people – and so part of our covenant helps to make all feel welcome regardless of age, gender, sexual orientation, or physical ability.

And our covenant – I would submit – is not insular, is not the property of those of us inside these walls. I would submit that it reaches outward, into the community. As those undercover reporters asked me in a way, “Do you believe the way I believe? Because that is necessary for us to relate to you.” They were posing a creedal question and giving me a creedal test. Covenant is larger than creed. What promises do we, should we, must we make to each other – knowing that we will break our vows – but then find it worth it to promise again, because we must. But, I’ve only just scratched the surface this morning.

You know, thinking about Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, I am struck. In the scene we saw, it was suggested that the ark had these super-powers. Indiana Jones even say, whoever holds the ark holds the power of God. The movie imagines this as the power to shoot lightning bolts and melt people’s faces (you remember how the movie ends, right?) but that is just Hollywood dramatics. But what is the ark of the covenant? It is a physical reminder – a heavy and weighty reminder – of deeply made promises. In that way, covenants are things of great power indeed. Our covenants in this church – made with one another and with the spirit and source of life itself – are powerful. And so I find it very poignant that what was carried through the desert is a reminder of promises we are committed to live by.

I look forward to unlocking some of the mysteries and discovering some of these powers in the months to come. Promises that change lives, that call us to live up to our best selves, that summon forth our true, authentic, vulnerable, and passionate selves. The covenants that call us to become who we are called to be amidst others called to be become who they are truly called to be as well.

[Our Worship Service on July 8th featured reflections by three members of the congregation as well as me. Each of us shared our experiences and reflections from attending the UUA General Assembly in Portland Oregon.]

Reflection by Jim Crist

“If you ever have the chance to attend a UUA General Assembly,” people told me, “do it. You won’t be sorry. It will be a life-changing experience.”

Schedules being what they are, I’ve never had the opportunity to go to GA, until this year. This year, however, the scheduling gods smiled upon me, so I seized the moment and registered.

The theme of the 2007 General Assembly was “Choices that Matter,” and the first choices that mattered to me were which of the over 300 workshops, meetings, and events I should try to attend. I downloaded the convention program and spent the better part of a week laying out my schedule for each day from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. This detailed schedule eventually ended up in the wastebasket—a common experience for first time GA attendees, I’m told.

I did attend plenty of meetings and workshops and events. I took lots of notes, and maybe one day I’ll be able to decipher them.

The meetings and the workshops and the events were outstanding, but what I’d like to share with you is how the GA experience actually did change me. Even though the convention organizers chose “Choices that Matter,” as the theme, for me, a different theme emerged: “Making the Connection.” As a result of attending GA, I feel a deep connection now with UU brothers and sisters across the country. I feel a new connection with the larger UU denomination. I also feel a stronger connection with my own church.

Here in our church, at the edge of the prairie, it sometimes feels as if our collective voice is small, that we are sometimes shouting into the wind, that we sometimes go unheard. But after spending time in the presence of more than 5,000 other Unitarians, singing with them, cheering with them, worshiping with them, I know that we have a larger voice than I ever imagined, and that our voice is heard. We are not alone. We are not even isolated. We are everywhere. The progressive voice for freedom, equality, peace, and justice is everywhere, and it will be heard.

It was an honor for me to carry the SMUUCh banner in the opening ceremony banner parade. I carried the banner and Michele Gaston walked beside me. Prior to the parade, while waiting in the banner staging area along with hundreds of other banner bearers, we had a chance to talk to people from all over the country.

Our banner has two sides. One side shows a panel celebrating our 40th anniversary. The other shows a dinosaur, and this side raised some eyebrows.

“Shawnee Mission, Kansas,” one man said. I replied, “Yep, Kansas.”

After the obligatory “What’s the Matter with Kansas” comment, his face took on a somewhat puzzled look and he said, “Kansas…hmm…I get the sunflowers, but I don’t get the dinosaur. Are there dinosaurs in Kansas?”

“Well,” I said, “we had a few on the state board of education last year, but they’re extinct, or at least in hibernation for the time being.” Then I bragged about how our church sponsored public classes on the science of evolution last year. He has a new understanding of Kansas.

Carrying the banner through the convention hall, and later singing hymns with 5,000 other UUs really gave me a spiritual lift and made me feel connected to a great whole.

The following day, during the Service of the Living Tradition, I was witness to the final fellowship ceremony for new ministers. Among the new ministers participating in the ceremony were our own Thom Belote and Paige Getty. Paige was serving as interim minister here at SMUUCh when I started coming, so to see her receive final fellowship the same night Thom did, well, there’s a certain symmetry there.

As an official delegate for our congregation, I was entitled to vote during the business sessions. I actually attended most of the business sessions, and I can tell you that the Unitarian Universalist Association takes this democracy stuff seriously. Everything seemed open for discussion. Provision was made for both sides of any issue to have a voice in the proceedings. To keep a meeting with several thousand participants organized, on track, on time, and productive is a Herculean task. After participating in the business sessions, I have a whole new respect as well as a sense of pride for our denomination.

A highlight of my GA experience was singing in the 170-member choir. I’m not a great singer, but I can blend pretty well, so when I found out after the 2nd rehearsal that many of the choir members around me were music directors from their church, I felt somewhat intimidated. No, I felt very intimidated. I stuck it out, however, went to all the rehearsals, and boy, am I glad I did. If you have ever sung in a group, you know what an uplifting, almost transcendent experience it can be to make a joyful, harmonizing sound with other people. Multiply that by 2 and you have my GA choir experience.

I can’t say that going to General Assembly exceeded my expectations. Never having gone, I had no expectations. I was pretty much ready for anything. I went, not knowing what to expect. I came back a much richer person. Richer in spirit, richer in experience, richer in knowledge, richer in friendship, and with enough new books and reading material to keep me busy for the next 2 years.

So, I guess what it boils down to is this: If you ever have the chance to attend a UUA General Assembly, do it. You won’t be sorry. It will be a life-changing experience.


Reflection by Connie Strand

Although this was my very first General Assembly, I feel like I have attended the past 10 years or so vicariously through my husband Don (who attends every year as part of his job and who will share his thoughts with you in a few minutes). Every June he would come back with one story or another that piqued my interest, and I always thought: “Next year in Long Beach!” or “Next year in Cleveland!” But one thing or another always got in the way.

I must confess that “This year in PORTLAND” was simply too good to pass up, so I found myself packing my bags alongside Don and heading west.

Although Don has different things to say about GA each year, there are two things he never fails to mention:
1) “If you ever go, you simply can’t miss the Opening Banner Ceremony” and
2) “It’s so fun to play ‘Spot the UUs in the Airport’ coming and going.”

Thanks to United Airlines, we made it to the Opening Ceremony with only 10 minutes to spare, despite an original flight schedule that had us landing 8 hours earlier. They also chose to route us through the Dallas airport, where it was certainly much easier to spot a UU than in the granola-friendly Portland terminal. Who knew that you could find big, gaudy, shiny chalice earrings to match your big hair?

Fortunately we did make it to the Banner Ceremony on time, and Don was right – it is an amazing experience. Absolutely Amazing. There really is nothing quite like singing “Spirit of Life” with 5,000 or so of your closest friends. It is downright joyous to watch the banner-carriers parade their colors throughout the auditorium -- especially Jim and Michele Gaston with our 40th anniversary sunflower banner!

For me, the Opening Ceremony was probably the peak “feel-good” moment of GA. But I was fortunate to have many other such moments, including:
* Hearing Daniel Ellsberg, on the 35th anniversary of the publishing of the Pentagon Papers, earnestly pleading for somebody in government today to take whatever risk necessary to keep us out of going to war in Iran – a risk he said he wishes he would have taken two years earlier than he did in the Vietnam era.
* Taking communion with several hundred other UUs at a UU Christian Fellowship service.
* Listening to the marvelous GA choir (including our board president on tenor)
* Just walking around and seeing the smiling faces of people who share my faith. It is good to be with your own in such number from time to time.

But GA is about more than Feel-Good moments, which come and go quickly. What will stick with me over the long haul is the series of workshops I attended based on a book by David Korten called “The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community.”

I cannot do justice to what I took from those workshops in the few short minutes I have this morning. Boiled down, The Great Turning gives us a framework in which to put the future of our world. Will we continue with the Empire-building we have seen for thousands of years, or can we turn to an Earth Community that will sustain us in the future? How do we move from relationships based on domination to relationships based on partnership? Can we stop our suicidal competition for the earth’s remaining resources and learn how to cooperatively share them, instead?

The Great Turning brings together many ideas that resonate with us as UUs under one umbrella, whether it is living in a way that ensures a healthy environment, or working in a way that ensures a healthy community. And it does it in a way that gives me hope that we can actually make this work.

My next step from these workshops will be to offer an Adult RE class on the book, using a discussion guide and other methods we explored in one of the workshops I attended. If you’d like to learn more about The Great Turning, please consider signing up for the class later this year.

On a final note, I want to thank everybody in this congregation for the role you played in my GA experience. Just like any other convention, GA attendees wear plastic name badges festooned with various ribbons and gee-gaws. My badge sported three ribbons, and they were all based on the work of this congregation – First there is the ribbon on top that identifies me as being a member of a Welcoming Congregation; then there is this green ribbon, which signifies that we are committed to fair compensation for our professional staff; and finally, this purple ribbon that says we are an “honor” congregation in our support of the UUA. Clearly these are as much your ribbons as they are mine -- Thank you for all you have done here that allowed me to proudly wear this badge!


Reflection by Don Skinner

It’s true. I have attended the past ten General Assemblies. I have the good fortune to work for our Association of Congregations from right here in Johnson County. I write a newsletter for lay leaders about ways to do church better. And I write for the denominational magazine, UU World, which many of you receive. After 20-some years of working for newspapers, this is the best journalism job I’ve ever had. And I’m grateful to this congregation for its support of the UUA and for making my job possible. My yellow ribbon indicates that I am a UUA staff member.

General Assembly speaks to me about the rich possibilities of congregational life. GA is first and foremost a gathering place for congregational leaders and a place where congregations can show how they have turned their dreams into reality. It’s a place that inspires through words and deeds, through workshops and worship services. It is about our best selves—what can happen if we put conflict and self-interest behind us and focus on our UU principles. It is truly inspirational to listen to how congregations have overcome obstacles to achieve great results in church growth, social justice, worship, and other areas.

And there’s the other side of it. Listening at GA to the problems that some other congregations have, sometimes I have to be simply grateful that my congregation has moved past many of those problems. And so let us not forget the value of General Assembly as a source of gratitude. It teaches me to be grateful for what we have here at Shawnee Mission and the way we are with each other.

A large part of General Assembly is about social justice, about growing beyond our local congregations to help create a better world. It’s about anti-racism, about working for climate change and other environmental initiatives. And, it’s about economic justice, helping us find ways to use our privilege to lift up people who have no voice.

GA is also a place of inclusion. It is, for example, one of the too few places in this world where gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people can feel free to be who they are without having to hide parts of their identity. It is a place where they feel supported and where they know that others understand and accept them. A place just like their own church homes. GA reminds me of the value of our own congregations in being open to GLBT people. We never know when someone will come to our door seeking respite from a hurtful world and needing our unconditional welcome. We never know when we will make a difference in someone’s life.

There are several hundred workshops each year at GA. Running from one to the other can wear a person out. As a break from that -- and everyone needs a break from that -- I attend some of the 30 or so worship events at each GA. They are all different, they are all inspirational, and they all create possibilities as to what we might incorporate “back home.” I suspect that some people attend GA primarily for the worship experiences. Some of these services are led by youth and young adults, some are participatory, and some are contemplative. These services add the crowning touch for me and they are a big part of the reason why GA does not get old for me. It just gets better.


Reflection by Thom Belote

This morning I bring not only my own reflections about the General Assembly. I also bring thoughts by way of Michele Gaston – the fifth member of our church’s delegation to Portland. Michele couldn’t be here this morning because she is on vacation.

There are people in the world who find the idea of spending a week in constant interaction with some six-thousand strangers the closest thing to heaven. And then there are people who consider it a cause for panic. Michele is wouldn’t describer herself as a big “crowd” person, but she writes that she has come to find the people at General Assembly inspirational – inspirational in their diversity of spiritualities, backgrounds, colors, genders, and passions.

This year was my ninth general assembly. (Don, you got me beat by one!) But instead of a four-and-a half-day assembly, I’m expected to arrive an extra four days early for meetings, trainings, and continuing education events designed specifically for ministers. This gives me a different perspective: instead of attending the opening ceremony, I am participating in an orientation for new members of the Ministers Association Executive Committee. Instead of attending a workshop session, I am meeting with members of the UUA board as they negotiate with the minister’s association to seek our input on an issue such as a change in the funding for our seminaries. This is not to boast of conversations in swanky suites – only to say that my experience there is almost a parallel universe. It is so much off the map.

When asked, the thing I always say I most look forward to what is often my once a year chance to see that classmate of mine from seminary – the one who now lives in San Diego, or perhaps the one in New Jersey, or my mentor from Texas or friend from Colorado. This touches me deeply and helps to renew me.

But there are always other things that stir my passion. Three days before General Assembly started, I spent a day at a training for ministers who hope to become internship supervisors. Our is hopeful that we will be able to have an Intern Minister (a student preparing for ministry who spends a year in hands on learning with us) in Fall 2008. I think our church is particularly well-suited to care for and prepare and cultivate and develop and imprint a person training for the ministry. Done well, it is transformational to the intern, to the mentor (myself), and to the congregation who shares in the joy of helping to shape the future of the movement.

So, that is one thing I come away passionate about. The other thing I come away passionate about is actually a whole lot less concrete. One thing I picked up on – at workshops, in conversations, on blogs dissecting the General Assembly weeks later, in worship, everywhere – was such a hunger and a thirst for our faith to be a source of profound transformation in the lives of people in the world. It was in the air. It was exciting.

And so, like church, what I get from General Assembly is not merely confirmation, reassurance, reminders of my own (our own) rightness and righteousness. It get challenged to become, awaken, and be transformed in my own life and to be an aid, a balm, a coaxing and supporting force in the world’s transformation.

I want to close with a quote that Michele sent to me. (Honestly, I know not to whom to attribute it.) It sums up what Jim said about connecting, what Connie said about belonging, what Don said about inclusion, and what I have said just said about transformation. The quote goes like this:

“As I come to know you, I come to know myself better. And together through our intention and connection, we can bring the influence of compassion, diversity, and purpose to a world in need of healing.”

Yes, the rumors are true! Indiana Jones will be making an appearance in church this Sunday, July 15th. I'll be starting a sermon series on "covenant" and what better way to make that topic exciting than by recalling that cinematic adventure in which the forces of good and the forces of evil race to recapture the actual Ark of the Covenant?

Together we'll make the idea of covenant relevant, meaningful, and inspirational today!

Reading
From War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning by Christopher Hedges:

“War makes the world understandable, a black and white tableau of them and us. It suspends thought, especially self-critical thought. All bow before the supreme effort. We are one. Most of us willingly accept war as long as we can fold it into a belief system that paints the ensuing suffering as necessary for a higher good, for human beings seek not only happiness but also meaning. And tragically war is sometimes the most powerful way in human society to achieve meaning.

“But war is a god, as the ancient Greeks and Romans knew, and its worship demands human sacrifice. We urge young men [and women] to war, making the slaughter they are asked to carry out a rite of passage. And this rite has changed little over the centuries, centuries in which there has almost continuously been a war raging somewhere on the planet. The historian Will Durant calculated that there have only been twenty-nine years in all of human history during which a war was not underway somewhere. We call on the warrior to exemplify the qualities necessary to prosecute war – courage, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. The soldier, neglected and even shunned during peacetime, is suddenly held up as the exemplar of our highest ideals, the savior of the state. The soldier is often whom we want to become, although secretly many of us, including most soldiers, know that we can never match the ideal held out before us. And we all become like Nestor in The Iliad, reciting the litany of fallen heroes that went before to spur on a new generation. That the myths are lies, that those who went before us were no more able to match the ideal than we are, is carefully hidden from public view. The tension between those who know combat, and thus know the public lie, and those who propagate the myth, usually ends with the mythmakers working to silence the witnesses of war.”

Sermon
Each January I do a service that is called “Question and Answer Sunday.” It consists of giving off-the-cuff answers to questions submitted on index cards. This past January I did manage to avoid an entire category of questions – questions about war and peace. I told myself that I avoided them because they were big serious questions and I worried they would overwhelm and make insignificant all the other good questions that were asked that morning. This was a rationalization. I avoided them because they were hard questions.

To give you just a sampling: one person asked whether Unitarian Universalists should support strict pacifism. Another asked, accusingly, how any religion or faith can possibly endorse any kind of armed conflict. And still another person pondered how it is can be that the majority of wars have religious underpinnings at the same time when all religions claim to stand for peace. I figured that Memorial Day would be an appropriate time to explore these questions and many more having to do with issues of war and faith.

Any attempt to speak about war in such broad sweeping terms is made problematic by how to balance the immediate with the universal. Memorial Day memorializes our country’s wars – Civil and Revolutionary, two World Wars, and wars from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli. But, it is impossible to avoid that we are currently engaged in a war that, while fought bravely and honorably by thousands of servicemen and women, is also a war that many tend to equate with scandals having to do with yellow cake uranium and weapons of mass destruction, with Abu Ghraib and Walter Reed, with Halliburton and Bechtel and Blackwater, and with political battles over funding and exit strategies.

I simply cannot endeavor to speak about war and not, in the immediate context, name my sadness:

+ For the three-thousand, four hundred and fifty two US servicemen and –women who have died in Iraq in the past four years and two months (as of 5/27/07)…
+ For the three hundred and sixty eight who have died in Afghanistan
+ For their families, their mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, sons and daughters.
+ For all the injured, wounded, the physically and psychologically damaged and all the hardships this will cause for their lives, their families and their communities for years and years to come.
+ For the devastation experienced by the long-suffering peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan. All warfare, especially modern warfare, exacts a civilian toll significantly larger than the toll on enlisted persons. Our losses are small by comparison.

I also cannot fail to express my concern for what might be the most under-reported part of the Iraq War – that only roughly half of the US citizens currently in Iraq are members of the US military. The other half consists of contractors, including large battalions of private security forces. We cannot know for sure how many of them have perished; estimates say one-thousand or more. The presence of these large numbers of private contractors raises immense ethical questions. What oversight are they given and to whom do they answer? What happens when they return to the United States?

This morning I want to begin locally and then enlarge our scope in thinking about War’s meaning:

This past Thursday we hosted two high school students from Lawrence who presented their documentary film on military recruitment on high school campuses. Their film documented the sometimes aggressive recruitment tactics used in high schools as well as provisions in the No Child Left Behind Act that compromise student privacy. Their investigative film raised provocative questions, not the least of which is the practical feasibility and the ethics of maintaining an all-volunteer military. The fact that recruiters are more present on one campus in Lawrence than they are at another, or presumably that they are more active on campuses in the less affluent KCK school districts than in the more affluent Shawnee Mission and Blue Valley school districts belies the obvious fact that class and race privilege is alive and well in America.

Just as many of today’s politicians who embrace war were the ones who relied on their daddy’s money and influence to receive draft deferments so too do privileged youth today have a breadth of choices that does not compel military service. To be fair, it is a harmful stereotype that young people join the military because they do not have other options, but a study of military enlistment shows the one-third sign up to receive money for education, one-third for job training, and one-third for other reasons. [What Every Person Should Know About War, Chapter 1]

Even at the same time as I have written letters of support for conscientious-objector status for several young men in our church, part of me says that if we went back to days of the draft – and actually made it so you could not buy your way out of it or network your way out of it or Prince Harry your way out of it – then as a society we would be far less militant. Politicians might think twice before sending their children (or their lobbyist’s children) off to war.

In our wider denomination, Unitarian Universalist Association President, the Reverend Bill Sinkford, has been outspoken against the war even as his son serves in the military. And, in some local churches there have been various forms of participation in the peace movement just as there has been certain tension between those who oppose the war and those who believe that continued US military action in Iraq is warranted. Or rather, the tension is between those who desire that the church speak out loudly against the war, and those who don’t want anybody to feel unwelcomed. This tension is often perceived negatively – conflict avoidance is a normal quality in human beings after all – but we need not see it this way. Just as, at the end of day, a congregation ought to prefer a minister who speaks their mind over one willing to suppress their thoughts and be inauthentic in order to keep people happy, so to is a congregation where open dialogue exists preferable to one where people conceal themselves in order to make nobody the slightest bit uncomfortable. To put it simply, religion’s not supposed to make us comfortable all the time. Jesus came not to bring peace, but a sword.

To give you just a bit of perspective, Unitarian Universalism has had an interesting history in terms of its engagement with war. In the late eighteenth century, just as Unitarians were emerging from the liberal strain within Puritanism and articulating ideas about individual liberty, our country was beginning to fight for independence from the British. It was the Grandfather of the great Unitarian minister Theodore Parker who captained the militia of minutemen who fired the shot heard round the world at Lexington.

By the middle of the nineteenth century many Unitarians had protested against the war with Mexico, which they considered a war of imperialism and a war, they worried, would expand slavery, which many Unitarians opposed. Transcendentalist Adin Ballou published his call for “Christian Non-resistance.” And Henry David Thoreau not only went to the woods to live deliberately; he also went to jail for not paying his taxes as a protest against his government’s militarism.

In the second decade of the Twentieth Century, the pacifist John Haynes Holmes entered into a heated debate with William Howard Taft, then moderator of the American Unitarian Association, on the floor of its general meeting. Their debate was over US involvement in World War I. Later, the editor of the magazine of the American Unitarian Association (then called the Christian Register and now called the UU World) opined that to oppose the War was treason. The President of the American Unitarian Association, Samuel Atkins Eliot called on disloyal ministers to be dismissed, writing that “ministers addicted to pacifist principles cannot be permitted to plead a noble tradition of freedom of speech to justify or to mask sedition.” The board of the American Unitarian Association ruled in 1918 to deny financial aid to any church whose minister, “is not a willing, earnest, and outspoken supporter of the United States in a vigorous and resolute prosecution of the war.” My have times changed! [Source: this article.]

If I have my denominational history straight, it is correct to say that Unitarians and Universalists were supportive of World War II. They were encouraged, in no small part, by Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams who had traveled to Germany in the 1930’s to meet Paul Tillich and had seen first-hand the dangers of the rising tide of fascism and racist nationalism.

My colleague in Washington D.C., Rob Hardies writes that the “Unitarian tradition is not a pacifist tradition… [it has always] been squarely in what is called the ‘just war’ tradition – a tradition that recognizes that war is evil, but that sometimes history requires war if the reason be just and the choice for war be a last resort.” [as quoted in The Quest, the newsletter of the Church of the Larger Fellowship.] I would differ with him on this characterization. It is probably more accurate to say that we are a tradition that has encompassed a variety of different perspectives on war, a variety inclusive of strong pacifists, just war theorists, and perhaps a few who would see just war theory as too restrictive. It is probably more accurate to say that we are a tradition that, at its best, has not required all of us to think the same in order to be together. And, it is accurate to say that we are a tradition that does not stay silent about our beliefs, that has been willing to voice them, even when it strains the bonds of community. And hooray for that.

If we are going to state our opinions and voice our feelings, then let us engage in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Which leads me to two books I commend to you on the subject of war. They are both by Christopher Hedges, who earned a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard and worked as a war correspondent for many years. In his work, Hedges has “survived ambushes in Central America, imprisonment in the Sudan, and a beating by Saudi military police. Hedges saw children murdered for sport in Gaza and petty thugs elevated into war heroes in the Balkans.” His books include, What Every Person Should Know About War, a short, unadorned 120 book that examines various aspects of military life in a simple, direct question-and-answer format. If you know a person in their teens or early twenties, give them a copy of this book.

The other book by Hedges carries the interesting title, War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning. It is more philosophical and more startling, combining Hedges’ firsthand experience in warfare with insights from literature.

The book tries to make sense of the paradox that while war is a horrible thing, the world has managed to exist in a virtually non-stop state of war for virtually the entirety of history. Hedges’ thesis is that war is a powerful force, a force that perpetuates itself through the creating of myths, the development of nationalism, the destruction of culture, the hijacking of memory, and the confusion of love and death. Chaucer once said, “There is many a man that crieth ‘war! war!’ who knoweth full little what war amounteth.” To explain it a little less complicatedly, the reality of war is silenced by the myth of war. We would not tolerate the reality of war if only we knew it; but we are often moved to passionately celebrate the myth of war.

As Archibald MacLeish writes, “The Young dead soldiers do not speak. Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses: who has not heard them? They say: our deaths are not ours; they are yours; they will mean what you make them. They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say; it is you who must say this. They say: We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning. We were young, they say. We have died. Remember us.”

War is not the only force that gives us meaning. So are we called to make meaning out of life, and live bravely just as Unitarian Universalists have made meaning of war down through the ages. Just as Lawrence High School students work to make meaning of the world they live in. We too remember. We too create meaning.