Gathered here in the Mystery of this Hour

by Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
December 30, 2018
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
austinuu.org

As we close out this year and look forward to the new year, the mystery and uncertainty of what is to come also opens up almost unlimited possibilities and creative potential.

All of this month of December, our faith development/religious eduction activities have focused on mystery. 

What does it mean to be a people of mystery? 

For a faith tradition such as ours, wherein both our Universalist and Unitarian forebears were the heretics, the questioners, the embracers of mystery and questions more profound than answers, I think this is a great topic for us to be exploring. 

What does it mean to be a people of mystery? 

And I think that exploring mystery and uncertainty can drive both a sense of humility and a sense of increased spirituality – humility over the enormity of what we do not yet know, some of which lies beyond the current tools available to us through science humility when we consider what a tiny part of the vastness of our universe we are; that our lives are but a blip in the magnificence of eternity. 

And yet I also find a sense of the spiritual in knowing that we are a part of and integrally interconnected with that great vastness, that eternal movement of time, that sacred web of all existence. 

And grounded in that sense of humility, embracing that we exist in uncertainty, diving into all that still remains mysterious to us, I think opens up the possibility of almost limitless exploration, creative opportunity and both personal and societal transformation. 

I want to share with you how Neuroscientist and author David Eagleman expresses this need to embrace uncertainty, mystery and what we do not know. 

Eagleman video 

Given the enormity of what we do not know, Eagleman goes on to talk about his discomfort with the duality going on in the debate between the so called “new atheists” and religious fundamentalists. He says that we know far too little to rule out the possibility of God with such certainty, and we know far too much to believe any of the world’s religious stories so literally. 

Now, whether or not you agree with him, he holds out the prospect that if we let go of the either/or thinking, and, like when science does not yet have the tools for measuring and observing certain phenomenon and must therefor hold multiple hypothesis at once, if we open ourselves to exploring the multitude of possibilities between these two extremes, we may find new opportunities for spiritual creativity and growth. 

He calls this possibilianism, a sort of mysticism rooted in reason and the scientific method – more on that later. 

Speaking of mysticism, I looked back at some research I did for a sermon on the subject a couple of years back and was reminded that mystic sects have developed within all of the world’s major religions. 

These are people who, depending upon their individual belief systems, have found that God or the Divine or enlightenment or nirvana or a sense of transcendence or an experience of the holy or peak experiences – these were to be found by embracing uncertainty, diving into mystery. 

Even non-theistic humanists and scientific naturalists have folks who find a sense of awe and wonder, connection to something larger than themselves by staring up at the vastness of the stars at night or marveling at the beauty of a sunset. 

And I have found this embracing of the unknown quite comforting as we move through all of the uncertainty generated by our construction and renovation process. 

In fact, I wrote us a call and response liturgy to help us embrace the uncertainty. You do not need anything in writing because it is very simple. I will speak, and then when I gesture toward you, please say with me, “It’s a mystery”. 

It’s more fun if we say it like that — like my South East Texas relatives would, “It’s a mystruy”. 

OK, ready? 

I wonder when we’ll get to use the new area of the sanctuary? It’s a mystery. 

I wonder when the new kitchen will open? It’s a mystery. 

I wonder when we’ll get our parking back? It’s a mystery. 

I wonder when we will lose the use of Howson Hall for a bit? It’s a mystery. 

The staff offices? It’s a mystery. 

The classrooms? It’s a mystery. 

All together three times now. It’s a mystery. It’s a mystery. It’s a mystery. 

OK, I do not exactly experience God or anything in that, but surrendering to the uncertainty does relieve some anxiety and I have a growing sense of excitement about the creative possibilities for growing our church and our faith that this time of uncertainty will eventually create for us. 

So let us embrace uncertainty and the vast mysteriousness within which we dwell, For the Israelites of biblical times, the mysteriousness of God was considered so vast and beyond human comprehension that even his name was beyond human ability to pronounce correctly. Even trying to say his name was blasphemy and could get you stoned to death by your neighbors. 

Well, your male neighbors as women were not allowed to participate in anything like stonings. 

Except in the imaginings of Monty Python that is. 

Python Video 

A humorous illustration of why Eagleman says we know too much to take ancient scriptures literally. 

So, mystery and uncertainty are a part of life whether we like it or not. Yet, they can also be, when we are willing to embrace the uncertainty, to swim in the mystery for a while, a powerful source of awe and wonder and creative possibilities. Mystery can stimulate transcendent experience and lead to spiritual transformation. 

I’d like to share with you just a part of author and world traveler Pico lyer’s talk, which he titled, “The Beauty of What We will Never Know”. 

VIDEO 

I loved the image of the Dali Lama having the wisdom to say, “I don’t know” when that is the simple truth. What powerful modeling of the wisdom to be found in a little humility in the face of circumstances for which we cannot have certainty. 

And I loved the quote, “the opposite of knowledge …isn’t always ignorance. It can be wonder. Or mystery, Possibility” and his observation that it is often the things we don’t know that push us forward even more more than the things we do. 

Later in that same talk, Iver also observes that mystery is a source of intimacy in our personal relationships – that we cannot ever know everything about those whom we love and that is actually a wonderful wellspring of continued growth and deepening of our relationships. 

I certainly have experienced this with my spouse Wayne, Even after 27 years, we still have more mystery in one another to explore. He still surprises me sometimes. We still have more to learn about one another. 

And even if it were some how possible to learn everything there is to know about someone else, which it isn’t because we will never have the same lived experience, even if it were possible, they would still be growing and evolving and changing. 

So the Wayne I met all those years ago and the Wayne I talked with over coffee before leaving the house this morning are not the same. And the Wayne I will meet for lunch later will not be exactly the same as the Wayne I was with this morning. 

We are always in a process of becoming with each experience and each passing moment, and for Wayne and I that has driven an abiding and ever deepening love and intimacy and an enchantment with the ever unfolding mysteries of one another. 

And so Iver says it is with our human relationships and our broader human lives and spirituality – the mystery creates almost unlimited possibilities and creative potential. 

I agree with him, and that brings me back to David Eagleman’s possibilianism that I mentioned earlier and called a sort of mysticism rooted in reason and the scientific method, 

Possibilianism says that we cannot claim certainty over that for which we have no way of being certain – the existence or none existence of God; even how we might conceive of such; how we find meaning; our place within this vast universe. 

Possibilianism requires that we be open to ideas that we don’t have any way of testing right now, be open to new, previously unconsidered possibilities and be comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind all at once. 

It also requires, though, that we apply reason to these ideas and when possible test them with scientific methods. 

I think it is also important to note that this is not agnosticism, a sort of passive response to questions we cannot answer, but rather an active diving into the mysteries. 

I loved this explanation of the difference: 

  • Agnostics end with the lack of an answer. 
  • Possibilians begin with the lack of an answer. 
  • Agnostics say, we can’t decide between this and that. 
  • Possibilians say, there are other choices than this or that. 
  • Agnostics say, I Don’t Know, it’s impossible to answer that question. 
  • Possibilians say, I Don’t Know, there must be better questions. 

For those of you desperately searching your smart phones about now, it’s possibilian.com. You can find links to articles and videos on the subject there also. 

It occurs to me though, that possibilianism might be one great avenue of exploration for we ever questioning, ever seeking, ever heretical Unitarian Universalists. 

As we move into a new year filled as it is with uncertainty and mystery over what is to come, perhaps we can all try on possibilianism for a while. 

Perhaps we can become that people of mystery. 

In doing so, we might just open up almost unlimited possibilities and creative potentialities. 

May it be so. Amen. 

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Most sermons during the past 19 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below. 

PODCASTS

Lessons and Carols

by Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
December 24, 2018
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
austinuu.org

Readings and carols, candlelight on Christmas Eve. One of the church community’s favorite services of the year.

Introit: “In the Bleak Midwinter” (Harold Darke)
Katrina Saporsantos, soprano

Chalice Lighting:

Love is the spirit of this church, and service is its law; this is our great covenant: to dwell together in peace, to seek the truth in love, and to help one another.

Opening Words

The Persian poet Rumi wrote, 
God’s joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box 
From cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed. 
As roses, up from ground. 
Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish, 
Now a cliff covered with vines, 
Now a horse being saddled. 
(God’s joy) hides within these, 
Till one day it cracks them open. 

Anthem: “Someday at Christmas” (Ron Miller and Bryan Wells)
Katrina Saporsantos, soprano

Reading: “Come into Christmas” by Ellen Fay

It is the winter season of the year 
Dark and chilly 
Perhaps it is a winter season in your life. 
Dark and chilly there, too 
Come in to Christmas here, 
Let the light and warmth of Christmas brighten our 
lives and the world. 
Let us find in the dark corners of our souls the 
light of hope, 
A vision of the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Let us find rest in the quiet of a holy moment to 
find promise and renewal. 
Let us find the child in each of us, the new hope, 
the new light, born in us. 
Then will Christmas come 
Then will magic return to the world. 

Reading: “The Shortest Day” by Susan Cooper

So the shortest day came, and the year died, 
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world 
Came people singing, dancing, 
To drive the dark away. 
They lighted candles in the winter trees; 
They hung their homes with evergreen; 
They burned beseeching fires all night long 
To keep the year alive, 
And when the New year’s sunshine blazed awake 
They shouted, reveling. 
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them 
Echoing behind us – Listen!! 
All the long echoes sing the same delight, 
This shortest day, 
As promise wakens in the sleeping land: 
They carol, fest, give thanks, 
And dearly love their friends, 
And hope for peace. 
And so do we, here, now, 
This year and every year. 
Welcome Yule! 

Reading: “On Angels” by Czeslaw Milosz

All was taken away from you: white dresses, 
wings, even existence. 
Yet I believe you, 
messengers. 
There, where the world is turned inside out, 
a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts, 
you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seams. 
Short is your stay here: 
now and then at a morning hour, if the sky is clear, 
in a melody repeated by a bird, 
or in the smell of apples at close of day 
when the light makes the orchards magic. 
They say somebody has invented you
but to me this does not sound convincing 
for the humans invented themselves as well. 
The voice – no doubt it is a valid proof, 
as it can belong only to radiant creatures, 
weightless and winged (after all, why not?), 
girdled with the lightning. 
I have heard that voice many a time when asleep 
and, what is strange, 
I understood more or less 
an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue: 
day draws near 
another one 
do what you can. 

Reading: Luke 2: 1-7 

Reading: by Anthony F. Perrino

A gentle kind of Gladness 
Comes with the end of December 
A winter solstice spell, perhaps, 
When people forget to remember – 

The drab realities of fact, 
The cherished hurt of ancient wrongs, 
The lonely comfort of being deaf 
To human sighs and angels’ songs. 

Suddenly, they lose their minds 
To hearts’ demands and beauty’s grace; 
And deeds extravagant with love 
Give glory to the commonplace. 
Armies halt their marching, 
Hatreds pause in strange regard 
For the sweet and gentle madness born 
when a winery sky was starred. 

Reading: “Each Night A Child Is Born” by Sophia Lyon Fahs

For so the children come 
and so they have been coming. 
Always in the same way they came-
Born of the seed of man and woman. 

No angels herald their beginnings. 
No prophets predict their future courses. 
no wise man see a star to show where to find 
The babe that will save humankind. 
Yet each night a child is born is a holy night. 
Fathers and mothers 
Sitting beside their children’s cribs- 
Feel glory in the sight of a new beginning. 
They ask “Where and how will this new life end? 
Or will it ever end?” 

Each night a child is horn is a holy night-
A time for singing- 
A time for wondering 
A time for worshipping. 

Reading: Luke 2: 8-14 

Reading: “In this Night” by Dorothee Solle 

In this night the stars left their habitual places 
And kindled wildfire tidings 
that spread faster than sound. 

In this night the shepherds left their posts 
To shout the new slogans 
into each other’s clogged ears. 
In this night the foxes left their warm burrows 
and the lion spoke with deliberation, 
“This is the end revolution” 

In this night roses fooled the earth 
And began to bloom in snow. 

Reading: Luke 2: 15-20 

Reading: “The Camels Speak” by Lynn Ungar

Of course they never consulted us.
They were wise men, kings, star-readers,
and we merely transportation.
They simply loaded us with gifts
and turned us toward the star.
I ask you, what would a king know
of choosing presents for a child?
Had they ever even seen a baby
born to such simple folks,
so naked of pretension,
so open to the wind?
What would such a child care
for perfumes and gold? Far better
to have asked one born in the desert,
tested by wind and sand. We saw
what he would need: the gift
of perseverance, of continuing on the hard way,
making do with what there is,
living on what you have inside.
The gift of holding up under a burden,
of lifting another with grace, of kneeling
to accept the weight of what you must bear.
Our footsteps could have rocked him
with the rhythms of the road,
shown him comfort in a harsh land,
the dignity of continually moving forward.
But the wise men were not
wise enough to ask. They simply
left their trinkets and admired
the rustic view. Before you knew it
we were turned again toward home,
carrying men only half-willing
to be amazed. But never mind.
We saw the baby, felt him reach
for the bright tassels of our gear.
We desert amblers have our ways
of seeing what you chatterers must miss.
That child at heart knows something
about following a star. Our gifts are given.
Have no doubt. His life will bear
the print of who we are.

Anthem: “Still, Still, Still” (Austrian Folk Song) 
Katrina Saporsantos, soprano

Reading: “A Ritual of the Winter Solstice Fire,” by Rev. Meg Barnhouse

Let us take into our hands a Christmas candle, a Solstice candle 
this is a night of ancient joy and ancient fear 
those who have gone before us were fearful of what lurked 
outside the ring of fire, of light and warmth. 
As we light this fire we ask that the fullness of its flame 
protect each of us from what we fear most 
and guide us towards our perfect light and joy. 

May we each be encircled by the fire and warmth of love 
and by the flame of our friendship with one another. 
On this night, it was the ancient custom to exchange gifts 
of light, symbolic of the new light of the sun. 

Therefore make ready for the light! 
Light of star, light of candle, 
Firelight, lamplight, love light
Let us share the gift of light. 

Candle Lighting: “Payapang Daigdig” (Felipe Padilla de Leon) 
Katrina Saporsantos, soprano

Reading: “The Work of Christmas” by Howard Thurman 

When the song of angels is stilled, 
When the star in the sky is gone, 
When the kings and princes are home, 
When shepherds are back with their flock, 
The work of Christmas begins: 
to find the lost, 
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry, 
to release the prisoner, 
to rebuild the nations, 
to bring peace among the brothers, 
to make music in the heart. 

Carol: “We wish You a Merry Christmas” 

Closing Words: “Kneeling in Bethlehem” by Ann Weems

It is not over, this birthing. 
There are always newer skies 
into which God can throw stars. 
When we begin to think 
that we can predict the Advent of God, 
that we can box the Christ in a stable in Bethlehem, 
that’s just the time that God will be born 
in a place we can’t imagine and won’t believe. 
Those who wait for God 
watch with their hearts and not their eyes, 
listening, always listening for angel words. 

Most sermons during the past 19 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below. 

PODCASTS

Spray it Gold and post it on Instagram

by Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
December 16, 2018
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
austinuu.org

Everybody else’s life looks glowy and great. How do they do it? Perfectionism can really get its claws into us at this time of year. We compare our insides with other people’s outsides and it makes us feel bad. How can we see beneath the surface, grow our roots, and strengthen our core?

Reading

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life,… I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.

Sermon

It’s natural to want to put yourself out there in the most positive light. No one writes Holiday letters saying things like “We’ve been fighting a lot. My business isn’t doing too well. One of the kids dropped out of school and I think one is in some sort of a gang. The dog is still making messes behind the couch. It’s driving me crazy …. ” We like to present cheer and stability and success if we can. 

I joined Instagram, a social media platform, because it’s where the pictures of my family appear. 

You choose certain people to follow, so you can peek in on the parts of their lives they choose to share. Smiling on the streets of NYC, sunsets in La Jolla, Delicious looking food, concerts, parties, celebrations. All of that is lovely. Then you have the “influencers,” people who have gathered or purchased loads of followers in hopes of getting someone to pay them to put ads on their feed. One sylphlike blonde woman poses on her perfect bed in her perfect bedroom in soft pink pajamas. There is an untouched plate of strawberry pancakes beside her. “Strawberry pancakes,” she comments, “the perfect start to a busy day.” I think the odds of her being a pancake eating person are small, but you can’t always tell. What takes this to another place, though, is that she has tied eight or ten shiny pink heart shaped balloons to the pillows, so she’s surrounded by party radiance. 

Really? For breakfast? Who does that? Who believes that? Who would think that is the way you’re supposed to do breakfast? There is a full bottle of Listerine on her bedside table, so they paid for that. I guess some people keep their mouthwash on the bedside table… 

Social media is grand in many ways, because it’s supposed to connect people. I love it because it’s like reading a hometown newspaper where I know all the people in the stories. When you have friends all over the place, it’s a good way to keep in touch. Instagram, though, has filters you can use to make everything look homey, or glowing, or extra sharp and saturated, so your own life looks dull in comparison. Other people’s children look angelic and their partners have loving faces. Their trips appear festive and their bodies look pain-free. Mental health experts are now fretting that scrolling through these windows into other people’s perfect looking lives creates shame and depression about your own all-too-real experiences. 

There is nothing wrong with presenting your life in the most positive way, but it behooves all scrollers to understand that this is what is happening. Some people get bitten by the fake perfection bug, and then they feel they must manufacture their own staged perfection, and make ourselves sick by presenting that. In fact, there is a web site called LifeFaker.com where you can buy packages of photos of parties, friends, travel and food to make your life look as good as the others on the platform. 

We can get bitten by the perfectionism bug all by ourselves without Instagram though. We have ideas about how we are supposed to be, what we are supposed to know, the books we should have read, the thoughts we should understand and agree with. We see and admire other people, but, as the 12 step program people say, we are comparing our insides to their outsides.

Some people won’t do anything they aren’t already good at. I’ve told you about my mom and her violin. She practiced every morning from 6:00 to 7:OO before going to work as a second grade teacher. She never got much better, but she loved it. I’m glad she didn’t get shamed into stopping just because she wasn’t good at it. It brought her joy. And scratchy strings were my morning wake up alarm. 

Some people fear mistakes so much that it makes them procrastinate, doing things finally under such pressure and with so little time that there will always be a reason for whatever it is to be less than perfect. That perfection is unattainable and unrealistic is something we already know, but all the staged pictures and the filters that make things look gentler or more real than reality continue working on us. We collect pictures on Pinterest of beautiful gardens, doorways, water features, clothes, jewelry, cakes, muffins, parties, etc. It’s so over the top that there is now a balancing site called “Pinterest fails.” You see the perfect photo from Pinterest, then you see a photo of how the cake actually turned out, or how the do-it-yourself project actually turned out. I bet there already is an Instagram balance site where people show the grittier realities of their lives, but I haven’t found it yet. 

Many of us don’t try to have a perfect life with strawberry pancakes on a bed made with snowy linen, pink heart balloons attached to our pillows. Our perfectionism comes in feeling ashamed that we aren’t better justice warriors, that we haven’t read that book everyone else is quoting, that we aren’t loving enough or intellectual enough. Forget the pink balloons, we want to have read and understood everything, to make scintillating conversation, to make meaningful days. 

Perfectionism is cunning, baffling and powerful. It waits around every corner. We have been raised within the air of our culture. We tend to focus on what is wrong with our work and the work of others, we have an easy time naming and describing what went wrong in a situation and it’s harder to name what went right. We hear things like “why should I thank them for just doing their job?” Thanking is one antidote to this culture of perfectionism. Practicing naming what went well, what is good in a situation or in a job of work. In Perfectionism culture, mistakes are personal. You making a mistake is almost the same thing as you being a mistake. We push back against this culture by being interested in mistakes, by being curious about mistakes, by taking time to reflect by ourselves and with others about how we can learn from mistakes, and then by forgiving ourselves and others for their mistakes, having the resilience to move on rather than crumple up and throw ourselves away. 

This is a hard time for so many among us. Some are joyous, and others are rattling, dry and hollow. It doesn’t mean you are doing something wrong if your house is lovely and your food is beautiful and your family is well behaved, and it doesn’t mean you are doing something wrong if your reality is harder. There is a lot of pain in this world. Pain in the war zones and pain at our own border. Pain in our cities and pain in the farmlands. If we can fill our lives with thank yous, with appreciation of the good, with doing small good things for the people around us and far away, we grow love. We don’t ignore the pain, and we don’t ignore the goodness. We celebrate the darkest time of the year, we embrace the return of the light at the same time that we grieve the losses in our own families and the death of a 7 year old Jakelin Caal Maquin in US custody. Creation and destruction, intertwined, goodness and corruption, hope and despair. That is our gorgeous terrible world. 

It’s our weak spots that give other people a place to hold on to us. The cracks are where the light comes in, as the poet Leonard Cohen says. The cracks are where the light comes in. 

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here. 

Most sermons delivered at the First UU Church of Austin during the past 18 years are available online through this website. You will find links to them in the right sidebar menu labeled Sermons. The Indexes link leads to tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on the topic to go to a sermon.

post

Prelude: “Maria Mater gratiae, Op. 47, No. 2” (Gabriel Fauré) Phillip Bernard, conductor “Magnificat, RV 610: Esurientes, Magnificat and Et exultavit spiritus meus” (Antonio Vivaldi) First UU Adult…

by Posted in Uncategorized

Prelude:
“Maria Mater gratiae, Op. 47, No. 2” (Gabriel Fauré)
Phillip Bernard, conductor

“Magnificat, RV 610: Esurientes, Magnificat and Et exultavit spiritus meus” (Antonio Vivaldi)
First UU Adult Choir and Orchestra
Brent Baldwin, Director of Music

Introit:

Love is the spirit of this church, and service is its law; this is our great covenant: to dwell together in peace, to seek the truth in love, and to help one another.

Lay Leader:

Hymn: #235: “Deck the Halls”

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Anthem: “Magnificat, RV 610 : Fecit potentiam and Deposuit potentes” (Antonio Vivaldi)

Placing Stones and Prayers:

Sermon: “Spray it Gold and Post it on Instagram” – Rev. Meg Barnhouse

Hymn: #226: “People Look East”

Offertory: “Magnificat, RV 610: Suscepit Israel and Sicut locutus est” (Antonio Vivaldi)

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We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we hold in our hears until we are together again.

Postlude: “Magnificat, RV 610: Gloria Patri” (Antonio Vivaldi)

Glowing Embers

by Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons, Uncategorized

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
December 9, 2018
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
austinuu.org

As we celebrate the holiday season, it is good to remember the origin of these traditions and rituals, why they still matter to us, and how they may ground us in wonder, awe, and mystery.

Call to Worship

“Determined Seed”
By Laura Wallace 

As frozen earth holds the determined seed, 
this sacred space holds our weariness, our worry, 
our laughter and our celebration.

Let us bring seed and soul into the light of thought, 
the warmth of community, and the hope of love.

Let us see together, hear together, love together. 
Let us worship.

Reading 

“One Small Face”
by Margaret Starkey

With mounds of greenery, the brightest ornaments, we bring high summer to our rooms, as if to spite the somberness of winter come. 

In time of want, when life is boarding up against the next uncertain spring, we celebrate and give of what we have away. 

All creatures bend to rules, even the stars constrained. 

There is a blessed madness in the human need to go against the grain of cold and scarcity. We make a holiday, the rituals as varied as the hopes of humanity, 

The reasons as obscure as ancient solar festivals, as clear as joy on one small face.

Sermon

Well, here we are, back in the church if not quite yet back in the sanctuary, after the church went dark for two weeks, literally, as the building contractors had to cut the electricity so they could install the new power system. 

Last Sunday, we did our service over internet live steaming from our Senior Minister’s house. 

That was fun, but your ministers, Meg and I, have missed getting to be with you in person, as have all of our church staff folks. 

So, here we are, back in the building, but with the construction still ongoing and suddenly, (at least it seems sudden to me!) suddenly in the middle of the holiday season. 

We do plan to be able give ourselves and each other a great big gift of being able to return to our newly expanded and renovated sanctuary at least in time for our Christmas pageant and Christmas Eve services. 

Merry Christmas indeed! We hope! 

I’d like to talk today about the history and origins of some of the Christmas rituals and traditions we will be observing here at the church, and for many of us, with our families and loved ones. 

I will focus on Christmas traditions and practices because they are those that we have inherited most directly from both our Universalist and Unitarian forebearers. 

I want to note though, that I found a listing of almost 40 different religious holiday observances from a variety of religions throughout the world that have been or will be observed between November 1 of this year and the middle of January 2019. 

They include the Hindu Diwali festival of lights, as well as a number of other faiths that hold light festivals; Hanukka; Buddhists marking the day that the Buddha first experienced enlightenment; the Baha’i faith celebrating the birth of their founder; and the Zoroastrian faith observing the death of their founding prophet – just to name a very few. 

Each of these have their own traditions and rich histories, and, like with Christmas traditions and rituals, whether or not one believes the religious stories associated with them literally or not, I believe they help carry forward cultural memory. 

They convey understandings about the human condition and experience – indeed about what it means to be human. They carry forward a people’s values and priorities. They shape our relationships with one another and promote bonding and community building. 

And knowing something of the history and origins of our holiday observances may help us better understand the cultural memories they are conveying and the deeper meaning behind why they remain important to us. 

The rituals and traditions that we most commonly practice around Christmas here in the U.S. seem to have actually arisen from a variety, a sort of conglomeration, of sources. 

We also seem to have melded practices with secular origins and traditions from non-Christian practices with the Christian religious story of the birth of Jesus. 

Speaking of which, I love a meme that’s been going around that says, “Three wise women would have asked directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, brought practical gifts, cleaned the stable, made a casserole and there would be peace on earth.” 

I also love how one of our Unitarian Universalist Ministers at First UU Dallas, Aaron White, recently summarized in one paragraph the biblical story of Christmas and the life of Jesus. He writes: 

“Jesus is born to an unwed, teenage woman of color. She, the child, and her husband cross national borders without documentation, … fleeing violence in their home country. The child grows up to be a homeless teacher who leads a radical movement of people that refuses the boundaries of creed, class, or role in society. He travels around giving a version of free healthcare to anyone who asks and feeds the poor without judgement. He preaches a love so radical, and an allegiance to relationship over power so compelling, that it becomes illegal. The most powerful military force in the world deems him a threat. He is then tortured and executed by the state … ” 

Not quite the version I was taught at the little Southern Baptist church we went to when I was a child. Something to think about as our government lobs tear gas at women and children seeking asylum at our border. 

Anyway, let’s talk about how we think some of our Christmas practices may have originated and including how they might have come to be associated with that Christian religious story of Jesus’ birth. 

Putting up Christmas trees reflects ancient practices of a number of societies that would decorate with evergreen trees, wreaths and garlands to remind themselves that life would return during this time of year when cold winters could make the world seem lifeless and bleak except for the evergreens. 

Because it was also the time of year for many societies when the days were short and there was far less sunlight, folks would often light candles on or near the evergreen elements they had brought into their homes. This is likely one of the places where our practices of lighting candles at Christmas, as well as decorating with Christmas lights originated. 

I’m sure glad we have LED lights now. Placing lit candles on tree branches seems like a fire hazard to me. 

It is thought that the Germans of the 16th century originated the Christmas Tree as we know it today. A popular play of the time about Adam and Eve had a prop called a “paradise tree” – a fir tree hung with apples to represent the Garden of Eden. Entranced by the paradise tree, Germans began bringing trees into their homes and decorating them. 

The Christmas Tree became popularized in America and Britain when in 1832, Charles Follen, a Unitarian Minister who had come here from Germany, and his wife put up a festively decorated tree, and their fellow abolitionist Harriet Martineau wrote glowing about it in the magazine, Godey’s Lady’s Book. 

In 1846, Queen Victoria and her German husband Prince Albert were sketched in the London newspaper standing around a Christmas tree with their children, which further popularized the practice both in Britain and in America. 

Another of our traditions, Santa Claus, comes from several legends about a Bishop in fourth century Asia minor called St. Nicholas. Left a lot of money by his parents who died when he was young, he helped the poor and gave secret gifts to people who needed them, especially children. This is likely part of from where the tradition of giving gifts at Christmas comes. 

In one of the legends, St. Nicholas helped the daughters of a very poor man who did not have enough money for a dowry so that they could be married according to customs of the time. St. Nicholas, so the legend says, secretly dropped a bag of gold down the chimney, and it fell into a stocking that had been hung by the fire to dry -likely the origin of both our current practices of hanging Christmas stockings and the idea of Santa Clause coming down the chimney to bring Christmas presents. 

Over time, the stories and images about St. Nicholas blended with myths about a gift giving Father Christmas in England and Kris Kringle in the U.S., and eventually these all kind of got combined together to form the myths, stories and practices we now associate with Santa Claus. 

So, how did these and other traditions get conflated the Christian story of Jesus’ birth get conflated, and how did we come to settle on December 25 as the date for it? 

Well, the truth is we do not know for sure. In fact, Christians thought in around 200 A.D. that the birth had taken place on January 6, based upon calculations folks and done using events of Jesus’ life laid out in the New Testament. In fact, the modern Armenian, Russian and Greek Orthodox churches still celebrate it on this date. 

I was not until the mid-fourth century that most Christians had moved the date to December 25. How and why that happened is still a matter of some debate, but here is the most common theory. 

During this same time of year that many cultures decorated with evergreens, most of them also had celebrations and rituals centered around solstice, the shortest day of the year, but that also harbingers the eventual return of the sun and longer days. 

Solstice falls on December 21 or 22 on our calendar, but in the Julian calendar of places like Syria and Egypt, it fell on December 25th and was celebrated as the Nativity of the Sun. It was observed with dramatic rituals where from within their shrines they would call out, “The Virgin has brought forth! The light is waxing!”. In Egypt, the new-born sun (that’s s-u-n) was even represented by the image of an infant. 

In Scandinavia, they celebrated Yule starting December 2, igniting huge Yule logs that would burn for up to 12 days. 

This time of year was also when wine and beer made during prior months was finally fermented and ready to start drinking – a fine tradition that many fine folks continue on Christmas even today. 

The Romans celebrated Saturnalia, a time of drinking and general debauchery during which the social order would be reversed and peasants would party and demand that those who were their masters the rest of the year give them gifts, food and libations to avoid being the victims of pranks and great mischief. 

As the theory goes, Christian church leaders kind of coopted these and other secular and pagan traditions and practices by placing Jesus’s birth on December 25, as a way to increase the chances that Christmas would get adapted through association with these existing rites. 

After this, and down through the Middle Ages, the practice of the poor celebrating raucously in a drunken, Mardi Gras-like atmosphere and demanding sifts from the wealthy continued, but only on Christmas day and only after first attending church that morning. 

Then, along came Robert Cromwell and the Puritans and spoiled the fun for everyone. They cancelled Christmas. Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity would have been incensed. 

In fact, in the U.S., the Puritans even made it illegal to celebrate Christmas in the City of Boston. 

Party animals our Puritan ancestors were not. 

It was actually the Universalists and some Unitarians who later began to restore the practices that have become how we now celebrate Christmas, especially the focus on home, peace, family, gifts for children and charity (though both the gifts to children and charity could and can still be used to reinforce the social hierarchy). 

So, that is a very abbreviated summary of at least some of the possible origins of Christmas traditions. 

I said earlier, that whether or not we believe in the the story of Jesus’ birth and life in a literal way, these practices and traditions convey cultural memory, human truths in metaphorical ways. 

Just in those that we have discussed today, a number of these human understandings emerge: 

  • The cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth – the amazing, evergreen tenacity of life; 
  • The magic and the creative potential of new life that a spark of the divine may manifest itself through anyone of us; 
  • Moving between seasons and again the circular patterns of nature; 
  • The values of generosity and charity, but also how these can be used to relieve social pressure and thus reinforce the existing social order; 
  • The importance of staying connected with family and loved ones; 
  • The power of ritual, communal bonding to hold societies together and support individuals even during challenging periods; 
  • The need for balance between light and darkness; 
  • And, finally, the ways in which we must prepare ourselves for moving through liminal times. 

It strikes me that those last three hold powerful meaning and beauty for us as we move through changes and disruptions at our church during this holiday season. 

Liminal times are those time periods when we are in transition, at a threshold, leaving one condition behind but not yet fully where we are going. 

Like for some of the the societies we have discussed who were in the transition from the shortest days of sunlight to the eventual return of the sun, limited by the shortened days and the coldness of winter – no crops to plant or harvest yet – travel and other activities limited by the cold and weather – uncertain yet of when this all would change again, these liminal times are often times of uncertainty and mystery. 

We are experiencing that here at the church. We have had to delay and reschedule activities due to the construction. We are worshiping in a temporary space, even as we dream of reclaiming a larger and more beautiful than ever sanctuary, where we hope to welcome many more from our area who might find a spiritual home here and join us on our religious journey. 

I am moved that during this very time of the year, our church itself was in darkness for a while to literally create enough power to make something new and even greater possible. 

That’s synchronicity. 

I do not associate light with all that is good and darkness with that which is difficult. For one thing, 1 think there is racist cultural baggage inherent in such an association. 

1 think, we need both. The seed needs darkness to germinate. The caterpillar goes into the cocoon before emerging anew as the butterfly. We need the night to sleep and restore ourselves. 

Likewise, too much light will burn the crops in the field, deprive us of healthy sleep and disrupt nature’s necessary cycles. 

For me, there is something mystical about this intermingling of light and darkness. This time of year, I love to sit at night with just the Christmas tree lights and fireplace on. There is something about that interplay between the darkness and the glowing but limited light that fills me with awe and wonder and binds my soul to those long ago ancestors we have been discussing today. 

This Christmas Eve, after the sun has set, we will do a ritual in which we all hold candles, and then we will turn off the lights, and light one another’s candles until all of them are glowing, and sing Silent Night together. Again, that interplay creates such a powerful, mystical and spiritual communal experience for me. 

I believe in the spiritual power of this religious community. 

I believe we have the rituals and communal bonds that will move us with grace through this liminal time. 

I believe we have the wisdom to value the interplay of light and darkness, knowing it is together that they bless us with amazing, evergreen tenacity and resilience. 

I believe that as we move through this holiday season and beyond it together, we will rebirth ourselves again and again as a religious community – a First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin with all of the magic and creative potential of new life, manifesting the divine more and more in our world. 

Well, here we are – happy, joyous, blessed holidays. 

Amen. 

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here. 

Most sermons delivered at the First UU Church of Austin during the past 18 years are available online through this website. You will find links to them in the right sidebar menu labeled Sermons. The Indexes link leads to tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on the topic to go to a sermon.

Live from Pflugerville

by Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
Rev. Chris Jimmerson and Jules Jaramillo
December 2, 2018
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
austinuu.org

Meg, Chris, Jules, and Brent will be live-streaming from Meg’s house while you worship from your own cozy spot of choice since the church building is closed with no entry until Saturday, December 8th. We will be talking about mystery, family, and whatever else comes up as you call in on the live-stream page.

Call to Worship

THE FEAST OF LIGHTS
Emma Lazarus

Kindle the taper like the steadfast star
Ablaze on evening’s forehead o’er the earth,
And add each night a lustre till afar
An eightfold splendor shine above thy hearth
Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre,
Blow the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn;
Chant psalms of victory till the heart take fire,
The Maccabean spirit leap new-born.

Reading

C. JoyBell

“I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you’re going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.”

Reading

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is the history of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage and kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst it destroys our capacity to do domething. If we remember those times and places, and there are so many, where people have behaved magnificantly this gives us the energy to act and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act in however small way we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinate succession of presents and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvel.

Text of this sermon is not available. Click the play button to listen.

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.

Most sermons delivered at the First UU Church of Austin during the past 18 years are available online through this website. You will find links to them in the right sidebar menu labeled Sermons. The Indexes link leads to tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on the topic to go to a sermon.

We Remember

by Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
November 25, 2018
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
austinuu.org

The path that led us to where we are now informs all the possibilities of our continuing journey. We will explore how our memories, both those in our mind and those buried deeply within our DNA, ground as well as challenge our human potential.

Call to Worship

We Come to Love a Church
Andrew C Kennedy

We come to love a church,
the traditions, the history,
and especially the people associated with it.
And through these people,
young and old,
known and unknown,
we reach out —

Both backward into history
and forward into the future —

To link together the generations
in this imperfect, but blessed community
of memory and hope.

Reading

Joy Harjo, 1951

Remember the sky that you were born under, know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the strongest point of time.
Remember sundown and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled to give you form and breath. You are evidence of her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their tribes, their families, their histories, too.
Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

Sermon

Why is it that I can remember every word of Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Wood on a Snowy Evening” even though I memorized it for a school assignment way back when I was in the second grade, and yet in the time it takes to walk from the living room to the kitchen in my house I often forget why it was I went to kitchen in the first place?

Well, that’s actually a more complicated question than it might seem, but, to oversimplify, the reason has to do with differences in how, where and what types of information get laid out in the brain for short versus longterm memories.

All of this month, our Life Span Faith Development programs have been exploring what it means to be a people of memory, which for the most part involves long-term memory.

This morning, I would like to also explore this with you here in worship because I believe that memory and how we construct, and sometimes deconstruct and then reconstruct it, is deeply spiritual in nature.

It is a huge topic. Whole sermons could and actually have been written just on dealing with traumatic or painful memories, for instance.

This morning though, we will be focusing on three areas:

  • how we construct memory as individuals,
  • socially, communally, culturally constructed memory.
  • and finally current research on the potential that memory may be transmitted genetically and/or epigenetically across generations.

At the individual level, what science is discovering is that we do not lay down memories like a computer records factual pieces of data onto a disk.

Rather, especially with long-term memory, our brains weave our memories into a narrative, a story that we are constantly creating to make sense of our world, create meaning in life and maintain a sense of an individual identity or self.

And we do not in reality lay down our longterm memories entirely as individuals but often in relationship with others and our environment, as we move through life experiences moment by moment.

This is the first of the reasons that I believe that memory is an essential and profound aspect of our spirituality. It is relational, and it helps us find meaning and create an ongoing story about who we are and how we fit in our world.

That we construct our memories in this way explains why the loss of memory associated with conditions like Alzheimer’s can be so devastating and so heartbreaking. It takes away people’s ability to make sense of their world, isolates them and disintegrates their sense of self and meaning in life. Several studies have found that being touched by loved ones, familiar music and being offered ritual-like communal activities can sometimes help such folks at least partially reconstruct their personal narratives and make greater sense of their world.

It also helps explain why our memories can be factually incorrect sometimes; how we can in fact have memories that seem real but that in reality never actually happened to us; and how different people experiencing the same event can come away with very different memories of that same event.

Let me give you a few examples.

How many of you have ever discussed a childhood memory with siblings, family members or childhood friends only to find yourself arguing over very different memories of the same event?

This happens to me all of the time with my younger sister, and she is constantly getting it wrong.

This is likely because neither of us laid down pure factual data – we each were creating our own narrative and so we each laid down a memory that made sense within that narrative.

In his book, “Uncle Tungsten,” Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and best-best-selling author wrote the following about memories his from childhood, living through the bombings of London by Germany in the winter of 1940-1941:

“One night, a thousand-pound bomb fell into the garden next to ours, but fortunately it failed to explode. All of us, the entire street, it seemed, crept away that night (my family to a cousin’s flat) – many of us in our pajamas – walking as softly as we could (might vibration set the thing off?)…

On another occasion, an incendiary bomb, a thermite bomb, fell behind our house and burned with a terrible, white-hot heat. My father had a stirrup pump, and my brothers carried pails of water to him, but water seemed useless against this infernal fire-indeed, made it burn even more furiously. There was a vicious hissing and sputtering when the water hit the white-hot metal, and meanwhile the bomb was melting its own casing and throwing blobs and jets of molten metal in all directions.”

Sacks was shocked, when later one his brothers read what he had written and told him that his memory of the first bomb was correct but that, in fact, when the second bomb had fallen they had both been away at boarding school.

How could he have such a detailed memory of an event, complete with images in his mind’s eye of his family members fighting the fire and the burning molten metal, if he did not actually experience it, Sacks asked himself.

It turned out that another of his brothers who had been there for the second bombing incident had written them a vivid and detailed letter about it, and that Sacks had been enthralled by the story – so much so that the images and details it aroused in his mind became laid down as a memory of having actually been there. And as a young child, it would have neatly extended the already existing narrative created by his memory of having actually been there for the first bombing.

Subsequent studies using brain imaging technology have found that scans of memories from actual experiences and scans of memories our brains have created will show exactly the same brain patterns.

Some of you may remember when Brian Williams, the news anchor, got into trouble after going on David Letterman and falsely claiming that he had been on a helicopter hit by ground fire in Iraq. He was accused of falsifying this story, lying, in effort at self-aggrandizement.

Now, we can never know for sure what went on in Mr. William’s brain, but many memory researchers believed a very similar thing may have happened to him. He was in a helicopter in Iraq when the incident happened, just not the one that got struck, and he had accurately reported the incident two years earlier. Overtime, though, as he had interviewed the people who were actually in the helicopter and learned the vivid details, it is possible his brain conflated his actual experience with the intense images generated by his knowledge of the flight that was struck.

So, by the time Mr. Williams went onto David Letterman, it is possible that his brain had constructed a memory that seemed every bit as real to him as having been at that second bombing had seemed to Oliver Sacks.

I think there is an aspect of the spiritual here also – a spiritual lesson about checking our recollections to make sure that the story we are telling ourselves is true – that our ongoing narratives have not distorted a memory, especially in ways that could be harmful.

For example, there are now numerous incidences of African American males spending years or even decades in prison, put there based upon the eye witness testimony of white people, only to be exonerated when DNA testing became available.

White people have been fed a narrative about who is most likely to commit crimes and that narrative can construct incorrect memories that have the potential to devastate black and brown lives.

And that leads us to social, communal, cultural memory, because the things we choose to remember as communities and societies and the ways in which we choose to remember them also can have profound effects upon our lives and those of other people.

We construct cultural memory as a group or society though the stories and histories we tell or choose not to tell; through the rituals, traditions and holidays we observe and prioritize and those we do not; through the arts, music, theatre, religious practices and the very use of what language, symbols and words we chose to employ.

And like with individual memory, it is important that we examine, question and sometimes deconstruct and then reconstruct what narratives we are following and reinforcing as we pass on cultural memory.

For instance, the ways in which we have minimized the brutality and savageness of the genocide committed against native Americans; our white washing of the cruelty and monstrousness of slavery and the subsequent treatment of African Americans in the U.S.; our avoiding the images of the lynchings of black and brown Americans and on and on and on; these create an incomplete and false narrative, an untrue story, a cultural memory that is steeped in denial and allows the continued supremacy of white culture and people over all others.

We fail to teach how white elites encoded the concept of race into law to slightly privilege indentured white people over enslaved African Americans so that they would not join together to rebel against such oppressive systems.

In our own state of Texas, it will only be in the next school year that our children will be finally be taught that slavery was the primary cause of the civil war rather than sectionalism and states’ rights.

Within Unitarian Universalism, we can also fall prey to this. For instance, we often pass on a cultural memory about our how Unitarian, Transcendentalist forebearer, Theodore Parker, was such a leading and passionate abolitionist. We less often convey that he also believed whites to be the superior race, called African Americans docile and lacking in intelligence and referred to the Mexican people as “A wretched people; wretched in their origin, history, character, who must eventually give way as the Indians did.”

And this is just one of many such examples.

This is a spiritual issue. We have a moral obligation to do our best to ensure that the cultural memories we are transmitting are not continuing harmful narratives – a real and daunting challenge as we are often caught within those same false narratives ourselves.

Now, I want to switch gears and touch briefly on some of the science being investigated regarding whether a transmission of another kind of memory may be possible epigenetically or even genetically. Some of the research is still pretty early on, and some of it is the subject of much scientific debate. Still, I think it also has potential spiritual implications involving ancestry and heritage.

Epigenetics is the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself. Some research indicates that in animals, emotional “memory”, such as a propensity toward anxiety or the opposite, a tendency toward calmness and resilience, can be passed down epigenetically through several generations by the transmission of chemicals, methyl groups, that attach to the DNA and regulate gene expression. Some studies claim to have found this in humans also now.

Over much longer time periods, some researchers are exploring whether a kind of memory might also be encoded through alterations to the DNA itself.

Because my life is ruled by three terribly spoiled Basenji dogs, I was fascinated by the study of how humans and dogs have co-evolved over likely tens of thousands of years. Dogs and humans now seem to be born with an ability to read and interpret correctly each other facial expressions and vocal tones. When humans and their dogs interact, both species release oxytocin, the same bonding hormone released when humans interact with their new born children.

I was also fascinated by research with savants, people seemingly born with musical genius, artistic brilliance or even complicated mathematical skills who display such abilities without any training and at too early an age for their abilities to have been learned.

Likewise, scientists are studying people who after experiencing a head injury suddenly develop prodigious musical, artistic or mathematical ability, again without ever having had formal training in these areas. Is this evidence of some kind of genetic memory? We will have to stay tuned as the exploration continues.

I’ll close by sharing with you an experience I had recently that I think illustrates a number of these concepts about memory and demonstrates just how powerful memory can be.

Many of you have heard me talk before about how important my maternal grandparents were in my life and the love they gave me as they helped my mom raise me.

My grandparents, Leo and Ann, often took us on camping trips with them, and I have wonderful memories of being with them in the piney woods of East Texas and elsewhere.

They loved to travel and drove all cross the U.S., stopping to spend time in forests, including many a pine forest.

And, like Oliver Sacks had from his brother’s letter, I have these secondary memories from the images I created in my mind when they would return from one of their trips and share with us vivid descriptions from their adventures.

Last month, I spent a week exploring the white mountains of Arizona. One morning, I got up very early and drove way up into the mountains to a nature park called Wood Canyon Lake.

As drove into the park, I found myself in the middle of a beautiful pine forest. It was rocky, and small patches of snow reflected the morning sunlight, which was steaming through the trees at a slightly sideways angle because it was still so early.

And suddenly, I had this experience that was as if Leo and Ann were present there in my rental car with me.

I was such a powerful experience that I had to pull the car over and stop, and I struggle even now to put it adequately into words.

I can tell you though, that my grandparents had built their clothing closet out of cedar, so they had always carried a slight smell of cedar with them, and that faint aroma of cedar came back to me again under the beautiful canopy of pine trees.

And there had always been a way that I felt when I was with my grandparents that I never felt any other time. And that feeling swept over me again – an unexpected blessing and reminder of being worthy of their great love.

This is the spiritual power of memory. I got to spend a few moments with my grandparents once more, even if only through that great power of recollection.

And the ethics and values that they instilled in me were renewed and reignited.

My beloveds, this is one more aspect of the spiritual power of memory.

Not only can we remember, and when necessary, deconstruct and then reconstruct memory in ways that are more life giving, so too, like my grandparents, can we construct much of how we will be remembered.

May ours be a legacy of love, justice and stories truthfully told. Amen.

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.

Most sermons delivered at the First UU Church of Austin during the past 18 years are available online through this website. You will find links to them in the right sidebar menu labeled Sermons. The Indexes link leads to tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on the topic to go to a sermon.

Congregational Meeting: December 16, 2018

by Posted in Uncategorized

Congregational Meeting, December 16, 2018, 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.

This is your official notice for our fall congregational meeting on Sunday, December 16, 2018, 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. in Howson Hall.

Copies of the meeting packet are available in the copy room at the church and by online by clicking the following link:

The voting list has been posted in the copy room at the church. Please check the list and let Rev. Chris Jimmerson know if you have any questions or believe you have incorrectly been omitted from the list. Chris may be reached by email and at 512-452-6168. After December 2, you may contact Shannon Posern via email or at 512-452-6168.

The church bylaws specify the following regarding voting eligibility: “Individuals who have been members of the church for 30 days or more and who have (as an individual or part of a family unit) made a recorded financial contribution during the last 12 months and at least 30 days prior to the meeting, have the right to vote at all official church meetings.”

Thus to be eligible to vote, you must hav made a contribution between December 16, 2017 and November 15, 2018.

We will be providing childcare during the meeting. Please RSVP to childcare@austinuu.org. We look forward to seeing you there.

Come, ye thankful people, com

by Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
November 11, 2018
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
austinuu.org

As Thanksgiving approaches, let us talk about gratitude in the midst of difficult circumstances.

Call to Worship
Laura Ingalls Wilder, “Writings to Young Women”

As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness — just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.

Meditation reading
Sharad Vivek Sagar

Let’s be grateful to all those who came in before us. Grateful to all those men and women, young and old alike, who paved the path forward for us, brick by brick. To those men and women who marched across the bridge in Sehna on that great day, those men and ,vornefi who rallied behind the Gandhis and the Maficrelas eVery single time they were needed, to those men and women who stood up for voting rights and civil rights and gay rights and equality and justice and a free world, those men and women who invented the future by inventing things that fundamentally changed the world from the electricity to vaccinations, from airplanes to birth control pills, from the printing press to the internet. 

Sermon

Sometimes, around the Holidays, your soul just gets tired. You’re excited, yes, happy that all the Hallmark holiday movies are starting up, or entering into the Little Drummer Boy contest, where the person who goes the longest without hearing that song, but you can also feel irritable and tense, nothing looks fun, you can’t think. When your soul is getting sick, it’s time to dust off your spiritual practice. Not that you dust it off just when you are sliding into a sink full of the dirty dishwater of despair, but that’s as good a time as any.

A lot of people on Facebook are practicing gratitude by naming one thing they’re thankful for each day. I really like reading those posts. Gratitude is one of my favorite spiritual practices. It doesn’t require equipment, and it’s so simple that you don’t really have to feel guilty if you forget it for a couple of weeks and pick it back up. When I stop to think about what I’m grateful for, it brings me into the present moment. We suffer sometimes when we live in the past with the things that hurt us or our family, and when we live in the future with all of the bad things that may happen.

Most spiritual teachers urge us to stay in the present moment as much as we can, and to fill our minds with the things that are good, and the people who are good. It’s easy these days to get addicted to outrage, and it’s all appropriate, but it strengthens me to better deal with the outrageous events if I hold on to my spirit, and gratitude helps me do that. That is the purpose of a spiritual practice: to build your resilience, to make your spirit sturdy so you are not as easily knocked off balance. When I think about balance, I think about the martial arts training I had years ago that taught me I was harder to knock over if I kept my center of gravity low. To me this means not trying to live up here in my head more than I live in my heart and my gut. It means not having to be perfect in all things, which makes you brittle and defensive. It means having the humility to get peaceful with saying “I could be wrong.” It means being okay with learning from other people, and with leaning on other people. It you can’t be wrong, and if you hate to be helped, you are more of a pain to everyone around you. People who are grateful are easier and more fun to help. Their center of gravity is lower because they are reminding themselves that they are not doing all of this by themselves, that they have help, that they are not alone. Gratitude trains our habits of attention.

Habits of attention are your go-to things to notice in a situation. Some people can go to a nice restaurant and only remember the loud couple at the table nearby Ð they gave them their whole experience. Some people can go on a drive and hold on to the guy who cut them off in traffic, fuming and missing all the beauty and fresh air. Some people look out a window at a gorgeous autumn day and say “Oh my goodness, this window needs cleaning!” We need to notice these things, we need folks who can clock what’s not working well in a system, but it has to be balanced with a habit of noticing goodness and beauty. And being grateful for it.

Medieval mystic Meister Eckhart says if you only ever said “thank you” as a prayer, it would be a good prayer life.

Cicero, born about a century before Rabbi Jesus, wrote: “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others,” he said. By the 18th century, the free-market thinker Adam Smith, in his “Theory of Moral Sentiments,” supposed that people who did not feel gratitude were only cheating themselves out of happiness in life. And in the 19th century, Immanuel Kant described ingratitude with “the essence of vileness.”

We certainly don’t want to participate in the “essence of vileness,” so let’s take a moment to think about something for which we are grateful. Now take another deep breath and try to feel it in addition to thinking it. ….

One of the things the board of trustees does here is write thank you notes to volunteers who have helped hold up the sky here at First UU. It’s fun to sit around thinking about the events that have been brought to the community, the people who help with fixing things and chairing ministry teams and helping with our sanctuary work, people who go to meetings and reach out to other organizations in town and who visit with Alirio and who decorate for Thanksgiving Dinner here which is happening on Thursday at 3:00 and people who teach the children and some who teach adults and people who coordinate justice work and welcome folks who come to the church or call on weekdays. So many people do so much, and its nice to think about them with the board and then write and sign notes to them. It feels good.

Now I’m going to ask you to breathe together with me for a moment and think of a person who has helped you, a teacher, a mentor, a friend, a supporter, someone who made a difference in your life. I’m going to invite you, if you have a phone with you, or if you want to write it on your oos, to make a thank you note right now to them. If they are still living, you might want to send it. If not, it will do the universe some good anyway for you to write it. You are welcome to write while I’m talking. It will not hurt my feelings. It will make me happy.

In the Jewish scriptures, in the book of Proverbs (17:22) it says “A merry heart does good like a medicine: but a broken spirit dries the bones.” Social and psychological research is beginning to bear this out.

Psychologists are beginning to take gratitude seriously as a field of research. Robert Emmons of the University of California at Davis, says: “Psychology has generally ignored the positive emotions. We tend to study the things that can go wrong in people’s minds but not the things that can go right. Gratitude research is beginning to suggest that feelings of thankfulness have tremendous positive value in helping people cope with daily problems, especially stress, and to achieve a positive sense of the self.”

Studies are beginning to indicate that people who describe themselves as feeling grateful to others and either to God or to creation in general tend to have higher vitality, more optimism, suffer less stress, and experience fewer episodes of clinical depression than the population as a whole. These results hold even when researchers factor out such things as age, health, and income, equalizing for the fact that the young, the well-to-do, or the hale and hearty might have “more to be grateful for.”

Psychologist Dan McAdams of Northwestern University, whose specialty is well-being research, says he recently became interested in gratitude when he saw studies suggesting that increasing a person’s sense of thankfulness could lead to lower stress and better life “outcomes,” meaning success in career and relationships. Gratitude isn’t even listed in the 1999 addition of the presumably encyclopedic “Encyclopedia of Human Emotions,” a standard psychology text. “But if a sense of thankfulness can turn someone’s life from bitter to positive,” McAdams notes, “that makes gratitude an important aspect of psychology.”

Gratitude reminds us that there is more going on than just our one life. When we say thanks, as we did last night at our elegant Thanksgiving dinner in this room, thanks for food and drink, for friendship and sustenance, for beauty and for love, we acknowledge that we are part of a web of life, that the Spirit of Life flows through it all. Some call that God, and believe that it is benevolent toward us. For others, it is enough just that Being is so large and powerful and mysterious. That in itself makes it worthy of our awe. A grateful heart keeps us open, so thanks can flow out to those who are working hard, toward those who have offered our gifts, and so we can receive the next thing that is coming. It reminds us that we do not control all of what happens, so we enjoy it while it is here. “He who binds to himself a joy doth the winged life destroy. But he who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in Eternity’s sunrise.” (William Blake, 1757 – 1827).

Enlightened travelers of life don’t mourn because joy fades; they smile because it happened. Watch, this Holiday season, for joy to fly around you. I hope it does.

We start by being grateful for things. We move into being grateful in all things. Let me end with the words of Dag Hammarskjšld: To Everything that has been–thanks For Everything that will be–yes.

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