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Rev. Michelle LaGrave
December 8, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
Rev Michelle offers us survival tips for the spiritual work that we can learn and follow to prepare for the new administration coming in January. She uses the term Zombie Apocalypse as a metaphor because the circumstances we face are so extreme, so out of the ordinary, so out of control, that they seem unreal.
Chalice Lighting
This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.
Call to Worship
Our call to worship this morning is from Kalidasa. Kalidasa was an Indian poet and playwright who lived around the turn of the fifth century and wrote in Sanskrit. His works have been translated into many languages and read the world over and throughout the centuries since his death.
Look to this day,
for it is life,
the very life of life.
In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of your existence.
The bliss of growth,
the glory of action,
the splendor of achievement
are but experiences of time.For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision;
And today well-lived, makes
Yestarday a dream of hapiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope
Look well therefore to this day;
Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn.
Affirming Our Mission
Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.
Reading
Our reading today is from Lao Tzu. He was an ancient Chinese philosopher who wrote the Tao Te Ching and is considered the founder of Taoism.
If you are depressed, you are living in the past.
If you are anxious, you are living in the future.
If you are at peace, you are living in the present.
Sermon
NOTE: This is an edited ai generated transcript.
Please forgive any omissions or errors.
Let’s begin with some definitions.
ZOMBIE, a person who is deceased, a member of the undead, a person whose body is dead but acts as if it is living, often known to walk with a very slow shuffle, although in more recent stereotypes can move more quickly and in many different ways. Often with a decayed look about their faces.
Definition: APOCALYPSE, In the tradition, this comes from the book of Revelation and is about the end of the world. In more common terminology, apocalypse can refer to any event which is radically changing the world and might feel like the end of the world.
Definition: SURREAL, The feeling that one’s current circumstances are so out of the ordinary that they must be a dream, or one feels like one is in a dream-like state because the current context is so unusual, so different, so extreme, so out of control that it feels like it can’t really quite possibly actually be real.
The date of the zombie apocalypse is January 20th, 2025. Yes, this is a metaphor.
That said there are some survival tips about the spiritual work that is before us that we can learn and follow. I’ve come up with seven. There may be many, many more. And I could go on much longer than a sermon length about all the things we could or maybe should do. But we’ll stick with seven for today.
• NUMBER ONE: FIND A HIDEOUT.
Praying in your closet is actually a long time spiritual practice of our Unitarian and Universalist ancestors on these lands. It was in what is now known as the United States, but at that time was referred to colonial times. Our Pilgrim and Puritan ancestors had a critical spiritual practice of going into a closet, going into a private space to pray and to examine themselves and to look for signs of good works in their lives. So we have a long tradition, a long long tradition of doing this.
Jesus himself in Matthew 6:6 taught his followers to pray in secret and he also went off into the wilderness frequently away even from his own disciples to pray and to commune with his God whom he referred to as his father. In the coming zombie apocalypse, you will need a place of spiritual refuge, free from the distractions of other people. Find it, prepare for it, get it ready now. Start using it now.
• NUMBER TWO: PAY ATTENTION.
There is an old Zen story about a student who said to Master Ichu,
“Please write for me something of great wisdom.” Master Ichu picked up his brush and wrote one word – “Attention”. The student said, “Is that all?” The master wrote, “Attention, attention.” The student became irritable. That doesn’t seem profound or subtle to me. In response, master Ichu wrote simply, “Attention, attention, attention.” In frustration, the student demanded, “What does this word attention mean?” Master Ichu replied, “Attention means attention.”
Pay attention. Pay attention to the beauty that is in this world. Pay attention to your family, pay attention to your community, pay attention to your body, pay attention to yourself.
Pay attention to those who are different from you, to those who have different abilities or disabilities, to those who have different heritages, to those who have different experiences of racism in the world. Pay attention to those who are LGBTQ+. Pay attention to how they are experiencing these current times and learn from people who are different from you. We all have different skills and strengths and challenges. I’m not saying steal from other people or other cultures. I’m saying learn from each other through authentic relationships and having real true deep heartfelt conversations with each other.
Learn about what it means to be a person of color who knows all about resourcing and what resourcing is. Pay attention to people who are black and talk about black joy and how that is possible. Pay attention. Pay spiritual attention. Also pay attention to the news about what is happening, but not all the time.
Take the news in small, but regular doses. Do not be caught sleeping through the apocalypse. It will be too late by the time the zombies come for you. Pay attention. And do not allow yourself to become like a zombie going on autopilot throughout your world and without a care for anyone else.
You may or may not be experiencing the coming months and years in a way that is very different from people who are around you. There are some of us who are needing to consult lawyers at this time and make plans in preparations for how our legal statuses of marriage or citizenry or refugee status may change. So pay attention.
• NUMBER THREE: LIVE IN THE MOMENT.
Living in the moment does help with number two, paying attention.
Lao Tzu said, “Do not live in the past. You will become depressed. Do not live in the future. You will become anxious. Do live in the present and you will find peace.
Be present in the present and you will find peace. You will be able to see that beauty in the natural world. You will be able to see how you and your own body is experiencing what is going on in our world. You will be able to see others who are different from you, who are part of this beloved community and out into the larger worlds and what they are facing. The past cannot be changed. It is in the past. Remaining attached to how we wish the past might have gone is a point of suffering. This is Buddhism now. We’re moving from Taoism to Buddhism all within the same number three. The future cannot be predicted.
Listening to news about what is actually happening is one thing. Listening to hours and hours and hours about what people who are anxious or are trying to sell sensationalist headlines are saying is not helpful, it is anxiety producing, and it may or may not be true. No one can prophesy the future. We will move forward on our best educated guesses by what is happening now.
Focus on what is happening right before you, right now. Act on what is happening in the world right now. It’s not just paying attention and listening and hearing, this is also about acting. We will need everyone to act in different ways. And part of your spiritual work will to be to go deep inside and assess what your level of risk is and will be and what you are willing to put out there. That will be different for each person, and we will need to accept and respect those risk tolerances that are different from our own.
And by the way, we are working with the social justice folks beginning to have some conversations about how to make social justice work more accessible and what people who cannot physically go down to the capital or march in the streets can do instead within their own abilities. It will need all of us.
Act on what is happening in the world right now, the one thing you can do, the one thing you can do right now. If you make a list of all of the things that need to be done, you’re likely to become overwhelmed or anxious. Do the one thing right now that you can do. And when you have done that, do the next one thing that you can do. And when you have done that, do the next one thing that you can do. That was number three, live in the moment.
• NUMBER FOUR: PREPARE.
This lesson comes from Rev Michelle in the form of what not to do. The other day I was driving to church in my little hybrid truck, and I got this message warning in bright red flashing up on the screen saying, “You have less than 50 miles until your gas runs out.” At which point I thought, Micah did tell me I really, really need gas. And then about 10 seconds later, another message packed up on my screen saying “Your tires are low on air”, okay, but I got to get to church right now another 10 seconds pass and another bright message pops up on the screen saying “Your window washer fluid needs to be refilled.” This has never happened to me before. Do not be caught without the spiritual versions of fuel, air, and liquid soap. (Laughter)
Actually, there is not one list in terms of getting prepared. Our needs will continually change, and we’ll need to keep adapting and making new skills, learning new skills for new times. But there are some places we can start now. And now is not too soon to start building some skills like in the area of cybersecurity. So get your VPNs in order, lock down your cookies or various trackers, secure your personal info, start using encrypted messaging systems, or communicate in person with any sensitive information. If that sounds like a bunch of gibberish, welcome to the club. I’m learning too.
The ways we communicate, especially in the area of social justice, is going to change Radically, again. I’m sorry, I know we just did this with the pandemic, learning all these new skills with Zoom and live streaming and all sorts of things that we had not done much or at all before. It’s coming again.
Wired had a great recent article about how to protect yourself from governmental cyber surveillance and you should be able to find that online fairly easily if you Google it. See me in person if you would like to set up a way to communicate with me securely. We are going to be using end-to-end double encrypted secure messaging systems and I can let you know how to do that and likely people will learn how to crack that encryption and likely we’ll need to move to another version of encryption and so on.
So number four was prepare in all the ways – still fill your gas tank – still have your Go-bags, but also spiritually prepare.
• NUMBER FIVE: LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR.
We are back to Jesus’ teachings again. Love your neighbor as yourself. There are two parts to this.
- The first is loving your neighbor, being kind to your neighbor, ALL of your neighbors, no matter how they voted.
- And number two is loving yourself.
You cannot love your neighbor very well if you do not love yourself very well and you are trying to follow this edict to love your neighbor as yourself. So love yourself, take care of yourself. take care of your physical self, eat well, get good nutrition, exercise, go to the doctor, and take care of your mental health and your emotional health. Love is a verb. Loving your neighbor, loving yourself are action words.
Remember the story of the good Samaritan and love those with whom you disagree. There was an article recently that has been floating around online, I’m sorry I didn’t go back and try to find it and I don’t remember the author’s name, but it was about building up empathy. He wrote, He studied the brain and he wrote about the upcoming Thanksgiving holidays and how if you were part of a family that was mixed politically and things got a little fraught in the family conversations over the dinner table, to try to redirect the conversation. and to ask grandpa or whoever it is to tell a story about a time they did something good for someone else. Tell a story about how someone has done good for someone else. He said that they have studied this and found out that people aren’t just born with this one level of empathy. Empathy is actually a skill or a muscle or something like that that can be built up over time.
And if you stop, if we stop trying to change people’s minds with rational reasonable arguments and instead focus on encouraging them to build up feelings of empathy and compassion by telling these stories and then more stories and then more stories, we can begin to change the world, to ease the burdens of the world, at least a little bit, by loving each other and supporting each other in building up empathy. That’s number five, love your neighbor.
• NUMBER SIX: MAINTAIN YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR.
This ties in with your mental health, with systems theory, with all those good things. If you notice your sense of humor is decreasing or even disappearing, that is a red flag. That is a warning sign that you might want to seek out some support with your mental health, Some medication some therapy whatever it is that you might need. Pay attention to your sense of humor levels And notice if they’re changing we want them to increase you want to be playful We want to keep our senses of humor up. This will help us get through these coming times. And we can be serious and playful at the same time.
We can be playful about very serious life or death situations. It is a survival tip. These are survival tips. And for some people in the coming months, we are literally talking survival, life or death. And all of you who are not in that situation by keeping up your senses of humor and your sense of playfulness, that will help us all get through.
So, think about your favorite shows or books. NCIS, LA, the character of Heddy who’s like the super-secret super spy who knows everything all the time and no one ever knows how she knows. Think about “Get Smart” or “James Bond” or “Mission Impossible” or “Mrs. Hallafax”, the elderly recruit to the CIA because no one would guess she’s an agent with her white hair. Become your own secret social justice agent and have fun with it. Imagine yourself as a super secret social service, social justice agent. That’s number six, maintaining your sense of humor.
• NUMBER SEVEN: (back to Judaism and Christianity) KEEP THE SABBATH.
Set a regular day or evening or time to put away the news and any form of electronics. Take Take a break, rest, be with the people you love and who love you. Keeping Sabbath is an incredibly powerful spiritual tool of renewal and restoration. It doesn’t have to be on Friday night to Saturday morning. You can choose whatever time worked for you. I do do Friday night. Keep a Sabbath. Rest.
Be with those we love and those who love you. Good luck. Amen. And blessed be.
Extinguishing the Chalice
We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we hold in our hearts until we are together again.
Benediction
Your lips and compassion at your fingertips, blessing all others as you yourselvesare now blessed. Amen and blessed be.
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