Listening

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Ron Phares

July 5, 2009

Sermon

Listen.

Listen.

There are depths here. There are depths to listening. And as a metaphor, it is a posture of being, rather than merely the function of one of five senses. In other words, you hear with your ear. You listen with your entire being. I’m here to tell you that our culture does not listen well, and the cost of not listening is usually catastrophic and, at the very least, tragic.

Incidentally, I am fully aware of the irony of talking about listening. It automatically makes me a hypocrite. And where is the integrity in that? The preacher’s supposed to have integrity, right? Well, not today. Not ever, most likely. And I want to talk about that for just a moment because it is related to this notion of listening. Integrity and listening. I hope that relationship becomes clear as I move along. But for now, maybe by way of example, maybe by way of confession, I want to hold up the issue of integrity from my point of view as a future minister. You might think that is just a hazard of the preaching profession. You’d be right. My classmates, my mentors, and I myself wrestle with that particular angel through many, many nights, always begging the question, who am I so low to speak to these people about such high things? Personal and social expectations set a standard that is, frankly, impossible to achieve. And so I, and all my colleagues are doomed from the moment we hear the call. So yes, it is a hazard of the profession.

But then, it’s also a hazard of the species. I take both comfort and caution in the notion that integrity and humanity seem to be metaphysically incongruous. At least I have company.

But, hold on now, preacher. Did I just say you people lack integrity? Yes. Yes, I believe I did. Who says UU’s can’t do fire and brimstone? So you may be thinking, “But, the sermon’s on listening and we’re listening! That’s integrity. Not like the preacher.”

Okay. I’ll let you off the hook. For now. But don’t get comfortable. You see I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently. And my thinking has coincided, happilyÉ or perhaps problematically, with many of the educational experiences I’ve been pursuing of late. In fact, the subtitle of this sermon could well be, “What I’ve learned so far, and what’s missing.” And I’ve learned a lot. And I’m missing still more. For instance, I’ve learned that Christ didn’t so often forgive people of their sins as recognize and pronounce that their sins had already been released through their faith. That’s from reading in Greek. I’ve learned what its like to feel helpless in the face of a hospital patient who has no hope. I’ve learned that any notion of the divine must compromise on either goodness or ultimacy. That is, there can be no god that is both all-powerful and an unconditional lover of humans and creation. I have learned all these things and more. But it should come as no surprise that of all I have learned, what stands out, is that the more I know the more I know how much I don’t know. And that is exciting. And frustrating. And frightening.

And one of the exciting, frustrating and frightening things that I know I don’t know is how to live with integrity. I have not learned how to do this. Okay, practice what you preach. That’s integrity of a kind. But how do I practice? What do I practice? Is there any practice that make me whole, that allows me, compels me, empowers me to live with integrity? This I have not learned. In fact, I have learned, rather, how much I am by birthright compromised, and worse, how much I compromise myself. I have learned that it is impossible to live with integrity. Keep in mind this sermon is about listening.

So let’s talk about integrity and listen to the familiar Hebrew myth of the garden and the fall. It’s resonant here. Listen and know that we are perfected in ideal only. In life, we are bound to make mistakes. But are we bound to our mistakes? That, in the end, is the question. But we aren’t to the end yet and I want to pick at this scab a bit more.

We are, it is said, fallen. And it makes sense mythically. As I’ve already mentioned, humanity’s understanding of the highest and best and most compassionate and powerful, namely God, demonstrates a lack of integrity that is devastating to its conception. And so no surprise, that we, who the ancient poets described as being created in the image of this God, inherit what we attribute. That is, like God, it is impossible for us to be all good and be who we are.

So what do we do with that? Usually we ignore it. We ignore the planet. We ignore each other. We ignore ourselves. We live half lives.

Maybe ignore is not the right word. It’s close but doesn’t necessarily capture the dynamic at play because there is a willfulness to the ignorance that is at work here. Where does this willfulness come from? Where are its roots? That’s actually a fairly easy answer. Basically we are trying to protect ourselves. Deep down we know there is pain in the world, pain in the hearts of our neighbor, pain in our own hearts and, even worse, that we are responsible for it. That we turn from this so instinctively, so resolutely is ignorance, yes, but it is more. It is denial.

What do we deny? I can lay out some statistics. They won’t mean anything, not really, not effectively. Which kind of proves the point, but I can give them to you. One out of every six American women have been the victim of an attempted of completed rape. That’s over 17 million people. Nearly a million children are abused every year. 14.4 percent of men in prison were abused as children. The U.S. is the biggest global warming polluter. Over 350,000 pigs are slaughtered everyday in this country. 1 billion of the 6 billion people on the planet are going hungry.

I could go on and on, mining the internet and my library for figures that demonstrate the damage we’ve done to our planet, our fellow creatures, our families and ourselves. These statistics in turn may lend my argument some credence. But in reality, that would be a smoke screen. The problem with statistics is that they function on a merely intellectual level. It’s as if we think that by digesting the number, digesting the fact, that we have digested the problem.

But in terms of functioning as a healthy creature, capable of the cosmically rare processes of knowledge and emotion and thereby capable, to some extent, of determining the healthfulness of our evolution, we need another order of interface to fully live. We can’t face our demons just by counting them. In other words, because we are spiritual beings as well as intellectual beings, the use of statistics to prove the point of our culpability in the production of pain and in the degradation of our ecological and social communities and indeed of our very selves, just doesn’t cut it.

At any rate, my argument doesn’t need proof. In this case, proof is the lie because proof is somewhere else. Proof is about someone else or something else. It is a vicarious projection of our guilt onto categories and numbers and words. Statistics are scapegoats. In that there is only the veneer of satisfaction. My argument is self-evident to those brave enough to listen. And here, I do not mean by listening to me. But by listening to yourself.

You see, we already know that the planet is dying to us and because of us. We know that children get hurt, that evil persists, that women have been abused, that animals die to feed our appetites, and that people die because they have no food. We know that we have been hurt and have hurt others. We know it. But we don’t face it. We don’t know how to live in it.

In part this sermon was inspired by a book by Derrik Jensen called, “A Language Older than Words.” Jensen is particularly concerned with the disconnect he sees between our culture and the devastation it has wrecked on the land and on the people that proceeded our occupation of the land. But Jensen’s perspective is unique. Or maybe not so unique. What follows is not for the faint of heart of any age. It is in fact, quite brutal. So I want to warn you. You see, Jensen’s perspective has been influenced by the fact that as a child, he was raped by his father. Jensen, his brother and his mother were all repeatedly beaten and raped by his father. It was an episodic assualt. So while it was repeated, it was not necessarily constant. After each episode, life would return somehow to some kind of normal and the family would persist. Until the father’s rage boiled over and trauma ensued once again.

So Jensen looks out at the land, at the loss of land, at the loss of species, beings, animals and character and the loss of clean water and clean air, Jensen looks out at the devastation of the ecosystem and sees himself. Devastated. Abused. Raped. And denied.

Jensen’s father never left the family. And the family, unbelievably, stayed together. And so it is that Jensen has been able to confront the man who visited such unthinkable pain upon him. And here’s the thing; Jensen’s father, now subdued by age, claims to have no memory of his villainy. In the face of testimony from his entire family, he refuses to accept that he played any part in any thing like what they describe him as doing.

Jensen sees himself in the land. In our culture, that is, in us, he sees his father. And if you think that too strong a claim, you essentially prove his point. Denial. Our crimes. Our trespasses. The food on our table. The comfort of our lives. How do we hold these things together? No statistic can make that go away. No proof will alter the mind of Jensen’s father. He is, by his denial, protecting himself from something he knows will convict him. Our history books do the same. We are left living half lives of unresolved consequences and stunted spirits, too afraid to unfurl, to afraid to listen to the universe speaking through our being.

So let me ease off the doom pedal for just a second to present you with a picture of how the universe speaks through us. David Deutsch is an Oxford physicist who has written a book called the Fabric of Reality. I have not read the book. I have heard him speak, however. Deutsch, talks about the relationship between humans and a Quasar, which is an unfathomably explosive stellar phenomenon. He marvels that, “É some bit of chemical scum (by that he means us humans) could accurately describe and model and predict and explain, above all, explain a QuasarÉ The one physical system, the brain, contains an accurate working model of the other, the quasar. Not just a superficial image of it, though it contains that as well, but an explanatory model, embodying the same mathematical relationships and the same causal structure.” So a Quasar, and in theory, the entire cosmos, is mirrored (at least potentially) in us. Deutsch goes on to conclude that, “Éwe are a chemical scum that is different. This chemical scum has universality. Its structure contains, with ever-increasing precision, the structure of everything.”

And so we contain what we observe. But it’s more than just information and mathematical models. After all, hearing and listening are different, right? Hearing is about information. Listening is about being.

Because as lovely as Deutsch’s idea is, his insight, while articulated with new metaphors, is not itself new at all. And you don’t need the tools of science to come to it.

For instance, there is a story told in Islam about a Mullah who traveled to the grand mosque of Mecca, the Kabah. After hours of meditation the Mullah fell asleep with his feet pointing to the Kabah, which enraged some Meccans. They woke him and berated him for his sacrilege. “Very well,” said the Mullah, “Please take my feet and put them in a direction where Allah is not.” The Meccans left him alone. “Everywhere you turn is the Face of Allah,” says the Qur’an.

I see resonances between Deutsch and this story. The mathematical models of all the cosmos is within us, the face of the cosmos is all around us and in fact, these are the same things. Listening brings these things to our living.

Another verse from the Qur’an says, “And in the earth are signs for those whose faith is certain.” Jamal Rahman, a Muslim mystic who penned our reading today, expands on this, writing that, “The mystics, with their heightened consciousness are eloquent in their expressions: the song of birds and the voice of insects are all means of conveying truth to the mind. In flowers and grasses are woven messages; in the rustling of leaves there are specific instructions; at dawn the breeze has secrets to tell.”

I want to own this as speculation on my part, but I see a path to connectivity by learning to see the world as metaphor. Can I identify with the mathematical model of the cosmos, or find story in the flight of dragonflies, watch God? Would listening to the world metaphorically make the heavens and the planet and the soul and the body line up? Because, ultimately listening, be it to quasars or cousins is listening to yourself or you are the cosmos.

But listening and denial are mutually exclusive. That’s the connection here. And denial is pervasive. So it seems there is some work to do before I can listen to the music of the spheres.

This requires four moves. Find your beauty, the moments wherein your soul is singing in tune. Find your blind spots, those personal and cultural places we have covered over and denied. That, by the way, is very difficult and it helps to have help. Next, reconcile your beauty with that experience of sin. For this, the only tool available is forgiveness. It is the key. Lastly, adjust your life accordingly. This is a never ending process, because we are caught, we are human, flawed and beautiful, capable of knowledge and capable of forgiveness.

And how does one forgive? I don’t know. One example already mentioned was Jesus, who, actually, did not forgive. He merely acknowledged forgiveness. So maybe there is a lesson there. Maybe the lesson, if we listen, is the presence he brought to bare. His presence, we are told, was one of grace, peace, mercy and healing. So I might suggest that listening to the world (because you are the world you listen to) with a presence of peace, grace, mercy and healing might be a first step.

I’ll refer again to Jamal Rahman, who writes, “In the East, the lotus flower is a symbol of beauty and spirituality. Notice, teachers tell us, that the flower has a stem that roots it in the mud. The spiritual flower owes its existence to the mud; it is the mud of daily existence that feeds the root of the spiritual flower.”

This gives me courage to face what I deny, what my culture, my family and my experience have buried out of shame. So, I stand here, feeling as though I am on the edge of a precipice. For I have not done what I see needs to be done. I have not been listening. Not as well as I need to. So again, I am in a posture of hypocrisy and speaking out of my depth. But I see where I need to go. And I have some ideas about how to go about it. In this endeavor, I invite you to come with me.

Beginning July 12 and lasting to July 17, I will be organizing an experiment in connective spirituality. It will be the first annual No Kill Week, a week wherein all those who elect to will vow not to kill any living thing, plant or animal, nor eat what has been killed, plant or animal. This is based on the first of the two creation stories in the ancient Hebrew texts wherein we can read, “Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” This was the ideal, before the fall, before we mytho-psychologically had anything to be ashamed of or guilty for. So we will live into that impossible ideal for a week.

Ultimately, No Kill Week is not about food. And in the end we will realize we are still caught, because we are still human. But the week and dietary restrictions form a frame of extra-ordinary compassion which will be focused through spiritual practices, fellowship and discipline. And we will be a graceful and merciful presence. I’ll leave a sign up sheet for those of you courageous, interested or crazy enough to dive in.

In short, we are going to listen. We are going to listen to the parts of our lives and our culture that we are in denial about. We are going to listen to our joy and our wonder too, no doubt. But we will listen to ourselves, look our world and out lack of integrity square in the face and begin the practice of making peace with it. That practice may require of us a change in lifestyle or not. I don’t know. It may enable us to reconnect with God or The Force, or the Tao or ourselves. Or not. I don’t know. But it seems a worthy pursuit and an exciting first step.

Thank you for listening.

May 2009 Board Meeting Minutes

by Posted in Uncategorized

Board of Trustees Meeting

May19th, 2009

The regularly scheduled monthly meeting of the Board of Trustees of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin was held on Tuesday, May 19th, 6:30pm at the church. 

Members present: President Sheila Gladstone, Vice President Nell Newton, Treasurer Luther Elmore, Secretary Shannon Vyff, Mark Kilpatrick (Ex-Officio), Youth Trustee Aaron Osmer, Bonny Gardner, Derek Howard, Jeffrey Hutchens, Eric Stimmel, and Michael West.

Staff present: Sean Hale, Executive Director, Lara Douglass Director of Religious Education, and Brent Baldwin Music Director.

Visitor’s present: Brendan Sterne, Chris Jimmerson, Laura Wood, Margaret Borden, John Franks, Ruth Marie and Eugene Balaguer.                                                                              

Call to Order

President Sheila Gladstone called the meeting to order at 6:37pm.

Adopt Agenda

Michael West moved to adopt the agenda, it was seconded and the agenda was adopted as presented.

Opening Words

Nell Newton gave our opening words.  She used a poem provided by Michael West: “The Good Prayer”, adapted from “The Lord’s Prayer” and in the spirit of Jefferson’s Bible:

Hear me, all ye who do good,

I honor your deeds and praise them.

May goodness continue to flow from you

 and from us all,

Until life on Earth is perfected

 and none suffer.

By our efforts

 may all be ensured their daily bread.

By our efforts

  may we forgive those who trespass against us,

  that we may be forgiven too,

  and peace reign.

Let none of us be tempted into childishness or animality

  Though it bring us momentary pleasure.

Instead, let us call each other

   to greater kindness and wisdom,

   to greater forbearance and creativity,

   in everything we do.

For in goodness lies the path

   to more freedom and more life,

In goodness lies the power,

And in goodness lies the glory,

For ever and ever.

Amen.

Sheila Gladstone thanked the incoming board members for attending the meeting, Brenden Sterne, Laura Wood, Margaret Borden and Chris Jimmerson.

Visitor’s Forum

There were 8 visitors.

Nancy Neavel shared a letter from UU Houston that was to be passed around and included in the minutes (Exhibit A).

Beverly Donoghue thanked the current board for all, all they endured for the past year and all they accomplished. She thanked them for their leadership.

 Consent Agenda:

Approve Minutes

The April minutes were approved.

New Members and Resignations:

There were 5 new members since the April board meeting and 0 resignation. The following new members were announced and recorded at the May board meeting: Name redated from web versions of minutes at the member’s request, Peter Pope, Amy Edwards McFadden, Emily Wethington and Vanessa MacDougal.

Reports

*Director of Religious Education Lara Douglass’ report is attached (Exhibit B).

*Treasurer Luther Elmore’s reports are attached (Exhibits C).

*Director of Music Brent Baldwin’s report is attached (Exhibit D).

*Executive Director Sean Hale’s reports are attached (Exhibits E).

There was discussion on the consent agenda items.

From the Executive Director’s report, a particular issue regarding the office being closed to the public on Mondays so that the office staff can have time to focus was discussed.  They will still check messages.  Derek and Bonny had questions for Sean about how it will work. Bonny said she had called 5 mid-sized area churches earlier in the day and only one did not have a live person answer the phone, it was another UU church.  Both Bonny and Derek expressed concern that there should be a live person answering our church phone, Derek pointed out that this is common practice in many businesses as well as most churches. Derek said that maybe we can have volunteers answer phones. Sheila said that we cannot discuss every staff issue and that some things we need to leave to the discretion of our Executive Director, such as our staff issues for which we hired him. She asked if anyone was willing to help coordinate volunteers to answer the phones, no one was. Sean thanked the volunteers that have been coming to help in the office but agreed that it would be hard to have volunteers there to answer the phones at all times.  Sean said that productivity has gone up when they have let the phone ring and check messages later, they are able to focus more and complete more work. Michael West suggested that with the remodel of the church office that perhaps there could be a secluded place established for people to work, allowing congregant access to the building without interrupting staff.  Visitor Chris Jimmerson, the incoming Board Secretary, said that when his workplace instated a similar policy, but to not answer the phones on Friday, they found that responsiveness was increased on the other four work week days, since staff had completed more and could more readily respond. Eric said this is a way Sean is trying to help the office staff focus on finance issues.  Bonny said she supports Sean and understands the need for office to focus, but wants flexibility to be an option. Bonny was worried that Sean’s report seemed to talk about using voice mail during the whole week. Visitor Margaret Borden, incoming Board member, said that the board is stuck in the nitty gritty right now and that she agrees with board President Sheila, that we need to trust Sean—and then ask for a report in the future, of how it is going. Jeff Hutchens agreed, and said he’d like to see a report about how the changes are going in a future board meeting.  Aaron also agreed that Sean can make decisions for the staff since that is what he is paid for, the board can be advisors but aren’t the be all and end all of what needs to be done with his job.  Nell said that the summer will be a great opportunity to see what will happen if we trust Sean to do his job.  Sheila pointed out that we don’t manage our Director of Religious Education or Music Director.  Sean assured all that in addition to the messages being regularly checked, they are looking at implementing a caller ID system and he will do a report on how the changes are going at a future board meeting.

From the DRE’s report, it was commented that RE has been having excellent attendance.  Lara said that we have a new Youth Director named Scott Butki.  Aaron Osmer our Youth Trustee said that from what he has seen of Scott so far that he is one of best Youth Advisors they’ve had in a long time. Lara said that is last DRE said he was wonderful and had been reliable as a volunteer. 

From the Music Director’s report there was a question about the Children’s Choir.  The parents of the children who had been in choir are looking for ways to continue it, as it had been cut from the budget. Currently it will not start up in fall unless funds are found. Brent said they are looking at having a benefit concert.  It was commented that the music has been excellent as usual and Brent was thanked for his work.

From the Treasurer’s report, Luther pointed out that some of the old restricted funds were closed and moved.  There is currently $66,000.00 outstanding from the Spring Stewardship campaign that raised the $100,000.00 amount to close the deficit.  The Finance Committee has been working on a new format; Sean has been using Quick Books, which has not been clear to use and not compatible with all our systems.  Stephan Windsor and Eugene Balaguer have been helping set up a new system that will be compatible and will work better.  Sheila said that in the past the Finance Committee has been working separately from the board, now they’ve moved their meeting time to work with the board more.

ACTION:  Derek Howard moved to approve the consent agenda items, the movement was seconded, the vote was taken and the consent agenda items were passed.

Stewardship

Bill Edwards passed out a report for stewardship, (Exhibit F).  He invited everyone to the celebratory potluck being put on by Stewardship this coming Saturday. Our incoming Interim Minister Janet Newman will be visiting our church in June and will be attending a dinner hosted by Stewardship on Monday June 15th at 6:30pm.  The focus will be to gage from our congregation what we should focus on as a theme for the Fall Stewardship campaign. There will be a presentation by Stewardship at the dinner, and a discussion—Stewardship will then present to the board at the next board meeting.  A few things have been suggested as a Fall Campaign focus such as creating a second minister position.  Bill said that the Fall Campaign will be plain, simple and by the book.  We do need to identify what will inspire our members to give, but also the “real deal” is that we must change the culture our church has with giving. 

Sean pointed out that in his “08 Incomplete Pledge Report” that there was $90,000.00 in incomplete pledges; this was 17% of all pledges. Other churches usually have 3 to 8% of their pledges unfulfilled to normal attrition; people moving or having hardship/losing jobs etc.  We have not been collecting this information on why our members are not fulfilling their pledges and are implementing systems so this can be done.  Mainly this much higher than average rate at First UU was due to internal problems. 25% of credit card pledges were incomplete; this is mostly an administrative issue.  Fixing these problems will help Stewardship.  Setting up a system on how to handle the sensitive calls, determining when to have follow up calls, or how to help when help is needed is all going to make Stewardship’s job easier.  Sean is looking at other churches and how they do this, and also looking at other organizations.  Ron Turner has been helping Sean with this.  The goal to get this new system in place is for ’10, but it may be starting to help with fall ‘09’s Campaign. Luther said that our rate of unfulfilled pledges compared to other churches is shocking. He feels a lot of this comes back to the culture of our church that must be changed.  Derek asked what our rate of unfulfilled pledges has been in past years.  Mark said that we’ve budgeted 5% into our budget for unfulfilled pledges in past years.  Sean said that we do have the raw data, but it would take a lot of time and talent to find out the actual figures.  Michael West said the staff time is better spent focusing on our present and future as a priority till we get extra staff.

Paradox Players

Anne Edwards passed out a paper with the history of Paradox Players (Exhibit G).  She says that they realize that some of their history with First UU has been lost over the years.  She thanked Chris Jimmerson for checking in the Policies and Procedures to see that Paradox Players is an “affiliated group”. Paradox Players got its start at First UU as being part of worship, and it then expanded into a part of church community.  Today it serves our church community and greater Austin community in many ways.  Local non-profits can buy a performance for five hundred and get all the profits from that performance’s house.  For all the other performances the full proceeds are donated to our church.  Paradox Players is currently funding and helping with the remodel of the church office. They appreciate all the support they get from First UU with meeting spaces, use of the copy machine, donating of props, and wonderful stage/lighting facilities.   They choose plays for their interesting artistic or political value and how they relate to or exemplify ono of our UU principles.  Actors say that working with Paradox Players feels more like being in a family, compared to working in other theatre groups, due to their diligence with upholding standards of respect. Paradox Player performances are also a portal for members of the greater Austin community to learn about and come into our church. One performance of each play has free childcare provided. Chris Jimmerson added that the opportunity to engage our greater Austin community with our UU principles during the Q&A with the audience after each play helps educate people.  Many plays such as Necessary Target deal with important current issues that are touchy subjects in our society. 

Congratulations First UU Member Lee Leffingwell Austin’s New Mayor

Sean Hale passed out a card for board members and senior staff to sign, congratulating Austin’s New Mayor, our First UU member Lee Leffingwell.  Lee has been a long time member and supporter of First UU and we wish him the best with his new position and thank him for his support of First UU in years past and presently.

Board Appointees to Nominating Committee

Sheila said that we were supposed to appoint the board appointees to the nominating committee in April.  We are in a wonderful situation where we have more volunteers than we have space, in particular for the Nominating Committee.  Jennifer Lohlin was appointed to the Nominating Committee to fill in a vacancy in spring, the Committee has been happy with her work.  Jeannette Swenson would like to see the Nominating Committee develop a strong focus on training and encouraging leadership.  Sandra Reis has similar ideas and also wanted to serve, but the two positions the board appoints to nominating are filled.  Shannon Vyff will be moving to England in August, so there will be another opening on the Nominating Committee and they may choose to include Sandra then. 

ACTION:  Michael West moved to approve the board appointees to Nominating Committee of Jennifer Lohlin and Jeanette Swenson, it was seconded, the vote was taken and the approval passed.

Interim Search Task Force

Michael West wanted his report attached so people can have it as reference in the future (Exhibit H)

Janet Newman will be starting as the Interim Minister at First UU this September 1st. She has even offered to come and start doing some work early without pay. She’ll be here June 15th through 17th to meet with church leadership, committees and congregants. There will be a dinner hosted by Stewardship Monday the 15th at 6:30pm that she’ll be attending, as well as a dinner at 6:00pm Wednesday the 17th.  She is moving from Alabama where she has been the Interim Minister for the past year, she is originally from Florida.  She specialized in being an Interim Minister, you can read more of her philosophy and work on her website—she usually completes her work in a year, we have offered two years of employment to her—but she’ll address how things are going next January to see if she thinks we need that or not, as she usually only needs one year to get her job done.  Michael West said the quality of the candidates was excellent.  All 4 that were presented to First UU had great experience; only 1 was not a specialized Interim Minister.  Janet’s background has included dealing with funding problems, property problems, big church splits, dismissals, retirings and more.  She has come up with Right Relations as solutions in some congregations, this is something that has been suggested for our and we look forward to her views on it. The references for all the candidates were quite candid about their strengths and weaknesses. All the candidates were highly recommended—the task force took the feedback they received from the congregation through surveys and meetings, to choose the candidate that would be best for First UU’s needs. Michael west will email the 9 things he thinks a Task Force should do in the future.  1. Start forming earlier 2. Meet earlier 3. Have good communication about time commitments before starting.  4. Have teleconference ability by phone or net set up before beginning. 5. Have fed ex set up.  6. Work with the tech team early on about creating surveys. & discuss and collect what relevant documents are needed for the candidates to review. 7.Create secure church overview packets online instead of mailing packets, as this would save mailing money and be easier for the candidates.  8. Begin checking references before packets are fully put together and shared. 9. Form an Interim Search & Welcoming Committee to help with their transition into our community. Michael said that all the candidates surprisingly knew a lot about our church and its recent activities by reading documents up on our web site. They all had great and valid suggestions. All the candidates were positive, encouraging and all were very well informed about the dismissal and its various issues. Michael spoke with District Executives about our recent work, including how we’ve put together the Interim position, how we’ve hired the consultants and how we are moving forward, the feedback has been very positive and favorable of the job we’ve been doing. They were impressed by how we have more people wanting to be on the board than we have board positions, that we’ve filled a hundred thousand dollar gap in our budget.  They had not heard that we are a “toxic church”; Sean noted that he also did not hear that from the UUA people he talked with or other churches.  Several of the people Michael talked to had known Davidson. They had a good understanding of what went on and were supportive of our work into the future.  There was a round of applause for all that the Interim Search Task Force did, and thanks for choosing such a stellar Interim Minister.  The Interim Task Force members are Michael West, Chris Jimmerson, Gary Bennett, Nance Benet, and Dale Witaker Lewis.

Pre-School RE Teacher

Our DRE has the authority to hire and fire our RE staff. She had the position for pre-school teacher advertised, and approached some parents about it with no luck on filling it. Her husband Bill Douglass agreed to be the teacher and said he’d love to come back and do it again. All on the board said he was a wonderful pre-school teacher. Sheila said he’d helped her daughter to overcome her shyness when he taught her in pre-K. Shannon said that she’d co-taught with him and he presented our UU ideals in a funny and engaging way that the children really responded to.  Aaron said he is excellent and much loved by all the age groups. If approved he’ll be under the supervision of Cyndi Stein the RE assistant and he can go to the board if he has any problems. 

ACTION: Bonny made a motion and it was seconded to approve Bill Douglass as the Pre-School teacher, the vote was taken and it was enthusiastically unanimous that “Mr. Bill” will be our Pre-School teacher.

Policies and Procedures Update

Sean presented a proposed update to our Policies and Procedures. He worked with Eric Stimmel to set up a default for board meeting and congregational meeting dates.  We have needed to formalize them for a while; this will make it easier for people considering a board position to see if they can commit to the time.  Nominating Committee will be able to show incoming board members the set schedule. Previously the incoming board has set the year’s meeting, and this causes it to change for year to year and it has not been able to present the next year’s calendar to incoming board members.  Having formalized dates helps the Senior Staff to be able to plan their upcoming years.

ACTION: Derek moved to approve the proposed Policies and Procedures wording regarding meeting times, the movement was seconded, the vote was taken, and it passed.

Board Approval Committee Chairs recommended by Nominating Committee

The Board is supposed to approve the Committee Chairs before the Spring Congregational meeting. Since the board did not do that in the meeting before the Spring Congregational meeting, the board is will do it at this meeting right after the Spring Congregational Meeting. 

ACTION: Derek moved to approve the Committee Chairs, it was seconded and the movement was approved.

Good-Bye to our departing board members

Sheila thanked the departing board members. Last year Mark made cute poems, today at work she spent time hand making book marks that have a chalice traversing rough waters with an inspirational poem.  She thanked the outgoing board members for what they went through, for all the hours they put in—for the compassion and strength that they showed.  Jeff and Luther gave presents to the outgoing board members. Emily Wethington gave baskets of gifts to them as well. Emily Wethington also gave gift baskets and cards signed by many church members to all board members as thanks for the year of service on behalf of Fellowship Committee.

Transition Issues

There will be an upcoming board retreat Saturday June 14th from 10:00am to 4:00pm where the incoming board and continuing board can talk about what the goals are for the next year.  The Edwards will be hosting at their beautiful ranch home, any board members that would like directions or additional information on what will be covered can contact Nell Newton.

Nell moved to extend the meeting 15 minutes at 9:36; the movement was seconded and approved.

Executive Session

Eric Stimel brought an issue to the board that required an executive session. Where staff is asked to leave while the board discusses a staff issues.  As we convened our senior staff and visitors were asked to leave so that we could discuss an issue regarding severance agreements. The issues were discussed, the background and what was being requested of the board. The board cannot take action during executive session since it is not public and thus not official. The board came out of executive session and took action on what they had discussed.

 ACTION: Nell moved that a draft proposal for severance coverage for the DRE and MD would be presented for approval at the next board meeting, the movement was seconded, and it passed. 

Calendar

The calendar dates are listed on the back of the meeting agenda.  The incoming Board Secretary will be setting the next year’s schedule at the next board meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:00pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Shannon Vyff, Secretary

Supporting Documents (Appendices A and F will be scanned and added soon)

In Search of Freedom

by Posted in Audio available, Gary Bennett, Guest Speakers, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Gary Bennett

May 17, 2009

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button.

READING:

What persons great and not so great have to say on the subject of freedom. All but the last two quotes from Dr. Laurence J. Peter, Peter’s Quotations , 1977

Will Rogers – Liberty doesn’t work as well in practice as it does in speeches.

Mark Twain – It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and the prudence never to practice either of them.

Theodore Roosevelt – Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.

Abraham Lincoln – The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty.

Albert Camus – Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.

Ernest Benn – Liberty is being free from the things we don’t like in order to be slaves of the things we do like.

B. F. Skinner – By a careful cultural design, we control not the final behavior, but the inclination to behave – the motives, the desires, the wishes . . . we increase the feeling of freedom.

Eric Hoffer – When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

Adlai Stevenson – A free society is one in which it is safe to be unpopular.

Abe Fortas – The story of man is the history, first of the acceptance and imposition of restraints necessary to permit communal life; and second, of the emancipation of the individual within the system of necessary restraints.

Bernard Malamud – The purpose of freedom is to create it for others.

Virginia Woolf – To enjoy freedom we have to control ourselves.

Edmund B. Chaffee – The majority of us are for free speech only when it deals with those subjects concerning which we have no intense convictions.

Harold Ickes – Freedom to live one’s life with the window of the soul open to new thoughts, new ideas, new aspirations.

Gertrude Himmelfarb – Liberty too can corrupt, and absolute liberty can corrupt absolutely.

C. Wright Mills – Nobody talks more of free enterprise and competition and the best man winning than the man who inherited his father’s store or farm.

Norman Thomas – After I asked him what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted of the unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what the cost to others, to win advancement.

Daniel Webster – Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint.

Kris Kristofferson – Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.

Gary Bennett – America is 100 million people going to the same place at the same time to do the same thing, but traveling in 100 million different cars.

SERMON:

I really wanted to give this a title like Freedom: For and Against, but chickened out. After all, if there is any point on which pretty much all 6 billion of us are agree, it is that Freedom is a Good Thing. But deciding what it is exactly that we are for, that is a harder matter. I want us to think about the Tea Parties on April 15. Not the politics, which bothered me a lot; but what I would have to say shouldn’t come from the pulpit. But there were some serious moral issues that drew people to protest. There’s the legacy of debt we are still piling up for the future. The bumper sticker, “We’re spending our children’s inheritance,” isn’t so funny any more. And there’s the idea that taxes are an evil thing, because they take away our freedom.

“No taxation without representation,” the patriots of 1776 said, and for some the British tax on imported tea was such a dangerous matter, it justified dumping perhaps a million dollars worth of tea (10,000 at the time) into the harbor in a monstrous act of vandalism. “Liberty” was the word they used, a little more narrowly political than “freedom.” At the dawn of history we meet the Egyptian Pharaohs and the Sumerian priest-kings, gods or agents of gods who could not be crossed; there was only enough liberty for one. Actually wealthy nobles were there to fight for power with them from the beginning; and they established rules and boundaries over time. The Code of Hammurabi is the oldest set of written rules we know about; and from it we get that rudimentary concept of justice, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” As far as liberty goes, though, there still wasn’t much left over for anybody else. A similar struggle took place in England thousands of years later, leading to the Great Charter between King John and his barons, still considered the birthplace of our written law. One bullet point was the idea that new taxes could only be imposed by the King acting in Parliament; and some four hundred years later that was the wedge that led to the English Civil War and the transfer of ultimate power to Parliament. So it is no wonder that the idea that taxes were only just with the consent of the governed still was magic over a century after that.

But Americans today do have representative government; there’s nothing in the catchphrase that says that your party has to win for taxes to be legit. But the Libertarians who have been doing these tea parties for a number of years cite a different tradition, one in which taxes even with representation are pretty sketchy. Englishmen, including those of us on this side of the Pond, in the 18th century were actually pretty uncomfortable with the English Civil War as a model. It was bloody, filled with religious arguments, culture wars we might say, pretty dangerous to the propertied classes; a king was beheaded and even a primitive sort of democratic socialism (the Levellers) began to stir. So good Enlightenment thinkers preferred to talk about the Glorious or Bloodless Revolution of 1688. King James II was the sort of ruler who, by combining dangerous ambitions, ruthless means and incredible stupidity, manage to give despotism a bad name; and in short, he managed in three years to unite the whole country against him, went into exile and left everybody feeling that this was the way things were supposed to be done. The Revolution was popular, and so was its chief apologist, John Locke. Inspired by the example of Sir Isaac Newton, he proposed to show that the right to revolution arose from human nature itself. “Man in a State of Nature” is isolated from all other human beings, surrounded by the infinite bounty of the world; but those riches are worthless except insofar as he invests his own life force and liberty into shaping some of them into what then becomes his property. This leads naturally to trading with others, which requires contracts; and ultimately it becomes useful to having some impartial body around to interpret and enforce the contracts. That’s the government; just a bunch of hired hands, as easily dismissed as any unsatisfactory lawn mowing service. No Divine Right of Kings, no superior racial bloodlines, no sacrosanct traditions. And it was nothing like Thomas Hobbes’ assertion that human nature was so depraved and evil that only a crushingly oppressive force could keep people from destroying each other. So Locke’s ideas gained a great deal of favor from the progressive, secular-minded thinkers of the Enlightenment.

But the argument had a force of its own, and some of the conclusions were troubling. Locke agrees that voting is a good way to put governors in place, but he does not think it gives any special moral authority for robbing people of life, liberty or property; only impartial findings of breach of contract by a judge or jury could do that. So taxes, even for proper government services, really were an unjustifiable seizure of property. This has not been a popular idea for governments, not even revolutionary ones. The Declaration of Independence drops the word “property” and talks of “the pursuit of happiness” instead as an inalienable right; the Preamble to the Constitution states that “to promote the general welfare” is as basic an aim of our government as “to provide for the common defense.” Even Locke himself, a practical man, seems not to have taken the idea seriously. But it has taken on a life of its own, with the implicit promise that somewhere down the road all government should just wither away. And so modern Libertarians are inspired by the goal of absolute individual freedom.

But as inspiring as Locke’s words have been to generations of Americans, there are problems. You have to say that his argument is flawed at its most basic: his Man in the State of Nature has no navel. He has come somehow to full-blown civilized English manhood without being born, nourished or educated by the society of people around him; otherwise his absolute moral autonomy would be disappear in all these obligations to others. Any inherited wealth cannot be property created by his own labor. And if you take him out of the woods and put him into a modern American city, invested with the accumulated capital of technology and industry of earlier generations, then his property loses all relationship to Locke’s idea of property; at the same time, the notion that resources are infinite becomes more and more absurd. Perhaps people do have the right to vastly unequal amounts of wealth, but you will have to find a different way of grounding that right from Locke. Try Social Darwinist arguments about “survival of the fittest,” perhaps.

We also see that insisting on an absolute right to wealth will undermine other basic human values, and in the end undercut freedom itself. If you are at the bottom of the economic ladder, you cannot negotiate fairly with giant, immortal corporations; nor is there any good way of providing for the sick, handicapped or elderly in our anonymous cities. And no matter what your skills, you may find yourself in economic trouble if you exercise your freedom of speech, as many people discovered as a result of the McCarthy Era blacklists, or your freedom of religion, as many Moslems found out in the last seven years. So there is a completely different strand of liberal tradition summarized by Franklin Roosevelt in his Four Freedoms Speech: not only should all human beings have freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but also freedom from want and freedom from fear.

So freedom is not just a relationship between the individual and the state; it also involves relationships of individuals with one another, and of entire peoples with one another. In the West we have tended to forget this in the last few centuries, as we have been obsessed with Individualism. In ancient and medieval times it was different. For example, the Greeks prized freedom above all things, but they measured it in the independence of their city-states, regardless of how they were governed; they considered inhabitants of empires to be slaves, even the relatively benevolent Persian empire. Let’s take another look at America in 1776. What did the British do that justified bloody red revolution? Taxes on stamps and tea? Really? Restricting settlement west of the Appalachians to protect the Indians? Oh, nasty. And of course they passed some punitive laws after the Boston Tea Party. Even so, it never added up to the level of abuse that a revolution should demand. And then there’s the question: what would the disgruntled Americans have done if they had gotten representation in Parliament? Would it have quieted them down? Probably not. The real beef our forefathers had was they wanted to govern themselves, and had come to think of us as a different nation. But nobody in the 18th century said that empires were wrong, or that nations had the right to be independent; so we borrowed the vocabulary from very different struggles in 17th century England. We still don’t seem to understand this deep need for national independence. After World War II, Americans came to believe that there was no more urgent moral cause in the world than the struggle for democracy, capitalism and freedom against Communism; we were drawn into struggles in places like Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Cuba and Vietnam, assuming these peoples would share our values. We didn’t see that for many of them, distaste for American armies of occupation or puppet regimes would be a much stronger emotion than anti-Communism; they were traditional cultures that thought in terms of freedom for the whole people rather than for expanded individual opportunity. For them, the magic word was “anti-colonialism.” I will leave it to you to judge whether our past several decades of Middle Eastern policy have suffered from the same blind spot.

I think there’s another problem in our idea of freedom: if everyone does everything he or she can, not just in terms of what’s legal but of what we can do without being punished, can ours or any nation survive? Maybe I could get along, taking short cuts in my job, cheating on taxes, stepping out on my wife and, in the wonderful words of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, stealing the change from blind men’s cups. Some people do, and we probably even know a few. When Amy and I lived in Philadelphia, the story we heard was that whenever a city bus was involved in any kind of accident, more people filed whiplash lawsuits than could ever have fit on the bus. Even in Philadelphia, only a small fraction of people push the envelope this way; and no, if everybody did it, we could not remain free. There aren’t enough enforcers, and more importantly we don’t want for there to be enough enforcers, to have eyes everywhere at once. We just expect that most people will try to operate at a higher standard. So what is the point of individual freedom, if it only works when most people are careful not to use it? Perhaps thinking and speaking freely are always good (except for shouting FIRE in a crowded theater). Other nations disagree with us on this; democracies like Britain, France and Germany clamp down much harder on what they consider hate speech and libel. You can make similar arguments for freedom of religion, of assembly, and of the press; and certainly for all sorts of freedom FROM government intrusion. But in practice, we allow a great deal of freedom of action, including many actions which are not good for us or for society as a whole. Perhaps freedom is a precondition for moral behavior; I get no brownie points for not cheating on the test if the teacher is watching closely the whole time I take it. The Puritans who in the 1600s were arguing politically for the rights of Englishmen, even as they also pressed religiously for the priesthood of believers, must have taken this attitude. Just as a priest cannot assume responsibility for my ultimate salvation or damnation, so the state should not block me from going to hell in my own fashion. Only by being free to sin can I be virtuous in not sinning. Thinkers from Zeno and Epicurus to the Buddha saw liberation in self-denial. Doing what came naturally was to act in a subhuman or bestial fashion; the opposite of freedom was slavery to one’s appetites. Whenever government forces us to good things, such as using our tax money to provide for society’s victims, perhaps it robs us of the chance to aspire to virtue by choosing to contribute of own own free will to charity.

So here we are. For some, freedom is a matter of absence of any external restraint, so that even taxation for good causes is a kind of slavery; for others, only in the absence of outside coercion can we act morally. And a far older tradition says that freedom is the right of your group, your tribe, your nation not to be controlled by others, and that the amount of coercion you personally feel is much less important. To the people at the top of the totem pole, it is about not being restrained from exercising power; to the people at the bottom, it is how effectively their bosses can be reined in. And yet, with all these conflicting ideas of what they are talking about, most people assume that they can bandy the term around and have everyone understand. Why? Perhaps because all of these are pieces of an intuitive feeling for freedom which is hard-wired. The True State of Nature for humanity is not what Locke postulates: it is the lives we lived and which shaped us over hundreds of thousands, even millions, of years, wandering in small hunter/gatherer bands. The early humans, even the protohumans had no strong sense of individuality, or of conflict between their own needs and the needs of the group; there were no police to force actions needed for the survival of the whole, yet the tribes survived. If a tribe did shatter through selfish behavior into individuals or even couples pursuing their own aims, the needs of the dependent, unskilled young would not have been met and the genes of the whole group would have disappeared; so natural selection pushed very hard against selfishness and for what we call altruism. Emotions, religious feelings and moral beliefs reinforced tribal identification; and a concept of freedom which was both tribal and individual became part of our wiring. In evolutionary terms, the last 10,000 years was the blink of an eye. Through all the despotisms and imperfect lives, the image of tribal freedom has endured, and visionaries have kept pressing for it. Confucius’ teachings center on the right relationship of self and society; the Hebrew prophets argued for social justice and compassion, as did Mohammed a millennium later. Jesus emphasized the spirit over the letter of the law. Augustine saw freedom in an all-consuming love for God; but Jesus reminded us that God is invisible and can therefore only be loved through our feelings and action for the people around us. So perhaps the ultimate statement of freedom is this: Love your neighbor, and do whatever you will.

Spring 2009 First Unitarian Universalist Congregational Meeting Invitation

by Posted in Uncategorized

Dear Church Members,

You are invited to attend our Spring Congregational Meeting this coming May the 3rd at 1:30pm directly following a lunch that is being served by our FUUCA Teens as a fundraiser from 12:30pm to 1:15pm for a moderate donation. Childcare reservations can be made by contacting , or calling the church at 452-6168.

You have received this invitation because you may be a voting member of our church:

“According to ARTICLE IV, Section 2 of the Bylaws of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin:

“Individuals who have been members of the church for thirty days or more and who have (as an individual or part of a family unit) made a recorded financial contribution during the last eighteen months, have the right to vote at all official church meetings.”

Any questions regarding voting status may be directed to the Treasurer, Luther Elmore. He can be contacted by email at: Any FUUCA member who has not contributed a financial donation is an associate member and is welcome to attend but would be unable to vote.

In accordance with Article VII, Section 6 of the bylaws, notice of the time and place of the meeting is being mailed to members and posted on the church bulletin board at least twenty days prior to the meeting day.

We’d love to hear your ideas, views, questions and concerns at our upcoming congregational meeting.

Enclosed within this mailing are the following documents for review:

1. The May 3rd Spring Congregational Meeting Agenda.

2. Proposed changes/updating to the bylaws and FAMP (Financial Asset Management Policy) that will be discussed and voted on at our meeting.

3. Nominating Committee’s proposed slate of board candidates for the congregation to vote on.

4. Contingency Options for working with our budget that will be discussed and feedback taken.

5. Executive Director’s Report to the Congregation.

These documents can also be accessed on-line from our church website www.austinuu.org. The Board Meeting minutes, the Spring All Council Meeting Minutes, and the reports that will be presented at the Congregation Meeting will all be accessible by the day of the meeting from the church website.

If you have any questions about the contents of this mailing, please call me at 673-3431 or email .

We look forward to seeing you at the Spring Congregational Meeting.

Sincerely,

Shannon Vyff Secretary FUUCA ‘08/’09 Board of Trustees