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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
November 3, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

“Jedediah Morse and the Battle for Harvard.” Another juicy slice of Unitarian history. What about this story from the 19th century might still be affecting Unitarians and Universalism?

Chalice Lighting

We light the fire of Truth and ask to be clear, wise, and humble enough to admit when we don’t know. We kindle the warmth of community and ask for open heartedness and patience. We are grateful to the Spirit of Life and ask to learn the secret to loving and being loved.

Call to Worship

A PERSON WILL WORSHIP SOMETHING
Ralph Waldo Emmerson

A person will worship something have no doubt about that.

We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts-but it will out.

That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and character.

Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

IT MATTERS WHAT WE BELIEVE
Sophia Lyon Fahs

Some beliefs are like walled gardens. They encourage exclusiveness, and the feeling of being especially privileged.

Other beliefs are expansive and lead the way into wider and deeper sympathies.

Some beliefs are like shadows, clouding children’s days with fears of unknown calamities.

Other beliefs are like sunshine, blessing children with the warmth of happiness.

Some beliefs are divisive, separating the saved from the unsaved, friends from enemies.

Other beliefs are bonds in a world community, where sincere differences beautify the pattern.

Some beliefs are like blinders, shutting off the power to choose one’s own direction.

Other beliefs are like gateways opening wide vistas for exploration.

Some beliefs weaken a person’s selfhood. They blight the growth of resourcefulness.

Other beliefs nurture self confidence and enrich the feeling of personal worth.

Some beliefs are rigid, like the body of death, impotent in a changing world.

Other beliefs are pliable, like the young sapling, ever growing with the upward thrust of life.

Sermon

“JEDEDIAH MORSE AND THE BATTLE FOR HARVARD”

The opening scene in the birth of American Unitarianism as an organized denomination took place in 1805 in the halls of Harvard University.

I love reading church history. We need a Donimick Dunn or Emily Jane Fox to write about it for Vanity Fair magazine. There is intrigue and the clash of personalities, vanity and ambition, integrity and the clear sense that what is obvious to one group seems dangerously misguided to another.

In 1803 the man who had been Hollis Professor of Divinity died, leaving the post open. Ministers were trained by the Divinity professor. There was no Divinity School before this. Ministers were trained during their college years. Many went on for further study in Germany. At Harvard, the Hollis Professor of Divinity had been a moderate Calvinist. If it strikes you that you aren’t completely clear any more about what Calvinism is, I’m about to remind you. John Calvin, in the 1550’s, revived theological ideas of Augustine of Hippo, who was an Ethiopian Bishop of the Christian church in the early 400’s.

“TULIP” is the mnemonic device by which students remember the Calvinist precepts:

• T Total depravity of human nature
• U Unconditional election of the saints
• L Limited atonement
• I Irresistible grace of God
• P Perseverance of the saints

Total depravity of human nature: the belief that humans are basically bent, and we choose to do destructive things more easily than we choose to do good. No amount of peace education will take the warring out of us, no amount of coddling or challenging in school or at home will take the crime and stupidity out. Mostly we are inclined to choose selfishly, and it is mainly the fear of punishment that keeps us between the lines. This has been the most difficult of my Presbyterian beliefs to give up. I find it a moderately cheerful and relaxing doctrine. If we’re bent to the extent that it’s easier to choose to do destructive things than creative and live-giving things, we’re pretty amazing whether or not we’ve built hospitals or cured cancer. We’re doing well to have gone this long without knocking over a gas station, we’re doing amazingly well to be pretty good people most of the time. Now I try to believe in the basic goodness of people, but it opens one up to more episodes of disappointment.

Unconditional election of the saints: God, for his glory, chose some from the beginning of time to be saved. It follows logically that there are some who are chosen to be damned to eternal punishment. This is the “double predestination” that they somewhat sheepishly teach in Calvinist seminaries. Predestination does NOT mean that everything is foreordained by God, fated, only that the end of things is foreordained. Free will can operate in-between. Your end is the only thing that is predestined. Over the centuries, many Christians shrank from the harshness of this doctrine. After Augustine proposed it in the 5th century, a church council met to declare it “anathema” which is Greek for really really icky and not true.

Limited atonement: Also following logically from the election of some to be saved: that Jesus died, then for those who are chosen to be saved, and NOT for those who weren’t chosen.

“Irresistible grace of God,” If God chooses you to be among the elect, the saved, you will be, because God’s will is always done. If you get saved, it is because you were one of the ones chosen. Don’t worry that you are getting saved all for nought, acting right even though you are doomed to damnation. If you are saved, you are one of the elect. If you refuse to believe, if you don’t act right, if you don’t believe, it is because God’s grace isn’t reaching out to you. If it were reaching out to you, you would “get it.” Since you don’t get it, it’s because, sadly, God doesn’t care whether you get it or not.

Perseverance of the saints: Once you’re saved, you’re always saved. You may struggle, but God will not let you go.

That is traditional Calvinism. There were a hundred years in New England where that was the only brand of Christianity taught by the churches. That is what counted as orthodoxy, right belief. The society in New England was fairly homogeneous. All the Quakers were in Pennsylvania. The Baptists were in Rhode Island. There were Catholics, some Quakers, some Baptists, but most of the citizens of Massachusetts were Congregational Calvinist.

Every town had a church whose minister was paid with tax money. This was called the Standing Order, and it had been in effect since the Puritans. Attacked now and then as unfair, it had gone through several versions. By 1805, ministers were paid with tax dollars only if their church didn’t make its budget, and if you were a Quaker, a Baptist or a Catholic, you didn’t have to pay the tax. The Congregational ministers, by this time, were varied in their theology. Some were strict Calvinists, others were more moderate Calvinists. Some had become Liberals. Liberals did not believe or preach the doctrines of Calvinism. Some of them did not believe that humans were born in Sin. They had begun to believe that God had created human beings basically good. They did not see God as demanding blood to forgive sins. Jesus was a savior who saves by his teachings, and by awakening the mind and heart, not by his death on the cross. William Ellery Channing, likened the doctrine of the crucifixion as to having a gallows at the center of the Universe, and that the spirit of such a god, “whose very acts of pardon were written in such blood, was terror, not love.

Enter the Bad Guy. There was a Calvinist named Jedediah Morse, who had moved to Massachusetts. He was amazed that the Liberals and Calvinists got along together there so well. He did not approve of this ease, and felt that ministers should be asked to take a stand, to be counted and categorized by where they stood on the TULIP principles. Morse began hinting that the Liberals were tainted with the “Unitarianism that was being preached in England.” Those Unitarians, most notably Joseph Priestly, a scientist and minister whose most well-known discovery was Oxygen, were preaching that Jesus was just a man, possessing no divinity at all. Dr. Morse was troubled that the lack of controversy came from differences not being voiced or pointed out. People were being too nice, and it was getting in the way of knowing who was who. Who could be trusted to preach correct doctrine and who could not.

Before the controversy of 1805, most Liberal preachers doubting Calvinist doctrines did not preach these Liberal thoughts from the pulpit. To avoid controversy and keep peace in the congregations, they did what many Liberal preachers do today. They just preached around the Calvinist doctrines, choosing to preach instead about social responsibility, ethical behavior, and the loving kindness of God. The ministers in Massachusetts, as a rule, got along peacefully and well together. At the ministerial association meetings, they avoided speaking of their Liberal beliefs. No one really stood up to be categorized as strict, moderate or liberal. The ministers in the association were in the habit of pulpit exchanges. A minister would be in his own pulpit about half the time. The other half he would preach at other churches. This provided relief to the congregations, who got to hear other voices and other points of view. It also provided relief to the ministers, who had to write fewer sermons, since they could repeat their better ones when they visited another pulpit. The Standing Order of tax-supported worship and the pulpit exchanges were what gave what happened at Harvard the importance it had.

The Hollis professor who died and left his Chair vacant was a moderate and well respected Calvinist. These things were written about him at the time: “In him, never were orthodoxy and charity more closely aligned. and “He was desirous of correcting his own errors, and was willing that others should enjoy their sentiments. “That is the kind of man who can get along with both liberals and conservatives. Those people are hard to find, like a treasure when you come across them”

Here’s where academic politics come into the story. The President of Harvard procrastinated in suggesting a candidate because the most obvious candidate was a Liberal Boston minister named Henry Ware, and the President was a Calvinist. He didn’t want the controversy. The President just never brought up the subject of a replacement at meetings of the Harvard Corporation, and for two years the post was left vacant. By 1805, a candidate had to be found soon. The Boston papers were making trouble, even intimating that the money in the endowment for the Hollis fellowship was being used for purposes other than that for which it was given. Then that President exited the fray by dying.

A professor. named Eliphalet Pearson took over the acting Presidency, and was widely understood to want the permanent job very badly. In the writing of people who knew him at the time, he was characterized as an “ultra-Liberal before the President’s death, and a staunch Calvinist after. Hm. Why the switch? Some thought he was playing a part for political expediency. He was disliked by the students as a bully, and he tended to alienate even those who agreed with him.

Eliphalet Pearson and five other men made up the Corporation that governed the university. There was one other staunch Calvinist, two liberals, and two moderates. One of those was Judge Oliver Wendell, a liberal whose daughter was married to the conservative Calvinist Abel Holmes. (She was the mother of Oliver Wendell Holmes.) The selection process began with each man in the Corporation writing down two names. The two Calvinists each wrote down names of two Calvinist candidates, the two Liberals each wrote down the names of two Liberal candidates, and the two Moderates each wrote down the names of one Calvinist candidate and one Liberal candidate. Within a few weeks the choice was narrowed to two:

Jesse Appleton (a moderate Calvinist) and Henry Ware. The meetings were sour due to the personality clash between Eliphalet Pearson and Dr. John Eliot, a Liberal minister. It was said that Eliphalet Pearson’s personal attacks on Eliot were school boyish and mean.

Finally Judge Wendell proposed a compromise. How about Appleton for professor and Ware for President? No, they answered. Henry Ware was not suited for the position of President. How about Appleton for President and Ware for professor? NO from John Eliot, who was concerned that Jesse Appleton had an unpleasant and dissonant voice, unsuited to conducting public worship for the community, which as President he would have had to do. Appleton could have won in spite of Eliot’s “no vote if Eliphalet Pearson, wanting the presidency for himself, had not voted against the compromise. Judge Wendell’s compromise failed. Finally, several months later, Henry Ware was elected by a margin of one vote. There was no candidate settled on for President.

The appointment then had to be okayed by the Board of Overseers of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, made up of ministers and politicians. The Calvinists were understandably distressed that the professor of Divinity would not be orthodox. All the ministers that would come out of Harvard now would be taught by a a man they all thought of as a Unitarian.

The only point open for discussion was whether Ware fit the stipulations of the Hollis grant. Dr. Jedediah Morse, who was an ally of Eliphalet Pearson, saw this as an opportunity to show the people how sneaky and deceitful the Liberals were, not wanting to declare outright their position. Here was a chance to cross-examine and bring the Unitarianism to light. With 45 of the 47 members of the Board present, he attacked. What procedure had the Corporation followed to satisfy itself that Ware’s views were in accordance with the terms of Thomas Hollis’s gift. Hollis had written that the professor should be “a man of solid learning in divinity, of sound and orthodox principles. ORTHODOX, said Morse. SEE? This man doesn’t fit! He will not adhere to the Calvinist Westminster Confession. Hollis was not an Arminian (someone who believes that everyone can be saved) or a Unitarian, and he would NEVER have countenanced the election of a man who had departed from sound doctrine. The Liberals’ position was that Hollis, as a Baptist, had already departed from the Westminster Confession, whose doctrines the Baptists did not believe. Baptists believed in Jesus death being for everyone. Hollis himself had written that the only article of belief to be required of his professor should be that “the Bible was the only and most perfect rule for faith and practice, and that it should be interpreted “according to the best light that God shall give him. The election of Ware was no breach of trust, as Morse and Pearson were accusing, but was in keeping with Hollis’s intent. Ware was elected.

Within a matter of weeks, Morse had written and published a pamphlet complaining about the election of Ware. Then, months later, another Liberal was chosen for President. Eliphalet Pearson resigned and went to be head of Phillips Academy. Morse and Pearson founded Andover Theological Seminary, now closed, and within three years, in response, Harvard Divinity School was founded.

The ministers in the Standing Order, at Morse’s urging, started organizing. Trinitarian orthodox congregations made their own associations, refusing to exchange pulpits with liberals, accusing them of “Unitarianism.” Jedediah Morse in 1815, published a pamphlet called “American Unitarianism”, accusing the liberals of, well, believing what they actually did believe. The Standing Order broke down as the Congregational churches split into Orthodox Trinitarian and Liberal churches. The liberals increasingly felt pressure to defend themselves against charges of English Unitarianism, since they held a higher view of Jesus as savior than the English Unitarians. “Unitarian did, however describe their view of the Oneness of God, and finally in 1819, in Baltimore, William Ellery Chaning preached the sermon that was the manifesto of American Unitarianism. In it he asked why God would created us with free will and then punish us for using it. Why he, as a supposedly loving father, would choose some of his children to go to eternal damnation. Weren’t his listeners all better parents than that? Why should we be better parents than God?

Our task from the beginning has been to define ourselves other than as against Calvinism. We still struggle with that. Many UU’s are most comfortable saying what we DON’T believe. At the beginning of our movement, we were pushed into declaring ourselves, “outed” by the attacks of the opposition. We still have a legacy of hiding, not wanting to make a fuss, not wanting to be right out there with our faith.

Unitarian means we believe in the unity of God, that there is only one. Or, as some agnostic UU’s put it, “at MOST one God, and Universalist, meaning we believe everyone is saved. No one dies into eternal damnation. This, to me, is truly good news, and I would like to join William Ellery Channing in his passion to proclaim that truly good news.

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 or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
October 27, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

This is a child friendly service. We bring photographs of those we would like to claim as our ancestors and teachers.

Chalice Lighting

This is our circle of chalice light,
where peace and love are burning bright.
A place of wonder, a place for fun,
Welcome, Welcome, Everyone!

Affirming Our Mission

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

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 or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
October 13, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

With the help of some folks at the church with Judaism in their heritage, we will have a traditional “booth” in the courtyard that reminds us of the story about how the people were protected on their long journey through the desert. What protects us on our journey?

Lighting the Chalice

May the flame we now kindle light the path back to our center, back to that place of belonging again to our deepest self. And may our chalice remind us that we are held and welcomed whole, without the need to hide a single piece or part of who we are.

Call to Worship

John O’Donohue

You travel certainly, in every sense of the word. But you take with you everything that you have been, just as the landscape stores up its own past. Because you were once at home somewhere, you are never an alien anywhere.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

A NEW HEART
Chaim Stern

Who can say: I have purified my heart, and I am free from sin?

There are none on earth so righteous that they never sin.

Cast away all the evil you have done, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.

A new heart will I give you, a new spirit put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and give you a heart that feels.

For thus says the Eternal God: I, Myself, will search for My sheep, and seek them out.

As a shepherd seeks them out when any of the flock go astray, so will I seek out My sheep.

I will put My spirit within you, and teach you to live by My laws.

For I desire love and not sacrifices, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Sermon

SUKKOT Protection in the Desert

Tonight at sundown those among and around us who are of Jewish heritage begin to celebrate Sukkot, a festival of returning to temporary shelter to remind yourself of how you were protected in times of being lost, in times of wandering, of transition. Those whose holiday this is to celebrate build a hut, a sukkah outside. It has to have three walls and a roof made of natural materials that used to be growing in the ground. You have to be able to see the stars through it, so you have some shade and some openness to the sun and rain. It’s a temporary shelter. Obviously not ideal. Some of our congregation with ties to the Jewish tradition have made a Sukkah out in the courtyard. The sukkah is decorated with fruits and vegetables. The family eats meals out there for seven days.

The layers of symbolism range from “this is the kind of hut the harvest workers used out in the field, so they didn’t have to go all the way home when night felL” To “this is the kind of thing we built in the desert while we were wandering for 40 years.”

Rosh Hashannah, the birthday of the world, comes first. Then, on the tenth day of the new year, comes Yom Kippur, a day of fasting and confession.

Sukkot always comes 5 days after Yom Kippur, when the community has fasted for a day and thought about wrongs they’ve done. They’ve made an apology where it’s needed.

Maybe there is a connection. When you strip yourself out of your routine, let something else drive other than your ego, doing ritual with your people, when you confess, face your wrongs, when you do a “searching and fearless moral inventory,” you can start again, in a way. You might want a ritual that reminds you of how your people started. Maybe the holiday comes right after Yom Kippur because you have fasted and stepped out of the regular day to day, and maybe that gives you a lightness of being. This festival of Sukkot embodies this lightness of being, this acknowledgement that you only need a few things.

It can also remind you that your body is a tiny fragile shelter. Sometimes you are temporarily strong. Other times you get sick, and we all get old.

The Jews are reminded by these sukkot that they were at one time a wandering people, looking for their place to settle and grow things. They were migrants. What they had they carried with them. They didn’t belong back in Egypt where they had been enslaved. They didn’t have a land of their own (although their faith story says God had promised them a land, but it already had people on it, and they killed some of those people and took the land. This is a whole other sermon) If you remind yourself of the story of your people, that leads to a sense that you don’t belong to one place, but rather you belong to the people with this story.

Many of our families have stories about the family: the story of when we came over through Ellis Island. The story that this is the land we’ve been on and fought for for the past 600 years, remember when our great grandparents owned all of that over there. Remember when the dust blew and the whole family got in the old car and moved to Bakersfield, and they called us Okies even though we were from Arkansas? Remember our grandfather and his three sisters who had a band that played at all the dance halls. Unitarians have stories of our people too. Remember when a minister in SF did a civil union between two men in 1957. Remember when our press, Beacon Press, at great risk, published the Pentagon Papers. Remember John Quincy Adams and John C Calhoun, both Unitarians but with bitter political differences, built All Souls Unitarian Church in DC ? Remember Elliot Richardson, the AG who refused to fire Archibald Cox, the Watergate Prosecutor, was a Unitarian Universalist. We tell the stories of our people and feel those stories resonate within our spirits.

For the Jews, building the Sukkah outdoors, near your sturdy house or apartment, eating meals out there for 7 days, interrupts your daily routine enough to invite thoughts like “What is enough? What do we really need in life? How grateful I am for the sturdy walls where I can have books and be dry and cool or warm and watch TV, but life at its most basic can still exist, and it is the people who are in the sukkah with you who are part of your heart, you support and sustain one another, just eating outside together, that is enough.

The sukkah reminds us of how fragile our shelter, our bodies, our life plans, our mores and institutions are, and how vulnerable others may be, and what it feels like to be vulnerable. Knowing how little you need can help you be brave, to stand up, even though it means you might get fired in the Saturday Night massacre, to resign, even though it means there might be a mean tweet coming your way. Knowing the fragility of shelter, having just a kind and gentle reminder of what people have lived with and without, makes you strong in the world. That is what makes a mighty spirit.

Let’s turn it around, too. Maybe we are meant to be shelter for one another when we’re see our siblings wandering. This church is now being a shelter for our guest in Sanctuary. Maybe this week your heart, your voice, your stories have been a shelter for someone who is lost. Maybe at a time when you were lost, you felt a protection come from the Mystery, by whatever name you call it. This is a day to be grateful for the protections and the shelter in our lives, and to look for ways to be shelter for one another.

Dr. Brene Brown says people who have the deepest sense of true belonging are those who also have the courage to stand alone when called to do that. They are willing to maintain their integrity and risk disconnection in order to stand up for what they believe in.

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 or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
October 6, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

A Juicy Slice of Unitarian History: Transcendentalism & the Concord ‘Genius Cluster’ We sometimes forget that our forebears in this faith were human. Thoreau, Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne. How were they all in relationship to one another?

Chalice Lighting

We light the fire of Truth and ask to be clear, wise, and humble enough to admit when we don’t know. We kindle the warmth of community and ask for open heartedness and patience. We are grateful to the Spirit of Life and ask to learn the secret to loving and being loved.

Call to Worship
Black Elk

That which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

THE OVERSOUL
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let us learn the revelation of all nature and thought; that the Highest dwells within us, that the sources of nature are in our own minds.

As there is no screen or ceiling between our heads and the infinite heavens, so there is no bar or wall in the soul where we, the effect, cease, and God, the cause, begins.

I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will I call mine.

There is deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is accessible to us.

Every moment when the individual feels invaded by it is memorable.

It comes to the lowly and simple; it comes to whosoever will put off what is foreign and proud; it comes as insight; it comes as serenity and grandeur.

The soul’s health consists in the fullness of its reception.

For ever and ever the influx of this better and more universal self is new and unsearchable.

Within us is the soul of the whole; the wise silence, the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal One.

When it breaks through our intelect, it is genius; when it breathes through our will, it is virtue. when it flows through our affections, it is love.

Sermon

Sometimes there is a cluster of people who make things happen, who influence one another, build on one another, challenge and inspire and complement one another until each is greater than they could have been alone. In the eighteen thirties, forties and fifties such a group of people lived in Concord MA. It could not have happened without Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Emerson was born to a Unitarian minister and his wife in Boston MA in 1803, as Beethoven was writing the Eroica Symphony, as Napoleon was considering invading England, and the Louisiana Purchase is made, doubling the size of the United States. Emerson’s father died when he was almost eight, and his mother struggled to make ends meet. His aunt Mary Moody Emerson became the one who paid for Waldo’s education at the Boston Latin School, then Harvard, where his academic career was undistinguished. He was class poet his senior year, but only after six others had turned down the offer. Mary Moody is said to have been a curmudgeon, having the questionable gift of being able to say more unpleasant things in half an hour than anyone else living.

Waldo became a Unitarian minister and fell in love with a delicate young woman named Ellen Tucker. They married as soon as she turned eighteen. She was from a wealthy family, and had a great deal of money coming to her when she turned twenty-one. Unfortunately she died before that birthday, leaving Emerson heartbroken, crazed with grief. He visited her grave often, even opening her casket a year after she died because he missed her so terribly. His belief in God began to fall apart, or it began to evolve, from my perspective. The members of his congregation were not so supportive of these changes.

Then there was the obscure little lawsuit that changed everything Waldo was a young man, grieving over his beloved wife. Emerson’s brother-in-law felt he should not get the money that had been coming to Ellen, but an angry Waldo sued the family and was granted the inheritance. This money made all the difference. The money made all the difference for him. It made all the difference for Thoreau. It made the difference for the Alcott family and for many men and women escaping from being enslaved in the South. Interest on the money granted to him by the courts paid him as much per year as he was making as a minister.

He finally quit the church because he couldn’t stand the ceremony of communion any more. People should pay attention to living their principles during the week instead of focusing on having communion on the weekend to make everything okay. He began writing and lecturing, making his living through his stirring speaking style, which drew enthusiastic crowds.

He was asked to give the graduation address at Harvard, where a class of ministers was graduating, and he came down so hard on the local churches, talking about how dull they were, how rule-bound, how frozen and intellectual their ministers’ sermons that it was impossible for their people to get nourishment for their souls at church. Harvard did not appreciate the alternative vision he painted of finding the divine in nature, in the oneness of all things, of following your inner wisdom, respecting the knowledge that comes fresh to you from your experience rather than quoting people whose wisdom may have been good for their own times but might have nothing to do with the now. The people at Harvard asked him not to come back, and he did not, until he was an old man and they asked him to help with the memorial service for those killed in the Civil War.

One of the places he spoke was on Cape Cod, where, at the post-lecture reception he met a slender woman named Lydia. They had a nice conversation, and several months later he wrote her a letter proposing marriage. He apologized for not having time to ask her in person. She wrote him a letter accepting his proposal. He asked that she change her name to Lydian, and she did. They bought the big house by the road in Concord and started a family.

Emerson made a practice of inviting people who interested him to come to Concord. Bronson Alcott’s Temple School in Boston had just gone broke due to his not being a very practical headmaster and because they believed that there was no original sin, that the children were basically good and their spirits did not need to be broken. They believed the children should move around a lot during the day and have various experiences as they learned, rather than sitting still and reciting the knowledge the teachers were imparting, and also perhaps because there was a slight scandal as they believed in teaching the children frankly about procreation. Emerson wrote and invited the Alcotts to come to Concord. He found a house for them to rent. They came and stayed.

Mostly it was Emerson who paid their rent, another neighbor who paid their taxes while Bronson taught his daughters and expounded his theories about vegetarian eating and proper education. His daughter Louisa May Alcott was a wild pony of a girl, always pretending she was a horse. She told her parents she’d been a horse in a former life. She was outspoken and had dark eyes and dark hair, unlike his blonder daughters, and he felt there was a correlation between having a divine nature and being blond. As you know, Louisa May came through for the family, and when Emerson wasn’t around to support them any more, she did it with her writing.

Another friend in Concord was David Henry Thoreau, who changed his name to Henry David Thoreau. He was another Harvard graduate whose family owned a pencil factory in Concord. He was a green man, always in the woods or on the river, with strong views on simplicity of living, on the divine being found in nature, of living without getting drunk – drinking only water. He had a child like spirit, scorning nice clothes, baths and haircuts in favor of befriending the foxes and trees, and knowing the call of every bird and the name of every plant. Emerson and his family found him delightful. He became a teacher for their two sons, who adored him.

For a while he courted Lydian’s sister Lucy, who was staying with the family. He was in his twenties and she was nearly forty, but he thought she was elegant and sophisticated. Mostly though, as the years went on, he loved Lydian. When Emerson went on speaking tours he stayed at the house to look after everything. He planted the garden, fixed the porch, built Lydian a secret compartment under one of the dining room chairs to store her good gloves. The Emerson children loved him. Did Lydian? We don’t know. The Emersons supported Thoreau, and when he wanted to move to the woods, they gave him use of a woodlot they owned by Walden Pond, where he built a tiny shack in which he lived for a time to write a book about his boat trip up the river with his brother John. John had died of Lockjaw the same year the Emersons’ young son Waldo died of Scarlet Fever, and the community was bonded in sorrow over these two terrible losses.

Another frequent house guest was the brilliant, beautiful and radical Margaret Fuller. Lydian took to her bed when Margaret was in the house. The way Emerson looked at her, the letters they wrote back and forth across the hall from his study to Margaret’s bedroom, the long walks they took in the woods together, all were too much for Lydian to endure. Margaret’s father had educated her well beyond the limits normally observed by young women of the day. She had studied Latin and Greek, astronomy and history, theology and literature. She was the first women allowed access to the sacred halls of the Harvard Library. In a time when women were forbidden to get paid for speaking in public, she made her living by hosting “Conversations” at the Boston bookstore run by Elizabeth Peabody. Women would come from far and wide to hear these conversations on marriage, the role of women, sexuality and all manner of topics challenging the commonly held mores and values of the culture. She was a challenging woman, who would “break her sword on your shield,” and the men loved to engage with her. It helped that she had large beautiful eyes, abundant hair and a lovely figure, and that she was as well educated as any of them.

Another friend who came to Concord because of the people gathering there was Nathaniel Hawthorne. He had courted Elizabeth Peabody, but had ended up marrying her less challenging and sicklier sister Sophie. Emerson arranged for a friend of his to rent them a house within walking distance of his own and the Alcotts. Hawthorne was handsome and moderately successful as a writer. He was a member of the Transcendental Club that Emerson hosted, where they talked about Eastern religion and philosophy, about the oneness of everything, about the old mores and what the new ones should be. If Emerson was in love with Fuller, Hawthorne was more so. He would come take her for walks, and they would sit in the woods on a blanket and talk for hours. Sophie Hawthorne handled it the opposite way from Lydian, declaring that she adored Margaret too, maybe more than Nathaniel did. When Emerson came looking for Margaret and found her in the woods with Hawthorne, though, suddenly the man whose house the Hawthornes were renting needed his home back and they had to move to Salem. In his fever of loss he wrote a book about a sensual and lovely young woman who was made to wear a scarlet letter A after having been caught in an affair. She embroidered it with gold thread, insisting that coming together with her lover was a sacred act. Sophie hated the book, as she knew exactly who that woman was. Horace Greely offered Margaret a job as an editor of the New York Tribune, so she left for New York to do that.

Thoreau came out of the woods and began living in Concord again. His book about the boat trip was published but it didn’t sell well. He began putting his journals from the pond together, looking for a publisher. No one wanted to touch them. He kept polishing them until they were the first American memoir, one of the books that shaped American thought and philosophy. Finally Emerson paid to have them published.

Emerson also paid the way for the runaway slaves who were on their way to Canada. The homes in Concord were a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Throughout the story of this group is the refrain “Emerson paid ….. ” If Thoreau had had to get a job, where would American thought be? If the Alcotts had disintegrated under the grind of their poverty, where would American literature be? If the Transcendentalists hadn’t been rooted un Unitarianism, hadn’t formed the thought of a religion which could contain those who believe that everything was connected, that all was one with one soul, that wisdom comes from within, that there is a spark of the divine in everyone, that the divine can be seen and felt in nature, where would UUism be? Emerson paid for the space where all of this could happen.

In this congregation we have people who don’t make much money, people who have just enough to live on if they don’t go on vacations or send the kids to private school, and people who have enough to share. It’s sometimes hard to be one of the ones who gives more than others do. This congregation needs about two thousand dollars per family to be sturdy, to have the people it needs to hold the sacred space for us to have the indescribable and life-sustaining experiences we have here, to have the outreach that supports justice work in this state. For some, two thousand is not possible. For others, ten thousand or twenty thousand is a possibility. Some can step into the role of being the Emersons of this community. It will never be fair. Did Emerson always support the community happily and without a thought of resentment? No. Sometimes he felt he was the only grownup around. Sometimes he gave openheartedly. He always gave. Think about whether it might be your time to be an Emerson here.

Whatever happened to Margaret Fuller?

She became a journalist, and traveled overseas, the first female foreign correspondent reporting on the Roman revolution. She wrote about Garibaldi and the rebels, and news made its way back to MA that she was in love with a Count. The Count had been disinherited because of his revolutionary activities. He was going to make her a Marquesa. She was pregnant. Had they married? She wanted to come home. There was hardly a place for her around Boston with her radical ideas, her education, her conversation. How much less would there be a place for her now, married to a foreigner. If not married, then with a child out of wedlock. It was beyond imagining. The boat left the harbor too low in the water from all the Italian marble in the hold, including a bust of John C Calhoun bound for Cola SC. He was also a Unitarian, although not one of the angels on the abolition issue. Margaret’s friend Robert Browning begged her not to get on the boat. She herself had a sense of foreboding. She and the baby, Nino, and the Count set off. The Captain died of smallpox and was buried at sea before they’d gone very far at all. Nino, the baby, got smallpox too, but his parents nursed him back to health. The new Captain, inexperienced, overshot the NY harbor and the ship ran aground off of Fire Island at three in the morning in gale winds and high waves. The ship began to break apart. All that marble in the hull began to break through. One ship board friend jumped into the water to try to swim to shore, visible and not too far away through the pounding surf. They watched him drown. A sailor who had befriended the baby offered to take the child to shore. They strapped Nino to the man’s chest and then had to watch them both drown. Margaret was seen by folks on shore standing on the deck, her long dark hair whipping around in the wind, her white nightgown already making her a ghost, and then the ship and everyone still on it disappeared under the waves. The bust of John C Calhoun was recovered and sent to Cola. The Count’s body washed up on shore, but Margaret was never seen again.

“All the Gossip from Concord”
Roses reading by Emerson
Readings all from the Friends in Concord
From Margaret Fuller. Rock star, radical thinker
From the Hymn book
A new manifestation is at hand

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 or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
September 29, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We hold an apple and talk about how apples developed. Were they developed by humans or did they develop themselves in order to appeal more to humans, insects, birds, and animals so their DNA would be spread far and wide? How smart is this apple?

Chalice Lighting

We light the fire of Truth and ask to be clear, wise, and humble enough to admit when we don’t know. We kindle the warmth of community and ask for open heartedness and patience. We are grateful to the Spirit of Life and ask to learn the secret to loving and being loved.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading
THE BOTANY OF DESIRE
by Michael Pollan

We’re prone to overestimate our own agency in nature. Many of these activities humans think they take for their own good puposes in agriculture (outlawing certain plants, fighting bugs, and replacing other) are mere contingencies as far as nature is concerned. Our grammar might teach us to divide the world into active subjects and passive objects but in a coevolutionary relationship every subject is also an object, every object a subject. That’s why it makes just as much sense to think of agriculture as something the grasses did as a way to conquer the trees.

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 or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
September 22, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

It’s Celebration Sunday. This is our 65th birthday as a congregation. We kick it off with a celebration of faithful giving, dedicated leadership, and maybe just a bit of cake.

Chalice Lighting

We light the fire of Truth and ask to be clear, wise, and humble enough to admit when we don’t know. We kindle the warmth of community and ask for open heartedness and patience. We are grateful to the Spirit of Life and ask to learn the secret to loving and being loved.

Call to Worship
from Book of Micah in the Hebrew Bible

How shall I enter the Eternal’s presence. Shall I come with sacrifices of yearling calves to offer. Would the Eternal care for lambs in the thousands or for oil flowing in myriad streams. What does the eternal ask of you but to be Just, Kind, and live in quiet fellowship with your God.

Affirming Our Mission

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

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 or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
September 8, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

How to Change Minds: Notes from the FBI Hostage Negotiators Handbook
Continuing last week’s glimpse into the satisfactions and challenges of relationships, we’ll talk about loving and being loved by people with very different beliefs, sacred tenets, and styles from our own.

Chalice Lighting

We light the fire of Truth and ask to be clear, wise, and humble enough to admit when we don’t know. We kindle the warmth of community and ask for open heartedness and patience. We are grateful to the Spirit of Life and ask to learn the secret to loving and being loved.

Call to Worship
Lao-Tse

If there is to be peace in the world, 
There must be peace in the nations. 
If there is to be peace in the nations, 
There must be peace in the cities. 
If there is to be peace in the cities, 
There must be peace between neighbors. 
If there is to be peace between neighbors, 
There must be peace in the home. 
If there is to be peace in the home, 
There must be peace in the heart.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading 
Thich N’hat Hanh

Let us be at peace with our bodies and our minds. Let us return to ourselves and become wholly ourselves.

Let us be aware of the source of being, common to us all and to all living things.

Evoking the presence of the Great Compassion, let us fill our hearts with our own compassion – towards ourselves and towards all living beings.

Let us pray that we ourselves cease to be the cause of suffering to each other.

With humility, with awareness of the existence of life, and of the sufferings that are going on around us, let us practice the establishment of peace in our hearts and on earth.

Amen.

Meta Meditation

May I be free from danger.
May I be mentally happy.
May I be physically happy.
May I have ease of well-being.

Sermon

HOW TO CHANGE MINDS:
NOTES FROM THE FBI HOSTAGE NEGOTIATORS HANDBOOK

This is a question I hear over and over. “How do I talk to my fundamentalist family about being a unitarian universalist?”

We all have family members who think very differently from the ways we do. This sermon is a series of suggestions and some crucial bits of information about how liberals can talk to conservatives. We not only have family whose religious beliefs are more conservative than ours might be, we have family whose politics are more conservative. How can we talk to them? How can we listen, love, and stand our ground?

Hard Wired

The news from science about changing a person’s mind through rational discourse is this: When someone feels something strongly, you can talk yourself blue in the face and not make a dent. You can post the wittiest and most cogent memes on Facebook, you can email jokes and facts and charts and not make a dent. You won’t make a dent in them and their memes won’t make a dent in you. We almost can’t help it. Study after study is showing that the very brains of liberals, conservatives and moderates are wired differently. In a study at University of Nebraska, the scientists follow people’s involuntary responses, including eye movements, when they are shown scary, neutral, pleasant or disgusting photos. It turns out that conservatives react more strongly to the pictures which might create fear or disgust. John Hibbing, of the University of Nebraska, says conservatives are more attuned to fearful or negative stimuli. So the conservative focus on a strong military, tough law enforcement, resistance to immigration, and wanting the widespread availability of guns may go with an underlying threat-oriented biology. I heard a white woman on tv say the other day, in a frantic tone “I’m not living without guns!”

John Jost from NYU drew a lot of backlash from conservatives when his studies seemed to show in 2003 that conservatives have a greater need for certainty and an intolerance of ambiguity. Their funding was looked into, but so many peers were finding the same results that it makes everyone safer. The correlations between the body’s reactivity and political ideology are so striking that they can predict a person’s political views from simply watching the eye movements they make when seeing the aversive photographs. There is a common sense evolutionary imperative for threat-oriented wiring. Conservatives also tend to be happier, more emotionally stable. Liberals a bit more neurotic. Being sure of things, having strong ideas of what’s familiar and an aversion to what’s strange or icky keeps you happier, apparently, than being open to new experiences, being bothered by inequality and fretting about the suffering of others. I’m not saying conservatives don’t fret about the suffering of others. They just have a more certain, rule oriented plan for what should be done. I think, since there seem to be almost even numbers of those on the right and left, that nature decided we need people with their foot on the gas and people with their foot on the brake, in terms of social change or systems of belief.

Moral Code

It’s hardwired. The only way to change someone’s mind is to show them that their behavior or practice is counter to their own moral code. Not counter to your moral code, their own. But other studies show that the moral codes used are different. In a study by Jesse Graham, Jonathan Haidt, and Brian A. Nosek University of Virginia, liberals cared more about fairness and compassion. Conservatives cared about those two sets of moral imperatives too, but also measured things in terms of respect for authority, the purity and sanctity of ideas and institutions and in-group loyalty. Those last three were less important to liberal’s thinking, although I think liberals could give conservatives a run for their money in the purity/sanctity section if they had talked about boycotts. We like to be pure in where we get our chocolate and consumer goods. I am flummoxed because Target is on the list of “good on guns” but it’s also on the list of companies implicated somehow in the burning of the rain forest. Purity is hard to achieve. We are also purity nuts about recycling. In Berkeley, where we were in an Air BNB for a month, there were five bins. One for yard waste, one for clean paper, one for dirty paper, one for glass and one for plastic. The host finally just said, “Oh, don’t worry about it. I’ll sort it when you leave.”

Steps to Change

Talk about the FBI hostage negotiators about this. What they know is that arguments are emotional. It is rare that someone you’re arguing with will change their mind due to a rational argument. Negotiators have diagramed what they call the Path to Behavioral Change.

Behavioral Change Stairway
Listening is the foundation that supports each step.

The first step is active listening. When a Republican is talking to a crazy liberal, or a liberal is talking to your wacky uncle who listens to Rush, the first step in changing someone’s mind is active listening. So you would say “tell me more.” You would say “How did you come to this view?” As they talk, you don’t evaluate: “hm, that’s a good point,” or “I’m not sure your facts are straight….” You just say small encouraging things. “hm.” Or “I hear you.” You might ask open ended questions, like I mentioned before “How did you come to that view?” “What do you think about the front runners?” “What policies really feel important to you?” You can also just, without being weird about it, repeat the last phrase they said. If they say “I just think this is the stupidest group of leaders we’ve ever had.” You could say “the stupidest we’ve ever had?” Using pauses can be extremely effective. When the Moonies and I were talking about their beliefs, sometimes all I would need to do was stay quiet after they had said something and let their words hang in the air. “You say Mr. Moon takes away your sins before he marries you? How does he do that, exactly? By dabbing some wine on your photographs Hm.” It also can help to name the emotions you hear. “That sounds like it was upsetting.” “That makes you mad.” “It doesn’t seem fair to you.”

It’s hard for even the most passionate and committed person to carry on a one-sided argument. You are listening, and not only that, you are showing them that you are listening. This is a rare enough experience for anyone to being to open things up between you.

Empathy is the second step of the ladder to change. This doesn’t mean making understanding noises or saying an understanding phrase. This means really having empathy, emotionally relating, to the other person’s perspective. This is what the active listening is for, partially. To actually ask the questions which will help you get to a place of understanding.

Rapport, when the other person feels in their body, their mind and their spirit, that you understand, when they begin to actually feel you with them, is the next step. See, this is hard. I rebel at this point. I don’t want to look at the places in me that actually relate to their fears, phobias, suspicion of the stranger, “disasterizing” about the future, cruelty to the suffering, what I see as lack of communitarian spirit. Without getting in touch with those places in you, conversation is not going to be fruitful. If you are a conservative talking to a crazy liberal, you may need to get in touch with the places in you that feel for other people, that want to help, that can face suffering and the reality that it isn’t always the person’s fault who is suffering, the idea that the world is big and overwhelming and our country might not be the greatest country there ever was, that we might have bad decisions, greed and cruelty in our history, that some of us are victimized by others, that security is an illusion, etc.

After rapport is established, then comes influence. It is at this point that you might be able to influence the thinking and feeling of another person. Since empathy, though, you are open to their influence as well. Our mistake is that we try to jump right into influencing other people. Things seem so clear to us. The facts seem to make our conclusion so obvious. One problem is that it seems everyone has different facts.

It used to be that people thought facts were supposed to be – you know, factual. When JFK debated Nixon, though, he later confessed that he just made up the statistics he cited. Made them up. They sounded great. Now it seems that people will say things with great authority whether they are true or not.

It used to be that media outlets had to give both sides of an argument. They had to seek out viewpoints on all sides, facts which supported all sides, present them to people so they could decide. During the Reagan administration, the Fairness Doctrine was abolished. I think that was 1987. In 1988 Rush Limbaugh started his radio show. These days, most people watch Fox news or MSNBC. They get red facts and blue facts. They hear about red issues and blue issues. You have to really work to hear both sides. Reasoned and civil discussions are not the style. It is easier and more fun for people to mock one another, to imagine that the people on the other side are ridiculous, crazy, clowns! All this does is to make you feel energized and good in a nasty way about your own side. I’m not asking us to stop that, but you have to understand that we can’t ask those who feel differently to stop their emails, jokes and memes either. It sounds like a lot of listening is recommended. And love even though they may not be able to see how right you are.

Your religious conservatives have a scripture they rely on. They are in a paradigm that is like a train track. They can see you here, where they are, or over there, wrong within the paradigm. You are in the field beside the track, waving from wild territory. My father says, “But, Meg, the Bible says….” I nod and say “yes it does.” He’s not wrong. I say “I don’t go by what the Bible says all the time.” “But it’s bread, it’s the word, it’s the authority,” he says. I smile with as much love as I have in my heart and say “I know you believe that.”

“In terms of their personalities, liberals and conservatives have long been said to differ in ways that correspond to their conflicting visions. Liberals on average are more open to experience, more inclined to seek out change and novelty both personally and politically (McCrae, 1996). Conservatives, in contrast, have a stronger preference for things that are familiar, stable, and predictable (Jost, Nosek, & Gosling, 2008; McCrae, 1996). Conservatives – at least, the subset prone to authoritarianism-also show a stronger emotional sensitivity to threats to the social order, which motivates them to limit liberties in defense of that order (Altemeyer, 1996; McCann, 2008; Stenner, 2005). Jost, Glaser, Sulloway, and Kruglanski (2003) concluded from a meta-analysis of this literature that the two core aspects of conservative ideology are resistance to change and acceptance of inequality. How can these various but complementary depictions of ideological and personality differences be translated into specific predictions about moral differences? First, we must examine and revise the definition of the moral domain.”

“Liberals and Conservatives Rely on Different Sets of Moral Foundations 
Jesse Graham, Jonathan Haidt, and Brian A. Nosek University of Virginia 
How and why do moral judgments vary across the political spectrum? 

To test moral foundations theory (J. Haidt & J. Graham, 2007; J. Haidt & C. Joseph, 2004), the authors developed several ways to measure people’s use of 5 sets of moral intuitions:

• Harm/care
• Fairness/reciprocity
• Ingroup/loyalty
• Authority/ respect
• Purity/sanctity

Across 4 studies using multiple methods, liberals consistently showed greater endorsement and use of the Harm/care and Fairness/reciprocity foundations compared to the other 3 foundations, whereas conservatives endorsed and used the 5 foundations more equally.”

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 or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
September 1, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Annual Water Ceremony: We bring water from a place that has fed our souls and spirits over the summer months and mingle these waters together to remind us of our connection to one another. In connections with friends, family, work mates and church members there is both joy and learning. How do we find ease and joy as we cross the rivers that present themselves?

Chalice Lighting

We light the fire of Truth and ask to be clear, wise, and humble enough to admit when we don’t know. We kindle the warmth of community and ask for open heartedness and patience. We are grateful to the Spirit of Life and ask to learn the secret to loving and being loved.

Call to Worship

WATER
Phillip Larkin

If I were called in 
To construct a religion 
I should make use of water.

Going to church 
Would entail a fording
To dry, different clothes;

My liturgy would employ 
Images of sousing, 
A furious devout drench!

And I should raise in the east 
A glass of water 
Where any-angled light 
Would congregate endlessly.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

WATER
Wendell Berry

I was born in the drought year. That summer my mother waited in the house, enclosed in the sun and the dry ceaseless wind, for the men to come back in the evenings, bringing water from a distant spring. Veins of leaves ran dry, roots shrank.

And all my life I have dreaded the return of that year, sure that it is still somewhere like a dead enemy’s soul. Fear of dust in my mouth is always with me, and I am the faithful husband of the rain. I love the water of the wells and the springs, and the taste of roofs in the water of cisterns.

I am a dry man whose thirst is praise of clouds, and whose mind is something of a cup. My sweetness is to wake in the night after days of dry heat, hearing the rain.

Sermon

Water Ceremony: Many Rivers to Cross

Many rivers to cross describes a feeling of defeat and despair, in what feels like a foreign land. Sometimes we are at home in this place and sometimes we feel like we are in a foreign land. This is one of the reasons we gather here. We need one another, more at some times in life than others.

In UU congregations across the country we have Ingathering services this time of year. In the old days UU churches shut down in the summertime. In September the “church year” started up again, and people would bring water from their summer travels. We go through the summer here, and we bring water from places that have nourished our spirits, which can be from far flung places or from the tap in the kitchen. The places are important, because we learn a little more about the people around us, but what’s most important is seeing the waters coming together. You can’t tell which water is from Brazil and which is from the Brazos. More of us are becoming more and more aware of how precious water is, and some cultures are putting into law their understanding of water as a being with rights of its own.

Lake Erie, last February, was granted the right to flourish without being polluted, and citizens of OH can now sue polluters on behalf of the lake. In the past decade the nature rights movement has grown, with rivers and forests winning legal rights in Ecuador, Colombia, India and New Zealand.

Living near Appalachia, it never made sense to me that someone upstream from your land could dump poison into the water, hurting your crops and your livestock, and that not be against the law. In our Western philosophy so far, humans have “dominion” over the land, and can take anything from it they want to. They take whole tops off of mountains, and that’s not against the law. This water is a precious resource, and clean water should be a human right, not just the right of someone with the money to buy water that Nestle has drawn from Florida springs or one of the great lakes.

This water also can be a teacher. What properties does water have that we might want to study? It’s very flexible in its liquid state. It runs around barriers, it sinks through soil, it flows down roof gutters into the rain barrel, down streets to the drains, down the sewers to the treatment plant, etc. Can we wonder, in a difficult situation, “I wonder what this moment would be like if I were like water?”

Water is also persistent. It trickles over rock and carves grooves, then canyons.

Can we wonder, as we struggle with despair over cruelty and injustice “I wonder what would happen if we were as persistent as water?”

I say “we” because one little drop of water is not going to make any kind of a groove, much less a canyon. These are our waters together, and they teach us that if enough drops get together they will have to work harder to evaporate us, to mop us up, to make us go away. Remember the story of King Canute, who ruled England long ago. Walking by the shore, his followers, sycophants and so called advisors praised him, the way some rulers like to be praised. “O King, you are the greatest man in the world, all bow before you. None would dare disobey you. You shall have anything you want, and your will shapes the universe.” Canute was a man of good sense, and he grew tired of this foolish talk.

“Bring me my chair and I will command the waves.” He sat and held up his hand, commanding the waves . “Very well. Sea,” cried Canute, “I command you to come no further! Waves, stop your rolling!. Surf, stop your pounding! Do not dare touch my feet!”

He waited a moment, quietly, and a tiny wave rushed up the sand and lapped at his feet.

“How dare you!” Canute shouted. “Ocean, turn back now! I have ordered you to retreat before me, and now you must obey! Go back!”

No ruler on earth, no company boss, no President can hold back the people forever if they demand justice. Hong Kong, Moscow, in myriad US towns, the people move. Like water. Flexible, persistent, together.

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 or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above. Text of this sermon is not available.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
August 18, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

All-Ages Service. Who are we as UU’s? Our children in schools need to know who we are. In their classes we say the 7 principles and the classroom covenants they wrote at the very beginning. This is not a non-denominational church. It is a church with strong roots in Central Europe and in New England. Unitarians shaped this country in mostly good ways. How did Unitarianism take shape?

Chalice Lighting

As we light the chalice may our souls become its hearth. We join our hearts to the one great flame of bright compassion, Beloved Community, and fervent justice. May our sparks become a wildfire in the world, lighting the way for all.

Call to worship

THE INWARD JOURNEY
Howard Thurman

In the quietness of this place 
surrounded by the all pervading presence of the holy 
my heart whispers

Keep fresh before me the memories of my high resolve,
that in fair weather or foul, in good times or tempest,
in the days when the foes are nameless or familiar,
that I may not forget that which my life is committed.

Keep fresh before me the moments of my high resolve.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Backpack Blessing

GOT ROOM FOR LOVE?
By Erika A. Hewitt

We carry bags with us throughout the week for many reasons. If you have a bag with you, and you want to have it blessed, please bring it forward, send it forward with a helper, or lift up your bag.

• Some of us take books and homework to school
• Some of us bring our lunches to school or to work
• Some of us take computers and other supplies to the places where we work
• Some kids carry overnight bags from one parent’s house to their other parent’s house, and back again
• Some people bring things like books or yarn and knitting needles to places where they might need to wait patiently
• and some people even have special bags for their dogs and other animals!

Are your bags already full of things? Do you imagine that it might get full one day? Maybe. For this blessing, then, we’re going to add something to your bag – but don’t worry! It won’t add any weight, and it won’t take up any room.

Would any of you like to have some of our congregation’s love to take with you to school, or to work, or on your travels? If you feel love here on Sundays, wouldn’t you like to know that our love is with you on the other days?

To the congregation: Let’s do that. Please bundle some love up from wherever you’re storing it. You might rummage through your pockets or look up your sleeves and make a nice little pillow of love. … are you ready?

Those of you with your bags, make sure they’re open and hold them up to catch the love!

That was fun, so let’s add some more to your bags. Sometimes we get nervous when we go to school or work. Sometimes we wish we felt braver. I think it would be nice to know that our courage is with you on other days when you need it.

To the congregation: Let’s bundle up some courage to put in someone’s open bag.

What do you wish we could put in your bag, to take with you? Name it, and we’ll take it from our heart-supply, and we’ll toss it into your bag!

• bravery
• peace of mind
• friendliness
• confidence
• sense of being loved
• memory
• sense of fairness
• humor
• kindness
• forgiveness

Your bag might not look any different or feel any different, but the next time you use your bag I hope you’ll remember that we’ve added our blessings. Remember that:

• The Spirit of Life is with you at school or at work.
• This congregation cares about what happens to you at school or work.
• If you need more love or courage, you can ask us for more.

Reading

Eusebius

May I be an enemy to no one and the friend of what abides eternally.
May I never quarrel with those nearest me, and be reconciled quickly if I should. 
May I never plot evil against others, and if anyone plot evil against me, 
may I escape unharmed and without the need to hurt anyone else.
May I love, seek and attain only what is good. 
May I desire happiness for all and harbor envy for none.
May I never find joy in the misfortune of one who has wronged me.
May I never wait for the rebuke of others, but always rebuke myself until I make reparation.
May I gain no victory that harms me or my opponent.
May I reconcile friends who are mad at each other.
May I, insofar as I can, give all necessary help to my friends and to all who are in need.
May I never fail a friend in trouble.
May I be able to soften the pain of the 
grief stricken and give them comforting words.
May I respect myself.
May I always maintain control of my emotions.
May I habituate myself to be gentle, and never angry with others because of circumstances.
May I never discuss the wicked or what they have done, but know good people and 
follow in their footsteps.

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 or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Text of this sermon is not yet available. Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
August 11, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

It’s hard to feel belonging, but that is something we are thirsty for. What are some ways to build community here at First UU? How can deeper conversations happen?

Chalice Lighting

As we light the chalice may our souls become its hearth. We join our hearts to the one great flame of bright compassion, Beloved Community, and fervent justice. May our sparks become a wildfire in the world, lighting the way for all.

Affirming Our Mission

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

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 or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above. Text of this sermon is not available.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
August 4, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

What are some things to know in order to be a good ally to LGBTQ people? What are the answers to some questions about being gay you might have been scared to ask.

Chalice Lighting

We illuminate the chalice as a symbol of the flicker and flame within each of us. Let us take this bright promise into the world and set the lanterns of humanity alight.

Call to Worship

LOVE IS NOT CONCERNED
Alice Walker

love is not concerned
with whom you pray
or where you slept
the night you ran away
from home
love is concerned
that the beating of your heart
should kill no one

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

THE STREAM OF LIFE
Rabindranath Tagore

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death,
in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood
this moment.

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 or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS