When we pray

by Posted in Audio available, Guest Speakers, Nell Newton

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Nell Newton

March 13, 2011

You can listen to the sermon by clicking the play button below.

“Laughter is also a form of prayer.” Kierkegaard

Sermon: When We Pray

I am here to report back to you all that prayer has been discovered to exist among Unitarian Universalists! Back at the end of November I was up here and mused a bit on what prayer might look like for us. After dispensing with the juvenile aspects of prayer (oh lord, won’t you buy me a mercedez benz?) I asked you all to consider the possible uses of prayer, and to tell me about your experiences with prayer. Many of you kindly responded with wonderful stories. And yes, despite your stern and sensible exteriors, many of you have private rituals and words that, if looked at out of the corner of the eye, would bear strong resemblance to prayer.

This might be unexpected to those who don’t know us well. We do not have a fixed liturgy of prayer in our denomination. The rituals and words we have here at this church are not necessarily shared in other UU churches. You cannot walk into any UU church on a given Sunday and hear the same words spoken in the same way at the same time in the service. Our congregational roots give us the freedom to construct our worship as we see fit. Sometimes we include prayer and sometimes we don’t. While we treasure this freedom, some have pointed out that we might actually have a hollow space, a place otherwise filled by a shared and powerful practice of prayer. We have no common words to carry us through the rough parts of the journey — no call and response that wraps everyone together. Honestly, it is my guess that we would not trust any attempt at a one-size-fits all common prayer. But, while Unitarian Universalists are expected to build our own theologies, we often are not given the tools or formal instruction in how to build any prayers. In some ways, this is an underdeveloped part of our denominational psyche. We’re all over social action and the more cerebral bits of spirituality, but too often we don’t do the basics of grief and loss very well. And when we hit these terrifying transitions in life, we have no vocabulary to help us see ourselves as part of something larger, and we feel uncomfortable with our human need to ask for assurance in the face of self doubt or crisis.

Some have identified this as a “shadow” issue for Unitarian Universalists. “Shadow” because prayer was often rejected when we migrated out of mainstream churches. It was left behind or pushed away as a superstitious vehicle of dogma. But so often, that which we reject is exactly that which we need to be whole. And just as we are slowly reclaiming god-talk and other aspects of spirituality, the necessary re-examination of prayer will provoke anxiety until we learn to put prayer into a UU framework.

The good news is that when we do pray, we are inclusive and expansive. And, as a lifelong UU I see this empty spot as open and beckoning, a blank book that each of us is expected to fill in. But how do we begin?

Many of us started with prayers from our source traditions and, like careful seamstresses, let out places that were too tight and added in ease with amended words. Several people shared fresh translations of the Christian Lord’s Prayer which they use to serve as a grounding point in their days. Try this version and see if it fits better:

Great Spirit of all the universe, father and mother to us all We stand here in gratitude for all that is given to us. Please guide us to an awareness of the profound peace, wholeness, growth, and bounty that is possible. Teach us to recognize grace and forgiveness and to practice this in our lives. Bring us what we need each day and guide us to the contributions we can make that give our lives meaning. Thank you! Amen. Blessed Be.

Others among us left our home traditions and struck out into wilder woods. We learned to pray or meditate from other teachers, foreign and domestic. And even though we eventually made our way into this sanctuary, we brought along some interesting souvenirs from our experiences. Handy bits of Buddhism or calming affirmations — struck and stuck with us, and are touchstones we reach for in moments of crisis or joy.

And there are also the homemade prayers – made from durable materials we find laying about, or custom cast. Here are some tips to guide you in this process:

  • Remember that “God” is not god’s name! How you address your prayer must only make sense to you.
  • Whether you choose to focus on the holy outside or to connect more closely with the divine residing inside your own skin is again, your choice.
  • Prayer need not have anything to do with the supernatural! It can be a humanistic, naturalistic, or an ecstatic grounding of the self in the moment.

Retired UU minister Annie Foerster has pointed out that the traditional prayers were once new. And that the Psalms in the Hebrew bible were created by poets and lovers. She instructs us to think like poets and lovers as we set out to create our own prayers.

When I sit in prayer here at church, I close myself in to more closely feel the warmth and pulse of my palms pressed together. I feel my own breath close by. I find my center, where my universe spins, and I breathe. I find my bones and my blood and I breathe. I find my skin and my nerves and I breathe. Then I still myself just enough to become aware of the Everpresent. And that is when the tears of astonishment begin.

In my earlier sermon I spoke of prayers of intercession as a more juvenile form – but I have since changed my mind. Mature prayers of petition are not self-serving wishing and whining. Truly mature prayers that ask for something beyond oneself can be powerful and healing. One man explained that he had never been taught to pray, but now that he is older, he finds himself praying frequently. After surviving cancer, heart attack, and stroke, I think he’s entitled to whatever keeps him strong. But, here’s what struck me about his prayer – its simplicity and selflessness. The prayer he utters during times of stress or suffering consists of this simple sentence: “Oh God, help this go well.” “Oh God, help this go well.” He admits that he doesn’t know what “going well” might mean, but he’s seen so many ways that things can go bad. And, note that he’s not asking for “the best”, just “well”. He’ll be grateful for that.

Now, let’s think of the children… How or even should we teach our children to pray? Must we ask that they give thanks for what they already know is their birthright? And I doubt that many of us have laid them down to sleep, their souls offered up for god to keep. But what prayers might we weave above their heads so that they might feel loved and protected throughout the night? I’ll admit, when our son was born we filled his nursery with a Korean grandma spirit face, a St. Anthony medal, a Sri Lankan tiger mask, a Turkish glass eye amulet, and a dream catcher his grandmother made to keep him safe from evil spirits. And, for the record, he’s always been a good sleeper!

After listening to my first sermon, a fellow shared one prayer memory. He remembered being a little kid out shopping with his Mom. They were at the shoe-store, and he saw one of those sit-in metal cars that usually had pedals. But this one was battery powered and was on display as the prize in a drawing. That car totally captivated him. He was filled with utter desire, became obsessed with it, and probably annoyed his parents over it. He prayed to win that car. Prayed hard. But, for some reason he gave god an out: “Let me win that car or let me forget about it.” It was twenty years before he thought of that car again. He’s still not sure why he gave god an option. And he’s still not sure why the event came back up to the surface decades later but he recognizes that it reflects Kierkegaard’s insight that “The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”

My 12 year old daughter recently reported with some bitterness that she’s done with prayer because she’s tried it and it doesn’t work. Thinking back to my own trip through the maelstrom that is the world of the 12 year old girl, I had to agree with her prayer is pretty useless here. But this is because, I suspect that if there is a god, like so many fathers, he prefers to jam his fingers in his ears and hum loudly when faced with his daughter’s demand that he referee adolescent disputes. And, I also suspect that if there is a goddess, like the wisest of mothers, she simply smiles with compassion at her daughter’s despair and says “there, there” but leaves her to learn on her own.

Nonetheless if we are to be our children’s spiritual guides, we’d better start modeling the behaviors we want them to consider normal and useful. We’d better show them how we give thanks and what prayer looks like when it’s more than just wishful thinking.

When our children were little our bedtime ritual included a soothing inversion of counting one’s blessings. Instead of praying to god to take care of folks, we would calm down by bestowing blessings. “Blessings on Grandma Gerry, blessings on Cousin Bella, blessings on the kitties, blessings on the baby chicks, blessings on our neighbor Helen…. Our lists were exhaustive – exhaustion was part of the goal here – but more importantly the ritual was one where we called for and implicitly co-created the blessings. I did not teach them that blessings were the sole labor of a god – blessings are our work as well. By spooling through our friends, family, and pets each night we closed down one day and laid out our work for the next.

And now, what about those of us for whom prayer has no use? There are many of us for whom prayer feels like a hollow chanting into emptiness. I will acknowledge that prayer is not essential to happiness. However, for those of us who do not feel a need to connect to an eternal presence, may I invite you to connect to the essential parts of the human experience that are best expressed in poetry? For, there are times in our lives when ordinary conversation will not suffice and we want the finest of words available to carry us through the moment. And this is where poetry serves and saves us. Go find a poem – long, short, old, or new. Dig it out of a dusty anthology on your bookshelf. Poets.org will send you a fresh poem every day if you like! But find a poem, and carry it around in your pocket or your head for a while. Read it in your spare moments. Find another one and hold that one for a while. Write your own. Gather a handful of poems that you can hold onto for those times when you are sick at heart, or when joy erupts and spills out as tears.

My father retains the last few lines of the poem April Inventory by his friend W.D. Snodgrass: Though trees turn bare and girls turn wives, We shall afford our costly seasons; There is a gentleness survives That will outspeak and has its reasons. There is a loveliness exists, Preserves us, not for specialists

The one line “there is a loveliness exists” is his favorite. It encompasses and affirms the grace he has found in life, and has carried those words around for some fifty years.

There are some of us who still pull up short and feel the scarred places — for whom prayer is still linked too tightly to a previous church experience that hurt or denied our whole selves. I think of this as spiritual “Sauce-Bearnaise” syndrome. That is the term used in psychology for conditioned taste aversion to explain the quirk of our brains and palates that associates the last thing you ate right before becoming nauseated, with the illness – regardless of its actual influence. What this means, is that if you had a meal with sauce Bearnaise and shortly thereafter become ill, you are likely to find sauce Bearnaise unappealing for sometime thereafter – even if the sauce had nothing to do with your illness. This is a useful adaptation for omnivores – a good way to learn to avoid bad foods. However, too many of us who will have nothing to do with prayer because of the indigestible theologies that it was mixed with, and that left us feeling clammy and unwell. For those of us who might still be made queasy when presented with prayer, try this soothing mint tea in the form of words from the English mystic Julian of Norwich: All shall be well, And all shall be well And all manner of things shall be well.”

Now, here’s a challenge for the really bold among us – going public with our prayer! What would it be like to offer a prayer as a greeting or farewell? What if you could sincerely and unselfconsciously offer “Bless your heart” and not have it taken the wrong way? Would you take a moment before you tear into the basket of chips and salsa you are sharing with friends and be brazen enough to look them all straight on and say, “I am so glad to be here with you all” and mean it as a blessing? Would you share a ritual of parting with a dear person? Remember my pragmatic Aunt Ruth? The one who didn’t want folks praying for her? I’ll tell you something she does every time a precious friend prepares to leaves her house – she simply says “Go well”, and those of us who know and love her answer “Stay well”. It is a blessing that flows both ways, and makes the moment of parting sacred. For our taciturn Midwestern clan, that is some pretty heartfelt stuff.

What would your days be like if you were to invoke the holy into ordinary moments? Not as a superstitious warding off of evil spirits, but to call awareness to the slippery rocks we are treading upon. So many things can go wrong in a moment — what would it be like if you could simply ask “may this go well”. For, truly, it is the pure heart and pure intention that turns simple words into prayer, and simple rituals into holy time.

Ours is an empty book to fill. We are creative people, with the courage to be changed. Keep me posted.

March 12, 2011 ©

The State Budget Crisis and Education

by Posted in Audio available, Ed Brock

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Rev. Ed Brock

State Representative Donna Howard

Bee Morehead, Executive Director of Texas Impact

March 6, 2011

This sermon is available on audio. Click the play button below to listen.

Donna Howard’s comments:

Though I typically prefer speaking extemporaneously, with limited time I decided to script my comments. I’m going to try to convey what’s happening with our state’s budget in 5 minutes or less. So, let’s get started.

Texas is an overall low-tax-burden state. In fact, we’re 48th in the nation in terms of local and state taxes combined per individual. That doesn’t mean our tax bills are actually low because we are overly dependent on sales and property taxes to fund government. We’ve got some of the highest sales and property taxes in the nation. At the same time, according to a 2010 report of the Legislative Budget Board (our state’s version of the federal CBO) we are 50th in the nation in terms of expenditures per capita.

Our current biennial budget is about $182 billion, but we only have discretion over about $87 billion. Of that, about 85% goes to public and higher education, and health and human services. We have a shortfall of $27 billion. That means, in order to balance our budget-which we’re constitutionally required to do-and, in order to balance our budget using only cuts-which those in power have determined is the route we must take-we have to make serious cuts in basic education and health and human services.

You may have heard our shortfall is “only” $15 billion. Both figures are correct. To provide the same services we currently provide leaves us $15 billion short. To provide the same services we currently provide AND to include population growth and increased demand for services results in a $27 billion shortfall. To give some perspective, we grow about 80,000 new students in Texas every year-essentially a new Austin ISD every year. But our budget will not provide schools with the necessary increases in dollars to teach those students even though we require them to educate every student who comes through their doors-and to provide each and every one of them with a quality program that addresses all their needs so they can be college and career ready.

How did we get here? The perfect storm, if you will, includes the recession which seriously impacted the state’s major source of revenue-sales taxes make up about 55 to 60% of our state’s budget; the use of one-time federal dollars to the tune of $12.5 billion which were used to balance our current budget and which will not be available to us in the next biennium; and the so-called structural deficit which was caused by the 2006 compression of school property taxes without sufficient state dollars to compensate. Basically, we reduced property taxes by 1/3 from $1.50 to $1.00 which equaled about $14 billion. The state swapped other taxes to make up for the reduction-an increase in cigarette taxes, used car sales taxes, and a revised franchise tax-the margin tax (which has significantly underperformed). The problem was that it was not a revenue neutral swap, and we’ve been counting on surplus dollars to cover the swap. Of course, that only works when the state has a surplus.

To make matters worse, the amount of money a school district can raise per pupil was frozen at 2006 levels. So, any property value increases since then benefited the state as it realized a windfall of anything above the frozen target revenue. The deal was supposed to be that, if property values decreased, the state would make up the difference so that schools could always count on that frozen 2006 level. However, now that the state doesn’t have the funds-to the tune of $9.8 billion-the proposed budget calls for the legislature to change the school funding formula so that-abracadabra-we no longer owe that amount. That’s why you’re seeing all the headlines about every school district in this state grappling with how to cut their budgets, increase class sizes, and lay-off teachers and staff. And, to make matters worse for them, we’ve tied their hands regarding increases in local property taxes by preventing locally-elected school boards from accessing additional revenue without an election. But, even if they did get support from their taxpayers, this is really just the state shifting that burden to the local property taxpayers at the same time that we are claiming that our budget shortfall can be solved without new taxes.

So, what can we do? Our options are to cut the budget-by the way, we already asked many in state government to cut their budgets by 7.5% meaning that further cuts will probably result in large state employee layoffs-to find new sources of revenue (probably expansion of gambling which will only provide about $1 billion per year and not substantially address our budget problem), and to tap into the rainy day fund.

We’re finally hearing from the chairman of Appropriations in the House that we must use, at least, some of the rainy day fund which is projected to have about $9.4 billion in it at the end of the next biennium. But, of course, the $4.3 billion he’s proposing will only go so far in a $15 to $27 billion shortfall. Additional accounting maneuvers are being planned, such as pushing end-of-year payments into the next year which could save about $3 billion-though, of course, that would need to be covered in the subsequent biennium. And some are looking at closing loopholes in taxing.

So, there you have it, our current budget crisis in a nutshell. The bottom line is that we have to determine-and have honest conversations-about what we expect state government to provide, how much it should cost, and how we want to pay for it. We know that it’s important to have a business-friendly environment that attracts those businesses to our state to create jobs. But we must balance that with providing the necessary revenue for infrastructure that supports those businesses and the families they bring to our state-quality public schools, investment in higher education that creates the necessary workforce, transportation that allows us to get from our homes to school and work. The future of Texas and our economic prosperity-what we’re going to pass on to our children and grandchildren-demands that we behave like grown-ups and find a rational, balanced approach to addressing our budget crisis.

Ed Brock’s Sermon

The State Budget Crisis and Education: A Moral Perspective

I see the specific issue of the state budget crisis and anticipated education budget cuts in a larger context.

This larger framework is that our government at the state and national levels is controlled by powerful financial interests whose aims do not coincide with the public good.

These interests, representing concentrations of wealth, appear to have the sole goal of increasing their wealth ad infinitum; they exert their influence through an army of lobbyists and the ultimate weapon of either extending or withdrawing the financial support which spells life and death to political careers.

There are many excellent articles and books which describe in undeniable detail this pattern of private financial interests overriding and negating a reasonable concern with public good. An article in the August 30, 2010 issue of the New Yorker, written by Jane Mayer, is an example of this. Mayer traces the influence of two extremely wealthly brothers on our national political process.

There are many other examples of such exposes. The point is that this belief that concentrations of wealth are dominating our political system is not science fiction, the product of conspiratorial minds, or an outpouring of wild speculation but is real, based on facts and can be discerned by anyone willing to take the time to connect the dots.

Wealth is being concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people; the gap between the super-rich and everyone else is widening. Some members of the super rich class, like those described in Mayer’s article, are exerting their influence in ever more bold and sophisticated ways.

There is a gap between these interests of concentrated wealth and what the vast majority of people actually believe government should and should not be doing and this gap is showing up, again and again, in the wide divergence between what the American public wants and what our law makers nationally and locally do.

For example, according to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll released recently, a strong majority of Americans think the United States should raise taxes on the wealthiest members of society or Cut Military spending to balance the budget.

Yet, the politicians in power in Washington want to extend tax cuts “permanently” for wealthier Americans while also demanding spending cuts to curb the $1.3 trillion deficit.

Sixty-one percent of Americans polled would rather see taxes for the wealthy increased as a first step to tackling the deficit. And the next most popular way of dealing with our country’s fiscal needs — chosen by 20 percent — was to cut defense spending.

The findings of this poll reflect a contrast which holds true across a wide number of issues. There is a clear, unambiguous divergence between what people say they want and what our leaders are doing.

At the heart of this divergence, again and again, are centers of concentrated wealth driving our political system.

It is possible to say, well, this is how it has always been. Yet that is not exactly so.

As the New Deal took hold, and as FDR prepared to run for re-election in 1936, an organization called the Liberty League launched a major effort to unseat him. Characterizing the League as a tool of what he called “selfish big business,” FDR stated that the wealthy interests behind such groups “…consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs.” He went on to say that based on the experience of the late 20s and early 30s, we “know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.”

The forces that arrayed against FDR reappeared in the late the 1970’s and from that point became ever more sophisticated in their orchestration of political forces in their favor.

The Citizens United v Federal Election Commission case in which the United States Supreme Court up held that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited under the First Amendment, represents the triumphal ascendency of the interests of concentrated wealth.

Now we are seeing, in state after state, as well as at the national level, the consequences of living in a political context in which financial interests dominate.

Consider for a moment the issue of education and the current budget crisis. Any action which leads to the decreasing of the quality of education, for a city, a state, or a nation, is profoundly destructive to the long term well-being of its people.

The role as teachers is one of the most, if not the most, important role in society.

Teachers give our young the priceless gift of learning; to learn, to acquire knowledge, is to be human; so in a sense, teachers give our children the gift of a human life. The level of civilization rises and falls with the level of education.

Teachers also play a more important role in a country’s or state’s economic development than anybody on Wall Street or Washington. The work of teachers reaches into everything, from the numbers of people able to do basic science to the capacity of the people to be informed citizens.

How could leaders seriously consider draconian cuts to education and also care about the future of the people of the state?

Under the paradigm by which our political system operates, in which the ultimate good is the infinite increase of the already vast wealth of the rich, it is inevitable that the “solution” to tight budgets is to cut funding for education.

But if we look at this issue in terms of the value and importance of education, and the good of the majority, and the well-being of people, and the future of our children, the approach becomes, “We will find the money because the value of education for our children and youth, and the well-being of society and the assurance of a better future, demands it. We will find the money even if it means thinking out of the box of how we have thought about sources of revenue.”

I have learned to ask whenever confronted by a problem or controversy, “what part do I play in this?” I have found that this is a much more productive approach than blaming or taking the position of a victim or demonizing others.

And I would say that what you and I and other ordinary people have contributed to this problem is passivity.

Our passivity is making it very easy for the persons and groups that represent the interests of concentrated money to do what they are doing. Someone has said “don’t ever waste a good crisis.”

So I ask you not to waste this crisis, but to use it by taking action. I ask you to join with others, from across the state, to join the Save Texas Schools Rally.

I ask you to call every friend, every relative, and every warm body you may know, and ask them to join you in this march.

I ask you to use every social media instrument you have at your disposal, to get the word out about this march.

Join your fellow church members as they show support for full funding of public education in Texas.

Will it help? I don’t know.

Will it make a difference? I don’t know.

But by taking action you will know that in this hour when the concentrations of wealth that rule society tried to put money before education, you stood up; you let your voice be heard. You acted. And that is all any of us can do.

Participate in the march for education; let your voice be heard.

Experience of the Holy

by Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Guest Speakers

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Chris Jimmerson

February 20, 2011

You may listen to the sermon by clicking the play button below.

Sermon

Ralph Waldo Emerson famously asked, “Why should not we enjoy an original relation with the universe?”

Last year, when we were in the process of discerning that wonderful mission statement, along with our values and ends, our facilitators had us participate in an exercise they called the “Experience of the Holy”. They put us in pairs and asked that each of us in the pair tell the other of a time when we had experienced the holy.

Here is how they described such experiences and encouraged us to recall them:

“I invite you to reflect on an experience of the Holy in your life — A time when you felt connected to something larger than yourself, a time when you felt your heart and mind expand.”

As a member of your Board of Trustees, I was fortunate not only to get to participate in this exercise myself but to be asked to observe as other pairs described to one another their experiences of the holy.

I remember that the irony in a bunch of non-theistic humanists sitting in a church talking about holy experiences was not lost on me.

On the other hand, I do not remember anyone saying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about and I have never had such an experience.”

But mostly, I remember how powerful and moving it was.

The individual stories of what prompted peoples’ experience of the holy varied widely. Some people spoke of it happening right here in the church, when the actions of our community evoked something transformative within them.

Some of the women spoke of giving birth. Other people spoke of quiet times surrounded by the beauty of nature. Some spoke of being moved into the experience through listening to music, viewing a wonderful piece of art, watching an exhilarating moment of live theatre. Still others told of experiencing the holy during the simple or the seemingly mundane – just catching the beauty of patterns of sunlight streaming through the kitchen blinds. One war veteran told of holding a dying buddy in their arms, of being the last person who would hold and comfort their friend.

The stories were beautiful and evoked a wide range of events from the solitary to occurrences of being a part of something terrific in a large group. The descriptions of the experience of the holy though, were remarkably alike, and people expressed that they were struggling to convey their experience because normal, everyday words and emotions were inadequate.

This is how some of your fellow church members struggled to describe their experience of the holy:

“I was enveloped by mystery, awe and wonder.”

Another person said, “I felt suddenly at peace with myself and with everything – connected to something larger.”

Another said, “It was hyper-realistic, being truly present and in the present, receptive to greater wisdom than can be known in words.”

Someone else put it as “timeless, transcendent, a sense of unity and compassion with and for, well, everything.”

We described these experiences as deeply meaningful, profoundly moving and powerfully motivating, sometimes life altering.

Reverend Dr. William F. Schulz, the most recent self-described humanist to serve as President of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations called this the “apprehension of the holy” and spoke of the holy being “embodied in the abundance of a scarred creation.” One of our church’s values, “Transcendence – To connect with the wonder and awe of the unity of life”, is another way of trying to describe this.

Humanistic psychology’s founder, Abraham Maslow, described essentially the same type of experiences as what he called “peak experiences”, and he believed that they were instances wherein people become maximally what he referred to as “self-actualized”. More recently, researchers have examined similar phenomenon, such as “quantum experiences”, a sort of peak experience that the person evaluates as profound in a life changing way, and “flow” experiences, a sense of timelessness and ultimate fit in the universe.

You probably remember that Maslow was the creator of the pyramid or hierarchy of human needs. In Maslow’s hierarchy, as our basic needs, such as food, water and shelter get met, we move up through successions of higher level needs. Finally, if each of the preceding levels of needs have all been met, human development results in our fulfilling our highest need, self-actualization. He described self-actualized people as, creative, fulfilled, fully alive, connected with something larger, dedicated to justice, compassionate, playful – well, basically what most Unitarian Universalists want to be when we grow up.

Maslow described these characteristics as “Being-values” and found that they were parts of the knowledge people reported carrying forward from within their peak experiences. He found descriptions of such experiences across all cultures and within all of the world’s major religions.

Maslow thought that peak experiences were random occurrences of self-actualization that arise when uncontrollable life events happen to push us into a moment of such self-actualization. In fact, he said, “In general, we are ‘Surprised by Joy’. Peaks come unexpectedly…. you can’t count on them. And hunting them is like hunting happiness. It’s best not done directly. It comes as a by-product, an epiphenomenon, for instance, of doing a fine job at a worthy task you can identify with”. Thus, he did not think we could induce our own experience of the holy; although, he did seem to think that self-actualized people might be more likely to have peak moments.

Recent research has found that Maslow was only partially right – that there may be a neurobiological mechanism behind peak experiences that can be activated not only by random life events of being “surprised by joy” but also though meditation and other forms of what I will call spiritual ritual and practice. Using a brain scanning technique called Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography or SPECT, researchers examined brain activity in a group of experienced meditators. What they found is that while meditating, particularly at the point of reaching a deep meditative state, wherein the meditators reported experiencing a sense of universal connectedness, a peak experience, there was decreased activity in the areas of the brain normally associated with a sense of ones own body image and with the sense of the time and space one inhabits.

Could this explain the experience of the holy? Could this elucidation of a potential biological mechanism behind our peak experiences mean that such experiences are really just delusions?

Further research examined long-term meditators and found that their brain patterns, even in a non-meditative state, were different from the patterns in people who do not meditate. The researchers also found that the brain patterns during meditation were different from those induced by dream states, as well as different from those associated with delusions, including delusions with religious themes. In fact, they reported that, unlike people who experience a delusion, people who have these peak experiences articulate them as hyperlucid and MORE real than their normal state.

This has led some to question a purely reductionist interpretation of the SPECT research as failing to explain the whole of the experience – to find yet more awe and mystery in the fact the we appear to be biologically equipped with the capacity to experience the holy.

The SPECT researchers themselves, taking perhaps a more postmodern viewpoint, stated “…spiritual or mystical states of reality recalled in the baseline state as more certainly representing an objective condition than what is represented in the sensorium of the baseline state must be considered real”. Whew! In other words, intellectual investigation alone cannot reveal the experience itself. Knowing the potential mechanism may not fully explain — or explain away — the phenomenon — or epiphenomenon, as Maslow put it.

Beyond this, there is also evidence that peak experiences can be beneficial. Studies have found that meditation and other spiritual rituals can reduce anxiety and stress, even blood pressure, not only in the moment, but also over the longer-term. Even more fascinating, research has shown that peak experiences can lead to what some psychologists have termed “quantum change” – a sudden shift in one’s values from things like achievement, fitting in, attractiveness, career, wealth and power to values such as peace, humility, spirituality, forgiveness, growth, creativity and generosity.

It appears Maslow’s theory about “Being Values” and self-actualization may have been correct. Perhaps, we should lock our political and economic leaders in a retreat center and tell them “we will not let you out until you have experienced the holy!”

More and more, I have come to believe that we do enjoy Emerson’s “original relation with the universe”. I have had too many of these experiences to answer otherwise and believe that they can have profound implications for how we live our lives – how we are ABLE to live our lives.

I’ve known the movement toward wholeness and self-actualization, the shift in values, that can occur in these experiences, but this knowing comes from within the experience of the holy itself and is a knowledge that like other people, I have trouble expressing in normal, everyday language. I’m struggling to express it now.

Maybe I can come closest though, by sharing one of these peak moments that, for me, led to a beneficial change in life direction, even though it occurred during a time that was contained a sense of sadness over an anticipated loss. Maybe, it is the sharing of these experiences, no matter how difficult it is to find an adequate vocabulary for describing them that allows us to bring forward those “Being-values” that Maslow talked about.

My parents divorced when my brother and sister and I were very young, so my maternal grandparents became more like a second set of parents to us. They helped raise us while my mother worked often long hours. They were our role models and always instilled in us a sense of worth, value and respect for ourselves and for others. I owe much of the adult I became to them.

Later, they welcomed my partner, Wayne, into our family with great love and genuine warmth. In fact, my grandmother always called us “her boys”, even long after a time where either of us could claim any resemblance to the term. However, we had never discussed the … exact nature … of our relationship with my grandparents. My Grandfather was a deacon in the First Baptist Church of Groves, Texas, after all. Still, to their great credit, they treated us both with genuine love, even if it was never openly discussed.

After my grandfather died, my grandmother only lived two more years. Wayne and I were visiting her in the hospital for what we all knew would likely be the last time – she had congestive heart failure and had decided against any more medical intervention after having been in and out of the hospital too many times, after deciding to let go with grace and dignity.

As we said our goodbyes and prepared to leave, she took us both by the hand and said, “Take care of each other.”

Then she locked her eyes with mine.

It was only a moment, maybe even less. Just an instant.

In that instant, we knew as much love as it is possible for human beings to comprehend — more love than the mere humans in the room could contain. The love rushed forth, sweeping us into a different state of experience, spreading us out into an ever expanding way of being, permeating us with all that is holy.

In that instant, we experienced existing in connection with, being one with, not just each other, but with all that has ever been and ever will be. In that instant, we experienced existing in all times and all places at once and yet outside of linear time and in no material space at all.

For an instant, we knew all that we would ever need to know.

I still carry something of that knowledge with me now, but in fragments, in smaller pieces of understanding, because the knowing that occurs during these experiences is a knowing that is outside our usual language of thinking and emotions. That is why it is so hard to express our experiences of the holy to others.

Perhaps, it is a level of understanding that occurs in a more fundamental, yet more encompassing language; a knowing that exists in a language we can only rarely fully access – a language that we have sometimes called, “God”.

Still, I believe those smaller pieces of understanding we are able to retain are important, because they are the burning embers that have the potential to spark further peak experiences and quantum change — what we call in our church’s values, “transformation — to pursue the growth that changes our lives and heals our world”.

I wonder, since research has shown that these peak experiences can lead to a shift in our values, if it is possible that the reverse is also true. I wonder if, combined with spiritual practice, living those values can help us experience the holy more and more, further reinforcing and deepening those same values? I wonder if living lives of transcendence, compassion and courage, if gathering in community to nourish souls, transform lives and do justice wouldn’t be the ultimate experience of the holy?

I say we find out! Let’s conduct our own experiment by bringing our best translation of that “language of mystery and awe”, our values and mission, into a growing, vital, thriving reality.

I invite us to actualize the Holy in our lives — to actively seek connection with something larger than ourselves, to continuously expand our hearts and minds.

I invite us to embrace our original relation with the universe.

Benediction

In “Our Humanist Legacy”, Rev. Dr. William F. Schulz wrote: “What is of supreme importance is that I live my life in a posture of gratitude-that I recognize my existence and, indeed, Being itself, as an unaccountable blessing, a gift of grace. Sometimes, it is helpful to call the source or fact of that grace God and sometimes not. But what is always helpful and absolutely necessary is to look kindly on the world, to be bold in pursuit of its repair, and to be comfortable in the embrace of its splendor. I know no better term for what I seek than an encounter with the Holy.”

May we each go forth and encounter the holy in our world, be open to its presence in our lives — however we may know it.

Amen.